spin

daemon: "Most Christians believe in a personal God as well as the possibility--if not actuality--of revelation. Both of these are "personal experience of something transcending the universe." Are you not a Christian, or are you perhaps some form I have not heard of?"

There is nothing "transcending the universe" about ones beliefs. Lots of people believe lots of things, often in conflict with others' beliefs. Beliefs are well grounded in this universe.

But let's look at "transcending the universe".
The human being has only facilities that allow the perception of this universe, ie we can't of ourselves transcend it. Here comes the problem, related to your notion of revelation, and the problem is a big epistemological one. As you can only access this world, there is no way for you to either transcend it, nor test the "revelations" that you claim that some have of beyond it. The revelations cannot be tested. Any knowledge of God cannot be tested. In short there is no way of knowing the value of what you call revelation, nor can one differentiate such a thing from the communications that the paranoid have with unseen interlocutors. There may be a substantive difference, but you simply don't have the facilities to distinguish between them. In fact, there is no way for anyone, including you, to have any direct useful knowledge of a god that is distinguishable from the information that our paranoid has.

I think that any talk of "transcending the universe" is baseless because anyone talking of it is incapable of testing the act and useless because it has no significance (in a sneaky logical positivist sort of way).

(There is no criticism here of paranoid people or am I saying that all paranoid people receive communications from unseen interlocutors.)

A3

Hi Kent,

If you were a loving god, how would you show your love to everyone. And I mean everyone. The one on his knees in front of an altar and the one in front of the teller with a gun. This world seems chaotic because each and everyone can do what they want. This freedom is what makes us human.
The misconception about hell is that it is punishment. It may seem that way for someone who is looking through a 'window.' But the people there would'nt be anywhere else. They love to dominate over others, to collect "wealth" and whatever evil we can think of. They are in their heaven and would be in hell if they were forced to go to heaven. This God is a loving God which means you can do whatever you want up to a point. If one does evil to someone else, the next time the roles could be reversed. The result is a severe deminishing of happiness. In heaven it is diff. If you help someone, you are both happy. When the roles are reversed you are both very happy etc. But freedom is the key.
A3

A3

Hi Daemon,
Maybe we can take a step back and have a look at to what the doctrine is based on. I hope you read the first post of this thread. Is there anything you don't agree with or want to comment on?
Are you familiar with the Swedenborgian believe system?
A3

Kent Stevens

Hi A3,

If god existed he could show his existence through usual media outlets and if he ever came down to earth regularly. How do I know Tom Cruise or Britney Spears really exist? Because I see them on TV on movies, they are part of the news which is credible. Someone might see some of these people directly. Now why doesn't god make his presence as clearly known as a usual media celebrity does?

God could show his love to us by clearly showing his presence to all of us. For if god is like a loving father then he should let us know his love for us clearly. God could show us his love by instigating peace in this warring planet. He could stop the fighting over in Israel. He could stop the world terrorists in their tracks. That he does not suggests that he is either incapable of doing this or that he does not really love us.

It is not freedom if God is morally neglient in his care for us. Then if a father let his children be killed or hurt when he could easily prevent this, this could be called "freedom".

I see that you have a slightly different view of heaven and hell. At least this makes your god more humane and reasonable than the traditional god with his rewards and punishments.

A3

Hi Kent,
Thanks for the compliment.
You would like him to set up a permenant shop?
He did show himself clearly 2000 years ago, the Jews heard what he said. Just because people have misused their freedom and misinterpreted things doesn't mean he can't be found. I believe I found him in Swedenborg's writings, but each his own. God is (you might say) on both sides to the argument in the Middel East. He loves both, but it is up to them to make things better. During one of our religion classes it seemed that, if you go back far enough, this is just sibling rivalry. God loves us but does not control us.
I miss my spelling checker.
A3
A3

daemon

My apologies if you felt I was dragging this off topic--my response was to Paul5204, who was defending standard Trinitarian doctrine. I read over your post, and can't really find anything to say about it--it seems to be a lot of conjecture without substance. As to the Swedenborgian belief system, no, I know little about it, but neither do I really care.

Kent Stevens

The Jews did not think it was clear enough for them that Jesus was God. They did not accept Jesus as messiah. If it was clear to them why did they not all convert to Christianity? If the divinity of Christ was clear Islam would not have been established. This religion emphatically believes that Jesus was not divine.

If Jesus' divinity was a clear as the fact that the world is round there would be much reduced fighting in the middle East. There would be only Christainity and there would not be disgruntled Muslims who feel like blowing up buildings in terrorist attacks.

We have freedom to believe that the world is flat or that the Loch Ness monster exists. But do we want to believe some things that are patently false? A loving father would not want his children to believe such things to be true.

Danpech

Is the following nonsense, or is it merely a formula for a real thing but absent of the content of the real thing?

IT is three things, yet IT is one Thing. Each of these three things are inseparable, yet each can be dealt with separately. Where one of them is, all three are there. And, as a consequence of their being inseparable, if you refer to one of them, you are actually doing so by way of IT, so that any one of them is actually IT. They are each a part of each other. They are each the same as each other, without distinction, yet together they are qualitatively (not merely quantitatively) greater than either one or two of them together. Any two of them are likewise greater than any one of them. If you know what it means to know none of them, then you know all of them and can deal well with all of them. You will also know that there are only three
of them. Everyone knows all of them. No one is born knowing there are three of them, nor what it means to know none of them.

That is a formula like unto the one above, but there is a difference: each of the three in the Divine Trinity are different in some way, yet each is God. You cannot separate them, thus when you refer to one of them, you are necessarily referring to all of them, or, put another way, each one of them is fully God.

I like smileys. <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

A3

Hi Kent,
This is somewhat long but freedom is important, no the MOST important thing in life.
You finish your post with
but he would not want to take their freedom away to do so. If he did they would become his puppets. A loving parent will also never force his children to love him by taking their freedom away not to. "Forced love" could that be an oximoron?

This was an email reaction to one of our ministers, not much different than yours I think, about Sept. 11 and human freedom.

1) We would not be able to exercise free choice in political, moral or natural things if we did not have free will in spiritual things. The ability to think and act in every area of our daily lives is only possible because this freedom descends from the deepest level of our minds, where the Lord flows in with His love and wisdom. If He were to somehow take away our capacity for accepting or rejecting Him - to obey His commandments in our lives, or choose to be merely selfish and worldly - we would not be able to make choices in even the smallest matter in the rest of our lives.

2) If our freedom were taken away, we would lose our humanity. Our capacity for understanding and willing as we choose makes us who and what we are. These two parts are completely interdependent in us. We cannot really understand something if we are not free to act on it; and we cannot consent to or act on something we are unable to understand. If we could not both think freely and choose to act on those thoughts in freedom, we would lose the very things that make us human.

3) If our freedom were taken away, we would lose our lives. The very core of our lives comes from our spiritual freedom. As our lesson taught, our freedom is like the air in our lungs, the blood in our hearts, the energy in our bodies, the wheels on a cart, the arms on a windmill and the sails on a ship. To take freedom away would be to remove our very being, leaving us as empty shells with no thoughts, no feelings - no life.

4) If our freedom were taken away, we could not be regenerated [reborn]. The Lord gives His life to every person. Everyone is capable of understanding spiritual truth and obeying it; but we have to be open to that process. We all start out in a merely natural state, characterized by no concern for the Lord or eternal things. The Lord does not force us to change these disorderly thoughts, feelings or actions; but He does tell us about our natural condition and the consequences of not changing. And He promises that our lives will be immeasurably transformed for the better if we choose to live by His Divine guidance. If our freedom were taken away, we would remain in our natural unregenerate state; and this would doom us to far less happiness in hell after death.

5 If our freedom were taken away, we could not become spiritual. If we cannot regenerate, we cannot become spiritual. It is impossible for us to become spiritual just by reading volumes of Divine truth. And it is impossible for us to transcend our natural tendencies merely by desiring the change. Nor is the Lord able to instantly save us out of love and mercy alone, He is not knocking on our door for nothing. The only way we can become spiritual is by freely choosing to learn from the Lord, and then freely choosing to follow His path by shunning evils as sins against Him. Only by exercising our freedom to become spiritual will we come into true freedom — when we can experience life without being bound as slaves to evil desires and false thoughts.

6) If our freedom were taken away, we could not be conjoined to the Lord. If we remain natural, we cannot be conjoined to the Lord. This does not mean that we would stop receiving the Lord̓s life, for everyone lives from Him alone; and He dwells in the inmost part of every person, where he flows in with love and wisdom. But, unless we become spiritual through regeneration, the higher levels of our mind remain closed - and we close off the Lord̓s nearer presence with us. As we learn from Him and obey His Word, the Lord becomes ever more present in our thinking and willing; and we are conjoined to Him. And this conjunction is the kingdom of heaven. If we cannot be conjoined with Him, we will be eternally separated from our Creator.

7) If our freedom were taken away, we would have no immortality. If we are separated ourselves from the Lord, we will not experience the joys of eternal life in heaven, but instead live with the misery and frustration of eternal death in hell. This does not mean that the life of an evil person ends with death, for every human soul lives on forever after death in the spiritual world. But the only immortality is the life of heaven, where we will live in the Lord̓s near and constant presence. Life in hell, by comparison, is like eternal death.
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What it boils down to is that it God has different priorities than we do. He cares more about our spiritual state to eternity than this temporary physical state.
A3

daemon

Okay, I'll look at this step by step...
IT is three things, yet IT is one Thing.
This doesn't appear to mean anything at all.

Each of these three things are inseparable, yet each can be dealt with separately.
This is self-contradictory. If they are inseparable, you can do nothing with them separately. If you can deal with them separately, they are not inseparable. Pick one.

Given a breakdown of coherency so early, my vote is "nonsense."