The concept of hell and eternal damnation is a form of control.

reply to post by petrus4

As someone who has been celibate for close to 30 out of 35 years of life, I can promise you that although bachelorhood is freedom in some respects, it is a great minimisation and reduction of a person in others.

Perhaps. But I've never cared for the words of others. I guess I fall in the unusual. I'm relaxing through life and had practically a dozen close relationships with women but never chose to go beyond good friends. People know I can be in a relationship if I want, but choose not to thus far in my short life. I think Paul is right in some respects.

Perhaps, I am just unwilling to have something too complicated. Perhaps I wait for something simple and strong.

Whatever. Point in relevance to the conversation: I don't see Paul as desiring control in this vicinity.

That is a genuine tragedy. I don't necessarily consider becoming a former Christian tragic; but my own (non-Christian, somewhat) faith has been one of the most beneficial aspects of my existence.

I don't think it's a tragedy. Just misinformation.

Yes, except in Christian terms, a good many of them end up becoming militant, Dominionist nut cases who fill their heads with the likes of Texe Marrs or Tim LeHay instead. Forgive me if I have trouble seeing the improvement.

The dominionist aren't all bad. To some degree perhaps I am . It's the new apostolic reformation you should look at. These people are no different than the Catholics. They take half the word that serves their purpose and ignores the rest.

Militantism is not bad. Its when you become violent for stupid reasons that it is bad. Personally, I never heard of Texe Marrs or Tim LeHay. Maybe I've seen their work or something. I fall in line with the Billy Graham type.

In my own eyes, people who actually read the bible end up like something Ron Paul-ish, though more socialist than he.

No, it isn't. It's actually just another layer of said control. First they edited it, and had control over which books ended up in it. Then even after they'd exercised editorial control, they cemented it (for a while at least) by making sure only their own approved people could read it.

I've looked at what those who were isolated from the influence of Rome believe. It's not honestly different.

Furthermore, the process of figuring out what books were genuine or not was very very well done. It was a simple process of comparing how old each one claims to be, what the proof is, and what the newer ones claim to say and if that was true or not.

I fully endorse what they choose to put into the Bible. And at the end of the day, if God disagreed, he's probably had destroyed it. Judge them by their fruits.

No, reincarnation itself didn't give birth to the caste system at all. Go and read the Law of Manu. Varnashrama Dharma (the caste) was in there from the word go. Also, there are two reasons why the caste started to damage India.

Hereditary or not, it is easier to control a slave if you tell them they will be the master in the next life, vs Christianity which basically says you'll live in peace with your master (assuming he is a proper Christian). Something totally different in end points.

One is revenge, the other is forced coexistence.



The idea of a caste is inherently illogical. People change. And it is inherently easier to control people if they believe they have no hope in this life of becoming anything else. Christianity tells you to accept where you are, but gives you a way to improve it in your life time. If you serve your master in love, you "win the peace" where there was only a war, and in many cases, you can become the inheritor of your master's life in doing so. Plenty of times in history, a good slave was set free and given all his master owns. vs a caste, which says to stay where you are and be the master in fa future life.


That's all from me for now. Not sure if I'll sleep or not. Thank you for being more civil than Akragon.

reply to post by Gorman91


How do you not understand that dreams are not visions of past lives?

Nothing supports that theory... at least as far as scripture is concerned.

Your entire theory on "past lives" is flawed...

look...
it is easier to control a slave if you tell them they will be the master in the next life....

Nothing supports the idea that you will be a Master in your next life...

If my dreams really were reincarnation, why am I never punished? Why do I continue to progress to better experiences despite every one of the lives I see in my mind being lives lead in destructive tendencies? Explain to me why I never suffer a day's punishment for them

your dreams ARE NOT REINCARNATION.... Nor will you be punished for them...

Dreams are nothing but dreams... Thoughts of your subconscience mind...

You DO NOT see past lives in your dreams... You don't... i can't explain it any other way... Mind you there have been some that do... Clearly you are not one of them.

This is why i do not want to argue with you.... its pointless because you don't understand what you're talking about.... nothing supports what you're saying...

Why don't you just admit you don't believe in reincarnation because you don't understand it?

reply to post by Akragon

How do you not understand that dreams are not visions of past lives?

If not, then justify why you should be punished for a past life.

Nothing supports the idea that you will be a Master in your next life...

If you socially construct "good" to mean loyal servant, yes.

your dreams ARE NOT REINCARNATION.... Nor will you be punished for them...

Not all. But if at least some are... And if not. I repeat. Justify being punished for a past life.

You DO NOT see past lives in your dreams... You don't... i can't explain it any other way... Mind you there have been some that do... Clearly you are not one of them.

Proof?

This is why i do not want to argue with you.... its pointless because you don't understand what you're talking about.... nothing supports what you're saying...

to you.

Why don't you just admit you don't believe in reincarnation because you don't understand it?

I'm picking and choosing what I believe is true about it. Let's say, I just feel it is.

reply to post by Gorman91

justify why you should be punished for a past life.

You are your own soul/spirit... call it what you want...

There is a physical world that is material... and a spiritual world... both exist in the same space in time... One deteriorates as time passes but can not be actually destroyed... one can not be destroyed period, but it absorbs vibrations... The spirit is positive, the physical is negative so to speak... The spirit is life... the physical has no life, it is meat... though it "vibrates"... we are meat and spirit... and your body absorbs these +/- vibrations... from the range of human emotions/vibrations...love to hate.... Both spread like wildfire

as the light and the dark... the physical and the material... everything in existance has two sides of the same...As above, so below... and all of it is God.

God gave all life to explore different perspectives of himself... When your physical body dies your spirit returns to the source... The spirit side of God... With it follows the negative and postive experiences that you caused within your life... That... is Judgement day At which time you are judged for your deeds... Perhaps even questioned, unfortunatly i do not know... IF you have not learned how God wants you to be, you are returned to the physical being deemed "not worthy"... in whatever body you deserve... and possibly a debt to pay to God. Its said "a veil is place over your eyes hiding your past lives from you".... Which is possible to lift through contemplation...

Then you start again... from birth... with those debts "written" if you will... in your soul. That Karmic debt is Gods work "made manifest" within your life... People ask, why do the good die young? There is only one answer... That "Good" person had a debt to pay... God's will be done...

A "man who curses" is given a body that will be continually "troubled in heart". A "man who slanders" receives a body that will be "oppressed". A thief receives a "lame, crooked and blind body". A "proud" and "scornful" man receives "a lame and ugly body" that "everyone continually despises." Thus earth, as well as hell, becomes the place of punishment. (Pistis Sophia)

If you socially construct "good" to mean loyal servant, yes.

Good and evil are both subjective...

Proof?

Of what? That you don't see your past lives in your dreams?

I said its possible... IF your dreams are in fact your past lives. And you've hurt people in those lives... expect some "punishment" in the future... On the other hand perhaps you've resolved your Karma with God...

I'm picking and choosing what I believe is true about it. Let's say, I just feel it is.

Feel free... but denying the possibility of its existence is nieve... especially since there is an abundance of support for reincarnation.... from every relgion... almost

Originally posted by Gorman91

Militantism is not bad. Its when you become violent for stupid reasons that it is bad.

I've been in a transitional period in the direction of pacifism, for several years now. The single biggest reason why, is because I've noticed that these days at least, people who make violence part of who they are, tend to have such an overwhelming monopoly on it, that you're not likely to get the better of them via direct force anywayz.

The second reason, which is probably more fundamental, is that I have noticed that violence tends to perpetuate itself. In other words, if one person is violent, and another person is violent back, it continues. If the person who is attacked is non-violent, it takes an almost completely amoral person to keep going; and in some places at least, truly evil people are actually quite rare. The only real reason why we think of them as being more prevalent, is because most of them end up in positions of authority, where their influence is disproportional to their real numbers.

Personally, I never heard of Texe Marrs or Tim LeHay.

They're fundamentalist Christian authors. LeHay wrote the Left Behind fiction series, which you may have heard of, even if you don't know his name. They became fairly popular.

I fall in line with the Billy Graham type.

Graham is fine. My churches of choice during my teens, were usually Pentecostal. I don't have a problem with revivals at all, because they can help people. My issue is when people start being judged as unsaved, simply because they aren't manifesting paranormal phenomena (such as being "slain in the Spirit") which have dubious theological rationalisations to begin with.

In my own eyes, people who actually read the bible end up like something Ron Paul-ish, though more socialist than he.

Whoever came up with the term socialism, and its' definition, could be called Milton Freidman's best friend. What the label of socialism succeeded in doing, was making compassionate and/or altruistic behaviour, actually look like a negative thing.

Hereditary or not, it is easier to control a slave if you tell them they will be the master in the next life

Except people weren't always told that. The conditions of reincarnation revolved around works in Christian terms, or Karma. In Christian terms it might be considered a little more morally neutral, but the bottom line is that the way you have lived in one life, or sometimes a series of lives, determines where you will end up in the next. Human incarnations are actually considered extremely difficult to get, because humans have the most complex form of consciousness on the planet.

So if you are particularly altruistic and nobly minded, then yes, they might consider that you could be reborn as a Brahmana or Ksatriya, to either wealthy (Hinduism considers wealth a virtue, but one of the lower forms) or spiritually minded (much more highly prized, as spiritual liberation is considered the ultimate goal of human existence, and spiritually minded company is considered very helpful for that task) parents in your next lifetime. If you are particularly cruel, lustful, angry, or sexually immoral on the other hand, you would likely be expected to come back either as a human with severe mental or physical deformities, or a dog, a pig, or even a Rakshasa. (demon)

Being reborn as a demon is considered particularly dangerous, because it is very difficult to raise your own spiritual level sufficiently to get out of that situation again; although it is considered possible.

One is revenge, the other is forced coexistence.

"As ye sow, so shall ye reap."

It wasn't a Hindu who said that.

The idea of a fixed caste is inherently illogical. People change, and thus the social order should logically change with it. And it is inherently easier to control people if they believe they have no hope in this life of becoming anything else.

I edited that slightly for you.

Christianity tells you to accept where you are, but gives you a way to improve it in your life time.

There's a subtle, implicit assumption here, which I think is worth pointing out. Paul makes the statement that an individual is always a slave by default, whether to God, or someone else. I believe surrender is important; but personally, I also put a slightly higher value on freedom than many Christians seem to.

Thank you for being more civil than Akragon.

My learning civility has been a long, slow process; that has actually involved '___' and marijuana among other things, believe it or not. My current area of offline residence also helps considerably. Akragon seemed to consider you inherently illogical for some reason. I do not.

reply to post by MrUncreated


sorry to say but religion is poison to the natural mind..ya sure it was convenient way back when people were forced to believe or die

reply to post by Akragon

You are your own soul/spirit... call it what you want... There is a physical world that is material... and a spiritual world... both exist in the same space in time... One deteriorates as time passes but can not be actually destroyed... one can not be destroyed period, but it absorbs vibrations... The spirit is positive, the physical is negative so to speak... The spirit is life... the physical has no life, it is meat... though it "vibrates"... we are meat and spirit... and your body absorbs these +/- vibrations... from the range of human emotions/vibrations...love to hate.... Both spread like wildfire

Sounds like a bunch of baseless metaphysical silliness to me.

The universe actually can be destroyed. Dark energy will decay, the universe will stop expanding, and it will all come collapsing into itself. It is unsure if it can ever be reborn again, but the math indicates that neighboring universes explode and contract all the time under string theory, and that their actions cause reactions in other universes, like a well timed machine.

The spiritual also can be destroyed, assuming it exists. That which can be observed can be changed, and that which can be changed, can be destroyed. This is a simply rule in the universe. All materiality is based off the information that makes it what it is. Information can be reduced, though never destroyed at the base level. IE, if the spirit can be observed- the only way to prove it of course- then it can be destroyed. If you cannot observe it, even indirectly, then there is no proof to it, and all your words are just basically made up.

as the light and the dark... the physical and the material... everything in existance has two sides of the same...As above, so below... and all of it is God.

Not so. "as above so bellow" is a metaphysical made up lie. The fact is, things do not behave the same way at different scales. I can design a scale model that works perfectly, and then fails if you increase the scale.

All the universe says that the bellow and above operate not only differently in their rules, but in their very ethos. Like a multistory sandwich where the bread is glass, you can see the different layers, but each layer has its own materiality, properties, and pressure based off their scale. This is how reality is.

Gravity does not work on the small scale. Its virtual particles operate on entirely different rules than The molecule putting out those virtual particles. Matter does not operate on the same rules as its components. Matter can have individual virtual particles blocked, so that half of it feels no gravity, and the other half does.


as above so bellow has no proof.

God gave all life to explore different perspectives of himself... When your physical body dies your spirit returns to the source... The spirit side of God... With it follows the negative and postive experiences that you caused within your life... That... is Judgement day At which time you are judged for your deeds... Perhaps even questioned, unfortunatly i do not know... IF you have not learned how God wants you to be, you are returned to earth... in whatever body you deserve... and possibly a debt to pay to God. Its said "a veil is place over your eyes hiding your past lives from you".... Which is possible to lift through contemplation...

More baseless metaphysics.

IF God exists, how could you owe him any sort of debt beyond thanking him for existence? What can God want? He is God. He can damn you, destroy you, create you, and rewrite your own existence. He's God. What kind of silliness is it to say you can owe God anything that can be paid. Jesus himself said

No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.

So if you want to role with Christ, you can never return to God as yourself. You can never enter heaven as you are. Nothing in life can you provide to make him say you deserve heaven. This is why it is based off faith. because only God gives faith, and all men can have it if they choose, independent of their actions.



And to go with this even further, then why would God punish you for the next life? This would make it even harder to earn back whatever mystical silliness you owe God. If anything, if you are sent back to learn more you must inherently be given a better and easier life so that you can see it more obviously.

Atop that, God cannot be learned nor known. How can you possibly learn something God wants you to see about him? The temple couldn't hold God in, what makes you think a man's mind can?

God wants you to be free in your own perils and submissive to his demands. Nothing else. There is no great mystery to what God wants beyond that.

All of civilization screams that it is folly to say you can Learn what God wants within your life. Knowledge comes and goes. Why destroy it? Why would God permit the fall of civilizations? It would undoubtedly make generations of people have to live more lives and be further from him. What sort of God purposely distances himself if your goal is to learn something about him? What a dick.

A "man who curses" is given a body that will be continually "troubled in heart". A "man who slanders" receives a body that will be "oppressed". A thief receives a "lame, crooked and blind body". A "proud" and "scornful" man receives "a lame and ugly body" that "everyone continually despises." Thus earth, as well as hell, becomes the place of punishment. (Pistis Sophia)

And what sort of man was I to have it well off?

Furthermore, why then do men exist whom have no problems? Shouldn't they be in heaven?

And you're totally ignoring science too. It is possible to perfect the human body and cure everything. So that would pretty much make God, and reincarnation, obsolete, wouldn't it?

Good and evil are both subjective...

To us. Not to God.

Of what? That you don't see your past lives in your dreams? I said its possible... IF your dreams are in fact your past lives. And you've hurt people in those lives... expect some "punishment" in the future... On the other hand perhaps you've resolved your Karma with God...

Then why am I still here?

Feel free... but denying the possibility of its existence is nieve... especially since there is an abundance of support for reincarnation.... from every relgion... almost

There is no proof of God, much less reincarnation. You said it yourself. It could just be a dream. Or what I said about the spirit could be right, and it totally makes your own points irrelevant.

Originally posted by Akragon
reply to post by Gorman91

 

IF you have not learned how God wants you to be, you are returned to the physical being deemed "not worthy"... in whatever body you deserve... and possibly a debt to pay to God. Its said "a veil is place over your eyes hiding your past lives from you".... Which is possible to lift through contemplation...

If you have knowledge of the Raja Yogic technique of perceiving the impressions directly
through the process of Samyama (Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi at one time), you can remember
your past lives. In Raja Yoga philosophy of Patanjali Maharishi, you will find:

Samskarat Sakshat Karanat Purvajati Jnaanam.

“By perceiving the impressions, comes the knowledge of past life.”
All experiences that you have had in various births remain in the form of impressions or
residual potencies in the Chitta or subconscious mind. They remain in a very, very subtle form, just
as sound remains in a subtle form in a gramophone record. These subtle impressions assume the
forms of waves and you get memory of past experiences. Therefore if a Yogi can make a Samyama
on these past experiences in the Chitta, he can remember all the details of all his past lives.

-- Sri Swami Sivananda

Good and evil are both subjective...

1. Do not murder.
2. Do not rape.
3. Do not steal.
4. Do not bear false witness. (Lie)

These four are basic. You'll find some people placing conditions on, and generally searching for excuses to violate the first one, (particularly among Americans, given their inherent cultural bias towards violence) but among ethical individuals at least, you generally won't get too much argument on the other three. Unfortunately, 3 and 4 are also routinely violated within American society, and the sociological effects are self-evident, for those with eyes to see.

reply to post by petrus4

I've been in a transitional period in the direction of pacifism, for several years now. The single biggest reason why, is because I've noticed that these days at least, people who make violence part of who they are, tend to have such an overwhelming monopoly on it, that you're not likely to get the better of them via direct force anywayz. The second reason, which is probably more fundamental, is that I have noticed that violence tends to perpetuate itself. In other words, if one person is violent, and another person is violent back, it continues. If the person who is attacked is non-violent, it takes an almost completely amoral person to keep going; and in some places at least, truly evil people are actually quite rare. The only real reason why we think of them as being more prevalent, is because most of them end up in positions of authority, where their influence is disproportional to their real numbers.

This is logical. I was saying militantism more in the lines of very strong social ties. IE, militants. Like the people who founded the US. They were militants with different views, but strongly united behind a common ethos.

Gang warfare, what you are describing, is basically a rush to the bottom. But what can I claim? I don't even believe morality exists beyond sex. I abhor war. But if I was forced into it, I cannot honestly say there are any self-created mental limits to what I can do to survive.

There is something along the lines of Teddy Roosevelt's speak softly and carry a big stick in Proverbs. I'll edit this if I find it.

They're fundamentalist Christian authors. LeHay wrote the Left Behind fiction series, which you may have heard of, even if you don't know his name. They became fairly popular.

Yep, I know that series. Never read it. Played a demo of one of their video games. Saw it had a number of non Christ-like qualities to it.

Graham is fine. My churches of choice during my teens, were usually Pentecostal. I don't have a problem with revivals at all, because they can help people. My issue is when people start being judged as unsaved, simply because they aren't manifesting paranormal phenomena (such as being "slain in the Spirit") which have dubious theological rationalisations to begin with.

Each clay pot has it's purpose. A spirit for its role. Some are common, some are extraordinary. No reason to think people without any special abilities are not saved.

Whoever came up with the term socialism, and its' definition, could be called Milton Freidman's best friend. What the label of socialism succeeded in doing, was making compassionate and/or altruistic behaviour, actually look like a negative thing.

Yep. I consider myself quite a socialist with a capitalist drive. My grandmother came from communist Russia and would say at times that "Jesus was the first communist." Of course communism isn't socialism, but I think you get the point.

Except people weren't always told that. The conditions of reincarnation revolved around works in Christian terms, or Karma. In Christian terms it might be considered a little more morally neutral, but the bottom line is that the way you have lived in one life, or sometimes a series of lives, determines where you will end up in the next. Human incarnations are actually considered extremely difficult to get, because humans have the most complex form of consciousness on the planet.

But we don't know what is beyond this world.

I don't believe in Karma, because if Karma exists, then it ultimately means that people are not that complex. That they inherently do the same thing over and over again and really aren't any different than animals and not worthy of anything. People have existed for 50,000 years, and humans as a species have existed on the mental scale of "highly intelligent" for 200,000 years. That means there have been something like 100 billion people to ever have lived. (rough estimate I read on a statistics site a while back). There are only 6 billion people. If we assume even conservatively, that means most people, if not all people, have lived at least 20 lives. Not to mention the "wtf" factor of when our population went from 1 billion to 6 billion in 100 years. What happened? Did God's soul factory have a recall? Was there a broken soul machine that suddenly made a billion new souls that were evil? Was there a traffic jam on the Karma wheel? Or did a bunch of large land mammals suddenly show an act of mercy?

Joking aside, it is a relevant point. Why would population size only increase if Karma existed, and people were worthy of getting out of it?

Being reborn as a demon is considered particularly dangerous, because it is very difficult to raise your own spiritual level sufficiently to get out of that situation again; although it is considered possible.

Demons are not physical creatures. They never die. How could you ever get reborn? And if they do die, then that means death still exists in heaven...so why go to heaven?

"As ye sow, so shall ye reap." It wasn't a Hindu who said that.

It's a farmer's term actually. In context, all fields die but the steady farmer. It's implied that there are only two directions. Total failure or total success. Rarely does a farmer have mixed results, except from a blight.

I edited that slightly for you.

How can a caste system not be fixed? Caste means fixed social place. If you can change in your life to a different caste, why have castes at all? Why not just be "human".

There's a subtle, implicit assumption here, which I think is worth pointing out. Paul makes the statement that an individual is always a slave by default, whether to God, or someone else. I believe surrender is important; but personally, I also put a slightly higher value on freedom than many Christians seem to.

But it is said that being a slave to Christ is freedom. Why speak about freedom unless being a liberating religion. There were slaves who were pretty much free. Primarily they were Greek teachers. But slavery wasn't always the whip. Slavery also was an opportunity to inherit your master's possessions and life.

My learning civility has been a long, slow process; that has actually involved '___' and marijuana among other things, believe it or not. My current area of offline residence also helps considerably. Akragon seemed to consider you inherently illogical for some reason. I do not.

We all have our ways. I may not approve, but there's an old drunk man's saying: img.memecenter.com...

a good laugh to the times.

It's getting boring, every other thread is about the excuse of "control."

LOL.

No one controls non-believers, they don't believe.


That word is pretty bothersome. It should be. Hell is written in Scripture
101 times.

reply to post by saroncan


What is the natural mind? Is it better than a mind under a good movement?

Yes people have died from religion, but they have also died from pretty much anything humans can create as an idea. Ideas kill, and ideas create. And many times, they are the same idea. It's how you use them. It doesn't make religion the problem, any different than the nuke is the problem, but the person wielding it can be.

reply to post by colbe


Something controls everyone's mind in some way. Just because you don't believe in something doesn't mean you aren't controlled by some other idea.

Originally posted by Gorman91
reply to post by Akragon

 

You are your own soul/spirit... call it what you want... There is a physical world that is material... and a spiritual world... both exist in the same space in time... One deteriorates as time passes but can not be actually destroyed... one can not be destroyed period, but it absorbs vibrations... The spirit is positive, the physical is negative so to speak... The spirit is life... the physical has no life, it is meat... though it "vibrates"... we are meat and spirit... and your body absorbs these +/- vibrations... from the range of human emotions/vibrations...love to hate.... Both spread like wildfire

Sounds like a bunch of baseless metaphysical silliness to me.

Some things become more obvious with experience, Gorman.

A big part of the problem, is that Akraga has given you probably 5-10 years worth of experiential verification, in six lines. So it's completely understandable if it doesn't make much sense.

Sometimes when you've gone a sufficient distance past a given point, it becomes difficult to remember what it felt like to be at that point yourself, so you don't always emotionally relate to a person who is at that point, as well as you should.

The spiritual also can be destroyed, assuming it exists. That which can be observed can be changed, and that which can be changed, can be destroyed. This is a simply rule in the universe.

Einstein said that energy can neither be created or destroyed; and I tend to consider him an authority on some things, since I don't like mathematics enough to want to verify them myself.

Not so. "as above so bellow" is a metaphysical made up lie.

No, it isn't, but it does take a little clarification. It refers to what we now know as the fractal principle. Another term for it is Quantum Non-locality.

It does not always refer to individual objects, as much as the overall energetic lattice. If you make a change in the energy of your immediate area, with intent, it is possible to achieve a state change in the area where you intended it to occur, even if said area is thousands of miles away. That is how prayer works, but most Christians don't usually have a very specific or conscious understanding of the mechanics of it.

as above so bellow has no proof.

Again, it depends on how you define proof, and what you are looking for. I would encourage you to keep an open mind. There have often been times when I came across something which I initially didn't understand, only because at the time, I did not have context for it. It was only after I received additional, clarifying information that I was able to.

IF God exists, how could you owe him any sort of debt beyond thanking him for existence?

You don't.

Truthfully, my perspective is that we really don't owe God anything at all; because apart from anything else, the idea of debt implies a subject-object relationship, where God is external to the worshipper. This is actually one of the single biggest problems with Christianity.

Viewing God in terms of subject-object, is useful at a particular stage of development, but not forever. It also has an unfortunate tendency to cause wars.

What can God want? He is God. He can damn you, destroy you, create you, and rewrite your own existence. He's God. What kind of silliness is it to say you can owe God anything that can be paid.

Except thanks to our good friend Paul, Christians have taken it one step further. Not only do we have a God who can't be owed anything that can be paid, but now apparently we do owe him something. By now, you can probably guess what I think of that idea.

So if you want to role with Christ, you can never return to God as yourself.

I don't think Jesus meant what most Christians think, here. It would have been a statement to reflect the fact that yes, development *is* necessary for spiritual progress. Those good old Church authorities however, just had to make it a negative statement about the inherent worth of human beings. They seemed to consider it important to capitalise on such opportunities; and Jesus gave them a few, unfortunately.

You can never enter heaven as you are. Nothing in life can you provide to make him say you deserve heaven.

I don't believe this. You of course are welcome to, if you believe that it helps you; but I would suggest that it probably doesn't.

God wants you to be free in your own perils and submissive to his demands. Nothing else.

Are we talking about God, or Sadaam Hussein here?

Originally posted by Gorman91
reply to post by petrus4

 

I don't even believe morality exists beyond sex. I abhor war. But if I was forced into it, I cannot honestly say there are any self-created mental limits to what I can do to survive.

I define morality primarily as allowing an organism to exist in whatever natural state it observably would, if nobody interfered with it. Most of the ten commandments are implicitly included in that.

They're fundamentalist Christian authors. LeHay wrote the Left Behind fiction series, which you may have heard of, even if you don't know his name. They became fairly popular.

Yep, I know that series. Never read it. Played a demo of one of their video games. Saw it had a number of non Christ-like qualities to it.

That's possibly the understatement of the millenium. LeHaye was a nut case; enough said.

Each clay pot has it's purpose. A spirit for its role. Some are common, some are extraordinary. No reason to think people without any special abilities are not saved.

I didn't think that myself, but some of the people at the churches I went to did. I was objecting to it.

Yep. I consider myself quite a socialist with a capitalist drive. My grandmother came from communist Russia and would say at times that "Jesus was the first communist." Of course communism isn't socialism, but I think you get the point.

I used to think that Capitalism was a good idea. Then I realised that I like the idea of having continued access to food, water, and oxygen, and thus a planet which could continue to provide them.

I don't believe in Karma, because if Karma exists, then it ultimately means that people are not that complex. That they inherently do the same thing over and over again and really aren't any different than animals and not worthy of anything.

I'm not sure I understand the relationship between the complexity of a thing, and its' worth. I actually tend to place a higher value on simpler things, to be honest.

People have existed for 50,000 years, and humans as a species have existed on the mental scale of "highly intelligent" for 200,000 years. That means there have been something like 100 billion people to ever have lived. (rough estimate I read on a statistics site a while back).

Probably a lot more, actually. Souls also don't just stay here, but move back and forth between here and other spheres. It's a big universe out there.

Not to mention the "wtf" factor of when our population went from 1 billion to 6 billion in 100 years. What happened?

The rated A (for Atheist) explanation for this, is that said 100 years marked the rise and fall of oil. The acid tripping New Age hippie explanation (which I'm more partial to, personally) is that the more drama and conflict shows up on Earth, the larger the number of souls who tend to want to come here. Drama means lots of different experiences, which means more learning, which means much faster spiritual development than usual. If you accept reincarnation, the end of the world actually has a serious silver lining.

Joking aside, it is a relevant point. Why would population size only increase if Karma existed, and people were worthy of getting out of it?

Because even assuming that both karma and reincarnation exist, the process moves incredibly slowly. That's actually the whole point of reincarnation; we really don't tend to learn much in an individual lifetime at all, relatively speaking. Probably less than two dozen individuals have reached the point of divine realisation, liberation, or merger in the whole of human history. You seem to claim allegiance with one of them. Becoming the focus of major religions is a standard tendency for them, when they show up.

Originally posted by Gorman91
reply to post by colbe

 

Something controls everyone's mind in some way. Just because you don't believe in something doesn't mean you aren't controlled by some other idea.

Hi Gorman,

"Something" and "in some way", please be more specific. The thread subject is about Hell, which pertains to faith. God has given everyone free will to choose to love Him or not. It isn't love if it is "controlled."

When the first Protestant men revolted, left the Church, there was no control. They no longer believed or were badly catechized or in pride, followed the evil one. The Church didn't stop them.


blessings,


colbe

reply to post by petrus4

Some things become more obvious with experience, Gorman.

I'm really going to try not to brag here, but I probably have more experience in a few months of the same things than he has from years. There was a thread a while back I made on a similar topic. Basically same thing, applied to Chakra. I had better "abilities" as they called it in a few short years than some people had in decades.

Basically what I'm saying is, I get him. I have simply come to different conclusions.

Back a ways I did do a lot of meditation. I saw whole planets and their evolution, what you might call "past lives", and in some cases, future ones. It wasn't, as Akraga mentions, "superman" dreams. It was more like cracking open memories that in some form were always in my mind, just never fully looked. The emotional response was similar to when you remember some random irrelevant thing randomly from your childhood.

I saw myself as a Roman in a Spanish wheat field, a Roman in rolling Scottish hills...Lots of Roman stuff actually. Also a few Middle Eastern scenes and lives. I also saw somewhat myself in line with the Muslims in their early days. Then there's some stuff from WW2 that I've never really fully "untangled" in my mind. One of the most vivid moments is a bullet going to my nose. Even now, whenever I recall it, there is a phantom pain to my nose, where it literally feels like half my nose is missing. Similar to how "ghost feeling" is reported in amputees.

So I have my pretty decent experience in what you were describing earlier in untangling and revealing these things. Only thing is, I really don't view them as past lives. And believe me, I've seen my own proof for them. I got off at a train station in Brooklyn where I had never been before, and it was an exact replica of a scene from one of those "future lives' I mentioned. I got freaked. Bu at the end of the day, I have no reason to believe these images and scenes are nothing but a very creative mind. Thus, I simply don't believe them to be real.

Einstein said that energy can neither be created or destroyed; and I tend to consider him an authority on some things, since I don't like mathematics enough to want to verify them myself.

Yes but information is a bit different. Energy is always there. I mentioned that. It's the base line of all things. But you can destroy information. Whenever you eat food, you destroy 4.5 billion years of evolution to continue your own. The spirit should be no different if it can be observed.

No, it isn't, but it does take a little clarification. It refers to what we now know as the fractal principle. Another term for it is Quantum Non-locality. It does not always refer to individual objects, as much as the overall energetic lattice. If you make a change in the energy of your immediate area, with intent, it is possible to achieve a state change in the area where you intended it to occur, even if said area is thousands of miles away. That is how prayer works, but most Christians don't usually have a very specific or conscious understanding of the mechanics of it.

Perhaps. But that has to do with the raw energy of the universe. Something that is essentially null. It simply exists. Information is needed to give it some sort of essence.

Again, it depends on how you define proof, and what you are looking for. I would encourage you to keep an open mind. There have often been times when I came across something which I initially didn't understand, only because at the time, I did not have context for it. It was only after I received additional, clarifying information that I was able to.

I have a limited open mind. Some things just are blatantly wrong. If above is as bellow, then God can die in heaven as we do.

Viewing God in terms of subject-object, is useful at a particular stage of development, but not forever. It also has an unfortunate tendency to cause wars.

Not sure on that one. Many owe me money. Should the need arise, I forgive it. Because the debt is not proper at the present time. They will find another way to make it up to me. It's not really subject-object in that stance.

I'll admit I'm undecided on the owing of God something. But to say you owe a debt to what made you free is sort of alien to me. I owe God thanks and praise for my existence. I can do no more as a human.

They seemed to consider it important to capitalise on such opportunities; and Jesus gave them a few, unfortunately.

I don't think humans are worth anything to God. But that's where love conquers. Love does not equate worth.

I don't believe this. You of course are welcome to, if you believe that it helps you; but I would suggest that it probably doesn't.

It is said Christ was sin who knew no sin. Sin cannot enter heaven. But perfection can. I guess that's where your "progress is needed" comes in.

If you could just enter heaven as you were, then why have life? The idea of death and progress becomes pointless if we can just enter heaven as we are.

I think heaven isn't something knowable to humans. Like I said, I doubt there are gardens, virgins, or even sex. I doubt heaven has anything we know as fun or good or pleasing. It's simply something else.

Are we talking about God, or Sadaam Hussein here?

If God is a good parent, why would a parent demand too much from their child? Submission does not mean slavery. It simply means to be accepting that he knows better than a human could ever know. It's a leap of faith.

I define morality primarily as allowing an organism to exist in whatever natural state it observably would, if nobody interfered with it. Most of the ten commandments are implicitly included in that.

I'm not so sure. Why would God, then, ever reveal himself? The natural human order to things is to eat, have sex, and enjoy life. God changes all that. Humans before religion were perfectly ok in their natural state hunting and gathering. If morality is to leave things as they are, why did God not?

I didn't think that myself, but some of the people at the churches I went to did. I was objecting to it.

Yes well, it can be manipulated to tell a peasant to remain a peasant.

Ever see a child dress up an ordinary lump of clay however? The fact that a pot, in its form, is simple, does not mean it must stay that way.

I used to think that Capitalism was a good idea. Then I realised that I like the idea of having continued access to food, water, and oxygen, and thus a planet which could continue to provide them.

Yes well, that's why capitalism should be kept in the economy, and basic living standards not.

I'm not sure I understand the relationship between the complexity of a thing, and its' worth. I actually tend to place a higher value on simpler things, to be honest.

Perhaps. But humans were made to do great things if they wish to. Why have that ability if not to use it?

Probably a lot more, actually. Souls also don't just stay here, but move back and forth between here and other spheres. It's a big universe out there.

That's still not much of an answer though. At the same time, plenty of worlds, at any given moment, are snuffed out in a moments notice. A trillion lives end and begin violently every moment of existence. It is a big universe, and I cannot see the reason for reincarnation if a child dies before it is even born.

The rated A (for Atheist) explanation for this, is that said 100 years marked the rise and fall of oil. The acid tripping New Age hippie explanation (which I'm more partial to, personally) is that the more drama and conflict shows up on Earth, the larger the number of souls who tend to want to come here. Drama means lots of different experiences, which means more learning, which means much faster spiritual development than usual. If you accept reincarnation, the end of the world actually has a serious silver lining.

To be frank, after seeing what I saw in my own meditation experiences that I mentioned at the beginning of this post, nothing on this world counts as drama for me. It is all, more or less, boredom. Simply put, this planet is a bore and the drama in my dreams is more exciting than the real world.

I just don't see how a bunch of apes throwing nuclear poop around can count as a learning opportunity. reality says that humans have gotten dumber in their increased number. Can you honestly say that this drama is producing more things to learn? Maybe for a few smart ones. For most, it's just a reason to care less. Hence, the age of apathy we find ourselves in.

Because even assuming that both karma and reincarnation exist, the process moves incredibly slowly. That's actually the whole point of reincarnation; we really don't tend to learn much in an individual lifetime at all, relatively speaking. Probably less than two dozen individuals have reached the point of divine realisation, liberation, or merger in the whole of human history. You seem to claim allegiance with one of them. Becoming the focus of major religions is a standard tendency for them, when they show up.

Heaven is next door, not a mile up a mountain.

reply to post by colbe


Control from fear, and control for love are two different kinds of control. Once you ponder Christ's life and desire to be like him, love controls your mind.

If you are truly with Christ, do you not sometimes make up reasons not to give to the poor in your mind? That's because Christ is in control of your mind, you're just trying to justify not following orders.


Which is only human. But I simply say, control can be from love. You MUST love. It is a form of control in your mind. Some men find murder easy, some impossible. All a matter of what controls their mind.

Ideas control, and they perpetrate your actions.

Originally posted by Gorman91
reply to post by colbe

 

Control from fear, and control for love are two different kinds of control. Once you ponder Christ's life and desire to be like him, love controls your mind.

If you are truly with Christ, do you not sometimes make up reasons not to give to the poor in your mind? That's because Christ is in control of your mind, you're just trying to justify not following orders.


Which is only human. But I simply say, control can be from love. You MUST love. It is a form of control in your mind. Some men find murder easy, some impossible. All a matter of what controls their mind.

Ideas control, and they perpetrate your actions.

I am not wanting to argue, I understand what you are saying but "control" is not the right word.

God controls no one. That's enslavement. God is perfectly good.

Makes me think of the falsehood, the heresy Martin Luther came up with, he said man is "completely depraved."

This is not true. We have a fallen nature but are capable of good.


God bless you,


colbe

reply to post by colbe


I don't know if Martin Luther was a heretic. He had a sound argument, and I connect with it. Though I admit I am ignorant to "depraved" that you are mentioning. Please elaborate?

But you are correct. Control is not the right word. Perhaps driving force. Or, as has been the topic of the discussion, the spirit.

What I guess I'm saying is, there is a plug in your hand. You can choose to plug into the spirit God gave you, or to plug into the things you wish to rule over you, such as sin.

You can remove the plug whenever you'd like, but as long as you keep it plugged into the spirit of God, it controls you. Not out of fear, but out of love. It's a great mystery I think. But control is what is happening. just your choice of what is controlling you.

reply to post by colbe

When the first Protestant men revolted, left the Church, there was no control. They no longer believed or were badly catechized or in pride, followed the evil one. The Church didn't stop them.

colbe,
On what do you base the above statement?

Do you know who King Henry VIII was? And WHY he insisted that his country was no longer Roman Catholic, and started up the Anglican Church? He was "the first Prostestant man to revolt" (though innumerable others, for centuries had quietly and with determination only put on the crucifix and "attended" Masses because they were subject to arrest, torture, death, or utter banishment if they did not put on the show. Then they went home and practiced their "real" spirituality...or to someone else's home, or a basement or cave somewhere.)

The Church didn't stop them, but it wasn't for lack of TRYING. The Church absolutely did not just say "fine, good luck with that. Get lost." Nonono. You must understand what was at stake with Rome and the major Kings. Whole countries, entire populations. Allegiances and butt-kissing were the way the world was run. Everyone wanted the Church on their side, because they weilded SO MUCH POWER. Over taxes, over land, over populations. All of it:
CONTROL.

The Church, when it found people behaving outside of it's rigorous expectations, demanded money from the people it deemed to have failed, or other unpleasant and cruel "penances". THAT is the truth about why people "revolted", and it wasn't until the 16th century. Before that, the Church was busy buying up land, controlling whole towns, and even the Kings were dependent on that Church because it was the most wealthy entity in the Western World.

King Henry VIII was, before he split from the Church and ordered all his subjects to do so as well (not that all of them did, they just went underground, quite literally. and carried on in secret: Secret Societies), considered to be so far superior to all other men that he answered only to God! Kings were considered to be "royal" by lineage and inheritance, bloodlines. NO ONE could tell a King he was wrong except GOD HIMSELF. (Not even Jesus). So, don't you imagine it irritated the Kings to high heaven when the Pope got richer, and was JUST AS POWERFUL in terms of his direct line to God? And then the Pope and his troops could wage war, on behalf of Kings, OR AGAINST THEM.

Those are the historical facts as we know them.

And I didn't even touch on how many the Church "excommunicated" for not "behaving according to their rules and wishes." It was the commonplace. "You don't want to do it my way? You're out. Gone. Unacceptable."

Or how they persecuted the Jews, for "making money by lending money", which was EXACTLY what THEY the CHURCH were doing. They didn't want the competition, and the Jews who were lenders didn't have any reason to, say, refuse to lend to a fuller producing wool just because the Church wanted them to lend to the building of their cathedrals. They were the competition. So the Church ran them off, over and over and over again.

Talk about control and oppression. The Church had everyone by the short hairs, for heaven sake! They made men superpowers, or paupers, depending on what those men did to uphold or rebel against the Church's absolute power. Not GOD's absolute power, the Church Leaders. The popes, and everyone below him. It is, and has been for centuries, a MAJOR CORPORATION. *smh*

I hope someday those of you who think your "teachers" gave you a well-rounded history and honest timeline realize that you were misled, either wilfully, or through the ignorance of the teachers themselves.

ALL OF THIS information is readily available. ALL OF IT. To anyone. You don't have to belong to a special group to read it.

Blessings, colbe,
and good luck
---wt