Critical thinking and education is linked to loss of faith
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quietthinker
Well-Known Member
I think God's existence does speak for itself; it is men who hear/ read poorly in spite of creation's witness to its artist/ author.
On another note, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead becomes the pivotal game changer. The evidence to support it is overwhelming to all who have courage to enquire further.
quietthinker
Well-Known Member
Fictitious religious gods are no doubt plentiful in human history and mainstream religion does distort terribly many truths. We live in a system/ age of deception which pervades the realities of life on all levels. That said, unless the Great Spirit/ God reveals himself, we are destined to the follow through the outcome of ignorance and flawed logic by ultimately destroying what is around us, each other and ourselves.
Thank God we are not left without a witness to the greater reality. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the precedent which defines objective reality. It is a game changer.
Unless one chooses to bury ones head in the sand and dismiss the available evidence we will be drawn to or at the least become aware that this Man and this event is extraordinary.
Wrangler
Well-Known Member
Wrangler
Well-Known Member
You must be a mystic, denying the evidence right before your eyes. Sad way to attempt to evade the question of what do you live and stand for.
Lapidem
Active Member
Most of creation is a maelstrom of utter chaos which sees regular forms of destruction on grand scales that we can't really comprehend. Stars collapsing, supernovas, black holes etc etc. It's true that here on Earth at least there appear to be things of some design though many are imperfect and some are rather diabolical. It's entirely feasible to imagine thee being one or more creators of many of the things on Earth, engineers who mastered DNA and who tinkered with things, like an enthusiastic gardener trying to create new hybrid roses and so on. The notion of some all-powerful all-loving God on the other hand is rather fatuous and silly an to believe in such is to pretty much live an entire life of total denial of the plethora of evidence all around which shows that no such entity exists.
We should therefore think of the creators of Earth's life forms as simply more advanced beings than us, either aliens or humans that had evolved to much higher states than ourselves. Beings that seeded a planet with their DNA designs and gave it all a stir and then left it to develop under it's own steam. Perhaps rather like a fish tank. There to amuse them or as an experiment to see what would emerge as the victorious life form in a few millions years. It would be a dangerous and foolish mistake to view such beings as Gods though. They are merely other life forms more advanced than ourselves and as such we must judge them by the behaviours, works and deeds. They evidently don't care about any of us given the awful state of the world. They haven't stepped in to correct things, put right their failures, mend the mistakes. More likely they have written this planet off and long since left it and gone on to other planets.
I had the courage to search for the truth. I don't see the evidence you speak of. The evidence I see and which is mentioned throughout the Bible, hidden in plain sight as allegorical and cryptic text, is that Jesus like Noah and others before him, had the fabled Elixir Of Life, the Philosopher's Stone, Soma, Alkahest whatever you wish to call it. It is mentioned in every religious tome, every culture and has numerous names. This special substance, being a huge source of universal life energy, allowed Jesus to heal other people, to raise the dead, and allowed himself to survive in the desert for 40 days without food and water and ultimately is the thing that was used to bring him back from his death or near death at crucifixion. He taught his disciples about it, the "mysteries of the kingdom" and so it's most likely that it was they who rolled back the stone of Jesus's tomb and used the Elixir to revive Jesus in the same way that Jesus used it to revive Lazarus. Occam's Razor applies here. No need for silly stories of going to the depths of Hell and bringing back keys etc. So magical mumbo jumbo needed. Jesus simply had the incredible Elixir of life, the "tree of life". It can effectively make you immortal but if you have it you become enlightened enough to go to the next level of existence where you don't need a physical body. Given that ability who would want to stay locked into a human body? Jesus evidently didn't and so up and left to be a newly evolved human. Human 2.0.
This isn't hearsay. This "tree of life" is mentioned all through the Bible and Jesus talked about it numerous times and spoke in parables about some of the processes concerning how it is made. If only he'd loved humans enough to give us all this great substance. Then we'd all enjoy that same immortality and be rid of all our illnesses and ailments. Sadly those who have had it throughout history have kept it for themselves whilst everyone else suffers and perishes.
Lapidem
Active Member
I never thought of myself that way but perhaps it's not a bad label. I've certainly peered beyond the veil that conceals the secrets and keeps humanity ignorant and thus know that the "evidence" of mainstream religion is utter hogwash. I don't mind being thought of as a mystic. Better than being an indoctrinated Sheeple.
What do I live and stand for?
Honestly I don't think one necessarily needs to live or stand for anything. The universe is what it is and we are what we are. We can't change that. Best to just accept that you are part of this giant jigsaw and always will be. You may change your form from human to something else, and indeed you WILL eventually do so whether you want to or not but you will still remain just another part of the universe in which everything is essentially made of the same stuff. I am you, you are me, everything I see is also me, and you. Everything is one. The life force pervades everything. Pantheism, Universalism and at the same time Nihilism because you're stuck with it, you can't escape it, you WILL be reborn over and over and over ad-infinitum.
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And a George Clark Rankin speaks of a Robert Sheffey here in Virginia, who was spoken of as illiterate but saintly in his life...
I passed my examinations and that year I was sent to the Wytheville Station and Circuit. That was adjoining my former charge. We reached the old parsonage on the pike just out of Wytheville as Rev. B. W. S. Bishop moved out. Charley Bishop was then a little tow-headed boy. He is now the learned Regent of Southwestern University. The parsonage was an old two-and-a-half-story structure with nine rooms and it looked a little like Hawthorne's house with the seven gables. It was the lonesomest-looking old house I ever saw. There was no one there to meet us, for we had not notified anybody of the time we would arrive.
Think of taking a young bride to that sort of a mansion! But she was brave and showed no sign of disappointment. That first night we felt like two whortleberries in a Virginia tobacco wagonbed. We had room and to spare, but it was scantily furnished with specimens as antique as those in Noah's ark. But in a week or so we were invited out to spend the day with a good family, and when we went back we found the doors fastened just as we had left them, but when we entered a bedroom was elegantly furnished with everything modern and the parlor was in fine shape. The ladies had been there and done the work. How much does the preacher owe to the good women of the Church!
The circuit was a large one, comprising seventeen appointments. They were practically scattered all over the county. I preached every other day, and never less than twice and generally three times on Sunday.
I had associated with me that year a young collegemate, Rev. W. B. Stradley. He was a bright, popular fellow, and we managed to give Wytheville regular Sunday preaching. Stradley became a great preacher and died a few years ago while pastor of Trinity Church, Atlanta, Georgia. We were true yokefellows and did a great work on that charge, held fine revivals and had large ingatherings.
The famous Cripple Creek Campground was on that work. They have kept up campmeetings there for more than a hundred years. It is still the great rallying point for the Methodists of all that section. I have never heard such singing and preaching and shouting anywhere else in my life. I met the Rev. John Boring there and heard him preach. He was a well-known preacher in the conference; original, peculiar, strikingly odd, but a great revival preacher.
One morning in the beginning of the service he was to preach and he called the people to prayer. He prayed loud and long and told the Lord just what sort of a meeting we were expecting and really exhorted the people as to their conduct on the grounds. Among other things, he said we wanted no horse- trading and then related that just before kneeling he had seen a man just outside the encampment looking into the mouth of a horse and he made such a peculiar sound as he described the incident that I lifted up my head to look at him, and he was holding his mouth open with his hands just as the man had done in looking into the horse's mouth! But he was a man of power and wrought well for the Church and for humanity.
The rarest character I ever met in my life I met at that campmeeting in the person of Rev. Robert Sheffy, known as "Bob" Sheffy. He was recognized all over Southwest Virginia as the most eccentric preacher of that country. He was a local preacher; crude, illiterate, queer and the oddest specimen known among preachers. But he was saintly in his life, devout in his experience and a man of unbounded faith. He wandered hither and thither over that section attending meetings, holding revivals and living among the people. He was great in prayer, and Cripple Creek campground was not complete without "Bob" Sheffy. They wanted him there to pray and work in the altar.
He was wonderful with penitents. And he was great in following up the sermon with his exhortations and appeals. He would sometimes spend nearly the whole night in the straw with mourners; and now and then if the meeting lagged he would go out on the mountain and spend the entire night in prayer, and the next morning he would come rushing into the service with his face all aglow shouting at the top of his voice. And then the meeting always broke loose with a floodtide.
He could say the oddest things, hold the most unique interviews with God, break forth in the most unexpected spasms of praise, use the homeliest illustrations, do the funniest things and go through with the most grotesque performances of any man born of woman.
It was just "Bob" Sheffy, and nobody thought anything of what he did and said, except to let him have his own way and do exactly as he pleased. In anybody else it would not have been tolerated for a moment. In fact, he acted more like a crazy man than otherwise, but he was wonderful in a meeting. He would stir the people, crowd the mourner's bench with crying penitents and have genuine conversions by the score. I doubt if any man in all that conference has as many souls to his credit in the Lamb's Book of Life as old "Bob" Sheffy.
At the close of that year in casting up my accounts I found that I had received three hundred and ninety dollars for my year's work, and the most of this had been contributed in everything except money. It required about the amount of cash contributed to pay my associate and the Presiding Elder. I got the chickens, the eggs, the butter, the ribs and backbones, the corn, the meat, and the Presiding Elder and Brother Stradley had helped us to eat our part of the quarterage. Well, we kept open house and had a royal time, even if we did not get much ready cash. We lived and had money enough to get a good suit of clothes and to pay our way to conference. What more does a young Methodist preacher need or want? We were satisfied and happy, and these experiences are not to be counted as unimportant assets in the life and work of a Methodist circuit rider.
I passed my examinations and that year I was sent to the Wytheville Station and Circuit. That was adjoining my former charge. We reached the old parsonage on the pike just out of Wytheville as Rev. B. W. S. Bishop moved out. Charley Bishop was then a little tow-headed boy. He is now the learned Regent of Southwestern University. The parsonage was an old two-and-a-half-story structure with nine rooms and it looked a little like Hawthorne's house with the seven gables. It was the lonesomest-looking old house I ever saw. There was no one there to meet us, for we had not notified anybody of the time we would arrive.
Think of taking a young bride to that sort of a mansion! But she was brave and showed no sign of disappointment. That first night we felt like two whortleberries in a Virginia tobacco wagonbed. We had room and to spare, but it was scantily furnished with specimens as antique as those in Noah's ark. But in a week or so we were invited out to spend the day with a good family, and when we went back we found the doors fastened just as we had left them, but when we entered a bedroom was elegantly furnished with everything modern and the parlor was in fine shape. The ladies had been there and done the work. How much does the preacher owe to the good women of the Church!
The circuit was a large one, comprising seventeen appointments. They were practically scattered all over the county. I preached every other day, and never less than twice and generally three times on Sunday.
I had associated with me that year a young collegemate, Rev. W. B. Stradley. He was a bright, popular fellow, and we managed to give Wytheville regular Sunday preaching. Stradley became a great preacher and died a few years ago while pastor of Trinity Church, Atlanta, Georgia. We were true yokefellows and did a great work on that charge, held fine revivals and had large ingatherings.
The famous Cripple Creek Campground was on that work. They have kept up campmeetings there for more than a hundred years. It is still the great rallying point for the Methodists of all that section. I have never heard such singing and preaching and shouting anywhere else in my life. I met the Rev. John Boring there and heard him preach. He was a well-known preacher in the conference; original, peculiar, strikingly odd, but a great revival preacher.
One morning in the beginning of the service he was to preach and he called the people to prayer. He prayed loud and long and told the Lord just what sort of a meeting we were expecting and really exhorted the people as to their conduct on the grounds. Among other things, he said we wanted no horse- trading and then related that just before kneeling he had seen a man just outside the encampment looking into the mouth of a horse and he made such a peculiar sound as he described the incident that I lifted up my head to look at him, and he was holding his mouth open with his hands just as the man had done in looking into the horse's mouth! But he was a man of power and wrought well for the Church and for humanity.
The rarest character I ever met in my life I met at that campmeeting in the person of Rev. Robert Sheffy, known as "Bob" Sheffy. He was recognized all over Southwest Virginia as the most eccentric preacher of that country. He was a local preacher; crude, illiterate, queer and the oddest specimen known among preachers. But he was saintly in his life, devout in his experience and a man of unbounded faith. He wandered hither and thither over that section attending meetings, holding revivals and living among the people. He was great in prayer, and Cripple Creek campground was not complete without "Bob" Sheffy. They wanted him there to pray and work in the altar.
He was wonderful with penitents. And he was great in following up the sermon with his exhortations and appeals. He would sometimes spend nearly the whole night in the straw with mourners; and now and then if the meeting lagged he would go out on the mountain and spend the entire night in prayer, and the next morning he would come rushing into the service with his face all aglow shouting at the top of his voice. And then the meeting always broke loose with a floodtide.
He could say the oddest things, hold the most unique interviews with God, break forth in the most unexpected spasms of praise, use the homeliest illustrations, do the funniest things and go through with the most grotesque performances of any man born of woman.
It was just "Bob" Sheffy, and nobody thought anything of what he did and said, except to let him have his own way and do exactly as he pleased. In anybody else it would not have been tolerated for a moment. In fact, he acted more like a crazy man than otherwise, but he was wonderful in a meeting. He would stir the people, crowd the mourner's bench with crying penitents and have genuine conversions by the score. I doubt if any man in all that conference has as many souls to his credit in the Lamb's Book of Life as old "Bob" Sheffy.
At the close of that year in casting up my accounts I found that I had received three hundred and ninety dollars for my year's work, and the most of this had been contributed in everything except money. It required about the amount of cash contributed to pay my associate and the Presiding Elder. I got the chickens, the eggs, the butter, the ribs and backbones, the corn, the meat, and the Presiding Elder and Brother Stradley had helped us to eat our part of the quarterage. Well, we kept open house and had a royal time, even if we did not get much ready cash. We lived and had money enough to get a good suit of clothes and to pay our way to conference. What more does a young Methodist preacher need or want? We were satisfied and happy, and these experiences are not to be counted as unimportant assets in the life and work of a Methodist circuit rider.
bbyrd009
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imo you are approaching the meaning of an empty room for a holy-of-holies
its nowhere in the Bible, fwiw
No one knows where they go when they die
All go to the same place
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bbyrd009
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i wonder if it isnt more appropriate to say that no one ever really lives
or few, anyway
Dropship
Well-Known Member
Think outside the box in modern terms mate..
Technically Jesus was an 'alien' with awesome powers from either this universe or from some other dimension-
Jesus said- "I know where I came from and where I am going, but you have no idea where I come from or where I am going....
you are of this world, I am not of this world...though you do not believe me, believe the miracles...
I'll tell you things hidden since the creation of the world" (John 8:14/ 8:23/10:38/Matt 13:35)
Hey Spock, is it logical to listen to Jesus?
"Affirmative, I'm all ears"
Dropship
Well-Known Member
Think in scientific terms mate, Einstein showed that time is stretchy and elastic, so 900 years in God-time may be much less in human time..
For example in this clip from 'Interstellar', McConaughey and Ann have just spent an hour or two on a planet near a massive black hole, and when they shuttle back to their mothership they're shocked to find that 23 years have passed for the crewman up there who's begun sprouting grey hairs-
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Wrangler
Well-Known Member
Unconscious. The purpose of consciousness is not merely to integrate reality but to also differentiate reality.
Not one is not one with one.
Antonyms are not synonyms.
Light is not one with dark.
Right is not one with left or wrong.
Good is not one with evil.
Dead is not one with the living.
quietthinker
Well-Known Member
You make statements in this post as well as others I have read of yours which are just not true. Statements asserting what the bible says or what you claim is mentioned all through the bible.
Firstly, your self honesty is in on the line. You might be able to snow those who are ignorant about the Bible but when it comes to dealing with those who know their stuff you are right out of your depth.....the copious words you write only being a cover for ignorance.
Perhaps the best thing would be to not say anything at all in that regard!
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:Ecc 3:1
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Lapidem
Active Member
Romanov2488 said:
On this particular issue Romanov the Bible speaks the truth imo. People CAN live many 100s of years IF and only if they have access to the universal life energy they need to sustain their bodies. Noah had it, as did other ancients and so did Jesus. They all had the knowledge of how to create and multiply the Philosopher's Stone. All humans are supposed to have this wonderful substance. It is a product of Nature itself. Man can not create it. Alchemists merely provided the right environments in their laboratories for nature to be able to do its work far more quickly than outside.
I believe the accounts of the Garden Of Eden in the Bible refer to the former state of human life when the Stone was readily available. Humans who have this thing don't feel the extremes of cold or heat as their bodies are supercharged with life energy. They have no ailments or disease because their bodies are designed to rid them of such and the Stone simply fuels the body with the energy it needs to do its job. You and I do not have access to this Stone. Hence when we cut or graze ourselves our bodies take maybe 2-3 days or more to fully heal the skin. If we had the Stone it would heal almost instantly. You also don't require food and drink to survive if you have the Stone because it already provides the body with all the energy it needs. The energy we get from basic food is relatively tiny.
So one can well understand the allegorical imagery of Genesis with Adam and Eve walking around naked in relative paradise. Their bodies wanted for nothing. Occasionally plucking an apple from a tree etc etc. That is I believe how human life is supposed to be.
But then there was "God" who wanted to keep all the sacred knowledge for himself and not wanting humans to have it. He forbade Adam and Eve to "eat from the tree" or basically forbade them to acquire the knowledge that he had. This is a trait seen by all those in power. They seek to preserve that power once they have it rather than share it with everyone else. Thus when Adam and Eve eventually decided they wanted this knowledge they ate from the tree. It is after all entirely natural. Man always seeks to learn new things, to expand his knowledge, to understand what there is to be understood. Everything changed. Adam and Eve became fully aware. They knew they were naked all of a sudden. God was obviously displeased and punished them. At this point I believe God removed from them their access to the Stone. The very thing that is needed for proper human existence, the real fuel the human body needs to function was taken away. Now suddenly they have to survive on ordinary food, plants, fruits etc. Now their bodies would slowly begin to perish and decompose just like ours. Their life span, being previously immortal was now mortal. What a terrible punishment for simply wanting more knowledge. We are now all Adam and Eve's. Stuck in an existence that is not natural for humans. A pitiful existence of perpetual decay and ailments, illnesses and diseases because the one thing we are supposed to have to sustain us has been taken away. A privileged few still have it imo. Despots, tyrants carrying their lineage through the ages and who jealously guard the great prize they have acquired. They enjoy full health and longevity whilst the rest of humanity suffers horribly and lives in ignorance. This almost mirrors the Garden Of Eden. Now those tyrants are the "gods" who don't want the rest of humanity to have the incredible knowledge that they have. They don't want us to know how to create the Stone and use it for if we did they would have no power over us. They would not be able to rule. Their crooked financial systems would collapse, their crooked medical industries would collapse.
Yet the clues are all still there in the sacred tomes of just about every mainstream religion as well as being recoded in 1000s of texts, documents and treatises of the philosophers and sages. The truth about the Stone and how to create it. However time is running short for everyone because those in power are rapidly shutting our knowledge avenues down. The internet will soon become completely censored and controlled to the point where we just won't be able to acquire any information except that which they want us to have. We are near the End Game. We have to grab what information is still readily available as quickly as we can and make hard copies of it before the gates close. Most of mankind will perish and be recycled. A lucky few will make the journey into that knowledge and learn how to make the Stone and thereby survive. Whether those people then give it freely to the rest of humanity remains to be seen. History shows us that it is unlikely. Those who have the Stone seem to jealously guard it and keep it for themselves. Either way mankind's lot is a poor one. We are constantly being exploited by those with more knowledge and awareness. We are being constantly dumbed down. Our children are now being dumbed down in schools. Mankind will soon be in a very sorry state of ignorance and total dependence on those in power. Their futures are pretty bleak.
Lapidem
Active Member
This analogy is incorrect imo. It's like saying heads are not one with tails on a coin. The fact is that it's a coin and they are just 2 sides of that same coin.
For there to be light, there must also be dark
For there to be right, there must also be wrong
For there to be good, there must also be evil
These things are part of the one thing. They are intrinsically 2 halves of the same thing. One can not possibly exist without the other.
The universe has no concept or right and wrong or good and evil. These are simply artificial human terms which we seem to need to cling to in order to maintain sense of what we see around us. We ARE the universe. It is us and we are it. All made of the same stuff. We can not die because the universe can't die. We are simply subject to the constant chaos of change. So we will change, from human form to the next form ad-infinitum.
Were you to eradicate all evil you would simultaneously eradicate all good. Were you to eradicate all dark, you would simultaneously eradicate all light. One can not exist without the other.
Wrangler
Well-Known Member
Even in your weak defense, you admit Differentia, 2 different halves - not the same half of the same thing.
We obviously diagree. While eastern philosophies like Tao advocate what you do, Christianity rejects the intrinsic necessity of darkness, wrong and evil to exist. What's more Christianity claims that one day, these things will be eternally destroyed to exist no more. So, there is that.
Lapidem
Active Member
You seem to struggle with the concept of ONE thing manifesting as 2 different opposing qualities. Not sure how to make it more simple to understand TBH. Light and dark are extreme ends of the same thing. As said in prev post, you can not have light without dark. The existence of darkness is a prerequisite for light and vice-versa. If Christianity believes you can simply eradicate one then it is fundamentally in error which would be no surprise for most of the mainstream doctrine equally doesn't stand up to rational analysis. You must surely have enough intrinsic innate reasoning to realise that you can not have UP if there is no DOWN for with the down, there is nothing to come up from. You can not have light without darkness for the same reason. Light is the increasing absence of dark and vice-versa. They are gradations of the same thing. Sound and silence likewise. These are quite simple concepts in all honesty.
It follows then that there can not exist a truly benevolent being without there being an opposing wicked being. For if there were no wicked being the concept of benevolence would be meaningless. No good can exist without evil equally existing. Good is the absence of evil and vice-versa. To deny this most basic concept is to deny the reality around you.
Wrangler
Well-Known Member
That's because there is no such thing as this. So, I don't struggle, I reject it out of hand. The 2 manifestations are due to TWO things being manifested.
Your thinking is so corrupted, you assert antonyms are synonyms.
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