sirguessalot

thanks socks...i hope you dont worry about me too much, tho i think the main difference i want to point out is that there were not 10 elder Pauls tough loving some 19 year old all at once i dont think Paul was talking about that greater skillful means on the part of the elders, i think ...or we may end up with 100 pages of thread and increased bitterness and confusion and misunderstandings

i'm deeply appreciative of that post, CM and your vouching for me its hard to tell sometimes why people dont reply without feedback, we can be quite invisible, it seems

thanks for that link, Mark in spite of it having the typical wordiness that comes with varying degrees of exclusivities and orthodoxies and whatnot..i can read past that ...and still reading, but here is a snippet that reads well alongside this thread

nevermind... not as easy to say as i thought, without coming across like a jerk i just hope you guys can find better ways to dialogue with ck without just driving him deeper into whatever he is into or losing your own peace by trying too hard to fix something about him good luck

haha...too funny, Roy. yes, indeed. let's throw em a ball to chase. what a useful image. and very glad to see ya around. hi Allan, thanks for joining in well...i'm not really exactly sure what you mean by all this. but it sounds like you want to know what the purpose for the ideas on that other thread is if so..i would say the purpose is the same ole usual thing ...for greater wisdom, discernment, knowledge, etc... depending on the intention of whom you believe developed the tool, i suppose although...as a tool, a large part of its purpose also comes from the purposes/intents of the tool user in which case, i couldnt possibly answer the question although...i bet there is a wide spectrum of purposes possible that's like asking "which is more powerful, air or a sword?" does air care if a sword slices it in half? does the sword care if the air parts easily? i would say that if both loves are in play both win at the end of the day but if only one love is in play both lose at the end of the day although ultimately, there is no end of the day that is not also the beginning of another of course, in eros, we may not always like that idea because we will prefer some sort of clear-cut happy ending but in agape, we cant help but love it...because we have no choice but to accept what is and much like you said...the masculine is purposed to eventually bring us to the feminine which is if/when the masculine lovedrive finally realizes the limitations of activity-alone and so sits down, shuts up, and is no longer deathly afraid of the radical stillness and silence it finds and is no longer afraid of losing...it also wins and if so...again, much like you said...heaven and earth will never be same

i would say it probably started prior to Jesus's life but was expressed quite nicely in "the ascension scene" when they still seemed to mistake the actual interior path in which Christ taught them to enter heaven for that which they saw in the exterior and the M.I.W. ("Men In White") tried to help them out but that is a whole nuther thread, it seems (or maybe not)

revvel for your consideration.... i think it might help to reconsider the scriptural promises of future events ALSO in terms of your own/my own/their own/our own personal possible interior events but if they are still only exterior future events FOR YOU... well..that explains that one quite well what else could you believe? same ole ongoing mistake, imo which is not some moral failure or anything, imo just a critical miss the lake of fire = a love of God that is HERE and NOW tho it might hurt like hell HERE and NOW tho, it would be nice if everyone in the world realized this HERE and NOW cuz then Christ would truly return to the whole world no...not as a magic superman man from the sky but as the interior reality waiting to be born i just love the imagery of Scripture, tho the book of rev is like a good children's coloring book, imo but considering the vastness and complexity of belief structures many fundamental christians build it must be a huge huge job to restructure or rearrange all those scriptural interpretations peace

My intentions for this thread are more towards an impression from a synthesis of my own ongoing studies and practices and observations rather than any sort of dogmatic set of laws and rules but not in the form of a long drawn out lecture but rather, a small primer to evoke collaboration and a way of stirring the embers of our souls ...cuz i prefer to draw out detail via interaction and interest so...consider it an offering of bread in a temple, if you will and a doodling in this here electric sand feel free to join in or comment :B) i'll start with a problem i've come to understand which is a common lack of a valid and useful distinction in contemporary doctrines whether it is by ignorance or avoidance or something else we too often seem to avoid talking about spiritual doctrines and practices in terms of sexuallity as if they are somehow not related or simply not valid imo, this cannot be farther from the truth and a huge misconception that is most likely another major underlying cause (to go with my thread on "Looking Beyond a Monochromatic Faith") for modern society's many struggles and fragmentations of the soul :huh: ok...to see if i can get a ball rolling... one of the simplest way i've come to understand this valid and useful distinction of "spiritual sexuality" is by looking at love itself as having masculine and feminine ways about them the masculine aspect of love (eros), being that which thrusts, drives, climbs, reaches, struggles, tries, acts the feminine aspect of love (agape), being that be that which surrenders, gives up, fails, falls, stops, ceases eros ascends and reaches for heaven, perfection, purity and safety agape drops and descends all the way to hell and suffering and darkness and regardless of what specific word or label a preacher or minister or teacher might use to describe their idea of the perfect love this simple distinction of action and non-action is typically the most obvious, in spite of the claims and in a multitude of ways, too (as both eros and agape rise and fall in their own spectrum) most blatant these days...is whenever a doctrine seems overly focused on getting stuff from God which is also typically associated with obsession with father-figures and brotherhoods and accomplishment, success, attainment, victory, winning, and saving people, yada yada yada i think that the most spiritual damage is done in people's lives when men (and women) pawn off this masculine erotic lovedrive as agape regardless of whether the context is religion or science or something else this, in fact, seems more like any classic notion of "anti-christ" as in...the extreme archetypical one who seeks only heaven and became more and more unbalanced and afraid of that flaming sword and so his hell simply gets deeper and deeper and hotter and hotter the closer he gets to "God" but, in a general sense... we are naturally consciously interested in eros before we are interested in agape but once we finally realize agape, and it becomes our habitual first step the value of eros is redeemed, because free-will (agape) finally precedes action when the enmity transforms into romance, once again ok... what i am wondering are things like: does anyone resonate with this? and/or has something to contribute? doctrinally, practically, experientially, whateva? or...is anyone interested in hearing more about the idea? perhaps, in another voice or style besides what ive used here? doctrinally, practically, experientially, whateva? or...does anyone think i should shut the heck up b4 i attract devil spirits and/or cause delusion? or...?

yeah...Gardner has a lot of good stuff to say...not to mention how many other often radically different fields of study and practice have benefitted from plugging his kind of work into theirs and too, perhaps, consider this, in light of my monochromatic thread...how each line of intelligence evolves/develops/grows through a spectrum of stages...yowza but too, if one wanted to get away from the "spectrum" idea for whatever reason (smacked around by dwarves with rainbow baseball bats, perhaps), one could still consider each of these lines in terms of pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional stages of growth...to use more conventional terminology i mean, the possibility of a comprehensive psychograph and its corresponding stages and shadows gets pretty interesting real quick...but i also think this is getting into some emergent psycho/spiritual esoterica that very likely comes across as mere hooky-pookism in this venue...or simply too complex to hold, and so rejected...and i dont want to lose more friends than i already have for coming across like a know-it-all smart-a$$...I'd rather write poetry but i tell ya...i still find it somewhat amazing how much overlooked and amazing stuff has been written in the past century along these lines...not to mention the even more amazing stuff that has already been written in THIS century

mr strange...yes...there are some radically extreme feminist movements romping about in this world and quite a variety of them, too and giving some of the more balanced feminists a bad rap, of course same could be said of just about any valid -ism though, it seems the world has gone quite mad, it seems and the madnesses themselves also seem to evolve fasten your seat belts, i guess :blink:

ok sorry, Goey, truly i shoulda known better i really cant afford to provoke a wrestling match with you and more than anything, i just found it a bit humorous so nevermind...and i will also pass on your question carry on

here is a nice link on more of Gardner's work that relates to this thread most of it is kinda heady reading, but i think Gardner has made some of the most valuable contributions to these subjects to date also, as dry as it might sound, the notion that each of our kinds of intelligence develops in sequential stages makes for valuable psychographic mapping...if one was into such a thing and what it takes to change our mind depends a lot on where our mind is at any given time of change the ways in which our beliefs transform (or not) are as numerous and as exotic as life itself but of course, something being exotic does not automatically put comprehension out of reach but rather, makes the task of classification a much broader one sometimes changing our mind might happen when a simple aha moment comes to us while reading a good book, other times it might be what happens when we lose someone we love in a tragic accident, other times it might be when a long drawn-out argument in our mind finally whoops our butt but overall, it seems as if there exists an evolving scale of effectiveness as to what triggers us to change minds as mankind naturally develops ever greater leverages in initiating such inward transformation from survival and suffering being the earliest causes for change, to when wise men and teachers learned how to very simply speak or write "living words," which had the capacity to change minds instantly...for those who were actually genuinely listening

not really, Goey i probably shouldnt have said anything but now that i have i'll give it a shot anyway it seems like you like to fight about certain stuff and particularly with Roy which i think i can understand but your manner is not gonna take this dialogue anywhere except to add layer upon layer of subtle accusations and it will probably just go til one of you quits which doesnt seem very wise, or biblical, or whatever but regardless i really hope Roy doesnt take any of your suggestive digs to heart i think you understand Roy's language and experiences as much as he is able to meet your demands ...which is not much at all thats what i was getting at..i guess

ya know...i still kinda wonder why some of the most vocal advocates of biblical absoluteness avoid this kind of topic, but will jump at the chance to argue doctrine on other threads, over the same old kinds of things :blink: anyway... like i've said before i think one of the biggest doctrinal and practical failures of fundamentalist efforts is the monochromatic nature of the doctrines it seems to severly dullen our ability to interpret life in general ...particularly on the same levels as those heroes of old whose writings and stories we seem to like to bash over each other's heads perhaps, because we are fundamentally unable to get beyond the need for flat, monolithic and absolute doctrines for such interpretation ...and they were not and "i dont understand why you think that way, therefore you are crazy/wrong/evil" has got to be one of the hallmark reactions of this monochromatic glitch that seems so rampant and it seems as if this kind of monochromatic reaction can happen in each "level" of a spectrum (not mere black and white...but more like red and black and white, or green and black and white, etc...) in other words... #1 might say to any of the others..."i dont understand why you aren't out for yourself like i am...so you must be crazy" #2 might say to any of the others..."i dont understand why you dont want to think the way my group does...therefore you must by deceived." #3 might say to any of the others..."i dont understand why you dont see the plain logic of my position...therefore you must be an idiot." #4 might say to any of the others..."i dont understand why you dont care about everything as much as i do...therefore you must be evil" etc... ... btw, Xena...part of your post reminded me of "supernumerary rainbows." i saw one in Missouri once, during this storm at dusk...and wow...it was like an infinite stack of purple and teal bows behind the main double rainbow. i almost fell over looking into it.

lol...i cant tell who is in over their head more...Roy or Goey

my 2 cents... "sexuality," perhaps, is a better place to start than mere "sex" when it comes to discussing man's inhumanity to man and the causes of most all forms of masculine violence (not to mention why some seem to enjoy the prolonging of various forms conflict) sorry if not relevant enough to this thread...just thought I'd mention it peace

there is I and there is IT but what is often overlooked is the value of the WE imo, an honest comparison of experiences is a good practice that will give us good doctrine which is the gift of an authentic WE-space if we can find, or make, such a clearing but to speak of the beauty, goodness, or truth of experience only in terms of I and/or IT is to miss an important perspective which is a common sort of mental trap

Thanks for joining in this thread, Xena Very much enjoyed what you wrote, and hope to see you around I only have a sec to make a brief comment on this... although i want to say that i think we are speaking very simply of many radical complexities and i would even take what you wrote a step further to say this: that "faith #7" does MORE than just circle back around but rather, is "a faith" in the GROUND (yes...which is pure and innocent) that was there/here all along in a sense...#7 is a step backwards and outwards and is both above AND below as it always was and always will be and in a sense, it is that which is both OUTSIDE and WITHIN the continuum and yes...most easily and often seen at the threshholds of birth and death .. Danny...thanks for sharing that one

imo, as with experience, the simple feeling of being is much more valid than we realize, e we have so many kinds of intelligences in each of us and one of the most overlooked (and often feared) by the masculine concept-heavy world is the intelligent value of feelings and how much better we can learn to interpret and RE-interpret our experiences of them man o man...i wish i had the hours and days to explain what i mean in more meaningful ways maybe some day soon

what about our experiences of doctrine? i mean, more or less, we experience doctrines just as we experience our thoughts or feelings, no? if we cannot trust our experiences for doctrine...how can we trust our experience OF doctrine? or of a book, of a feeling, of a dream, of a ghost, of a rainbow? what are the differences?

I hope this, from the Free Muslim Coalition might help you guys... ...to some degree or nuther ok, a few more Sufi Islam American Islamic Scholars Issue Fatwa Against Terrorism Islamic Extremist Terrorism on Wikipedia More Anti-terrorism Islam links Muslim Scholars Muslim scholars discuss role of faith in Peacemaking. (Muslim-American Activism). Imams and Rabbis - News btw..yes...there are obviously huge urgent problems in the world with fundamentalist CULTures more extreme than TWI ever was imo, its most always better to light a candle rather than curse the darkness

ha..i love this heerz another one for you, Cool... question...if the sustance of our ever deepening communions here are not actual coffee or are not actual brownies then what are they? what is the actual substance of that which we are sharing with each other? what are we putting in each other's "mouths"? i mean, if we are not actually joining actual hands what are we joining? some might say "then we are joining nothing" "and all these feelings and thoughts and dreams of each other are not real things" "and not worth much at all" hm... i mean, if all the usual mediums of communion are not present and yet we still commune...what does that tell us about what we really are? the fact that we will still commune via all these deeper and deeper pools of electric hypertext says a lot about a little i mean, just what is that substance we celebrate here on this thread? licking each other's heart with tongues of angels is not a mere figure of speech (unless it still seems to be, of course) if you are the holy ground that I walk upon then i would only be a holy man if i took off my shoes and walked in the sand of your soul with my naked and barest feet yep, even on a website forum among my peeps among my tribe what is different from twi this time...is that it is WE who are the actual living epistles

great thread great responses CW is in da house and as we continue move from cult to culture... here and here are a few links i thought some of yalls might enjoy

for the record... i have been very interested in the book of Mormon for a number of years now for a number of reasons as well as the various levels of Mormon histories and have visited locations in Salt Lake a number of times and always invite the "milk men" in when they stop by and they usually stay til the have to go so...enjoying where this thread is promising to go thanks to both Mark and TL i will mostly observe though

i like the word "tone," Roy, and how you've used it here a true Word of God, fer sure ... ok, heerz another tad ramble... when it comes to the difference between flesh and spirit sometimes i think they are also really one and the selfsame thing all of which can also be called Spirit perhaps the different between flesh and spirit is like the difference between hard and soft its just a useful way of describing opposite states of the same thing, which can also be called spirit but then i guess we are talking about different things with the same Word of God i think there is a wide variety of gradients between these extremes depending on how you chop the rope, like i mentioned above maybe we can say that there are countless gradients of flesh which eventually become soul...of which there are also many many gradients which also, eventually get thinner and lighter until they reach what we might call spirit which, perhaps, in this sense, is the only one of the classic three with no gradients at all in this one sense, Spirit is the clearing in which both body and soul exist and not only that, but the one and selfsame clearing in which ALL of our bodies and souls exist and i think that maybe when, knowing ourselves as also spirit, that we see that this body and soul as not two things at all but rather, two ends of one very complex thing... perhaps we will as much of this silly and useless conflict between the thinkers and feelers perhaps a big part of the false illusionary enmity will be removed from the concepts we rely on and i think that if most people were not so afraid of this clearing we might actually find the peace of God we've been looking for ... but "spirit" is just another Word of God, anyway what it means depends on how we use it depends on whom is using it and why and depends perhaps what section or era of the bible we are reading from or what genre, or era, or culture of spiritual literature we are referring to cuz sometimes it means the opposite of flesh sometimes it means that which is in flesh and everything sometimes is means something else entirely and then there is all that mountain of other stuff like other words in other languages used to describe the same darn thing ultimately, i think if you have no direct experience of what this or that kind of spirit is it is just a concept, and a myth, and perhaps a hijacked a translation of someone else's experience