Will you open your Mind and your Heart?

reply to post by jiggerj


Do you not think each and every one of us have a philosophy that is separate from another?

You get two christians in the same room and begin asking them questions. They will answer differently. Each person may say they follow a particular religion/cult/belief but its too broad of a belief system to believe each and every aspect the same. This is why I think each person has their own unique Philosophy.

With each Christian there is a denomination as well. A baptist believes you are going to hell if you are not literally baptized. I knew I wasn't a Baptist at a young age because I have ALWAYS considered baptism as rebirth. Plain and simple. Why? Because Jesus says "you MUST" not you should. You MUST be baptized means there is no choice in the matter. You keep on a coming until you receive the crown which is acceptance of self. That is my philosophy on the matter of Baptism.

I tried each and every denomination until I decided to hell with it. I am none of these... I am who I am. There is no one out here who thinks like I do. We are all unique... we all have our own philosophy. We may jump to conclusions when someone speaks of their philosophy. If I were to tell you I love Jesus, you will think I am a Christian. You can be a Jesus proponent and not be a Christian.

One of my favorite poets is Kahlil Gibran. If you have heard of him and know a little about him then you know why I adore his writings. If you don't then I ask you to read about him. The way he speaks makes you think he may be a follower of Jesus, but he is not and was not a Christian. en.wikipedia.org...

My view remains the same. We ALL have our OWN and PERSONAL Philosophy of Life.

I experience the wind outside rush against my face and I experience a sensation through my body and it immediately touches my being to it's core... or... my ... spirit. I think of love and how the ones before me are kissing my face. Another person thinks.... hmmm... it's windy out. lol

None of us will ever agree on spiritual matters. We are like a tree with many roots, many leaves, and many branches. The tree of knowledge is filled with many ways. When you look at the root and make your way to the seed, it becomes clear that there is but one seed.

shelley-you dear,sweet,i might add a (tad-bit naive) woman...i totally believe in the lord.but along with being "intelligent",i am a realist.the lord was aware there would be "believers,& non-believers..period...you can no more change the mind of a non-believer,(unless he or she have their own spiritual awakening),than we can change into being a bird or butterfly...if EVERYONE believed in the lord..there wouldn't be any trials or tribulations,(as it is imperitive for these things to happen as part of life)..you CANNOT walk in someone elses shoes.we ALL have to go through our OWN journey..in order to be open-minded--you have to realize this.there has ALWAYS been good & evil.that is just the way it is.remember the serenity prayer?change the things you CAN,& REALIZE the things you CANNOT change..& the wisdom to know the difference.some people believe in the big-bang theory..there is no way-as the beauty & divine order of nature goes against this belief.but,alas---in the end,people will believe in what they want..

reply to post by shell69


Hello! I would like to reply to your first post. Your indignation seems to be split between:

• Religion is frequently attacked by many who consider themselves not to be close-minded, yet deal with religion in a close-minded way.
  
• Religion is considered to be a close-minded topic but you argue that, to investigate religion and spirituality, one must have an open mind.

About the first proposition. Firstly, some people are just simply close-minded and will bash religion because they weren't born around it. Secondly, religion has been strongly associated (and still is a glaring example) of close-mindedness when confronted with contradictory opinions and facts (flat earth, earth age, evolution, dinosaurs). Thus another bunch of people will reject religion immediately because it is strongly associated with that close-mindedness and a certain denial of reality. Many just dislike it due to the connections; others reject religion in fear of being dragged in the mindset they are against. Finally, some people will bash religion just because they see others doing it.

About the second proposition. Reflecting upon and considering religion, spirituality, and investigating such themes can't truly be done by the close-minded. However, because many religious people are close-minded and denying reality, religion gets a close-minded reputation. I would thus say that religion (or the lack of it) aren't "close-minded"; the people are, and that reputation bleeds to the respective topics.

In case you are wondering, I deny religion (and most of spirituality).
NOTE: I dislike the "open mind" saying, I would prefer "critical mind". An open mind seems awfully unprotected.

reply to post by shell69


I closed my mind when I realised that millions of innocent babies and children die EVERY single year, from famine, disease, rape, torture, car accidents, war, earthquakes, hurricanes, neglect, the list goes on. Not to mention the multi millions of 'good' innocent adults that die from the same things EVERY single year.

If a 'higher power' exists I hate it, therfore my mind is closed.

It use to be open, I used to believe, before you continue to judge me and others like me.

One of the problems I have with the Supreme Creator concept is, if this entity created the so called Adam & Eve, and the heavens and earth, where did this entity come from? Who or what created him (or her)

In short, the theory simply cannot sustain itself under the slightest scrutiny.

For the most part, the bible or koran or what ever book you believe guides you, was written / modified by man into its current form.

If this entity is all seeing and all powerful, please explain the violent death of small innocent children.

reply to post by shell69


Right from the get-go, you completely misunderstand and mis-state what it is to be an "unbeliever". An unbeliever is someone who has examined the claims and found them to be unfounded or, at the very least, as yet unproven.

An unbeliever, a scientific unbeliever, is be definition the most open minded person there is. The reason is because I am willing to change my mind based on evidence. I am a staunch unbeliever but if someone could show me some undeniable, incontrivertable proof that there existed some higher being that created the universe then I would, after examining the evidence, flip and start believeing immediately.

You said yourself "Just for the record, I am not ignorant, or easily persuaded, in fact I am one of the most guarded people I know", that's hardly the outlook of someone who claims to be open minded, being unpersuaded by argument or evidence makes you the very thing you are railing against.

And don't give me the garbage about a personal experience or revelation being proof. Anything that cannot be independantly verified by an other person is not objective evidence and falls VERY short of proof. A personal experience is exactly that. It is inside your own mind and the only way that anyone can evaluate that claim is by you telling them what has happened.

It is not objective, it is unrepeatable or testable by a third party and as such it becomes bad evidence at the very least.

I remain unconvinced despite how open minded I am.

reply to post by CT_Flyboy

One of the problems I have with the Supreme Creator concept is, if this entity created the so called Adam & Eve, and the heavens and earth, where did this entity come from? Who or what created him (or her)

I hope you don't mind... lol

I want to ask you a few questions first before I give you my take on it. Let's ask more questions....

Scientists say life first started on Earth, how?

Also, Scientists say life first started in the Universe, how?

reply to post by AgFox

The reason is because I am willing to change my mind based on evidence.

What kind of evidence is acceptable for you? What would be YOUR proof? I'm curious.

Wanting others to believe what you believe is the ultimate form of hubris...

"...if only everyone thought like me, the world would be a better place."... and "... everyone else is wrong for not thinking like me"!

Ha

reply to post by puzzlesphere


I agree with you. You see things I don't and vice versa. You experience many different things in life I will never experience. Life throughout time changes perspective for each of us on an individual basis per biology and perspective.

It's natural.

What we can do is share with one another though without becoming defensive. Through one's experience we can learn. Well, some of us can. I can. I know that.

I have experienced a lot of trauma. To know me is not to know that. You would have to walk in my shoes and only then you may have a possibility of "thinking" like I think. You would have to own every single cell inside my body to be exactly like me and honestly I don't think there is any way you could ever be me. We.. you.. I, we are all unique.

This argument is one that is as baffling as the others.

When I first had my experience with The Higher Power.. I was shown specific things that have since come to pass and I felt specific emotions that albeit sound like a lie.. are too indescribable to ever forget. To feel the presences of something in you, with you, around you and in your heart . Is something that can only BE experienced. NEVER shared.

This is why I believe.. none of us fully understand Christ. 1st.
Much of the Massive Population of Earth has chosen.. to allow priests/rabbis/preachers/and beyond lead them to a higher power.
I am not a Christian.. don't consider myself one. But I believe I'm slowly starting to understand the Christ and I most certainly believe in it.
You see if the crucifixion of Jesus is seen as it was intended. (As a death of ALL idols..) He took ALL of the SINS. Thus he goes to Hades for 3 days. He was even more evil than Satan while being as Clean as God and choosing to be of the Higher Character.
Non-Believers.. as I was before I was tapped in the back of the heart and my door was kicked in by him.
Are perfectly in line to become what they are meant to be.
I believe that Religion has murdered what The Gospel is really about.
We all must pull into the same port eventually if we're actually looking for what comes next or what came before.. which seems almost natural at some point.
This port is Christ.
None of us know what God looks/sounds/is..
But he's there.
Some of us take a while to find something to believe in because in cases like mine I was grown up in it and had it shoved down my throat with hardly a chance to question the rhetoric or create my own.
I turned away and even before I met him I was searching for "something".
My life has changed quite incredibly for the better in the small 2.5 years span since it happened.. Expecting my first Son this December.

The fact is that Those of us who truly believe in a higher power that we've witnessed and come to know and those of us who choose to believe in nothing are on the exact same road.
They've either found Their Story or they're waiting on their own... whether they realize it or not.
They haven't fallen to false idols. They've found him their own way or holding off until they do.

They choose to seek on their own, not take someone's word for it.
This is the mark of God's People.
The Left and the Right.
The Do and the Don't.
Hedonistic and Heavenly.
Perfectly Balanced.
Open Minded
Free.

Not led by a Church that obviously has self interests involved.
To say it best.
One or the other. We're both called to our specific duties. To counter the Potentially Dangerous Extremes.
Peace.

Those who are unable to consider an opposite opinion or lifestyle are the very same people who have a ZERO tolerance for any other beliefs, other than their own! In my opinion, this is a dangerous mindset and as far as I am concerned the very ROOT of all EVIL & DISCOURSE in our world today! The fact that you feel the need to ridicule, or mock or deflate someone's beliefs or belief system is the very heart and soul and POINT of this thread in it's entirety.

reply to post by shell69


Everything you wrote is what you are doing to me. I was offering my opinion in a nonthreatening, non-confrontational way and it is you bashing the hell out of me for it.

I am convinced that each one of us can only find the truth within each one of us and there are many paths to that truth. For all we know not believing may be a path to believing and finding the truth.

Proof is in the eye of the beholder so long as it is perceived and believed.

I was raised in religion. I was a believer. As I got older I began to have doubts. I had always been closed minded because I was taught to be close minded and was sounded by people who were close minded. As I started to question my beliefs my mind began to open.

Eventually I came to a place where my mind was more open but I felt guilty for my doubts despite all the contradictions and flaws I would find while reading the bible. I prayed and begged god to remove my doubts and give me more faith to no avail. I tried desperately to hang on to the last of my belief. Yet the more I prayed and begged god to help me not to doubt and to learn to love him, the more my doubt increased. Surely if god existed, this would be a prayer he would honor right?

My belief turned to agnosticism but I was more open minded at this point that I ever had been and possibly will ever be again. I started researching other beliefs and focused more on spirituality than religion. However, the more I learned, the more I leaned towards atheism.

It was a Christian here on ATS that nailed the final nail on the coffin concerning my belief.
If you want to talk about open mindedness, I would have to say that from my experience Pagans and agnostics are the ones with the most open minds when it comes to god. Christian minds are far more closed, because it is a required part of the religion.

.

I like the message of being open minded, but it seems obvious here it is about one God.

It has been my experience that some of the most dangerous and closed minded individuals are those that have been raised to believe one way and who only have that ONE OPTION.

Well isn't one God, equal to one option and one way? Why not several creators?

Those who are unable to consider an opposite opinion or lifestyle are the very same people who have a ZERO tolerance for any other beliefs

I don't like the Abrahamic religions that much since they forbid the worshiping (same as believing right?) other Gods.

reply to post by shell69

reply to post by shell69

Accepting your whole God myth, the proselytizing, to be accepting of an eternity as one of the blessed, taken as a whole sort of reminds me of a heroine addict. Even they have a from of eternal bliss as long as their body lasts and they have drugs. I just can't see spending "eternity" in that state.

I was a paramedic for a while and have seen plenty of drug addicts, some dead, some mellow, some aggressive and some that seemed crazy. Not to mention pissed off when you push a dose of Narcan (Naloxone). I've seen carnage in accidents, folks smiling as they draw their last breath. I've even smelled the "roses" a few time but none of that has been proof to me that God exists.

But, lets look at the so called other side of the coin if the God myth is true.

Lucifer (First Light of the Morning; Bringer of Light; Day Star; Enlightenment; Little Horn; Shining One; Shining Star; The Lightbringer; The Morning Star), God’s first living creation. Most beautiful, betrayer of the hosts of heaven. Yada yada yada.

The whole point is that Lucifer couldn't of gotten a bunch of Angels to follow it by telling lies. Lucifer as the first Angel must have had the burden of God's truth in all things and shared that truth.

Lucifer and it's followers may have left Heaven but no where is it reported that Lucifer and it's followers still don't love God.

I image when you get right to it, the strongest felt most betrayed by God's truth and left while the suck-ups hung around.

And if the bible was written as the word of God by men there had to be a hero and a villain so guess who got to be each.

The bible seems to spell out that those going to "hell" will be consumed by fire and be no more while other passages claim eternal burning.

Overall, I really don't know what, if anything, lies beyond the death of the physical body. I've had dreams where I've lived other lives, in other times, as both male and female but I'm not positive beyond a doubt that reincarnation is a fact.

Are "out-of-body experiences" real or imagined events before we are fully asleep.

I've been involved in some religious and "pagan" teaching in my lifetime and while it would be a shame that all of those experiences vanish upon death, I'm not ready to declare faith in either.

There are over 400 differing denominations in the United States alone, and they all believe they are right. Which path do you follow. Which is the truth. And therein lies the problem.

Take Matthew 7:13-14 (NIV) 13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

So basically, most are of humanity is destined for "hell" because they can't find faith or their faith is tainted and God seems perfectly fine with that.

Finally, if you accept the God myth, God isn’t a building where you play dress up once a week. And the whole religion thing of preaching hell and damnation while passing the plate for donations just feels wrong.

Originally posted by calstorm
I was raised in religion. I was a believer. As I got older I began to have doubts. I had always been closed minded because I was taught to be close minded and was sounded by people who were close minded. As I started to question my beliefs my mind began to open.

Eventually I came to a place where my mind was more open but I felt guilty for my doubts despite all the contradictions and flaws I would find while reading the bible. I prayed and begged god to remove my doubts and give me more faith to no avail. I tried desperately to hang on to the last of my belief. Yet the more I prayed and begged god to help me not to doubt and to learn to love him, the more my doubt increased. Surely if god existed, this would be a prayer he would honor right?

My belief turned to agnosticism but I was more open minded at this point that I ever had been and possibly will ever be again. I started researching other beliefs and focused more on spirituality than religion. However, the more I learned, the more I leaned towards atheism.

It was a Christian here on ATS that nailed the final nail on the coffin concerning my belief.
If you want to talk about open mindedness, I would have to say that from my experience Pagans and agnostics are the ones with the most open minds when it comes to god. Christian minds are far more closed, because it is a required part of the religion.

.

edit on 1-9-2013 by calstorm because: (no reason given)

edit on 1-9-2013 by calstorm because: (no reason given)

edit on 1-9-2013 by calstorm because: (no reason given)

I can relate to your feelings regarding some Christians, not all of them though. As I stated earlier, we all, no matter what religion or non religion we choose, we all have our own philosophy.

The Bible in my opinion is not as black and white as some believe. My opinion of course. It's filled with layers and the meanings are sometimes cryptic.

ANY book when read is taken a certain way by the reader. Some choose not to read it and understand for themselves. They would rather listen to what someone else believes and accept it as fact. The uneducated who wants to be spoon fed, maybe? I would love to spoon feed the one trying to get an understanding. My education would be sooo different than most all denominations in Christianity!!!

I remember thinking I found contradictions as well until I understood why there is indeed contradictions. It has to do with his-story as well as our history as a species. It would require a written book from me to help you understand what I mean by the above sentence. Its more "special" from my view than the church's. For this reason I cannot go to a Christian church nor can I align myself as a part of the (or any) religion.

Atheism is and has never been a logical idea for me though. I am spiritual by nature. I have always had a spiritual side that cannot be laid to rest and I have tried. For me, my spirituality has only increased since I began my journey of philosophy many years ago. I do not however knock a non believer or non spiritual person. I have more respect for a non believer because it is beyond my scope of understanding.

Another person nailing the coffin regarding Christ is saddening to hear. Why give another person the power to throw away a key?

reply to post by Bramble Iceshimmer


What if Lucifer and Jesus are the same soul? Does that make the Bible appear different? The old and the new story are so different just as the personality in Lucifer and Jesus. Yin and Yang....

His- story has a new meaning in the "new" testament. Who's testament is the old and the new? Man's? Jesus? Both?

Do you think it's possible Adam (first man) and Jesus (last man) are the same soul as well? Do you think the reason why the Bible says we are all in Jesus and Jesus in us is because we are a part of the seed of which started humanity? Maybe we are all truly the loaf of bread while Jesus is said to be the heel and then finally the crown. Maybe his-story is our history.

We all have trials and tribulations. We all are crucified for one thing or another. At the end of the day his-story shows he forgives his enemies from the bottom of his heart. Does that deserve a crown? Has Jesus possibly come along way to show us the way? Are we the fallen?

The Bible can be looked at in different lights. Not just the orthodox light.... your own personal light can indeed shine new light on matters we hold dear.

reply to post by Murgatroid


Let me fix that for everybody

Atheism and (false) religion are BOTH part of the SAME agenda.

You see I get where agnostics and atheists perspective originates from, if God exists, and he is the God of the Bible. Why has he allowed false Christianity to so badly corrupt itself that it would clearly blind critical thinkers searching for a truth obscured by evil and false teachings. Yet the bible answers....

Here Jesus is talking about future people who claim to be Christians, yet they are condemned.

Matthew 7: 15-23

15"Beware of false prophets. They come to you disguised as sheep, but in their hearts they are vicious wolves. 16You will know them by what they produce. "People don't pick grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles, do they? 17In the same way every good tree produces good fruit, but a rotten tree produces bad fruit. 18A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a rotten tree cannot produce good fruit. 19Any tree that fails to produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into a fire. 20So you will know them by what they produce.

21"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord!' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the person who does what my Father in heaven wants. 22Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name? Didn't we force out demons and do many miracles by the power and authority of your name?' 23Then I will tell them publicly, 'I've never known you. Get away from me, you evil people.'

Once an agnostic that has dismissed all of Christianity can understand this, that is half the battle.