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JackC 0
QuoteForgive me, but you seem to have a very elementary understanding of God. God is spirit, life is spirit, love is spirit. When I talk about the other side of the door, I am not talking about a place in existance, but rather a place in the heart. Surely you have heard of "The Doors" before? Jim Morrison walked through the other door and it led to his perishing self, his self realized manifestation of death. The door I am speaking of is the door of life. What I have found about life is that it has qualites to it that fill it within us. Recieving love is a great quality of life yes? You might say that if you were in love all the time that you wouldnt have time to feel down. Its not a fantasy, its the truth. Love feels good to us and it inspires us to life in the fullest measure. The difference is that we as humans only have a human concept of love, and alot of us are found wanting. We find it in freinds, we find it in family, dogs, money even, but when we find it at the source, it begins to fill us with power. Now you may say that love is simply an emotion. But I say emotions are only expressions of inspired thoughts. I belive love shares something with everyone and it is the only thing which can unite us all. Of course I believe love is spirit. It is against loves nature to force someone to recieve it, Love desires to be loved and in return gives more and more of itself. As humans, we have the ability to at least acknowledge that love feels good, but we also have the ability to disbelieve and therefore disregard its true power. Love, by its nature (which fills us with goodness) has to be believed to be recieved. Everything in us tells us that we are not loved in the greatest of loves measures, that is the innocence we shed, but Grace is the only thing I have found that testifies against that with a power so incredible, it literally changes lives in miraculous ways.
I swear your posts get less and less comprehensible as you go on. If spouting that lot (whatever it means) is a result of believing in Jesus then I'm going to avoid it like the plague. I would not want that level of weirdness in my life.
QuoteForgive me, but you seem to have a very elementary understanding of God.
And you don't? Show me one person on this planet who can even fathom the concept of some omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent creator. There's absolutely no coherent explanation for that and, as such, nullifies itself (at least to me) due to laughability. You worship it but cannot even explain it.
QuoteGod is spirit, life is spirit, love is spirit. When I talk about the other side of the door, I am not talking about a place in existance, but rather a place in the heart.
Cryptic nonsense. The heart is a muscle. If you're speaking of some figurative spirit-world vessel in each human that desires to be loved by a creator who only reveals himself through hand-me-down literature and expect other people to understand and accept it, you have to do a better job of illustrating it. That's always been one of my many problems with Bible teachings, everything is metaphor and parable. Nobody has ever been able to just come right out and say what they're trying to say!
QuoteLove feels good to us and it inspires us to life in the fullest measure. The difference is that we as humans only have a human concept of love, and alot of us are found wanting. We find it in freinds, we find it in family, dogs, money even, but when we find it at the source, it begins to fill us with power. Now you may say that love is simply an emotion. But I say emotions are only expressions of inspired thoughts. I belive love shares something with everyone and it is the only thing which can unite us all. Of course I believe love is spirit. It is against loves nature to force someone to recieve it, Love desires to be loved and in return gives more and more of itself.
Please don't take this as a personal attack, but this has got to be one of the most incoherent and pointless paragraphs I've ever read. What does it mean? What are you trying to say? To say that love is a manifestation of inspired thought and then talk about how it "desires to be loved" is like saying that hot dogs are a manifestation of a pig's happiness and hot dogs desire to be eaten. Actually, I have fewer problems with that rationale.
QuoteEverything in us tells us that we are not loved in the greatest of loves measures, that is the innocence we shed, but Grace is the only thing I have found that testifies against that with a power so incredible, it literally changes lives in miraculous ways.
Who "sheds" innocence? Who makes a conscious decision as an eight-year-old (or whatever your arbitrary "age of accountability" happens to be) to not accept love in its fullest measure? Grace doesn't change lives. It's hope. When people "find" religion or spirituality they're building hope on the idea of their existence beyond this existence. It's hubris that makes us want to live forever in one way or another. Believing in something that promises to make that happen changes lives - sometimes for good, sometimes for bad. It can go either way, really.
QuoteLove is of course shared in many many ways, but its greatest power is not in how it is shared, but in how it is recieved. Its like provision of wheat. It takes wheat to make wheat, it takes life to make life, it takes love to make love.
Wow. The comparison you're drawing here is, at best, incomprehensible. I'm not jabbing at you, but if this is a major point of the discussion for you could you please try to reword it so that we can figure out what you're trying to convey?
QuoteI never said I was an educated adult!
That may be the problem with organized religions and the literature upon which they're founded. I was told once by an ordained minister that I was "over thinking" things and that's why I couldn't accept Christianity. But if it's possible to over think your religion, then your religion is designed for people who follow blindly without questioning. The Bible constantly refers to everyone as "sheep" and "children." Pardon me for saying so, but that doesn't denote innocence and purity to me, it denotes pliability. Those two entities are the most likely to just go with the flow and do what they're told and not question why they're doing it. And that's exactly why Christians have a get-them-while-they're-young-and-impressionable policy for recruitment.
That's not me. I'm a reasonable human being who likes to question the things around me and find out how things work and why. Even Jesus questioned authority and told his disciples to do the same! But Christians say it's OK to question authority...just not God's.
He who laughs last didn't get the joke.
Freefall Express
Freefall Express
I swear your posts get less and less comprehensible as you go on. If spouting that lot (whatever it means) is a result of believing in Jesus then I'm going to avoid it like the plague. I would not want that level of weirdness in my life.
And its that very reason why you may never have it. At least do me this favor and tell me that you have or have not read the Gospel.
"We didn't start the fire"
Quote
I'm all for our freedom of verbal and written expression. I'm also all for censoring ourselves when we know our expression will be highly offensive to our fellow posters. There was nothing to be gained by this thread except to mock what a segment of our population hold very dear. This thread was not started to discuss the validity of Christianity but rather with malice.
Malice is a rather strong word, kind of like the poster above who said I posted it in rage. In reality, I felt neither malice nor rage and they certainly weren't what prompted my post. Taking a wider view than the small community of dz.com, Christianity is a belief system many people subscribe to. There are also a large number of people who find many of the concepts contained therein completely absurd. I thought this was a humorous expression of the absurdity many of us see in the dogma and my intent was to entertain those people. It was not my intent to offend you, and while not expected, the possibility exists that you or someone else could have gotten a better idea of *why* many of us find some basic concepts of Christianity a bit ridiculous. Like I said, that was just possible, not expected, and it doesn't appear to have had that effect on anyone.
As for the broader discussion with regard to "belief", my question is if belief is what makes life so wonderful, does it stand to reason that the less believable something is, the greater the payoff is for believing it anyhow?
Blues,
Dave
"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)
(drink Mountain Dew)
bjjman 0
QuoteAnd spelling? Yes, spelling. As an adult, you should not only be able to write at a High School graduate level but also notice the "Check Spelling" button below the text box into which you're typing your reply.
In all fairness, these forums are littered with spelling and grammatical errors. I think "freind" is not a bad infraction considering. Also, just use a modern browser and your misspellings will be underlined.
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." -Albert Einstein
JackC 0
QuoteAnd its that very reason why you may never have it. At least do me this favor and tell me that you have or have not read the Gospel.
Yes I have but so what? The Bible is a pretty good advert for atheism too.
Seriously, does it not bother you that just about everything you post here is incoherent gibberish?
bjjman 0
QuoteJesus was just a carpenter, and not a very good one it seems.
After all, he got nailed for the last job he did.
That's fucked up no matter who you're talking about.
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." -Albert Einstein
beowulf 1
I thought it was pretty funny.
bjjman 0
QuoteJesus would have been a Middle-Easterner, not an Anglosaxon.
I do think it's funny when I see representations of a white Jesus, but I don't think the ethnicity of this person is clear from the picture. It could be a middle-easterner.
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." -Albert Einstein
gjhdiver 0
[reply
Sorry, but it is clear you havent read a Gospel, and I dont know why you would speak so against it if you havent even read it. Sounds a bit disturbing to me.
Sorry, but it is clear you havent read a Gospel, and I dont know why you would speak so against it if you havent even read it. Sounds a bit disturbing to me.
Actually old chap, I was raised by Catholics and educated privately at school run my an Irish Catholic order of preists. I took communion, was confirmed, and served on the altar, as well as taking religious studies for many years. I have more than a working knowledge of scripture, which I'm trying to purge to be honest to make room for normal stuff.
I just always had the nagging suspicion that it was all BS. As I grew older, I became convinced it was just all nonsense. I ditched it all, and have never looked back. It's great to live without fear.
I live by the Wiccan rede. "Be it harm none, do what they wilt shall be the whole of the law".
Works great.
How can love ever be tangible? Im trying not to speak in parables, but sometimes it seems to be the best way. It wont matter either way, a man hears what he hears whether it is perfectly explained or hidden in parables. Wisdom reveals itself from the inside, that is why people call it enlightening. It has an incredible shock factor at times when it is truly understood, but is just letters and words until then.
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