sirguessalot

jeast, not picking on you... but i gotta ask...have you actually ever looked through other religious writings for predictions and prophets and prophecies and such? maybe walk into a library or bookstore and tear into any ole freaky thing for awhile actually looking for other end-of-the-world prophecies made from continents apart? cuz my guess is that there is at least a million bodies of prophecies in all of pre-modern written history...oral and written and perhaps even 1000 times that (or more) if you include all modern to present recorded predictions, religious contexts or not, into the mix we watch patterns and waves and trends every day of life in economics, technology, weather, healing, sports, criminology... in the generations of cultures that rise and fall and crash on the shore i recall jesus asking why they could predict the weather but they couldnt predict the passing of generations and cultural and social upheaval around it some are good at it some are real real good at it some are not so good at it some are real real bad at it and there are a gazillion different kinds of things one can be good or bad at predicting science fiction and technology to have predicted very well in the last century hubberts peak oil predictions seems quite on track and relevent hopi prophecy speaks quite direct earthy and powerful to us today the histories of old buddhist prophecies unfold through various ages too they even sent missionaries out to get lost in the middle east hundreds of years BC "spreading the dharma" and such, with a messiah age, contests between prophets...yada yada just sayin seems we cant know how much we havent looked into which applies no matter how much one has looked into

this is one of the coolest threads ive followed in awhile to add... seems to me particularly when reading in anything ancient about something simply more ancient what is often meant by "scripture" and "books being studied" and such or any books or scrolls in any "sacred" or "holy" context is pointing to something very very rare in those times done for very specific super important reasons not casual reasons but something at the other edge of our penultimate concern from the beginning a certain gravitas pushed and pulled us to lift a pen and write in the first place for reasons shared by every race on earth at similar times...along similar lines as we all moved through the same stages of discovery how and why we wrote and what we wrote about seems to share common and recognizable patterns in history "sacred," or "holy" and rare and specialized exoticly and genericly continentally ... and then it seems many significant shifts to have groups in passive seclusion devoted to creating these artifacts writing over many generations while studying others of the already rare and hard to find more ancient writings ... another significant shift for people from similar groups of other races able to collaborate to illuminate the words such as songs as medicine for suffering and dying traces of hebrew lettered words on catholic pages traces of gaelic lettered words on catholic pages yada yada ... another shift centuries later caregivers took notes in the margins while serving the active dying in europes earliest hospitals building palaces for the singing for their dying where mud huts only recently stood then more centuries later millions of these books are burned millions of these people from all over the world killed mostly in the name of one of the religions involved ... more centuries later and not a mere few shifts and slides down the road we now see elders acting like teenagers on Porkies (the movie) or emperors acting like hitler on cocaine in the name of christ strip mall preachers claiming that they have done all their spiritual homework and that nothing significant has been written for 2000 years and then only a sliver of the ancient jewish canon before that then they send us into the world saying the craziest stuff like "we are here to save you...we have the only keys to these holiest books about the holiest books about the holiest books of them all" wow is right

nice to "see" you "here" Dan :B) while reading around this and a few other threads i spilled a rant here on shadows and taboos here is a piece that seems to relate to this thread... ... VPW said that he somehow solved "The mystery" of Christ when it seems more likely that Mystery IS the nature of the mind of Christ how the capacity to accept our radical degree of ignorance and our radical depth of choicelessness and how very little freedom we have ever had in this world is the beginning of real freedom, real choice and real knowledge our own vast field of ignorance is often our most important teacher and guide...simply for being THE MOST our most important foil...and we are to "invite the demons to tea-time" if we ever want real lasting peace such Mystery (the so-called "whore") is the playground of children of God as much as a newborn's earliest discoveries will happen in the geography and terrain of their own mother's body Mystery is a universal factor that we are to stop resisting the unknown is going to teach us more than the known and failure is going to teach us more than success and a position of surrendering to such a space of grace is going to get us farther than a position of control we all ultimately return there anyway might as well practice now research your limitations research your ends we never chose that which we dont know we never chose that which terrorizes us the most

started typing a short response to this interesting thread but my fingers exploded instead i am not as good at participating in threaded conversations as many of you are so i started this thread in the dungeon on shadows and taboos and such here is a snippet that seems to relate the most... ... as it pertains to VPW's kind of approach to research and whatever similar habits we have it seems that the books and doctrines and philosophies we ignore, reject, avoid may tell us more about our spiritual approach and condition than that which we seek the ones we react to with anger and fear and prejudice are perhaps the ones that will teach us the most in the end for example...such as the way VP went on a crusade to india to convert the heathen without ever really being interested in grasping the wide variety of depth and span in indian thought and practice it seems he never did learn much about silence or stillness...or any of the "noble truths" of Buddha instead...almost always finding ways for us to fill the space with activity, noise, distractions and other busy-ness he would done well to break bread with a vedantist, or advaitist and actually compare recipes by practicing...as in tasting, touching, handling it may have helped keep him from being so driven by his impulses and so concerned with his needs and wants i doubt he ever read deeply into any of the philosophies and religions he claimed to trump before running off to fix and heal (and judge and condemn) them a huge part of his whole spiritual claim involved basically scrubbing away 2000 years of global spiritual discovery and inquiry as well as most all previous spiritual thought prior to that i doubt he knew how soaking wet with inter-cultural influence every world scripture is and how that is a GOOD thing...not some sign of impurity or unholiness not that we have to somehow research every book ever written to be good or wise but at least get a genuine idea before going on a white-horsed salvation mission and yes...sometimes it may take many years of looking into such things before being able to wrap our cognitive arms around them or perhaps even before finding someone who actually represents some sense of historic version of a tradition and this is perhaps more and more true as history unfolds and while burying all old things in some pop-version simply adds more and more pages to what has been known and said about this that and the other layers and layers of truths and meanings hiding in the shadows of our own taboos perhaps this is why the real saints were real patient

apologies for somewhat of a long rant.... some things seem worth stretching out a bit and i tried to break it into pieces ... this started as a reply to rascal's thread on Wiewilles *research* but quickly outgrew a reasonable length feel free to respond, or just read, reflect, or whatever ... so often, it seems...perhaps even naturally we are told and somehow conclude that "seeking the light" is somehow some "the ultimate way" to truth, goodness, beauty, etc... but it also seems that a big part of the message of those who have gone before us such as Jesus and others is NOT to seek light or NOT to seek a light that is somehow elsewhere and seperate and outside of our selves but rather an overlooked part of the message is to BE light our self which requires, of course, that we first try to find a Way to Witness our selves AS beings light (and not merely poetically, or merely figuratively...but literally seen, felt and otherwise known) as if light has no need to simply seek more light but rather...how light is uniquely qualified at fearlessly leaping face-first like a fool into DARKNESS ...an unthinkable act of madness to our conventional terrorized minds ... an old notion that points to this is how "the shadow is golden" ..meaning: when and where we find our personal border with the unknown... ...THAT is where our greatest lessons in life will be found and the only way we will ever be free is to be as light..and simply enter the darkness and THAT is our highest priority, especially as it pertains to "loving our neighbor" and otherwise lessening our negative impact in the world in general if we say there are no shadows inside us we are simply always wrong as there is no end to the depth of any one of us and therefore no end to the possible texture and interplay of light and darkness ...the not-as-yet-enlightened regions we are not to merely "box with shadows" but rather notice them...touch them...enter them ...and with hope...heal them as if we become more and more whole...as we add to ourselves that which is already in our self often simply by noticing them like how...in the blink of an eye...the mindset of Christ returns to us as lightning flashes and thunder roars the simplest shift and flicker of our attention can make a profound difference ...one that ripples and reverberates outward from within ...detangling and untangling our messiness ... "leaning into the pain" is another similar phrase where the texture and detail of our suffering (not pleasure, or bliss..and stuff we want or like) is the path to becoming free and the way to find authentic change and transformation we cant go around we can only go through and to ignore our suffering or shadow is the fast track to causing more suffering and darkness in the world there is no such thing as a private hell for all suffering radiates ... VPW said that he somehow solved "The mystery" of Christ when it seems more likely that Mystery IS the nature of the mind of Christ how the capacity to accept our radical degree of ignorance and our radical depth of choicelessness and how very little freedom we have ever had in this world is the beginning of real freedom, real choice and real knowledge our own vast field of ignorance is often our most important teacher and guide...simply for being THE MOST our most important foil...and we are to "invite the demons to tea-time" if we ever want real lasting peace such Mystery (the so-called "whore") is the playground of children of God as much as a newborn's earliest discoveries will happen in the geography and terrain of their own mother's body Mystery is a universal factor that we are to stop resisting the unknown is going to teach us more than the known and failure is going to teach us more than success and a position of surrendering to such a space of grace is going to get us farther than a position of control we all ultimately return there anyway might as well practice now research your limitations research your ends we never chose that which we dont know we never chose that which terrorizes us the most ... which is pretty much the exact opposite of what we are typically taught in modern mainstream religion and even the more cultish twists on the mainstream (such as twi) as well as business, medicine, politics, and other fields so it seems no wonder why the message from the holy freaks to the mainstream is "repent!" as if to say/shout/warn/beg "stop what you are doing, and turn completely around and go the other direction" stop trying to fix and save the world when your very own colorful insides are invisible to your very own self ... as all this pertains to VPW's kind of approach to research and whatever similar habits we have it seems that the books and doctrines and philosophies we ignore, reject, avoid may tell us more about our spiritual approach and condition than that which we seek the ones we react to with anger and fear and prejudice are perhaps the ones that will teach us the most in the end for example...such as the way VP went on a crusade to india to convert the heathen without ever really being interested in grasping the wide variety of depth and span in indian thought and practice it seems he never did learn much about silence or stillness...or any of the "noble truths" of Buddha instead...almost always finding ways for us to fill the space with activity, noise, distractions and other busy-ness he would done well to break bread with a vedantist, or advaitist and actually compare recipes by practicing...as in tasting, touching, handling it may have helped keep him from being so driven by his impulses and so concerned with his needs and wants i doubt he ever read deeply into any of the philosophies and religions he claimed to trump before running off to fix and heal (and judge and condemn) them a huge part of his whole spiritual claim involved basically scrubbing away 2000 years of global spiritual discovery and inquiry as well as most all previous spiritual thought prior to that i doubt he knew how soaking wet with inter-cultural influence every world scripture is and how that is a GOOD thing...not some sign of impurity or unholiness not that we have to somehow research every book ever written to be good or wise but at least get a genuine idea before going on a white-horsed salvation mission and yes...sometimes it may take many years of looking into such things before being able to wrap our cognitive arms around them or perhaps even before finding someone who actually represents some sense of historic version of a tradition and this is perhaps more and more true as history unfolds and while burying all old things in some pop-version simply adds more and more pages to what has been known and said about this that and the other layers and layers of truths and meanings hiding in the shadows of our own taboos perhaps this is why the real saints were real patient

amen

seems somewhat related to the thread and my post... ...did a search on the word "study" ...noticed an overlooked version of "study" in the overlooked 1 Thess 4:11 and found a notion of being "seated" that ive never heard of in TWI nor in our postmodern mainstream western industrial strength christianity quite a white rabbit to follow around the epistles such as...

wow :lol:

not 'biblioxeniophobia' nothing googles but that about sums it up for me

welcome to the GSC, Brushstroke since leaving TWI in 1997, i have spent a number of years studying (and studying with) with leaders and people of many different faiths (as well as "non-faiths")and some of my inter-religious studies were in the context of the history of hospice, rites of passage, and states and stages of consciousness in general...i highly recommend regularly questioning one's faith as a necessary component of one's spiritual practice and i'll just say, that taking the perspective of another happens via quality dialogue ...which happens via quality dialogical inquiry ...which is like Jeffsjo wrote..."good questions" for example...there are centuries-old dialogical art forms that utilize what are called "open and honest questions" where, what makes them genuinely "open" and/or "honest" is honed and practiced to a high degree and applied in all forms of mediation and peace-making...as well as in one's private prayer life and... as ive often mentioned around here in the past it seems to me that the biblical "speaking in tongues" has at least something to do with higher forms of dialogue (thus higher forms of inquiry) that allows and facilitates authentic inter-religious discovery as well as deeper inward discovery ... here are a few writers i can recommend... Karen Armstrong Zalman Schachter-Shalomi Bede Griffiths and i can highly recommend this unique book on the subject... The Common Heart all space and grace... +ODD

Jen-o ...i am really sorry, i just dont feel i have the time or energy to engage in all this in the ways you seem to want to and i feel that we have not come to very many clear agreements as to how this message board/discussion forum is supposed to work or what we expect of each other here...and i think this can add to frustrations maybe some other day...ok? in all space and grace... +ODD

please just ignore me, jen-o

dakota..plz permit me to reflect and refract a tad more... this says a lot to me about your experience..and such experiencesand how one can be rooted and grounded in that which is NOT our positive emotions and mindsets and our own biology deepening our appreciation of all of the above which is not love or even Love not a mere grasping wanting needing kinds of love or mere conceptual intellectual theological theoretical kinds of Love but perhaps simply LOVE of a higher wider deeper kind that is embodied experienced and felt ...when all else fails such as when beliefs and faiths fail and when the stories we tell about truth fail even time fails as if by experiencing a sense of profound loss do we realize that which never leaves us when every thing and every one becomes out of the way enough we can see clear enough and hear clear enough that which had never left and never leaves ...this extra ultra ordinary Love often also called God who has no opposite and includes everything indeed ...like breaking a seal on a one way trip of many seals

Dakotawind...though you were responding to vickles who started the thread i personally want to say thanks for posting everything that you did in my understanding...those who experience "death's door" and are transformed by it bring us the most authentically spiritual kinds of insights that are more closely related to the messages of All the world's saints and sages in and out of scripture thanks again ... and yeah...very good points cman like how being pushed/pulled through a process by grace is NOT the same as being "born again by works" being born is a many stage process that we did not ask for (as is both life and death) and we have no choice but to work hard and participate in the entire process even if we resist...our egos are dragged along the way it seems the "works versus grace" arguments are often both severely limited to an "either/or" position ...when a "both/and" position seems more likely like how...if we did not ask for the works than the very works themselves are also a gift of grace, no? by Grace its still One faith with many possible stages ...and a whole garden of work nonetheless...Grace is still the ground and foundation of all the work ... hi steveo i hope you mind but your post inspired a bit of a rant (this coffee helped a bit too) 1 word from each paragraph of your post... ...clear ...nothing ...space cuz according to scriptures (and the depths of most all the world's religious traditions) God is an infinite, everpresent, formless, timeless, invisible, spirit and any image of God is merely an idol...right? yet oddly enough...while we have no problem likening the beautiful view from space to God's view ...we still seem to have a problem likening God to space "it's self" as if generations of dogma and myth have conditioned us to give some sort of concrete form to God some sort of imageness some sort of ITness or thingness or human personality but if God is Spirit and Spirit is spacious and we are created in God's "image" then perhaps we too are essentially fundamentally beings of spaciousness/spirit and are only temporarily identified with matter (flesh, thoughts, feelings, etc...) but are destined to return to that very same spaciousness we came from and the journey from spirit to form back to spirit again is the trip of a life after all...God "spoke" to Job from the eye of the whirlwind, no? like all the things we find beautiful were caused by the center of a "black hole" like agape...unconditional love ...this vast vast clearing we find ourselves in is what simply allows everything to be everything everything everything is IN a vast vast space and space is IN everything just as scriptures declare that we are IN God and God is IN us it is IN God that we move and have our being as if stillness, silence, emptiness causes movement on the face of the deep and as "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" the ultimate beholder is the "eye of God" ... imagine...what if we were to view creation from the perspective of the space/spirit that we already always are? or even simply view our physical body from the space that our body is in? is it possible that when we Witness the universe (or our body) from the spaciousness deep within (and there certainly is plenty of space within each of us) that we are Witnessing the universe (or our body) from the perspective of "the Spirit of God?" ... in other words... perhaps No thing started it ...literally

sorry Jen not trying to mislead anyone and i dont think the born/conceived differences are as cut and dry as you claim (check mat 1:20 for example..where "conceived" is the word "gennao") nor do i feel your "bunch of crock" assessment of stages is very informed ...or civil and that was what i was originally trying to respond to but i do feel it is quite pointless to continue ... as we obviously do not use the same methods of knowing and i dont want to waste any more of your time or mine going round and round i hope we can just part ways and call it good peace?

thats ok with me Jen btw...did you know that word for "born" in the epistle of Peter is actually the word for conception? likewise in the 3rd chapter of John and so... if there are stages between conception and birth... and both Jesus and Peter are speaking of the point of conception and not the point of birth... ? ... btw...i italicized the last line to point out the elitism of Jesus (and his mysterious "we")

yeah...he had profound experience that changed his lifebut that is a very crude reduction of his entire life experience even without a teacher or guide...painful experiences in life have a profound way of waking people up to radical states and stages of consciousness some of the most profound realizers in this world woke up because some horrible experience or condition simply shattered the ego's hold on the mind being able to read beyond taboos...and being well read in contemplative traditions simply help find languages for the experience what terms or terminology are you lost in? contemplative and esoteric are the only uncommon terms i used ...and they arent that hard to figure out, are they? it seems so. and not much different than TWI's formulas. ...which is like the magical thinking of a 2 year old ...contemplative spirituality is more or less the direct opposite of all that it is partially about resting in a very big subjective field...and simply noticing what is and uses words like surrender, witness, being, no-mind, etc... it is a feminine motherly approach to wisdom (not female...but feminine as in a descending dove) and has more to do with disciplines of silence, observation, listening, feeling, etc... than preaching, thinking, acting, etc... related to both sophia and agape which is why the rich history of contemplative spiritually is very closely tied to the end-of-life experience such as hospice, and grief work, and rites of passage surely not a calling for slouches or people who seek only comfort and safety and happiness where many of the monks and nuns (east and west) learned to live lives of contemplation in order to serve those who are in the most radical of transitions ...imagine practicing being silent and still for hours every day...for years and trying to staying awake and aware! sound familiar? new age is often about saving and fixing and fleeing death and suffering...seeking safety and peace for one's self or one's favorite group of people ...contemplatives learn most from the pain and shadows of the human condition in order to help alleviate suffering they lean directly into the textured and often painful wilderness of thought, feeling, consciousness, dreams, visions, etc... as opposed to controlling thought in order to get stuff and things and be happy and safe sometimes people are initiated into greater contemplative awareness by situations of life and sometimes people are initiated by an elder, or teacher, or rabbi, or guru but the world has many rich legacies of contemplative practices and teachers and methods ..like i said...almost always connected to the art of dying...where everyone becomes spiritual for the most part...our culture and media flat out rejects any difference between very noisy very busy mythic religion and the deeper traditions of actual contemplative practices and disciplines

jen here is a definition for "measure" in the verse you referenced it is a neuter noun...in other words...it seems to say that we are all given a way to measure faith and the mind of christ is a full-spectrum affair.... not a simple black and white model ...The Reveletion seems clear on this (rainbows around the head of Christ?) because you are claiming that this is the only best view...and some other views are "a bunch of crock" like i said...your position is common but suffers from a major hypocrisy ... also...i did not say your system was 2-step because you referenced scripture ...read slower maybe it is because there are only simply 2 steps to your position on faith step one = no faith (as you define it) step two = faith (as you define it) and you are claiming to represent step two which is also the only top and because you deny there is anything higher while claiming not to have all the answers..oddly enough ... also...jesus did compare faith to mustard seeds ...which becomes a tree and being born again is patterned after the first birth ...which includes stages but...is faith somehow separate from the new birth process? ... and huh? jesus states that he hates spiritual elitism?!? but it seems he knew the difference between those who could understand his parables ...and those who could not we cannot develop or improve on God's gifts?!? ...faith without works is dead ...faith is tried seven times ...more a "biblical worldview?!?" i tell ya ive spent a lot of time looking at worldviews and a lot of time studying the bible with people of a variety of backgrounds and worldviews and i cant help but say "nope" to your claim of having a "biblical worldview" imo, if there is such thing as a "biblical worldview i would hafta say that it (at least) must be willing to include and compare all worldviews about the bible we cannot cut off most all of 4000 years of global human experience and thought and expect to know squat about that book we cannot ignore all the other religious texts of the world and claim to know how wrong they are the contents of the bible was influenced by many many beliefs...and i do not think this is a bad thing ... not sure what else to say Jen except that yours seems a difficult position to defend

oh cmon rhino you know that if you could you might tell the world what you believe and why.. and the experiences that led to such realizations and what you think life is about and how to find peace and such and maybe even get paid a little for your trouble besides... if you were really good at such a thing and in demand ...is everyone going to come to your house or something? bring their own recorders? ... does not surprise me that a critter like Tolle is popular with new agers and though his message is potentially an antidote to the mess of "The Secret" his message is sure to be twisted into a mess by some new-agers and others ..as well as by the Fox writers ... that article reads like a way mag critique of something out of the writer's league Oprah does seem to get it...and i hope she can tell the difference between "The Secret" and Tolle's work ... Tolle's message really is in a different class than modern new age "gimme-gimme" stuff stuff ...more of a post-modern synthesis of many esoteric contemplative wisdom traditions (yes...even jesus was deeply esoteric and deeply contemplative) and i feel Tolle really has done a good job of interpreting/translating the original common heart of most of the world's old religions in the form of what is often called "pointing out instructions"...as all the ancient rabbis and gurus and such used which is something that is not typically discovered naturally in life but has to be taught by someone who was taught from having been developed over many generations ..like any good bread recipe ... but a big problem with mentioning this idea these days is... that our language and media has been going headfirst into an extreme post-modern phase for almost 50 years which basically means that in our passion to equalize everything for everyone we reject the value of certain range of important critical distinctions not exclusively, but often in terms of consciousness and other subjective variations which then blinds us to many important differences in religious thought and behaviour where we have almost no way of recognizing the difference between authentic wisdom and magic ...or between functional historic religious practices and modern religious dysfunctional cultic fantasies thus, many have fallen into narcissistic ambiguity of a billion private little religions that are mostly empty of any historic connection to an actual functional practice, or discipline sadly, we stopped being interested in such things many generations ago ...yet continue to use all the languages and texts (not just bible, either) ...and all this in a sea of utterly failing religious institutions where all we have are the many many bad examples ...thus all the cynicism God help us unless we use different words...use words differently...or make up new languages or something else we may be stuck here a very long time

hi Jen-O honestly, not to single you out but your argument is a common one as odd as this may sound it seems to me that you have just declared your own 2-stage faith system ...one that puts you at the top of your own spiritual hierarchy all the while denying the value of any stage or hierarchy i mean...you are the one who referenced a measure...or yardstick of faith ...that we each have so... what relationship does faith have to a device with notches? one that every being potentially has? i mean, is it possible we have an innate ability to measure faith as our faith grows? heck..even trees form in stages...and have layers the atmosphere formed in stages...and now has layers the earth formed in stages...and now has layers there are certainly distinct and easily measureable stages of pregnancy is our faith so different than all these things? reminds me of a wise king's staff or the ancient caduceus of healing etc... represents the fullest range of something that is already always growing in each of us ... besides... is there something inherently wrong about something being eastern? it seems many eastern religions came out of abraham and seems to me that it is written that our own favorite jewish kid was fond of being where east meets west coming to us like a flash as when insight comes with solving that piece of the puzzle.. "oh...ah...duh...ok... the world is not flat and stationary but round and turning" quite a leap .. and besides ...whether we make a religion out of it or not we are all living somewhere in a caste system right now i am not so sure that systems and theories and sciences and philosophies and studies that deal with stages of faith (or cognition, or values, etc..) are in danger of causing extreme caste systems as widespread as some world-class religion ... and too... most stage development theories (and studies and disciplines, btw) view development in terms of overall human development over time such as the stages from birth to death i dont think its hard to point out the many very clear stages all humans go through as a baby..we had faith in something and by childhood...that shape of that faith had changed quite dramatically cursed seems the one who is an elder... and who whose faith has not grown and changed many times since childhood and i promise...your faith and mine is going to change yet again near and on our deathbed ... ultimately, it seems that most all sages and saints and rabbis and gurus and teachers of most all religious lineages all came from and then eventually met at the same place in their search for God which is what this thread seems to point to... ...the vast infinite invisible everpresent timeless formless God that simply cannot be found there are no true images of God..remember? yet within this vast spiritual ocean of Spirit it seems we are being pushed/pulled through a patterned chain reaction of very important mistakes in order to get back home and no matter how many steps we think there is on this journey no matter how many we feel we have experienced the first is the first is the first and the second is the second is the second and the third is the third is the third yada yada yada .. language eventually fails to hold such things ya know?

reminds me of a story... a boy wants to leave his village and experience the kingdom of the sun and so he asks his grandmother how to get there but she says she doesn't know but she tells him that the fox knows and gives him 7 pairs of moccasins so the boy wears out 1 pair of moccasins finding the fox and then asks the fox, "how do i get to the kingdom of the sun?" the fox says "i dont know, but the stag does" and so the boy wears out another pair of moccasins finding the stag who says..."i dont know...but the bear knows" and so on and so forth, from guide to guide, he ages, wearing out moccasins horizon after horizon ... seems to me... we make our first waves of leaps of faith before even knowing what a leap of faith is ...UNconsciously INcompetent we cant help but notice the next waves because they are leap-or-suffer situations ...consciously INcompetent we see the next waves coming so we learn to become better leapers ...consciously competent we then ride the waves as a ship where the capacity to leap from wave to wave is as vital as the quality of our vessel of faith ...UNconsciously competent ... great post indeed, Chuck it doesnt help that we were born into an age dripping with hi-anxiety...and no simple answers but guys our age have a few other strikes against us and yeah..we are quite radically lost which may be hard to admit, or describe but it doesnt seem hard to notice i suggest playing at learning to take some theological risks and look into spiritual practices that allow you to embody your relationship with God and the eternal (tai chi, for example..and things that involve the heart and breath, as well as the mind) actual spiritual practices that help you notice God NOW ...in spite of conditions ultimately...life is transforming against our will we are being pushed and pulled through...choicelessly this is the grace in which we are already always falling thru and into having been found here this, of course, is some kind of leap over a netless net and all pots eventually crack only to be reborn being saved from deaths is not quite the master plan

i think any ex-twi take on atheism, or any form of post-theism, could be unique and valuable to the ex-twi conversation as well as the larger non ex-twi conversation ...i dont expect much from the twi conversation "roots of religion" being valid...as P-mosh pointed out Seth... only an hour? yeah right i mean...you covered quite a wide multi-layered layered swath of territory with your opening post an hour a week is barely gonna scratch the surface for what its worth...i say ...get some friends to set aside a long sunday afternoon (or whatever) and fiddle with the knobs for a while... i know im surely game for that kinda thing but do that first...and you may be able to eventually widdle it down to an hour heck...even a few hours gives enough material ...post-edit ...to produce an hour of podcast to publish

i often feel we could do well to play at a better synthesis of writing and talking and what Seth so graciously put out seems such a dense weave of significanct scope as usual...prompting me to pop off with one of these: a technical/logistical suggestion/request... someone/s of us please integrate the written and the live not only as a way to hold and juggle such a wide range of contexts (as the first post) but as a way to upgrade the re-readability, navigability and access to the document of the conversation ...and by "document" i include both audio and video ...perhaps even documentary possibly helping cut down on those, our 100-page threads that few may ever navigate like... do a skypecast..or talk shoe and make a radio show out of it experiment with a few formats blend the live discourse and live inquiry with the textual discourse and textual inquiry then talk about the pod cast on the forums and talk about the forums on the podcast ...maybe chat about both ive also often wondered how having such an occasion in optionally recorded, non-recorded, and partially recorded formats might give more cause and room for more to participate as well as cover bu++s ok, rant button off...

now there seems at least a book a Book and a BOOK STORIES Stories and stories here is a fresh batch of what i have found to be worthy and relevent words from the words of the word in the words from God about forgiveness and such... The Four Things That Matter Most The Common Heart Quakers Mustard Seed typing from work... i'll keep adding as they pop up and as the edit meter will allow or someone objects

hi jj thought i'd attempt to comment on this Well, isn't that what we're talking about? That was the basis of Ehrman's book. And isn't that what the bible teaches? an omnipotent and omnipresent spiritual being who has his hands in human destiny (figuratively speaking). no...this is not what i am talking about nor do i think this is what the bible is talking about the "entire chain of being" includes EVERY level of existance into the equation God is involved (and NOT-involved...as The Witness) in suffering at EVERY level of being...from mineral, to vegetable, to animal, to human animal, to machine ... an anthropocentric view of God IS a hallmark of the mythic worldview...where we give God human parental features which should not be too hard to understand, given that the mythic worldview first arises when we move out of selfishness and discover FAMILY for the first time (when we leave early childhood) cultures experience the same stage of development...when they moved from the self-centered power gods (such as pharoahs) and gathered as tribes around a greater mythic familial bond in a mythic worldview...the suffering of our immediate human family is more important to us than any other suffering...our view of suffering (and response to suffering) is limited...partial...not whole ...So, in the end you're saying there is no real answer to the question? at least not one we are currently equipped to answer? no. i am saying what i wrote... that the answer is, at least, all at once...objective, interobjective, subjective and intersubjective and "we" can become equipped to answer as "we" open our "eyes" to each of these natural normal native perspectives of course, not sure what you meant by "we," but i suppose i mean individually or collectively