Another God meeting. I am an omnivorous reader and have read various modern Buddhist writers (Alan Wallace, David Chapman, Daniel Ingram) about how if you faithfully applied Buddhist methodologies you could transform your awareness. This was decades after my conversion. One time I paused as I was considering this and said to myself, “I wonder what the Christian equivalent of all this is” Suddenly the personal specific love of God for specific personal me swept over me. I decided that was good enough for me. You know in Christianity it’s a sin to think you are God, in Hinduism it’s a sin to think you are NOT God, in Buddhism it’s a sin to think you are anything at all. My prayer for you is that you find what is called by Paul, “the simplicity of Christ” and when you “pray to your Father who is there in secret” as Jesus taught and modeled you meet and know the quiet love of God.
“See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ” Colossians 2:8 I call Jesus the grand anomaly as signified by his resurrection, who said to Paul when queried - “I am Jesus of Nazareth” This fact and his present accessibility is primal and primary and the base postulate of true philosophy.
I have been enjoying reading Holy is He Who Wrestles and commenting there. I perused what you have written here. I am so glad I am simple minded. Years ago I was pursuing enlightenment through a meditation system. A lovely Baptist maiden told me Jesus was the way to know God. I was at first miffed and then after a time of reading the New Testament (I said to myself as I read the Gospels, “ Who does this guy (Jesus) think he is!” and being exposed to some fine earnest Christians. Finally I knelt in the meditation center did the come to him, receive Jesus prayer and in the middle of it my eyes flew open at the sudden closeness of God and I exclaimed, “I have peace with God!” As it says in 1 John “Whosoever confesses Jesus as the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God, and so we know and rely on the love of God” It is really that simple, became like the woman who knew all she needed to do was touch of the hem of Christ’s garment.
Perhaps, rather than roll around in the speculative translations and potential meaning/interpretation/mis application/deceit/incompetence, etc, instead analyse the historical context and evaluate the texts in question and how we got hoodwinked (parapolitics included) and apply an interdisciplinary approach. What's the point of dissecting the wrong cow while searching for the origin of the holy spark in humans? Christianity and Islam rest on the original Rocky being a true rendering of Bilboa's life and endeavour. If the Oscar winning character is a fake, how can we and why should we believe he knocked out Drago. Does Ivan exist outside of the contextual narrative?
The King James Bible has as much to with the Tanakh or the Christ as the quality and content of my comments do with Fyodor, our dear author. Pursuing it is a sure way not to move or even budge. Let alone travel without moving.
Surely, the Bible is a part of our living hell. Both Testaments and the Quran included. The trap might be all around us, but if we forgo the cheese, we might, just, be in the clear.
I like the cut of the aforementioned Carlo's jib. He might be onto something from the select passages.
PS You can always charge €30 a pop, for a monthly crackle. Set up a pot for the less fortunate.
"The whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano-key!"
"But what can a decent man speak of with most pleasure? Answer: Of himself. Well, so I will talk about myself."
Couldn't decide which one, so I included only two.
I make sure to comment filter free, one could even call it inspired.
As a long time reader of your work, I find this approach, dissecting the Book of Job, tortuously limiting while recognising the importance of tackling the narrative. In a word frustrating. So, perhaps yes and yes would be a better suited response.
I suppose, as a hard core fan of Auticulture, I'm finding the current line of pursuit limiting. It's not your job to provide content for my liking of course. Nevertheless, I just realised I do have expectations. Might as well drop them.
Oh the ingratitude! It's doubly ironic since this post is built around not one but two responses to your own grapplings. Just goes to show, sometimes you can't please any of the people, any of the time.
OTOH: judging by the dearth of commentary here, you are not alone in feeling less than inspired. I wonder how/why looking at a Biblical text is less limiting than writing about Dave Oshana or Whitley Strieber? Haven't all my explorations, and all explorations anywhere, been "limited" by having a specific focus? & how would looking into the historical background of the Bible and it's many (mis)handlings (as compared to a literary analysis) be less limiting (esp since it would be all-the-more more limited by my own lack of qualifications)?
Yes, the Bible is part of our living Hell (as addressed above), but what isn't?
In short, something else is going on here Ced! Expectations have to do with one's own unlived life/unexpressed potential (maybe YOU could take an interdisciplinary approach to the parapolitical-historical background of the Bible?); added to whatever I (or Auticulture) symbolized or represented to you. Presumably something to do with the fearless and in exhaustible quest for truth and meaning.
So why not go to the most popular (and widely misunderstood and misapplied) source of truth and meaning?
Did notice the shout out. Certainly no pleasing me, at least most of the time.
Discussing Dave or poor Whitley definitely wouldn't be any more interesting. Can't even think of a topic that would be appealing. Perhaps I'm tired of words... I do understand the logic of focusing on specific material of course, but for some reason am put off by the choice of Job and the Bible. There's something to the fact that the Old Testament was written over centuries, in a dead language, translated to a language that died, intended for a small group of people, only relevant in a specific and tiny geographical region, that wasn't originally intended to represent Reality, that ires me so.
Something else is going on, as always. You might have hit the nail on the head as far as my unexpressed potential is concerned. That's a constant. I have taken the interdisciplinary approach, just never posted about it. It's a work in progress till death do us part it seems. Auti and CoJ are the only places I've ever made considered thoughts public on the www. Might have to take a break from commenting here since it's been quite unproductive, albeit sincere.
*Disclaimer: The above text was not inspired by anyone or anything, least of all meself.
Another God meeting. I am an omnivorous reader and have read various modern Buddhist writers (Alan Wallace, David Chapman, Daniel Ingram) about how if you faithfully applied Buddhist methodologies you could transform your awareness. This was decades after my conversion. One time I paused as I was considering this and said to myself, “I wonder what the Christian equivalent of all this is” Suddenly the personal specific love of God for specific personal me swept over me. I decided that was good enough for me. You know in Christianity it’s a sin to think you are God, in Hinduism it’s a sin to think you are NOT God, in Buddhism it’s a sin to think you are anything at all. My prayer for you is that you find what is called by Paul, “the simplicity of Christ” and when you “pray to your Father who is there in secret” as Jesus taught and modeled you meet and know the quiet love of God.
thanks.
There are two ends to every spectrum; this is "the place where faith and hubris meet"; being the ratio (Christ) means encompassing both ends...
“See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ” Colossians 2:8 I call Jesus the grand anomaly as signified by his resurrection, who said to Paul when queried - “I am Jesus of Nazareth” This fact and his present accessibility is primal and primary and the base postulate of true philosophy.
I have been enjoying reading Holy is He Who Wrestles and commenting there. I perused what you have written here. I am so glad I am simple minded. Years ago I was pursuing enlightenment through a meditation system. A lovely Baptist maiden told me Jesus was the way to know God. I was at first miffed and then after a time of reading the New Testament (I said to myself as I read the Gospels, “ Who does this guy (Jesus) think he is!” and being exposed to some fine earnest Christians. Finally I knelt in the meditation center did the come to him, receive Jesus prayer and in the middle of it my eyes flew open at the sudden closeness of God and I exclaimed, “I have peace with God!” As it says in 1 John “Whosoever confesses Jesus as the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God, and so we know and rely on the love of God” It is really that simple, became like the woman who knew all she needed to do was touch of the hem of Christ’s garment.
Perhaps, rather than roll around in the speculative translations and potential meaning/interpretation/mis application/deceit/incompetence, etc, instead analyse the historical context and evaluate the texts in question and how we got hoodwinked (parapolitics included) and apply an interdisciplinary approach. What's the point of dissecting the wrong cow while searching for the origin of the holy spark in humans? Christianity and Islam rest on the original Rocky being a true rendering of Bilboa's life and endeavour. If the Oscar winning character is a fake, how can we and why should we believe he knocked out Drago. Does Ivan exist outside of the contextual narrative?
The King James Bible has as much to with the Tanakh or the Christ as the quality and content of my comments do with Fyodor, our dear author. Pursuing it is a sure way not to move or even budge. Let alone travel without moving.
Surely, the Bible is a part of our living hell. Both Testaments and the Quran included. The trap might be all around us, but if we forgo the cheese, we might, just, be in the clear.
I like the cut of the aforementioned Carlo's jib. He might be onto something from the select passages.
PS You can always charge €30 a pop, for a monthly crackle. Set up a pot for the less fortunate.
"The whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano-key!"
"But what can a decent man speak of with most pleasure? Answer: Of himself. Well, so I will talk about myself."
Couldn't decide which one, so I included only two.
there's an oddly irascible tone to your comments here at CoJ... & a continuous refrain of what's the point?
Doth the cheese-seeker project too much?
Perhaps and perhaps.
I make sure to comment filter free, one could even call it inspired.
As a long time reader of your work, I find this approach, dissecting the Book of Job, tortuously limiting while recognising the importance of tackling the narrative. In a word frustrating. So, perhaps yes and yes would be a better suited response.
I suppose, as a hard core fan of Auticulture, I'm finding the current line of pursuit limiting. It's not your job to provide content for my liking of course. Nevertheless, I just realised I do have expectations. Might as well drop them.
Oh the ingratitude! It's doubly ironic since this post is built around not one but two responses to your own grapplings. Just goes to show, sometimes you can't please any of the people, any of the time.
OTOH: judging by the dearth of commentary here, you are not alone in feeling less than inspired. I wonder how/why looking at a Biblical text is less limiting than writing about Dave Oshana or Whitley Strieber? Haven't all my explorations, and all explorations anywhere, been "limited" by having a specific focus? & how would looking into the historical background of the Bible and it's many (mis)handlings (as compared to a literary analysis) be less limiting (esp since it would be all-the-more more limited by my own lack of qualifications)?
Yes, the Bible is part of our living Hell (as addressed above), but what isn't?
In short, something else is going on here Ced! Expectations have to do with one's own unlived life/unexpressed potential (maybe YOU could take an interdisciplinary approach to the parapolitical-historical background of the Bible?); added to whatever I (or Auticulture) symbolized or represented to you. Presumably something to do with the fearless and in exhaustible quest for truth and meaning.
So why not go to the most popular (and widely misunderstood and misapplied) source of truth and meaning?
Did notice the shout out. Certainly no pleasing me, at least most of the time.
Discussing Dave or poor Whitley definitely wouldn't be any more interesting. Can't even think of a topic that would be appealing. Perhaps I'm tired of words... I do understand the logic of focusing on specific material of course, but for some reason am put off by the choice of Job and the Bible. There's something to the fact that the Old Testament was written over centuries, in a dead language, translated to a language that died, intended for a small group of people, only relevant in a specific and tiny geographical region, that wasn't originally intended to represent Reality, that ires me so.
Something else is going on, as always. You might have hit the nail on the head as far as my unexpressed potential is concerned. That's a constant. I have taken the interdisciplinary approach, just never posted about it. It's a work in progress till death do us part it seems. Auti and CoJ are the only places I've ever made considered thoughts public on the www. Might have to take a break from commenting here since it's been quite unproductive, albeit sincere.
*Disclaimer: The above text was not inspired by anyone or anything, least of all meself.