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Gomedome,
"Truly you must be born of the spirit, flesh breeds flesh and spirit breeds spirit." That's a rough paraphrase of the speech Jesus gave to Nicodemus, I'm sure you've heard a hundred thousand times. It sounds trite and televangelical (You must be born agin! Arise and walk in the newness of life!), but as corny as it sounds, that's the experience I've had and others who've gone through traumatic circumstances, emotional upheaval, maybe others, I don't know. I can only speak for myself. That there is a defining moment, an experience, that has to be experienced to be understood, of feeling that I am not completely alone with my problems, fears and worries, that despite the inequities and injustices in the world, there is a larger presence that defines morality, justice and "right", who cares about the suffering, my suffering, a purpose.
posted by
Blanche.
on May 26, 2005 at 9:41 PM
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mary_x -- it didn't take long before you lost me
What exactly does this mean?... "Truly you must be born of the spirit, flesh breeds flesh and spirit breeds spirit." I've heard it often repeated but never made any sense of it.
posted by
gomedome
on May 26, 2005 at 7:18 PM
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Wind me up before you go, Gomedome
As a card-carrying delusional wishful thinking believer in the antiquated antediluvian white-man's religion of yore, I say bring it on. Truly you must be born of the spirit, flesh breeds flesh and spirit breeds spirit. Where is God hiding? In plain sight, like everybody else. Somebody gave you a bad taste for dogma, and that's understandable, but don't throw out the baby with the bath.
posted by
Blanche.
on May 26, 2005 at 6:01 PM
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mikes_goddess -- I don't know that anyone could disagree with what you are
saying, especially when you say: "Belief is a valuable thing only when it is tempered with both compassion and logic." ...but it too frequently is not tempered with anything that remotely resembles logic and compassion is subjective. Yep, I do rankle when people decide that I must hear about, accept and pay homage to their God. They are quite welcome to pander to their own delusions if they so choose but as soon as I catch one iota of disdain from them for not buying into things like a man parting the Red Sea with a magic stick or whatever nonsense I simply return the disdain. Justified from having my intelligence insulted, but the return volley is measured. I would become the perpetrator if I attacked believers for the sake of attack, regardless of how much fun it is to wind em up.
posted by
gomedome
on May 26, 2005 at 3:40 PM
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I think divinity exists...
I won't call it God because that name is so emotionally charged that many people's brains shut down when it is used. Like you Gome...I have real prolems when people not only follow any dogma blindly but insist on trying to force me to do it too. I believe that each person should define divinity..God...Goddess...whatever, in their own terms by their own needs and follow that belief as long as it serves them positively. If it stops serving them then you drop it and look for something else. Sitting there beating your head against a spiritual wall for the sake of being pious or winning the spritual qupie doll is as useless as leeches being used to cure cancer.
Belief is a valuable thing only when it is tempered with both compassion and logic.
Mike's Goddess
posted by
mikes_goddess
on May 26, 2005 at 1:25 PM
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empty_handed_painter -- I agree but will take it a step further
Modern day religion is nothing more than a series of divisions who's barriers serve to alienate and segregate
all who cannot buy into the ludicrous concepts of an extremely vain and cruel omnipotent being intent on orchestrating a secret master plan covertly. It is absolutely ridiculous for people to suggest that answers to our societal problems lie in religion or faith. It is one of the definitions of crazy in that people are intent on performing the same actions over and over again, as endorsed by the religious mindset, yet expect a different result than we have seen countless times historically.
2 millenia after the supposed son of God sacrificed himself for us and in the age of the advent of scientific discovery there are still people out there proliferating the absurd depicition of a traditionally defined paternal supreme being. Faith is one thing but not accepting reality is another. Those realities include but are not limited to the fact that primitive man defined all of this for us from a position of ignorance and layer upon layer of fabrication has been added to the fable since that time. None of it makes any sense unless it is overcome with the desire to have it make sense. They refer to this ability to bridge these inconsistancies as faith but my question is why bother? Or what end do people think this will acomplish but to entrench our collective knowledge in a constrictive ignorance as it always has?
I have to agree that God must be re-defined. What we have today is entirely a being created in man's image (not the other way around as they would like us to believe). We may some day understand that there is a unifying life force or energy running through all living entities but it is very unlikely that this energy will be conscious or have benevolent and malevolent intent capability. But this day of re-definition is probably another couple of millenia away judging by how things are going today.
posted by
gomedome
on May 26, 2005 at 8:15 AM
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actually, I like Easy_rider's god.
does he cost anything?
posted by
Xeno-x
on May 26, 2005 at 6:51 AM
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disdain? nah!!!
join the club.
this is an idea marketplace
we purport to think in a certain manner
and others purport to think differently
and we all poop out on each other it seems.
and there are those who disagree with you and disagree with me
and you and I certainly don't think alike on everything.
but they are convinced in their minds of what they believe
and we also are.
and they do try to come along and convince otherwise.
I've been getting a hit or two -- and they do believe what they're saying -- far be it from me to cause them to disbelieve and be left with nothing -- I don't like millstones about my neck.
it's just hard for them to see what you see and what i see.
and each of us -- what we see is different.
they may not like what we see, but we see it.
but regarding god.
what i call the "Standard God" certainly is hard to see for some people, you, me and Kooka being among them -- I believe that that god of which you speak and which you question is certainly a nonexistent god.
i believe god needs to be seen differently. I've mentioned that in GOD AS THE UNIVERSE AS AN ORGANISM a plethora of times.
to me it all boils down to god is the moment in which each individual exists and that's all there actually is. it's what we do with that "present instant of a moment" that counts.
posted by
Xeno-x
on May 26, 2005 at 6:49 AM
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Where the Lord God Hides
He usually hangs out in my secret sex-toy stash, next to the KY.
posted by
Easy_Writer
on May 26, 2005 at 12:28 AM
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MandaLee -- that's funny but I am sure you did not intend it that way
"Jesus is in the hearts of his children" ....too bad his children only include the descendents of white Eurpeans and the societies they have conquered or influenced with their economic and military might. It's a crying shame that he never caught on with the Arabs, Orientals or the majority of peoples living on the Asian sub-continent. Less than 40% of the world's populace can lay claim to being his children .....lucky them. Of course this suggests that the remainder are unlucky or inferior or simply ignorant which is entirely my beef with Christianity in the first place. So like I said: that's funny.
posted by
gomedome
on May 25, 2005 at 7:54 PM
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Gome, Jesus is in the hearts of His children. Give Him a chance
to love you, and you'll see.
posted by
Amanda__
on May 25, 2005 at 5:46 PM
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empty_handed_painter --- me sarcastic?
No I meant every word of it.......nyuk nyuk. But to address your first point. Look what we as a species are doing in the year 2005. Taking an ancient manuscript, turning it inside out for the gazillionth time to find our own meaning in it and then calling it religion. I'm just getting a little tired of being the brunt of undeserved disdain because I don't buy any of this.
posted by
gomedome
on May 25, 2005 at 4:15 PM
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it's interesting how many people have come to the same conclusion as you have of late.
By the way, I sorta thought you were being sarcastic with your PastorB comment. 
posted by
Xeno-x
on May 25, 2005 at 2:07 PM
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