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That was, "cocktail," party when I wrote it...
posted by
Volaar
on October 20, 2004 at 8:24 AM
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That's What I'm Talking About...
...you can't hear the message, so you "shoot" the messenger. We've been pulling this schtick for more than 2,000 years WHILE BEING COMPLETELY AWARE THAT IT DOES NOT WORK. We simply stop getting messages for a while.
But the Truth of the matter continues to reveal itself, if ever so gently, anyway. Like the waves of the ocean, it is relentless and it will grind into dust everything physical that we choose to value.
Humility, if it means teachableness, is a lifestyle. It is a central mean around which all our thoughts and behaviors must exist. If we fail to achieve this minimal ideal, we will be in for pain of some sort.
Humility, if I practiced it properly, would allow you to continue to chase the thoughts I am given and have chosen to share like so many birds. So take heed to what I've been suggesting. If I stayed humble, I wouldn't bother to communicate with anyone on any point which might stir controversy. And that is because what I am suggesting can readily be interpreted as a defense of truth which, by definition, is wholely futile and unnecessary.
We are ALL channeled, sir. That is the meaning behind the thought, "...of myself I am nothing, the Father doeth the works." We are all but beacons of light and our egoes simply distort and bend the light into seeming shadows. It would be fun and joyous to indulge our egoes in this manner if it weren't for the fools who choose to believe only in what they directly perceive. This path leads directly into fear and darkness where the need for evil becomes manifest. By man, not by God.
Be great in the Spirit you have been provided, but awed by the One who provides it in the First place. Together we are one with God, but I know of no way to get that many people in a tail party to pay that much attention to the obvious.
He said as he pulled his tongue from his cheek.
posted by
Volaar
on October 20, 2004 at 8:21 AM
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Sir, you are beginning to sound "channelled"
If you're not going to answer my question, then don't.
However I do not care to hear from your spirit guide.
posted by
AlienInsomniac
on October 17, 2004 at 7:50 PM
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Actually, Your Question, Like Most Human Questions...
...contains the answer you were hoping to contain within the framework of your belief system. That can not work. I can appreciate and respect the good in what you may choose to believe, but you may never be able to reciprocate while you are under the influence of what you believe to be true.
I would simply encourage you to continue simplifying the elements of your human experience until the obvious starts slapping you in the face on a daily basis. Then my words will connect without evoking a scintilla of fear in you.
posted by
Volaar
on October 17, 2004 at 7:19 PM
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Assonance, Alliteration, Onomatopoeia aside...
"Where" does not imply and has nothing whatsoever to do with any notion of a size or location of God.
"Where" is a perfectly straightforward question referring to your previous reply to my previous comment. I mean where in your worldview or belief system or discussion of sharing power with God is the humility?
Don't worry about offending me. People should be able to discuss whatever is on their minds and hearts, which is what we are doing here.
posted by
AlienInsomniac
on October 17, 2004 at 4:18 PM
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Where Is The Humility?
This sounds like a job for Captain Obvious.
God ain't big.
God ain't small.
God and all good things
Got no size at all.
This may seem sacreligious to you but it's not meant to. 
Asking, "where," anything is implies that size or space matters when it obviously does not. The choice that we make about which size fits in which apparent circumstances is what prayer and meditation are for.
In the end, however, the issue is not about, "where," anything is because it was always right here, and always right now. The issue is, was and will be, when are we going to choose to be humble enough to recognize the obvious.
posted by
Volaar
on October 17, 2004 at 12:57 PM
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Then
What sort of evidence would you consider acceptable?
Where is the humility in this sharing of power you talk about? I don't have the power, except to acknowledge that I am not perfect, that I fall short, and that I need Jesus.
posted by
AlienInsomniac
on October 17, 2004 at 11:27 AM
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But...
...you're still doing two things which are complete rational and ethical no-no's.
1. You're playing, "make-believe," with people's hearts and minds. There has not been any contemporary evidence to date that bolsters even a scintilla of suspicion that posthumous resurrection is possible. This bit of hokum opens the door to all manner of contradictions and tomfoolery that leave people vulnerable to mental and emotional illnesses of all kinds. Not to mention delusional thinking and an inability to consider their place in the world in a reasonable manner.
2. You are suggesting that an infinite being with infinite powers of expression would violate itself by pointing out that the path out of physical limitation can be found by indulging in yet more physical limitation -- that your reward for fidelity will not be infinite power shared with a loving Creator but finite power given judgmentally to all those who tow the line of religiosity. The Greeks were fixated by human bodies, human form and human ego. All of these features are traps that confine human beings and human expression. The source of our connection with our Creator can not be like this at all. It must be atemporal, aspacial and adimensional. The more one digs into the history of the New Testament, the more obvious it is that Hellenic influence is in great measure responsible for the selling of the fiction of the physical resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
The only documentation that we have that comes anywhere close to the time of Jesus' crucifixion is the Gospel of Mary (Magdalene), found in the Nag Hammadi scriptures. This documentation makes it very clear that Mary was the first to see the posthumous Jesus and that his appearance to her was in a dream, not in physical reality. Elaine Pagels posits that it was a political battle between the men who wanted control over Jesus' legacy and the true believers, the Gnostics, who were a scattered and disorganized bunch, that lead to the final canonical description of Jesus' physical resurrection.
Give up the fairy tales, boys n girls. You either believe God is whole without you, or you can not imagine such sacriledge as a remote possibility. You either believe that God is loving, apriori, or you live driven by hundreds of forms of fear that splinter and divide your life and make it unrecognizable as a part of yourself.
God makes the choice very simple, but the choice has very profound consequences. And we must make the same choice many times each day or we fall victim to our own limited sensory capacities of discernment.
posted by
Volaar
on October 14, 2004 at 7:11 PM
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It is possible
to not be evangelical, yet believe in the resurrection of Jesus.
posted by
AlienInsomniac
on October 11, 2004 at 10:30 PM
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