"Abandon belief for direct experience."
Exactly.
However, we often mistake beliefs and mind generated concepts and interpretations as a "direct experience".
It takes some deep and rare awareness to see the difference.
Is it WHAT you believe that is important...or...is it HOW?
by Terry 31 Replies latest watchtower bible
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myelaine
dear JamesThomas...
you said: "We then enter into the deep unspeakable sense of the question of “Who am I”; totally naked and bare of everything. We are a blank slate. A void. Empty. Nothing to hinder, nothing to filter, nothing to taint, the pure light of Truth to enter and so be seen and known."...
BUT, this is your "truth"..."What does matter, amounts to one thing: how we treat each-other and all life and planet."...
WHAT if that input deprivation brings out the worst, unspeakable, "Who am I"...who's to call that wrong?...not you?...because..."The preface is that the paramount truth, the wisdom and knowing that we seek -- is present, here, now. What good is a “truth”, if it is absent? For truth to be truth it must be valid, alive and undeniable when embraced and beheld."
love michelle
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Ucantnome
Terry when you say, 'there NEVER HAS BEEN one thing which is 'TRUE' Christianity. Christianity is a kaleidoscope of opions and practices.'
Do you think that Matthew 7:21-23 would indicate that there are True disciples and False and so therefore True Christianity and False Christianity?
'HOW YOU TREAT PEOPLE demonstrates who you are more than all the beliefs and truth that ever existed' so in a sense are you saying this is the 'one' thing? and for christians this would be showing their faith in Christ as they have a heart that motivates them to do good things? but couldn't the atheist claim that they have no faith in Christ but are just as heart motivated to do good? and so doing is not necessarily an indication of christianity.
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Isidore
"By the year of the Council of Nicea, 325 A.D. the heads of congregations all over the Roman Empire met together and compared scars, wounds, and arguments for the purpose of agreeing on something unifying. Eusebius makes it quite clear in his history of that meeting how much dissent, disagreement, violent controversy and utter disparity was already rife in "christianity."
There is not now and there NEVER HAS BEEN one thing which is "TRUE" Christianity. Christianity is a kaleidoscope of opinions and practices."
This is a very narrow view of what Eusebius had to say. Just because there was dissent does not truth did not exist. You are assertion that there has never been "true" Chirstianity is just, your assertion. A complete reading of the Church Fathers would demonstrate that there was a true deposit of faith passed down.
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stillin
Sincerity, if you can fake that, you've got it made.
George Burns
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Terry
Youcantnome's Question: Do you think that Matthew 7:21-23 would indicate that there are True disciples and False and so therefore True Christianity and False Christianity?
Answer: No! That's an unnecessary and false dichotomy. There are at least the 3 possibilities?
1.There IS a true christianity.
2.There are false christianities.
3.None are connected with any reality
Youcantnome's Question:
'HOW YOU TREAT PEOPLE demonstrates who you are more than all the beliefs and truth that ever existed' so in a sense are you saying this is the 'one' thing? and for christians this would be showing their faith in Christ as they have a heart that motivates them to do good things? but couldn't the atheist claim that they have no faith in Christ but are just as heart motivated to do good? and so doing is not necessarily an indication of christianity. Isadore says:
Answer: God has no "needs" but humanity definitely does. People unwilling to repair humankind by hands-on effort (instead of words and traditions and rituals) are not true to anything worth discussing be it religion or whatever.
Atheists who love their fellow man and make a genuine effort to repair mankind are at least as good as people doing so for religious reasons.
Isadore queries:
Terry: There is not now and there NEVER HAS BEEN one thing which is "TRUE" Christianity. Christianity is a kaleidoscope of opinions and practices."
Isadore: This is a very narrow view of what Eusebius had to say. Just because there was dissent does not truth did not exist. You are assertion that there has never been "true" Chirstianity is just, your assertion. A complete reading of the Church Fathers would demonstrate that there was a true deposit of faith passed down.
Terry:
True? True as demonstrated how? For every church father you have another church father who disagrees. The early church consisted of brawlers who burned each others congregations and started fist fights for not agreeing to some imagined orthodoxy.
If a Church Father was in a position to BURN the writings of somebody who didn't see things their own way--THEY BURNED!
Besides, we have absolutely no ORIGINAL writings, autograph manuscripts or non-corrupt early writings. The earliest existing
copy of a copy of a copy is about the size of a postage stamp. The existing copies, of copies, of copies of copies were dragged out of rotting landfills and broken pots. Hardly a demonstration of Divine Preservation of Truth!
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Ucantnome
Terry do you think there could be false Christs that have followers and then false christians?
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james_woods
There are two sides to the coin mentioned in the original post:
For every "masochistic" christianity (JWs, the flagellation-fetish monks, some might say the isolationists such as the Amish) - -
(You gain future salvation and piety by present day earthly suffering)
There are also the "hedonistic" christian offshoots - Robert Shuller (Crystal Cathedral), Joel Osteen, etc...
(You gain immediate earthly gratification - worldly wealth, health, happiness - by contributing to and supporting these faiths)
Both are, of course, illusionary.
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Terry
Terry do you think there could be false Christs that have followers and then false christians?
TRUE to what? Prove how? In comparison to exactly what?
You see--it is endlessly regressive, recursive and fruitless.
For whatever God may be it is obvious one of the attributes is not a lack of ambiguity of expression!
More like: inarticulate.
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Ucantnome
There seems to be quite a list of messiah claimants on Wikipedia, it mentions Vespasian according to Josephus under Jewish messiah Claimants.
I don't think he was.