Belief...believe it or not!

[I am...]

Quote from kjkent1:

That was some terrific sermon! Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime. Give a man the closing prices to the QQQQs for the next year and he'll own the universe.

LOL!

Very good kjkent1. You remind of of the lawyers...but in a good way! I see that you are alert to the potential of this knowledge.

However, even if you owned the entire universe, you would still only own about 1% of all existence. Secondly, we can truly own, only that which we can love. The greater your love, the more you will own.

Namaste,

Jesus

 

[Bitstream]

omfg...have to open new subforum in chit'n'chat for religious propaganda nutzcases.

sftagky jesus

 

[kjkent1]

Quote from I am...:

Very good kjkent1. You remind of of the lawyers...but in a good way! I see that you are alert to the potential of this knowledge.

However, even if you owned the entire universe, you would still only own about 1% of all existence. Secondly, we can truly own, only that which we can love. The greater your love, the more you will own.

Namaste,

Jesus

I see. Evidently there are about 99 other universes in all of creation. There's not much time left -- better buy now while there's still a selection of view lots available!

 

[I am...]

Quote from ZZZzzzzzzz:

I disagree that the faithful stop searching for answers, if they had all the answers, they would not need to look to God for guidance....

Greetings ZZZzzzzzzz! You remind me so much of the church of Laodicia, who were awake...except when they were sleeping. And to such a church - not you - I would say...


Although it is important to know and affirm your beliefs, I encourage you to develop faith beyond any limiting beliefs. When your beliefs are restricted by fear or founded on opinions and judgments, you will perceive little that is new. This causes a dwindling spiral of faith and consciousness. Fortunately, there is an alternative. Innocent perception becomes a way of life to those who seek in good faith to know life as it really is. Innocent perception is the heartbeat of freedom and the heart of a child.

When you live each day as if it were your first and only day, you will enjoy innocent perception. On the other hand, if you decided about life before you look at it, or filter your expectations only through past experience, you cannot have a direct unbiased perception of what is before you.

There is actually a recurring cycle from perception, to consciousness, to belief, which in turn affects perception and consciousness. You are always experiencing something -- new or old. All of reality has been given to you. Your willingness to receive determines what you experience. What you perceive is the gateway to experience and the catalyst for belief. You were created to be aware and self-aware. You were also given free choice so there would be nothing slavish about your love of God or your perceptions of life.

Namaste,

Jesus

 

[I am...]

Quote from nononsense:

You can't be blamed for this as most 'modern' man indeed rattle day-in day-out about science and scientists without having the faintest notion about what constitutes scientific knowledge or who qualifies as a scientist.

Greetings brother nononsense! You remind me so much of the eleventh apostle, Bob. He was very simple, and to the point. He loved to hear me tell the story contained in the following parables...

All of man's illumined realizations began as innocent perception. One's learning progresses by way of simple verifiable perceptions. If complex concepts are to be taught, there must be reduced to simple images that are universal in meaning. For that reason, I often speak in parables --they contain a spark of timeless truth that adapts to the moment, place, and person.

Imagine a vertical shaft of love, will, and light passing through all stages of creation, providing an axle around which manifestation expands horizontally. This power turns the wheel of life. Now imagine a hub embracing the axle, extending spokes of light in all directions horizontally. These are the developing realities of life. As these spokes extend out from the hub, reality becomes more complex. At the rim of the wheel, cause and effect grind upon the pavement of physical existence. When you study only the rim and the complexities of physical substance, you become trapped in the horizontal extensions and have no way of gaining altitude or higher perspective. Innocent perception allows you to penetrate the veil of these manifestations and experience creation as if it were all happening NOW.

The manifestations of reality around us are marvelous, but they are the final stages of creation...not the means of it. If you study only the cycles of manifestation and consider them the result of prior manifestations, you will never find your way out of the labyrinth of illusion. Just because an object or function in life appears to be complex does not mean that your understanding of it must be. The secret is to look deeper, to a level of greater simplicity. When you observe manifestation as it is...neither adding to it nor subtracting from it...you may see the true order of creation and be freed from the perils of material existence.

There are, indeed, cycles of duration and dissolution within physical forces, forms, and things. It seems as though physical reality has its own unbroken lineage from which forms emerge and then adapt to the next requirement for survival. What you see, however, depends on your perspective. For example, rocks are formed from molten earth and shaped by other natural forces. Our consciousness of them and their purpose in the order of things does not come from the consent of those prior forces. Their value exists in a dimension of consciousness that considers them TO BE. Had consciousness not perceived the value of rocks and connected them with other forms of BEING in a useful way, molten earth would have become something else. When you say that YOU ARE, then you BECOME...not the other way around!

Namaste,

Jesus

 

[I am...]

Quote from kjkent1:

I see. Evidently there are about 99 other universes in all of creation. There's not much time left -- better buy now while there's still a selection of view lots available!

Indeed! There are many mansions in my Father's house. If you are in the market, consider the following selling points...

There are both open and closed systems in the universe, which represent the difference between life and death. Most inorganic matter functions within closed systems that have stabilized around symmetrical actions and reactions. A closed system may only experience change through tendencies toward disorder and loss of energy. However, alongside the closed system is a living universe of open systems ever moving from disorder to order, thus increasing in energy.

Only as you shift your thinking from objects to relationships will you conquer separation, and harvest the power of life. To know this power is to know the experience of caring. Just as you care for yourself, without reservation or enforcement to do so, when you extend that sense of caring to include all others, you will know the full measure of being alive. Our fixed ideas, isolating boundaries, and structures that decay result in much human suffering. Out of ignorance, man divides the perceived world into separate objects and categories of existence that he sees as fixed, but which are really ever adjusting aspects of life's fluid nature. Since organic life first appeared on earth, over 99 percent of all species have served their purpose and been absorbed into other or higher life forms. The river of life ever widens its possibilities and increases the complexity of its manifestations. At the foundation is simplicity.

It may shock you to know that all the world's bacteria have access to a single gene pool, which has provided an immense resource for adaptation and manifesting an array of breathtaking combinations and recombinations for three billion years! Any bacterium -at any time - has the ability to use accessory genes, provided by other strains, which permits it to function in ways its own DNA may not cover. The global trading of genes through DNA recombinations provides for almost endless adaptation possibilities.

Therefore, what has been done to one has been done to all. Widespread use of antibacterial agents is both futile and disastrous. Future life sciences and medicine will comprehend the more effective use of agents to stimulate positive adaptation of bacteria resulting in chains of supportive symbiosis. In the presence of love, these positive adaptations naturally occur. In the presence of hatred and fear, negative and resistant strains of bacteria are more likely. Life forms are ever changing, and yet the basic chemistry of life remains the same. Do not cling to forms that are passing, but seek for an understanding of life that embraces and includes all possibilities. This is accomplished through integrating and expanding patterns and relationships. In this way, you will see God as the creative power of life. When I asked that you love one another, I was not just giving you a recipe for human fellowship. This is the doorway to life everlasting.

Namaste,

Jesus

 

[I am...]

Bretheren,

Peace be with you!

Let me now return to the theme of this discourse, even though your plates are full at the moment. I may be gone a couple of days, so let this be food for thought while I am...I am!

I came to the world to empower faith and unleash a new dimension of consciousness never seen before.

Never would I lead you blindly into the unknown, guided only by mysterious belief.

I came to give you answers to life and keys to your unfoldment.

As humankind aspires to greater faith and consciousness, fear will be conquered. Fear is the foundation of all mis-belief. It is tragic that many who stake their lives and prayers on blind faith, also undermine their own faith with fear. On the other hand, when faith is an affirmation of one's certainty in life and a progression toward greater consciousness, fear subsides and the Holy Spirit may enter and perform miracles.

The problem here is not in the quantities of faith, for only a grain is necessary. The problem lies in knowing what faith is! Faith is not blind hope. Faith is the absence of fear. Without fear, there is a genuine surrender to all positive possibilities. This allows an expansion of consciousness. It adds conviction to belief. This is how faith and consciousness work together, one increasing the other.

While faith is the absence of fear, belief is a confirmation of faith. It is the certainty you have in what you know or consider to be true. This in turn affects your state of consciousness. Unfortunately, not all beliefs are positive, and many have been adopted without sufficient examination of what is true. Faith and belief are very misunderstood in modern world. They are often considered to be naive and irrational. Often this is true. Even so, beliefs are powerful. This is why they must be balanced with consciousness in order to be truly effective.

For many people, faith has no foundation in logic. Today so much of our logic is based on scientific, mathematical, and mechanical premises, that faith and belief are discounted as intuitive, emotional, and unexamined ideals created to make the mysteries of life bearable. If one considers faith to be an alternative to logic there will not be enough conviction or belief to generate miracles. Indeed, such ignorance about faith has often fostered great exploitation of people in their most vulnerable moments.

Two thousand years ago, faith was not a tranquilizer that masked one's fear of the unknown, and belief was not an alternative to logic and reason. To ancient man, belief was his assurance the sun would rise tomorrow. Faith was the 'North Star' by which he navigated without doubts to reservation. This is what I meant when I said, 'All things are possible to him that believes.'

When you consider the random possibilities contained in every situation, you will see that life's positive momentum could only be directed by consciousness and led by faith. In hindsight, you call it logic! Yet, faith is not blind, and beliefs are not addressed only to the unknown. On the contrary, true faith brings vision, and true belief serves to reveal that which is knowable. As a matter of fact, transmuting the unknown into the known is the supreme use of logic and the crowning achievement of faith. Without that foundation of understanding, you cannot appreciate how intrinsic is the connection between faith and consciousness.

Consciousness is more than wakeful perception of inherent awareness. Consciousness is the integration of perception, experience, knowledge, and aspiration to create a parable or analogy of life. These models of awareness support further thought to formulate intentional experience. It is the same, regardless of whether the object of consciousness is personal happiness or scientific precision. A meaningful story is a parable, and so is algebra! Both are models of awareness and refinements of belief, reconciled with truth and practical evidence. Without faith, however, such reconciliation could only occur through hindsight, and all advancement would be stifled.

Courage is the heartbeat of consciousness and fear its mortal enemy. What you will not face will elude you, or else it will erode or corrupt some part of your life in unsuspecting ways. Consciousness is the light of the soul. Therefore, darkness will avoid it or remain in the shadow of some external light. It takes great courage to be a light in the world and great faith to know that one ray of light may turn a darkened room into one that is safe to enter.

Namaste,

Jesus

 

[Aapex]

Quote from kjkent1:

I know a whole hell of a lot about U.S. History and the manner by which the South used the Old Testament to support the maintenance of slavery in America.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. People misquoting the text to suite their own means. The South used the Old Testament incorrectly. They to did not have a thorough understanding of ancient customes. In order to interpret the Bible one needs to know about the text and the ancient times that the Bible speaks about.

Since you have admitted that you don't know enough about ancient Biblical customs you would do well not to quote from the Old Testament until you fully understand it.

 

[Aapex]

Quote from kjkent1:

That was quite a mouthful, however it does not address my question or the issue.

Exodus 21 deals with the ownership of other persons as property. If God's law is perfect, as is stated in Psalms 19:7, and Moses gave the Hebrews God's law concerning the treatment those persons who were the property of others, then that law must also be perfect.

The inescapable conclusion to be drawn is that God condones the ownership of people as property of other people, i.e., slavery.

If this were not the case, then God would have commanded that the Hebrews set their slaves free, just as Pharaoh was commanded to set the Hebrews free.

But, God did not do so. Therefore, God condoned the Hebrews' ownership of slaves.

During the U.S. Civil War, advocates of the antebellum movement used Exodus 21 as a rationale for the maintenance of slavery. This same rationale continued to prevail in the South and has been advanced by many political leaders throughout U.S. history as a moral theory which advocates that slavery is condoned by God, under the Rules stated in Exodus 21.

The rationale continues to this day within the membership of the Ku Klux Klan.

My opinion of the above is simply that the Bible is not a perfect rendering, but is rather an interpretation by the men who wrote it, and therefore it cannot be read as the literal revealed truth of the Almighty.

If you are sincerely interested in teaching me what you believe and why, I would appreciate your direct response to the issue, rather than by means of allegory.

Quote from kjkent1:

Please address Exodus 21, in view of Psalms 19:7.

Quote from Aapex:

This is exactly what I'm talking about. People misquoting the text to suite their own means. The South used the Old Testament incorrectly. They to did not have a thorough understanding of ancient customes. In order to interpret the Bible one needs to know about the text and the ancient times that the Bible speaks about.

Since you have admitted that you don't know enough about ancient Biblical customs you would do well not to quote from the Old Testament until you fully understand it.

Why God's law in the OT seems to be so complicated and sometimes looks "ridiculous" from the our modern point of view ?

The demands of God's law have not changed, even a little. He still demands modern people perfect obedience to His law. Jesus coming did not change God's demands. Instead, Jesus fulfilled all of God's demands in His own person. He was the only human being to ever have perfectly, sinlessly fulfilled God's covenant. Because of this He is a perfect Savior. The blood sacrifices of bulls and goats in the OT were necessary to show how awful sin was to the Israelites. This demand has not disappeared. But those sacrifices only pointed forward to the true once for all perfect and sufficient sacrifice in Jesus. They had no saving power in themselves. But know this!!! God still demands the entire law be kept even now for all persons. Unbelievers must keep the whole law if they have any hope to be saved. But of course, such a demand is beyond the possibility of any man ... it is an impossible supposition because we are bent on rebellion ... and this is God's purpose in the Law, so that we might be conscious of sin (Rom 3:19, 20) and so that He might show mercy to us (ROM 11:32). Christ met the laws demands and so those who are in Him, who are united to Him by the Spirit, are accepted by God AS IF they themselves had fully kept the law. He counts us righteous in Christ because He obeyed all of those "ridiculous" laws. His life of perfect obedience to the law and His death which He was a lamb without blemish, were given for us, in our place. Otherwise we would be judged and receive the resurrection of the unrighteous.

Regarding slavery, Exodus 21:16 says

"He who kidnaps a man, whether he sells him or he is found in his possession, shall surely be put to death."

Deuteronomy 24:7 likewise says,

"If a man is caught kidnapping any of his countrymen of the sons of Israel, and he deals with him violently or sells him, then that thief shall die; so you shall purge the evil from among you."

In other words, slavery was not the same thing as the kind we saw in 19th century America where people went to Africa, kidnapped people and brought them home to sell them to the highest bidder. Such would be a capital crime in the OT, according to these passages. Instead, persons who were slaves were either paying off a debt, or persons who attacked Israel and captured in battle. You may have some problems with this but it is not the type of slavery we usually think of today.

Also, regarding polygamy, you may want to differentiate between what someone does and what God's law is. God nowhere gives us a law saying that polygamy is His will. But we do find some persons, even some godly, who engage in this practice. David was said to be a man after God's own heart (1 Sam. 13:14; Acts 13:22), but he did a variety of things that were not according to God's heart, i.e. he murdered Uriah the Hittite after committing adultery with his wife Bathsheba (2 Sam. 11:27).
That he practiced polygamy does not make it God's perfect will. Jesus points out that from the beginning (Genesis) that one man and one woman would become one flesh and so adultery was always wrong (Matthew 19:1-9). Therefore even the OT itself does not hold up polygamy as the ideal. While the law may have permitted polygamy in their weakness, but Genesis reveals this was not the ideal toward which the people were to set their faces toward. The ideal was the model of creation: one man and one woman in a monogamous relationship.

The Israelites moral system was intended to show that they were set apart from the nations who burned their children in the fire, engaged in sorcery, divinity, had orgies for worship, worshipped idols etc. When we look back from the 21st century and think we are somehow morally superior now, we are usually impressing upon our view of that time with our current erroneous ideas. We need to go back and see the reasons for things at that time rather than infusing our 21st century concepts backwards. We also need to look more closely at ourselves, because our behavior is not an improvement over any past era of history. If people think it is then they need to take a much closer look ... but I fear that our blindness will keep many of us from seeing it.

We all, without exception, deserve to be cut down, but God has shown mercy to us in Christ. Those who ultimately fail to acknowledge His righteous reign over them will still suffer the same fate as the Law required in the OT. Only now, God is exercising patience toward us, desiring that no one perish but all to come to repentance. God is not obligated to wait another second before executing His wrath.

 

[nitro]

Quote from ZZZzzzzzzz:

...Oh, and if you had an internal life of the type I speak of, you would know that real rigorous honesty has to do with being honest with oneself and the relationship with one's own spirituality, and has nothing at all to do with relationships with others.....

This is the message of God if there ever was one, but the Ego is too powerful for most men. There is a hierarchy of emotional power...

One thing about this line of reasoning thought Z10. Gandi confronted the British empire at the turn of the century and won through peace and humlity. It is unlikely that such an approach would have worked against Hitler.

If the devil in fact is a fallen angel, and evil does exist, these quailities in us that makes us ugly are as necessary as those that makes us beautiful. While the agressive preditorial qualities in us may not be "God" given, millions of years of evolution has shaped us so, and have likely saved us from Hitlers. But the day is coming where these very same qualities are our very own worst enemy. Strange dualities everywhere...

I do agree though that we are coming to an age where we must rein in our arrogance, for those qualities that we so admire and hold in high esteem like courage bravery strength agression etc will be our own undoing in a nuclear world.

In a strange way, those that cannot deal with you on ET, is an example of this failing for many of us each and every day.

nitro