The bible rewards the rapists!

[Medicine*Woman]

Who is Iza?

Originally posted by Jenyar
Medicine*Woman (or should I call you Iza?)

What you are saying is no more than glorified humanism, with some naturalism thrown in for effect. Surely you realize that? The words "god" and "spirit" are impotent in your beliefs, except that it's a nice spiritual way of saying 'we are united by our shared humanity and our natural environment'. Your god cannot act. It is entirely dependent on ourselves. The earth is self-sufficient, but it is also subjected to us. Gaia knows no justice, only nature.

I don't mean to be insulting. But you have to see it as it is. I can recognize humanism when I see it, and it says "I am god". It makes sense because its true, but only superficially. Have you ever tried to entertain the idea that our Creator might not be just an anthropomorphism of our humanity, but the other way around? That we are secondary to God - a creation, like a potter and his clay?

It might be the ultimate in human ambition - to become "one with god" - it rings so true that it calms and numbs us to the real God: The One who is saying "Realize what you are doing! Yes, I am with you, but still 'I Am': I am not human that I am fickle, that I am tempted, or that I act with injustice! I am with you but I am not you."

Our inclination for independence is natural, but it becomes contrary to God's will when it starts to exclude Him as our Creator. When we start worshipping ourselves instead of Him. It's a false security!

I never said we should 'worship' ourselves. We shouldn't. We are the 'temple' for God, so we should respect and have faith in ourselves. Ceasar, Hitler, Napoleon, etc., worshipped themselves. Separation from the Spirit of God stems from the works of the ego. And, yes, there are people in the world who still worship themselves, but that is a long and lonely road that leads to loss of the Spirit. We are not God in the sense that we are more powerful than God. We are powerful in Spirit when we realize that we are One WITH God.

My conception of Gaia is all-loving, all-powerful,all-creative, all-giving and totally altruistic name for Mother Earth/Mother Nature.

By the way, who is Iza?

 

[Hippocampus]

Re: Re: Re: God within Us

Originally posted by Medicine*Woman
Jesus was no more powerful than any of us are. However, I believe this to be the true message he was trying to teach about the 'kingdom of God being within.' There's no need for Xianity. 'Salvation' isn't necessary.

What other human claimed to be God himself and actually proved it to the masses of people who followed Him everywhere he went time and time again and wrote thousands of first hand accounts and testimonies of personal witness to his ministry? Noone in all of existence made such a huge impact on the whole world as Jesus did and still does. Salvation IS necessary. "The only way to the Father is through me." Jesus said it plain and simple. Jesus IS more powerful than us, he changed time for pete's sake. The year is 2003. 2003 years from what? All anyone has to do is seek Him with your whole heart, and he'll prove himself to you in a way that you KNOW WITHOUT A DOUBT that it is Him, and that He really is real. IT IS WORTH FINDING OUT AND RESEARCHING. Im sure we all know of every argument against Christ and the Bible, why dont you take the time to research the arguments FOR chritianity. Dont be so ignorant, seek understanding, not acception and agreement from the whole world and your peers, do it for yourself and noone else.

 

[Raithere]

Originally posted by Flores
And really what is wrong with Faith.

It depends upon what definition you mean. What is wrong with faith lies in the following: “Belief; the assent of the mind to the truth of what is declared by another, resting solely and implicitly on his authority and veracity; reliance on testimony.” or sometimes “on the ground of the manifest truth of what he utters”. In which case I find that to have faith one must relinquish possession of one’s own mind. Trust, assent, and authority must be earned. And I am highly skeptical of any claim of truth… particularly that which is supposedly “manifest”.

Where I see the Lack of Atheist knowledge is in the big picture. Too many times I see Atheists as skeptics not even willing to entertain subjects…

It’s funny but I often feel the same way about Theists. But I don’t find that this condition is a result of either theism or atheism but instead is the result of certainty of belief. That is, people in general tend to cling to their beliefs despite, and in actuality probably because of, the immense amount of uncertainty in Knowing anything.

Tell me how can an Atheist scientist in any of these areas paint an accurate picture of a connective universe, if they don't have faith in a connective universe with special orders.

Actually, the two are not mutually exclusive. Buddhism and Daoism, for instance, are essentially godless religions yet affirm even more powerfully than the Abrahamic religions the unity of existence. Such is not foreign to science either. The categorization and classification that is so pervasively viewed in science as dualistic is not actually real. The deeper one goes, particularly into physics, the more one realizes that unity is intrinsic to existence.

And please don't tell me that the laws of physics and math are sufficient for our understanding, or I'll be disapointed.

I know of no realm of study that is sufficient. I have crossed over into as many realms as I know of (to greater and lesser extents) and the one constant is that humanity has not hit upon (mostly likely because it does not exist) a singular and sufficient approach.

Atheists are too busy plugging and chugging that they forget that the universe problem is one of billions degrees of freedom, and we are barely solving for problems in nature with three or four degrees of freedom, so please be realistic.

I agree that this is often the case but again I see the same condition in most Theists. Adherence to Biblical literalism, for instance, is not a solution but an escapist fantasy... one I see mirrored in the secular doctrine of objectivism/determinism. To quote Ferris, “Isms, in my opinion, are not good.”

So an Atheist is like this person who is trying to figure out the universe from a little room, while the theist is one that is trying to figure out the arrangement of the furniture in the room from another planet. Which one is more important, the universe or the furniture in the room.

Religion did not satisfy my questions, neither does science, but science at least admits its ignorance while remaining hopeful. And essentially, I simply ask that truth be treated reverentially. An honest examination of ideas is needed… all of them.

~Raithere

 

[Jenyar]

We are not God in the sense that we are more powerful than God. We are powerful in Spirit when we realize that we are One WITH God.

This is all very well and nice. But there is obviously a rift between us and God, otherwise it would be easier to experience this 'oneness'. The realization cannot come without the Spirit. And the 'oneness' is not an indication of our own godly natures, but of our link to God. Jesus represents that link, and not in the way Jan Ardena likes to describe it, as an example - Jesus is that link.

We are still human, still seeking, but we have received knowledge of our salvation in the form of certain hope. You can meditate and become as enlightened as you want to, without gaining this knowledge. The restoration of our distance from God rests on our association with Jesus as the Son of God, not our association with the rest of humanity.

By the way, who is Iza?

She is the medicine woman in the book Clan of the Cave Bear (by Jean M. Auel). The book is part of her 'Earth's children' series - I think you'll like it (I certainly enjoyed it).

 

[Flores]

Originally posted by Raithere
It depends upon what definition you mean. What is wrong with faith lies in the following: “Belief; the assent of the mind to the truth of what is declared by another, resting solely and implicitly on his authority and veracity; reliance on testimony.” or sometimes “on the ground of the manifest truth of what he utters”. In which case I find that to have faith one must relinquish possession of one’s own mind. Trust, assent, and authority must be earned. And I am highly skeptical of any claim of truth… particularly that which is supposedly “manifest”.

True, but the sacrifice of learning something new always result in relinquishing the old or possibly adding to the old, and if you say, no we can keep the old, then why can't the content of your current mind and faith coexist. What can possibly be in your mind that would conflict so bad with contents of the Quran. I wouldn't question the bible, because I see clear conflict between the content of my mind and the bible. Yet, my mind only believes in what completely agrees with it's makeup.

Originally posted by Raithere
It’s funny but I often feel the same way about Theists. But I don’t find that this condition is a result of either theism or atheism but instead is the result of certainty of belief. That is, people in general tend to cling to their beliefs despite, and in actuality probably because of, the immense amount of uncertainty in Knowing anything.

Clinging to one's belief could be sign of fear and insecurity or an accurate translation of one's collective study and experience that has shown to the person to be worthwhile believing in, that could be said of theists and atheists alike. As James say under his signature, great minds are those that can entertain any thought. Belief becomes the limited convincing data that finds it's way comfortably to the subconscious regardless of the contents being discussed. From your writing, I know that you are profound in your beliefs and you have many good ones that has blue printed themselves on your subconscious.

Originally posted by Raithere
Actually, the two are not mutually exclusive. Buddhism and Daoism, for instance, are essentially godless religions yet affirm even more powerfully than the Abrahamic religions the unity of existence. Such is not foreign to science either. The categorization and classification that is so pervasively viewed in science as dualistic is not actually real. The deeper one goes, particularly into physics, the more one realizes that unity is intrinsic to existence.

I don't think that Budhism is not godless at all. At the same time, you know that it's not fair to view the abrahamic religions, and by the way, they are not abrahamic, they are the religions of god, as a replica of the greek methology or even as represented by the current corrupt bible or the people claiming to belong to the theist club.

Originally posted by Raithere
I know of no realm of study that is sufficient. I have crossed over into as many realms as I know of (to greater and lesser extents) and the one constant is that humanity has not hit upon (mostly likely because it does not exist) a singular and sufficient approach.

I agree, and humanity will never hit upon that singular and sufficient approach, because we were created using that approach and it's beyond us to understand our own code.

Originally posted by Raithere
I agree that this is often the case but again I see the same condition in most Theists. Adherence to Biblical literalism, for instance, is not a solution but an escapist fantasy... one I see mirrored in the secular doctrine of objectivism/determinism. To quote Ferris, “Isms, in my opinion, are not good.”

I agree, Isms are horrible, but there is no way around them. Even between Atheists, you'll find many schools of beliefs and various ways of justification, you'll see categorization by weak, agnostic, and strong, ect..... We are created as unique individuals and as a miracle of our creation you will not find in the billions of humans another Raithere or even one with similar finger prints, so why do you expect us to be uniform in our beliefs and abandon the doctrines......Think about yourself as an uno with nobody alike you and you may understand the need to establish a relationship and alliance between you and your believes.

Originally posted by Raithere
Religion did not satisfy my questions, neither does science, but science at least admits its ignorance while remaining hopeful. And essentially, I simply ask that truth be treated reverentially. An honest examination of ideas is needed… all of them.
~Raithere

I agree, but you may not deny the truth on the account of your ignorance. that's at least my prespective when viewing religions. Understanding religions needs a bit of open mindness and a lot of privacy.

 

[Flores]

Originally posted by Hippocampus
And what of the current testimonies of Muslims who have been praying to God and seeking truth in Mosques who have Jesus appear to them in visions and dreams? This happens every day, but you harden your heart to the good news of Christ and refuse to accept it.

My friend. Please go enjoy the thought of your salvation and let me continue doing the hard work of living my life without knowing the ending or prejudging the masses of people to hell and heaven on behalf of my dreams and visions as you do.....When the day comes and you are in eternal heaven, send me a letter addressed flores and tell me how you are doing....but for now, shut the hell up, because you don't cross me but as an ignorant fool who is throwing a bunch of stones on his own glass house.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

Originally posted by Jenyar
This is all very well and nice. But there is obviously a rift between us and God, otherwise it would be easier to experience this 'oneness'. The realization cannot come without the Spirit. And the 'oneness' is not an indication of our own godly natures, but of our link to God. Jesus represents that link, and not in the way Jan Ardena likes to describe it, as an example - Jesus is that link.

We are still human, still seeking, but we have received knowledge of our salvation in the form of certain hope. You can meditate and become as enlightened as you want to, without gaining this knowledge. The restoration of our distance from God rests on our association with Jesus as the Son of God, not our association with the rest of humanity.


She is the medicine woman in the book Clan of the Cave Bear (by Jean M. Auel). The book is part of her 'Earth's children' series - I think you'll like it (I certainly enjoyed it).

Thanks! I'll read it!