agapeo

Originally posted by Stephen T-B:
I suppose that can be true. I guess I have met a few Christians in my time that were "rigid" in their thinking. Never capable of thinking outside the "box" of what they were taught.
It always struck me as odd that for those who believe God "created" them and thus part of that creation was the mind would think that God would never expect us to use it.
Oh, ok. I don't recall hearing this particular phrase but perhaps it should be "I have personal experience validating the existence of God" or something like that.
Sounds more like "certain proof" is what you wanted.
If that's a question directed to me -- I can't answer it. I don't know you well enough to do so and to attempt an answer would be an effort in futility.
That must of been hard. Pretending that is. Not to be trivial about it but are you a professional actor by any chance?
Have you ever read the story of this. Everyone else knew the Emperor didn't have any clothes on as well but were afraid to say otherwise. So perhaps you weren't the only one pretending.
Good for you.
Hmm . . . does that mean I haven't quite reached the "promise land" of the atheists in being a "liberal thinker"? Just kidding.
You're free to think so.
You really think my "faith" is that easy to have? It's more like being out on the open seas at times then safely in the harbor. Once in awhile I get to come into port though.
I think your analogy is somewhat backwards. You only have to trust (have faith in) yourself. I on the other hand have to trust God in spite of myself. You really think that that is all that easy? It can be pretty "rough waters" at times.
You don't always have to go where ever your thoughts take you. You can step out into the abyss and decide it's too empty to plunge all the way into.
Yes indeed, who can tell?
I would. Oh not that they had an "experience" per se but as you say:
Could that mean I'm a skeptic?

Amos

Hello galiel, I recognize your knowledge about Gnosticism but can't help wonder if you really understand that gnosis cannot be an -ism because if that was the case it can be argued that God would have grandchildren who had learned their way into heaven. The Gnostic knows and to know is to have the mind of God and to have the mind of God is to be God. Gnosticism can now be translated to mean God-ism which is impossible or the mind of God could not be the end of religion (the -ism).

The objection to Gnosticism was the -ism and there is no denying that Gnostics know but they were rejected because they would scatter the flock when they pointed out the truth behind religious indoctrination prior to its own time. In other words, they would remove the herd mentality (tradition) that is needed for the mystery of faith to unfold and not just perplex the inquisitive mind of believers into small segments of realization and so attract followers. It can be argued that they were an early form of witches because of their adaptability and marauding nature.

The same is true with alchemy which was recognized by the Church but was never allowed inside the Church for the same reason. Alchemists are Gnostic but never an -ism.

The slant on the word Freethinker is my own. The Free Will argument belongs to the Freeman who alone is a Freethinker because of his undivided mind. The words "The father and I are one" indicate that the 2 minds had merged into one. Hardy wrote a poem called "The Convergence of the Twain" wherein he describes how the Immanent Will is responsible for this and not just Gnostic freeloading.

Your point about apples and oranges is taken but I find it is rather amusing to present a new look to perplex existing indoctrination pathways. In this case you have to admid that if we have to think we are not Freethinkers especialy not if Freethinkers go by intuition and recall from their own "thousand year reign" on demand. Well, here we go again in how I use the term "One Thousand Year Reign" which must exist in our own mind or we could have no knowledge thereof.

In Catholicism we have Mary (not Eve) who is the seat of wisdom and greater serpent of the two. She is 'all woman' and needed the lesser serpent Eve (Mary Magdalene) to gather wisdom into the Tree of life. Mary is like Sophia and I am not familiar with the others. Being the seat of wisdom Mary is crowned queen of heaven and earth but alas, not philosopher king (we have the Assumption and Coronation of Mary who co-reigns from heaven). In our heaven the Holy Trinity is resolved in "The Father and I are One" and the subsequent Coronation of Mary once the HS is redundant.

I am very much intrigued by this portion of your post becasue it reminds me soo much of our modern charismatic movement wherein "the spirit is moving" (after we snare him down from heaven): </strong>

In the metaphysical no woman will ever ascend because that would mean that the subconscious mind (which is woman) is the mind that consciously was used to be in charge of our destiny prior to ascention. This, of course, is absurd because ascention is from the conscious mind to the subconscious mind and so when you state that women ascended you are saying that the subconscious mind united with the subconscious mind. What is true, however, and is why I hold that females make great mystics, is because of their natural inclination to become introverts.

In the physical it is impossible for females to ascend because heaven is not up nor down but it is a state of mind wherein the conscious ego identity is placed subservient to the subconscious womanity (woman identity) of man.

In Catholicism believers are encouraged to be blind followers of an indoctriantion that resembles Truth and because it so closely resembles Truth it will in due course prompt a closer examination by the believer. This makes Catholics a prime target for evangelist and also for the above description of Gnostic evangelists. This makes me think that they were an early form of witches that would rob emerging gnostics from eternal life (eternal life is when we live alongth path of our right brain wherein lies the One Thousand Year Reign).

You response is always welcome but I am not at all interested in communicating with you for the sake of communicating without any useful contribution. In my opinion to be a freethinker and a free thinker is the same because the valuable distinction is not to be made in the degree of freedom to think but in the freedom from the necessity to think. Understand here that the poet with lyrical vison is inspired for the moment and the Freethinker with noetic vision is permanently inspired and does not have to think while the freethinker with hyletic (obscured) vision must always think. Telec vision makes it nearly impossible to think and this is where freethinkers may have an edge over dogmatic free thinkers.

Above I brought up the redundancy of the HS for the Freethinker as evidence that our human (TOK)identity has become one with our woman identity (TOL) in "the Father and I are one". In the bible this is signified with the descend of the HS who descended to stay because the two are one.

I enjoyed your reply, thanks for that.

[ October 02, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

Stephen T-B

Agapeo wrote: “I have met a few Christians in my time that were "rigid" in their thinking. Never capable of thinking outside the "box" of what they were taught.”
That was me. It might help you to understand why that was the case if I tell you I was brought up in something called Moral Re-Armament - known as MRA. (The US wing split off eventually and was called Up With People.) We were taught that god communicated directly with the mind of men and women, and we were expected to listen to his voice at least once a day, after which we shared the thoughts he had given us.

Agapeo said he hasn’t heard the expression “having personal knowledge of god.” I’d be surprised, however, if GeoTheo and HelenM hadn’t.

Did I want “certain knowledge” of god, or “certain proof”? Well, in trying to encapsulate what was going on in my mind I left out some details, which might have clarified things: guidance from god, you must try to understand, was supposed to be central to our lives, and I heard accounts by people at the MRA meetings which we attended of how obeying their guidance had had miraculous consequences. At the age of around 19 or 20, I decided that everything I did should be guided by god, and on one particular morning I had a simple but potentially important decision to make, and I asked for guidance as to what I should do. In my naiveté, I thought that if I were some character in the Bible, God would make His will known to me in a dramatic, explicit, unambiguous fashion, but while I was prepared for a miraculous sign, I would have settled for anything: I just wanted to know what I was supposed to do. (I should say that In all the years I had been having “guidance” - we awoke early in the morning and wrote it down in a note book - I had never had a sense of god communicating with me. All the guidance I’d ever had, I’d made up within the parameters of what he seemed to be saying to other people.)
When the crunch-time came that morning and I still didn’t know what god wanted me to do, I thought: “Right. OK. You don’t care what I do. From now on I’m in charge and I’ll make all my own decisions, and if I make a mess of my life, it’ll be my fault.”

(By-the-way, my question in the last post asking why I had not had certain knowledge of god was not directed at you; it was one I asked myself.)

You wondered if I’m a professional actor. I’m not. But like most people, I can put on an act, and throughout much of my childhood I did.

Your remark about the Emperor’s Clothes and other people pretending to see them goes to the heart of the matter: I consider religious belief to be delusional, and so powerfully delusional that people cannot perceive it as such They cannot because they will not, and I suppose the reason I was able to shed it with such ease was because, for one reason or another, I didn’t require it.

I’m interested that you consider yourself to be on the wide open sea of Faith and me to be in the safe harbour of Unbelief.
I do know that Faith does, for most people, require hard work. Reconciling the irreconcilable is not easy for an intelligent person, and most, if not all believers are beset by doubts from time to time. But Faith is a safe harbour to the extent that it offers those within it the love and protection of a divine being; it seems to answer questions as to the meaning and purpose of their existence, and it holds out the promise of eternal life.
The Unbeliever is on his own / her own: no protection, no explanations, no promises. I love it.

(This thread can now continue without these interruptions because I’m away for a bit. Thank you, Agapeo, for your interesting responses.)

[ October 02, 2002: Message edited by: Stephen T-B ]</p>

agapeo

I thank you for taking the time to exchange thoughts with me. It's been interesting to me and like you I must be off to take care of other matters. Perhaps it has been somewhat off-topic but I wonder if the fact that we can have this discussion in the first place is not somewhat indicative of two freethinkers exchanging their thoughts on matters without constraits of dogma. Hmm . . . until another time, perhaps.

We now resume the regular scheduled program for those waiting for this brief interruption to be over.

Starboy

HelenM,

The purpose of my question was simple. You claim to be a freethinker and as such I would expect you to have examined your reasons and actions in regards to your religion. The question was asked to determine if you had indeed done this and could justify in some fashion your claim to freethinking.

Your answer does indicate that you have thought about it some, but as such have reached no real conclusions. If you are to call yourself a Christian your claim to being a freethinker is unfounded. A more honest and genuine claim would to say you do not know what you are, but for now you are going to leave your life on Christian autopilot.

Do not get me wrong, I am not criticizing your beliefs as a Christian, at least not in this post. All I am saying is that if you have come to your decision to be a Christian by reason, you would have more to show for it.

If you wish to whine that is your choice. I have always attempted to be honest if not blunt in both thought and feeling when I respond to one of your posts or ask you a question. If dishonesty is what you desire then you should hang out with the Christians.

Starboy

GeoTheo

I have thought of kind of a new slant on this issue of how a free thinker can be a Christian.
A Christian can be a skeptic. Meaning that a Christian can think there is no way for a person to gain a knowledge of ultimate truth through reason.
There are many people who think this that would be considered free thinkers. The difference between them and a Christian would be that unlike a skeptic a Christian believes in ultimate truth, many would agree with the basic premise of the skeptic albeit they turn to faith instead of concluding that truth is ultimately unknowable.
So I can exercise my free thinking capacity to attempt to seek truth through reason, fail at achieving that and then turn to faith.
This would not be an entirely irrational approach because faith is largely a pragmatic solution to a real problem and one can have faith and be internally consistent even though he cannot provide proof.
One can still remain open to new ideas and objectively examine them. I believe I am objective in my examination because even though I do not believe I can prove what I believe through faith, I do not believe that a claim is true if it can be proven false.
Before becoming a Christian I had some very real problems and my Faith in Christ has had a very real and profound affect on me in overcoming them.
So I became a Christian for very pragmatic reasons. I still find that Christianity provides the best solution and explanation for my self destructive behavior. I find no equally satisfying
solutions or explanations from human reason alone.
I therefore am a free-thinker, because I sought some. Instead of turning to suicide though I turned to Christ. In the absence of answers through reason I then relied on faith. So it was a last resort. Basically to become a Christian you have to admit you don't have any answers of your own so you trust God to provide them. If you used faith to answer questions obtianable through impiricism like for example the age of the Earth, then you cease to be a free thinker. You are then a dogmatist, but If you seek answers to questions, most agree are ultimately unknowable, like the meaining of life; you are not. This in no way interferes with free thinking. You are basically choosing a course of action on unknowable questions and attempting to live it out in a pragmatic way.
A free thinker says life has no ultimate meaning only the meaining you give to it.
The Christian says my faith gives life meaning.
I see no contradiction.

Starboy

Geotheo, I am glad you are still with us. I think I can sum up your argument as such:

1. There is an ultimate truth.

2. It cannot be determined through reason.

3. People who do not think there is an ultimate truth are skeptics and or freethinkers.

4. Christians think there is an ultimate truth, and take this on faith.

5. Since I seek ultimate truth and it cannot be achieved through reason then I must use faith. Therefore be a Christian.

6. Doing this is pragmatic and is acceptable because faith is self-consistent.

7. Even though I accept my beliefs on faith I can still be logical because if I am shown something that is false then I will accept it.

8. My faith has been of great service to me in difficult times. Because of this I consider being faithful to be a very practical.

9. I am a free-thinker because I was able to accept something on faith.

10. Using empiricism is not free-thinking, it is dogmatism.

11. To be a free thinker you must admit you know nothing and accept god as the authority on existence.

12. If you ask unanswerable questions such as “what is the meaning of life” and use your faith in the authority of god then you are a free thinker.

13. Asking answerable questions using science means you are dogmatic and not a free-thinker.

14. A “free thinker” says: life has no ultimate meaning only the meaning you give to it.

15. The Christian says: my faith gives life meaning.

16. There is no contradiction between 14 and 15.

That is a great many assertions. You have coined a new term free-thinker. Based on your use of the term it looks to me that free-thinker == free-spirit. There is another term you refer to “free thinker”. I am not sure but I think you meant freethinker. I don’t know if your post sheds any light on the original question but it makes your point of view very clear. There is so much here to discuss. If you care to discuss it, just pick any of the 16 points.

Thanks
Starboy

Amos

It's called Christian Love which may be flattery but not dishonesty.

Starboy

But a Freeman knows that flattery is the sincerest form of dishonesty.

Hmmm, I think I'm getting the hang of this Christian double speak.

Starboy

Amos

Oh, he does and therefore is not part of it.