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The thing about unity about harmony about wholeness about One is that all the pieces do fit together. There is no "except for this." There is no "can't be that." There is no "problem of whatever." There is only God, within and behind and creating everything.
Our job is to see that. God is present and God is good no matter what we are looking at that "doesn't seem to fit. " The very thing that is bothersome is a map to God. God reaches out to us in everything we simply recognize it and draw close to God through it.
There is no place where God is not.
Sorry. That is an invalid faith-claim, so far as I am concerned. You may believe that; not me.
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Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof
I could accept this (although my conception of "God" would be different that yours, even if I were to fully accept that Reality is a Conscious Mind with a God-like perspective). But this use of the word 'everything' implies that God is also within and behind the creation of horrible suffering and evil. You cannot exempt God from that by blaming human free will. If God is within and behind and creating everything, then everything is everything.
At this point I expect you to take the "mysterious ways" defense. I can't prove you wrong about that, but I don't personally believe that somehow Hitler's extermination efforts, or Ted Bundy's atrocities, etc. are all "for the best" because it is all part of God's perfect plan. No. The existence of such activities serves as proof to me that God is either not all good, or God has limited ability to prevent evil despite, perhaps, having love and best wishes for humanity.
My choice, again: There is no Conscious Creator who has plans for humanity, or omnipotent power over everything. At best, if there is a conscious God who has plans, God is a "gardener" who plants the seeds of a self-organizing system then waters it, but that is about all. What grows is just what grows and if it gets a disease, then it gets a disease - not in accordance with some perfect plan, but just because God doesn't get in an control every jot and tittle of every cell's activity. But God is, nevertheless, ultimately responsible for allowing the disease to get into the system in the first place - either because He is not all good, or because He just doesn't have the knowledge and/or the power and/or the motivation needed to create a disease-resistant plant.
Intelligence. That is the divider. If "God" is intelligent, it is either immoral or amoral. If it wasn't it couldn't possibly tolerate a creation such as we have. I know what the believers say as an excuse, but slice them where you like, they are just excuses.
If it isn't intelligent - it's nature, not god, even if there is a natural mechanism that controls it all and even if nature allows our disembodied minds to outlast our death.
But I'll need some convincing of that.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 06-28-2017 at 02:00 PM..
You never bother to define "love." Or what you mean by "one God."
I believe in God and I love God. However, that doesn't explain anything.
Your original post expresses the typical secular humanist anti-mystical version of Christianity. I do not think that is what Jesus had in mind.
And it is really unfair to assume our "ancestors" didn't experience love or understand love. Are you saying those of us who are Jewish don't understand love?? Don't understand God??
I think that Jesus was just another mystic, and there have been and are many. He became a legend after he died because Paul (previously the Pharisee Saul) started the Christian church, which later became the official church of the Roman Empire.
Jesus taught a form of mysticism, which focused on the goal of transcending the physical world. That was not a new idea.
Secular humanists always portray Jesus as bringing the "new" idea into the world that people should love each other and take care of each other. Socialist ideology, in other words.
No, people have always loved each other and taken care of each other, within their social group. within limits.
Yes, Jesus supposedly said to "love your enemies." But I think that was because he was trying to convince his followers NOT TO CARE about this world. You CANNOT survive in this world if you actually love your enemies. Jesus did not survive in this world. That was not his goal, his goal was heaven.
Buddha was kind of similar to Jesus -- he also taught contempt for this world, and a way to escape it.
The essence of religion is mysticism and magic. Modern secular humanists think religion is essentially morality. It is not. Morality is found in all social animal societies.
Damn! I never thought of that one. Love is there from the start. But I imagine that Mystic will talk of a sort of global humanist love for everyone that is a new washes whiter product than anything the older religions had.
For myself I think that is - again - giving religion the credit for a humanist idea. The Gospels 'love your neighbour' and -as my old RI teacher said "Our neighbour is everyone' is actually not what the story was intended to show. It was intended to show that gentiles (a Samaritan will do if there isn't a Roman centurion around) are more moral than the Jews who pass by on the other side. Even with the revamped update message that everyone deserves our love, the rest of the gospel shows it is reserved only for those who are part of the community. The rest can go and bury the relatives. To the believers-they have ceased to exist.
It is not a message of Love that I admire and Mystic's Agape is more worthy that the gospel example, but my problem with it is that is is not practicable. You can't rely on the warm fuzzies to make you a permanently nice guy. You need to understand the reasons why -or the rationales at least. And just try to do the right thing as much as you can and realize that the laughing gas will wear off and you will have no rational back -up.
I have a theory..... ...that Christians can go to the bad if they lose their faith-because they have not developed a humanist moral back -up. though I may be quite wrong and generally they have the same backup that we have, for whenever they stop agaping and wake up.
Anti-religion is NOT anti-God, though you seem to think so. There is only one God so anyone who believes in God believes in the only one there is. What anti-religion advocates decry are the ancillary beliefs perpetuated by religions that judge, oppress, discriminate against, mistreat, and denigrate as abominations people who do not adhere to the ancillary beliefs the religious THINK God cares about. I believe that God wants voluntary compliance with His commands to love God and each other every day and repent when we don't. That is an individual requirement and does not in any way justify trying to impose it upon or coerce anyone else, period.
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Originally Posted by Matadora
That sounds dark.
It only seems dark because you stripped it from its context in the bold. However, I will acknowledge that I did use the preferred terminology of "command" because the typical Christian relates to the term and Jesus summarized all such "commands" into the two I referenced. I prefer the term "instructions" because that is what they were to His disciples.
Damn! I never thought of that one. Love is there from the start. But I imagine that Mystic will talk of a sort of global humanist love for everyone that is a new washes whiter product than anything the older religions had.
For myself I think that is - again - giving religion the credit for a humanist idea. The Gospels 'love your neighbour' and -as my old RI teacher said "Our neighbour is everyone' is actually not what the story was intended to show. It was intended to show that gentiles (a Samaritan will do if there isn't a Roman centurion around) are more moral than the Jews who pass by on the other side. Even with the revamped update message that everyone deserves our love, the rest of the gospel shows it is reserved only for those who are part of the community. The rest can go and bury the relatives. To the believers-they have ceased to exist.
It is not a message of Love that I admire and Mystic's Agape is more worthy that the gospel example, but my problem with it is that is is not practicable. You can't rely on the warm fuzzies to make you a permanently nice guy. You need to understand the reasons why -or the rationales at least. And just try to do the right thing as much as you can and realize that the laughing gas will wear off and you will have no rational back -up.
I have a theory..... ...that Christians can go to the bad if they lose their faith-because they have not developed a humanist moral back -up. though I may be quite wrong and generally they have the same backup that we have, for whenever they stop agaping and wake up.
Love has been around for eons. It is most obvious in birds and mammals, but who knows maybe insects feel it too. Maybe bacteria feel love, we just don't know.
And hate has been around as long as love. You can't have one and not the other.
Warm fuzzies was not the original Christian message. Warm fuzzies is the modern secular humanist message. Loving everyone without discrimination is empty and hypocritical, in my opinion. You can't love one thing without hating another.
Jesus expressed A LOT of hatred!! Especially for hypocrisy.
Secular humanists are hypocrites, if you ask me. And even worse, they deny the mystical essence of all life.
Yep If I see I'm wrong, I put it right. quick.
That's pretty much all religions isn't it? Even Buddhism is pretty stony about Hinduism the way Christianity is about Judaism.
If I ge your drift, There is only one god, and which religion you worship him through doesn't matter, so long as you do not " judge, oppress, discriminate against, mistreat, and denigrate as abominations people who do not adhere to the ancillary beliefs"of one or the other on hem. We are on the same page there.
You do however give Christianity a special place because you see Jesus execution as something arranged by God as a lesson for us. While I see it as a political effort that went wrong. And you refer to things Jesus said as lessons for us, while I don't think he said any of those things at all. But that's just MY theory.
Not quite, Arq. I do NOT see Christ's execution as something arranged by God. I see it as something allowed by God to drive home the point about the true nature of God as embodied in Jesus. Despite horrendous scourging and crucifixion, He smote no one and loved everyone, INCLUDING His torturers and murderers! As long as His followers believe He and the Father are one, the true nature of God should be clear and unambiguous. But the traditions, superstitions, and practices of our ancestors were so strong they misinterpreted the point of Christ's voluntary sacrifice to our "sins" (brutal ignorance= they knew not what they did). They equated Christ's sacrifice of His body and life with their practice of blood sacrifices to appease their wrathful God. Why any 21st-century intellect would accept such notion is beyond me.
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I'm not sure where you stand on the OT,by the way. Was that early learning -curve stuff and we are supposed to have moved on? Or is it not part of the learning -curve at all and was just made up by ignorant goat-herders?
If you would simply realize that my views do NOT refer to or even expect a strictly chronological sequence to our spiritual evolution, you would be far less confused. We use time linearly almost exclusively, but our ancestors did NOT. The OT reflects our early spiritual learning including the schoolmaster stage of our spiritual evolution. The development of our self-control over our baser urges was driven by fear of God as the beginning of wisdom. The OT also contains the information about how we would advance spiritually through the efforts of a Messiah. It describes Him, provides the means of identifying Him by what He would do, how He would be treated, and how He would affect the world long after His death.
Love has been around for eons. It is most obvious in birds and mammals, but who knows maybe insects feel it too. Maybe bacteria feel love, we just don't know.
And hate has been around as long as love. You can't have one and not the other.
Warm fuzzies was not the original Christian message. Warm fuzzies is the modern secular humanist message. Loving everyone without discrimination is empty and hypocritical, in my opinion. You can't love one thing without hating another.
Jesus expressed A LOT of hatred!! Especially for hypocrisy.
Secular humanists are hypocrites, if you ask me. And even worse, they deny the mystical essence of all life.
Why do they deny the mystical essence of life? Because they are misguided.
I was asking why you say secular humanists are hypocrites. Secular humanists most fits my world view. I don't so much deny the mystical I just don't believe anyone has it figured out. It's the unknown to me not the known by some but not others unknown known. I'm always interested in listening to someone tell their story I just lean heavily toward there being a logical explanation behind it.
I was asking why you say secular humanists are hypocrites. Secular humanists most fits my world view. I don't so much deny the mystical I just don't believe anyone has it figured out. It's the unknown to me not the known by some but not others unknown known. I'm always interested in listening to someone tell their story I just lean heavily toward there being a logical explanation behind it.
Secular humanists are hypocrites because they convince themselves they care about everyone. It's very easy to say "I care about everyone." Much harder to actually care about everyone and act as though you did. Impossible actually.
And even if you say you care about everyone, and mean it with all your conscious mind, there is still your subconscious mind that feels very differently.
In the USA, political progressives are usually secular humanists. They are deeply hypocritical, from what I have seen.
The reason I credit anything about Jesus is that the descriptions of Him, His teachings, and His actions reveal a consciousness that matches perfectly the one I encountered in deep meditation. Does it matter to me who wrote the descriptions, teachings, and actions - No. I know there is a God and I know what His character IS and the Jesus narrative fits in all the important ways, excluding the primitive man-made nonsense.
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Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER
And yet the descriptions of him, his teachings and actions are (I would argue) incorrect and made up by people who wrote up a character from a Paulinist point of view. So whatever the process by which you found yourself agreeing with them, to say "Jesus did this' or 'Jesus said that' looks to me invalid assumption. (I concede I have to convince others of that. A deeply ingrained view that the Gospels are basically correct is very prevalent even amongst Bible -critics).
You are interpreting out of context as reflected by the overall persona Christ presented as revealed by His ACTIONS. Understanding the "mind of Christ" is crucial to understanding what is and is not consistent about Him in the words "written in ink." That is why we are warned that the "letter kills" and that our guide is to be the Comforter sent in Christ's name as the Holy Spirit of Agape love (Who IS God) and what God has "written in our hearts" NOT in a book.
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It reminds me a bit of the problem you get with people who believe Genesis. We know (unless we reject science) that it didn't happen that way. In my discussion with Eusebius on the sun created after here was light, after some attempt to pull a semantic trick with light being light emitted by God-which was debunked as the account says it marked morning and evening from the start, he pulled the cloud-cover argument.
The problem was that Moses (or, rather, what Jews living in Babylon compiled Genesis) wasn't there to see it, so how could he know? The only "explanation" is that God told him or showed him.
But if what he showed Moses was wrong-why didn't God show him what was right? The only option is to either say 'God must have had good reasons' or to accept that the story is not reliable.
Come on, Arq. Are you trying to get me banned by forcing me to describe the ignorant mindset of our primitive ancestors which I have done repeatedly since the beginning of my time on this forum???I enjoy posting here too much, old friend.
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It is just the same with the Jesus-story. But of course you overlay your own views on why Jesus was crucified- to lgve us a love-lesson. But that's not what the gospels say was the reason. Nor Paul. So if they were wrong about that, just what are they supposed to be right about? And doesn't it put a question mark against your contention that the Jesus story exactly fitted your mindset when the story is interpreted to fit your mindset?
That Jesus was all about love is NOT just my own view, Arq. The only confusion comes from the ignorant imposition of the context of a wrathful God who needed to be appeased by blood sacrifices. The descriptions of the "mind of Christ" as revealed in 1 Cor 13, Galatians 5, and the Sermon on the Mount so completely fit the consciousness I encountered there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that my view of the Jesus narrative is valid. The descriptions of the resurrection (rebirth as Spirit) detailed in 1 Cor 15 completely belies the physical body narrative.
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I never thought of that one. Love is there from the start. But I imagine that Mystic will talk of a sort of global humanist love for everyone that is a new washes whiter product than anything the older religions had. 
...that Christians can go to the bad if they lose their faith-because they have not developed a humanist moral back -up. though I may be quite wrong and generally they have the same backup that we have, for whenever they stop agaping and wake up.
