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Unfolding Nature Shop: Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order

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The Missed Point in Christianity!
    #5373519 -

Recently, at my University, I have been attending various talks by the Christian union and, from my observations, it seems that Christians misinterpret a vital point concerning sin and the nature of the individual.

The Christians at my union seem to believe that human beings are fundamentally flawed and are of the nature of sin. They believe that they will only achieve release from this sin at the time of death when they gain ascension unto the kingdom of heaven. This I feel is a grave mistake to make in one's religious practice. As it says that God made human beings in his own image, I don't see how then, we can be fundamentally sinful (unless God is also of the nature of sin).

If God is perfect, then we, having been created in his image, must also be of the nature of perfection. Sin, IMO is only that which obscures this natural perfection. Now I use the word "obscure" because as our real nature is that of perfection, it can never be tainted or stained by our sinful actions, no more than the sky can be tainted by a dark cloud.

"But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear" Isaiah 59:2

To me the Garden of Eden passage is the story of the beginning of ignorance. We ignore God and his natural perfection, and in ignoring and defying our own nature, we are thrown from the garden of paradise and left to wander in exile, clouded by sinful actions.

God gave us free will, and with this free will we chose to ignore, defy, and go against our own natural perfection, this alone is the cause of our exile and fall from grace.

The Christian religion at large, misses this vital point even though it includes within it the methods of prayer and penance that can, if used skillfully, bring us to the clear understanding of God and our own natural perfection.

?Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world." I John 4:4

Once this is realized, there no longer exists a gap between God and ourselves. We essentially, in this lifetime, regain the Garden of Eden, and our lives become an expression of the fundamental goodness and compassion of God. The lines of communication open, and the limitations and barriers that once existed between human beings and God disappear, as we recognize that we never left his loving embrace, not even for an instant.

"Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God" Matthew 5:8

With the view that our real nature is sinful, how could it be possible for one to make any progress toward a virtuous life of harmony with God? One would be doomed to a life of self-loathing, whilst hanging on to the hope of an escape in the after-life. Progress would be impossible as one would not reflect upon how sin causes our sufferings and how to overcome this problem in our lives.

"For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace" Roman 6:14

With a sinful nature then, how can one possibly recognize the meaning, necessity and purpose of performing pious and virtuous actions? Thinking that one has to go against ones own nature to perform such actions, one would only commit those actions out of duty, not out of the openness and loving kindness towards others that Jesus Christ lived and perscribed.

"Thou Shalt Love Thy Neighbour as Thyself"

This is my humble opinion, and it is my wish that others come to a similar understanding.


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Edited by Sinbad (03/07/06 01:26 PM)

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Re: The Missed Point in Christianity! [Re: Sinbad]
    #5373653 -

That's well said. Every moment of life we have the opportunity to use our free wills to come closer to unitive knowledge of God.

My question is: if our wills are free, and can choose whether to come closer to God or not to, wouldn't that mean that our wills exist independently from God and His will? I have this gut feeling that somehow it's not separate and merely veiled by illusion, but I'm not sure how to actually articulate a logical argument stating that.


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"What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?"

"Belief is a beautiful armor
But makes for the heaviest sword"
- John Mayer

Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin.

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln

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Re: The Missed Point in Christianity! [Re: dblaney]
    #5374284 -

God give us free will.. (as well)

:crazy2:

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Re: The Missed Point in Christianity! [Re: Sinbad]
    #5374317 -

It?s so difficult to make Christians understand this. For some reason they often insist that humans are fundamentally flawed and the only way to salvation is to declare Jesus as your lord and savior. But if this were true then why did Jesus preach the rest of the gospels? Why would he say things like "your righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees in order to enter the kingdom". Clearly it takes more than accepting him as your savior to get to heaven. Its a shame really because Christianity is such a wonderful religion when properly understood in my opinion. Imagine if all the Christians throughout history had truly striven to become Christ-like instead of just declaring themselves saved and going on sinning? The world could be a very different place.


dblaney said:
That's well said. Every moment of life we have the opportunity to use our free wills to come closer to unitive knowledge of God.

My question is: if our wills are free, and can choose whether to come closer to God or not to, wouldn't that mean that our wills exist independently from God and His will? I have this gut feeling that somehow it's not separate and merely veiled by illusion, but I'm not sure how to actually articulate a logical argument stating that.


As Ramana Maharshi says "there is only self-aware self and ignorant self". Our enlightened wills, or higher wills are what is called the will of God but since most of us have fallen into a state of consciousness in which we lack self knowledge our wills become distorted by illusion, this is the will of our ego.

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Re: The Missed Point in Christianity! [Re: Deviate]
    #5374388 -

i was hoping this post would be even more insightful than it was


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No statements made in any post or message by myself should be construed to mean that I am now, or have ever been, participating in or considering participation in any activities in violation of any local, state, or federal laws. All posts are works of fiction.

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Re: The Missed Point in Christianity! [Re: Sinbad]
    #5375302 -

If God is perfect, then we, having been created in his image, must also be of the nature of perfection.

You are missing the effects of the Fall. While man was created good, the Fall changed the nature of man to wickedness. God did not create man wicked.
Fallen man is in need of a heart transplant. This is why a man must be converted and given a new nature in the new birth. Fallen man is in bondage to sin and has no free will. His will is only free to do what it is inclined to do, which is wickedness. The tragedy is that fallen man is in the delusion that he is free, when in fact he is not, and can not even see it. He is ignorant of true righteousness, sin and judgement.

The Christian religion at large, misses this vital point even though it includes within it the methods of prayer and penance that can, if used skillfully, bring us to the clear understanding of God and our own natural perfection.

Grace is not given because someone "skillfully uses the methods of prayer and penance". This is salvation by works, which is a stench to God. Grace is given to lost hell deserving sinners. And the only reason they know they are lost hell-deserving sinners is because they have been taught of God to see this fact.
Only sinners are saved, not the self-righteous.


With the view that our real nature is sinful, how could it be possible for one to make any progress toward a virtuous life of harmony with God?

Before conversion our real nature is sinful, but after we are made a new creation in the inward parts, sin no longer has dominion over the Christian.


With a sinful nature then, how can one possibly recognize the meaning, necessity and purpose of performing pious and virtuous actions? Thinking that one has to go against ones own nature to perform such actions, one would only commit those actions out of duty, not out of the openness and loving kindness towards others that Jesus Christ lived and prescribed.

"Thou Shalt Love Thy Neighbour as Thyself"

Christians, out of thankfulness and joy, not out of fear, perform "virtuous actions". Knowing that they are forgiven while they were enemies to God, and have been shown unconditional love, this is the motivation.

I hope that you might be broken down to see your lost condition and wretchedness, that the light of the gospel might shine into your heart.

Edited by fivepointer (03/07/06 08:05 PM)

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Re: The Missed Point in Christianity! [Re: fivepointer]
    #5379575 -

i see the fact that we are in "God's image" signifying that in fact there is no true God.

that is to say, there is a true God, but he is not a he or a she or an it.

There is no God outside of our little heads. Our bodies. God is in our image...... why? We are a REFLECTION of God........ everyone is God.

When you become as Jesus became, you .......... are ... God. All beings are to become as Jesus was, and all beings are to create heaven on earth.

All beings.............. are God. There is not a God in the clouds that is external from you, judging you...... watching you. There is only yourself.

See, we have this thin tiny little veil of consciousness, and once pierced we have nothing but source.

Source. All things have source. All sentient humans have the exact same source...... the exact same mind. And that mind is God. That mind is the self crucified and destroyed of all ego limitations, that is the mind looking in on itself, observing absolute clarity.

We fell from God......... well.......... the story of Eden seems like we were in tune and harmony and peace with nature. Then we began labeling things as good and evil and in doing so severed our connection to the divine that is in all things..........

this resulted in us being ashamed of OUR OWN BODIES we grew ashamed that we were naked but the important thing to take away from this story is that you should NEVER be ashamed of such things.

for nakedness is your true identity... the clothes are put on to cover up truth as we dilute source with labeling and knowledge.

.................... realizing you are naked. Is that not the definition of self awareness? Do babies realize they are naked?
I invite you to podner this.... what is nudity? Nudity is not a concept. One who is nude does not know that he is nude.
Nudity only exists from the perspective of the clothed.

The clothed reject parts of their bodies, and therefore psyches, as immoral, not fit to be seen.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

from the knowledge of good and evil comes "judgement" of the self. comes guilt, conviction, and sin. Sin exists only because man invented the concept! Think it over. Man invented the concept of sin, and therefore sin exists.

we in essence put ourselves through our own judgements, our own hells.......... by straying away from the inner God. I dunno.........
its a lot to ruminate over. The important thing is to try and be filled with love and liberated from judgement of yourself and others.

Topic starter is right, if you assume you are inherently evil, how can you possibly do good? If you assume that you have the Buddha nature within you, all you must do is realize this and nurture it, and you don't have to worry about doing good, you will naturally progress into holier and holier stature as time goes by, and doing good will be nature.

This is what accepting Christ is, I do believe.

To go back to the source, paradise, heaven, eden...... get rid of the knowledge of good and evil..........
pure intentions juxtaposed would send two lovers souls in motion.
This is a pure moment.
Then you analyze and label the moment and separate yourself from it by doing so (see holy moment segment in Waking Life)
disentagrating, as it goes, testing our communicae


--------------------
I am the MacDaddy of Heimlich County, I play it Straight Up Yo!

....I embrace my desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow, to feel inspired, to fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain, to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human......
Om Namah Shivaya, I tell you What!

Edited by leery11 (03/09/06 12:32 AM)

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Re: The Missed Point in Christianity! [Re: leery11]
    #5379598 -

Quote:
There is no God outside of our little heads. Our bodies. God is in our image...... why? We are a REFLECTION of God........ everyone is God.


It seems more likely to me that "God" is a reflection of us.

Take an arrogant alpha male, blow him up on scale until he's larger than the universe itself, and you've just gone from polytheism to monotheism.


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So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.

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Re: The Missed Point in Christianity! [Re: Ravus]
    #5379612 -

Ravus said:
It seems more likely to me that "God" is a reflection of us.



absolutely. It works both ways.
Quote:
Take an arrogant alpha male, blow him up on scale until he's larger than the universe itself, and you've just gone from polytheism to monotheism.


No. You have the erroneous (IMO) view of an external SENTIENT God.....

what you're saying is we create God as a fiction.... I do not disagree..... (am i misinterpreting?)

what I'm saying is that in fact to find God we look inside to pure consciousness without judgement or ego-boundaries.... and that ALL HUMANS have this within them, therefore are all reflections of God but with the manifestations of karma (namely being good and evil)

Adam + Eve = yin + yang.

All humans are all possible reflections of humans that are not divine, but have divine potential.

You just have to find something and start coloring with it to make any sense out of anything. Don't take literally because it's all the same...... its difference in language the whole NO ALLAH IS THE TRUE GOD vs NO JESUS IS, YOU'RE GOING TO HELL that's absurd..... its a fault of literalism and reliance on WORDS and SYMBOLS.

symbols represent, but symbols are not.


--------------------
I am the MacDaddy of Heimlich County, I play it Straight Up Yo!

....I embrace my desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow, to feel inspired, to fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain, to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human......
Om Namah Shivaya, I tell you What!

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Re: The Missed Point in Christianity! [Re: Sinbad]
    #5380306 -

The doctrine of Original Sin was promulgated by the early Roman Catholic Church, and later inherited by Protestantism and the Orthodox Church (after their schism with Rome). The doctrine, formulated by Augustine but derived from the Genesis myth, is far more a political device than a true statement of the metaphysics of Divinity and Humanity. In other words, making Humans 'depraved from birth,' as if we inherited a spiritual condition from our mythic parents makes the need for complete redemption absolutely necessary. That redemption, ostensibly through Christ, was said to be mediated to Humanity only through the sacraments, particularly the administration of the eucharist. Pretending to an 'apostolic succession' of priests, back to the legendary Peter, upon whom the Church was to be built, only ordained priests could administer the eucharist, without which there is no salvation.

All this was a complete departure from the Jewish understanding of sin (we are not depraved from birth) - we have an evil inclination which does NOT have to be followed. In the words of Jesus, "I have come NOT for the righteous, but for the sinners." In addition, the doctrine of Original Sin effectively occults the Truth that mystics in all religious traditions have shown us - that below the physical and soulful aspects of Humanity, our essence partakes of God. This has been further occulted by theologies pertaining to our 'Nous' or 'Spirit' as that which 'touches upon' God, but the radical separation of Human and Divine is intended by this doctrine. It addresses the surface of existence, not the metaphysical depths. Most people go through life exclusively identified with egoist individuality. The identification with Christ means identification with Universal Consciousness (Spirit: archaic). We think we're a 'wave' that comes into and goes out of being, never Realizing that all waves are one with the Ocean (which is God). This is what it is to have 'the mind of Christ.'


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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

Edited by MarkostheGnostic (03/09/06 08:22 PM)

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Unfolding Nature Shop: Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order

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