posted September 24, 2006 12:51 PM            

Mirandee, I love the scripture's quotes. Everyone has different perspective and I love to hear it. The 16th century religion, sikhism says "We must always uphold the teachings of the Gurus. The Gurus have laid down their lives for Truth."

As I said before a myterious light had filled the first 10 gurus of that religion. Have to go visit another exhibit being held in NewYork right now. Also can't help thinking how the light passed from Moses to Joshua to ...... so on..... I'm spiralling there

posted September 25, 2006 10:11 PM              

quote:

---

A man puts his self effort and it is God who provides the grace. Science has discovered a mysterious manner in which everything is in this universe, including how an electron spins. They won't admit that its the grace of God or some higher power if you will.

---

What you said here regarding man putting forth his effort and God providing the grace, Mannu, I think of as kind of a dance between God and humankind. God does not move in our lives until we move ( make effort ) and then he does provide the grace we need to see that effort through. But we have to first make the effort. Then we get all the help that is necessary from the grace of God. We take a step then God moves with us like in a dance.

Yes, it is the Grace of God that keeps everything together. If he should for just 1 second withdraw that Grace everything in creation would be thrown into oblivion. It would all cease to exist.

quote:

---

Jesus, said our Father in heaven is perfect

---

Yes, Jesus said, "Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect."

We need to remember when reading Scripture that word meanings change through the generations and also that Scripture was written in Greek. When it was translated long ago into English the closest word to the Greek word was "perfect." The word "perfect" in the time of Jesus meant to be whole, complete. So what Jesus was really saying there is that we are to try and be whole and complete in ourselves as God is whole and complete. And I think, he was also saying whole in the sense of being one with all of creation and God.

I think that God is with us asleep and in all of our waking hours. I think God is involved very deeply in our everday lives and that is where we experience God the most as we see how he is working in our lives. I have noticed that every time my life seemed bad to me or when something bad happened in my life, someone always showed up to help me through that time. I have come to see that as God working in my life and sending someone my way to help me see it through, to advise me, or nurture my pain. I think of these people in my life as human angels. I think we all look back and think of times like that in our lives when someone showed up to help us through it. Or some event happened or we got some great insight.

Regarding hell, everyone has their own concept of hell I guess. I ask myself what is the one thing that humankind dreads or fears the most? I think it is being totally alone. So my concept of heaven and hell is that what we choose, our basic fundamental choice in this life is what we will get in the next life for all eternity. That is where our free will comes to play most centrally. In that basic fundamental choice. All other choices throughout our lives will flow from that basic fundamental choice. We really only have two basic fundamental choices in life, ourselves or God. If we choose ourselves that means that everything we do throughout our lives will be geared to the things we want, what pleases us and in general, thoughts of ourselves and relating everything to ourselves. If we choose God he tends to be the center of our lives instead of ourselves. How we view the world and other people is different and how we live our lives will be different. We see things in relation to how we are connected, etc. Service of self seems geared towards pleasure and directed inward while service of God is geared outward towards others and all of existance. "Where a man's treasue is there also is where his heart will be."

For this reason I think hell is just ourselves alone for all eternity. Here we have distractions, we have other people in our lives. But that will not be the case after death. We will never see God or anyone else. Afterall, we chose in this life to serve ourselves, we chose ourselves over God so why would we want to spend eternity with God? We have only ourselves, alone for all eternity. The pain of that is much worse than fire. While if we choose God in this life we have all that God has promised us we would have. We are never alone, we are with God and those who share our joy of that for all eternity.

That is my vision and theory of heaven and hell because I believe both to be a state of eternal existance in the spiritual realm and not places like the earth is a place, and my city is a place etc. Heaven is all around us all the time. Then again so is hell. That choice of self is what I think is meant by the expression, "we create our own hell." So it could be that what we fear the most in this life becomes our hell in the next life if we choose ourselves over God.

That's my theory and I won't know if I am right or wrong until I die. Unfortunately I won't be able to come back and tell anyone else either. No one ever has but Jesus. So look to the transformation of Jesus as a hint of what heaven is like. Jesus' physical body was transformed to the point that those closest to him did not recognize him until he spoke.

One thing about Jesus' transformation, he still bore the scars of his earthly suffering. I think when we die Jesus is not going to ask what our achievements were in this life, he is not going to ask how much education we had, he is not going to ask how highly we were esteemed or proclaimed by others, all he is going to ask is to see our scars, those scars that we bore out of love for others, just as he bore his scars out of love of humankind.

posted September 27, 2006 07:42 PM              

I wanted to tell you that I had an insight today while doing laundry. I normally have my insights when doing mundane tasks like that and I do some of my deepest thinking at those times too.

Anyway, this insight came right after many thoughts on God and kind of talking to him.

I am not sure if this is what you were actually trying to convey to us here on this thread but I feel it is what Lia was saying in her posts.

Regarding our free will, yes I firmly and emphatically believe that all humankind was given free will. However in a sense those who make the fundamental option or choice of God, something greater than ourselves, are asked in a sense to relinquish that free will and let God control our lives as he knows better than we do what we need and what is best for us. Which is what Christians mean when they say, "let go and let God."

In other words we are asked to give up the control of our egos and let God run things for us in the way he sees best. We give our free will up in that respect. However it is always our option, and this has happened more times than I can count, we also can take that free will back any time we choose to do so. We can take the control back out of God's hands and into our own again. I have done that when things weren't going the way I wanted them to go. Instead of trusting God completely I have taken the reins again as my ego gets in the way.

When we do relinquish our free will to God he is in control in that sense of our lives. But never of us. That is shown in the fact that we can at any time take control back and often do. However, God does not control all the events that happen in this world. He easily could if all of humanity would relinquish their free will to him, but that is never going to happen I don't think. And many of the things that happen, just happen. God has nothing to do with their cause. But he does work towards bringing good out of everything that happens in our lives and in the world.

posted September 28, 2006 01:26 AM              

------------------
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

posted September 29, 2006 02:22 AM            

That is part of what I was saying, yes.

But, more than that, I think Scripture is telling us, not just to give ourselves to God, but, to understand that, to the extent that God is known or seen or understood, we ourselves must cease to exist, or, at least, cease to be conscious of existing as seperate from God. This is not a choice we can make, but a reality we can become aware of. It begins in the mind. It is not a choice, but a recognition of an immutable law. Nothing is seperate; God is the mainland, and no man is an island. Understading what God is, makes it impossible to view oneself as distinct from God. We cannot serve God and Self. When we seem to exist, God is invisible, but, when we see through ourselves, only God is visible.

All is one. That is why every person you meet is Christ. It is not a mere trick of perception which is advantageous to perform. It is a spiritual reality. We are all great spirits, sparks of the one fire, God, in chains of flesh and bone.

posted September 29, 2006 10:18 AM              

Yes, HSC, now I understand what you were saying and I agree with the exception of one thing. Will explain that later. I truly liked what you said, HSC.

I think the misunderstanding was a matter of terminology or how we all expressed our beliefs but really we were talking about the same thing.

I will back later today to respond here. Don't have the time right now as I have things I need to accomplish today. Right now I'm just having my coffee.

Here is a cup for you, Fayte. I know you are just waking up too as we live in the same time zone.

posted October 02, 2006 11:36 AM              

HSC, Really, after rereading your post I realized that actually there is nothing that you said that I disagree with, I just misunderstood something the first time I read your post.

Though it may not be significant to surrendering ourselves to God and you might not have actually meant it that way, I think and would say it begins not in the mind but in the heart ( the soul ) and then is formed into the thoughts and understanding of the mind. When it comes to things of God and spirituality I think the source of all knowledge comes first through the soul and then becomes our thoughts and beliefs. I don't think we can truly form any deeply held beliefs unless the soul confirms our thoughts to be true to us. In other words, when we just feel or sense throughout our whole being that something we think is true it then becomes truth to us. Our soul has confirmed it to be true.

Though having said that I don't think it is all that important where we direct the source of our knowledge of the spiritual as long as we know it.

posted October 25, 2007 11:37 PM              

i'm curious....

in the beginning of this thread
you included a quote from benedict spinoza......
one of my favorite philosophers...
he confirmed some of my budding beliefs
in pantheism when i was young......
you continued later to describe God
much the way he did......
thats one of the few things
i never accepted as a logical conclusion
from his thoughts......
as he describes God as having no free will,
as much a victim
of its own pre-configuration of the universe
as anyone else.....
and with no real consciousness .....

is this how you view God??
that it has no consciousness or free will?

i might also add
that i found it ironic
that you later invoked
the principle of sufficient reason
by liebniz....
who believed in a constrained form
of free will
and opposed spinoza....:P

dont get me wrong.....
i too prefer to take
what i find reasonable
and discard the rest.....
this is how ideas evolve......

Petron

posted October 26, 2007 03:22 AM              

There will always be endless theories.

posted October 26, 2007 04:05 PM            

quote:

---

he describes God as having no free will,
as much a victim
of its own pre-configuration of the universe
as anyone else.....
and with no real consciousness .....

is this how you view God??
that it has no consciousness or free will?

---

I am unresolved on this point.
There is reason in the universe,
in the ordering of things,
so, in a sense this may be thought of as intelligence,
but I do not know if this "intelligence" deliberates,
or if it only acts; -
if its so-called deliberations automatically entail
the manifestation of actions in the physical world.

I make use of the word "God",
whether or not it may imply to others
the quality of consciousness,
partly because, what people call "consciousness"
is, to me, no more conscious, or free,
than what I can see of God.

The other, and main, reason I speak of God,
is because I experience, as most others do,
an element of holiness in the universe.
I believe the universe, and life, contains greatness,
and that this greatness surely deserves the name of God.
I believe that we also do honor to ourselves,
and to one another, when we do honor to the universe in this way.

quote:

---

i might also add
that i found it ironic
that you later invoked
the principle of sufficient reason
by liebniz....
who believed in a constrained form
of free will
and opposed spinoza....:P

---

I am taking the principle from Schopenhauer,
a staunch determinist.
He makes more than a note of it
in his first major work,
"The Four-Fold Root of The Principle of Sufficient Reason"
He mentions the principle as having been previously stated,
but not by Leibniz, as I recall;
rather by a more obscure philosopher
whose name escapes me
(but I think it begins with a "W").

quote:

---

dont get me wrong.....
i too prefer to take
what i find reasonable
and discard the rest.....
this is how ideas evolve......

---

The thing is, Petron, I am not traditionally educated,
and I find that nearly all of my ideas are my own,
and I hear them echoed hear and there by other thinkers,
far more often than I am led to them.
It is important to remember that these ideas are not inventions, but discoveries.
I may not be the first to come ashore of a new continent,
but the land does not belong to the first explorer,
any more than it belongs to me.
Even the first to discover a new land
does not know if he is truly the first.
The second will feel just as exultant.
And a person who is led there
will see the same wonders for himself;
for the landscape of mind is ultimately eternal,
and only superficially unique to every viewer.
It belongs to no man.

If you'll permit me, the land is God's.

posted October 26, 2007 04:30 PM            

There are theories,
and then there are inevitabilities.

I contend,
as Goethe and Rudolph Steiner contended,
that thoughts are things,
and that they are perceived by the mind,
just as objects are perceived by the senses.

So when we apprehend an idea,
we can, by careful consideration of it,
discover whether or not it has all the proper dimensions.
Some people see ideas, but they do not see them clearly.
Some people approach ideas, but they do not pick them up.
To be a seer, you must be willing and able
to turn an idea over and over in your mind.
By careful analysis, it is possible
to separate the undenyable from the merely theoretical.
The problem is that most people do not think clearly,
and, even if what they are thinking is right,
they would not know it,
because they don't really know what they know;
they dont understand it;
they dont know the reasons why it is true.
To their understanding, it is still just a theory.

posted October 26, 2007 05:09 PM              

It's just a matter of transmuting the infinite potential of our dreams down into this treacle-like reality through hard work and endurance.....
then there is the climax.

So it's not all bad.
Though not every session of experience brings such a climax.

Still, the existence of such fulfillment, alongside so many other experiences in all of life's vastness.....gives life more meaning.

posted October 26, 2007 05:30 PM              

I liked all you said in both of your posts, HSC.

Very, very true what you said about the need to think things over and over in your mind. Analyze them from all sides and in all their aspects.

I truly liked and was inspired by all that you said about God, the universe and our place in all that mystery that far transcends us.

Something I have been thinking about lately and it may be a bit off topic but I have been mulling this over. Correct me, please, if I am wrong. But it seems to me that the main difference in Christianity and other religious thought is that in Christianity we believe in a personal God. Not a God that is out there somewhere but a God we have a personal relationship with in our lives and a God who cares about all that happens in our lives. A God who shares our joy and our sorrows. Not that I think the Being we call God has human emotions, but the aspect of God which took on human form in the person of Jesus does. Jesus manifested this personal God to humanity. This is how I see God, not just based on what I have I been taught or was told, but because it is the God I have known in my own personal experience all through my life. It is a God whom I have inwardly perceived and sensed and who has blessed me at times with filling my being with his Presence. The feelings that are experienced at those times of closeness to God cannot be brought about through any human will or any human emotions. And yet I did analyze those experiences. Did think them over and over in my mind. I don't think that God would want me to do any less than that.

Obviously Willam Blake shared that notion of a personal God when he wrote the poem, "On Another's Sorrow." My favorite poem which my daughter gave to me.

On Another's Sorrow
William Blake

Can I see another's woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another's grief,
And not seek for kind relief?

Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrow's share?
Can a father see his child
Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?

Can a mother sit and hear
An infant groan, an infant fear?
No, no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!

And can He who smiles on all
Hear the wren with sorrows small,
Hear the small bird's grief and care,
Hear the woes that infants bear --

And not sit beside the nest,
Pouring pity in their breast,
And not sit the cradle near,
Weeping tear on infant's tear?

And not sit both night and day,
Wiping all our tears away?
Oh no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!

He doth give his joy to all:
He becomes an infant small,
He becomes a man of woe,
He doth feel the sorrow too.

Think not thou canst sigh a sigh,
And thy Maker is not by:
Think not thou canst weep a tear,
And thy Maker is not near.

Oh He gives to us his joy,
That our grief He may destroy:
Till our grief is fled an gone
He doth sit by us and moan.

I may be wrong and there might be other religions who share this notion of a personal God, not an impersonal God out there in the universe somewhere but a God that is here and now and sharing in our world and our lives . Working always to bring good out of everything. A constantly creating God.

posted October 29, 2007 10:03 PM              

but like i said, i already felt the truth of pantheism
before i knew any of these terms or the name of spinoza.....

can't reason be applied to the big picture?
the question of whether God has free will?
it seems quite reasonable to me,
and extremely unreasonable to think otherwise....

but this is the second time ive asked you about Gods free will,
and again you avoid even making a conjecture,
so there must be some doubt in your mind,
whether God has free will......
very well.....

so let me ask you this then,
since i'm unsure from your posts....
when you speak of determinism....
do you profess that the universe
is completely predetermined?
in the sense that nothing could have been different right now
than it is?
like AG said....."nothing more than dominoes falling"

or do you simply state
that it is predetermined enough
to make free will impossible....??

thank you for your consideration

posted October 29, 2007 11:23 PM            

Yes, it's like dominoes.
You and I are like dominoes.
"Yea, the first morning of Creation wrote
What the last dawn of reckoning shall read."
~ Omar

I have answered you, Petron.
I have said that I don't know.
That is the truth.
You want me to theorize; spiral off?
Sometimes I do that,
but not on command.

And this is an area where I prefer to draw a line
between what my theories are, and what logic dictates.

If you really want me to think about it, I will.
Perhaps you are on to something, but,
it really seems to me that the notion of God
having free will is so far beyond us.

What is that they say,
"Man's proper field of study is man."

I guess I feel like it would be hubris.

Honestly,
the very concept of free will is what I am rejecting,
whether it is said to belong to men or to God,
so, I guess, if I had to theorize,
I would say that God cannot be free.
The very notion of it defies logic.

At the same time, I prefer to leave that door open,
and to say that God may be more mysterious than I can imagine.

But, supposing that God's will is free,
it opens a pandora's box of riddles....

I think I would have to say that,
if God has free will,
he's probably a manic-depressive schizophrenic
with multiple personalities
(perhaps as many as there are sentient beings?),
but, this would not be freedom, would it?

So, again, I'm back where I was.
The concept itself is so absurd.

If God were free,
His motives would be beyond reckoning.

We would have to conclude that, either,
this is the best of all possible worlds
(and this raises all sorts of questions
about what kind of "freedom" God can have),
or, we exist merely for His amusement.

I'm beginning to resent you
for pressuring me to tackle this question.

posted October 30, 2007 12:44 AM              

nor does it seem youve gotten to the big picture yet,
and i'm not even talking about 'Gods motives'

i only bother because i like you,
and i thought that the most important question in philosophy
could keep both our minds occupied
and away from things that have no constructive purpose.....

but you obviously have something much better for that
so i will leave now,
and ask no more questions here.....