| Home | Community | Message Board |
|
You are not signed in. Sign In New Account | Forum Index Search Posts Trusted Vendors Highlights Galleries FAQ User List Chat Store Random Growery » |
This site includes paid links. Please support our sponsors.
|
Threaded
Previous
Index
NextShop:  Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order  Golden Teacher Liquid Culture For Sale |
| |||||||
 Monkey92 Stranger  Registered: 07/25/08 Posts: 4,729 |
| ||||||
|
Faith is survival
| |||||||
 MarkostheGnostic Elder    Registered: 12/09/99 Posts: 14,279 Loc: South Florida 
Last seen: 5 years, 7 months |
| ||||||
|
You're completely off-track with regard to those who have found Jesus. Apparently, it hasn't happened to you, which is why your post is rife with arrogance. You have faith in magick, whatever magick means to you, but it typically embodies an element of power which keeps it egocentric. Most people have faith in their five senses and their rational (egoic) mind for interpreting what their senses bring to them. Faith in Jesus is a mythic way of expressing faith in a Transcendental Center. It is not a matter of Jesus (as a resurrected human dwelling in Heaven) doing spiritual work for them as an external agent, it is about "being in Christ," which is to say acknowledging the Logos as the true Center of one's being and life, and enthroning it instead of one's personality and ego. Logos transcends inner and outer descriptors since it is an immaterial reality.
It is clear that you base your prejudice on some experiences you've had with the 'man-on-the-street,' with unsophisticated versions of popular Christianity which has been misinterpreted by others. But you seem to embrace their own poor understanding of the faith as an actual statement of Christian theology! You are also conflating faith with belief. I live by faith. It is not an effort, it is receptivity to what is happening, going to happen, or has happened - not always with acceptance of course, which is the cause of much of my own suffering - agonizing over that which I have no control over. Nevertheless, faith is a receptive stance, a contemplative attitude. If you look at the canonical New Testament alone - not any of the Gnostic gospels or Apocrypha - you will not read anything that tells you what will happen after death. The Book of Revelations speaks of visions that John the Apostle had when exiled on the isle of Patmos, but it is only the simple-minded who read the descriptions as being literal. Its imagery is strictly mythic, archetypal, symbolic. Literalism belongs to children and adults whose cognitive abilities have remained in Concrete Operational Thought at the highest, and who have never attained to Formal Operational Thought. References to Hell are sparse and metaphorical and owe their place in the canon to the author named Matthew. It is obvious that those who are fanatics are trying to convince themselves by berating others, or condemning others because they have projected their own doubts onto them. But from where I'm sitting, belief in magick characterizes a stage in human spiritual development that is more primitive and far less expansive than mysticism which characterizes the pinnacle of religious and philosophical thought. Magick remains in form - it's goals relate to a specific subject instead of the subject transcending his individuality for universality of which Christ is the central symbol in the West. Theurgy (high magick or Transcendental magick) can include a category like transubstantiation or consecration which belongs to religion, but thaumaturgy (low magick, sorcery) is characterized by self-seeking and the employment of chthonic if not demonic agencies. So again, I don't know what your belief is in magick, but the latter form is inimical to spiritual development. Below is a simple diagram which speaks to the radical shift from self to Christ as the Transcendental Center of one's life published by the Christian organization Cru. This process is essentially the same in every world religion - a radical change [Greek: metanoia] from ego to Christ [Greek: anointed, i.e., Divinely Illuminated Mind].  VS.  -------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
| |||||||
|
Monkey92 Stranger Registered: 07/25/08 Posts: 4,729 |
| ||||||
|
Markos what do you believe or what are your thoughts about faith as survival?
Edited by UILECHUMHACHTACH (02/22/16 04:26 PM)
| |||||||
|
Ravendance Wizzerd  Registered: 05/23/14 Posts: 238 Loc: Earth Last seen: 7 years, 7 months |
| ||||||
|
Markos, I respect what you said and I respect most of your posts.
I especially like what you said about changing your idea of "belief" and "faith", I think most of it is just words and it's really the idea behind what you are trying to say, I've never been gifted with words. I may have taken this thread out of context, but I am trying to say something that is very far from ego-centric. We all have blockages and growth that needs to be done on our journey. I have severe problems with Christianity as a religion based on my whole childhood, I was raised in the WORST Christian environment. Truly EVIL people. I get heated and "closed up" when I talk about Christianity. That's something I need to work on in my journey. As far as the "finding Jesus" thing, I think you may have totally misunderstood me. I'm trying to put this shit into words because I feel that it is something that I would like to verbalize, I'm just trying to figure out how. And the "faith in magick" thing, I don't really understand that part of your post. I feel that part of the post went against everything that I was trying to post in the first place. I don't pretend my way is the right way because I'm still trying to find the right way. But I don't respect ways of thinking that try to force their "right way" on you because everyone's is different. The mind is like like a sponge. When it is empty, there is room to soak up so much water, but when it is saturated (when you tell your EGO that it is saturated) there is no more water to soak up. I was just responding to something I was prompted to respond to by the original post and trying to voice what I thought 
Edited by Ravendance (02/22/16 05:21 PM)
| |||||||
|
Monkey92 Stranger Registered: 07/25/08 Posts: 4,729 |
| ||||||
|
Put your shit into words? Do you plan on molding your shit into the shape of whatever you see reflecting in the mirror?
I used to deny God and Christ when I had a mirror and saw my pitiful self reflecting. Now I see trees reflecting in pools of water since I have accepted the 'Master of All Things'
| |||||||
|
SpinScratch Distrusted Cultivator  Registered: 07/26/13 Posts: 835 Last seen: 7 months, 6 days |
| ||||||
|
Man, it would be really hard to play catch up on all of this. Some very interesting posts. Some of which I agree and some disagree.
ravendance glad u were able to offer some insight. I'm inclined to agree with everything in your original reply.
| |||||||
|
Monkey92 Stranger Registered: 07/25/08 Posts: 4,729 |
| ||||||
|
I've concluded the ego is formed by not fulfilling intention - breaking promises to ourself. I used to browse these forums and saturate my brain now I am not acting on what I need to do
| |||||||
|
deezdelta Smut Peddler  Registered: 01/11/16 Posts: 537 Loc: Santa Barbara Ca Last seen: 7 years, 11 months |
| ||||||
Maintain the faith. Do what YOU do. This man has figured it out. -------------------- Don't die tonight.
| |||||||
|
MarkostheGnostic Elder Registered: 12/09/99 Posts: 14,279 Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 5 years, 7 months |
| ||||||
|
Well, I appreciate you struggling to articulate and express yourself here. You and Icelander both had Christianity misappropriated and inflicted upon you by people with very warped agendas. It will be difficulty for either of you to take up the challenge of unlearning every theological distortion you were taught and relearning afresh. Frankly, having not had a bad experience with the notion of Christ, but having had to strike out on my own alienating most of my Jewish family in the process, I can't personally relate to either of your experiences. But after learning what I did learn, in a seminary no less, I had to later on reject much of the essential doctrinal basis for mainstream Christianity whether Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox. Initially, I had adopted a Hindu take on Christ, but to be more accurate I had to reject that view as inauthentic. That was a left-over from my introduction to "Realized Beings" in BE HERE NOW, but I had to immerse myself in a Western understanding from a biblical and Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox theological perspectives (clearly not complete studies in only two years of seminary).
I had previously immersed myself in magick and its practice, and in the middle of my seminary experience I temporarily became brainwashed and burned up my magickal library. I have subsequently purchased many of those books again since 1977, but wrongly immolated at least one hard cover that didn't belong to me. I used Wizard® brand barbecue fluid. Magick attracted a whole different range of pathological people than the kind that attracted mainstream wannabe Methodist ministers, but many of those self-righteous, hypocritical showmen were about building wealthy ministries or becoming Christian cult leaders like televangelists. So, much as you've had issues with Christianity, I've had issues with magick. What I have acquired is value from early Church Fathers and Gnostic Christians before the Council of Nicaea carved orthodox Christian doctrines in stone, so-to-speak. My personal path is my own, but as the symbols or milestones like the Manipura chakra's influence in magick, or the Kabbalistic Tree's corresponding spheres yielded to the Heart's higher sphere of influence, the most potent and most poignant symbol of that higher realization is Christ. The Sacred Heart of Catholic iconography speaks volumes on this mysticism of Head and Heart. Such milestones speak for themselves and do not exist to be 'forced.' Love floats over power as chrism over turbid water. -------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
| |||||||
|
SpinScratch Distrusted Cultivator Registered: 07/26/13 Posts: 835 Last seen: 7 months, 6 days |
| ||||||
|
If we want to know what real Christianity is, we need to read to the Gospels. It's true that Jesus preached to love your neighbor, and help the poor. This is the generic message of Jesus. But if we don't cherry-pick his statements we get a more complete message. Time and again jesus called upon people to have faith in him without question. When people would question his claims he would chastise them. Obviously Jesus is not a fan of healthy skepticism. It is blind faith that he requires.
Aside from this we get repeated statements about giving up your material life, selling your possessions and giving them to the poor if one wants to be a Christian. He even goes so far as to ask us to abandon our families for him. This is not the mainstream Christian message today, in fact it's quite the opposite. Aside from this we get a few random odd ball statements such as castrating yourself for the Kingdom of God. A rejection of Christianity doesn't nessasarily mean a rejection of his teachings. For me, it just means I don't accept his claims of divinity. He could be crazy, a liar or a complete fabrication. Faith doesn't allow room for this consideration.
| |||||||
|
MarkostheGnostic Elder Registered: 12/09/99 Posts: 14,279 Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 5 years, 7 months |
| ||||||
|
After reading Liberating the Gospels by John Shelby Spong (and then meeting with him on 3 occasions), I was able to reconcile faith with reason. I am a disciple of Jesus even if the biblical account is purely literary. I stand by the principles as my model for human development. The canonical Bible was cherry-picked from among dozens and dozens of available gospels (I collect the Nag Hammadi and Apocryphal translations). What I do NOT trust is the selections of 4 gospels and a bunch of Pauline and pseudo-Pauline letters which were never written as holy scripture in the first place.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
| |||||||
|
Peyote Road Stranger Registered: 09/02/15  Posts: 3,527 Loc: Great Lakes Stat Last seen: 3 years, 10 months |
| ||||||
|
I've had a similar journey as yours in this regard Markos. I also started from a Hindu perspective and had to spend years reading about Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant theology to come to the understanding I have now, which is sill in incomplete but much, much better than where I was years ago. I learned so much, just from reading about the different perspectives and various theological arguments that arose.
Like you I appreciate the symbolism in Christianity, and I find that a few paragraphs of sacred scripture, or sacred artwork such as you mentioned, can say more than
While it is true that the Pauline letters were not written as Holy Scripture, I believe they were selected and included for very important theological reasons. The most significant theological contribution of St. Paul was his ideas on the difference between the Law and the Gospel. Failure to understand the difference between the law and the gospel causes Christianity to become a constrictive, fear based, guilt producing religion that actually makes one resent God since no matter how hard you try, you can never live up to his standards and even when you manage to, it then seems like the sinners are having all the fun because they don't have all these annoying moral laws to constantly try to obey. I know, I've been there. The Gospel message on the other hand, teaches us that help for the sinner does not come through God pointing out all the things he is doing wrong and then expencting him to turn it around and start living a holy life so God will save him. Rather, the Gospel teaches us that God still loves the sinner even when he is the depths of his depravity and extends his grace to him regardless. So help for the sinner comes through throwing all his confidence on God to save him, in the knowledge of who God is and his love and mercy, rather than trying to perfect himself through his own effort. Without this understanding, trying to be a Christian just means you start feeling guilty about things other people don't, or feel resentful that you had to give up things that other people get to indulge in. Yes, there is a time to abstain and restrain yourself, there is a time to practice asceticism, self control and termperance but this can all come as a response to God's love rather than as a means to earn it. The gospel is about actually desiring to please God (through understanding what God has done for you and will do for you) rather than obedience through fear of wrath and judgement. Just hearing the Gospel message, when it is preached in its true form, is extremely liberating. So that's why I believe the Pauline letters are in the Bible and should be also. -------------------- The path of the herbalist is to open ourselves to nature in an innocent and pure way. SHe in turn will open her bounty and reward us with many valuable secrets. May the earth bless you. - Michael Tierra Edited by Peyote Road (02/22/16 11:55 PM)
| |||||||
|
Monkey92 Stranger Registered: 07/25/08 Posts: 4,729 |
| ||||||
|
Jesus is Messianic Lord
| |||||||
|
MarkostheGnostic Elder Registered: 12/09/99 Posts: 14,279 Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 5 years, 7 months |
| ||||||
|
I find myself being a Neoplatonist, or at least a Christian Neoplatonist because of the language of theism, to wit: "The gospel is about actually desiring to please God (through understanding what God has done for you and will do for you) rather than obedience through fear of wrath and judgement. " Whatever the nature of God, it is not less than personal (not impersonal), but it needs be transpersonal. I have never been able to tolerate the language regarding a 'personal relationship' with either Jesus Christ (the man has been dead and gone for two millennia if he ever existed in the first place), or the Unmanifested Godhead (i.e., the Father), which is so transcendental a concept that neither Plotinus the Neoplatonist, or Plato before him could agree to assign ANY attribute, not even Being or Oneness to It.
There is a Great Chain of Being which I cannot attribute to so atomistic and materialist doctrine as probability (which would make me an Epicurean or some later atheistic philosopher), so I do attribute Intelligent Design to the complexity of life on this world alone (which is all we know at this point). My issue is with the anthropomorphic language that carries with it too many primitive associations with one's own parentage or with mythological images. It seems much more like the mysticism of Meister Eckhart who wrote “The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.” The ontological relationship of human subjectivity seems to arise from the Logos Itself ("Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made" - John 1:3), which suggests an identity more than a relationship between an I and a Thou. I think this was the meaning behind those "I AM" sayings of Jesus in John, and in line with Eckhart, only Eckhart and Jesus were both condemned for blasphemy for saying it. The implications of this identity should result in humility, not hubris because the realization results in a great responsibility to manifest the True Nature instead of the mammalian nature - the spiritual man rather than the natural man. This dissonance results in feelings of guilt and condemnation among those with an acute conscience, and in the average Christian it is through believing that one has offended Deity ('sin'), while in an esoteric Christian it is not a matter of guilt, of offending God (absurd!), but of shame. Plotinus, for example, expressed shame at being embodied while he intuited his spiritual nature as being unencumbered and free. He was weighed down by the appetites of his animal self. Every human being, not just Jesus, is a hybrid of human and divine natures in my current understanding. Christian ethics morphs into aesthetics. It is neither 'nice' or 'pretty' to see cruelty. The Bible uses the metaphor of "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them" - Isaiah 11:6, and we find that charming, but what then will the leopard and the lion eat? Grass? What will the child eat? Christian ethics neglects the monstrousness of predatory nature. This too is by design. Biting, clawing, stinging, devouring, digesting alive creatures large and small, taken together, sometimes outweighs in my mind the beautiful aspects, but the colors, songs, and dances of nature's creatures are merely lures to procreation so that the predation can continue, and so oftentimes the Creator seems to be a Great Demon. No wonder gentleness and loving-kindness appears worthy of worship. -------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
| |||||||
|
Peyote Road Stranger Registered: 09/02/15 Posts: 3,527 Loc: Great Lakes Stat Last seen: 3 years, 10 months |
| ||||||
|
Well, aside from the anthropomorphic language the meaning I get from it is that God can be compared with an enormous sun radiating light and it is important to understand that if you make a mistake or commit a "sin", God does not stop radiating light at you so the way to holiness has more to do with allowing the light to hit you rather than trying to follow a set of rules that supposedly make you worthy to receive light. Whether you want to call the relationship "personal" or not, is a matter of personal preference but I do think it can be said to be a relationship. I see life as a relational and I think one can have relationships with objects, plants, animals, etc not just people. Hence I have no problem with the idea of relationship with God.
Even though like you have expressed in other posts, I also had an unstatisfactory relationship with my father I actually think that God as a parent is a very apt metaphor. In my view, the functioning of the physical world mirrors spiritual principles so I see the way our mothers and fathers parent us, as a physical metaphor for where we come from on a spiritual level. In other words, to me the physical world is a natural metaphor and thus I dont have a problem with anthropomorphization because to me our very existence equates with God anthropomorphizin himself (making himself human) and we are merely reflecting that back when he talk about God as though he had human attributes. Does that make sense?
You didn't read far enough, it says what the lion will eat: The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. What exactly the prophet meant by these verses, I cannot tell you but it sounds to me as though he is a describing a scenario where various parts of creation are no longer enemies, or in competition with each other. Everything is somehow reconciled, either on a spiritual level or in some future/higher world. -------------------- The path of the herbalist is to open ourselves to nature in an innocent and pure way. SHe in turn will open her bounty and reward us with many valuable secrets. May the earth bless you. - Michael Tierra Edited by Peyote Road (02/23/16 03:33 PM)
| |||||||
|
Monkey92 Stranger Registered: 07/25/08 Posts: 4,729 |
| ||||||
the cow and bear will eat the same food and their descendants will mate with each other - as in the days of Noah before the flood when the species mated with each other. God may not cut us off from his light but he has power to lengthen days and when we sin we may drive away people for they, if one believes in free will, have the power to will their existence into another direction
| |||||||
|
MarkostheGnostic Elder Registered: 12/09/99 Posts: 14,279 Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 5 years, 7 months |
| ||||||
|
Right, I didn't read far enough, but I did anticipate it with "grass." This colorful imagining is less likely than lions being driven to extinction by humanity, but I suppose an idyllic picture was being attempted, so I agree with you in that. But that brings up my number one bone of contention with Christian eschatology, rooted as it is in Jewish eschatology - the 'end times' and 'Jerusalem descending.' Christianity suffers from a type of Orwellian doublethink where evil and death is said to have been conquered at Calvary, yet evil and death are as ubiquitous as ever. Christianity is a partially-realized eschatology according to theology. Death and evil were conquered in Christ, but the 'Fullness' of this is supposed to happen in time, at some future chronological event. Paul was preaching that the end was near, don't marry unless you can't help yourself because the 'end times' were nigh. He was wrong but not just about the date. He was wrong in his essential misunderstand and confusion of a future mythic Golden Age which is a symbol of a potentially Present Reality. Eckhart Tolle pointed out that each one of us enters into the kingdom of Heaven when we leave our identification with space-time and come to identify with the timeless Present. Tolle is teaching a fully-realized eschatology without calling it that. MUCH more importantly, Tolle is showing us that the myth of a New Jerusalem and a kingdom of Heaven is NOT an event in time, but results subjectively in consciousness whenever we step outside of time - the end of time, the end times. This is essentially the metaphysical teaching in Buddhism and Hindu Non-Dualism, and it can be found amidst some of the Gnostic material.
"(113) His disciples said to him, "When is the kingdom going to come?" <Jesus said>, "It is not by being waited for that it is going to come. They are not going to say, 'Here it is' or 'There it is.' Rather, the kingdom of the father is spread out over the earth, and people do not see it."- The Gospel of Thomas The more contemplative one waxes, the less relational Reality appears. Knower-Knowledge-Known begin to merge, subject-object duality unifies, and ultimately only the ONE remains. We might be blessed with tastes in life, but none of us can by our own will, storm Heaven. This is where the most mystical statements attributed to Jesus make sense. "On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you" - John 14:20. Martin Buber distinguished "I-It" relationships from "I-Thou" relationships, of which our relationship with God is included. But as a Jew, Buber did not subscribe to union with the Logos (as Jesus contemporary the Hellenized Jewish philosopher Philo wrote), nor does Buber make ontological distinctions about God (I'm not sure to what extent he was influenced by Kabbalism). If you are untroubled by the additional veil of anthropomorphisms, that might be pleasant on the surface, but as Thomas wrote: "(2) Jesus said: He who seeks, let him not cease seeking until he finds; and when he finds he will be troubled, and when he is troubled he will be amazed, and he will reign over the All." Personally, I want to get beyond the veils, anthropomorphisms included, but to avoid hubris I remember that Jesus allegedly referred to God as Father (in Hebrew) or possibly as "Cosmic Father-Mother" in Aramaic, and so I still use such terms of parentage in my petitionary prayer life. But in contemplation, I truly want the veils to part. -------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
| |||||||
|
Peyote Road Stranger Registered: 09/02/15 Posts: 3,527 Loc: Great Lakes Stat Last seen: 3 years, 10 months |
| ||||||
Not sure I understand what you're saying here. Can't it be both? My interpretation is that yes, the Bible is speaking metaphorically about a shift in consciousness and the Kingdom of God is first and foremost a state of being. But then following from that inner change, it gets out pictured onto the material universe because the world we experience is ultimately a reflection of us. If humans did not experience lack and greed and poverty within themselves, then we wouldn't see these things so rampantly out pictured in our world. In my opinion, the Bible is intentionally written to speak to people of different levels of understanding. So someone who lacks the ability to interpret the higher spiritual meaning behind notions like the Kingdom of God, will naturally envision a outer Kingdom, a utopia of sorts. But that is not necessarily wrong, because just by imagining what that would be like on the outside, is already a step in the right direction toward understanding the inner kingdom. If enough people simply held the image of a healed and happy planet earth, filled with love and kindness and spirituality in their minds, the earth would already begin to transform. The more we think of a hateful, greedy, dog eat dog world the more we continue to create a world like that,collectively. The Biblical metaphors are not just speaking about spiritual states and inner transformation, as this inner transformation is supposed to serve as leavening agent which then leavens the entire loaf. First the loaf of our whole being, then our neighbors and eventually the world. The Kingdom of God and the Golden age are not just metaphors for individual spiritual achievements, they are actually supposed to come to be out pictured in the world once a critical mass of people put on the mind of Christ.
Well, right. I'm not there yet, but I don't know if you are familiar with Bentinho Massaro. His teachigns have helped me conceptualize how one might view these things post enlightenment. He has a concept he calls "true simultaneity" so you can be aware of the cosmic oneness while at the same time, seeing within it the separate forms, the various elemental powers, gods, angels, (however you want to call the different aspects of the cosmos which appear to interact). Thus, according to Bentinho, you can be one with God like Jesus and yet still pray to God as Father. Somehow the Godhead consists of unity with relationship. I have heard Catholic theologians speak about this also in regard to the Holy Trinity. But I am jus theorizing here, I still have too much duality left in my consciousness to really speak on this. -------------------- The path of the herbalist is to open ourselves to nature in an innocent and pure way. SHe in turn will open her bounty and reward us with many valuable secrets. May the earth bless you. - Michael Tierra Edited by Peyote Road (02/23/16 08:48 PM)
| |||||||
|
MarkostheGnostic Elder Registered: 12/09/99 Posts: 14,279 Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 5 years, 7 months |
| ||||||
|
The problem is that in 2000+ years, there has not been very much transformation on any deep level. If society would permit it, gladiatorial combat to the death would be welcomed again my multitudes. Perhaps people being set on fire as human torches would not garner much support, but watching people fight to the death would undoubtedly be embraced even today. You are somewhat Platonic in your regard for the world of form being a reflection of an immaterial dimension, and I concur with that. It is Kabbalistic too (but Kabbalism was influenced by Platonism and Neoplatonism). But again, the problem with people projecting their hopes onto a political kingdom of Heaven results in geopolitics - Christian, Jewish and Muslim. The Tenach denies that Israel should be a worldly government and there is even a movement in this country amongst some Orthodox Jews who protest the State of Israel as the much-proclaimed Promised Land. The extremist Muslims want the entire world to be Muslim under Sharia theocratic law, and in the USA we have the Christian Right inserting their extraverted religious ideology into politics - wanting to oppress women again by overturning the Roe. v. Wade decision, some wanting mythological Creationism to be taught instead of biological natural selection and evolution, and other throwbacks in history.
I upset a seminary student with my position around 1977, "someone who lacks the ability to interpret the higher spiritual meaning behind notions like the Kingdom of God," who looked up at Professor Thomas C. Oden, and the prof said to him, "We don't all need to be high-fliers." I felt badly for making the student feel uncomprehending, but even then it was obvious that much uncritical magical and mythological thinking was taking the place of real inner transformation that allowed for Realization to triumph over sensory perception of the world as it is. It's like going about perpetually tripping. One's perception is not only changed, but one conveys 'contact highs' to others thereby altering their perceptions. Without an alteration (and belief doesn't do it, it is more like denial of the obvious and a resultant dissonance that is often dealt with by becoming fanatical), the 'natural man' simply continues to exist at his current level with the negatives exacerbated by increasingly sophisticated technologies. I think the Bible was written for the illiterate and unsophisticated multitudes, assuming the lowest common denominator of education from almost two millennia ago. That is why philosophically sophisticated people who recognized the Christian teachings in earlier schools of thought wrote against them (like Celsus). I am not agreeing with Celsus, just saying that philosophers have long been put off by mainstream Christian thought. Personally, if the Christian cultus motivated followers to voluntarily walk to horrible deaths while singing hymns, I'm surprised that people today can't appreciate the inner-directed Gnostics who didn't thumb their noses at the emperors and avoided such fates. Today, people have the audacity to condemn the secretive esoteric (Gnostic) Christians as having been cowards for not proclaiming their faith in the face of cruel torture. But those same people cry when they can't get their morning latte. Hypocrites all. I can see all manner of intermediary spiritual beings from reading philosophy (including Christ as Logos) as an intellectual attempt to bridge the gap between the utterly transcendental and the physical. I neither believe or disbelieve, I simply do not address my Holy Guardian Angel AS IF [s]he is with me, but I do sometimes talk aloud, usually to give thanks, to God. I do however still curse at times, 'taking the name of the Lord in vain,' ("God damn it!"). I am human after all.  The Buddhists insist on recognizing a non-duality of Nirvana and Samsara, and nobody I know (including myself) goes around oblivious of the latter while in full awareness of the former like Neo in the Matrix, physically blind but perceiving The Matrix directly with his mind, or perhaps the guru in BE HERE NOW ostensibly living in Sat Chit Ananda.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
| |||||||
|
Peyote Road Stranger Registered: 09/02/15 Posts: 3,527 Loc: Great Lakes Stat Last seen: 3 years, 10 months |
| ||||||
Certainly but this true of all religions, philosophies, thought systems, spiritual organizations. None have succeeded in transforming the world to match their ideals...yet. But imagine what the world would be like without these things. Granted some people imagine it would be a lot better, but I've read many teachers, such as Ramana Maharshi, state that without the Mahatmas or saints praying for the world and radiating their uplifting spiritual energies, humanity would have destroyed itself already long ago. This is the understanding in some Buddhist societies, where people give food to the monks with the understanding that they needs the monks prayers. So I don't discount the good Christianity has done, much of it is simply behind the scenes. And much of it isn't, though opponents of Christianity somehow manage to ignore all the people who have been fed, clothed, cared for, sheltered, even loved, in the name of Christ.
I understand abortion is a complex issue but I will not accept the idea that opposing legalized abortion means one "wants to oppress women". In fact, all of the most ardent pro-life people I have encountered in life, have all been women. I find women have more of a caring, nurturing quality to them, and genuinely care about the lives of children, including unborn children in ways which I myself am not able to. I can't help but see abortion as a very unloving act of indifference toward a soul trying to enter the physical, but I sympathize with those who think it should be allowed under special circumstances. A book I read by a native americian medicine man described how it was handled in his society, saying that it was only allowed in rare circumstances where a medicine man would determine that allowing the pregnancy to continue would result in great harm to the mother or the baby, usually if it was going to be born with some serious disease. I can't disagree with that. Our society however, seems to view it more as a form of birth control, with more than 1/3 of abortions being returning customers. Furthermore, women who wish to deliver their babies are often pressured into having abortions by men. This happened in my own family as my parents are divorced, my father who is remarried pressured his wife into aborting what would have been my half brother which she very much wanted to deliver. I can't help but see great evil in the way our society treats abortion and would never think to accuse pro-life people of wanting to oppress women. Philosophically speaking, I also dont really see much difference between late term abortion and infanticide. if no one stood up for life, that would likely be allowed also. Where do you draw the line and why?
I've never heard anyone condemn gnostics for not proclaiming their faith, rather I have heard people condemning them for being heretics. But I looked up Celsus and it seemed like his main objection to Christianity was that he thought Paganism was superior and he disliked how Christians saw themselves as somehow possessing a higher truth than Pagan religions. He also made other points, but it was stated that having been raised Pagan and not always having the best grasp of Christian concepts, his views were naturally biased. Origen apparently wrote a rebuttal to him and whilst I did not read it, I would probably agree with Origen. But my point is, his reasons for opposing Christianity were in many ways vastly different from the reasons a modern person would likely cite. I am not making the claim that Christianity is necessarily superior to Pagan religions, rather given the fact that today's society has fallen so far into materialism and total denial of any unseen or non local forces of nature or the super natural, I essentially see Christians and Celsus as being on more or less on the same side of the fence into today's metaphysical arena. That is to say the ancients had a very different understanding of reality compared with your modern American, its just Christianity is the religion of that period which has survived whereas most of the Pagan religions have fallen into relative obscurity. It's very difficult to compare them, when I only have experience with one and not the other, so it's hard to make a judgement on the merits of Celsus. -------------------- The path of the herbalist is to open ourselves to nature in an innocent and pure way. SHe in turn will open her bounty and reward us with many valuable secrets. May the earth bless you. - Michael Tierra Edited by Peyote Road (02/28/16 10:29 PM)
| |||||||
| |||||||
[Re: 
Edit 
Reply 
| Shop: Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order Golden Teacher Liquid Culture For Sale |
|
| Similar Threads | Poster | Views | Replies | Last post | ||
 |
 |
took a leap of faith |  moog |
1,528 | 8 | 06/13/16 12:15 PM by Halayudha |
|
 |
Unshakeable FAITH (  1 2 all ) |
 MOTH |
2,578 | 28 | 10/28/08 10:23 PM by Kupo |
|
 |
What part, if any, does faith play in justification before God? |  fivepointer |
2,852 | 11 | 12/20/05 06:27 AM by MAIA |
|
|
sijul magic ( 1 2 3 all ) |
 LosAngelesGraff |
6,694 | 40 | 03/12/13 01:06 AM by deCypher |
|
|
pop magic(k) ( 1 2 all ) |
 Bridgeburner |
5,333 | 24 | 03/17/08 12:31 PM by thedudenj |
|
|
My seemingly endless search for my faith |  freddurgan |
1,552 | 13 | 07/19/07 05:34 PM by leery11 |
|
|
Its A Kind Of Magic |  Jackenobi |
663 | 0 | 05/26/07 08:49 PM by Jackenobi |
|
|
. ( 1 2 3 all ) |
 soulcircus |
9,482 | 54 | 02/24/07 04:17 PM by Silversoul |
| Extra information | ||
| You cannot start new topics / You cannot reply to topics HTML is disabled / BBCode is enabled Moderator: Middleman, Asante, Shroomism, Rose, Kickle, yogabunny, Northerner, DividedQuantum 6,941 topic views. 1 members, 161 guests and 12 web crawlers are browsing this forum. [ Show Images Only | Sort by Score | Print Topic ] | ||