How the Universe looks from here

By Ciel - About Me - E-mail this page - Add to My Favorites - Add to Blog List - See other blogs in Religion & Spirituality

Friday, December 15, 2017

Conversation

It has been a while since I had a really interesting conversation with a stranger over my occasional morning coffee at Starbuck's. We traded ideas and words over a number of current social trends and topics, and discovered that we have several different terms for the same concepts, and that we agreed on most topics. He mentioned the Bible several times as his source of wisdom, and came around to stating that he has committed his faith to what he finds there. I acknowledged that my own faith lies... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 3:23 PM | add or view comments (6) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Swimming against the flow

I believe that we are here in the world not merely to dream the illusions of living, but to learn, as evolving entities, how to make choices: to try things on, to treat them as real for a while, until a more absolute version of Reality comes along and slaps down the personal version for its non-conformity to What Is. Then we fight back, trying to force what disagrees with our personal version to fit through our own special perceptual filters that are based on what we believe is real. When things... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 8:37 AM | add or view comments (5) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Thursday, October 26, 2017

I have been asked what I believe in...

I believe in a complex Reality. It is not a Universe, or Multiverse that can be described in simple, linear notions. I believe in God, but not a God as much like Man as the God of Western Culture is taken for. I believe in Good and Evil, in Light and Darkness, but neither without shadings of twilight, of mixture and inclusivity. I believe in Absolutes and also in Qualifiers and Conditionals: that there are spectrums and continuums of which we as humans perceive but a little and tend to attach to... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 6:42 AM | add or view comments (9) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Monday, September 11, 2017

Defining Terms

This is part of discussion going on over on Facebook that begins with someone asserting that, if the brain is a smartphone, then consiousness is its screen. There's a story about a teacher of philosophy who, one day, said, "Death is an illusion." The next day he taught, "Death is real." Naturally, a student asked, "So which one is it? Is death real, or is it illusion?" The teacher answered, "Death is a real illusion." By my definitions, a thing is real if it has an actual effect, therefore an... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 2:30 AM | add or view comments (4) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Thursday, August 10, 2017

OMG, there is SEX!

It is worth some consideration of where the fear of sex and nudity came from--fear or condemnation or resistance or shame. There was the idea of modesty, perhaps that evolved to regulate sexual behavior so some work could get done. Add to that some ideas of controlling patrilineal descent: it was necessary to know who fathered which child, which required more stringent control than encouraging modesty: people had to be ever more consciously focused on not taking chances of confusing the... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 10:03 AM | add or view comments (3) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

OMG, there is SEX!

It is worth some consideration of where the fear of sex and nudity came from--fear or condemnation or resistance or shame. There was the idea of modesty, perhaps that evolved to regulate sexual behavior so some work could get done. Add to that some ideas of controlling patrilineal descent: it was necessary to know who fathered which child, which required more stringent control than encouraging modesty: people had to be ever more consciously focused on not taking chances of confusing the... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 10:02 AM | add or view comments (0) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Sunday, July 16, 2017

the illusion of darkness

The world is divided between two kinds of people: the people who care and the people who don't. There are the en-lightened hearts and souls, and there are the ones who live in the shadows cast by fears and falsehoods, ignorance and mistaken beliefs, and just plain wrong information. Education is the way to dispell the shadows. Tolerance of difference, patience with lack of understanding, generosity in the face of greed... All are lights in the darkness. If you light a candle in a dark place, it... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 6:28 AM | add or view comments (2) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Monday, April 24, 2017

THE CELESTINE PROPHECY

The book has been recommended to me for years, and I finally have just watched the movie. Now I understand why it was recommended, and why by whom. It is a presentation of a number of Insights that human beings become aware of as we evolve, eight of them leading to the ninth hidden one. The story is about the revelation of that ninth Insight. Then, of course, comes the revelation that there is yet another, the tenth Insight... The Insights are a logical progression, a map of a pathway to a... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 6:58 PM | add or view comments (4) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

The mathematics of emotions

We all make them, learn them over time: They derive from and reflect our experiences from earliest consciousness. While we forget the learning of them, bury the logic that led to them, they remain powerful forces in our lives. A child experiences warmth and affection from parents, experiences appropriate responses to crying and other expressions of need, of emotions, experiences measured and appropriate correction: learns trust of authority, and makes an equation that Authority =... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 12:09 PM | add or view comments (5) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Interpreting Jesus

Jesus Christ Superstar Do you think you're what they say you are...? I suspect this 1969 "rock opera" by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber was created to strip off 2000 years of filtering and interpretation, to challenge us to appreciate the actual context of the world Jesus lived in, to get a sense of the culture and society, the politics and the people of that world. The efforts of followers of Christianity to understand and explain and legitimize, end up distorting and distracting: the content... Sign in to see full entry.

posted by Ciel at 7:49 AM | add or view comments (12) | leave calling card | link to this | view only this entry

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About this Blog

I've been asking the Universe to explain itself to me since I was about 11 years old. I asked specifically how to reconcile God with Science. Now and then, I seem to tune in on an answer. All that I write here represents not Truth, but what I believe to be true.I have my reasons, and I like to believe, my reason. ///Everything of my own words and/or pictures that I post on Blogit is copyright by CLRedding 1972-present, all rights reserved.///

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