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Old 01-10-2018, 11:51 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof View Post
...right and I am wrong...
I've noticed several times you use the word "right" in these discussions. Consider how a conversation or thread or discussion or thought process or exploration or learning might unfold if rather than thinking in terms of "being right" the focus instead was on "increased understanding" or "deeper understanding"

can you see and feel and hear the difference between "being right" and "increased understanding"
consider which is important to you and why, your intention, your desire, your focus

Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 01-10-2018 at 12:30 PM..

 
Old 01-10-2018, 11:57 AM
 
Location: Southern Oregon
17,071 posts, read 10,848,840 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel View Post
.....
At the core of Oneness is only goodness, blessing, love, kindness, compassion. Always has been. Always will be. Those are also at the core of every event and situation and circumstance in our lives.
And this is what inspired the requirements to stone certain offenders of the Law as well as the required animal sacrifices?
 
Old 01-10-2018, 02:09 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nateswift View Post
And this is what inspired the requirements to stone certain offenders of the Law...
as of Nov. 2016, there are 31 states in the USA with the death penalty. The USA is one of 57 countries worldwide applying the death penalty.

What's your point Nate?
 
Old 01-10-2018, 02:29 PM
 
Location: Southern Oregon
17,071 posts, read 10,848,840 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel View Post
as of Nov. 2016, there are 31 states in the USA with the death penalty. The USA is one of 57 countries worldwide applying the death penalty.

What's your point Nate?
The fact that OTHER people have the death penalty, even if their method is FAR less barbaric, in no way excuses the viciousness of the requirement in Torah.


My point, as always is that Torah is NOT directly from God and with the backing of God on it's elements. Tanach IS a record of the growing awareness of the Hebrew people as to the nature and awareness of our relationship with God and man, which IS reflected in modern or Reform Judaism.
 
Old 01-10-2018, 03:01 PM
 
Location: Kent, Ohio
3,429 posts, read 2,718,021 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel View Post
Can you hear the difference between the terms you used (blame deserved this brought it upon herself) in comparison to "chose to" "made a choice" "outcome" "consequences."
I see what you mean. I was temporarily forgetting about the soul-choice point of view. The burned girl didn't just get slammed by suffering out of the blue as a sort of punishment for her past-life sins; at the soul level she chose to suffer in this life to balance her negative karma - to facilitate her growth. Very nice. Maybe it is true. I hope it is true. But I can't honestly say that I believe it.

Perhaps my intuitions are off-base, but one source of my skepticism is the intuitive feeling that amnesia between the realm where the soul is doing all of this choosing, and the physical incarnation where the suffering occurs is just a bit too convenient.
Johnny: "I got straight A's in school!"
Dad: "Excellent. Good job! Where's your report card?"
Johnny: "Oh, well, um...the dog ate it."
It is certainly possible that Johnny is telling the truth, but the parent is wise to be skeptical if all tangible evidence is missing.
The worldview of karma/reincarnation comes to us mostly through mystics who have claimed to be able to maintain conscious memories of the non-physical realms between incarnations. I consider these reports to be worth considering. I see them as a line of evidence. But I don't see these reports, in themselves, as sufficient evidence for the traditional reincarnation narrative. Why can't I simply remember these things for myself? Why does the girl have to suffer so horribly thanks to a choice that she made that she does not remember making? I have found a multitude of explanations for the amnesia, but they have not alleviated my feeling that there is something fishy going on.

I think a far more likely explanation is simply this: Accidents happen. If we are lucky enough, or wise enough, or if we have plenty of help, we might find a way to make lemonade.

I also suspect that if the girl's soul is wise enough and awake enough and conscientious enough to chose a life of suffering for the sake of cosmic balance, then her soul should be wise enough to realize that the actual suffering is no longer needed. The lesson has already been learn; the growth has occurred; the additional balancing act is superfluous.

I have no great inside info on any of this. I'm frankly not sure what to think about most of these ideas. That's why I remain agnostic.
 
Old 01-10-2018, 03:22 PM
 
21,930 posts, read 19,056,720 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof View Post
I see what you mean. I was temporarily forgetting about the soul-choice point of view. The burned girl didn't just get slammed by suffering out of the blue as a sort of punishment for her past-life sins; at the soul level she chose to suffer in this life to balance her negative karma - to facilitate her growth. Very nice. Maybe it is true. I hope it is true. But I can't honestly say that I believe it.

Perhaps my intuitions are off-base, but one source of my skepticism is the intuitive feeling that amnesia between the realm where the soul is doing all of this choosing, and the physical incarnation where the suffering occurs is just a bit too convenient.
Johnny: "I got straight A's in school!"
Dad: "Excellent. Good job! Where's your report card?"
Johnny: "Oh, well, um...the dog ate it."
It is certainly possible that Johnny is telling the truth, but the parent is wise to be skeptical if all tangible evidence is missing.
The worldview of karma/reincarnation comes to us mostly through mystics who have claimed to be able to maintain conscious memories of the non-physical realms between incarnations. I consider these reports to be worth considering. I see them as a line of evidence. But I don't see these reports, in themselves, as sufficient evidence for the traditional reincarnation narrative. Why can't I simply remember these things for myself? Why does the girl have to suffer so horribly thanks to a choice that she made that she does not remember making? I have found a multitude of explanations for the amnesia, but they have not alleviated my feeling that there is something fishy going on.

I think a far more likely explanation is simply this: Accidents happen. If we are lucky enough, or wise enough, or if we have plenty of help, we might find a way to make lemonade.

I also suspect that if the girl's soul is wise enough and awake enough and conscientious enough to chose a life of suffering for the sake of cosmic balance, then her soul should be wise enough to realize that the actual suffering is no longer needed. The lesson has already been learn; the growth has occurred; the additional balancing act is superfluous.

I have no great inside info on any of this. I'm frankly not sure what to think about most of these ideas. That's why I remain agnostic.

nothing is random gaylen.
how comfortable are you with that?


it is a good baseline for building understanding.
 
Old 01-10-2018, 04:00 PM
 
21,930 posts, read 19,056,720 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof View Post
...The worldview of karma/reincarnation comes to us mostly through mystics who have claimed to be able to maintain conscious memories of the non-physical realms between incarnations....
No, reincarnation has been an integral part of human worldviews across time and across civilization and across cultures and across the globe. Not just the odd mystic here and there.

from this article
Observations on reincarnation beliefs in history.

"The Cradle of Western Civilization. Four river valleys are associated by modern historians with the rise of civilizations whose cultures shaped the way Westerners think. The ancient Indo-European kingdoms that gave the Western peoples their languages, alphabets, institutions, science and religions flourished along the Tigris-Euphrates, Nile and Indus rivers. (The birth of East Asian culture is placed in the Huang-He-Yangtze river system of China.) The oldest (Vedic) texts from this “cradle of western civilization” indicate belief in a transcendent atman (what we call soul).

"These texts, alleged to be Hindu records of traditions more than 5,000 years-old passed from the rishis (sages) through generations of Brahmins, clearly discuss reincarnation (sometimes referred to as transmigration or metempsychosis). The Satapatha Brahmana (Brahman of 100 Ways) describes specific forms in the process of rebirth. The 3,500 year-old Upanishads have many such references.

"In one Vedic text, the advanced being known as Krishna, who allegedly taught the South Asian humans much about the universe, told them "many a birth have I passed through, and so have you." This Hindu view of reincarnation as the means through which humans can reach enlightenment is shared by Jainism and Sikhism.

"Buddhism on Reincarnation. The reformist teacher Buddha (c. 500 BCE) retained the same basic concept as he attempted to urge Hinduism’s return to its simpler, more natural worldview. However, the concept in Buddhism is called re-birth or re-becoming (Punarbhava in Sanskrit). This places the on-going focus on the consciousness embodied in an individual instead of the physical body

"The Buddhist text known popularly as the Tibetan Book of the Dead, teaches that incarnations of the soul involve the principles of birth, life, and transition. These cycles repeat themselves as the soul progresses toward "enlightenment". The Buddhist believes that if the soul does not make sufficient progress during a series of physical incarnations it must keep returning for further development. Only by achieving “enlightenment” can the soul escape the wheel of birth and rebirth.

"The Chinese I Ching from about 2,500 BCE refers to eternal cycles of life and multidimensional development that could involve many lifetimes. About 200 years after Buddha the concepts described were incorporated into Chinese Taoism

"The Egyptian concepts of Ba and Ka also suggest reincarnation. The term Ba seems to imply a phenomenon like the transcendent soul described in this book. The term Ka apparently refers to an aspect of the Ba which is individuated and linked to a physical body, an in a soul-incarnate.

"Plato (429-348 BCE) wrote "The soul is older than the body. Souls are continuously born over again into this life." He believed, as the Gnostics later taught, that the soul had two options: Achievement of full memory of one’s many human experiences (gnosis) to rejoin the universal soul (as in the Buddhist nirvana), or to ignore the lessons from multiple lives and be forced to continue perpetual incarnations.

"Greek writings during the period from about 1,500 BCE until the 6th century CE suggest Western sages shared the Hindu view on reincarnation. These philosophies held that the thinking human intuitively feels himself or herself a seeker of deeper and deeper knowledge. Further, that the reflective person learns from each lifetime and builds on that experience in successive reincarnations.

"In the Hebrew view “reincarnation takes place so that people may progress spiritually through healing or correction. This ancient Hebrew tradition’s concept of reincarnation involved working towards a reconnection with the creative source of light. It is not unlike the Hindu/Buddhist notion of achievement of enlightenment (awakening to the light).

"Some of the earliest followers of the teacher Jesus, known in Greek as Gnostics, shared this cosmology."

Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 01-10-2018 at 04:10 PM..
 
Old 01-10-2018, 06:26 PM
 
21,930 posts, read 19,056,720 times
Reputation: 18045
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel View Post
nothing is random gaylen.
how comfortable are you with that?
or explore it as thus:
what if nothing is random?
 
Old 01-10-2018, 07:44 PM
 
21,930 posts, read 19,056,720 times
Reputation: 18045
Quote:
Originally Posted by nateswift View Post
...My point, as always is that Torah is NOT directly from God and with the backing of God on it's elements. Tanach IS a record of the growing awareness of the Hebrew people as to the nature and awareness of our relationship with God and man, which IS reflected in modern or Reform Judaism.
it's not your Torah nate so of course you don't know what it is, and you don't know what it says.
Jews are one people, nate. one people, one Torah, one God.
 
Old 01-10-2018, 10:37 PM
 
Location: Southern Oregon
17,071 posts, read 10,848,840 times
Reputation: 1869
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel View Post
it's not your Torah nate so of course you don't know what it is, and you don't know what it says.
Jews are one people, nate. one people, one Torah, one God.
No, it is not my Torah, but it is easy to see what it IS, AND I don't have to dream up fantastic explanations for the difference in perceptions then and now.
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