Holy crap that was a tough read! And I doubt that I understood a word of it. Perhaps that's one of the problems with religion(s) - Not that I am agin 'em I just find some of the language used by those who write about them...how can I put this? Otherwordly. That will have to do.
I particularly liked this paragraph

"The creation of the true and free self cannot come about through our own efforts since those efforts, having their source in the self, cannot transcend the self. Even the most adept attempt at detachment remains attached even if it is attached to the process of detachment. Even though we trumpet freedom we remain in bondage. The libertarian who would shrug off all restraint will enter into a moral and spiritual vacuum that will hold him in bondage just as surely as the most authoritarian religion".

Its a bit like a theological rendition of "there's a hole in the bucket dear Liza"

That says it all really - now don't ask me what the "it" is - but think about it for a while.

This sentence was cool as well;

"To meet with this one is to know that before him we must give way".

Getting out of the way I am.

But in spite of my misgivings and lack of comprehension I think I get Peter's point. But as long as the way to self is through selflessness it will always be a struggle. And even if in that struggle we can only get a glimpse of our true selves and others it is probably worth it whether we are fraying at the edges or not.

Sorry about that but I went to a funeral yesterday and am in a somewhat strange state of mind - must be Easter looming.

"Christianity should have no investment in calling itself a religion among the religions"

I agree 100%.

Religions are a do it now "rituals" in expectance of an after-death reward/punishment. While Christianity is God himself intervening with his creation initiating a meaningful connection. The rewards are for the living not the dead.

Jesus is the central part of humanity. Ignoring him is to orbit in a lifeless vacuum.

Peter Sellick's nails it down in this piece but seems to miss the target "audience".

There is a world out there that won't get the point simply because they truly believe they are doing just fine without an external self.

They are satisfied with the here and now existence - rejecting anything that is not.

Ignoring Jesus leaves much room for idolatry and self-centredness.

Ever since God created the universe – humans have tried to re-create God.

I too only barely understood what this is about. Although I do get the sense from reading Peter's articles that he has quite a bit of insight into Christianity and what it should really be about.
If only he could dumb it down a bit for the rest of us.
Religions fail when they become esoteric and out of the reach of the common man.

The first sentence was good the next one was the signs things were going wrong the rest went down hill from there. Come on, start off with a incorrect premises and try and fit the data method is doomed. The author like most Christians simply refuses to accept that his and in fact most western versions of the Christian mythology is moulded by western culture not the other way around. The basic test for this is to compare the western and eastern braches of Christianity. Doing so you see that the very things in western culture that the author says are Christian influence are simply not present in eastern Christianity. However it gets worst, if you look how Christianity has been practice in the western world throughout it’s history, how it has changed . You get a even better picture of how the western world has progressed despite Christianity. The Author has the cart before the horse, the gift that Christianity gave the western world is lack of success. This might seem counter intuitive at first but think about it it’s a religion you can do with out doing it, hell these day’s you don’t even have to go to church.

What an important topic - how poorly presented.

Yes religion is about dogma, about deprivation of living to the rules of a power system of clergy who assist one to be enlightened or "saved" in Christian terms. There's a growth in spiritual interest as a News Week survey showed in the US, where spiritual awareness has increased four-fold in twenty years. Religions, as rituals, stand in the way creating groups of people operating to create exclusivity.

This topic begs to be aired, but Peter's attempt is to patchworked, fuzzy and distant to warrant effort here.

Ugghh. My head hurts.

Why do Christians always make their cultish propaganda so convoluted and hard to understand.

Being so close to this mystic oriental religion's festival where they celebrate the death, no birth, no death, at least barbaric mutilation of their godling that always existed but was created, or whatever. I won't get too much into bagging their hopelessly pathetic theology and their gruesome canabalistic rituals. What sacrifice is there in a god moving from human to "godly" form?

Suffice to say that the "Western Mind" was well established before the birth of this godling, who's influence one can only describe as negative upon Celtic/Gaul and Teutonic/Germanic mind.

Followers of this cult only do so for the "reward" of "Happy-Slappy Land" when they cease to be.

"Getting the theology wrong means creating distorted selves that are out of contact with how the world and we in it are". Exactly!

Christians have got it wrong.

and BILLY GRAHAM said..... "I preach a simple Gospel for a sinful world" :)

Phew... Now you blokes who experienced 'brain hemmorage' at the linguistic gymnastics Sells used to explain some lofty ideas will understand why I AVOIDED the higher academic theology classes/courses at Bible College. I saw the demenour of some who did them as they morphed into "Young Ninja Academics" as they 'grappled with the high ideas and deeeeeep works' of the liberal Theologians like Bultmaan and Von Rad and others. I expected the 'Pipe' to appear in their serious mouths at any moment. I liked some of the Neo Orthodox like Joachim Jeremias and some of Karl Barth, "Christ and Time" is a great work. (Jeremias I think)

A theology degree aint worth squat if you are confronted by a real demonic possession. Only a living faith and the all triumphant name of Jesus, the Messiah will see one through.

If you know Christ as Savior and Lord, then you go an do a lengthy 4 yrs of Study to show.. "Yep... I'm no the right track" you end up where u began, but just speak an unintelligle language now :)

Yesssss yes.. I'm speaking a bit tongue in cheek. Its all good. But true selfhood, is that which we experience when our vertical (Love God with all your heart) and Horizontal (Love your neighbour as yourself) is acted upon, rather than just thought about.

Only one who can look 'back' to where they have come from can truly appreciate the grace, love and harmony, the joy and peace and unity of spirit and body and mind and direction, fulfillment and unutterable abundance of Life in Christ.

This is not to deny the impact of the harsher realities of life, being down about things at times.. but undergirding all this is a resilient, abiding,enduring settlement of mind about one's ultimate destination and relationship with the Creator.

("Pie in the sky when you die" I hear from someone ? :) NOOoooo..its a feast now, and a feast then.... Halelujah)

Coach, ritual is essential for faith... it's a discipline like any other which anticipates the coming action. Consider the eucharist, in which man is absolved of his sins because of the sacrifice of his saviour: by practicing the Eucharist as regularly as possible and doing so with feeling helps the believer to prepare himself for that time when he may conquer death through forgiveness of his failings. Faith without the rituals which reaffirm it is folly, because without the reaffirmation foudn in the rituals it becomes more difficult for end to be achieved. It's like sending a battalion into battle without having drilled them beforehand. Thus there is no suprise that the level of religious devotion amongst the faithful is low.

So let me get it right. Put on a straight jacket, ie. reduce one's joy of living by adopting certain rituals and dogmas suggested by some people living two or more millennia ago in a foreign part of the world, and then by that imposition, one's joy of life is actually enhanced? Did I miss something somewhere? Who is pulling whose leg?

So all this convoluted dialogue is necessary to obfuscate the fact, that to enjoy life, one has to limit one's freedoms by some ritual? Will I now get some obfuscated convoluted mythology thrown back?

Mythology led to the burning at the stake for heretics who dared challenge it (eg for the non-earth centric solar system); for making the bible readable by translating it; for challenging the power system of the Church etc etc.

I guess if you write in myths, write so one can't understand it as here (Latin is no longer in vogue) one can hide behind the facts.

Carpe diem.

The ‘toughness’ of this article is centred, I believe, in Sell’s (para.11) allusion to the (Eastern) Greeks’ coming to Jesus. He puts the words “(Jesus) bids us come and die” as reported speech coming from (Western) Bonhoeffer’s mouth.

These words originally came from (Eastern) Jesus’ mouth, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life, loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life …”.

As ‘anti-supernaturalistic naturalists’, and as ‘Bible-is-myth realists’ we can chew on Jesus’ first sentence about the grain of wheat and what by nature that wheat seed needs to do, if it is to be both free and fruitful.

What Jesus is saying, and I find palatable, is that it is ‘false and bad’ if a wheat grain remains in the bag ‘alone’ after harvest. It is ‘true and good’ if it allows itself to be thrown into the ploughed earth before winter, ‘die to its old life’, germinate and spring up into the new plant, and produce grain, perhaps a hundred-fold.

The enigma of ‘dying to live’ as ‘the source of true self’ does belong to the real world of nature. No myths here!

The really ‘chewy-tough’ bit is accepting Jesus’ challenge in his second sentence, to become like that grain of wheat ourselves, ‘losing our self-bound life so that we might gain his eternal life' both now and beyond the grave.

As anti-supernaturalistic naturalists, Jesus is asking us to act on ‘who he really is’ and ‘what he challenges us to do’.

And as Bible-is-myth realists, Jesus is challenging us to ‘accept his stories from his world below and his world above’ as both being true.

If one of Jesus’ claims is false, then how do we know that both claims are not false?

And if so, then should we not discount his story about the grain of wheat?

So! Do I spit it out? Or do I keep chewing?

Happy Easter.

Peter, a question.

You say the "the existence of Israel in our time....bears witness to the truth of God". Are you talking of the State of Israel?
If so, then the millions of displaced Palestinians and the thuggery of the Israelie politico/military also bear that witness?

A more tongue in cheek question. Are the "life-nuturing cultures" those in the bio-medical laboratories where the new age gods seek their fortune satisfying a selfish age, or is it meant to be our western cultural inheritance of respect for life, hospitality, care for the poor, service to all entrenched in our Christian, western institutions and customs, albeit fraying.?

Sells, you are talking about things beyond your experience when you claim that "The creation of the true and free self cannot come about through our own efforts since those efforts, having their source in the self, cannot transcend the self. Even the most adept attempt at detachment remains attached even if it is attached to the process of detachment."

There are processes which help those seeking detachment, but you can't become detached by being attached to a process, you can only become detached by letting go, by being in the moment, free from process. Many westerners who do Vipassana courses work with striving, which leads to frustration, not detachment; but when the frustration and tension, the trying-too-hard, becomes overwhelming, people tend to let go, to suddenly be in the moment because the ego-driven striving is put to one side. John Coleman coined paradoxical terms such as "relaxed effort" to describe the delicate balance needed to keep the mind focussed in the present moment whle not seeking to achieve anything; just being there, no ego activity. Go and see Goenka in India, sit with him, before you pontificate on what you do not understand.

Bee Tee
This is a very helpful post, you are obviously “in the business”.

Boxgum
Re Israel and the existence of God. There is a story, the details of which have long since departed from my mind, that has I think the Tsar of Russia asking about proof of the existence of God. An adviser leans towards him and says “Sire, the Jews” My interpretation of this story is that long after the kingdoms of Babylon, Egypt, Syria, Persia etc have ceased to exist, the Jews are still an identifiable people. They are so because their theology was not mythological in the sense that it was based on the activities of a pantheon of gods, but rather was based on an acute analysis of history and of life. In other words Israel survives as a nation today because its grasp of the realities of the world is superior to that of the nations.

We must stop thinking of Christianity or Judaism as something we do to make us more secure etc. Rather, faith comes about through an encounter with the real, that reality that is not simply apparent to us as individual observers, but which has been arrived at by an historically conscious nation over time.

Theologies have consequences and those consequences will determine whether a nation with those theologies will survive or not.

Theology cannot escape the question of truth. Our problem as moderns is that natural science has take over all truth claims and has cancelled the truth that is contained in legend, poetry, song, liturgy, story. The question about a theology is whether is gives us a true story of the world. It is the truth of that story that will determine our survival.

Further to the consequences of theology. By assuming that all culture is of equal value, especially religious culture, we have blinded ourselves to their obvious consequences. Weber pointed out that Reformation countries in Europe did better that Counter Reformation countries and this difference persists to this day. It is obvious that a culture that places so much emphasis on life after death will tend not to take this world seriously. Likewise, in Buddhism, detachment will produce a similar result. The concept of karma in Hinduism, that one’s fate is determined no matter how one acts, will cripple the will. A cyclic understanding of life and death will trap men in endlessly reliving the present. Pantheists will never deal with the world scientifically because that world is the habitat of the spiritual. In the absence of a theology that confirms egalitarianism, society will be structured according to family, tribe and cult and these will always subvert open and fair government based on merit. In the absence of theology that emphasizes service, public institutions will founder on the avarice of the individual or family or tribe. In the absence of a theology that emphasizes justice for all, especially for those who cannot protect themselves or provide for themselves, human beings will be sacrificed to what are made out to be religious necessity but which serves baser purposes. In the absence of a theology of grace, societies will exhaust themselves in obedience to law which will be used by the powerful against the week and in extracting vengeance. In the absence of a theology that understands each person as being created in the image of God there will be no real justice or compassion.

Hey Sells

I really enjoyed your piece. I loved your comparison of theology and natural science, especially the statement:
"Likewise, if we get the theology wrong, we get everything wrong and we pay the price of losing our grip on reality."
It is sad in this culture how we have diluted our belief systems from a search for universal truth to a mere ‘whatever suits me’ approach.

Yet there is an overriding human need to search for universal truth in some shape or form. Ironically it seems that we have tried to achieve this by substituting theology with science.

A blatant example is the new thinking that abortion should be solely controlled by doctors. Being a medical student myself I was perplexed by this thinking. Yet it seems we have idolised science to the point that we believe it will solve our moral dilemmas. As a side note, I would challenge someone to run a study on new undergraduates and monitor their positions on these issues over the 6 years of the course. I would suggest that the progression would be very similar, if not the same as the general population. A knowledge of science has very little impact on beliefs which essentially have to do with our hearts rather than our minds.

The evolutionary mantra of 'Survival of the Fittest' has replaced 'Love your neighbour as yourself'. Hence we find justification in using people in relationships to fulfil our human needs. Because ‘the strongest should propagate their genes with many women’, we have no problem in objectifying sex. Because of this reasoning born out of competition rather than mutual respect, we spend our time trying to elevate ourselves in stature and power. In modern society this is achieved usually through money. We fight for the top spot to see our needs met, and trample others in the process (whilst being trampled ourselves).

One of the most challenging experiences of my life was when I visited Cambodia. I was expecting to see a nation of people depressed, beaten by their low material standard of living and afflictions. However I found something there which I have never seen or experienced before; a community that had ties as strong as a western family. Wealth had no power to corrupt these people because they had never seen it. Therefore rather than treating their friends down the road as competitors to beat, they saw them as friends trying to make a living. This resonated through the way they conducted themselves. Money took a second place to relationships. They would share what little they had. They would all came out after work at night and hang out with each other, analogous to a big party every night! It is very ironic that I met a happiness there I had not encountered back home.

I believe it is necessary that we stop idolising science and return to a system whereby we search for truth both through science and theology. It is there, as Sells writes, that we will discover truth

Words, words words. All this is a war of words based on a book written thousands of years ago and given legitimacy by ignorance. Listen to Boaz and Sells, the author, Sellick, just words. Self righteous, obsfucated words. Words about the damnation of society, its failure and the only redemption, by following words. Who says?

Get a life. We have a beautiful life in a beautiful world, and like others have said, live in the moment (and not be a grave digger Christian for whom life begins with the worms).

Open your hearts to others, yes listen to Goenka as another posting author has said, but for goodness sake, get off your soap box, stop the convuluted mythology based words and get a life. Better yet, share your life with others. Give yourself from a position of love and not from a book of words.

Go and talk to your dog or cat, do they need redemption? Do they ever show unhappiness? They live in the now and without words.

Remco (and other frustrated individuals),

Happy Easter to you all.

The scriptures maybe just words to you – but to the believers they are the expression of the true author of life.

Don’t beat yourself up though – it is normal for you and your ilk not to understand these words. Without faith you cannot understand God.

As for your ‘talk to the animal’ sequence, I do a lot of that … very rewarding – but they are only animals created by God for our benefit and enjoyment here on earth – they're not humans – therefore they do not need redemption. You and I do.

When you will understand the difference – being ‘human versus animal’ that is – you will begin to see the need for a superior being to redeem you from your sure predicament: death.

Wise people, Spiritual Gurus, prophets, and all other gods and religions are all doomed, all destined for death. How can the dead talk about life?

Only Jesus the co-creator of life, the only one who conquered death is the only one who can give life to those who ask him.

I don’t know what Easter means to you – but I pray and hope that you will find a minute or two to reflect on the true reason for the season. This is my act of love to you.

You can ask the author of life and He will reveal life to you. The real full joyful exciting life that awaits you when you come down from your wooden horse and climb on the white stallion of victory and triumph (over death).

He is risen from the dead and He lives today. He is our Lord, our only saviour.

Peter Sellick,
You are espousing philosophical religious dogma here more than you would care to admit. Though I agree with most of your points it is phrased in obscurity. It is obvious you mix among intellectuals stretching the perimiters of religious thought.

Being Christian is not merely believing all the right dogma or thought; but living the life demonstrating the spirit of God as we believe Chrit demonstrated. The reality of Christian faith is embodied in getting ones hands stained with the filth of human dirt by living in the spirit, character and attitude that is clearly revealed as being the very nature of God.

Following Christ Jesus is not attending a religious seminary but devotedly attending to acts of healing destroyed human beings; attending to the poor, the opressed, the weak, sich and distraught. Our own renewal comes as we meditate and admire the great character of God especially as revealed in the spirit of the man we believe perfectly expressed God.

I would prefer to admire the life of a simple man whose only theology is "God loves me and I want to joyfully share it by my actions". Jesus words were simple and understood by the uneducated, it is they who followed him not the many teachers of the law and prophets.

My suggestion next time write the article and before posting ask a normal 12 year old to explain what you have written [without tutoring or prompting].

Faustino,
You obvious know more about Buddhism than I. So perhaps you can correct me. I have thought that the goal of detachment was associated with insulating the self from pain or care. This had led some observers to remark that the killing fields in Cambodia may not have happened without a religious tradition that emphasized detachment. One can do all kinds of evil if one is detached, ask any serial killer. In other words I am not sure if this kind of detachment is a good thing at all.

There is a tradition in Christianity that includes detachment from the things of the world and all Christians are invited be detached from the hunger for money and power. However this is so that we can be fully involved in the world. We are called to be “in” the world but not “of” the world.

Narcissist and others.
It is just not good enough to fill these pages with your bile. What we want is genuine discussion that comes from a careful reading of the article in question. It is as if you and others like you purposely misunderstand in order to get on your little soap boxes and put the boot in to these silly Christians. Perhaps I should be pleased with these posts, perhaps they indicate that I have gotten up your nose, which is just my aim.

I know this was a difficult post and that this may have been because I was working our my ideas in it. Philo, the critique of a 12 year old will not do. The crisis in the church is an intellectual crisis and simple answers such as “ Jesus loves me” are just grist for the mill for our persecutors who are confirmed in their minds that we are simple minded.

The intellectual work that we have to do in theology comes from our place in history and the very bad theology that works against us at every move

Sells,
I can tell you that the man in the street is not impressed with the pure theologian who walks by on the other side in a pious frame of thought. However I can tell you he is impressed with the one who shakes his hand with a smile, sits and shares simple things and invites him for a coffee. If he needs a coat you will take him to St Vincents clothing shop and ask them to put it to your account.

The major negative impact that the Christian faith has had on society is its superior mystical theological attitude. It gives the impression that anyone who does not get its message is doomed. Love and forgiveness are action words not pure religious philosophy. People ought to know what a Christian is by their love and forgivness not by their religious dogma. Though right thinking creates right behaviour. You know this as well as I. More people are impressed with Father Chris Riley and his work than with any leading Christian theologian. Theologians do not change the world, as much as commited people of compassionate action.

That is the reason I suggest you write for persons who have the mentality of a twelve year old. We are not intending to indoctrinate simple minds; we are asking them do they understand? We do have the immature on this forum who have not grown up from their nightly prayers to their comfort teddy. Their level of understanding of abstract concepts and spiritual dimensions is limited to their adolesent experiences.

Sells, in one post, you wrote that “It is obvious that a culture that places so much emphasis on life after death will tend not to take this world seriously. Likewise, in Buddhism, detachment will produce a similar result.” In your next post, you wrote

“Faustino, You obviously know more about Buddhism than I. So perhaps you can correct me. I have thought that the goal of detachment was associated with insulating the self from pain or care. This had led some observers to remark that the killing fields in Cambodia may not have happened without a religious tradition that emphasized detachment. One can do all kinds of evil if one is detached, ask any serial killer. In other words I am not sure if this kind of detachment is a good thing at all.”

First, I may know more than you about Buddhism, but I’m not an expert. Buddhism is an organised religion, and I’m not a Buddhist. Nor do I immerse myself in Buddhist scripture - I follow the practice taught by the Buddha, which was not intended to initiate a sectarian religion but was a sharing of the path to enlightenment, to the highest spiritual goal.

My teacher, Goenka, is probably the leading current teacher of this practice, of Vipassana meditation. This is a path of purification and, as Goenka puts it, when all impurity is removed, what remains is purity. The pure mind is filled with loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, the qualities that all genuine religious teaching seeks to develop. The process of attaining purification involves detached observation of the reality of the present moment as it manifests within one’s own mind and body, observing the impermanent nature of existence, the constant arising and passing away of the physical and mental processes of which we are composed, understanding by experience this impermanent nature and in so doing losing your attachment to the imaginary I, me, mine which drives our reactions. Remaining equanimous in the face of both joy and adversity, success and failure, pleasure and pain, knowing that, like everything, they will pass. (more follows)

This is not “insulating” oneself, making a cocoon, it’s developing wisdom through understanding the nature of existence through direct experience. Removing the impurities, the mental conditionings created by our ignorant reactions to our circumstances, exposes the “Kingdom of Heaven within you,” the qualities of compassion etc.

And someone who is filled with these qualities will not “pass by on the other side”. On the contrary, their energies will be devoted to serving others, to helping those less fortunate than themselves – and doing so in a much better way because of their wisdom and lack of ego.

I was not being flippant in saying that you should see Goenka, you will find him a saintly person, one who has given over 50 years of selfless service. My image of saints from my Christian childhood was of remote, other-worldly beings, in fact saintly people are the most fully alive and engaged of all, filled with energy to help others. Their detachment from ego, from ignorance and delusion, frees them and leads them to help others to free themselves.

Goenka calls Vipassana “the art of living” – not the art of ignoring life!

Peter

Happy Easter to you - the Lord is Risen - alleluia

You are doing a good job.

In my station in life I am no intellectual, yet I am well read and have good discussion with associates who are very well qualified academically in Theology/Philosophy.

Through almost 30 years of thirsting for the Lord and formation once I was introduced to the Scriptures as prayerful reflective practice, I have come to appreciate what St Augustine talked of in the need for a balance of the personal, the intellectual and the institutional in one's spiritual development and exercise. One not balanced with the others leads to a comfort zone of a mix of religiosity, intellectualism, dogmatism, and ignorance.

God has been booted out of the public square by what I call the Giddites ( God is Dead - ites) and we are paying the price. Our response cannot be more life by formula, or "prayer saying", or silly "Jesus Saves" posturing.

A long Church tradition, based on Jesus's teaching, has been the call to lose oneself - to diminish one's worldly cravings for a desire of God. And as you say, in that losing, the only response is to immerse oneself in the world in service to the world. This is no self making; it is afforded by grace in response to the desire of God. And there is nothing ethereal in this; there is something tangible forsaken, and something tangible taken up in the stuff of life - most likely trouble and struggle, in joy and peace.

More following..

Continued....

There is so much ignorance out here. I find your articles thought provoking. Yet the responses in the main, including some from the believers, reflect too much self satisfaction.

The ignorance of things as they really are in human life, for the Giddites, is expressed through them having reached the zenith of their personal, autonomous being through their own efforts in discarding God. For the believers, the ignorance of too many, is expressed in their own efforts in appropriating God to meet their own model and mode of life.

The emerging debate of whether we are of God or not needs more contributors as yourself.

Comfortable ignorance is not an option as we seek to engage in the public square.

A Welsh saying:

Po callaf y dyn, anamlaf ei eiriau -
'The wiser the man, the fewer his words'.

THE POWER OF THE CROSS..... “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”

This is “Easter”, a time when over 80% Australians have ‘religious’ thoughts about it. (if a foxtel survey is indicative)

PEARL HARBOR http://www.doolittleraider.com/raiders/deshazer.htm

The Bible is just a ‘cop out’.. a ‘crutch’ to get us through hard times.....right ? Of course.. like it was for one of Doolittles Air crew (Bombing raid to attack Tokyo after Pearl Harbour) who was apprehended by the Japanese after his plane went down.

In POW camp for over 3 yrs, tortured, starved, beaten.. he (and others) read the Bible. In the end, it ‘hit’ him that this was from God, and he gave his heart and life to Christ.

JAP LEADER OF PEARL RAID SAVED.
But then, the war ended, he was free ! Did he need the ‘crutch’ any more ? Guess not, so he went back to normal life, began amassing material possessions, etc.. ? er.. no, he became a missionary.. to where ? Japan ! While in Japan serving Christ, he wrote a tract titled "I was a prisoner of Japan" in which he also mentioned the 'Forgive them' phrase quote at the top, this was read by Captain Mitsuo Fuchida who led the raid on Pearl Harbor, and in the ensuing friendship won that dear soul to Jesus.

Yes, we Bible thumpers woffle... we rant.. we rave.. we get it wrong, our logic seems convoluted, our reasoning seems lacking, our faith seems ‘pie in the sky’, not many of us are eloquent or noble, but through our weakness, let Christ be seen, we glory in Him, not in or of ourselves.

Faustino says it perfectly: "Their detachment from ego, from ignorance and delusion, frees them and leads them to help others to free themselves."

How many wars, power struggles disguised as fighting for the Lord, will it take to shake off the mythology to be true to oneself? To care for humanity, for the beauty of the world without sacrifice, without "stakeburning"?

For those writing words to underpin their mythology as here, ask yourself one question, what has been expended in lives and quality of life to impose your myth on others? How does that compare to more genuine belief systems where there has been no such imposition?

Is this deabte really about power? About popes and mullahs and their struggle to stand between yourself and enlightenment

B_D, coach, phillo and others who comment on religous matters.

You may be interested in commentry in todays Australian by Kevin Donnelly titled "Church vilified in classrooms" and the books he refers to "Harmony and understanding"

DEATH says it all,
"Everyone gets what they think is coming to them". (Pratchet)

Ah Boaz David says it perfectly....

"Yes, we Bible thumpers woffle... we rant.. we rave.. we get it wrong, our logic seems convoluted, our reasoning seems lacking, our faith seems ‘pie in the sky’, not many of us are eloquent or noble, but through our weakness, let Christ be seen, we glory in Him, not in or of ourselves."

Yes for millenia millions have lost their lives, demeaned their lives, and served the powerbrokers who had a "key" to what's beyond the grave. Even the 'words' when they were translated from latin so by-passing the system of powerbrokers (refering to Hus and Wycliffe) led to them being burnt. Yes those words, sanctified as they've become, are just that. May a hand from heaven smit those that transgress.

Live, share and care and enjoy this beautiful world. Ignore those that wish to corrupt it with words of mythology and sacrifice, of sin and salvation. It is your call to sacrifice, but dont impose yourself on others.

Thanks for the article. I am a litle stunned such a topic got a guernsey on this forum.

As to what is written ... the gist of it seems fair enough. I agree with it - by and large.
But the terminology and phraseology you use - are hardly public currency. (Someone said our theologians should learn to be evangelical, and the evangelists should do some theology. This article supports the theory)

As for those who are without faith, I reckon you folk would have struggled with this lot, even more than Nicodemus did with the things Jesus talked to him about. But possibly suspect that he is saying something dangerous to those who attack 'Christianity the religion'. Maybe the word Christianity should be dumped - there is a case for it.

I know you've heard us Christians say it before, but new birth is needed here, (plus a theological degree), to see what's being said.

That said, I find it interesting that quite a number of you regular writers (gluttons for verbal punishment) - continually go into battle against the Christian views that are posted.

Certainly you are not contending with a religion, but the living influence of this Person, Jesus, upon our lives. Even so, as has been acknowledged - we do often say and write and do some stupid things in Christ's name.

Living by grace, certainly makes the world an even more beautiful place - notwithstanding the marks of the curse, and the horror of sin. So, together, this time, with the atheist ... here's a toast to the end of all religions!

Remco,
We well recognise the total self absorption and selfishness of those without the true sacrificial spirit. Their world revolves around their pleasure and selfish gratification. They fail to recognise God took initative to change man's hearts. Man schemes murder: God designs sacrifice. The nature of God is graceous service to others need.

The great stories and events of this world are characterised by the initiation of someone who cared enough that they sacrificed to improve the lot of someone else.

The heart moving stories told on TV each night tell the stories of sacrifice. It is these sacrifices that give hopeless people hope and new life. It is the unseen sacrifice that finally gains the applause of the crowd. Self absorbed people heap praise upon themselves, but none are listening.

Sacrifice is what life is. Without some other living species being deprived of its natural life cycle we all die. We greatfully give thanks to God [its Creator] everytime we take a bite of something that has given its life that we might live. Without death there is no life continuing.

We may greedily eat the last bag of grain we have or sacrifice half of it so we eat grain the next season. That old grain lays down its potential so that new life continues, as quoted by Jesus. It is more blessed to give than receive said the apostle Paul.

Quote, "Live, share and care and enjoy this beautiful world. Ignore those that wish to corrupt it with words of mythology and sacrifice, of sin and salvation. It is your call to sacrifice, but dont impose yourself on others.

Sells, you might getter a better feel by substituting "non-attachment" - not getting hung up on things which are inherently impermanent - for "detachment" in what you wrote earlier. Non-attachment does not mean non-involvement, no compassion, but acting with understanding and awareness rather than reacting with ignorance.

Faustino,
Your last posts have been very helpful. It is always dangerous to judge other people’s traditions without inside knowledge. I guess we Christians are used to that.

I think that the attempts you describe at un-attachment fall under the criticism of pietism in Christian theology. Mind you, most church attenders and professed Christians fall under the same criticism. Pietism is a movement of the self to ensure righteousness, enlightenment, wisdom, holiness, perfection. The Reformation began with Luther, who as and Augustinian monk, discovered that all of his attempts resulted not in the death of the ego but in its inflation and then to increasing attempts at asceticism. He realized that this was a never ending circle that could only be broken by grace.

Thus Christianity does not, or should not, aim at spiritual perfection, but rather, with humour, realize that the journey has many surprises along the way. The thing is, we do not know what we should be, that is revealed to us along the way by the one we follow. There are no principles or values that will not become idolatrous and rob us of our freedom. We are called to a journey in faith towards a future that glimmers on the horizon and is in no way a prescription. Any attempt on our own part to become perfect will become idolatrous because it is our limited conception of what the good is.

Here we meet a difference in our conception of the abilities of the human. We, unpopularly, understand humanity as being blinded by sin, unable to see the good. The divine is that which reveals the real and the good. Our problem with Buddhism is that it appears to be limited to spiritual advice whereas the Christian revelation is an enacted historical event that may be summed up as the “resurrection of the crucified Christ”. Of course that requires unpacking.

In Buddhism – emptiness is ‘nothingness’ going ‘nowhere’. An empty being – without a soul – self-less unable to feel its surrounds – ultimate selfishness.

For Buddha the eventual goal of existence is non-existence, emptiness, and a void. Full detachment from “unreal” things and people (even life itself) sums up his teaching.

Buddha abandoned his baby son and family – a source of suffering, a stumbling block to enlightenment…

If humans are empty or unreal, how can that eliminate pain and suffering around them?

Reaching “nirvana” is impossible to describe because how can states of happiness or peace mean anything to a non-soul being?

Further how can emptiness (freedom from feelings) release happiness (a feeling)?

Many questions - no solution. Surely unning away from pain and sufering can't be a normal behaviour in human terms.

Mr. Sellick's verbose essay is a fine example of how egotism can be subtle and hidden within the blanket of ostentatious intellectualizing about something that transcends the limitations of ordinary human consciousness.
Why do most Christians -- or dogmatists of any religion -- not even consider the POSSIBILITY that we can be more than what we presently are? Why do we almost never hear these people talk about the possibility of an EVOLUTIONARY consciousness . . . a consciousness which is transcendent . . . a spark of consciousness, a "divine child", which holds in itself the potential to reach the maturity of cosmic divinity in it's own right? Is not that the goal of every mystery school throughout history, however distorted or misguided their understanding might have become at certain times?
Those who call themselves "true" Christians always seem to talk about "salvation", meaning "let Jesus do it for you". Yet, they never seem to talk about "enlightenment", the actual expansion of individual cosmic consciousness itself. Why?

We can continue to exchange words about "sacrifice", "emptiness" and "suffering" ad nauseum. They are only words but around those words, empires are built and with power struggles to impose the will of the "saved" from the others (infidels, heathens, pagans or gentiles etc - the "unsaved".

What if the answer lies within? What if we dont have to sacrifice our own lives to help the "unsaved". What if it is simply a con by the institutions who have built their empires around the need for spiritualy as corrupted and misinterpreted it has become. Look inside. Look not from a third person's persona, dogma or some book, but from inside one's heart. It is perhaps the insecure that have to look at a two thousand year old book for answers where they are as close as a finger pointing right back, at oneself.

Self righteous power brokers combining with the insecure afraid to use their own convictions and wishing to impose hollow diatribes on others. Empty mythologies, gods to create subservience, gods to go to war on, gods to fill space on the Internet as here. Words to distract from living in love and care.

Sounds very much 1984 to me. Brainwashing doesn't make people better, it simply brainwashes them.

I've always found that reality is the best place to be in, not caught up with some imaginary being in an imaginary game.

I also wonder how the resurrection can play a part in anyone's life when they can't even set a consistent date every year. The closet Friday to the full moon sounds a tad pagan to me :-( What date did he die ? What day was this imaginary Jesus born ? Where is his life recorded outside of the bible ? Did he actually exist ?

I really think that people need reality, not illusion to lead better lives.

You would think that a freethinker with access to the internet, and a basic grasp of the English language, would not only be able to find out the answers to those basic questions, but would be free enough to do a little helpful research, for themselves too.

Freethinker by name only, I would suggest. Not so free in practise.

Free Thinker: There is little doubt that Jesus existed and was a mystic. The rest is conjecture based on anecdotes written three centuries on when few were litterate. But all of this irrelevant as it becomes a war of words.

The whole debate on this topic is about mythology that some will attempt to elevate without a smidgen of proof other than a feeling in the heart. That feeling could be occupied by another feeling - of love for fellow beings and the world around without the deprivations and impositions that religious dogma requires.

Sells, you try to see everything through your particular Christian prism. I’m asking you to look at reality, as it is, not filtered through a particular conceptual lens. The Buddha taught a way to do that. Luther’s failure to free himself from ego was in the absence of that guidance, without knowing that to break the cycle you have to find what feeds it, the constant reaction to the sensations which arise in and on our body from moment to moment as a result of the arising and passing away of phsyical and mental phenomena, and how to stop feeding it.

The Pali language in which the Buddha taught had great depth and subtley in expressing aspects of spirituality. “Vipassana” means to see things as they really are, not only as they seem to be. It’s a way of putting aside the concepts and conditionings which normally distort our perception. We are blinded not by sin but by ignorance and delusion, which can be dispelled. So of course the Buddha’s teaching was “limited to spiritual advice,” on how to purify oneself and come out of suffering through one’s own efforts, through self-reliance rather than relying on real or imaginary outside forces. Time and again he refused to be drawn on matters beyond this simple and direct teaching – this thread is a good example of what happens when you extend outside that, as now in OLO, so at the time of the Buddha, people engaged in great and inconclusive debates rather than engaging in actions which would lead them to the truth.

(I’m engaging in debates in large part because after several years of serious illness I became too gross to practise Vipassana, I haven’t sat much in recent times and this is an outlet while I recover – I’ll sit a short retreat from Friday.) (MF)

(cont) [this is the rest of my 9.14 pm Tuesday post – over the word and post limits]
Goenka was a leader of the Hindu community in Burma before he learned Vipassana. Within a few years of his going to teach in India, the leaders of most religions in that country, including Christianity, and many Christian monks and nuns has sat courses with him. They understood that this was a practical, non-sectarian way to develop those qualities which are the essence of spiritual life, of sainthood; something which did not make them “Buddhists” but made them better Christians, Hindi, Jains etc.

I’ve said enough, perhaps one day you’ll hear it.

Following up on what FreeThinker said, there was a popular sociological experiment where one canditate was studied. A group of experimenters would be shown a series of objects, and asked a simple question - which was larger? for example.

The experimenters would select the incorrect answer, and after a remarkably short period, the Canditates need to conform would out-weight their objectivity and they would also provide the incorrect answer to these simple questions.

The same applies to the followers of the Judeo-Xian religions. These religions have limited logic, but a great deal of conformity appeal.

Earlier, a post was made discussing man's "god given supremacy" over animals. Perhaps the greatest failing of the Judeo-Xian mindset is this belief. Detaching humans from nature would have been inconcievable for the pre-xian western mind. Even the notion that language sets us apart is dubious. Listening to the magpies, one can clearly hear certain sounds that have meaning - food and danger are easily recognisable as different sounds.

"No creed must be accepted upon authority of a 'divine' nature. Religions must be put to the question. No moral dogma must be taken for granted - no standard of measurement deified. There is nothing inherently sacred about moral codes. Like the wooden idols of long ago, they are the work of human hands, and what man has made, man can destroy!" TSB II.6

The self is a complex being. For we are alone before God, as St John of the Cross reminds us, and yet the meaning of this aloneness is inherently relational. Moreover, as in St John's expressive 'Canticle of Love' dialogue between the soul and God, the soul grows into awareness of its call to abandonment of self in order that one may live through Christ Jesus.

The Trinity is a good way of configuring this relational identity. We belong to God, who is a union of three distinct persons - Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier, or Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
'No one comes to the Father except through me' and 'Do not cling to me, I have not yet gone to my Father' said Jesus.
After Jesus' ascenscion into Heaven, the whole world received God's gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

Some may say that the answer does reside in the soil as the genial gardener, Peter Cundall would say. Gardeners are veritable so rather than obsessively looking inwards in search of the true self let's all become good gardeners for in relationship to the planet, humanity seems more like a parasite living on a host, rather than an organism in a symbiotic, and thus mutually beneficial, relationship. Rather than the good shepherd what about the good gardener.

For starters we would not have this myth of exceptionalism. This is the indeterministic hypothesis that even if humanity did evolve from less complex beings, things are different now because certain aspects of existence are no longer influenced by evolution. I'm sure the good gardiner would not ignore evolution as this process occurring at all times with respect to each electron, atom, cell, organ, organism, species, ecosystem, planet, and galaxy?

I'm sure our good gardiner would regard the idea of nothingness as just that, an idea. We would then see that no part of the universe could be devoid of matter with the best idea that nonexistence is impossible and indeed that we live in an infinite universe.

Our veritable, down to earth good gardener would speak of causality, uncertainty, inseparability, conservation, complementarity, irreversibility, infinity, materialism, relativism and interconnection as interrelated or consupponible.

Why is this important? Well the good gardener always relates to the question pertaining to all questions and the problem that really prepossesses all others. As an unexceptional lifeform we need to know where we came from, what are the limits, what are our goals, to what do we tend to, to what do we have control over, to what are the possibilities, to what is determinable and to how much we desire the indeterminable.

Renee,
The trinity is a 3rd century Roman spatial concept to include the humanity of Jesus in a concept of Godhead. Jesus always talked about himself and God being one - not three. He that has perceived me has understood the Father, he said to his disciples. Again, I and the Father are One [not two]. Jesus in his humanity never claimed his humanity was God. He always identified himself as son of man. Those that recognised the nature of his character and spirit recognised the spirit of God.

Identifying three distinct persons is clearly polytheism. God is Spirit - not a spirit and the Holy Spirit is not another person or spirit - but God alone. The three character aspects used by Matthew "in the name" is a singular name not names of three persons. Compare Isaiah 9: 6 How many persons are identified here? One! A child born whose name is Everlasting Father and Mighty God.

Quote, "The Trinity is a good way of configuring this relational identity. We belong to God, who is a union of three distinct persons - Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier, or Father, Son and Holy Spirit."

When we identify ourselves we identify aspects of only one character, I am a son, I am a father, I am a worker etc.

Our relationship to God is exactly as was Christ to the Father. The spirit of God within will reveal the very character of God in the world. We bear the image of the character we see as Lord of our lives.

Peter

I would be interested in your comments on Pope Benedict's Easter Vigil Homily; is this similar to the line of your thoughts you share in this forum.

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2006/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20060415_veglia-pasquale_en.html

".... How can we understand this? I think that what happens in Baptism can be more easily explained for us if we consider the final part of the short spiritual autobiography that Saint Paul gave us in his Letter to the Galatians. Its concluding words contain the heart of this biography: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Gal 2:20). I live, but I am no longer I. The "I", the essential identity of man - of this man, Paul - has been changed. He still exists, and he no longer exists. He has passed through a "not" and he now finds himself continually in this "not": I, but no longer I. With these words, Paul is not describing some mystical experience which could perhaps have been granted him, and could be of interest to us from a historical point of view, if at all. No, this phrase is an expression of what happened at Baptism. My "I" is taken away from me and is incorporated into a new and greater subject. This means that my "I" is back again, but now transformed, broken up, opened through incorporation into the other, in whom it acquires its new breadth of existence. "

How can I justify God's equity in being a united Trinity of persons in all the distinctness of each member? I cannot, I will not try to. It is a mystery beyond words. It is right that words fail to fully exemplify God as one and three.

Christ Jesus was man and God. He did not renounce his manhood; neither did he deny his kingship: 'my kingdom is not of this world' he said before the court. To the mere mortal mind it is a paradox, but to God, humility was never anything but the doorway into His Kingdom.

The anawim, the little ones, are harbingers of the Kingdom of God in our midst. A child has no trouble in understanding that God could come into the world as a baby.

Why do we have such trouble believing that God would allow the 'Son of Man', His Son, and our brother, to die the agony of a man left to hang upon the cross? Perhaps it is the core feature of our humanity, that we believe God will remain past our death.

Jesus’ cry “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” shows that in his agony Jesus thirsted for God's deliverance. Moreover, Jesus' last act (of freedom) was to give up his spirit to his father in heaven. Just as ours will be. And yet we are not so closely resembling of Jesus that we become him.

Only by the power of God may we participate in Eucharistic life, through becoming the body of Christ. So great is the temptation to take ourselves seriously (G.K. Chesterton’s lament in 'Orthodoxy'), that anxiety may prevent our being ready to enter the wedding feast with the Master.

I refer you to the editorial from April 2006 edition of The Mix by Fr Michael Whelan SM.
http://www.catalyst-for-renewal.com.au/prod02.htm
I particularly appreciate the quotations of Robert Louis Stevenson and Douglas Hall.
"The Christian always thinks with a paschal consciousness...the heart of the greatest paradox of all: Through the dying we come into the living. There is no other way.”

Boxgum,
I never thought I would read a homily from a pope that was so grounded in biblical text, so theologically complete and so in accordance with what I believe. Quite a shock for a Proddy! Perhaps I should change horses! This is a remarkable document and I thank you for bringing it to my attention. I loved the way he dealt with the resurrection and established it as something more than the resuscitation of a corpse without reducing it to the subjectivity of the disciples. I think he has done a very good job of talking about the true source of the self, i.e. “I, but no longer I”. I am not sure what else I could say, Brilliant!

Narcissist wrote:

"No creed must be accepted upon authority of a 'divine' nature. Religions must be put to the question. No moral dogma must be taken for granted - no standard of measurement deified. There is nothing inherently sacred about moral codes. Like the wooden idols of long ago, they are the work of human hands, and what man has made, man can destroy!" TSB II.6

I agree. It is time that we ditched the liberal agenda of respect and tolerance with regard to religion. Religious belief should not be a no go area for reason. However, there is a qualification. While it is now common to understand “myth” as being just another way of saying “wrong” we must understand that the mythological can carry truth. A distinction must also be made between the myths of Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings which are truly mythological because they are unearthly, like the Babylonian creation myths, and earthly myth like the conversation between Mary and the angel Gabriel.

The other qualification is that theology must be studied using its own form of rationality. It is too often the case that the rationality of natural science is applied and theology found wanting. Theology is one of the humanities, we do not try to test its statements as if an experiment could be run to see if it is true. Also, just as the natural scientist approaches his object with the presupposition that certain laws apply, so too does the theologian. This is usually expressed as “faith seeking understanding”, we have to presuppose certain things before we can get off the ground.

So when we approach something like the doctrine of the Trinity, if we are going to understand, then we need to give it the benefit of the doubt. If we walk a bit along its path we will begin to understand that it is radical theology that unseats the sort of theism that has been so destructive and so vulnerable to criticism. It also tells us how we understand anything at all.

Sells, I was going to defend you for there is no need to dumb down your article, but you have done this already.
Your article is heavy going, but then we need a challenge from time to time to exercise our brain. It certainly gave mine a work out.
What amazes me is some presume to know all matter of things about you - including an implied assumption you would not smile at someone in need, give your coat to a person in need or be able to communicate with the less well educated.

Philo:
Your critique of the Trinity does not convince me. You write that “when we identify ourselves we identify aspects of only one character, I am a son, I am a father, I am a worker, etc.” This seems to be an analogy of the Trinity rather than a refutation! Though I am an “individual” I clearly recognise a number of different voices within my consciousness, each finding an objective context which allows it to become manifest. Thus as a “son” I speak and relate quite differently from the way I do as a “father”. As a “worker” I am different again. In this I am no different from other humans. Psychodynamic research has described in detail how within the one psyche a number of distinct voices interact and try to influence consciousness, even simultaneously. The great struggle is to integrate them all into a sort of single intra-psychic community. This seems to be very like the concept of God as the “community of three persons” – the Trinity.

Sells:
Thanks for another stimulating article, densely packed though it may be. I think what you describe as the “true self” is very like the Self that Carl Jung postulates as distinct from the ego. Though the ego is an absolutely necessary vehicle for living in the world, if we let it forever rule supreme it makes us utterly of the world. Through the long and arduous process of integration that Jung describes, the ego and other intra-psychic factors may be gradually subjugated with the Self as centre. Of course, the “Self” is not the everyday self that we speak of; that is the “ego”. The Self can be viewed as God manifest within the person. Of course, the human condition is that we can never fully and permanently become the Self.
How does this idea strike you?

Crabby,
By your pseudonym with whom do you identify? Is it another peson in your identity or is it another spirit in your identity? How many persons are you? God is not a diversity of voices - His character is one. If we believe Jesus lived by that very character of God then he certainly revealed one God, not another person, voice or spirit.

I read the Biblical text in context not systamatic theology produced by persons who collate similar ideas and define difference to establish a theory. The New Testament does not support a three person Godhead. Please give references!

We recognise the spirit of God was manifest in him because of his actions, attitudes, wisdom and character. This is how God is manifest, and that is how God was manifest in Him. That is how the spirit of God is manifest in us his sons / daughters.

In the very nature of God there is no defining features of either three persons or three spirits. The NT uses the "spirit of Christ, the Holy spirit, and the spirit of the Father interchangeably; and it emphatically states there is but one spirit. They are not defined by different voices conflicting for controll of the conscience. There is one Spirit, one God. The nature of the spirit of God is a unity not a diversity. There are no defining spatial realities as the Romans assumed.

Quote, "Though I am an “individual” I clearly recognise a number of different voices within my consciousness, each finding an objective context which allows it to become manifest... In this I am no different from other humans. Psychodynamic research has described in detail how within the one psyche a number of distinct voices interact and try to influence consciousness, even simultaneously. The great struggle is to integrate them all into a sort of single intra-psychic community. This seems to be very like the concept of God as the “community of three persons” – the Trinity."

Peter-Another good read is Pope Benedict's first Encyclical, DEUS CARITAS EST. It seems a bloke in Perth reflects in similar lines with a bloke in Rome, and a few many more, though not yet enough.

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est_en.html

There are two parts to the Letter: "...The first part is more speculative, since I wanted here—at the beginning of my Pontificate—to clarify some essential facts concerning the love which God mysteriously and gratuitously offers to man, together with the intrinsic link between that Love and the reality of human love. The second part is more concrete, since it treats the ecclesial exercise of the commandment of love of neighbour..."

Extracts:1. "God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him" (1 Jn 4:16). These words from the First Letter of John express with remarkable clarity the heart of the Christian faith: the Christian image of God and the resulting image of mankind and its destiny. In the same verse, Saint John also offers a kind of summary of the Christian life: "We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us".

....3.... According to Friedrich Nietzsche, Christianity had poisoned eros, which for its part, while not completely succumbing, gradually degenerated into vice.[1] Here the German philosopher was expressing a widely-held perception: doesn't the Church, with all her commandments and prohibitions, turn to bitterness the most precious thing in life? Doesn't she blow the whistle just when the joy which is the Creator's gift offers us a happiness which is itself a certain foretaste of the Divine?...

4..... Did Christianity really destroy eros? Let us take a look at the pre- Christian world. The Greeks—not unlike other cultures—considered eros principally as a kind of intoxication, the overpowering of reason by a "divine madness" which tears man away from his finite existence and enables him, in the very process of being overwhelmed by divine power, to experience supreme happiness... +++ More a little later...

Continued....In the religions, this attitude found expression in fertility cults, part of which was the "sacred" prostitution which flourished in many temples. Eros was thus celebrated as divine power, as fellowship with the Divine .... The Old Testament firmly opposed this form of religion, which represents a powerful temptation against monotheistic faith, combating it as a perversion of religiosity. But it in no way rejected eros as such; rather, it declared war on a warped and destructive form of it, because this counterfeit divinization of eros actually strips it of its dignity and dehumanizes it.....

7..In philosophical and theological debate, these distinctions have often been radicalized to the point of establishing a clear antithesis between them: descending, oblative love—agape—would be typically Christian, while on the other hand ascending, possessive or covetous love —eros—would be typical of non-Christian, and particularly Greek culture. Were this antithesis to be taken to extremes, the essence of Christianity would be detached from the vital relations fundamental to human existence, and would become a world apart, admirable perhaps, but decisively cut off from the complex fabric of human life...

9. First, the world of the Bible presents us with a new image of God. In surrounding cultures, the image of God and of the gods ultimately remained unclear and contradictory. In the development of biblical faith, however, the content of the prayer fundamental to Israel, the Shema, became increasingly clear and unequivocal: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord" (Dt 6:4). There is only one God, the Creator of heaven and earth, who is thus the God of all.....The second important element now emerges: this God loves man... His love, moreover, is an elective love: among all the nations he chooses Israel and loves her—but he does so precisely with a view to healing the whole human race. God loves, and his love may certainly be called eros, yet it is also totally agape.[7]

*
The second part of the Encyclical covers the practice of charity in the world..- The Church's charitable activity as a manifestation of Trinitarian love.

Quote .....
"Pope Benedict XVI told Catholics to have more babies "for the good of society," saying that some countries were being sapped of energy because of low birth rates.
"Having children is a gift that brings life and well-being to society," he told about 15,000 people at his weekly audience in the Vatican, to which he arrived by helicopter from his summer residence southeast of Rome.
He said the decline in the number of births "deprives some nations of freshness and energy and of hopes for the future incarnate in children."
The pope also spoke of "the security, the stability and the force of a numerous family."
End Quote .....

AND .....

Peter says similar with ..... "The fact that our birth rate has dropped below replacement level and key institutions like marriage are increasingly under threat bears witness to the loss of the resilient self that is created in the meeting with God."

AND ....

Keiran says ....... I'm sure the good gardener, not being anthropocentric, nor greedy, nor ignorant, but being part artist and part scientist, would be guided by sustainability, the environment, biodiversity, and would welcome as well as advocate a stable, mature population and end this rapid, exponential, growth of the human population. From the cheerleaders of the good shepherd we hear false words and trubble.

Kieran.

Ahh the dark gospel of the ecology movement. Although looking after the environment is the most common sense, the ecology movement continues to undermine its credibility by canvassing all kinds of disasters and adopting the attitude that all species are to be equally valued. The use of the idea of sustainability certainly seems sensible until we try to find out what it means. For example, no mining can be sustainable since it relies on a limited resource. Should we stop all mining? It is said that our population us unsustainable but how would we reduce it? I refer Kieran to an article my myself at:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=488

and a more recent piece by Frank Furedi at :

http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CB021.htm

enjoy

The scripture teaches we were made to bear the image of God Gen 1:26 the true image of our spirit ought to resemble the very nature of the Spirit of God, which we acclaim is what Christ displayed as one in whom God was fully revealed.

Compare Galatians 6: 22 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 meekness, self-control; against such there is no law”. The true nature of God incarnate in his sons / daughters is revealed in love and forgiveness. Anyone not displaying this character is not born of God to use the terms of John 3: 8.

1 John 4: 7 – 12: “7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loves is begotten of God, and knows God. 8 He that does not love does not know God; for God is love. [This love is demonstrated by unconditional sacrifice] … 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No man hath seen God at any time: if we love one another, God abides in us, and in us is his love
perfected.”

Mark 12: 29, “Jesus answered, The first is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord
our God, the Lord is one: 30 and you shall love the Lord thy God with all
your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your
strength. 31 The second is this: Thou shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus condemned those that promoted lies, hatred and murder under the guise of following God such as religious zealots.
John 8: 42 “Jesus said to them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: …43 Why do ye not understand my speech? Even because ye cannot hear my
word

44 Your spirit is fathered by the devil, the lusts of your father it is in your will to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and stands not in the truth. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof. “

In the teachings of Christ those that formulate religious schemes based in lies, hatred, and murder do not know God. Those that assume to preach one god – but do not adhere to the God made known in Christ are deceivers and murderers. The religious zealots taught that Christ blasphemed and so had him crucified. Merely teaching there is one God but not teaching the true nature of God as Christ demonstrated, John 10: 30, and John 17 is demonic.

John 15: 12 “This is my commandment, that ye love one another, even as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no man more than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends.
James 2: 19 “So you believe that God is one; you do well: the demons also believe, and shudder. 20 But know this, O vain man, that faith apart from works is barren? “

The only place where the use of “three are one” is in the witness that the body and blood of Christ [his death and sacrifice] agree with the spirit of God that it is effective to forgive sin John 5: 7.

James 2: 1 I exhort therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings, be made for all men; 2 for kings and all that are in high place; that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and gravity. 3 This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; 4 who would have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, one mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ
Jesus, 6 who gave himself a ransom for all"

Philo
I do own a bible, several in fact. I am not sure what your point is.

What is your point Philo?

Can I use your forum Peter to share some recent reflections.

In Holy Week I attended the Rolling Stones Concert in Sydney, and the Vigil Easter Mass in my local parish. I was aware that I wore the same clothes to meet the occasion of both; being grand theatre - one shallow, supercilious and feeding a nostalgia for the past , the other a grand ritual, rich in meaning and purpose, drawing on the recounting of the past to make live the Presence in the present, to enliven and sustain the path of the future in loving action.

The performers of one were simply on the take; there were contracted arrangements delivered with a bare minimum of interaction and self giving to the audience.

The participants of the other served and enlivened the faithful in scripture, prayer and ritual that restates the Covenential relationship of God and his people.

The music of one was a touchstone of our liberal Western youth, quickly developed and simply performed, and continues to be at that level... with Mick, smart man that he is, amazing us at his 'youthful' exuberance and skinny hips at 63 years of age.

The music at the other was steeped in its source being Scripture's wonderful prose and poetry, and spoke of wonder, glory and praise to people across all ages and cultures.

I loved the Stones concert; but never again.. I do not need the experience.

The Mass is a hardy annual, preceded by 40 days of reflective penitence and followed by 50 days of anticipation and wonder till Pentecost. An event, the scope and eventual scale of which, cannot be matched by even the greatest of our event promoters. The power of which is beyond those great minds that limit themselves to a mechanistic, "truth is fact and must be measured", human existence.

Sells,
I was not adressing my post to you. However your reaction entreagues me. Have I touched upon a nerve of Pride? Perhaps you prefer not to quote the simple language from ancient thoughts that have been around for 2000+ years. Perhaps they has little purpose in the great philosophical debate among 21st Century Master Minds.

Someone earlier claimed I implied that you would walk by on the otherside of the road from an injured man. Nonsense it was a statement in my debate. But now perhaps I might just have second thoughts. Perhaps philosophically the impailed man did get his just reward from the religious heirarchy and legal intelligencia.

Sells,
My point: I was endeavouring to put together a biblical view that God speaks with one voice and one spirit to the purpose and expresson of his character in man. Though the spirit of God indwells each believer there is a single voice, character, attitude and action based in love that releases life and blessing. When we fully are at peace with God we will discover our true self.

Peter says ... "Ahh the dark gospel of the ecology movement."

If this statement doesn't mean to transcend above and beyond material existence then just what does it say? Firstly, when a theologian speaks, everything would be teddy (god) spiel which explains why it suggests something like deliver us from the evil darkness of ecology. Secondly, why?

We just need theologians to design a new intelligent teddy because there is a growing chorus of critics from different philosophical schools in the spiritual marketplace who insist that the concept of transcendence, or giving undue emphasis to "going beyond" fear and desire in pursuit of "enlightenment," inherently denies the unavoidable reality of our incarnated existence. i.e. the reality of our relationship to the earth, our bodies, and our emotions. This intelligently designed teddy should speak of causality, uncertainty, inseparability, conservation, complementarity, irreversibility, infinity, materialism, relativism and interconnection.

Big teddy cheerleaders pumping up the population doesn't make this task any easier either although certainly blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth ..... because it will not be humans but bacteria.

"Enlightenment inherently denies the 'unavoidable' reality of our incarnated existence".
Just what makes you, Keiran, assume that our incarnated existence is the ultimate, or most desirable, reality? Is not one of the primary purposes of the pursuit of enlightenment to gain the knowledge and spiritual power to ease suffering and to make our material existence more blissful, as a result of increased understanding? Enlightenment . . . whatever its various stages may be . . . does not have to mean a desertion of the human race, or an avoidance of responsibility. Many who have been regarded as sages throughout history have actively participated in their communities, and for the improvement of the natural environment. They did not all run off to live in caves. Does the "reality of our incarnated existence" mean that we are incapable of evolving into something more than what we currently are? Does it preclude the possibility of participating in our own spiritual and mental evolution? Your statement about "enlightenment denies reality" makes no sense. It seems to me to be a narrow and limiting assumption, unjustified by material reality itself.
"A growing chorus of critics from different philosophical schools"? What schools? What critics?

Why does the comments section so easily detach itself from the article to be commented upon and begin a life of its own? It seems that there is a lot of hobby horsing going on and little serious theological discussion.

Keiran
Your constant talk of teddy’s is very annoying and also arrogant because the rest of us have no idea what you are referring to.

So, if you want to post, please read the article carefully and come up with something useful to say.

I completely agree with Sells. Firstly, save the irrelevant stuff for some more appropriate context. Secondly, make an effort to actually read and attempt to digest the article concerned -- a basic pre-requisite some posters obviously ignore before having their say. Lastly, in writing the contribution, discipline yourself to relate it to the article. Simple courtesy and common sense.

And Keiran, like Sells I'm tired of your private joke about teddies. Please make an effort to communicate rather than merely irritate.

Sonofeire, wasn't too sure where that sentence came from in my notes etc, but on checking it is a quote from ....
http://www.wie.org/j18/transcend.asp?ifr=ra

Thank you for drawing this to my attention. You are correct and we can drop this "incarnated" idea to start with because it is actually the opposite to my understanding. Just shows how easily it is to catch a bit of this teddy mind virus.

We evolved and will continue to evolve but enlightenment will not come until we come to terms with an infinite material universe as an environment. We cannot understand environments or ecology without adopting a few assumptions like .......... causality, uncertainty, inseparability, conservation, complementarity, irreversibility, infinity, materialism, relativism and interconnection.

Pretty well all animals sleep and when we sleep we transcend. Our dreams flush out unwanted and confusing noise. We certainly come equipped in our waking day to transcend all manner of unwanted and confusing noise as well. Where would I be if I couldn't listen to Renata Scotto or be able to focus on a slippery one metre putt on a sloping green.

However when we look beyond ourselves to our natural environment we find some real enlightenment. Find is the word not seek......... so it is find and ye shall seek. This is how we find true self.

e.g.
Richard Dawkins says "Every time you drink a glass of water, you are probably imbibing at least one atom that passed through the bladder of Aristotle."

An Australian researcher, Dr Sinn says "Squid have personalities that appear to be passed down from parent to offspring, but those traits can be modified by the environment," and "understanding the ecology and evolution of personality provides a key to understanding what drives animal populations."

Peter Nichols researcher at the CSIRO, says the omega-3 oils found in fish originate from the marine algae at the start of the food chain.

Then there is a team from the Victorian Department of Primary Industries who have discovered a compound in wallaby milk that is 100 times more effective than penicillin in the fight against antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Keiran,

I have no bone to pick with your exposition and celebration of ecological truths. Any reasonable and sensitive person would value and feel a connection to those same wonders. However, I see no reason why attunement to the natural material world, with all its symbiotic complexity and delicacy, should be considered the ultimate manifestation of spiritual enlightenment or "true self". Given the nature of my own spiritual practice, which is derived from and influenced by the meditation teachings of the Sikhs, perhaps we just have a different conception of what "true self" is or can be.
If I am unwittingly missing the essence of your point, then please enlighten me.

Peter in his article says ...... "In this we must make a distinction between the contribution to the self made by philosophical ideas and that made by one whose significance cannot be explained in terms of philosophical ideas or in codes of morality, and certainly not as a founder of a great religion, but in his very being as the one true human being."

i.e. Jesus in "his very being as the one true human being."

Now Keiran here is just a "nobody", and because "nobody" is perfect, he in fact can regard himself as perfect.

My question then is, if Jesus is perfect too, then was he created perfect or did he make himself perfect? Surely some theologian or devotee (e.g. Crabbie) may have the answer. (Also, just what was Jesus up to in his formative and wilderness years? From what we are to believe it seems he just appeared as if by magic for about three years which doesn't seem fair at all.)

Keiran,
The New Testament give us one clue; He was made perfect [Hebrews 5: 9] through his suffering and the completion of his life. So his perfection did not come by birth or his own will but by the very living out of his life.

One cannot be considered as perfect in character until one expresses that character in living. Perfection is identified with completion of an act or life. Perfection is purity in thought, wisdom and behaviour James 2: 22; Matthew 5: 48. Perfection is imputed to sinners who repent Col 1: 28; 4: 12. Perfection is more than a static status it is demonstrated in who we really are. The nature and maturity of our spirit.

In the understanding of the divine revelation no indication is made to his formative years, but his life was not perfected till it had completed its ultimate mission.

Quote, "My question then is, if Jesus is perfect too, then was he created perfect or did he make himself perfect? Surely some theologian or devotee (e.g. Crabbie) may have the answer. (Also, just what was Jesus up to in his formative and wilderness years? From what we are to believe it seems he just appeared as if by magic for about three years which doesn't seem fair at all.)

I(key word) understood every word of this.In quick words,I would like to talk to thee in a simple conversation.To prove I undrestand(and have lots to ad)I'll answer the main question of confusion = WHAT MAN BELIEVES MAN HAS CONCIEVED.

keiran, Main belief is we are born perfect to stay perfect,but the struggle of life is the essence of our soul or passion to fight on for family and love.You have to fall down to appreciate gettiing getting up.Therefore What each SELF wants become simple.

hint:(tell the baby the stove is hot as many times as you want, but until the baby touches the stove and is burnt.Then and only then does the baby truely KNOW. experience is the only teacher.

We should always ask questions and in this thread one thought that we may get some theologian or devotees to enlighten one poor Keiran on the causality of how Jesus could be regarded as the "one true human being."

However, Philo genuinely came forward with a victim statement ... "He was made perfect [Hebrews 5: 9] through his suffering...... ", followed by a naive opinion ...... "his perfection did not come by birth or his own will but by the very living out of his life." followed by another more fatalistic opinion ...... "his life was not perfected till it had completed its ultimate mission." These do seem to make some sense in the context and magical presentation of Christianity.

I have always remained open to the fact that Jesus of Nazereth may have been a person who lived on planet Earth. So, the formative influences on his life during his "wilderness years" are of necessity significant but without such "divine revelation" we are forced to have trust and faith. Process and any understanding of causality are simply not needed and that is my concern.

One can only speculate about the early Jesus but this emphasis upon the suffering Jesus, his teachings and bits of magic suggest an enlightenment ......... i.e. A Buddhist enlightenment with its Four Noble Truths (concerning suffering) and the Noble Eightfold Path.

Just where would such an enlightened Jesus speak about himself as the object of worship or as a mediator through which one must go in order to reach Teddy? If Buddhists often speak of the teaching of Buddha as "a finger pointing to the moon" then Christianity only saw the finger which helps to explain that while Jesus said he was a son of Teddy (an enlightened person), Christianity comes out with magic that he was THE (only) son of Teddy. (AND, forget that one is to see and pay attention to that to which the finger points.)

It is not hard to imagine that Jesus has simply become some artificial construction based on a great deal of inventiveness.

Keiran,

Read the bible, come up with your own conclusions about the person of Jesus, instead of playing with teddys and baby buddahs.

Dear Keiran
the issue about Jesus is settled quite easily. There was much speculation about Him in His own day.

Mark 8.27

27Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, "Who do people say I am?"

Responses:

a) John the Baptist
b) One of the prophets
c) Elijah.

Jesus took it one step closer to home:

he asked. "Who do you say I am?"

Peter answered, "You are the Christ.

Now that they had established his true identity "Messiah".. Jesus began to teach them the true 'content/meaning' of Messiah.

"He will be rejected, suffer and die but on the 3rd day,be raised"

Such an idea of a suffering Messiah was foreign to popular beliefs about him. Hence Peter "Took Jesus aside to rebuke Him"

So far we have:

1/ Jesus is the Messiah
2/ The Messiah came to die (and rise)
3/ This is NOT the human nor popular version of Messiah.

The COST of Discipleship.

"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35For whoever wants to save his life[c] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

Now we have:

1/ True Messiah
2/ True Messianic role
3/ True discipleship.

Even John the Baptist wondered about Jesus.

"Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another" ?

Jesus said "Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. 23Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me."

The crucial question Keiran is ....who is Jesus ..'to you'?

Keiran,
Be aware we as Christians worship the character, attitudes, actions, wisdom and revelation of who we believe is very God. Jesus never encouraged worship of himself as a man but even his own worship was of God. We do not direct worship to a human of history, but to the very nature of the eternal God as a human he revealed [incarnate]. We worship the very nature of his character as upon his character, attitudes, actions we ourselves follow him as disciples.

What one thinks of him will reflect upon wether one views his character as being the very nature of God. The ultimate model upon which we image ourselves. The ultimate true character in a Christian view is one who gives himself sacrificially for the blessing of all mankind even his opposition [enemies].

Philo - well said. You got me thinking, though. The tradition of the Church claims that outward sacrifice is only genuine when it is the expression of spiritual sacrifice.
Jesus claimed not to want our sacrifice but our mercy. [Gospel according to Matthew Chapter 9, verse 13 and 12:7, recalling the words of the prophet Hosea: "I desire mercy not sacrifice" Hosea 6:6.]
Fasting is one kind of sacrifice which may have become forgotten in the West. Our Muslim brothers and sisters fast from dawn to sunset during the month of Ramadan, and Catholics from Eastern and Arabic rites also value fasting during certain days of every week. I think that fasting is a sign that the best is yet to come: life in eternity with Christ Jesus.
I worry that considering the popularity of Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ, people get the idea that Christ came to die, rather than to submit to his Father's will, and ultimately redeem the world from the power of death and sin.

Kieran mentioned Buddha's enlightenment and mused whether Jesus had a similar transformative event. Whilst Buddha is not comparable to Jesus, (in the sense that he is not God and never claimed to be God), naturally, Jesus' life was punctuated by significant events.

Jesus submitted to his baptism, which marked the beginning of his public ministry. John Paul II instituted a fourth mystery to the Rosary in the latter years of his papacy. The 'Mystery of Light' focuses upon the 5 events of Jesus' mission:
1) The Baptism in the Jordan
2) The wedding feast of Cana
3) The proclamation of the kingdom of God
4) The Transfiguration
5) The institution of the Eucharist

You can find the bible reference for each of these mysteries by clicking on the numbers you see near the Rosary beads at this Vatican web page:
http://www.vatican.va/special/rosary/documents/misteri_luminosi_en.html

Renee,
My point about sacrifice isn’t self-inflicted like fasting, self-mutilation etc, but living in the dignified service that blesses others; not with low self-esteem, but as a saintly person that enhances and lifts failing hopeless lives. Not motivated to be recognised but to genuinely care.

The Apostle Paul identifies sacrifice that is spiritual worship in Romans 12: 1–2. “In view of God’s mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of behaviour of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Christ demonstrated sacrifice by organising and feeding multitudes, caring for sick, depressed and oppressed, calming the terrified and giving life to the grieving. Our lives are truly fulfilled in human relationships that bring peace, joy and enrichment to people. Christ demonstrated and had more to say about this than any notion of a meditative trance giving spiritual enlightenment or an afterlife.

Compare for example Roman and Greeks that viewed gods in their own passions of mind and body. For instance the Greek goddess Aphrodite or the Roman goddess Venus they believed aroused their sexual passions. So in their worship of these gods to indulge in sexual immorality, adultery and fornication was religiously acceptable. In fact the temples to these goddesses were places of prostitution where priestesses served. Beside the god Juno represented the natural passions of a man for another man.

When Christianity came it changed the view of people toward their passions and made them personally responsible for and identified self-denial as spiritual service to the purity of God. Philosophies that do not practise self-denial flaunt their natural passions as acceptance behaviour or contrastedly those fully covered or mutilated women who supposedly reduce the temptation, men equally lack self-discipline.

Modesty is a virtue in Christianity, which means not flaunting ones passions in an endeavour to arouse undesirable passions in others. What one does in a total life-committed sanctioned relationship that brings mutual pleasure doesn’t qualify as impurity for unto such we are created

If we are always to ask questions and if Jesus asked leading questions about himself like, "Who do people say I am?" and "Who do you say I am?" then it naturally follows that Boaz will come up with similar ..... "the crucial question Keiran is ....who is Jesus ..'to you'?".

Just seems a bit sinful of Jesus not to give a straight answer if we are to believe what's presented in the Bible. Well in response it may be only proper to answer a question with a question too. Like ....... who do you (or would Jesus) think I am? Well in answer to my own question (i.e. my conscience at work) I'm just a nobody with a bit of curiosity about the world and certainly not some member of a playpen seemingly moving in unison with the group toward this need and fulfillment of a single, well-laid-out messianic purpose. My need is not about basic salvation stories nor about the longing for a messianic savior. It would be interesting to ask why people believe this claptrap of urgent messianic tidings guiding them inexorably toward the final redemption. Is this not fatalism or more correctly messianic fatalism. Some of these beliefs even suggest a messiah in the form of a realestate agent for goodness sake. Just how can this peculiar blind faith provide any solutions?

As I have said, process and any understanding of causality are simply not needed by those infected by this teddy magic and that is my concern. Causality may mean different things in different ages with different circumstances but in understanding Buddha it is plainly clear where he was coming from and the choices he made. There is no attempt nor reason to obscure the origins of his enlightenment.

Forgive the spelling."The man's wilderness years" were probably spent like the rest of the prophets, in Egypt.you know learning the truth to all of this madness. King James was the one who made it a sin to eat from the tree of "knowledge". Like the history book says "God created man in his own image. When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Your own image. Who can see every thing you do behind closed doors? YOU! I believe, if a person lives and dies for there religion, it shows devotion and love. The grain of a mustured seed is accomplished, but for the curious one (like myself) to obtain that seed of faith, will take hardcore evidence to live and die for. You are wrighting your own personal Bible. The chapter of sacrafice in mine is, my father dedicating his life for his children. Giving up everything he wants out of life, to provide for his loved ones. He would jump in front of a bullet to save us. The world is in a religion that was fit for the king. Jesus was a great man. I find it more honorable to see him as a man just like me. It would be easy for the creater to become flesh and do what He did, but to think of him as a normal human, going through the pain, is much more admirable. To fight (under any circumstances) for what you love is the whole essence of our souls. Once "YOU" find for "yourself" the world is an atom, and we are electrons and protons of "ONE" mechanism. You to will sacrafice your life for our brothers and sisters in the name of love. Fun thing to look at: find out when William Shakespear was born. Ad up the years to 1608 A.D. (year Bible was published). He was 46 years old, look at Psalms 46,and the 46th word from the begining, then (with the exeption of salah) the 46th word from the end. The truth is in there, but in allegorical form. www.myspace.com/leeroysnext

Jesus was completely human and intrinsically divine. And so is his Holy Spirit today. This spirit is characterised by Jesus' gift of eternal life to us and yet also by our inheritance of his human love.
By this I mean that when we pray for the Holy Spirit's gifts (wisdom, knowledge, understanding, counsel, fortitude, piety, fear of the Lord), and believe that we receive them, we participate in the eternal dimension of life.
Through Jesus' great love all people are freed from death and its interference in our life with him. Just as he is a part of the Trinity of Father, Son and Spirit, I may love and receive grace lovingly within my family and the world. By loving, I increase the possibility of reaching my human potential.
All else seems to be futile, by comparison.

You know what, I got something to say. If george bush(no cap intended) was layed up in the Baghdad E.R., it would be , OH! such a tragedy. Every soilder that comes in the E.R. is more of a man than bush will ever be. Quote "I only joined up for the benefits, you know to get my house paid for". He says this without his left thumb, and tears in his eyes, for the loss of his friend's life. I know it's off the subject, but is it really? The bible was under King James command. Could you imagine george bush wrighting our new religion? Find yourself and the love for everything that makes the world spin, if it weren't for Einstien or Da' vinci picking at the tree of knowledge, we would noy be discussing this over the enternet.

As far as the "holy spirit" goes. Remember Horus,Isis, and Osirus: the mother, the father, and the son. That is mythalogical means of sending a message of how to reproduce life. They knew we would not understand they're language after they were gone. The best way to send a message thousands of years later, is by stories. So when King James made his version, as a strong white male, He took the simple fact that: mother + father = son, therefore life goes on, and excluded the woman. To now be known as the father, the son, and "the holy ghost".

Leeroy,
Please stay away from discussing theology, as statements like this make you look foolish.

" So when King James made his version, as a strong white male, He took the simple fact that: mother + father = son, therefore life goes on, and excluded the woman. To now be known as the father, the son, and "the holy ghost".

King James did not even place a word in the New Testament, he merely authorised an approved English text be printed for all English speaking people to read.

Philo, Do you know what theology is? This statement is only foolish to fools. Not everyone has a one track mind that is stuck in a box. So please don't share your misfortune with the rest of the world. It was people like yourself throwing stones at Jesus. Gullable puppets have no place in theology. So, before you embark on another quest to fight knowledge that scares you, remember that I could teach you things that you don't even know about youself. If Jesus walked the streets today, after he tried to have a conversation, you would call him foolish and thrown in a looney bin.