In another chat room http://pathwayschurch.ca I am having a rather interesting dialogue with a computer scientist who says that, though he is an atheist, he enjoys coming to the PATHWAYS CHURCH. By the way, I believe he is a loving and moral person.

The following is a response I gave to some recent comments he made:

Was this something that evolved in you or is it something that always was a part of you?
You made a comment in another thread that at 17 you asked a question "Why do we keep praying to God as a "Him"? Why do we address God as if He were a super-kind of person, one with a will, able to hear (with ears?) and answer (with a voice?) our prayers?"
Did that question lead to another question in relationship to that one? Has the succession of God related questions ended with the final formulation of what God is?
If you were to continue to live for an extended amount of time equal to the time that you have lived would you still be making claims to spelling God and symbolizing God in the same way that you do now?

If not, ask yourself how long you will wait until you give up your present labels and identities?
Will you wait until you invent/experience something greater, perhaps a simpler acronym or name with a more spiritual or deeper meaning?


Morality is subjective to standards created from the judgments of external conditions, often judgments created from evolving perspectives of reality.


Nature is often misunderstood, and the sciences that attempt to explain the nature of things are continually evolving to fit something that is larger than definition into the box that defines and limits nature.


The chaos is the true order of things, it is the nature of the mind to limit the unlimited to beauty defined in the individual eye, for not all eyes appreciate one mans identity with labels of beauty or chaos.

PROCESS THEISM. Joesus, I relate to what follows For more like this, check out:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/process-theism/

Lindsay...I had the giffft of spending almost two years silent. This lead me to question all religions-belief systems. When I disrobed I took the following away with me.

In a sense, the theist is morally disabled. They function, but less efficiently, and are prone to relatively immoral actions based on their chosen medieval scripture. They lack the clarity of understanding an atheist has over the dynamic of the social contract.

The atheist is the truly moral individual of the two. If you require the threat of eternal damnation to prevent you from commiting murder, rape and paedophilia, then how can you be considered an ethical human being?

The atheist rejects murder, rape and paedohpilia because he/she chooses no to inflict harm on other human beings. This represents an enlightened state of thinking, in which an individual conciously decides to conduct themselves according to the logical conclusions of certain behaviours on society.

As soon as secular orgnisation can break down organised religion's monopoly of certain celebrational and cultural functions that human beings naturally desire, the rotten, ignorant, oppressive heart of theism will be revealed and I suspect numbers of "believers" will plummet.

It's a shame our next Enlightenment/Reneissance is taking so long to come along though. Religion is so useful as a tool for militism it's really causing a lot of problems we could do without right now.\

Moral systems built out of ideas such as intuitive moral imperatives (do unto others, maximize happiness, etc) which are logically consistent could be considered reasonable. Those systems which have as basic premises that a magical man was born and he wrote a holy book of which every word is the divine truth of God, even those words which are clearly false or self contradictory, is clearly an unreasonable system.

Moral systems that are based on premises about the divinity of some holy book, or the infallibility of some man in a robe, or about the likes and dislikes of a magical invisible man, are NOT to be accepted outright, just in virtue of it being a religious tradition. HOWEVER, the moral systems offered by various religious traditions MIGHT be acceptable moral positions, but the fact that they are offered by a religious group does NOT give them a free pass -the morality of their system must be determined in the arena of logical thought.

I wonder if the premise "it says so in my holy book" should be an acceptable starting grounds for an ethical theory. I believe (and I think you may agree with me) that if the moral system offered by a given religion is actually a good moral system, then we should be able to analyze it on its own. We should evaluate these moral systems as specific moral philosophies, and not give them a free pass just because some people happen to think that they are divinely inspired.

Lindsay, I can relate to anything but I don't identify myself as being the things I relate to.

When I say "I relate" to certain ideas, I mean that I find them intellectually satisfying without requiring that others feel the same and have the same ideas.

In the same way I find it satisfying, physically, mentally and spiritually, to live with others. Others, for me, can include members of the same family, the enlarged family--as a teenager I was one of an enlarged-family of 14--or even a community of families living in the same geographic area.

I now live on Kings Inn Trail, in the village of Thornhill, in the growing city of Markham, part of the greater Toronto area--now over 6,000,000--in the province of Ontario, the nation of Canada, the continent of North America, part of the western hemisphere, the globe, the solar system, the Milky Way galaxie, the universe, and the mind of GØD. [With apolgies to Thornton Wilder (1897-1975). Rebecca, in the play, Our Town, use words like these.]

People living in harmony, and in community--the fellowship of kindreds minds--can be a wonderful thing. But this does not mean that I object to people who, maybe because they fear the tyranny of the collective, choose to live alone.
===================================================
http://websyte.com/alan/pan.htm

Culture. two things. First I do not quite understand what you mean by Second, what it the meaning of your avatar, the chemical formula?

BTW, in my opinion, theists create God in their own image. Otherwise, why would there be so many different kinds of theisms?

There was once a Teacher named Brahmananda who said, "let the thieves create an institution, and the teachers walk amongst the world."

I've both lived in community and alone, and I find it serves one in the reflection of belief to observe themselves in their attachments and beliefs as long as one can be objective about themselves rather than looking to label themselves as being something or nothing.

There are the thieves who become codependent and gain strength in numbers spouting their truths and greatness because they have someone to back them up and then there are those who are truly strong in their spirit and do not require the presence of community to be stable in their experience of living faith and commitment to the pursuit of Union with all things and the immersion in Self Realization.

People create what they think they need, not necessarily what is necessary to know themselves because they cling to certain limited identification of what God is and what it means to be living in Union.
Communities are often created to bring like minded people together but the judgment that lives in the minds of those who have not yet realized Union in both mind and heart still cling to ideas of identity and project what God is in both good and evil, and in behavior and desire. Sin is still seen as living outside of the religious box rather than disconnection from spirit and the inability to see and experience God in all things.

There was a book I once read which referred to the loss of community (Atlantis) that was immersed in spiritual communion by majority and by the grace of higher spirit gifting presence of the divine to the community for thousands of years.
Those that had been passing down the truth from one to the other simply took the truth verbatim labeling their experiences as divine without ever having known anything other than what was created within the community.
In retrospect after the destruction of Atlantis, the Gods happened to gaze down at a lone individual sitting by a fire in a cave chanting a mantra he himself had cognized in praise and gratitude to a force he had intuited as being greater than what he could imagine. Seeking to know that force, he had on his own, decided to focus his attention on that as his lifelong purpose, giving up the majority and their collective belief system and comfort of the group. They saw a light burning in the heart of this man that excelled beyond any other.

Mt 8:22 But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.

Lk 9:60 Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.

Those that speak of God do not necessarily Know God and so they cannot preach the kingdom of God but they can preach what they relate to in external idolatry and collective comfort of belief.
Often self-accomplishment is spoken of and worn as a badge to try and convince ones self that they have not wasted their lives in false pursuit because they Fear God or Fear the unknown.
So it is safer to bring God into common terms of identity so that one may soothe the fear that is the annihilation of the ego as the dominant separate force in the universe.


I haven't experienced a community yet that isn't codependent and filled with a mix of strong and weak minded individuals, with the weak easily influenced by the strong.
I don't know if there is a community that is not still evolving with its membership free of need and filled with spirit.
God is not democratic iin my experience but humanity tries to create God in the spirit of democracy which degrades the experience of union into limited concepts and projections of good intentions still filled with prejudice and judgment.

People are at where they are at by choice and so living in community or alone isn't a precurser to enlightenment, they are only circumstances that are often labeled as an influencing factor.

A thoughtful post, J.

Isn't there an old saw to the effect that the best way to destroy a beautiful, good and true idea is to organize and institutionalize it?

There is another story about God's decision to visit earth, in disguise. "I want to observe human behaviour, close up, without anyone being aware of me. The angel Gabriel suggested to him: "If you really want to hide, why don't you hide in a human heart? They will never think of looking for you there".

Earlier, by an unknown poster, I was asked what I thought of the theological ideas of Benedict Spinoza. I responded that I think highly of what Spinoza wrote. I suspect that were he alive today he would like process theology. The following is an outline article of the philosophy of Spinoza:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/s/spinoza.htm
Unknown went on to ask:

BTW, because I believe that any discussion of theology involves discussing the healing power of faith I thought I would bring forward a discussion which I had some time ago, with a very interesting poster, regarding HYPNOSIS and its offspring, NLP, which offers what I like to refer to a a technology of faith:

http://brainmeta.com/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=51&t=7873

I have often wondered: What ever happened to RTB?

Lindsay why do you think it necessary in order to discuss theology one has to to discuss faith healing?
I spent about a year amongst the Khoi San (Bushmen) in the Kalahari Desert and although their belief system is
animistic in many ways there was no belief in faith healing. (we are talking about the oldest known people here) but instead made use of nature for all healing.

I find myself very envious of you at this moment. How did you do that? Is there any of them left any more? How lucky of you!

Perhaps in order for us to communicate a little more effectively with one another it is necessary that we make it clear what we mean when we use and hear words like 'belief' and 'faith'. In my opinion, all of life--physically, mentally and spiritually--involves the use of faith and belief, in one way or another.

BTW, I believe that there is such a thing as blind faith. There is also false belief.

You're speaking of Human belief and faith when you speak of all life?

What other kind is there?

Interestingly, I think that our word 'man', or human', come directly from Sanskrit=thinker. The Sanskrit word 'manava' is made up of three words: ma=ignorant; na= desire, and va = action. This makes sense. Our desire causes us to take action to overcome our ignorance.

Yesterday, I had the honour of giving the reflection, or the message, for the day, at http://www.pathwayschurch.ca Using the title, ARE WE INVENTING GOD? I spoke about the above, among other things.

ABOUT SANSKRIT
http://sanskrit.gde.to/learning_tools/learning_tools.html
http://sanskrit.gde.to/dict/
http://sanskrit.gde.to/dict/dictall.itx

I think one should point out there is a significant difference between faith and belief
The two are not necessarily interchangeable. I'm not splitting hairs, just want to make sure
we start on the same page.

The word human is indeed an old one but the sanskrit "hsam" translates to earth/soil.
Manava linguistically points to the root Ma - [not[ nava [new] - this among a few possibilities in
Sanskrit, at least in Pali Sanskrit.

Well when were speaking of life and all of life I don't think of life as being restricted to the human experience, nor consisting of belief or faith.
One can have faith in anything and believe in anything but life itself does not exist on faith or belief.
In other words life does not exist because of faith or belief, not even the human experience.

What about self, self-awareness, self-consciousness?

What about it?

In the spirit of dialogue, I put the following question to all readers: What, for you, is self, self-awareness, consciousness--what I call the pneuma factor, or component of being human?

Tell us: In what way are they not "interchangeable"?

Culture, your note about the Pali Sanskrit----poses the question: Which Sanskrit "expert" is the authoritative one?

For the record: Would it be possible for contributors to this thread to tell us the basic philosophy/theology, if any, on which you base you comments and questions?

For example, my basic theology--one not fixed in stone--is contained in my signature. I call it unitheism/panentheism. Culturally speaking, I call myself a Christian. However, I respect and am very open to accept, not just tolerate, all sincerely held belief systems, including atheism, which actively promote moral, ethical and loving living.

[quote name='Culture' post='68911' date='Aug 28, 11:26 AM']...I think one should point out there is a significant difference between faith and belief
The two are not necessarily interchangeable. I'm not splitting hairs, just want to make sure we start on the same page.[/quote]

[quote name='Lindsay' date='Aug 29, 08:08 AM' post='68928']Tell us: In what way are they not "interchangeable"?[/quote]

Belief is intellectual, and belief is supported by reasons which usually are based on the senses.


Culture, your note about the Pali Sanskrit--[quote]The word human is indeed an old one but the sanskrit "hsam" translates to earth/soil.
Manava linguistically points to the root Ma - [not[ nava [new] - this among a few possibilities in Sanskrit, at least in Pali Sanskrit.

[/quote]--poses the question: Which Sanskrit "expert" is the authoritative one?

Point taken. Let us move away from the semantics.

For the record: Would it be possible for contributors to this thread to tell us the basic philosophy/theology, if any, on which you base you comments and questions?


For example, my basic theology--one not fixed in stone--is contained in my signature. I call it unitheism/panentheism. Culturally speaking, I call myself a Christian. However, I respect and am very open to accept, not just tolerate, all sincerely held belief systems, including atheism, which actively promote moral, ethical and loving living.
[/quote]

Thats a wonderful way to live this life.
Culturally speaking I call myself a seeker of truth. I am of a similar mind as you are, except that I do not have a religion. I have beliefs but not faith. I have no qualms with anyone has faith. Understanding why people or cultures think, believe, behave the way they do is what I try to do and find the best way to do so is by livings amongst the people.

Like you, I still consider myself a "seeker". And I had the good fortune of being born into a "faith" which encouraged this.

BTW, I still think of myself as one who is in the process of seeking. Beyond high school, preparation for the ministry of the United Church of Canada took me seven years (BA, plus three years theology/Bible/Greek/Hebrew/Church History, etc.) Beyond that, after my first assignment (Labrador, NL) I did two years of postgrad studies (The History of Ideas) at Boston University. I had forty years as a minister of the United Church of Canada. I had the fun of preaching not only to myself, but to others.

In addition to theology, the Bible and other sacred writings, I the opportunity to study philosophy/psychology/history/literature/science and art. All this helped me cultivate my part of the garden of life, to sow seeds of belief and to establish my faith, which I feel is ever in the process of evolving. For me, faith must be a sighted one. It is not a blind leap in the dark, but a slow walk in the light and grace that I have been given.

ABOUT THE UNITED CHURCH OF CANADA
BTW, take a look at http://www.united-church.ca/gc39/news/1807.shtm
This will give you some idea of the UCC. It is not a perfect church, nor does it claim to have THE Truth. If it ever did, I would seek elsewhere. The same is true for the specific congregation-- http://www.pathwayschurch.com -- of which I am pround to be a retired and volunteer associate.

[quote name='Lindsay' date='Aug 29, 09:15 PM' post='68943']
[quote name='Culture' post='68930' date='Aug 29, 11:45 AM']...Belief is intellectual, and belief is supported by reasons which usually are based on the senses.
...Culturally speaking I call myself a seeker of truth. I am of a similar mind as you are, except that I do not have a religion. I have beliefs but not faith. I have no qualms with anyone has faith. Understanding why people or cultures think, believe, behave the way they do is what I try to do and find the best way to do so is by livings amongst the people.[/quote] Like you, I still consider myself a "seeker". And I had the good fortune of being born into a "faith" which encouraged this.

[quote name='Lindsay' date='Aug 29, 09:15 PM' post='68943']
BTW, I still think of myself as one who is in the process of seeking.[/quote]

For the sake of dialogue...do you consider the mind/body seperate?

For some time. now, I have come to think of myself as a whole and spiritual being who happens to be having a physical/mental experience. In this physical/mental form I know that I am subject to many limitations and lack of freedom. As a spiritual being my desire is for freedom.

As quite a young child I began looking for ways and means to become more and more at one with Spirit (GØD) of freedom, which knows no limitations. Somewhere along the line I came to the understanding that all that was necessary, on my part, was for me to simply make the choice to be at one with GØD. I am discovering that as I succeed in doing this, my physical and mental struggles become less and less. I have the faith that the Love (agape, not just eros and philia) of GØD casts out all fear and limitations. To put it in verse form:

Deep, deep within this living heart of mine
GØD lives as goodness, pure and true, as order and design.
GØD is the source of faith and hope and love;
The source of justice, joy and peace, around, beneath, above.

In other words,

I think of GØD as goodness,
As order and design,
Which lives in perfect harmony
Within this soul of mine.

GØD's not some distant person
Who lives in heaven, apart,
GØD is the One who dwells within
The open, willing heart.

GØD dwells within each one of us,
Whene'er we give the nod,
We all become, with every breath,
Extensions of our GØD.
---------ooo0000ooo--------

In other words you see the mind/body/spirit as one?
There is a clear distinction from body and mind for me.

So lets rewing and get back on topic.



But do you condone it is the question?

I maintain that acting upon blind faith, and therefore acting upon most aspects of most religions, is abnormal human behaviour and perhaps an unfortunate side-effect of complex cultural constructions in social species such as our own.

The success of an organism in the universe relies primarily upon it's ability to predict the properties of the universe and react accordingly. Abiotic systems define biotic systems define cultural ones, and each are governed by a set of laws, some of which we know, some of which we don't. Our ability to successfuly achieve a deliberate action in the universe depends on our ability to use those laws to predict future events.

This is the basis of instinct, probably in all life that exists in the universe that functions by processing the same 4 deminsions as we do.

In social creatures such as ourselves, where individual success relies on collective success, deviation from this mechanism is perhaps the most fundemental abnormality.

eg. a man crosses a busy road trusting himself only to his faith that he will survive. He ignores the probable result of the various properties the road and fast moving cars would have on his body and instead relies on something other than his observations. Chances are he'll die, and society will consider him a maniac.

This is not the function of religion by any means, but perhaps the most destructive side-effect, and to my mind represents a decidedly undeveloped rationality in intelligent creatures.

Until someone comes up with evidence to the contrary, yes.

Your comment, "There is a clear distinction from body and mind for me." is what Rene Descartes concluded. I do not accept his dualism. IMO, consciousness, or Spirit, is the great unifying factor.

I also happen to think that as we become more and more conscious that we are one in Spirit we will begin to understand how to unify gravity and electromagnetism--the great goal of modern physics. I happen to think that this is what Seth Lloyd and other of the new physicists are up to doing.

http://www-me.mit.edu/people/personal/slloyd.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth_Lloyd
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lloyd/lloyd_index.html
================================================

You ask if I, "condone blind faith".

Absolutely not! I have the same feeling about irrational religions, which abhor what I call "sighted faith". Good faith, like good theory, may go beyond fact and reason, but it need never go contrary to it.

I have no problem agreeing with you when you write Perhaps the new physicists are helping us make such conscious (spiritually-based) choices so that we need no longer be puppets dangling on the strings of our heredity and our environment--our animal instincts.

So you believe that making choices is abnormal...


I think that the laws you refer to as known laws are forever changing due to the learning curve created in the dynamic of setting forth what it means to be human and all associated beliefs to that effect.
The natural laws of the universe support all beliefs and as such belief has a direct effect on the manifestation of experience and function.
Some believe that consciousness is projected from the human mind and therefore dies with the body.
Consciousness however has a correlation to the manifest body that is beyond what can be contained in the human mind, but is still accessable in the human experience through desire and belief.

Predicting the future from the belief that you are a victim to creation leaves the ignorant ignorant, and that thinking is what creates the god in the sky and the distortion of spiritual reality and births belief systems that become religions.


This belief is the single greatest cause for failure in spiritual awakening. The dependance one creates on objects of perception, including fellow mankind stifles the ability of the individual leaving him/her powerless to create anything beyond what society and their beliefs allow to be true.
Like lemmings the group will follow a leader even if the leader jumps off a cliff.


If you follow this course in belief of the nature of your surroundings you will draw this into your experience and it will flourish. It is not up to them to change. It is up to you to understand the nature of yourself. Only then will the outer appearance and experience of reality change.

Cogito ergo sum". I think, therefore I am. One must exist in order to experience, and the fact that you experience is convincing proof you exist.

I must presume you consider yourself to be a single being - which is why you call yourself "I" instead of "we". Your body; however, is a plurality - a collection of individual elements or fundamental particles, each with its own properties and physical domain. Logically this presents a conundrum. One cannot be two and two cannot be one - it is not possible to 'be' more than a single existence, and regardless of what you hear about 'emergent properties' from scholarly pundits with alphabet soup after their names, one existence would - throughout its existence - have one set of experiences and a collection of existences would have individual sets of experience equal to the number of elements in the set.

You have been trained since birth to think you are that thing you see in the mirror. Hair, eyes, nose, skin, appendages. By rote and repetition you have developed the self image that your body is YOU. But if you cut off your arm, your arm will suddenly be over there, yet you will still experience your same identity. You will probably still have feeling in a 'phantom arm' which isn't there. Just because your arm was held onto your corpse by molecular bond didn't make it YOU. The identity you experience is that of a single element - or entity - hidden within the composition of your shell. A body is something you wear, not something you are. It does; however, seem to be a necessary tool in order for us to function and think in human terms. But thought is an experience and something must "exist" in order to experience it. It isn't possible for something to be more than (or less than) a single existence and any claim that a composite can, by some esoteric power, become a single identity isn't logical. Indeed, the pseudo science which touts the idea that thought is just a phenomenon of emergent properties within brain tissue is little more than voodoo with inflated credentials.

Relative to the type of experiences one is having of themself, logic can lead one to limit themself to what they believe based on a collection of experiences, rather than the full potential of who they are.
It is not possible to experience the potential of what Self is but it is possible to experience a reflection of it.
As long as the mind doesn't settle into a single thought or collection of thoughts it is free from labeling itself as this or that.
There is a story, where God tells Moses after contemplating the name of God for several years to tell his people "I am becoming". The popular story stops short in "Tell your people I am..."

I am this, or I am that, is potentially the egoic identification with external realites of belief and perception. Based on the experience levels of conscious awareness, one may define what I am is but may not be close to what I am is.
Neti Neti, not this not that.. Taken from the Brahma Sutras it points to the essence of who you/we/I/this and that, truly is/are/isn't rather than the projections of who we think we are through the filters of belief.


You must be presumtiuous if you have no other options, that is always a choice.
To take your awareness outward into the manifest reality and from your point of reference in relative changing identities of your projected self you will limit your options of perception of self and of "I".


It presents a challenge to the mind which bases its point of reference in separation but not to the mind that unites all things.
Logic is relative to states of awareness. What is logical to a 3 year old is not logical to an octenegarian.
Experience is relative to states of consciousness. Each state of consciousness is distinct subjectively and objectively. The inner experience and the metabolic rate are different in Waking, Dreaming, Sleeping as is the inner and outer experience of the Self and the world in expanded states of consciousness beyond waking dreaming and sleeping.


Jn 8:18 I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me.

Jn 10:30 I and my Father are one.

In a lesser state of awareness than Union, conscious awareness doesn't accept witnessing ones self as a conscious experience which extends itself beyond the constraints of the physical body and the individual experience.
Being in more than one place or experience at a time is impossible to the mind that is stuck to its identification with the body and it's limited single experience and identity.


If you stare at your middle finger long enough you will not be aware of the rest of the hand as you lose sight of your Self and narrow your vision to the aging patterns that make up the finger print of the individual finger.


So you believe making choices is abnormal....

Joesus and Culture: Lots of interesting stuff here. Am I correct in assuming that at least there are three of us who share a common faith that we are human and spiritual beings. I say this with all due respect for my mental and physical nature. It would be interesting to know how many posters here also feel this way.

BTW, Joesus, culture has shared with us somewhat of what his "faith" is. What about yours?

I maintain that acting upon blind faith, and therefore acting upon most aspects of most religions, is abnormal human behaviour and perhaps an unfortunate side-effect of complex cultural constructions in social species such as our own.



Not at all. You make decisions based on reason and not on "blind faith"

That is one approach however some decisions/choices are made from the heart where the outcome is anticipated but not known. This type of Blind faith is Trust in something greater than the beliefs in suffering and separation from the absolute Self.
In the story of Jesus and his arrest in the garden of Gethsemane, he told his disciples of the things to come that were to affect each one of them personally but more importantly the direction of human belief for the next 2000+ years.
He told his disciples that he would no longer be with them hinting to the effect of his crucifixion and death.

Jesus had faith but it was not faith alone that he made decisions, it was also with the living experience of the union he had with God and the absolute.
Religious beliefs have their roots in the reality that everyone has within them a living connection to the source of all existence. The only reason people ignore it is because they choose to put their attention on the outward manifestations of the Self rather than the creator/Self within.
The greatest desire in humanity is for fulfillment but the ego keeps translating relative happiness in series of events as the road to fulfillment and is addicted to creating more transitory moments of happiness.
This type of action is self defeating for there is nothing permanent about creating illusions of happiness and expecting to be permanently uplifted from duality and separation in awareness from our inner being.

Joseph Campbell had a saying he used often, "Follow your Bliss"
The meaning was to follow that which expands conscious awareness permanently, not what tittilates the senses in brief moments of sensory pleasure.
Although it may be more satisfying to not compromise ones self and personal desire by creating a lifestyle that brings many moments of self gratifying experiences, if one lives only for relative happiness based on external projections one may never know the inner self or the freedom and joy that exists in the awareness that goes beyond any relative experience that comes and goes on the road to the grave.

Those that have living faith may make choices that are uncomfortable and challenge the ego's identification with the relative world but the outcome is far greater than the ones created from fear to protect what little understanding one has of ones self.
If you live in a cave and know nothing else your decisions may be made from a place that does not include anything other than what you have experienced in the cave.
You miss so much of the world when you lock yourself in a belief of who you are and what it means to be human in terms that limit potential

If you ever listen to the parents of children who have been warned about the world and what is in it you will hear generations of programs being passed down from one generation to another,
Parents pass on rules that they were given and ignored and yet they still pass on those rules and inevitably their children will ignore those rules to follow a greater desire within themselves to express and experience who they are rather than who they have been told to be.
Faith that there is more to life than what we are told leads the seeker to break rules and set out into unknown territory. Faith in the experience of something greater than ones own beliefs and experiences leaves the mind open to surrender ones limits to recieve more.

Those that hide in their personal cave cannot understand nor conceive of any reality other than the cave and so they believe those that leave the cave do so blindly and without reverence to popular belief and scientific reason.
If Columbus had truly believed in the science of the day he would have never sought a route to the indies for fear of falling off the edge of the flat world. His faith in something greater than popular belief broke the barriers to a stagnating culture that made decisions based on reason that was not only false but perpetuated out of ignorance and fear.
Faith is driven by love not reason and love is greater than any reason and always stands even in the shadows of choice that is driven by the illusions of fear.
Faith is based on what is real.
Reason from any state of awareness other than Union is based on illusions of the mind and projections of reality.

I assume that you write about a loving, working, and, therefore, practical faith. If so, that is okay by me. This is the kind about which James, the brother Jesus wrote. And surely James was of the same mind as Jesus, his brother?

Keep in mind that James 1: 2-8 writes about the kind of faith that is based on love-based wisdom, which surely must be based on true knowledge and reason. In James 1: 19-27, James relates faith to work, actions.

FAITH ALONE?
With all do respect to Martin Luther, as a reformer--a man of many faults, one of them anti-semiticism--"FAITH ALONE" as he wrote, is a very unwise and dangerous quality.
The Nazis had faith, but without love and wisdom it was irrational and produced totally evil works.

Faith can be applied to anything, music, science, art or God but in the mind that has not experienced the supreme being faith is going to be projected outward on an idea, and in the evolution of changing experiences and ideas, that faith is going to be reattached to whatever the mind attaches itself to in belief.
When Faith is anchored in the awareness and experience of the supreme being it is them applied to service in surrender to the mind in union with the desires of God.

Joesus, what kind of theist are you? Do you think of "God" as a person who has "desires" and a "will".

I am serous when I ask: If God is a person, how comes "he" refuses to chat with us here on this thread? What an opportunity to tell us what he wills for us.

BTW, I will be away for a couple of days. I am doing a wedding away from here for a very fine young couple. Both are very bright teachers. One is a Christian and the other a Muslim.

The ole question: IF God is real why doesn't he..why isn't he...why why why...


Jn 10:30 I and my Father are one.


In unity, in the experience of knowing the supreme being, The Absolute lives in every thought feeling and action. Every desire, every thought, every action is in perfect alignment with the advancement of experience and immersion into expanding thought and expanding awareness of God/Self/Absolute.
Every action leads to greater awareness of Self/God/The absolute one.
Gods desire is your desire. Your desire is God's desire.
God is not a person but you as the manifest personality are a reflection of a multidimensional facet of a supreme diamond.
If you want to call me a theist call me the supreme theist. God cannot be bound to anyones designs on what God wants you to do or be in surrender and service. There are no rules or limits to the human experience other than those that are self imposed and that includes imagining the limitless.

I´m sorry, but I find it truly embarrassing that the question of the existence of god(s) is being even considered in the 21st Century.

Why is that?

There is no sense in feeling embarrassed.
Surprised maybe, and possibly disappointed, but not embarassed.

One only needs to realise that different people have different needs.
Some people will believe in Gods (or use them to name unknowns) for many centuries to go.

And, one ought to remember that every individual should respect the right of every other individual to have their own beliefs (belief = non-necessarily-true).
The only rider comes into play when such beliefs unfairly, or unjustifiably affect other people in a negative way.

Even that is a belief..

And even that is no more than a belief!

But do you agree that it is a reasonable belief?

I think the statement is too vague and doesn't identify anything.
One mans irritation is another mans inspiration.
I personally don't believe in victims, I also believe everything is connected to each person that experiences the event and helps to bring the event into manifestaion.
So what is negative and what is unfair?
Everything being relative to perception and perception being influenced by belief I think you can make a statement to what is reasonable in your own terms of understanding but not to another or to make any assumptions to what anyone will do, or feel or think about anything, and expect everyone to agree.

Your words makes sense to me. They approximate what I mean when I call myself a unitheist.

Well said, Rhymer. I love circles which, like love-circles, are totally-inclusive.

I may not expect everyone to agree, but I hope that we can all agree to disagree, agreeably.

Why not just accept the diversity in difference and multiplicity of God rather than letting your judgment project itself in a personal desire that is not going to be fulfilled? As long as your awareness is split between the two realities of belief that you carry about God in its multidimensional being and what God could look like then you'll keep looking away from reality and pointing to the underlying hopes and dreams that are vying for control in the mind due to the inability to fully merge yourself and your experience into the reality of God in terms that are not conditioned by personal beliefs and desires.
I mean, its fine to wish for world peace and all but there is a function to the manifest.

Man is created in Gods image. God being imageless is not without the images of potential. Humanity in its awakening to itself is experiencing its personal projections of reality. Any ideas that clash must show themselves in the diverse expression of dreams and the attachment to dreams by arguing both agreeably and even to the extent of grasping to attachments in the anger that is projected on each other so Union can manifest itself, or rise out of the chaos.
The fact of this reality is that it is already happening and has happened for as long as history can remember. The enlightened awaken to God in the chaos and peace prevails in the stillness that underlies all activity. The mind then rises above the manifest stage of mixing projections rather than stagnating in the whirlpool.

The splinter groups that find commonality and segregate themselves from the differences in belief may maintain a facade of composure as long as no outside of the box ideas come to ruffle the waters of attachment, but... it's inevitable as long as one clings to any image of God that is personally designed, to mix with that level of reality. There is the level of projection that is like standing in the "Projections are Us" store and the mind can entertain itself for as long as it wants to remain in the store.

There is a saying, "Heal the self and you Heal the world." If you can unite the outside manifest with the inner potential or the absolute, all forms are of the formless and all forms of expression are divine.

Unconditional acceptance of reality gives one more freedom to live by living without fear and without compromise of ones desires. You can have everything you desire if you allow the desires of others to be fulfilled and if you don't like what someone else desires you will limit yourself in the reflections of others.

Desire is fullfilled easily if there is no conflict in the belief that the adversary (condition) is just around the corner.

Jesus didn't say I hope you can stand and see, He said stand and see, Live and be healed. Those that were not able to grasp the absolute unconditional reality of God's power neither saw his miracles nor saw him.

As I said before beliefs being judged as reasonable or not are still beliefs, beliefs change and are the attention of ones awareness attaching itself to the projected images of God.

I am totally unaware of being judgemental and letting my negative "judgement project". What did I write which gives anyone this negative impression? My desire is to always project that I am open to accept all kinds of moral and loving diversity.

Also, my desire is to be at one with and in GØD. My will is to vibrate in harmony with and, therefore be in unity with GØD. I want there to be no resistance, no chaos, only complete and loving harmony. I also agree that as I IN addition: that I trust I have made my positive, non-judgemental, intention clear.