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akira_akuma
Φύσις κρύπτεσθαι ὕψιστος φιλεῖ


Registered: 08/28/09
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Re: The Gnostic Turn In Secular Society [Re: blingbling]
#24013672 - 01/16/17 02:24 AM (7 years, 14 days ago) |
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Quote:
blingbling said: He's kind of dancing around the stuff I'm talking about, but it is insightful. The gnostic turn that I'm speaking of is a turn away from orthodoxy as it becomes outdated as Elliot describes. But to be unorthodox creates its own problems. I think that eventually this new found gnosticism will find an orthodoxy, or multiple orthodoxies, and this will be a new global religion. We can see the seeds of this in modern environmentalism and its quasi-religious ethic. Eventually the new age movement will become institutionalised into a global orthodoxy. That's my prediction for the future of religion for what its worth.
not if the christians spread their dogma anymore radically than they are these days.
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blingbling
what you chicken stew?

Registered: 09/04/10
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Re: The Gnostic Turn In Secular Society [Re: akira_akuma]
#24013680 - 01/16/17 02:28 AM (7 years, 14 days ago) |
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Christianity has mostly gone into disrepute, (hence Christian fundamentalism) which is why the new age and atheism grows. If your worried about radical dogmatics you should shift your attention to Islam.
-------------------- Kupo said: let's fuel the robots with psilocybin. cez said: everyone should smoke dmt for religion. dustinthewind13 said: euthanasia and prostitution should be legal and located in the same building. White Beard said: if you see the buddha on the road, rape him, then kill him. then rape him again.
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tHEfLY
Stranger
Registered: 04/16/16
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Re: The Gnostic Turn In Secular Society [Re: blingbling]
#24013713 - 01/16/17 03:00 AM (7 years, 14 days ago) |
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Yeah Islam still has that sense of metaphysical objectivity that we're talking about, which gives it exactly the kind of strength and vitality that the West has lost. Modern people, even the Christians, tend largely toward relativism and uncertainty. Right or wrong, belief is a powerful force in the world.
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blingbling
what you chicken stew?

Registered: 09/04/10
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Re: The Gnostic Turn In Secular Society [Re: tHEfLY]
#24013727 - 01/16/17 03:20 AM (7 years, 14 days ago) |
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The choice to be a Christian is exactly that, a choice among many choices. In the Islamic world there really isn't much choice. Your either my brand of muslim or your essentially not human. Its kind of hard for us to understand now but Christianity used to be like that.
-------------------- Kupo said: let's fuel the robots with psilocybin. cez said: everyone should smoke dmt for religion. dustinthewind13 said: euthanasia and prostitution should be legal and located in the same building. White Beard said: if you see the buddha on the road, rape him, then kill him. then rape him again.
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akira_akuma
Φύσις κρύπτεσθαι ὕψιστος φιλεῖ


Registered: 08/28/09
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Re: The Gnostic Turn In Secular Society [Re: blingbling]
#24013754 - 01/16/17 03:55 AM (7 years, 14 days ago) |
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Quote:
blingbling said: Christianity has mostly gone into disrepute, (hence Christian fundamentalism) which is why the new age and atheism grows. If your worried about radical dogmatics you should shift your attention to Islam.
no. i'm gonna focus on both.
you don't think christians can see the ailing christianity? you don't hear enough about how oppressed they are, how much the US is a christian nation, and how demonic everyone else is, and how they paint those around them as evil demons for not being "normal", and the rise in christian political activism, you haven't heard enough of that to be convinced? ok.
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tHEfLY
Stranger
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Re: The Gnostic Turn In Secular Society [Re: blingbling]
#24013761 - 01/16/17 04:14 AM (7 years, 14 days ago) |
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Quote:
blingbling said: The choice to be a Christian is exactly that, a choice among many choices. In the Islamic world there really isn't much choice. Your either my brand of muslim or your essentially not human. Its kind of hard for us to understand now but Christianity used to be like that.
Well, everything is a choice now. Parents are starting to ask their children to decide what gender they want to be. I don't want to derail this into a transgender thing because I've got nothing against them as individuals, but it's all part of a larger experiment in social destratification and nobody seems to be thinking about what the implications could be when the previously given structures are gone and every possible form of identity becomes elective and therefore essentially groundless. It's presented as freedom, but too much freedom = oblivion.
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KauaiOrca
Waterman

Registered: 08/12/08
Posts: 3,131
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Re: The Gnostic Turn In Secular Society [Re: tHEfLY]
#24013786 - 01/16/17 04:59 AM (7 years, 14 days ago) |
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Quote:
tHEfLY said:
Well, everything is a choice now. Parents are starting to ask their children to decide what gender they want to be. I don't want to derail this into a transgender thing because I've got nothing against them as individuals, but it's all part of a larger experiment in social destratification and nobody seems to be thinking about what the implications could be when the previously given structures are gone and every possible form of identity becomes elective and therefore essentially groundless. It's presented as freedom, but too much freedom = oblivion.
Most people in the world, in terms of their core belief systems, are what they are because of where they were born and their parents. If you're born in Saudi Arabia, there's a good chance you're a fundamentalist Muslim. Born in Tibet? Probably a Buddhist. Born in Colombia? Almost certainly a Christian ... Born to parents that teach science at Harvard? You're probably an atheist ... and so on.
That is the primary determining factor. Access to education and travel can have a big impact, over time in changing that.
Religion is not freedom, it's an obedience system for the masses to make them far easier to rule and more compliant to serve the wealth classes. Praying to a God you can't see and taking your direction from a Priest Class that lives off the "generosity" of believers is an inherently corrupt system.
-------------------- "The universe is endless, limitless and infinite. Any effort to define it's boundaries is an attempt to overcome ignorance. We are physical, mental and spiritual beings ... there is no beginning and there is no end. There is only memory. Our repeated loss of memory experiences create the illusion of beginnings and ends. Immortality is the ability to retain full memory through all consciousness transformations. Loss of memory is man's greatest curse and, in very real terms, death." -- Ancient Taoist Master
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,539
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Re: The Gnostic Turn In Secular Society [Re: tHEfLY]
#24013813 - 01/16/17 06:00 AM (7 years, 14 days ago) |
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I see an endless chain of leader worship in all religions, and it is not pretty.
Charisma and people skills are core to all ideas of a good life, or a good way of living.
All the Messiahs, Ayatolla's, Popes, Guru's and Buddha's etc. have developed charisma, & can teach how to do charisma, but the organizations that form around them, like magnetized iron filings, are mostly terrible. These guys don't know how to run a kindergarten, so orthodoxy is usually characterized by extreme traditionalism and lack of accountability among members who defer to the "wisdom" of the messiah.
Each person should be their own Ayatolla, or Buddha and that's that.
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tHEfLY
Stranger
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Re: The Gnostic Turn In Secular Society [Re: redgreenvines]
#24013854 - 01/16/17 06:51 AM (7 years, 14 days ago) |
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Quote:
Religion is not freedom, it's an obedience system for the masses to make them far easier to rule and more compliant to serve the wealth classes. Praying to a God you can't see and taking your direction from a Priest Class that lives off the "generosity" of believers is an inherently corrupt system.
I never said religion was freedom. Religion can restrict some freedoms, but that's not always a bad thing. It's better than formless anarchy.
Quote:
redgreenvines said: Each person should be their own Ayatolla, or Buddha and that's that.
How many people are capable of that? Not many, and anyway values need to be shared because that is the basis of community and any society that tries to exist without reference to a higher order is bound to fail. People need to speak the same language, each man for himself is a disaster.
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KauaiOrca
Waterman

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Re: The Gnostic Turn In Secular Society [Re: tHEfLY]
#24014006 - 01/16/17 08:25 AM (7 years, 14 days ago) |
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Quote:
tHEfLY said:
I never said religion was freedom. Religion can restrict some freedoms, but that's not always a bad thing. It's better than formless anarchy.
Absence of religion does not mean, in 2017, the absence of laws that protect us from violence, chaos and predatory individuals. We are quite capable of passing and enforcing laws that prevent violence and theft and protect personal property. We have a NATURAL desire for that kind of order and religion simply incorporates that natural tendency. It isn't that religion creates it.
Religion, by enforcing conformity, often has used violence and theft to expand.
-------------------- "The universe is endless, limitless and infinite. Any effort to define it's boundaries is an attempt to overcome ignorance. We are physical, mental and spiritual beings ... there is no beginning and there is no end. There is only memory. Our repeated loss of memory experiences create the illusion of beginnings and ends. Immortality is the ability to retain full memory through all consciousness transformations. Loss of memory is man's greatest curse and, in very real terms, death." -- Ancient Taoist Master
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KauaiOrca
Waterman

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Re: The Gnostic Turn In Secular Society [Re: tHEfLY] 1
#24014012 - 01/16/17 08:29 AM (7 years, 14 days ago) |
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Quote:
tHEfLY said:
How many people are capable of that? Not many, and anyway values need to be shared because that is the basis of community and any society that tries to exist without reference to a higher order is bound to fail. People need to speak the same language, each man for himself is a disaster.
Joseph Campbell wrote about this with great insight and depth. His conclusions were that our myths have not kept up with our technology and change and secondly, that man, over time, has a tendency to confuse metaphor with fact.
We are naturally attracted to tribes or groups for a wide variety of safety and social reasons. Those groups make rules.
First and foremost, religion benefits the PRIEST CLASSES as it is a system for extracting donations and taxes from followers in exchange for preferential treatment in the after life which is one hell of a sketchy offer, if you ask me.
-------------------- "The universe is endless, limitless and infinite. Any effort to define it's boundaries is an attempt to overcome ignorance. We are physical, mental and spiritual beings ... there is no beginning and there is no end. There is only memory. Our repeated loss of memory experiences create the illusion of beginnings and ends. Immortality is the ability to retain full memory through all consciousness transformations. Loss of memory is man's greatest curse and, in very real terms, death." -- Ancient Taoist Master
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Duncan Rowhl
Fiducia Christum



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Re: The Gnostic Turn In Secular Society [Re: tHEfLY]
#24014702 - 01/16/17 01:13 PM (7 years, 14 days ago) |
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Quote:
tHEfLY said: How many people are capable of that? Not many, and anyway values need to be shared because that is the basis of community and any society that tries to exist without reference to a higher order is bound to fail. People need to speak the same language, each man for himself is a disaster.

No-one who understands Christ or Buddha would ever want the condition to be otherwise.
Hence, a lot of people who are battling against it, just haven't found it, because they are too busy battling.
Independent ground is the egos dream.
Edited by Duncan Rowhl (01/16/17 01:50 PM)
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BlueCoyote
Beyond


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Re: The Gnostic Turn In Secular Society [Re: blingbling]
#24014948 - 01/16/17 02:50 PM (7 years, 14 days ago) |
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Quote:
blingbling said: The choice to be a Christian is exactly that, a choice among many choices. In the Islamic world there really isn't much choice. Your either my brand of muslim or your essentially not human. Its kind of hard for us to understand now but Christianity used to be like that.
It's just all about the appreciation of g*d. However the religion about that is called and how it presents itself is just a dizzle dazzle down the drain by human folklore. Not meant in a negative way.
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akira_akuma
Φύσις κρύπτεσθαι ὕψιστος φιλεῖ


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Re: The Gnostic Turn In Secular Society [Re: BlueCoyote]
#24014973 - 01/16/17 02:59 PM (7 years, 14 days ago) |
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getting to end of God's, to just the singular, is ... a great way to get to the bottom of language.
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blingbling
what you chicken stew?

Registered: 09/04/10
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Re: The Gnostic Turn In Secular Society [Re: BlueCoyote]
#24014992 - 01/16/17 03:04 PM (7 years, 14 days ago) |
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I think both tHEfLY and KauaiOrca have legitimate points. We have advanced economically, technologically and morally in ways that would have been unimaginable just 100 years ago. But why have these advances left us with a feeling of emptiness, like none of it really matters anyway? I think it is because in order to make these advances we gave up some of what made life worth living, at least for our ancestors. A real connection to the universe, to a Devine creator and a the grounding of our being in creation itself.
I think tHEfLY was right when he said "Religion can restrict some freedoms, but that's not always a bad thing. It's better than formless anarchy." Formless anarchy is where we are headed, which is why I think eventually we will have a new global religion that pulls in other traditions from around the world.
-------------------- Kupo said: let's fuel the robots with psilocybin. cez said: everyone should smoke dmt for religion. dustinthewind13 said: euthanasia and prostitution should be legal and located in the same building. White Beard said: if you see the buddha on the road, rape him, then kill him. then rape him again.
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akira_akuma
Φύσις κρύπτεσθαι ὕψιστος φιλεῖ


Registered: 08/28/09
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Re: The Gnostic Turn In Secular Society [Re: blingbling]
#24015026 - 01/16/17 03:17 PM (7 years, 14 days ago) |
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,539
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Re: The Gnostic Turn In Secular Society [Re: blingbling]
#24015045 - 01/16/17 03:26 PM (7 years, 14 days ago) |
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Formless anarchy! - gimme a break!
The alternative to being corralled into sameness is not formless anarchy.
Most of everything we do and know is magic, including just putting our feet up and browsing the internet. Try to understand how that happens. (I know sudly will want to post the same pics - but that is not the what I mean here: How does a person actually sit well on the couch and lift their feet on to a foot rest in one smooth move while swinging their laptop to browse the net.) Even the most advanced neuroscientist will not be able to draw all the pathways, nor correctly assign the function of each part of the brain and body for this to happen. We who do it take it for granted. But the simplest thing we can do is still magic.
If we learn to open our eyes, everything is magical, or sacred, or blessed; but I do not think that experience confirms me to being a member of any church or congregation.
I prefer to avoid all religious figures because of how people around them act like sheep: acolytes, and drones.
At best places of orthodoxy are where people behave like they are already in hell (or kindergarten), but are at least the attendees wear nice clothing.
--------------------
_ 🧠 _
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blingbling
what you chicken stew?

Registered: 09/04/10
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Re: The Gnostic Turn In Secular Society [Re: akira_akuma]
#24015058 - 01/16/17 03:29 PM (7 years, 14 days ago) |
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Quote:
akira_akuma said:
Quote:
blingbling said: Christianity has mostly gone into disrepute, (hence Christian fundamentalism) which is why the new age and atheism grows. If your worried about radical dogmatics you should shift your attention to Islam.
no. i'm gonna focus on both.
you don't think christians can see the ailing christianity? you don't hear enough about how oppressed they are, how much the US is a christian nation, and how demonic everyone else is, and how they paint those around them as evil demons for not being "normal", and the rise in christian political activism, you haven't heard enough of that to be convinced? ok.
Perhaps in the corner of the world that you live in there is a resurgence of christianity, but for the majority of the west christianity is in disrepute. The only places its making ground are africa and parts of latin america and india, but once they make the moral and economic advances the west has made I see christianity going into disrepute there too.
I've not been to the US so I cannot speak from experience, but my studies have shown that the christianity being practiced in the west, the US included, is a neutered religion compared with say middle age england. christianity is no longer built into the fabric of society the way that it once was. So even of the self reported numbers go up in any given area it is safe to say that we are still less christian than we once were.
I think what you are hearing are the death throws of a dyeing religion that you have mistaken for vitality.
-------------------- Kupo said: let's fuel the robots with psilocybin. cez said: everyone should smoke dmt for religion. dustinthewind13 said: euthanasia and prostitution should be legal and located in the same building. White Beard said: if you see the buddha on the road, rape him, then kill him. then rape him again.
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akira_akuma
Φύσις κρύπτεσθαι ὕψιστος φιλεῖ


Registered: 08/28/09
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Re: The Gnostic Turn In Secular Society [Re: blingbling]
#24015068 - 01/16/17 03:31 PM (7 years, 14 days ago) |
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i am hearing the possible resurgence of it. i never turn my back on the frantic fits of self-preservation.
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blingbling
what you chicken stew?

Registered: 09/04/10
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Re: The Gnostic Turn In Secular Society [Re: redgreenvines]
#24015073 - 01/16/17 03:33 PM (7 years, 14 days ago) |
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Quote:
redgreenvines said: Formless anarchy! - gimme a break!
The alternative to being corralled into sameness is not formless anarchy.
Most of everything we do and know is magic, including just putting our feet up and browsing the internet. Try to understand how that happens. (I know sudly will want to post the same pics - but that is not the what I mean here: How does a person actually sit well on the couch and lift their feet on to a foot rest in one smooth move while swinging their laptop to browse the net.) Even the most advanced neuroscientist will not be able to draw all the pathways, nor correctly assign the function of each part of the brain and body for this to happen. We who do it take it for granted. But the simplest thing we can do is still magic.
If we learn to open our eyes, everything is magical, or sacred, or blessed; but I do not think that experience confirms me to being a member of any church or congregation.
I prefer to avoid all religious figures because of how people around them act like sheep: acolytes, and drones.
At best places of orthodoxy are where people behave like they are already in hell (or kindergarten), but are at least the attendees wear nice clothing.
True, but its not really the same is it. The magic we feel is the magic of amazement at humanities creativity, which will eventually be snuffed out by an expanding sun. This is much different from say the magic of the eucharist which grants humanity salvation. We feel a kind of formless anarchy because our magic no longer correlates with the meaning of existence as we wish it to be.
-------------------- Kupo said: let's fuel the robots with psilocybin. cez said: everyone should smoke dmt for religion. dustinthewind13 said: euthanasia and prostitution should be legal and located in the same building. White Beard said: if you see the buddha on the road, rape him, then kill him. then rape him again.
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