Burl

Y’all do realize that with all this talk of god=man, consciousness, experiencing etc. you have come full circle back to theism.

The we are god idea is a case of begging the question.  It won’t syllogize.  Steiner takes that idea as far as I have seen in anthroposophy.

17 hours ago, PaulS said:

Let me say from the outset that this is a line of thought I have been investigating for a little while now and although I do not claim it as my belief, it seems to make the most logical sense out of all the other 'models' Christianity has proposed to me concerning the existence of any sort of 'God'.

The model I am suggesting is that we (and everything that exists) is God.  I find that if I were to adopt this model then all of my questions about evil, wrongdoing, injustice, heartache and pain, love and enjoyment, purpose & existence - can be answered (to my satisfaction anyway).

Why does evil happen? - because it does, just the same as good happens.  We as God are simply experiencing from a human perspective what it is to be amongst that.  All other living and non-living things have their experience also.

Is God love? - No.  Well, no more than God is also hate, laughter, sadness and pain.  These are all human descriptors of our experience and as God is experiencing all of this, God is all of these things too.  When I hate, God is hating,  When I love, God is loving.

What happens when we die? - We continue on as God.  Just as God is the stardust that we come from, so God is the stardust that we return to.  God is eternal and infinite and we continue on into that eternity and infinity, even after this body and consciousness ( consciousness being a by-product of this body) ceases to exist.  Except there is no coming or going - just continuing.  Of course our ego doesn't like to think that and it struggles to maintain some kind of identity, but again, that is all part of the experience of being human.

How does this impact my life today? - I live how I want to gain the most from the experience.  Although this sounds selfish in the first instance, if one stops and thinks about it a lot of the things that help me live a 'good' experience include taking into account others.  We share this planet, we share countries, we share communities, we share families.  We can choose to live however we want and it makes no difference to God, but if we want to have a more pleasurable experience over one less pleasurable, then we will choose in a variety of different ways, to work together.  Not everybody will do this, which is evident in the existence of 'wrong' or 'evil', but these are just emotive terms to describe what we don't like about those things.  

I am also finding it profoundly releasing to imagine that all is God -  that we are all the same God.  The differences that appear between us are, in the big picture of things, totally arbitrary and of very little consequence really.  It makes such things a lot easier to accept or just let be.

Just my thoughts at this point in time.
 

Really good work!  I love the onion one.

Essay on the fundamental nature of fundamentalism.  The same viewpoint occurs in every sphere.

https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/nootherfoundation/you-might-be-a-fundamentalist/

1 hour ago, thormas said:

Thanks - I thought it was code for an elite monk force.

You never know, Grasshopper.  

12 hours ago, thormas said:

C21 monks?

But I also see why might be similarities.

21st century.

18 minutes ago, thormas said:

I do like your humor.

 

Monks in prisons?

I worked with the homeless for several years and at the Presbyterian street center the bible study classes were standing room only.  

C21 monks live under bridges and out in God’s wilderness under tarps.  Monk’s rooms are called cells, so why not teach the prisoner in the cell to be a monk?

It’s not exactly Mt. Athos or JtB, but I see many similarities and potentials.

11 hours ago, thormas said:

Unless I'm misunderstanding, I simply don't get hermetic individuals (unless it is temporary). One should not withdraw from the world but live in it. That's why I liked the Benedictines, they were always among us, their monastary was part of the campus.

 

 

I like the Benedictines because of, uh, Benedictine!  Just a splash and brandy becomes beautiful.

Hermetic monks are not bearded old guys who live in caves.  Just strong introverts.  I bet you can find a few in prisons and in high density urban areas.

I imagine there are self-supporting cenobitic businesses operating sort of like American Shakers.

I can also see hermetic individuals.  The people interviewed seem headed this way, but Not enough info.

I wonder if that writer realizes this would make a good book.

As I read it, this wierd Christianity is essentially pietist.  These are non-religious people who have spiritual experiences in religious spaces.

I would not be surprised to find a new monasticism has emerged as well.

Thank you, Thormas.  Quite a lot was touched on in that brief but broad article.  The needs for ritual, beauty, sacred spaces and unity in vibration.

There does exist a primordial God that draws people to itself.

Remember, golfers should always wear 2 masks.

Just in case they get a hole in one.

4 hours ago, thormas said:

I follow you from a theistic POV but from a more progressive and/or panentheistic perspective , I don't see it or agree with it. 

Plus, it is evident that God has no experience of the female equivalent to a kick in the nutz or pregnancy or childbirth or miscarriages or menopause or breast cancer and on and on. Plus unless Jesus was raped or sold into slavery or thought of as less than a man - God has no experience with that and so much more. Thus God does not know human kind and has never fully experienced humanity. 

The atonement moves through Jesus resurrection, ascension, his session at the right hand of God, Pentecost and the indwelling of Christ in every living person.
 

We are all part of the at-one-ment, Thormas.

1 hour ago, thormas said:

Why does God 'need' our experience and isn't part of experience both knowledge and information..........so He needs that too?

God has always had all knowledge and information, but Jesus enabled God’s ability to indwell in humanity and experience sentience.  
 

Everyone has knowledge and information that giving birth or getting a hard kick in the nutz is painful but ask someone who has had either experience and they will tell you that information and knowledge are no substitute for experience.

Before Jesus atonement God could not fully experience humanity.  How else could an omnipotent God experience fear, shame, lust or greed?

This is how Jesus at-one-ment was able to bring about forgiveness for sins.  The allegory is releasing the patriarchs from hell and opening heaven but the scriptures are really speaking to the forgiveness of humanity.

1 hour ago, JosephM said:

👍😄😄 I hope that was a joke.

What we now provide for God, through the grace of Jesus, is not information or knowledge but experience.

God can now experience human doubt, fear, ambition etc.  This was the atonement.  

At-one-ment.  It began with Jesus’ conception and was completed at Pentecost.

On the universe as a pool hall.
https://www.unz.com/freed/the-universe-as-pool-hall/

Please use a Ridgid Tool calendar for me.

Still alive!  Real but an extreme overreaction imo. 

24 minutes ago, JosephM said:

Thanks for the response.

I can go into more detail on each of those events.  The laser summary is we are going through a national bankruptcy for the fifth or sixth time.

Another major depression and another new dollar, but this time it looks like this time we may escape a major war.

Pray for peace.

2 hours ago, JosephM said:

I'm curious......

I can see the economy failed in 2008 but i would like to understand exactly what you mean by it "has been rolling downhill since then" .

Also, in what way before the virus, was the economy failure becoming "increasingly evident"?

None of the 2008 economic problems were fixed.  

Some of the biggest signs are interest rates dropping to below inflation levels, the inversion of the yield curve, companies buying back their own stock instead of distributing or reinvesting earnings, the ongoing repo bailout and the absurd multiple hypothecation of assets.

The economy is not being shut down because of the virus.  Our economy failed in 2008 and has been rolling downhill since then.

The virus is providing a convenient excuse and distraction for the increasingly evident economic failure.