edited to change thread title: .
is god's love so wonderful that he will save everyone?
even satan and his dark angels?
A truly all-embracing God has a beautiful ring of truth to it; for certainly the Source and Sustenance of an infinite universe must be greater still.
The next step is to stop limiting the Divine completely, by not reducing it down to something so small as to be absent.
If there truly is That which has no beginning and no end, what does that make you? Just beneath and closer than everything you believe yourself to be, what are you really?
What truly looks out your eyes?
j
does the belief that there is no all-loving diety in which to be accountable to make it easier or harder to treat and judge others they way that you want to be treated and judged?.
since evolution supposes that life and ultimately man who is at the top of the chain got here through a process of the fittest dominating and killing off the weaker, and since most modern evolutionists in democracies no longer think that this is good to practice, how do you deal with the fact that you are a living contradiction of your own belief since you pronounce the same thing both good and bad?
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Perry:
Hillary-Step,
Who are you to judge God so that I should follow your misdirection and judge Him as you tempt me to do? He is infinite in all respects.
Dear Perry,
Perhaps with a little clearer comprehension of your own words, you wouldn't have to start divisive threads such as this one.
Infinity is all-inclusive; and so One. So then your arguments for separation and duality are erroneous. There is really nothing to defend and protect. Put up your sword.
The problem is you use words like infinite to define your god, when in fact the mental image you prostrate before is so small as to include only you and those of like mind. The rest of us lay abandoned in the huge vastness outside your little deity. The fact is, no one and no thing is abandoned, nor can be. Your disunity which separates you out and makes you so special in your own eyes exists only in your mind and its limited understanding of the Divine.
This is the main reason why religion can be so harmful. It separates us and causes animosity. When in fact, there is no real enemy.
j
aside from the fact that gnosis is greek for knowledge.
two things christians seem to dislike greeks(think animal house) and knowledge (other than knowledge of the christ of course).
seeing as they practice a form of it anyway.. gnostics believe that they have secret knowledge about god, humanity and the rest of the universe of which the general population was unaware.
It doesn't make sence to me.
Narkissos, explained it pretty well, so I suggest looking closely at what he had to say.
I will be a little more blunt. Generally (not always) Christians embrace a very definable and diminutive, anthropomorphic image of the Divine. To which they intensely identify, which places them (in their eyes) into a separate group of the "saved" or God's "chosen". For a Christian it's about separating themselves from everyone else: all of us sinners and evil ones. Again, I am speaking in generalities here.
Gnosticism, is a view of spirituality outside such a conditioanl and restrictive box. It's about what unites us one and all. In other words it's a much wider understanding of the Divine which many Christians find threatening to thier grossily confined and constrained views which makes them special.
Fundamental Christianity's diminutive god leaves much room for inflation of the ego, whereas Gnostic Christianities limitless view of the Divine leave little if any room for the ego, and so can lead to the egoes death. It seems it takes a certain readiness to be open to something so radical in nature. IMO.
j
although i now no longer truly believe in god ( i now neither believe or disbelieve anything about anything, its easier that way), there have been some very low times lately where i have started to actually pray and quickly stopped myself.
although i didn't ever pray v often i did used to find that if i had something troubling me or was upset then praying used to leave me feeling so much calmer afterwards about things.
i realise i actually miss being able to do that as now i have no way of feeling better over sad things or whatever may be troubling me.
I realise i actually miss being able to do that as now i have no way of feeling better over sad things or whatever may be troubling me.
Hello Dobbie.
Perhaps your problem is that you have reduced the Divine down to a deity which you (wisely) no longer believe in, and so you now feel cut-off and alone.
I worship no gods or deities as they are too small to be responsible for such a vast and wondrous expression of life and universe, but why does this mean we must be complacent to or separated from the living awe of existence? If we do not shrink and reduce the Divine to some little thing or deity, then there is no end to it; and so we are free to pray if and when we feel a need. I pray; just not to a circumscribable deity or image outside of the intimate and alive sense of reality and existence right here and now.
My sense is that our sincere and earnest desires to embrace our true Source do not go unanswered; and even in the darkest depths of despair there can be found a pristine jewel of oneness and peace within.
j
much to my surprise when i found this site...i noticed that many have experienced the same typr of humiliation, asn despaid as i have throughout my 36 years on this earth.
in reading some of these stories (even after being out of the truth) for over 20 years...it still brings chills to my spine about how i was treated.
where do i begin?
Welcome
j
Very Zen.
Ross, and I were discussing this very thing the other day.
j
history has demonstrated:.
religion is following orders by implicitly trusting someone or something.. science asks questions.. religion purports to answer questions.. science seeks to disprove its own conclusions.. religion seeks to reinforce its own dogma.. science is error-correction toward adjusting for realities as they unfold.. religion internalizes against reality by mocking up a substitute.. science is the most recent development of the human mind.
technology proves science to be successful in advancing human progress.. religion disdains human progress and waits for the end.
When I was a religionist it offered me a very diminutive and encapsulated "reality" and identity in which a bastardized sense of comfort, "knowing" and self righteousness was derived. Void of the walls created by beliefs in tiny gods, there is an opportunity to step out and meet with the infinite vastness of raw reality and investigate into our own immediate and bottomless sense of existence. However, more often than not such boundlessness is too threatening and scary -- and there are thought-patterns already set -- and so we find ourselves once again imprisoned within our mind; only this time our warm capsule being some other belief system perhaps political or even scientific in nature. What have we really done, other than change the pictures on our jail cell walls?
What is life, what is real when no religious, social or scientific beliefs, definitions and assumptions are applied? What exists outside the mind? Who/what, am I, really? Perhaps, the most significant scientific breakthroughs are found in questioning and investigating into our own true identity, first.
j
i'm finding online people who tell me that they believe the jw's are the truth.. yet they are living a life which says the exact opposite.
i'm not talking about people who are trying to fade.
these are people who specifically say it's the truth.
Swan, here is an article which is often posted here which is entitled: Why Bad Believes Don't Die. It's very good at revealing some psychological reasons behind this phenomena.
j
dateline has been running a series of programs on internet child predators.
just a few months ago, they (along with perverted justice) made an appearance in sleepy little murphy, texas.
they used a house 2 blocks from where we live (all those evil, wicked apostates who've been to my home should know).. tonight they ran the episode, complete with the arrest of a local school teacher who was trolling after what he thought a 13 year old boy, a neighbor (literally) and a public prosecutor who killed himself rather than be arrested.
That's our ((gal))!
j
..........happy birthday......... .
purps.
your profile says its your birthday today..........it might have been yesterday........can't ever tell on some dates.
Thank you dears, very nice of you to notice. Actually it's about 30 hours yet. Then I'll be as old as dirt.
Here's to you.
j
