Profile for Synergy
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Displayed name | Synergy |
| Member number | 6292 |
| Title | Shaper |
| Postcount | 2009 |
| Homepage | |
| Registered | Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
Recent posts
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| Author | Recent posts |
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| Exit Strategy (Realized) in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Tuesday, February 21 2006 01:46
Profile
Thralni, look up my email or IM and let me know when your scenario's ready and I'd be delighted to give it a whirl. I'm trying to play no more games for the better part of the rest of this year at least, but a scenario won't cause me to lose a week of my life. I've been avoiding buying Civilization IV for exactly this reason. Hmm, I may have to play the latest Myst though. If I get asked to beta test A5, that would be a likely time I might show up again. [ Tuesday, February 21, 2006 01:48: Message edited by: Synergy ] -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
| Exit Strategy (Realized) in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Tuesday, February 21 2006 01:22
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quote:Yes. Yes you may. quote:Thanks, my friend of fine-feathered friends. You've got a fantastically wacky and upbeat sense of humor. Don't ever lose it! It's really quite a valuable asset. I threw away some stories I wrote and illustrated when I was little because they weren't "good enough" and I wish I had them now too. Your questions: Why? I feel like a toy on the bottom of the pond here too often and I am neglecting my real life. I'm not very good keeping things in balance sometimes, because I get caught up in the moment and my passion. There are other moments and other passions I wish to engage. How? By not posting here anymore. Arancaytar: God, I love it when people get real. Thanks for sharing that. Salmon: Part of getting my house in order involves getting over my inclination to harrangue too much. I'll miss your dry and sometimes baffling wit for sure. I think it's baffling just because it's over my head. It's been nice having someone else around from our lovely state and from our lovely decade. May your table overflow bountifully with many plump, pink fish for many years to come. If I ever think of Kari Traa again, I'll think of you. Dareva: You just had more effect than you might be inclined to give yourself credit for. You're one cool and edgy chick. Thanks. [ Tuesday, February 21, 2006 01:35: Message edited by: Synergy ] -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
| Exit Strategy (Realized) in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Tuesday, February 21 2006 00:21
Profile
Arancaytar, I bow in respect. You are a fine fellow, indeed. I must go find my own fluffy turtles. I'm both extremely confident and extremely foolish. It is a moment of sanity which beckons me to the door. -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
| Exit Strategy (Realized) in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Tuesday, February 21 2006 00:16
Profile
Good post Thurly. You win the first one. Can I place a bet? -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
| Exit Strategy (Realized) in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Tuesday, February 21 2006 00:00
Profile
I'm outta here at 777 posts. It's time for me to more fully apply myself to my real life. Write something that makes me want to write something back. This may also be good for any of you who would like to hasten the process. [ Tuesday, February 21, 2006 21:12: Message edited by: Synergy ] -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
| From the desk of Mitt Romney: in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Monday, February 20 2006 23:47
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A Mormon candidate, huh? We might have a First, Second, and Third Lady in the White House. :D -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
| STUPIDEST POST EVER!!! in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Monday, February 20 2006 23:38
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quote:That's the best thing you ever wrote. EDIT: (It wasn't mine.) [ Monday, February 20, 2006 23:39: Message edited by: Synergy ] -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
| Eep! Christians! (Split from Christian Radio) in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Monday, February 20 2006 20:49
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I did say exactly what I do mean, and said nothing at all about what that means we should or shouldn't do right now as a result. I stand by the opinion that disease is the result of the things I stated ultimately. The virus is an intermediate agent we have some ability to control or avoid. It itself is not The Cause. Our body's state of imbalance invites disease. And as I suggested elsewhere, in an environment where our bodies are prone to toxins and stress, the cold virus is our friend. Even "evil" things serve "good" purposes in the right context. But I'd rather just work toward being well enough to not need to get colds. When I do, I don't. I spoke of the ideal attainable "perfect" health which I see as possible in the ultimate, not immediate sense.The reason it is relevant to this thread is because ultimately I believe that health comes through the kind of symbiotic relationship and well-being that exists only in spiritual health and connection. Because I operate on the belief in God and that nothing began as a corrupt or diseased thing, something changed. We changed. I don't think God got mad and put viruses into the world to which we were susceptible. I see that being susceptible to disease and death comes as a result of man having changed from a perfect, balanced, wholesome state. Right now, none of us can hope to enjoy a return to such a state. Big shifts take a long time to progress. We can each, if we hold a more personally powerful and accountable perspective like this, can do our bit to better our own quality of life and the genes and environment we pass on. So I wouldn't advise anyone to not use a condom or not wash their hands and so forth. And I didn't. But if you live an especially wholesome life, you will have a lot more leeway with what your immune system/body can withstand, endure, and resist. [ Monday, February 20, 2006 20:55: Message edited by: Synergy ] -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
| Eep! Christians! (Split from Christian Radio) in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Monday, February 20 2006 20:10
Profile
All right Slartucker. You’ve been playing the big brother to me all week. Let me play big brother to you for a moment. When you preface what you say with, “To be honest,” it sounds like you are saying that at any other time, you may not be being honest, and that would be unfortunate. If we really are honest and genuine people, we don’t have to qualify anything we say with the statement that now we are being honest. I sensed you were deeply disappointed in me Slarty. Thanks for the vote of faith of sorts, I guess, and I am sorry to have been a disappointment. I disappoint me all too often too. I won’t try to curtail what you really want to comment on. It’s all fair game. You were sounding more and more pissed off rather than supportive, and that’s the last thing that’s going to help me in the moment. It may help me tomorrow as I reflect on it. I listen to everything personal anyone says to me, more than you know. I take a lot of it to heart. Even if I don’t think in the moment that I am being conceited or unclear, if I am getting that feedback repeatedly, well, duh, somehow I am, even if a the same time I feel myself to be motivated by something more noble. Clearly, I'm in defense mode. I'm the first to get annoyed about how overwrought I get about things that simply aren't very important or very worthwhile. It's colossally stupid by my own estimation. I'm wasting a lot of frustrated energy here with the sort of people I don't normally select to discuss spirituality or philosophy with in the first place. I'm just setting myself up, I know it, but I'm hungry for communication and dialogue, and don't have much of it in my immediate environment right now. SW’s familiar. We’re creatures of habit. I need three things to settle down at this point in my life: secure an internship which I am very worried about at present; figure out how I am going to work, do an internship, and finish school all at once—which I am exceedingly worried about; and find my mate in life, which has been a very frustrating quest for me as that which I desire most and find most elusive. I am watching myself unravel, and I know exactly why. No one need point out how it makes me all the more unattractive. To commit the unpardonable sin as an adult American male, I will openly betray that I am lonely and scared right now because of these things. It’s a crisis point which I full well expect to survive and flourish all the more coming out the other side, but right now its perilous, and it doesn’t much feel like it. ... Kel, why you gotta make my points all black and white like that? I use words like “primarily” and you rephrase me in absolute, boolean on/off terms. That doesn’t seem like logical or helpful criticism to me, so I can only conclude your intent is to be derisive. -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
| Eep! Christians! (Split from Christian Radio) in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Monday, February 20 2006 18:53
Profile
PoD - If spirituality doesn't translate into action and the concrete, into viable effects, then it's not serving much purpose, is it? Thuryl – You didn't really mean to sound that naive just then, did you? Doctors and scientists are the new high priests of the latest dominant religion of the west where Knowledge is god. Talk to the average person and see how trustingly and worshipfully they regard and obey both. And many suffer at their hands just as surely as many suffered for blindly following doctrines, churches, pastors, and popes. All mean well. Few would ever really believe they aren't doing something great and worthwhile. The same human foibles that have preyed upon religion are just as equally present in any other institution of man. All people are religious about something, in the broadest sense of the word. It's what we do. [ Monday, February 20, 2006 18:58: Message edited by: Synergy ] -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
| Eep! Christians! (Split from Christian Radio) in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Monday, February 20 2006 18:45
Profile
You being annoyed by me in particular also says something about you and your buttons. I'm curious why you don't get half as visibly annoyed at TM who pours abuse onto nearly everyone openly and scares off newbies? There is all kind of "imperfect" attitude here, heated debate, passion, anger, whatever. It's the nature of dialog and debate and I'm frequently less worried about how "nicely" or "humbly" someone appears to make their point than actually listening to their point and esteeming them despite their abrasive aspects. -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
| Eep! Christians! (Split from Christian Radio) in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Monday, February 20 2006 18:34
Profile
Who made Slarty the dialog policeman around here? I picture you in a referee outfit blowing the whistle at every perceived foul. You've been commenting a lot on my attitude or how I am going about my conversations. Why do you care what I do so much? Its starting to come across as sounding really self-righteous to me now. ADD: Is there anyone else who sees that aspects of medicine and science are just as religious in their belief system as philosophy and spirituality? I don't "believe" what "the experts" tell me as absolute, infallible authorities. These are the same people who assured us that asbestos was safe, approve toxic substances like aspartame, and put pesticides on our food.These are the same people who waffle back and forth endlessly whether or not meat or carbohydrates are best for us or bad for us, whether eggs are good or bad, whether salt is good or bad. It's all people, and people are limited, biased, fallible, and FUNDED by somebody and some interest. [ Monday, February 20, 2006 18:40: Message edited by: Synergy ] -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
| Eep! Christians! (Split from Christian Radio) in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Monday, February 20 2006 18:29
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Contact with a virus is not the primarily controllable issue affecting whether or not one falls prey to it. The condition of one's immune system has everything to do with it. Much of modern medicine has this disease paradigm which echoes old superstitions, sadly. The paradigm also consoles non-accountable Americans who are ever eager to blame anyone or anything but themselves for the consequences of their choices and attitudes. We want pills to evaporate all our symtoms, and find it inconvenient when we get ill after running our bodies into the ground. Today, in the modern paradigm, the Virus is the evil spirit or swamp gas that "invades us and makes us ill" through no particular fault of our own. Lots of pathogens are around and in us all the time. There is probably eColi in the digestive tract of everyone reading this right now. For any virus, including HIV, you can only develop a diseased state with it when your immune system is compromised. All the things I listed previously affect the state of our immune systems. To challenge the paradigm further, there is the perception by others that the common cold is the most efficient way for your body to detoxify itself when run down. When run down even futher, even the cold virus doesn't work symbiotically with the body to cleanse it and slow it down to recover. (Drugs keep us from slowing down and recovering properly.) Really sick people are beyond getting colds and more deadly disease may lurk around the corner. I embrace colds, and they remind me I have been neglecting balanced care for myself. Thurly – I'll take it as a compliment. I'd like to think the best about you if possible. [ Monday, February 20, 2006 18:30: Message edited by: Synergy ] -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
| Eep! Christians! (Split from Christian Radio) in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Monday, February 20 2006 18:11
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There's a way. We're quite a ways from getting there yet. We can do much to affect both the quality of our life and the quality of our death in the meantime. -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
| Eep! Christians! (Split from Christian Radio) in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Monday, February 20 2006 17:39
Profile
quote:I didn’t say anything about teenage rebellion or angst. I happened to be 16 when I finally got fed up with the hypocrisy, confusion, and lack of loving behavior I was experiencing in churches, and went on a quest to find where the substance in my experience so far lay, because I had enough experience of my own to leave it undeniable to me personally that God is there. I didn’t know how Christianity or the Bible fit into that reality any more. [quote]Pardon me, but I don't think humanity can claim responsibility for disease. Or was this just meant to be a play on words? If so, it failed.[/quote]Humanity would do well to start being more accountable for the woes it invokes upon itself. I’m saying disease is the result of negative emotional and psychological states (more than we usually recognize in the west), bad dietary habits, stress, toxins in our environment, and other things which are all the result of us living selfishly or foolishly in various ways. Disease is something we have reaped for what we have sown, and we cause many innocents to suffer considering our choices affect a whole lot more than just our own bodies. quote:It’s not in my words or my attitude. You’ve read that attitude into it. I’m thinking there is no way I can word it where you will not hear it the way you want to hear it from me, already having some image or conception of me. It would help to hear it from my lips, as I would say it perhaps. There is no tone in type. My attitude is A) We are all suffering (B) There is a way to overcome our suffering and find peace, joy, and love in life (C) Those who have begun to find and experience these things of course want others to be happier, healthier, and more fulfilled. (D) My heart is motivated primarily out of compassion and hope for other people (E) A smaller part of me is still concerned with “being right” or feeling proud about my knowledge. This is ubiquitously human and pride runs notoriously deep. It is also something that continues to change in my ongoing relationship with God. (F) Some people only have eyes to see E and not D. That’s the “evil eye” / glass half empty view, and I’m not going to indulge it any further. I’m in this dialog only because I was interested in discussing it with TM. [quote]What about the people who die before seeing God (surely there must be a few)? [/quote]I have already stated that death is no obstacle to God, even if Christianity, ever fixated on the natural and the literal, has built up the doctrine that your heartbeat and breath seal your “eternal fate.” God promises to redeem all creation, and the concern is with our souls, not our bodies anyway. I believe the promise and the ability of the One Who makes it, so I’m not worried about the details which I don’t know about. There are all kinds of ways God can fulfill the promises, but no one is left out of the redemption process. ... TM – If you want your basic points/questions addressed, I invite you to say nothing else but restate them as succinctly and directly as possible. You may not realize this, and I doubt I am alone in experiencing this, but a certain amount of what you say is difficult to reduce to your actual meaning or sentiment. I still don't understand your issue about empathy. I'd be happy to try to briefly and directly answer a brief and direct question. If you ask a question with terms that require definition, since words mean and imply different things to each of us, then I will insist you clarify them first till I am satisfied I even know what you are asking. If you aren't interested in one more streamlined go at it, that's fine too. The only other question I see you really harping on is, "Why should I believe in God?" I've already answered it at least twice from one angle, which might be something more like when/how does someone believe in God. The simplest why to believe in God is because God really is our means to overcome our selfish and misguided behaviors and ideas. Life is better in all kinds of ways for us and for everyone else in our sphere of influence the more we are spiritually transformed by virtue of relationship with God. But "believing in God" doesn't achieve this. Knowledge is nothing. I don't think about it in terms of anyone needing to believe in God. I think of it in terms of people needing to encounter and know God. Belief follows, rather than precedes. [ Monday, February 20, 2006 18:13: Message edited by: Synergy ] -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
| The Spiderweb Instant Custom Title Generator? in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Monday, February 20 2006 00:05
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I dunno, I guess I consider the list a historical document over a span of time, rather than a present snapshot. EDF generated three highly non-flattering titles...is someone here envious of that? Feel free to speak up. ;) FINAL NOTE: Actually, don't. The SICTG™ has rebelled, and I was forced to reduce it to scrap metal with my New Age buzzsaw. [ Tuesday, February 21, 2006 00:06: Message edited by: Synergy ] -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
| Eep! Christians! (Split from Christian Radio) in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Monday, February 20 2006 00:00
Profile
Slarty, I can’t win. If I more humbly throw in “I believe” and “I think” like my first post did, then TM chides me for stating the obvious. Now you chide me for not doing it. It’s a given that these are my convictions, and I’m not about to preface every statement with it. I’m speaking out of whatever degree of understanding my spiritual experience affords me. My posts are long enough without attempting to show where all the statements and perspectives on God have come from. I have no problem with anyone in confidence stating their conviction of what God is in no uncertain terms. I’m not even worried about the need to be right all to any particular degree. I’m sure I’m not, but I’m not “teaching” anyone facts here, nor do I see that things of spiritual value communicate in the same way that head knowledge does for us. Precisely because I believe in a spiritual level of connection and communication, and have some perception of how it operates, the surface form of the communication in some ways is the least important aspect. I communicate as I do with the experience and expectation that truths have a way of resonating in another person when it’s timely for it to do so. Sometimes speaking words just plants seeds which may take root later. I’m sharing a vision of God which is far from mine alone, and is far from perfect insight, but does offer some answers to TM’s sorts of questions which more traditional Christianity perhaps cannot. I am operating on the assumption that 99% of what I write will have no likely effect, and 99% of people who read it will derive little to nothing from it perhaps. And that’s entirely worthwhile. I’m not trying to prove any thing at all. I’m sharing a picture. I’m not rating the picture or making claim about the picture. If the picture resonates or causes an “aha!” great. I believe in the structure of the picture even as it will continue to evolve and revise over time. I believe the picture can sink roots by the mere viewing of it, to have effect even much later. Yes, I’m impatient and unaware of many things. I’m sharing what I am aware of and concerned with, and passionate about, and consider hopeful. When I speak of spiritual allegory in comparison to children, I speak of the ideal situation for children under good parenting, not the tragic fact that people sadly fall so short in that regard in our world. Do you think I have no compassion? I know you work in social services in some capacity. I’m thinking this hit a nerve with you. Children are precious beyond estimation, and I don’t mean to suggest there is anything wrong or bad about children—even in being childish, cognitively immature, or willful. It’s simply behavior to be lovingly guided towards unselfish behavior as the child grows up. That is what I mean primarily about being immature. It is little about attitude or fault or defect. It is simply about age. Think of the cognitive functioning and ability of a five year old, and think how a spiritual five year old might function. Every age is great! Nothing wrong with being five, ten, twenty, or ninety. It’s all just part of the process. We’ve got too many loaded terms which miscommunicate as readily communicate. Language is a very limited means of communication. -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
| Eep! Christians! (Split from Christian Radio) in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Sunday, February 19 2006 23:30
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TM, I think I we have a lot of miscommunication going on here. As in, I am not communicating well. Religious/spiritual stuff is so loaded for so many of us, that it is also very easy for us to read things into another’s position or attitude. I’ll try to be more succinct. quote:We can’t help but demonstrate aspects of God Whose nature we share, yet have distanced ourselves from. I’m not saying God pushes empathy through us wittingly or otherwise. I don’t know how to qualify love or joy or peace or empathy in a person. I just know I see and experience something of God in it when I encounter it. When it is coupled with a heightened link to the heart and mind of God, it is all the more potent and reliable. [quote]GOD IS NOT A FATHER.[/quote]God will be what God chooses to be, and that is shown to be many things suited for the purpose. It’s all metaphor anyway to help describe a function, not some literal gender role. “I am that I am” is a statement that says God will be what God chooses to be. [quote]I still don't know what "privilege" (which I believe you previously called "authority") is.[/quote]Jesus demonstrated this. The privilege is to serve humankind with greater capacity, ability, and authority. It’s about service, not to rule over any other in any coercive way. I don’t get why you think I’m talking about something alienating or about the self and unto the self. I am fixed on the conviction that we are designed by God to be wholly connected and interdependent with one another, serving and giving freely to one another. The whole allegory of the “body of Christ” in the NT shows a picture of that, like all people being a cell in a collective body. For the body to be healthy, the cells need to be working harmoniously with and for each other. It’s not done till every last one of us from every time and place gets there. That’s the scale of the goodness of God I know. God provides the ultimate means for the “enlightenment” and restoration of all who have fallen into hurtful thinking and behavior. God sees it through in the end so that none of us is left out. Our training, growth, “work” as you call it, is so that we all grow up and learn to take care of ourselves, each other, this earth and everything in it, and then we’ll see what we have to tend beyond that. If some “grow up” into the ways of love secured by relationship with God sooner than others, it is only for the privilege and purpose of helping the other siblings to get there too. I’m not talking about any kind of individualized self-glorification or competition against each other. I’m not talking about ranks, elitism, spiritual caste-systems, or anything of the kind. I’m saying that for human beings to truly tap into the resources within us (through God) that enable us to love each other with unfailing agape love, we do have to overcome that which opposes us, and the worst of it operates in us and on us as our own mixed thinking and belief while cut off from the light found in God. God intends and ultimately accomplishes that for every last man, woman, and child who ever lived. There is nothing suffered or lost that is not ultimately supplanted by something joyful and purposeful and bigger. This would seem pointless if our comfort and joy were all God has in mind. But God has in mind much more for us to do as we join together and put away our metaphorical and literal swords. God made us all to do something fantastic and potent and God will see it through, even if it means resurrecting lives for further learning and experience or doing another work in the realm of “death.” I don’t see any human being in terms of being a ‘wrong-doer.” Christianity may choose to see people that way. God sees human beings as God’s divinely-destined creation, for now doing unfortunate things out of mistaken notions and ignorance, which are in need of correction. Moreover, God takes credit for this situation, for setting it up for us to go this route, and God makes the provision to redeem it all far beyond the sum what was lost or suffered. quote:1. Your examples are self-glorification, extreme money-making and dying for abstract causes. Pardon me while I wretch in disgust.[/QUOTE] Is there any human endeavor that is noble, necessary or worthwhile to you? Let me elevate the examples to higher thinking then, if corruptible worldly examples are too tainted for your consumption. We train to excel at something which is a blessing to others and a joy to us and God. We train to become able to heal and help each other on whatever level of need that is. We train to become strong defenders against enemies of lies and selfishness and false ideas which seek to steal our life and joy and ability to nurture others from us. As for approval, perhaps thinking of it this way is less offensive: it is approval by the measure of the law of love by which the spiritual universe operates. Do we measure up to what loving each other really means? The more we enter into the place where we can consistently love rightly, the safer it is for us to do so with greater ability and resonsibility. Jesus demonstrated restraint of his authority as one who was demonstrating this kind of love as an example to us. [quote]the goal is being enlightened, not the means by which we become enlightened.[/quote]If you mean insight or knowledge for one’s own sake, I’d say that alone will simply puff up the individual, which you were just railing against. If you mean be enlightened so that we can shed selfish and hurtful behavior and really begin working together as people setting aside all the petty crap, I’m with you. The means aren’t the point of it, but they are the necessary way to get to the goal. The more we go along with the means and embrace them instead of resist them, which requires some perception of the means, the sooner we are likely to reach the goal. The goal is to become unified as humanity through vital connection with God, the Source of the love and vision we need, and with one another, the place where so much of God’s nature is ministered to humankind. by which we accomplish all things together. I’d even suggest that in many ways, the two are the same thing: to be connected through love with other people is a good part of our way of connecting with God. Someone in the equation has to have relationship with the Source, like plugging in an electrical circuit. [quote][/i] My question this whole bloody freaking time has been "why BELIEVE in a god?" and now you're telling me that it really isn't relevant at all?[/b][/quote]I’m very sorry to be aggravating. I truly am not trying to do so in the least. I’m not trying to be patronizing or elitist. I don’t see anyone of us as better or worse than anyone else for what we know or believe. I’m not laying a claim to what I consider my own spiritual enlightenment to be or how mature it is. I’m sharing the vision and conviction resulting from my years of seeking God and truth and the means to love people all the better. We all desperately need to know God and connect with God which is a transforming and a connecting process both within ourselves and with other people. What I see in our discussion is we both desire something very similar, but are describing different means by which it can or has to happen. Believing in God is not something someone can push one to believe or comprehend. It can’t be proven or argued to any useful end. What happens is that God convicts people of God’s existence and goodness by the demonstration of the kind of love, joy, peace, and so forth that God brings forth in people who are connecting with God. I’m not talking about lip service to God or taking about God like we are doing here. I’m talking about the union of attitudes and deeds which flow from agape love which is from the heart of God to us and through us and for all of us. I’m not placing limits on how people find, know, or connect with God—that it must be through some religious approach. It is an active, personal process and experience, that doesn’t begin with the mind, but ends up transforming our minds. When God shows God to us through other people, and sometimes directly, we see something new and different, and we begin to know God. Belief in God at that point simply follows from the absolute knowing that God IS. [quote]This is why I absolutely, flat-out hate christianity- its believers set themselves apart on the basis that they have a superior set of experience than non-adherents! Or are you saying that you can "know god" without believing in it?[/quote]You despise Christianity for the same sorts of reasons that I despised and rejected the institution at age 16. Part of the grand lesson of the ages we are experiencing is how the very same situation which blights our earthly experience is the one which takes and twists the pure lovely truths of Who God is and What God does and seeks to comprehend it apart from the actual relationship with God which gives actual insight. It seems like you’re dying to find attitudes in me which just aren’t mine, based on belief. I won’t say they aren’t present in some form at times. I freely admit degrees of pride in me which emanate from lingering insecurities and mindsets of my past. I have a strong tendency to feel the need to overly defend myself when attacked. I write too many words, etc. Exercises like these dialogs help to show me things in me which need to be dissolved or released. I don’t consider anyone’s experience or status superior. There is only the timing of God’s restoration that happens to all of us ultimately, and it’s all a very unique set of experiences for each of us anyways. Those who have enlightenment or ability through God have been brought there only for the sake of helping others on their path. It’s not based on any merit of ours that some experience some thing sooner and others later. From my previous statement, you may guess that I will say that to know God IS to believe in God...not the mere existence of God, but to believe in Who God Is. To know God at all experientially is to come into some understanding of the qualities of God which include faithfulness, purposefulness, economy, wisdom, and so on. Conversely, to believe in God is worthless by itself. Completely worthless. [quote]So you're saying that we can't do good until we do god's good?[/quote]There is only God’s good. Our estimation of what is good and evil is what cut us off from God in our own minds in the first place and got us into this mess. God’s good is that which achieves God’s will for us. Our good is whatever we deem good at the present with our limited insight. What we choose as “good” apart from God’s insight, is just as likely to run against God’s purpose as with it. That is why we are instructed to let go of our self-constructed realm of “the knowledge of good and evil” and reconnect with God where we know what is right for right here right now, not merely what we might errantly deem “good.” [quote]I guess atheists are disowned cousins then, huh?[/quote]Not in the least. Sisters and brothers who haven’t yet encountered whatever will experientially acquaint them with God. It’s no charge against them at all. [quote]Your whole ideology revolves around the idea that humanity is eternally wrong. [/quote]Neither eternally nor “wrong.” The fulfillment of the potential of humanity is temporally buried under a number of false conceptions, which have had drastic consequences. A lie that is wholly a lie is easy to separate out. A lie which is comprised of much truth makes a real mess. We have a lot of truth and insight and wisdom, but it’s been mixed up with damaging ideas and in need of some sorting out from yeah, a Higher Source. We need some help to help ourselves out of our mess. And we are getting it and will get even more of it as history progresses. Humanity is destined one and all to glorious heights and achievement when we get our story straight and live it. [quote]God hasn't given ended disease because then we'd use our good health.[/quote]Disease is the result of things we keep doing to ourselves which result in dis-ease. This is pitiable and cries for assistance. For God to end disease, all strife and anger and hatred and fear and selfishness would have to be done away with in all people. It will be done, but it’s unfolding according to a larger plan and timetable than we like or understand. God has promised to bind all wounds and dry all eyes in the end when God is to have filled all things with Itself. To know God is to trust the promises of God according to God’s faithful and able nature. [quote]Working does not have any positive value.[/quote]The problem with work is that with the current state of the world, very few of us get to do the actual sorts of things we were made to do, as “work” or that have any real lasting value. Work ceases to be a chore when we are acting out of our innate ability and passion coupled with a vision to benefit people and not merely indulge ourselves. One of the most compelling rewards in connecting with God and being transformed in our understanding and heart by doing so, is that we become freed up and enabled to really begin doing the sort of deeds which fulfill us and bless others. [quote] quote:This is a contradiction- there is no punishment that isn't capricious. Deterrence is almost as bad..[/quote]I disagree that God’s judgements are capricious in any way. We see people act capriciously and vengefully and hatefully. What God does with judgements and corrections. Just because you don’t like being disciplined doesn’t mean someone in authority over you cannot and should not employ it when necessary. If we have no selfishness or lawlessness within us, there is no more need for discipline. Discipline really isn’t just to enforce “right” behavior either. It teaches us something of the reasons why a thing is right or desirable or otherwise. [quote] quote:So that's an excuse for this world to suck?[/quote]There is nothing to excuse. One day you will be very pleased with the results and acknowledge the wisdom and love and grace shown to you for coming through all this present suckiness. There is plenty that is not sucky available right here right now too, which you may even admit. It need not be deferred to the future world for any one of us. [quote][i]If god has the power, why not use it NOW?[/quote]Seek out the wisdom in the principle of delayed gratification. Meanwhile, we can help a chick struggling to break out of an egg and cripple it by doing so. Another example where our notion of what is good and helpful can actually be destructive. [quote]Just a question. Are you saying that god hasn't solved the world's problems because we aren't "mature" enough? The problems in the world are what make us (including YOU) "immature" and make us not believe in a god that, should it exist, has clearly abandoned us all![/quote]First, yes, I’m plenty immature, as moments like getting unduly hacked off at Kel will attribute. We haven’t solved the world’s problems yet because we are not yet sufficiently doing what will make us capable to achieve it. We have to solve the world’s problems. God doesn’t do it for us. Yet God does it too in that we only become maturely enabled to do it through connection with God which changes our attitudes, our visions, and our abilities. God does it through us AS us, because of what we have become through knowing God. The problems in the world are no obstacle to a person knowing and believing into God. It happens to lots of people of any conceivable kind. Something finally interjects into their life and experience and they get it. They see God. Something begins to change in them in that moment. Again, for the many for whom it has never yet happened, God has not worked (through people typically) to make God known to them. And the simple reason for this is it is not the time yet for all the masses of the world to know God. God is working through some people to do some things for now, with promises that this prepares for a far greater revelation to all. -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
| Everything you never wanted to know about Christian radio... in General | |
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Shaper
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written Sunday, February 19 2006 19:43
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I notice commercials beginning to creep into webradio webcasts I like to listen to while on the computer via iTunes. They too, seem inevitably doomed to commercialitis. -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
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Shaper
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written Sunday, February 19 2006 18:34
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Ah, I see. Good, I can strike any future recitations of this particular "it has been said" from my repertoire. It is amazing how many of these old wives' tales and urban myths prove to be just that: tales and myths. Another is that we yawn to get more oxygen. No one actually know for sure why we yawn. -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
| The Spiderweb Instant Custom Title Generator? in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Sunday, February 19 2006 18:28
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Nico — fear not, we're in a benevolent mood today. I like your new title better too. Proud Owner of 6666 — Your assertiveness has earned its reward. Ephesos — :P -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Sunday, February 19 2006 18:13
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The carbonic acid in Coke has been said to dissolve a penny after so many days. -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
| Eep! Christians! (Split from Christian Radio) in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Sunday, February 19 2006 18:08
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quote:Correct free will? What do you want, automaton clones? Our unique passion, drive, capacity, and mind is what makes us so wonderful as human beings. Learning boundaries and following rules like not crossing the street alone is for the protection of the child, not to exorcise it of the wickedness of having a will of its own. -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Sunday, February 19 2006 17:47
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I'll beat someone to the punch and suggest it always was all along. -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
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Shaper
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written Sunday, February 19 2006 17:37
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quote:Right. “Him” is for convenience and out of the usually depicted father role. One could call God “El-Shaddhai,” (the breasted one,) just as correctly. God is all that is male and female and more. quote:God does say, “My thoughts are higher than your thoughts, and my ways are higher than your ways.” God is Source/Father/Creator, so yes, a “higher force.” God’s the only force, and we have force by virtue of our having come out of Him, yet also remaining a part of Him. Don’t ask me to explain the paradox, but we have the earthly genetic/family experience to give us a conception of it. God is a family, not a caste-system. Honor and privilege come with maturity and demonstration of ability. quote:Fighting people is in your thinking. I was picturing a weight-lifter. But the reality is that there is something in the spiritual realm which opposes life and truth, and we are to grow up and overcome it by virtue of wrestling with it and recognizing it and rejecting it until we do. quote:The “gauntlet” is training. I’d call it something more like learn to “choose the right way in wisdom” (rather than in naiveté,) “learn some self-discipline,” and “learn why love is the law.” You gotta train to win the medal, save lives as a doctor, fight in the army. Training shows us approved and stronger than our opposing forces we encounter in training. When we are trained, disciplined, stronger, wiser, we qualify for further responsibilities. Little children have a nice existence sitting around receiving gifts and having all things done for them. It’s much more satisfying to grow up, prove oneself capable, and go create and procreate. It’s a tough training field, but well worth it. quote:No. I am attributing much of our knowing of God to interpersonal experience. quote:God is relevant whether we acknowledge it or not, because God continues to do what God wills and His spiritual laws continue to operate. God becomes consciously relevant to us when we begin to know God for ourselves. We can then become more of an agent of God’s will rather than merely a recipient of God’s will. quote:You shouldn’t and won’t until you do. God doesn’t put the burden of proof in our hands. He takes the responsibility to open our eyes to His Being. quote:Humanity is not my god. It is the family of God with the qualities of God in process of being refined and remembered. You mentioned severing limbs. Re-membering is bringing back to our awareness our connection with God and His nature, as well as the reattaching of that which, at least in our imagination, has been cut off from us. quote:Spirit is energy (isn’t everything?), attitude, the wind no one can see but the affects of which can be readily seen and heard. It’s lots of things I don’t understand. One person walking into a room can change its atmosphere with her spirit. A heart caught up in love can be mightily transformed by that spirit. quote:We cut ourselves off by deadening our thinking and developing our own faulty conscience and estimation of “good and evil.” Imagine children setting their own rules in their house. We’ve done something like that with religion. God doesn’t hope. He wills and does. We’re impatient. He is patient and methodical. quote:You would like all things showered upon you as free gifts? Many things must be earned by demonstration of our capacity to handle them responsibly. Children get gifts from Dad. Adults employ creative and proactive energies to make things happen and bring things into being. There is no heaven as a place. It’s simply the place wherever God is ruling, particularly within the heart of us. But reunions of all that have been lost have been promised. God has dominion over life and death. There is nothing irretrievable to Him. quote:We have a degree of power over the world, but hardly dominion. Many perils of life and nature readily dispatch us and we are very irresponsible with the domination we do wield. We don’t have dominion over ourselves yet. Ain’t no way we’re going to have dominion over the world outside. God doesn’t punish in the capricious sense. He disciplines to correct us so we may live and learn the way that works for all of us. Again, even literal death need not be a permanent end. We’re impatient and unaware of many things out of our sight and knowing. quote:I mean that loving humanity shows deference, respect, and trust for the Father Who is pleased when his children learn to get along and love each other. By describing one of His roles as Father, God tells us something about His desires and drives in that role. We are given earthly fatherhood to demonstrate it for us. Wise fathers don’t demand love from children like tyrants...they foster it and earn it. quote:What makes you think that all of earth’s history and all personal experience hasn’t been contributing exactly what has been appropriate so far for us towards our learning the ways of love and truth? quote:Christianity has turned it backwards. The obliteration has already taken place when we got the thick notion in our head that we were alienated from God and that we lack somehow. Awakening and restoration of spiritual relationship is what we can expect. We are living our obliteration, our hells right now. Sucks, don't it? Why do you think so many people ARE in torment right here right now? It's not punishment. We did it to ourselves. God is gracious enough to be patiently working to save us from ourselves. It's simply a work not yet complete. quote:Becoming greater means becoming mature and proven enough spiritually to be granted further responsibility and authority to bless people. Nothing becomes more satisfying or rewarding. [ Sunday, February 19, 2006 17:45: Message edited by: Synergy ] -------------------- A4 Item Locations A4 Singleton G4 Items List G4 Forging List The Insidious Infiltrator Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |