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quote:Originally posted by Robert Bruce

I became conscious in my mother's womb, a couple of months before birth I think; although I cannot put an actual time to this for obvious reasons. I have vivid memories of existing in the womb, and of babyhood, prams and bottles and learning to walk, etc. These memories are images, of sights and sounds (including voices), smells and tastes and textures, and feelings and impressions, etc. I remember that I was highly empathic, as all babies are, and could clearly sense the 'mood' of everyone around me.

One thing I remember clearly from my womb time was an audible vibration that permeated me. This was a continual hum that sounded like a deep and gentle 'Aummmmmmmmm' in the background. I also remember a sense of ineffable boredom, and a profound emptiness.

My state of mind before I learned language was very profound and logical. I lived in the 'now' and thought in images and feelings. I felt an incredibly ancient and profound bigness about my mind. I definitely was not a mindless baby. I had profound intellect and strong logical processes, albeit with no experience memories or knowledge or language with which to back them up or apply them to myself or my environment.

Strange... I have no distinct early memories like that. But when picturing that scenario, I got an.. odd feeling. Whenever I think of it I get a chill. It's just an eerie.. familiarity. I dunno. Interesting..

Yeah yeah, the ressurection that coincidentally happened on the celebration of the vernal equinox, and managed to loosely coincide with passover. I didn't see that thread disproving anything he said, either, except that site that claimed that Mitraism, an established cult, really just copied from the baby cult of Christianity. Oh, hello logic.

I wish I could tell you why the Jewish sabbath was on Saturday (perhaps Saturn, Chronos, some have drawn up equations between Jehovah and Chronos if I'm not mistaken), but I do know why Sunday is the Christian Sabbath.
Mithraism.
Sun-day was the holy day of the Pagan sun worshippers, Christians wanted to distance themselves from the Jews, and they were adopting a ton of other pagan symbols, so why not?
AFAIK the Muslim holy day was made friday merely to set it apart from Christianity and Judaism.

[having all the evil burned away]

quote:Originally posted by kakkarot

i could go into stuff regarding "early christians used to believe in reincarnation" or, as mustardseed (i think) brought up in another topic "it used to be believed that people could be saved after physical death", or about misinterpretations of "hell" because the jewish people's believe in a mult-tiered after life consisting of seven "heavens" (which translates more to "beyond the sky" than to a place of paradise, referring to different levels of reality not all of which are where God is at) and that sheol ("the grave") is merely one of those places and that when a person is in one place they can move to others. but i won't. i don't have the time nor the incredible indepth knowledge of those issues that would be needed to really get into it.

I think in that case we would agree more than we differ. A temporary hell does make sense, and you're right, even the Zoroastrians who gave us the concept of hell to begin with have it that "Upon the appearance of Soshyans, the last Messiah, the "final judgment" would begin.  All souls, who were previously judged at death, would now arise.  The righteous and evil would be separated and a flood of molten metal would pour out upon the earth, purifying it.  Every soul would walk through it.  The righteous would be unharmed, walking through it as if through warm milk.  The evil would walk through it in terrible agony, having all the evil burned away.  Only the good would be left in them.  Angra Mainyu, the evil opponent of Ahura Mazda would send into the flames to be totally consumed.  All the survivors would now live together in the new heavens and the new earth in utmost joy." ( http://www.mit.edu/afs/athena/course/21/21a.213/papers/Caroline%20Kim%20-%20Eschatology.htm )
Before that the Hebrew concept of the afterlife was Sheol/Gehenna, which is a lot different from the fire and brimstone eternity facing the heathens (as the Christians have it).

quote:i believe that while God may have known, He still let it happen because if He didn't let it happen then what would be the point of Him giving us free will?

What was the point of him bestowing us with "free will" or "choice" or "the ability to distinguish between two polarities"? It was so that we could devolve (fall) and evolve (return). I hate to force my opinion, but I see a blatant esotericism to that whole dogma. If you don't accept the esoteric interpretation, it makes it generally senseless for God to set it up so we fall, some of us wind up back with him, and some of us wind up in hell. It's creating a race of beings and filtering it out for no real reason.

quote:i've argued with God. like i said before, God may know it's going to happen, but if He didn't let it happen we wouldn't have free will. and besides, you could think of humanity as God's toys with which God can play with and destroy and create as He sees fit.

noono, I wasn't pointing out the fact that God was argued with, I was pointing out the fact that he wanted to do something irrational such as kill all Hebrews, and Moses reasoned with him. You asked for points where God was illogical/irrational/without reason.

[it]

Sounds to me like a classic case of Christian being introduced to the astral. Specifically, it looks like he was taken straight from the bottom up, through all the primary planes (within the astral).

However his comment that Satan's plan was to get humans to worship him made me think.
That's exactly what the Christian God does, enlist hundreds of millions of people to worship him as a being. Maybe God as he's thought of en masse today.. is really Satan? It would go along with his name, the deciever, and the world of be-ing, Maya (illusion). And it would go with the concept of the world of being as the farthest from the source/God that "the deceiver" is acting with evil and getting people to turn away from truth (in fact, my personal definition of evil is ignorance).
So maybe the real God is Brahman/Atman in it's purest conceptual form, and the real "satan" is Jehovah in his purest conceptual form.
HMMMMMMMMMMM
Note, I'm not trying to be anti-christian or spite anyone. It's an interesting idea and is the first thing that sprung to mind when I read "He wants flesh to worship him".

quote:Originally posted by Radha


If Masons were as sexually oriented as this bunch tries to say they are, they would have millions of new members overnight.

Kinda like society? [8D]

hooraY!

I was stating the only logical way for God to be perfect.
Please explain how this is self-refuting.

quote:Originally posted by exothen

Tab,

Pantheism is a self-refuting belief.

pardon?

When communication can be made between two remote people via the astral and then verified in the physical, it's pretty real.
Yes, I am talking about the astral, not the RTZ.

Glad I could be of assistance. I just started looking at this stuff the other day myself, so I'm really a n00b to the Kabbalah.

The mistake in your analogy was making God (Bill Gates) a leader, but only a segment, of the universe (Microsoft). This is where our differences shine. You conceive of God as your Head, I concieve of IT as the whole. In other words, your God is Bill Gates, while my God is Microsoft.

... I can't believe I just said that.

Actually, I believe Vatican II officially vetoed the "suicide = ticket to hell", claiming that anyone committing the act must be mentally unstable and thus not responsible for their actions.
Aside from that, why would such a wonderful loving God abandon a poor soul so lonely and depressed as to commit suicide. So sad. What a mean deity. He should be ashamed.

quote:Originally posted by Passionate-fool

You remind me of a friend of mine who goes to bars gets liquered up and then picks a fight.  I would suggest anger management.

Really now.. tell me again why I remind you of that exactly?
Anyway, why would I be angry, this is the internet.

quote:and what has God done that was "stupid irrational"? (because believe me: i can rationalize it and "prove" that it's not stupid)

Go for it.
What is the purpose of Hell. Why would any rational God, in their right mind, create a set of beings merely to inevitably filter them out into either eternal bliss or eternal suffering. Furthermore, what does this accomplish? The purpose of punishment is to teach a lesson or cause repentence. An unending punishment is not only irrational, but entirely pointless. Punishment for prior acts is only of any purpose when there is a lesson to be learned and progress to be made. Otherwise, absolutely nothing is accomplished by keeping a sinner in eternal torment. The obvious answer to "What is the purpose to Hell" would be "to punish sinners". But again, this punishment is not a reasonable or meaningful punishment. It accomplishes nothing, and thus is irrational and pointless. Aside from that, it raises the first question, why would God create us just to wind up sending some of us up and some of us down and that's that.
It would take some kind of divine inspiration to rationalize that one with any great deal of convincing logic.

Secondly, God is supposed to be all knowing. Thus, he surely foresaw Adam's disobedience and fall prior to his creation. Therefore, God created Adam for no other purpose but to inevitably fall from him and, eventually, through a bunch of unneeded events such as Jesus dying and the apocalypse, return to him. That's a rather roundabout way of accomplishing absolutely nothing, unless you subscribe to the heathen Hindu concept that the purpose of existance is to seperate from perfection and through learning and progress re-merge with it.


Then of course there are obvious examples such as Moses having to argue God into reasoning with him and not killing off all the Hebrew people for their disobediance at Sinai. But that's less interesting then the philosophical nonsense of Hell and the fall.

Alas, the real reason God is stupid is because he lacks the feature of intelligence, or any other feature for that matter. He is no more intelligent than nature as a whole, or as the smallest atom and the largest galaxy. When you try to make him less than that, you get said illogical paradoxes stemming from the delusions of men.

Define evil.

Yknow the site made me wonder, just what is so bad about sex? Who says it shouldn't be held in high reguard? I mean, it does create life and all.

God tends to do stupid irrational things. He apparently set the standard for his followers too.

OH CONTROVERSY

I doubt mere knowledge of the subjects is like a ticket out of incarnation. The practical use and spiritual progression that you choose or choose not to accomplish with that knowledge is what determines it. I know all of this stuff, but if I stay a lazy butt and don't get anywhere I'll be here as long as I have to to break that cycle.

I believe you're referring to this.
You'd want to study the Kabbalah for further understanding of it. Here's a good place to start.
www.digital-brilliance.com/kab/ has a lot of stuff.

Crazy, I missed this topic but was thinking of posting one about it (the Kabbalah) yesterday. In the last few days I've been reading up on it by some whim.

Anyway, needless to say that article is crap.

quote:not to mention the fact that Kabbalistic theosophists such as Madame Helena Blavatsky and the theosophical circles of Germany eventually spawned the Nazi Party, which produced the Holocaust

Hello Blavatsky wasn't a Kabalist at all but an Eastern Theosophist. She drew similarities and references to the Kabbalah in certain places, which isn't surprising seeing as how it's doctrine holds many similarities with the Vedanta and the other esoteric systems of thought. And where the hell is there anything saying that her systems influenced Hitler? Wasn't Hitler a Christian?

quote:Rabbinical courts moved to make it unlawful for anyone under the age of forty to study Kabbalah. The reason being that if one has first lived forty years and been raised and trained in, and has studied Judaism, then perhaps his Judaism would be strong enough to dominate what he finds in the Kabbalah, rather than have the Kabbalah shape his Judaism.

That's incomplete and untrue,

quote:This prohibition has come from Ashkenazic (East European) Jews and has never applied to Sepharidic (Middle Eastern) Jews. The historical basis for the "rule" comes from opponents of Kabbalah within Judaism who (successfully) attempted to restrict its study. At the root of this was the heresy of false messiah Shabbatai Tzevi (17th. C) which resulted in large numbers of Jews leaving the orthodox fold. This heresy had deep Kabbalistic underpinnings, and in the attempt to stamp out Shabbateanism, Kabbalah itself became suspect, and specific prohibitions against the study of Kabbalah were enacted (e.g. the excommunication of the Frankists in Poland in 1756).

A further factor was the degeneration (in the eyes of their rationalist opponents) of 18th. century Hasidism, which had roots both in Kabbalah and Shabbateanism, into "wonder working" and superstition. The rationalist faction in Judaism triumphed, and the study of Kabbalah became largely discredited, to the extent that many Jewish publications written earlier in this century discuss Kabbalah (if at all) in a very negative way.

from http://www.digital-brilliance.com/kab/faq.htm

The writer conveniently forgets the fact that a good portion of unkabbalistic Judaism was borrowed and/or copied.

Blavatsky was bogus? :\ I highly suggest you all RTFM.

[exert]

OH MY GOD, positive magnetic poles exert electrical force and negative poles recieve or take in electrical force. SCIENCE IS PHALLIC WORSHIP! OFMHGIHTNONMHEATHEN

Aw man, and it was so much fun criticizing him :\

Perhaps there is actually meaning in the belief that the church is the body of God. Yes, I'm talking about ACTUAL meaning.
If you take church to be people, then it is indeed so that the beings of the physical are God's body and the beings of the spiritual god's mind.

For God to be perfect, he must be ONE, and yet encompass all.

per·fect  Pronunciation Key  (pûrfkt)
adj.
Lacking nothing essential to the whole; complete of its nature or kind.

God's nature is the universe, or everything that exists, therefore all must constitute him and at the same time he must be one in all and all in one, to be perfect.

Similar to Squeek. I was raised Roman Catholic for 15 years and as such, mindlessley bought into it. Then, one day in June of 2002, I was supposed to go to a mass for my cousin's graduation, out in the mountains. I stayed back when we were entering to go to the bathroom, and then couldn't find where my family had gone to sit (big church), so instead I decided to wander around the mountains and watch the sun set.
It was at that time that I ultimately realized that organized religion was BS. I realized that God was anywhere that one personally finds him, not in any building. My philosophy became that everyone must find their own meaning for god within themselves, and until they find THEIR god, worship and religion is meaningless - it's just someone else's meaning for god.
Note that this was long before I was ever introduced to anything other than mainstream Christianity.

Needless to say a few months later I was introduced to OBE and all of this stuff and here I am.