Godless Dave

A3, you are so close to the truth. You're right, there is nothing to be gained by taking the Bible literally. But it does contain powerful ideas about morality, philosophy, and the human condition.

But if you continue to think of it as "God's word", you risk ignoring all the other great works of literature that speak to these same questions. I'm talking about the works of Buddha, Lao Tse, Gandhi, and many, many others. Not to mention the wisdom you have inside you.

I don't believe Jesus Christ is my savior, and I certainly don't believe in life after death. But I have read the Bible and gained insights into how to treat other people, how to live my life, and how to view the world.

I don't believe in reincarnation, and I'm not a vegetarian, but I found much wisdom in the teachings of Buddha.

I don't believe in a life force that binds the universe together, but I've learned a lot from Taoism.

I don't believe Mohammed was the prophet of God, and I don't approve of having four wives or abstaining from alcohol, but I've gotten some insights from what I know of Islam, too.

The important thing to remember is that this wisdom is the wisdom of people; people like you and me. It's not perfect. The reader has to evaluate it for himself. And there may be more wisdom coming. I think you understand much of this, A3. But you still have some preconceived notions that you don't seem to be questioning. (That God exists; that He is benevolent; that religion is necessary for a happy, complete life). Keep thinking and you might get there.

Jayhawker Soule

For what it's worth, this is A3's 'close to the truth': <a href="http://Swedenborg.net/lnc/" target="_blank"> The Swedenborg Cult </a>

[ March 12, 2002: Message edited by: ReasonableDoubt ]</p>

eh

But at exactly what point did God create the universe? Did he create the vacuum energy bubble a hundred million times smaller than a proton then bugger off? Inflation provided the energy mass that makes up our present day universe, so it doesn't seem god has much to do with us. It's like a lazy McDonalds worker, always doing as little work as possible. Why is God such a lazy ass?

Jonsey3333

Maybe God makes minumum wage.

"Uhhhh... that's one existence, dualism, and a purpose for life. Would you like free will with that?"

-Mike

Panta Pei

After all that...

Nothing still does not exist

Something always exists and that is the Universe as defined as 'all things'.

Pantheism at the lower level...atheism at the top.

Fairy sky king, right out

A3

It has been so long, this seems like cleaning the closet, sorry.
Hi Theophage,
quote:
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Originally posted by A3:
Just here it deals with an ingrained evil intention in an individual. To get rid of it you have to destroy it to the roots.
Taking things literally is a deadend street. But I have been told I shouldn't use so many words
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(1)It never ceases to amaze me how the supposedly omnipotent God is always forced to use the desparate and imperfect methods of humans to deal with things 2) Can't be fixed? Destroy it.

(1), spiritually God is comparable to the sun (this will get you going You know that if we are not proteted we will burn. Look at it and you will go blind. Now what would happen if this sun came to earth? BTW this is one of the reasons He was born a baby.
(2) The evil person can only fix himself by destroying the evil inside. Whole cities of them.

Oh, and A3, are you ever going to get around to explaining and supporting your notion of love as a "spiritual substance"? I hope that it (like genocide as a solution to anything) isn't beyond my frail human comprehension...
Good of you to realize that human comprehension is frail. Would you at least agree that love exists and thus is something? People for instance have died for their love of a country. But can you touch it? Measure it? No way. However, you can kill it, change it, develop it. A good teacher can bring out a love of math in you. All this is the reason that we say love has a spiritual substance. Since our thoughts are spiritual they also are substancial and real. In short, Swedenborg describes our memory as the ability of our thoughts to retain their “shape.”
He also says “Love is the life of man” (meaning mankind). Literally everything we do to almost every move is motivated or caused by a love of something. Love of a sport, food, wife, money etc.
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ReasonableDoubt
quote:
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Deuteronomy 20:16-17 KJV:
But of the cities of these people.....: But thou shalt utterly destroy them
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quote:
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Originally posted by A3:
This is one of the many instances that there is violence in the Bible. But what the Bible is about (what makes it God's Word) is what is meant by what is in there.
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Thanks. That was helpful.
Assuming you would like me to be more helpfull, well, looking behind me I see 12 volumes totaling about 5400 pages. All this deals with this internal sense that is in there and just in Genesis and Exodus alone. And it is the tip of the iceberg because we can study the infinite to eternity, something we cannot do by just looking at the literal text. So where would you like me to start, or are you not really that interested?

quote:
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Originally posted by A3:
Just here it deals with an ingrained evil intention in an individual. To get rid of it you have to destroy it to the roots.
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[No - just here it deals with genocide. If you wish to reduce the Bible to some inane and harmless metaphore of your own creation, that's fine.

I am not saying it did not happen! But that the Bible is written as it appeared to the writers. All through human history people have done atrocious things because “God wanted it.” Here it is no different. And again, the history is the literal story or text (which in itself is useless to us today, it is the internal meaning that is very relevant to our lifes today.
What do you get out of the story about Jericho?
At issue is the selectivity which allows you to dismiss Deuteronomy as parable while embracing the Jesus myths as literal, e.g.,
Who is being selective here?? But here again, the writers wrote down what happened, often not understanding it. BTW this usually generates a truer picture. Like copying a drawing while having it upside down.
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Godless Dave
No, the situations are not alike...... you cannot provide any examples demonstrating that life after death exists, much less that our behavior and/or beliefs while alive will have an impact on our afterlife.
OK the comparison is not 100% but scientifically verified Near Death Experiences, the work of some physics for the individual are, in my book, examples.

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Why not indeed! But what does the Bible have to do with it? Neither Christianity nor any other religion, nor even a belief in an afterlife, is necessary to look at the positive side of life.
Dave
Because for many that seems not enough. My feeling is that most who have chosen a life of crime lack the understanding of how life works and what its purpose is. Besides, although I see the different religous books as just differences of opinion, I only know the Bible as having an internal meaning.
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Godless Dave

But if you continue to think of it as "God's word", you risk ignoring all the other great works
You’re right but please see above.
Not to mention the wisdom you have inside you.
Please remember we are born ignorant. Through life we develop rational and moral wisdom and Swedenborg devotes many pages on these.

I don't believe.... but... The reader has to evaluate it for himself.

That indeed is each individuals quest. But just as in sports, we don’t have to know the rules inside-out and backwards to have fun and sometimes even score, but I think the more we know about it and what the object is, the more satisfaction we can get out of it.
You have read a lot and seem to have a broad perspective. There is a lot however that you “don’t believe.” Maybe you haven’t come across the right explanation yet. Would you give Swedenborg a chance? We believe God’s truth is absolute, it is our understanding that is flawed.
Would you like a copy of “The Human Mind,” It was scanned and the editing is almost done. Just let me know.
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eh
But at exactly what point did God create the universe?
We usually can only think within space and time. As long as we are in that bubble we cannot think about God and His attributes. Outside our physical universe there is no such thing as time, only state. When you are outside that bubble as when you do something you love, an hour is but a minute.
I’m sorry to hear you equate a McDonalds worker with God.

Regards
A3

A3

Hi ReasonableDoubt,

[quote]For what it's worth, this is A3's 'close to the truth': The Swedenborg Cult[/b]

Thank you for bringing this up. However, the word ‘cult’ has become a derogatory term. To many it conjures up images of kidnapping, brainwashing, strange rituals and beliefs, the non-Christian, the non-Biblical.
The most well-known book about cults is Kingdom of the Cults by Walter Martin. Mr. Martin̓s most vigorous attack upon the New Church is upon its concept of a Trinity of aspects in one God. Needless to say, some people have actually joined the New Church after reading this book.

The books of Swedenborg have been studied by many renowned scholars and respectable leaders of society, including Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James, Jorge Borges, Immanuel Kant, and many more. It would be difficult to associate these individuals with a cult in any way.

Here are some tributes to Swedenborg
Helen Keller, (who was a New Church woman and wrote My Religion) said of Swedenborg: “He is the greatest champion of genuine Christianity in twenty centuries. Those truths have been to my faculties what light, color and music are to the eye and ear. They have lifted my wistful longing for a fuller sense life into a vivid consciousness of the complete being within me.
Norman Vincent Peale: “Swedenborg was one of the world̓s great geniuses. With his rare intellect and deep spiritual insight he has much to contribute to our modern life.”
James Freeman Clark: “Emanuel Swedenborg became the organ of a new spiritual philosophy. the power of which is hardly yet understood, but which seems likely to leaven all religious thought and change all arbitrary theologies into a spiritual rationalism. Swedenborg did not go out of Christianity to find it; like George Fox and John Wesley, he found it in Christ.”
Henry James, Sr.: “Emanuel Swedenborg had the sanest and most far-reaching intellect this age has ever known.”
Elisabeth Barret Browning: “To my mind, the only light that has been shed on the other life is found in Swedenborg̓s philosophy.”
Calvin Coolidge: “I desire to express my deep interest in the work and life of this advanced scientist and thinker Swedenborg, who was a pioneer two hundred years ago in much of the progress and advancement in mechanical, biological and medical science of the present day, and whose great learning and deep understanding of the mysteries of life was supplemented by the strong religious faith which has had devout followers many generations after the founder̓s death.”
Thomas Carlyle: “More truths are confessed in his writings than in those of any other man.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson: “The most remarkable step in the religious history of recent ages is that made by the genius of Swedenborg. One of the mastodons of literature, he is not to be measured by whole colleges of ordinary scholars.”
Edward Everett Hale: “Swedenborgianism has done the liberating work of the last century. The wave Swedenborg started lasts to this day. The statements of his religious works have revolutionized theology.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “Of the too limited time which my ill-health and the exigencies of the today leave in my power, I have given the larger portion to the works of Swedenborg. I remember nothing in Lord Bacon superior, few passages equal, either in depth of thought, or in richness, dignity and felicity of diction, or in the weightiness of the truths contained in these articles. I can venture to assert that as a moralist Swedenborg is above all praise; and that as a naturalist, psychologist and theologian, he has strong and varied claims on the gratitude and admiration of the professional and philosophical world.”
Edgar A. Guest: “His light as a man, as a scientist, as a public servant, and as a theologian still shines brightly.”
John Bigelow: Upon reading a book about Swedenborg, the former United States ambassador wrote, “My first feeling when I laid it down was of mingled surprise and mortification that I had lived till then in such dense ignorance of the career and work of so remarkable a man, at once so great and so good as Swedenborg.”

Hope this helps
A3

eh

A3,

That still doesn't answer the question of what god did. If the universe can evolve from a bare minimum like a a bubble of vacuum energy, then the creation of the universe isn't very impressive at all. The old Deistic god wasn't this boring.

Further, if we push god that far back to the point he does a minimal amount of work, why do we need him at all? Could it be that there is no one there flicking the universe switch to ON?

"We usually can only think within space and time. As long as we are in that bubble we cannot think about God and His attributes. Outside our physical universe there is no such thing as time, only state. When you are outside that bubble as when you do something you love, an hour is but a minute.
I’m sorry to hear you equate a McDonalds worker with God."

A3

Hello eh, (sounds Canadian
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A3,
That still doesn't answer the question of what god did. If the universe can evolve from a bare minimum like a a bubble of vacuum energy, then the creation of the universe isn't very impressive at all. The old Deistic god wasn't this boring.

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Hopefully you will not find this too boring. First of all, a few things. This is my interpretation of what Swedenborg has written on the subjects and this is flawed at best. Sometimes I can give a literal copy of what Swedenborg wrote but only if it is not too long. Finally I would ask you to please set aside everything you ever read about the creation story in the Bible because we believe that only the first sentence could be taken literally.
In addition, Swedenborg has some opening remarks of his own in True Christian Religion #75.
Which, in my mind, is comparable to saying: if you want to discuss the making of e.g. the car, it helps if you first agree on what it is, what it is made of and basically how it works and what it was created to do.

THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE.

As the subject of this first chapter is God the Creator, the creation of the universe by Him must also be considered; just as in the next chapter about the Lord the Redeemer, we have to know what redemption is. But no one can gain a right idea of the creation of the universe until his understanding is brought into a state of perception by some most general knowledges previously recognized, which are as follows.

(1) There are two worlds, a spiritual world where angels and spirits are [the heavens], and a natural world where men are [the earth].
The devil is not mentioned because he was never created.
(2) In each world there is a sun. The sun of the spiritual world is nothing but love from Jehovah God who is in the midst of it. From that sun warmth and light go forth; the warmth in its essence is love, and the light is wisdom; and these two affect our will and understanding - the warmth our will and the light our understanding.
The sun of the natural world, however, is nothing but fire, and therefore its warmth is dead and so is its light; and these serve as a covering and auxiliary to spiritual warmth and light, to enable them to pass our way.
(3) Again, these two which go forth from the sun of the spiritual world, and in consequence all things that have existence in that world by means of them, are substantial, and are called spiritual; while the two like things that go forth from the sun of the natural world, and in consequence all things here that have existence by means of them, are material, and are called natural.
(4) In each world there are three degrees, and in consequence three regions; and in accordance with these the three angelic heavens are arranged, and also in accordance with them human minds are arranged, which thus correspond to those three angelic heavens; as does everything else between both worlds. [e.g. water corresponds to truth]
(5) There is a correspondence between those things that are in the spiritual world and those in the natural world.
(6) There exists an order [design] in which each and everything belonging to both worlds were created.
(7) It is necessary that an idea of these things should first be gained, for unless this is done the human mind from mere ignorance of these things easily falls into a notion of a creation of the universe by nature; while on mere ecclesiastical authority it asserts that nature was created by God; and yet, because it does not know how creation was effected, as soon as it begins to look interiorly into the matter, it plunges headlong into the naturalism which denies God.
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Swedenborg also sounds a warning to not think about creation (or God) based on concepts of time or space. It will drive you nuts. God is in time, but apart from time and in space, but apart from space. This means that to God, passed and future are now. Space and time were introduced with the creation of the universe. God is Love itself and Wisdom itself. Love is the reason for creation and wisdom the way it was done. Love is substantial, it is spiritual substance. God created the universe, by making the substance of His Infinite Love into a finite spiritual substance. First the three degrees of the spiritual world were so created and through those He created the natural world. I personally think that this is paralleled in our every-day lifes by the conception and birth of a child. Life is not something that is sexually transmitted. At conception, God creates a soul and through this soul creates a body, DNA and all. (We think He also did that 2000 years ago without a man being there).

bynature

Let us take a recess and read the Book of Romans, Chapter I, KJV. When we return, we can dissect every word--in context of course.
Beep-beep.