posted March 15, 2007 09:34 PM              

quote:

---

you are blind to my visions, and deaf to my words. You only trample my pearls.

---

I told you:

quote:

---

I can and do, "read beyond the cover of you" Stephen.
I recognize your depth.

I would rather hear what Stephen Coltin has to say.
I still have respect for him.
He is learning.
Take that as a sincere compliment please.

---

I meant it.
But you judged me and my thoughts and feelings.
Again.
It was all intended as a true compliment.
I shall avoid complimenting you from hereon.
BTW...I thought I did not have to spell it out...for you of all people...I'd rather hear what you have to say rather than "certain" people. Do I have to name those specific persons whom I feel are possibly lunatics or Messianics? Think about that for a moment please. You are not on that "list". For freaking sake I was attempting to be "tactful"! Some are or were at LL.

posted March 15, 2007 10:48 PM            

I was very worked-up when i wrote you that response.
I appreciate your compliments and "tact".

I'm still not sure what you are saying.

posted March 15, 2007 11:17 PM            

I appreciate your support, and the lovely compliments. My objection was to the negative things you said about me, which seem to suggest that you think I am parrotting the views of others, and saying nothing which is my own. This was unjust, and it upset me. Please understand.

hsc

posted March 16, 2007 01:13 AM            

I hope you feel better soon.

posted March 16, 2007 02:30 AM              

I did understand what you were saying. I wasn't really disagreeing with what you said. I was just giving my thoughts on some of the things that you spoke about. Again, not to disagree, but to let you know how I thought about it all. I think that if you look at our discussions here at LL there are a great deal of things that do we agree on. Also some things that we disagree on but that is always the case with everyone.

I do not think any less of you or your intelligence due to your temperment. I think you might have noticed that I have a bit of a temper myself. It shows that you are passionate about your beliefs and I admire that.

I have been feeling pretty bad the last two days so I will be back later to reply to what you said about Mother Teresa. lol Just wanted to jump in here quickly to let you know that I am not ignoring you.

We have a different way of expressing ourselves and I think we are also coming at the subject from different directions so that might cause some misunderstandings from time to time.

Juni,

posted March 17, 2007 10:08 AM            

Before Jesus there was the law given to Moses by which the Jews lived. After Jesus the law was no longer viewed as necessary to the 'new' Christians as Jesus had preached the new law of LOVE. Anyone who has studied the early life of the Christian 'church' in a non-religious and scholarly manner will know we Western Christians share more in common with pre-Jesus Judaism than with the radical early Christian movement. Paul (or Saul of Tarsus) is key in the re-writing of Christianity from something radical to something so conservative and removed from the true teachings of Jesus that we find ourselves with a world-wide religion based not on love but on lies and the fabrications of corrupt human minds.

Its all very simple - you can spend your entire life trying to reach a 'higher spiritual level' - if Jesus of God or whoever wants to contact you they will, regardless. That's not to suggest we shouldn't all strive for something better and more spritiual in our lives - if nothing else to realise that love and compassion are the only answers we EVER need.

I'm still wondering when we will learn this most simple and basic message?!

posted March 17, 2007 10:23 AM              

quote:

---

Paul (or Saul of Tarsus) is key in the re-writing of Christianity from something radical to something so conservative and removed from the true teachings of Jesus that we find ourselves with a world-wide religion based not on love but on lies and the fabrications of corrupt human minds.

---

Foreword
A Short History of the BIble
Atrocities (a few)
Sex, Obscenities, Filth
Morality And Contradictions
God, Satan, Jesus, Heaven
The Inferior Status Of Women
Bibliography
About The Dark Bible

So....
Whats Love Got To Do With All That?

quote:

---

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize humankind."

--Thomas Paine

---

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine
Thomas Paine (Thetford, England, 29 January 1737 – 8 June 1809, New York City, USA) was a pamphleteer, revolutionary, radical intellectual, and deist. Born in Great Britain,(to Joseph Paine, a Quaker, and Frances Cocke Paine, an Anglican) he lived in America, having migrated to the American colonies just in time to take part in the American Revolution, mainly as the author of the powerful, widely-read pamphlet, Common Sense, advocating independence for the American Colonies from Great Britain. Paine was a great influence on the French Revolution. He wrote the Rights of Man as a guide to the ideas of the Enlightenment. He became notorious with his book, The Age of Reason, which advocated deism and took issue with Christian doctrines. In Agrarian Justice, he introduced concepts similar to socialism.

posted March 17, 2007 11:12 AM            

I agree, organized religion is very far from what Christ taught. But I disagree that it was Paul who corrupted it. Much of his writing evinces his profound understanding of the teaching, and directly contradicts other sayings attributed to him. I am possitive that words have been put into his mouth, and that much of what he said was symbolic, and was misinterpreted as dogma by those who came after him.

In a perfect world, it would be true that love and compassion are all we need. It is a lovely thought, isnt it? The reality is that many false ideas obstruct the reception of that love, and there are metaphysical truths which allow us to open up to love at lightening speed.

quote:

---

I'm still wondering when we will learn this most simple and basic message?!

---

It is so simple, mezzoelf, that it is very subtle, and difficult to convey. Basically, it is what I have said about sin - that sin is a sickness, and it needs to be healed. But there is more. We have to understand that all things are connected, and we have to understand what the implications of this are. The individual minds, wills, and lives of human beings are just reflections on the surface of a deep sea, which is God. He is the tree, we are just the fruit. He is the body, we are just the members. This is not just a theory. This is provable to anyone who takes the time to penetrate the surface of the physical world. See how all material things are connected, all composed of one another, all in a state of constant transformation into one another. Penetrate the history of any thing. See how it came into being through a grand conspiracy of all other things! See how it is like the white, oxygenated water, that breaks the surface (technically, the "miniscus") of the universe, for an instant, before it is gone. Now, look to the actions of men. See that the same operation is in effect. See how, beneath a man's actions lie his choices, see how beneath his choices lie his motives, see how beneath his motives lie his constituent elements (his mental capacity, emotional temperment, physical constitution, acquired prior to his birth), and life experiences. And, lastly, see how, beneath all these, if you persist to inquire, you will find his ancestors, the earth, the stars, oblivion, God. If you knock, it shall be opened.

Understanding this truth greatly hastens your receptivity to love. Firstly, you will begin to perceive connections everywhere, You will see, more and more, that all is one. You wont just believe it, you will see it. This Oneness becomes, for you, the essence of what God is. So, effectively, you begin to see God everywhere. Your understanding is profoundly deepened, now that you begin to consider the motives behind men's choices; rather than seeing them as free and independent agents, which always inclines us - whether we like it or not, - to judge them for all their unkind and unwise choices. Now you will consider the perverse effects of people's upbringings, and the many disadvantages with which they entered the world. All of this will incline you to have understanding and compassion for even those you once considered your enemies. You will realize that no person is to be blamed for anything, for we are all operating from our own idiosyncratic and limitted perspectives. More than this, you will realize that nobody may reasonably be credited for any good thing they possess, or any wise and kind decision they make in the world. All things are received from God; that unknowable, infinite source behind the knowable, eternal Universe. The more you investigate the "seen", the more the "unseen" becomes the seen. "If you have not understood when I told you of earthly things, how shall you understand when I speak to you of heavenly things?" When blame is done away with, judgment and guilt vanish. When credit is done away with, the ego will vanish. What is left is Love, Wisdom, and God, the One Presence in All.

If you do not comprehend these things,
please, do not be too hard on me, lol.
I worked hard to bring them up from the depths for you.
And when I say "I", I mean God.

That is what Jesus was trying to say.
He did not claim to be the only Son of God.
When confronted about His claim to be One with the Father,
He replied,
"Why are you surprised,
when I say that I am the Son of God?
Is it not written in your scriptures,
'I said ye are gods'?"

I have always marvelled that people do not understand this.
When He said to Nicodemus,
"Except a man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Except a man be born of the Spirit,
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh;
and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit,"
this is what He was talking about!!!
To be born of the spirit, is to understand
that you are no different from the wind;
you know not where you come from or where you go;
you did not begin at birth, you will not end at death;
you are not that which you seem to be;
you are constantly changing;
you have always been and will always be;
you are one with the wind,
one with the breathe of God.
"Art thou a master of Israel,
and knowest not these things?
Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
We speak that we do know,
and testify that we have seen;
and ye receive not our witness.
If I have told you earthly things,
and ye believe not, how shall ye believe,
if I tell you of heavenly things?
And no man hath ascended up to heaven,
but he that came down from heaven,
even the Son of man which is in heaven."

Can you see it?
All of scripture is unlocked by this one key.

HSC

posted March 17, 2007 12:19 PM              

quote:

---

Its all very simple - you can spend your entire life trying to reach a 'higher spiritual level' - if Jesus of God or whoever wants to contact you they will, regardless. That's not to suggest we shouldn't all strive for something better and more spritiual in our lives - if nothing else to realise that love and compassion are the only answers we EVER need.
I'm still wondering when we will learn this most simple and basic message?!

---

Well...it appears to me that you do know and have learned the simple and basic message!!!!!

Why must people try to complicate it?

Love&Compassion

I would also add to that:

Honesty&Tolerance&Understanding.

But ultimately it all comes down to ONE WORD doesn't it?

Love to everyone planetwide.

posted March 17, 2007 06:21 PM            

Love, in its true sense is not easy. But it is possible and we have been given this knowledge.

HSC - Paul (amoungst others inc. Constantine et al in Rome) DID corrupt the original message. Having spent some years studying the synoptics and the following teachings of Paul, who considerably plays down the role of women in organised religion (despite Jesus making NO distinction - hence him being considered radical) I realised pretty quickly that he manages to make what was a simple message sooooooooooo complicated we've been seraching for the 'truth' of Jesus ever since.

Please do not consider my 'attack' on Paul as some mad feminist rant - quite the opposite. If we take a more Gnostic view on things the male/female dichotomy is one of the many aspects of everyday, non-spiritual existence that must be dismissed of if we are to reach a higher level of development. In fact, they aimed for a sense of androgeny (pre Adam/Eve sexual union, original sin etc) so for them no conflict existed between the genders! When they speak of 'androgeny' they don't mean to consider humans without gender, they simply view it as irrelevant in the course of spiritual development.

The Gnostics and their beliefs were lost to us for a while as they were considered 'Heretic' by the likes of Paul et al.

posted March 18, 2007 03:07 AM            

How can we ever know for sure who said what?

"History would be a great thing, if it were true."
- Leo Tolstoy

"History is written by the victors."
- Winston Churchill

Many of the sayings attributed to Paul give evidence of a profound understanding of the message of Christ. I suppose, like the rest of us, his understanding could have been illumined one minute, darkened the next, but, for some reason, I find it hard to believe that he said the more divisive things attributed to him.

Can the same person who said those things have said this?:

"There is neither Jew nor Greek,
there is neither bond nor free,
there is neither male nor female:
for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."
- Galatians 3:28

But, leaving Paul aside,
did you find anything of value in what I wrote to you?
I'd sure like to know if my words are having some effect.

posted March 18, 2007 04:18 AM            

Of course I read, with some care, what you wrote and of course it affected me! If no on on this forum was bothered by what you said, we wouldn't feel the need to respond!

Naturally, knwoing exactly what went on will be impossible - I was merely 'going on' something which came as a sort of revelation to me when studying the synoptics some years back. It really shook me on quite a deep level because, although prior to this I had had some spiritual input from my mother, I was naive enough to consider the big religions as being based on truth!

Truth is a difficult concept. As you said, we are all working from our own idiosyncratic viewpoint and what has truth and meaning for one person will be the opposite for another. I think that's why we had to be given the message of love - we all comprehend on some level what this is. If something is done from love, even the smallest thing, then we are on our way to a better world.

posted March 20, 2007 10:03 AM              

quote:

---

Hey fayte - its so nice to know there are others out there who see that really (without wanting to sound like a bad reproduction of a Beatles tune..) love is all we need! Lol x
Love, in its true sense is not easy. But it is possible and we have been given this knowledge.

---

quote:

---

The Gnostics and their beliefs were lost to us for a while as they were considered 'Heretic' by the likes of Paul et al.

Lots of food for thought!

---

Namaste`

posted March 20, 2007 07:00 PM            

[EVERYTHING IN THIS BOX IS FALSE]

posted March 20, 2007 07:27 PM            

var Happy = true;
var Fun = 1000000000000000000000000;
function onEnterUniverse(SelfAware){

if(Happy == true){
Fun *= 1000000000000000000000000000000;
}

}

...ahh if only it was that easy? Or is it...

posted March 21, 2007 04:39 AM            

Cannot agree.