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

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Re: Christianity = Faith of the Lazy [Re: SketchyTX05]
    #5809421 -

Christianity is not the one and only path to the "light," and Biblical stories written by men are often used to generate negativity, rather than encourage positivity and love. This is the Christianity to which Syle is referring, not a heartfelt (and non-religious) connection with divinity. Why insist upon a particular form of communion with divinity, if the important point is Love and Light?

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Re: Christianity = Faith of the Lazy [Re: Veritas]
    #5809428 -

Christianity is not even a guaranteed path to anywhere...the path is within the self...the religion is irrelevant if the path is blocked by the self.


--------------------
"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda

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Re: Christianity = Faith of the Lazy [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
    #5809479 -

I agree. Personally, I don't think that religion is a spiritual path. When we place the location of divinity outside of ourselves, and set upon worshipping it as though we are lowly, we have veered away from the spirit and into the ego (which enjoys being pious as much as it enjoys being superior.)

My reference to the "one and only path" was related to what the prior poster said about Christianity, and did not reflect my belief that it is a valid path.

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Re: Christianity = Faith of the Lazy [Re: Veritas]
    #5809483 -

100%


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"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda

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Re: Christianity = Faith of the Lazy [Re: Veritas]
    #5809494 -

Veritas said:
Christianity is not the one and only path to the "light," and Biblical stories written by men are often used to generate negativity, rather than encourage positivity and love. This is the Christianity to which Syle is referring, not a heartfelt (and non-religious) connection with divinity. Why insist upon a particular form of communion with divinity, if the important point is Love and Light?



That kind of hurts. I know exactly what you mean and where you're coming from. Most of the bible that encourages certain types of behaviors weren't stories at all, though. They were letters written by a man named Paul who had deep rooted faith in Jesus Christ and took everything that he said from Jesus' teaching.

He wanted to share what Jesus Christ wanted to spread (and DID spread) to everyone he could. And, honestly, it is my great honor to be able to discuss these things with all of you even if you don't believe at all what I'm trying to say -- I just hope I'm not being a horrible example of what a Christian should be.

A lot of Christians I've known throughout my life have distorted the teachings of Jesus Christ and have used it as a catapult to judge. I'm so sorry that we have all been exposed to this. They may have judged, and not been much of an example, and then left a bad taste in your mouth about christianity... but it's a big belief of mine to go to the root of the word, not the examples you've seen, to get the truth for yourself.

Please, please, PLEASE don't judge christianity based on those people we've all seen who are truly fakers under a christian mask. Many of them may not understand, but you have the brain and the power to understand and practice the concepts taught in the bible.




(The Light we were talking about... granted by a non-christian belief, the light can come from many many different places and practices... but the definition of 'the light' changes with your beliefs. I didn't mean to offend anyone by putting it out there as if all believed that MY definition of light was their definition light too. Im terribly sorry!)

Edited by SketchyTX05 (07/01/06 11:47 AM)

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Re: Christianity = Faith of the Lazy [Re: Syle]
    #5809499 -

Syle said:
Almost every christian I know is one because their family is. Doesn't that seem unfair to anyone?


That's true, but the smart ones break out of the religious cycle. The weak hold onto their faith, the strong realize they are their own life's director. The people that turn from no religion to religion are something else, i'm not sure what...

I was educated in a catholic k-8 school, church every sunday because my parents made me go. It never made any sense to me, so I dropped religion. There was a lot of guilt inside of me for not believing what they were telling me to believe when I was younger, and for doing things the church would consider inappropriate. Since then I've come to feel almost hatred toward the church.


--------------------

ca'rouse (k-rouz)
intr.v.
To engage in boisterous, drunken merrymaking.

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Re: Christianity = Faith of the Lazy [Re: SketchyTX05]
    #5809531 -

I've read the Bible, as well as any other religious texts I could get my hands on, and many of the meaningful ideas are reiterated throughout world religions. However, the core idea that man is meant to worship just DOES NOT work for me.

Philosophically, I have no problem with Biblical ideas such as "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," or "love thy neighbor as thyself," but when they are integrated into a system which seems calculated to separate us both from our divine nature AND those who do not share our particular religious beliefs, they seem hypocritical and surface-oriented.

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Re: Christianity = Faith of the Lazy [Re: TODAY]
    #5809536 -

TODAY said:
Syle said:
Almost every christian I know is one because their family is. Doesn't that seem unfair to anyone?


That's true, but the smart ones break out of the religious cycle. The weak hold onto their faith, the strong realize they are their own life's director. The people that turn from no religion to religion are something else, i'm not sure what...

I was educated in a catholic k-8 school, church every sunday because my parents made me go. It never made any sense to me, so I dropped religion. There was a lot of guilt inside of me for not believing what they were telling me to believe when I was younger, and for doing things the church would consider inappropriate. Since then I've come to feel almost hatred toward the church.


If I were in your shoes, I bet I would be feeling pity rather than hate for the church. Although, some people are so comfortable in their faith and their beliefs that they fear nothing; a concept that seems somewhat comfortable (however ignorant it may be, particularly those who never had a choice to find any other forms of beliefs) but also frightening to the point of fanaticism.


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https://kenaisigh.bandcamp.com/ <- Just completed the 2021 RPM challenge for February - An EP in one month (5 songs or 20 minutes). Check it out!

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Re: Christianity = Faith of the Lazy [Re: Silversoul]
    #5809978 -

Silversoul said:
I didn't just choose Christianity out of laziness.  It found me.  When you've had a direct experience of Christ's presence, it's hard not to find faith.  I don't categorically accept the Church's teachings or Biblical infallibility.  I have faith through experience.  I cannot "just be human" when I've been given gnosis, because I have seen that our true nature is spirit, not body.  Finding God is an indescribable experience, and I hope you can experience it one day, too.  Not because I think you're going to hell or any bullshit like that.  But simply because once you experience it, you will understand.


Once you have tasted honey, you would know its sweetness directly, and therefore would no longer require "faith" in how that honey is any longer. :grin: :japsmile:


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Re: Christianity = Faith of the Lazy [Re: Sinbad]
    #5810076 -

Unfortunately, Christianity isn't a sensation.

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Re: Christianity = Faith of the Lazy [Re: Syle]
    #5810184 -

Where is the self discovery in christianity? Where is the work put in to discover who you really are?

The Holy Spirit shows His people who they are and who God is, it is part of conversion. Every convert is shown sin, righteousness and judgment. No one is a Christian who has not been convicted of their sinnership by the power of the Holy Spirit.


You slave your life in a church and constantly worrying about doing the "right" thing.

Being a Christian is not about "going to a church" and worrying. You have many misconceptions about these things.


Here is a thought, just be human. You are meant to be a human, that is why you were born as one. Don't try to change yourself into something you aren't. You error because that is in your nature. You have sex because you are meant to reproduce. You fight/kill because life is about survival of the fittest, pure and simple. Stop holding yourself up on a pedastal as some divine creature put here on earth as the center of all things. You aren't.

You have stated many things that you believe in the above statement. God's people are made a new creation, and become people with a different nature after they are converted. Life is not about mere physical survival. The belief you have is the belief in no belief.

We will all pass away into the void, much as the way we felt before birth.

That is your belief, however I know I will not pass into a void, but have eternal life.

What I am trying to say here is: explore. Figure out who you are. Try denying your god and your jesus. Tell them that this is your life, and they can't have it.

This is an impossible request for someone who is indwelt by the Holy Spirit and believes God's testimony as true. God's people are taught by Him, and have the seal of the Spirit and confirmation of the Word to their souls.

The vast majority of called "Christians" simply do not believe the gospel. They have concocted a false jesus out of their own vain imaginations. This jesus does not exist, and they are still under God's wrath.

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Re: Christianity = Faith of the Lazy [Re: fivepointer]
    #5810364 -

I don't know where the bible sits with me, but I would like to add that religion takes more of bum rap than it deserves, most Americans aren't even religious, they're aware of religion but they don't practice any particular faith really, Most people have a somewhat of conception of their own personal good without alot of religious influence, maybe its due to a factor of fear, or survival, why people get along,

and thats just it, they're just getting along, they don't really like one another to the point that you can say hey we're friends, we often try to make each others life harder than it really needs to be, and I say this is not due to religion, but because we don't have a spiritual understanding, we have more of an understanding of dollars and cents, its too easy to point the finger at Christianity, and say its their fault, I don't know,

I don't really feel the love in America and I don't really assess this to Christianity, I think its more of the stuff of what the Bible was trying to teach us, that we ignore, such as self sacrifice, not being greedy, not being lazy, stupid, envious, prideful, etc. , anyways this doesn't mean I'm Christian, but I'd be reluctant to adopt the beliefs of the skeptical majority that can't really get along,

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Re: Christianity = Faith of the Lazy [Re: capliberty]
    #5810521 -

Actually, most Americans identify themselves as Christian.  According to The American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), conducted in 2001,  out of 50,281 American residential households, nearly 80% were some variety of Christian.

The "skeptical majority" does not exist, as those who self-identified as non-religious/atheist/agnostic amounted to a mere 15% of the households surveyed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Religious_affiliation

Many religious leaders actively encourage discrimination and hatred of "sinners," a group which usually includes single mothers, homosexuals, feminists, atheists/agnostics, controversial authors, and anyone else whom they can direct a Bible verse at.  :thumbdown:

Certainly there are many problems which do not originate from organized religion, but this does not mean that religion is getting a "bad rap."

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Re: Christianity = Faith of the Lazy [Re: capliberty]
    #5810531 -

Think about this- every facet of human knowledge since the dawn of time has been changing with new discoveries EXCEPT spirituality and it doesn't make ANY SENSE! Chemistry, biology, medicine, psychology, mathematics, EVERYTHING has been revamped at some point in time, except religion. This is because we used reasoning and experiments to determine the true relationships between us, our lives, and our environment. Religion has no place in science because it doesn't hold up to reason.
The bible, quaran, and torah are all at least a thousand years old. Almost EVERY belief about relationships in the human experience have been changed in the last 600 years. We believed the sun rotated around the earth, and wound's should be treated with bandages and boiling hot oil. Then one day a doctor didnt have oil so he just used a bandage and it healed much faster.
Religion was introduced to make humans better in society. Someone believing they will serve ETERNITY in fire by mistreating other people (lying, stealing, cheating) will try not to piss off their God, therefore be a better person. It also seems much more inviting than reason. Say your son contracts leukemia, and on the way to the hospital lightning takes out a power line in front of your car, killing your wife. Based on reason alone, your life, once full of love and happiness, is now very miserable. But if you believe God came for them because it was their time, and they are now in eternal bliss and happiness in a Cloud city where you will join them and everyone else you loved, then it will seem like destiny, and it will be at least bearable.
Religion has its purposes, it gives hope and guidance to many, but the suffering it causes is much worse. More people have died in the name of God than for any other un-natural reason. Religion is always taken out of its original context, a recent example is the protests at soldiers' funerals, inspired by the lovely christian site godhatesamerica.com

If we are to advance as humans, we must disregard everything we think we know about religion, and start anew, basing our knowledge of it on an empirical level.


--------------------
remember magic eye!?

I can't even begin to know what I'm getting into.

Edited by sup3rhuman (07/02/06 12:58 AM)

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Re: Christianity = Faith of the Lazy [Re: sup3rhuman]
    #5810604 -

Quote:
most Americans identify themselves as Christian


I didn't say Chritian, I said religous, yeah an how accurate is a survey, someone maybe technically Christian, this is not what I consider a Christian, are they a practicing Christian, do they go to church, prey everyday to Jesus, No, most people aren't die hard Christians, I mean look at this forum, does its sounds like that everybody is a die hard Christian, the majority are skeptics, trust me, Your data and sources or giving you a false impression, This data is based off counting baptisms or some obscure source, Even thoughs who consider themselves Christian, are hardly into the faith to make significant difference in their lives,

Quote:
Many religious leaders actively encourage discrimination and hatred of "sinners," a group which usually includes single mothers, homosexuals, feminists, atheists/agnostics, controversial authors, and anyone else whom they can direct a Bible verse at.


I'm not totally sticking up for Christianity, I mean the whole thing about prosposed prophets preforming false mircles in the name of God, such as Benny Henn, he preys on suckers and commits fraud, but forget what these people do, you can't judge Christianity based on this, the bible and many other Christians don't condone these actions, there is definitly a population of these people, but even if there were a million, they would still be a small minority

I'm looking more at everyday people, I think there are much more people who really aren't concerned or worried about religous persecution, they have different worries, and different outlooks that really don't entertain religion that much.

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Re: Christianity = Faith of the Lazy [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
    #5811105 -

Quote:
Huehuecoyot said:

All faith is for the lazy. Spiritual belief should be based on personal experience.


How can you believe what you experience if you have no faith in yourself?


--------------------
Trust thyself.

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Re: Christianity = Faith of the Lazy [Re: justAkid]
    #5811214 -

You don't need faith if you have certain knowledge. Faith is for those that do not know. I have certain knowledge in my spiritual beliefs.


--------------------
"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda

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Re: Christianity = Faith of the Lazy [Re: Syle]
    #5811420 -

Syle said:
Still, how do people get anything out of christianity when so little personal worth is used to really delve into their religion?

And don't tell me stuff like: they go to church, they pray, they do fundraisers. Almost every christian I know is one because their family is. Doesn't that seem unfair to anyone?


I'm not really sure what you're referring to. From my experience of places of worship, such as Churches, Hindu Temples, and Mosques, the experience of congregation seems neither pathological or unenjoyed. Many enjoy worship, and many enjoy worship with others.

As for "why" people are Christians.. you don't know the inward lives of others, so why speculate? How is it do the activities and beliefs of others somehow penetrate into your world-view comfort zone thus creating an "unfair" situation?

Ranting about Christianity is so 1990's anyways. It seems people are more busy complaining about Christians than actually having negative encounters with them :rolleyes:


--------------------


"Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is. Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death."

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Re: Christianity = Faith of the Lazy [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
    #5811620 -

Faith in knowledge has two sides. One can make one blind (to the things we don't know yet), but the other makes the knowledge applicable in the first place.
Nice paradox. imho.


--------------------
Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
......................................................
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'

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Re: Christianity = Faith of the Lazy [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
    #5811756 -

Huehuecoyotl said:
All faith is for the lazy. Spiritual belief should be based on personal experience.


With all the historical and even contemporary prejudice against 'gnosis' (spiritual knowledge) coming from Literalist Christendom, those people all ignore the obvious. St. Paul - the very architect of Christian doctrine - was a self-righteous Jew who was going about with thugs, 'stoning' Christians to death! (Which is why St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr who was 'stoned to death' became the 'patron saint' of the Grateful Dead). But more to the point, Paul was a murderer until he had a classic religious experience. A bright light blinded him (for days according to his letter) and a voice from no apparent locus of origin spoke to him. True or not, that experience on the road to Damascus converted him into a follower of Jesus, called Christ.

In another place, Paul obliquely referring to himself ("I knew a man in Christ...") relates his experience of being "caught up to the third heaven" (which reveals a certain knowledge [gnosis] of the kinds of heavens in his world view), and further, "whether in the body or out of the body, I know not." So here, he has a very Gnostic experience of being aware, yet he doesn't know whether he is still an embodied being or an unembodied being. He says "...God knoweth..." This relates the Mystery of our true nature - one which was projected onto Jesus as having had an 'apparent' body. We all have apparent bodies, relative to our true nature if we are imperishable Consciousness. This Realization constitutes the true Gnosis, which is why the Gnostics embraced Paul as their own. Paul was the 'Captain Trips' of early Christianity!

Paul speaks much of faith, but the obvious thing is that without FIRST having had an Experience, he would not have had faith in Christ as The Way (to be, to God). From a Gnostic psychology, Psychic Christians are those Christians who must rely upon faith, because they themselves have not had such transcendental experiences. It is, Biblically speaking, a higher condition to adopt the experience of others through faith than to insist on having the experience oneself. To the most Gnostic of the early Christians Jesus says:

"Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen andyet have believed." - John 20:29

It is childlike to trust in this Way, and for those Pneumatic Christians who have had transcendental experiences which convinced and converted them to Christ, it is faith in the authenticity of one's own experience that sustains one afterwards. For Psychic Christians, the Light of Heaven may not dawn until one leaves the embodied state in physical death, and faith in Heaven is equivalent to faith in God. I believe that your meaning is that people who merely say "I believe in God" and leave it at that are lazy. Correct me if I'm wrong. There is nothing transforming about saying/thinking these words if one does not live in prayer - in moment-to-moment comm[union] with God.


--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

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

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