Elen1107

2 hours ago, thormas said:

Good to 'see' you again.

 

Hi, Thanks for saying so. Good to 'see' you too, as well as the other folks who regularly post here

2 hours ago, thormas said:

I no longer phrase it as 'evolution into Christ' for the simple reason that evolution seems to suggest a natural growth and I think human movement into Christ (image & likeness of God) is a response to God. In other words, without God, there would be no movement, no natural evolution to him. It is not a built-in, rather it is a response.

 

I've been thinking about what you might mean by "a response to God". I'm thinking it might be a response to life, or true life, which is God. It's recognizing that this is "true life" that we as evolutionary beings need to see. This is where we sometimes stumble and get confused.
 

2 hours ago, thormas said:

Not sure what 'evolutionary mixed-up-ness' is but I am curious.

 

I guess I'm thinking about something like the "survival of the fittest" mentality. This is ok if one also includes psychological and spiritual fitness, but usually it means something like survival of the biggest  or the most fearsome. Nature can be beautiful, even very beautiful, but it also has it's not so great side. If one looks at our closest non-human cousins the chimps as well as other animals, one sees this alpha male, alpha female, top dog, chicken-pecking-order thing going on. I've also seen some of a like kind of stuff going on among humans. I personally feel this is our evolutionary "mixed-up-ness". Where it might originally be survival orientated, nower days it could even lead to our partial or total destruction.

For myself, I find that evolution into Christ, and/or the Christ Spirit to be the answer for me. (don't know how much this is also true for others, but it "works" for me).

On 7/8/2020 at 4:50 PM, Burl said:

This is progressive Christianity with a small p.

Hi,

I'm wondering why you say "This is progressive Christianity with a small p"?. . . . Just asking.

This N.T. Wright video popped up after I watched the one that you posted. It's on the same subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSZPyZFWQI0

I thought it was pretty good, at least 80 or 90 % good. Myself, I pretty much believe in evolution into Christ and don't hold much to a literal understanding of the creation stories in Geneses. Just like people didn't need to know that the earth is round in order to be "saved", they/we don't  need to know exactly how human creation has taken place.

I also tend to think that the reasons that there is pain in childbirth are because the human skull has evolved to be so large, as well as because, since we stand upright, women's muscular development has evolved  to accommodate all this.

Myself, what I pretty much think we need to be "saved" from is our evolutionary mixed-up-ness and perhaps even negative-ness. I do think that we can "evolve into eternity".

Thanks for reading

8 minutes ago, PaulS said:

Just received the book the other day and am looking forward to reading it.  Unbelievably, I've found I've never been busier at home during this self-isolation time!  My wife seems to have come up with a list of a thousand jobs we need to do right now around the house!

🙂 Yeah, I've done so much cleaning myself that my hands are burning and cracking, but I'm still not willing to go to the store to get hand cream. I'm learning a lot about cleaning and sanitizing though. Apparently washing ones hands for twenty seconds is so that the soap can "latch" onto the virus and then enable it to be rinsed away. Regular soaps don't actually kill the virus themselves.

If you do find some time to read, and find a few good passages that you really like, post them for us if you can, even scan a page and post it if that's ok with the forums guidelines.

Best Wishes , (and prayers if you want them) to you and  your wife and boys. Hope you all keep doing well.

Just ran into this interview with Bart Ehrman concerning his new book, 'Heaven and Hell'.

They talk about the C-virus a good bit as well as a good number of other things.

Bart seems to be saying that the places in the NT where Jesus is talking about 'hell', are words that are/were put into Jesus's mouth.

I've made a list of these places. Maybe I can post them later.

Hope everyone is doing well and are getting through the pandemic ok. God Bless and/or Best Wishes.

I don't know about the C-virus, but massive amounts of vitamin C seem to help in fighting off the common flue and colds.

Also drinking plenty of fluids.

On 3/14/2020 at 1:53 PM, romansh said:

Pain, beauty, grief, suffering etc are a product of the brain chemistry.

Do pain, beauty, grief, suffering cause brain chemistry and chemical reactions in the brain (and body) as well?

I think that it's making me over nervous. The thing gives me the creeps.

I have wondered if perhaps an opportunity for people to get used to their own company and make good friends with themselves.

I wish the thing would just go away. . 😞 . 

On 3/15/2020 at 3:09 PM, thormas said:

I didn't think you were on either count. I was simply saying that the holocaust Jews, as an example, even though many were probably 'participating' with the Spirit, it was not enough to rescue them from suffering. I do agree that the Nazi was not in tune with that Spirit.

The Spirit can't rescue us, can't rescue anyone without human cooperation/participation yet such participation does not guarantee that we will not suffer. In that sense there is no rescue.

I totally agree if they were tuned to God, there would have been no holocaust.

 

I think I was just restating or emphasizing what you had said.

 

I agree, at least most often that the Spirit needs a person's cooperation and participation.

The Spirit can also help us cope better with bad circumstances and situations.

Bad and awful things do happen to people who are very much in-tune with the Spirit. As you've said, look at what happened to Christ, though one can say that he still overcame.

I really don't know what is happening with these things. It's probably worth investigating and thinking about. Still I do feel that the Spirit helps with all of this, and perhaps in the long run, will make it all go away.

I read a verse from the NT sometime ago that depicted Jesus as saying, "These things will neither happen nor will they come to mind", (meaning bad things). I can't help but really want that and to be there. How and why this could happen is another question.

2 minutes ago, thormas said:

I do think that when some do 'evil' or something wrong or immoral, they feel guilty and it is not necessarily harder to be good the next time; sometimes there is a great desire to go good. However, I do agree if one forms a habit of doing wrong it becomes easier and easier to continue.

Yeah, I think that's what I meant, like you say, "if one forms a habit of doing wrong".

I just didn't know how to put it into words in the sentences or context I was writing it in.

Thanks 

3 minutes ago, thormas said:

Weird for me to do, not a judgement on anyone else. I don't believe I have ever gotten an autograph.

Thanks

It's something I tend to do from time to time, if I really like an author and I have the chance.

On 3/8/2020 at 7:52 PM, thormas said:

I didn't as asking for autographs is too weird for me - I never think of it. 

But it's fine you asked.

BTW - I did get John Shelby Spong's autograph once, (on the inside cover of his latest book at the time) and also a bit of a conversation and a hug!

Maybe I'm a little dumb or "weird", but that's ok with me, at least in this respect! . 🙂 .

add/edit > something weird happened here. The software kept telling me I needed to wait 57 minutes to post this post. I kept doing that and it kept telling me that, so I ended up posting it like 5 times. I can't figure out how to delete them, is there a way to do that? Thanks

Sorry about all this / that

On 3/8/2020 at 7:52 PM, thormas said:

I didn't as asking for autographs is too weird for me - I never think of it. 

But it's fine you asked.

BTW - I did get John Shelby Spong's autograph once, (on the inside cover of his latest book at the time) and also a bit of a conversation and a hug!

Maybe I'm a little dumb or "weird", but that's ok with me, at least in this respect! . 🙂 .

On 3/8/2020 at 7:52 PM, thormas said:

I didn't as asking for autographs is too weird for me - I never think of it. 

But it's fine you asked.

BTW - I did get John Shelby Spong's autograph once, (on the inside cover of his latest book at the time) and also a bit of a conversation and a hug!

Maybe I'm a little dumb or "weird", but that's ok with me, at least in this respect! . 🙂 .

16 hours ago, romansh said:

Well this was sort of my point in the a/ignostic thread. Of course it is only an opinion that the Nazis who self identified as Christian are not Christian in actual fact. But I hope you see the contradiction in your two positions you have stated. Who is the censor that limits definitions?

And more for Joseph than you Elen, if I were to express the opinion that may Germans had succumbed to a nonsense belief that Arians are somehow a master race and better than say Slavs or Jews, would that be inappropriate? After all it is just an opinion.

Well, if someone self identified as a squirrel or a chipmunk, I might say to them, no, you are not a squirrel or a chipmunk. I could list all the things that squirrels and chipmunks are and all the difference between them and the squirrels and chipmunks and the differences would be pretty plain and understood by everyone, (perhaps unless they are mentally challenged).

Whether we are talking about the Nazis or the Spanish Inquisition here, I could list all the things that Christianity is and is not and make it plain that there is no support for what they did in Christianity, either in the texts or in practice or in people who have the faith and spirit of Christ within them. In fact the things they did are denounced and decried in Christianity. 

Now a person could still say they are a squirrel or a chipmunk of a "Christian", but that doesn't make them one.

Concerning your last paragraph and sentences, I would say that that is more than just an opinion.

Coming from a tradition myself that states, "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all people are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights among them being the right to life, liberty ….". Maybe I don't get why other people don't see this as self-evident either. 

3 hours ago, Burl said:

When I brought up Germans I was trying to express how the Nazi government corrupted and perverted the Christian citizenry.

Sin, vice and evil have a spreading nature.  Like rust, small bits are inevitable but without constant maintenance the rust runs invisibly under the paint and subtly destroys whatever it touches.

I like your last paragraph there. Thanks for posting it.

18 hours ago, JosephM said:

😄

I once wrote ... "Evil is a bumpy road that gets worse with fewer turn-offs". You can quote me on that!  It seemed so at the time.🙂

Later i would add ... "Good is a road that gets smoother as you go and with more turn-offs"

However, now i must admit, the point at which the demarcation line was drawn is no longer visible to me.

I don't know if this is what you are saying, but I do think that once one has been evil for a while, it gets harder to be good and get and stay on a good track. Somewhat likewise, when one is good and has been on a good track and on good ways of doing things, it becomes easier and more natural or second nature to stay on the good path. It can even lead to a kind of spiritual bliss and contentment, as well as mind opening enlightenment.

19 hours ago, thormas said:

I agree the ones who did the horrible things lacked a sense but many (most?) of the Jews who were exterminated considered themselves tuned into God - yet they suffered.

 

I'm not at all suggesting that these Jews weren't 'tuned into God', nor am I saying that they somehow deserved that suffering whether they were 'tuned into God' or not.

What I am saying is that the other people, the Nazis, weren't 'tuned into God'. Whether they felt or thought they were or not is another question.

I do often wonder and do kind of think that if the Nazis had been 'tuned in' whether to God or some higher and better principals, that what we call the holocaust would not have happened.

edit > there are only so many posts that I can make in a day, so I'm leaving off any comments about the squirrel. Plus I don't really know what I think. 

20 hours ago, JosephM said:

I think that a common sense of good citizenship defined and lived is what we need but diversity has its own definitions , languages, and cultural rules. It takes time to become more common in our sense of what is good citizenship. Our laws help define what it takes but that is not enough.

19 hours ago, thormas said:

It's not diversity that has its own definitions, languages and rules, it the  different diverse groups, correct? 

I agree that it takes time - just as integrating two families (after, for example, the death or divorce of previous partners and then a remarriage with kids) into one and it does take more than house rules (or laws of a society), it takes work by all but the payoff is/can be worth it.

I've found that different groups have different ideas about what is and isn't their business when encountering one another in public. "What are you doing here", seems to be one of the common attitudes between different groups. When is this someone else's business and when is it not is perhaps one of those questions that has multiple layers and a bit of complexity.

6 minutes ago, romansh said:

Don't they get to define for themselves who they are?  

Well, one could define themselves as a cat or a chipmunk, and get to be defining for themselves who they are.

Seems to me there are limits to this sort of thing, in order to remain in the parameters of commonly understood language and concepts.

Can't help but feel that regardless of how many Nazis were some degree of "Christian", just like the Inquisition, what they did and the things they did were and are not Christian.

Those things are certainly not supported in the New Testament.

I think that a common sense of good citizenship might be what we need to bring down the crime rates and enable us all to be safe in our homes and in our lives.

6 minutes ago, Burl said:

Which is why we refer to this as evil or wicked.  The Germans were good Christians who were spiritually occupied by National Socialism.  

I've heard and read that the Nazis were not Christian.

Everything that people are saying reminds me of a quote from the Pauline Epistles;

"We see God reflected in creation."

3 hours ago, thormas said:

The problem with this belief, it seems, is the experience of the Jews and other 'religious' peoples during WWII and others throughout history who were or considered themselves also tuned into God or Jesus or however they understand Spirit. 

That was all so very horrid. Thing is, it was because the people who did those horrid things were totally out of touch with ant sense of a Higher Spirit or even a good sense of sanity and decency that those thing could occur.

Getting back to the OP. I do think that God/The Higher Spirit is trying to get us away from or "rescue" us from suffering. Thing is, this requires our participation.

It requires our participation to all get along, so we don't cause each other pain and suffering.

I find that when I am more tuned in to God and JC that I have less pain and suffering, both emotionally /psychologically, as well as physically and in terms of my over all health and well being. This too requires my/a person's  participation. One needs to choose to be 'in tune' or in touch with God. God doesn't 'enter' us or 'get in touch' with us by force or intrusion. It's something we very much have to choose and be willing to do.

10 hours ago, romansh said:

 

Similarly independent observers are nice, but the fact that another observer is neither here nor there. If I happen to experience demons and you don't, does not make the study of the experience of demons any less scientifically valid.

 

If I experienced demons, I would tune them out and try really hard to focus on something else..