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This is just as ridiculous and unsupported as it was the last time you posted it. Reality is reality. God is God. God has sentience. Reality does not. Why in the world do you try to make it more than it is?
this a an unsupported claim. in fact it counters observation. we are aware so reality must be aware to some degree. I stop on the surface of the earth because we both point to parts of reality are that aware.
this a an unsupported claim. in fact it counters observation. we are aware so reality must be aware to some degree. I stop on the surface of the earth because we both point to parts of reality are that aware.
god is god? whats that mean?
I think Mensaguy could give you a run for your money, he is square on knowledge...
Mystic, even others have noticed this "split" personality of your when it comes to Christianity. You talk of God in abstract terms and not like the God of the Bible who sees, hears, feels, judges, rewards and condemns which infuriates the traditional Christians. You're really New Age. But then you blast me and others because I question the authenticity of the New Testament and what Jesus purportedly said. You take every word quoted by Jesus in the gospels as being so undeniably authentic someone would have to be a heretic to question their authenticity. For you it seems like the scriptures about Jesus are more holy than Jesus himself.
It is the opposite. I judge what is attributed to Jesus based on my experiences NOT on the authenticity of the Bible. I adopted the Jesus narrative because it perfectly matches the consciousness I encountered.
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Many here have read your innumerable posts and still don't have the vaguest idea where you stand far as beliefs go. Such as this from your earlier post:
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To specifically answer your question about indisputable evidence, if there were such, your actual state of mind would NOT necessarily reflect what you had become because it would be driven by absolute knowledge. It is only because we do NOT know that our faith reveals what we have actually become.
What in the heck does all that mean????????
The ultimate question about our faith is "Does our faith reveal that we are loving human beings IF it is based on absolute knowledge that God exists and wants us to be loving human beings?" If we are forced to believe out of fear or wanting to adhere to the Truth whether or not we actually are loving human beings, what good would that be?
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Evidence is either disputable or indisputable. If it's indisputable then there can be no questions raised about its reliability. If the slightest bit of doubt arises then the evidence is disputable. No two ways about it. The reliability of the New Testament is highly disputable, that is why we're having this conversation. But then you say that to NOT KNOW is a good thing because that is when our faith is tested or something, I'm not sure exactly what it is you're saying. You seem to be comfortable in your skin with this wacky esoteric belief system you've worked out for yourself and I realize it's not your fault you embrace it so readily. All I'm saying is that you're trying to communicate all these way-out-in-left-field beliefs you have and nobody around here understands them. Doesn't that strike you as problematic in communicating whatever it is you're trying to make us comprehend?? If I kept getting the same response to my posts I'd either give up or try to refine my beliefs to make them more understandable. Sounds like a plan????????
It has nothing to do with the disputability or reliability of the New Testament only about the believability to YOU of the descriptions of the "mind of Christ" as representative of God. Do you believe His mind ACTUALLY DOES represent the True Nature of God? THAT reveals what resonates with the status of your true state of mind. It is all about Faith, Hope, and Love, Thrill. What do you hope and what is your faith (what resonates with your Spirit), and are you loving? Nothing else matters. It is not about the fables or genealogies or history. They are worldly or carnal. It is entirely about the spiritual.
I think the Subject Title would have been better if it said...'Why I lost my Christian blind faith'.
I have faith the chair will hold me because I have looked at it underneath and also because I watched others sit in it first.
That is not blind faith, then, I tried it...most Christians, bless their little hearts, are running on the fumes of total blind faith and
other people's words that give them hope...the pastor's and those 2000 yrs ago.
Oh, they have their moments of exuberant joy after a gathering. ..they
run on that Sunday inspiration in their heart until the first upset with the cashier.
(I am friends with Evangelicals still...I counsel them all the time, I mean, they come to me...oh the problems with their faith!!!)
Lose the blind faith, being in love with an idea, and know solidly in your personal experience who this God is...test the words of Jesus
and see if they work...then test more daring things that he said to do.
Then, there would never be anything 'to lose' ...you would've seen it for yourself.
No blind faith necessary.
This faith thing can be sweet..but better still is simply knowing.
It's like the milk, compared to the meat. Ref 1 Cor 3:2
Fumes or the real deal...it's a choice made best from mature spiritual commitment and dedication to
this Path of 'knowing'...firmly knowing.
(83 pages, sorry if I said this rant like on page 2, I dunno...I change very little,.)
It is the opposite. I judge what is attributed to Jesus based on my experiences NOT on the authenticity of the Bible. I adopted the Jesus narrative because it perfectly matches the consciousness I encountered. The ultimate question about our faith is "Does our faith reveal that we are loving human beings IF it is based on absolute knowledge that God exists and wants us to be loving human beings?" If we are forced to believe out of fear or wanting to adhere to the Truth whether or not we actually are loving human beings, what good would that be? It has nothing to do with the disputability or reliability of the New Testament only about the believability to YOU of the descriptions of the "mind of Christ" as representative of God. Do you believe His mind ACTUALLY DOES represent the True Nature of God? THAT reveals what resonates with the status of your true state of mind. It is all about Faith, Hope, and Love, Thrill. What do you hope and what is your faith (what resonates with your Spirit), and are you loving? Nothing else matters. It is not about the fables or genealogies or history. They are worldly or carnal. It is entirely about the spiritual.
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I judge what is attributed to Jesus based on my experiences NOT on the authenticity of the Bible. I adopted the Jesus narrative because it perfectly matches the consciousness I encountered.
You must have had one hell of a string of positive experiences to be able to completely throw away the authenticity of the gospels. I've read elsewhere that you are a mature man in his 50's-60's with quite a bit of experience in life. I always took you for a wet-behind-the-ears greenhorn who was so blind-sighted by faith that your discernment skills were non-existent. But to say you completely discount the authenticity of the scriptures puts me right back at square one in my assessment of you. I cannot wrap my head around someone who has no care or concern about whether the scriptures were truly inspired by God or just a mass marketing of made-up stories and legends about a man/god character and his adventures on planet earth. THAT truly boggles my mind.
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The ultimate question about our faith is "Does our faith reveal that we are loving human beings IF it is based on absolute knowledge that God exists and wants us to be loving human beings?"
First of all I agree 1000% that we should all be loving toward one another. That's found in many faiths:
"`Abdu'l-Bahá, Bahá'u'lláh's son, wrote that love is the greatest power in the world of existence and the true source of eternal happiness"
Buddhism teaches Advesa and mettā are benevolent love. This love is unconditional and requires considerable self-acceptance. etc.etc.
That the Christian faith does the same thing is not news. But learning to love your fellow human sentients can be found in works of fiction too. Harry Potter is a kind of Jesus, I don't know if you're aware of that. Like Jesus, Harry was despised and rejected by his own family (uncle, cousin, aunt) Like Jesus, Harry was strengthened by a Holy Spirit-like character--a white owl in this case, not a dove. Harry, like Jesus was "crucified" for the sake of his love for his fellow Hogwart cohorts by being "tempted" of Voldemort, a satan-type character in 7 trials compared to Jesus' 3 and Harry was "resurrected" triumphant in the last novel to the highest point of wizard supremacy in the end. He crushed Voldemort's head in the same way Genesis 3:15 predicted Jesus would crush satan's head. Harry truly taught us to love our fellow humans the same way Jesus did, so why aren't you drawing your inspiration to love from the Harry Potter novels since they teach exactly the same things the gospels do? I mean the novels are fiction; the gospels are fiction and you just said you don't give a fig about authenticity. Again, I am truly puzzled.
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Do you believe His mind ACTUALLY DOES represent the True Nature of God?
You're asking the question wrong, Mystic. Since Jesus is mostly myth based on an ordinary man who may or may not have lived the question should be, "If God is love, then is True Nature of God's love reflected in the story of Jesus?" And the answer is, "Like Buddha and Bahaullah, yes it is."
There's only one problem with this whole premise. I hate to break the news to you, Mystic but if how God treats men is any indication then
God is not love and He's not hate. He's complete and total indifference.
If God really were love and if God really did love humans then 2/3's of the world's population would not be living in the most deplorable squalor, starving and dying of the most horrible diseases and conditions. Hundreds of millions of children would not be dying in wretched pain and misery throughout this gutter of a world where innocent children who never harmed anyone are daily subjected to the worst forms of sexual abuse and violence, torture, starvation, diseases that God could cure if he wanted to--a world where only the fortunate few thrive while the rest suffer to one degree or another.
LOVE???????!!!! Give me good solid hate rather than a perversion of love like that!
You must have had one hell of a string of positive experiences to be able to completely throw away the authenticity of the gospels. I've read elsewhere that you are a mature man in his 50's-60's with quite a bit of experience in life. I always took you for a wet-behind-the-ears greenhorn who was so blind-sighted by faith that your discernment skills were non-existent. But to say you completely discount the authenticity of the scriptures puts me right back at square one in my assessment of you. I cannot wrap my head around someone who has no care or concern about whether the scriptures were truly inspired by God or just a mass marketing of made-up stories and legends about a man/god character and his adventures on planet earth. THAT truly boggles my mind.
First of all I agree 1000% that we should all be loving toward one another. That's found in many faiths:
"`Abdu'l-Bahá, Bahá'u'lláh's son, wrote that love is the greatest power in the world of existence and the true source of eternal happiness"
Buddhism teaches Advesa and mettā are benevolent love. This love is unconditional and requires considerable self-acceptance. etc.etc.
That the Christian faith does the same thing is not news. But learning to love your fellow human sentients can be found in works of fiction too. Harry Potter is a kind of Jesus, I don't know if you're aware of that. Like Jesus, Harry was despised and rejected by his own family (uncle, cousin, aunt) Like Jesus, Harry was strengthened by a Holy Spirit-like character--a white owl in this case, not a dove. Harry, like Jesus was "crucified" for the sake of his love for his fellow Hogwart cohorts by being "tempted" of Voldemort, a satan-type character in 7 trials compared to Jesus' 3 and Harry was "resurrected" triumphant in the last novel to the highest point of wizard supremacy in the end. He crushed Voldemort's head in the same way Genesis 3:15 predicted Jesus would crush satan's head. Harry truly taught us to love our fellow humans the same way Jesus did, so why aren't you drawing your inspiration to love from the Harry Potter novels since they teach exactly the same things the gospels do? I mean the novels are fiction; the gospels are fiction and you just said you don't give a fig about authenticity. Again, I am truly puzzled.
You're asking the question wrong, Mystic. Since Jesus is mostly myth based on an ordinary man who may or may not have lived the question should be, "If God is love, then is True Nature of God's love reflected in the story of Jesus?" And the answer is, "Like Buddha and Bahaullah, yes it is."
There's only one problem with this whole premise. I hate to break the news to you, Mystic but if how God treats men is any indication then
God is not love and He's not hate. He's complete and total indifference.
If God really were love and if God really did love humans then 2/3's of the world's population would not be living in the most deplorable squalor, starving and dying of the most horrible diseases and conditions. Hundreds of millions of children would not be dying in wretched pain and misery throughout this gutter of a world where innocent children who never harmed anyone are daily subjected to the worst forms of sexual abuse and violence, torture, starvation, diseases that God could cure if he wanted to--a world where only the fortunate few thrive while the rest suffer to one degree or another.
LOVE???????!!!! Give me good solid hate rather than a perversion of love like that!
we don't that if a god is there its indifferent.
maybe it can n sooner address our suffering than you can address a blood cell in you.
You must have had one hell of a string of positive experiences to be able to completely throw away the authenticity of the gospels. I've read elsewhere that you are a mature man in his 50's-60's with quite a bit of experience in life. I always took you for a wet-behind-the-ears greenhorn who was so blind-sighted by faith that your discernment skills were non-existent. But to say you completely discount the authenticity of the scriptures puts me right back at square one in my assessment of you. I cannot wrap my head around someone who has no care or concern about whether the scriptures were truly inspired by God or just a mass marketing of made-up stories and legends about a man/god character and his adventures on planet earth. THAT truly boggles my mind.
My daughters are in their 50's, Thrill. You are too quick to make these all-or-nothing assumptions. I believe the Bible CONTAINS inspirations from God interpreted by fallible men who lacked valid knowledge about reality, were superstitious and had savage and barbaric beliefs about God. Their mindset of that era accounts for the misinterpretations they had about God that Jesus corrected but their traditions, expectations, and agendas corrupted their understanding of Jesus and His demonstration of God's true nature.
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First of all, I agree 1000% that we should all be loving toward one another. That's found in many faiths:
"`Abdu'l-Bahá, Bahá'u'lláh's son, wrote that love is the greatest power in the world of existence and the true source of eternal happiness"
Buddhism teaches Advesa and mettā are benevolent love. This love is unconditional and requires considerable self-acceptance. etc.etc.
That the Christian faith does the same thing is not news. But learning to love your fellow human sentients can be found in works of fiction too. Harry Potter is a kind of Jesus, I don't know if you're aware of that. Like Jesus, Harry was despised and rejected by his own family (uncle, cousin, aunt) Like Jesus, Harry was strengthened by a Holy Spirit-like character--a white owl in this case, not a dove. Harry, like Jesus, was "crucified" for the sake of his love for his fellow Hogwarts cohorts by being "tempted" of Voldemort, a satan-type character in 7 trials compared to Jesus' 3 and Harry was "resurrected" triumphant in the last novel to the highest point of wizard supremacy in the end. He crushed Voldemort's head in the same way Genesis 3:15 predicted Jesus would crush Satan's head. Harry truly taught us to love our fellow humans the same way Jesus did, so why aren't you drawing your inspiration to love from the Harry Potter novels since they teach exactly the same things the gospels do? I mean the novels are fiction; the gospels are fiction and you just said you don't give a fig about authenticity. Again, I am truly puzzled.
You're asking the question wrong, Mystic. Since Jesus is mostly myth based on an ordinary man who may or may not have lived the question should be, "If God is love, then is True Nature of God's love reflected in the story of Jesus?" And the answer is, "Like Buddha and Bahaullah, yes it is."
The spiritual is ALL ABOUT what is in our consciousness, NOT what is in our physical world. The Bible chronicles how we evolved our spiritual understanding of God, NOT what happened with worldly kingdoms or whatever. It is just one of many chronicles of our spiritual evolution in what I call the spiritual fossil record and you have identified some of the others. The underlying commonality that underlays these chronicles is the Savior or Avatar meme. I believe these similarities are the result of the overarching consciousness I encountered influencing our speculations about God. That is why my adoption of the Jesus narrative reflects my view that it is the most evolved of the Savior narratives and only needed a reinterpretation of its actual significance, NOT the barbaric blood sacrifice appeasement one in the mainstream.
All of the speculations in the spiritual fossil record reflect the evolution of our collective consciousness toward closer resonance with God's consciousness. The ultimate goal was for at least ONE of us (a Savior) to achieve perfect resonance (Identity) with God's consciousness so that the entire collective human consciousness would be connected (resonate) with God. I believe the consciousness I encountered is that perfect resonant consciousness and the descriptions and demonstration of the true nature of that consciousness in the Jesus narrative matched what I encountered perfectly. That is why I adopted it and follow the instructions of Jesus that are consistent with and compatible with the revealed "mind of God" in the "mind of Christ."
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There's only one problem with this whole premise. I hate to break the news to you, Mystic but if how God treats men is any indication then
God is not love and He's not hate. He's complete and total indifference.
If God really were love and if God really did love humans then 2/3's of the world's population would not be living in the most deplorable squalor, starving and dying of the most horrible diseases and conditions. Hundreds of millions of children would not be dying in wretched pain and misery throughout this gutter of a world where innocent children who never harmed anyone are daily subjected to the worst forms of sexual abuse and violence, torture, starvation, diseases that God could cure if he wanted to--a world where only the fortunate few thrive while the rest suffer to one degree or another.
LOVE???????!!!! Give me good solid hate rather than a perversion of love like that!
The problem is your key assumption that intervention MUST occur in the physical realm and NOT the spiritual (consciousness). You, like most people, see our Reality as consisting of separate things, but it is all ONE thing, God. Imagine an intelligent cell in your own body trying to figure out what it is and what you (its God) are based on whether or not you intervene in its short cellular life. Our cells live and die largely without our intervention except when pain signals ("prayers") or disease afflicts them to such a degree that we are capable of intervening medically. Would that necessarily mean we were less of a God to our cells???
we don't that if a god is there it's indifferent.
maybe it can no sooner address our suffering than you can address a blood cell in you.
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