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Is Christendom spiritually famished ?

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Oh yes they do. Every single human being who has ever been part of any social group does. It's a fact of being human, just as much as every human alive has breathed air to live. Those that fail to participate in this consensus reality are cast out as outsiders. That your group espouses a more "universal" truth, is itself a consensus reality that its members have chosen to participate within.

My objection stands. The bottom line is you are now making a vague generalization that does not address the question
Do you welcome those who say, "No! Only we are right and everyone else is going to hell!"? No? You either seek to correct them, or you reject them if that fails to persuade a change of view in them. That's because that idea is contrary to what you hold collectively as true. But if that same thing were said in an exclusivist group, that person would fit right into their consensus reality.

This does not change the fact that Biblically, Doctrine, and Dogma Christianity in one way or anther is an exclusivist group.


You don't think Christian throught has evolved at all during that time? Even modern day "fundamentalists" are not what the first Christians were. It's impossible for them to be that, because the world itself has changed. It is only the superficial things you are looking at. Those are just basic frameworks, but how individuals and groups within those have seen and translated the world through those is anything but the same. It has and continues to evolve as people and groups do.

The foundation beliefs, doctrines, and dogma of the Roman, Orthodox, and mainline Protestant churches that represent over 90% of Christianity have not evolved. In fact in many ways they have become more extremely entrenched. There have been many many smaller diverse and different churches that have evolved to try make things fit their own view. Others like the Later Day churches like JW and Seventh Day Adventists retreat to what they claim as the more pure original literal Bible traditions.

Universalists are just a modern example of that evolution of newer and higher consensus truths.

To vague to respond to.

How it has functioned historically is to dumb down the higher truths into pablum bites to feed to the masses. How it has functioned, is not the measure of Truth itself.

This does not address the issues I presented.
 
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Earthling

David Henson
Was it "wrong thinking" at the time you were believing it? If it was, then why were you believing it? Wasn't it serving you at that time as truth?

But let's take a step back further. For however many years you did not believe God existed, wasn't that the truth for you then, and didn't that seem to serve you? At some point, as you grew, you found that belief did not meet your needs and you changed what you believed to be true in order to fit with who you were becoming at that time. Truth changed for you, as you changed.

So, were you really "wrong" at that time it was working for you, or did it simply become "inadequate" to you as you grew, and you subsequently changed what you believed as truth to fit yourself where you were at then? If you think about this deeply enough, you'll see it's the latter.

I don't think it works like that. You can deny the truth, you can avoid it, you can be wrong. In my case I was wrong. I judged the Bible on how it was misrepresented, primarily through behavior that was judgmental, hypocritical and self righteous.

It wasn't a question of how it served me and then one day I thought, you know, this isn't working for me any more. I'm tired of it. I'm ready for a change, I think I will become a believer. What happened was I decided to try and back up my position of disbelief and read the Bible for the first time and then I learned that the Bible had been misrepresented and I accepted it as true.
 

sojourner

Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
We search for many things. We search for formulas and philosophies. We search for holy texts. We make idols out of all of them. The Bible won’t save us. Reading the Bible won’t save us. Joel Osteen and Franklin Graham and James Dobson won’t save us. The prosperity gospel won’t save us. Going to church won’t save us. As the sensei says in The Last Dragon, “There is one place [we] have not looked. And it is there — only there — that [we] shall find the Master.” We need to look inside ourselves. There is the breath of life. There is the beating of our heart.

People are looking to externals for fulfillment. Churches and pastors point people to externals for fulfillment. “Belief” is a relationship with something outside ourselves. It’s a particular formula, a particular set of embraced platitudes. “Belief” is rarely taught as an embracing of what we know to be true within ourselves.

It’s like trying to nourish yourself on empty calories. The church is giving us empty calories, and it’s all because of $$$. People think they want empty calories, because people like candy. Candy is an immediate comfort and joy. You don’t have to work for it, and you don’t have to make responsible choices. So the ones who pay salaries and expenses dictate what is taught, or the pastor gets fired. The church hierarchy and structure make $$$ when they draw more people in by giving them what they think they want. And so Church becomes a trip to the amusement park rather than a pilgrimage to the ashram on the mountaintop.

And people come away sick from cotton candy, rather than nourished with spiritual meat.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Everyone interprets the Bible to fit with how they see the world.
This is certainly true for me. Just as a part of 'growing up' if not any other ways. But the most important changes have been because I learned about artifice, mythology, metaphor, and their role in story-telling. I can 'savor' the stories and contemplate a number of different interpretations, each of them with their own context and value. I feel sad for those among us (and there are many) that do not recognize the gift of artifice. They miss SO MUCH of the beauty and depth of the saga of human existence!
Has your own views of God changed in your life? Do you understand it the same way you did when you were younger?
Certainly. Growth inevitably means change. One of the most damaging things religion can do to people is stifle their growth by claiming that God and "true faith" should never change. It reduces both God and ourselves both to static objects.
 

viole

Ontological Naturalist
Premium Member
If you are a serious student of God's word, do you at times feel like Lot ?
. . .for that righteous man by what he saw and heard while dwelling among them from day to day was tormenting his righteous soul by reason of their lawless deeds".(2 Peter 2:8)

Can the alarming crime rate and gross immorality among people who profess to be christian be a direct result of the spiritual ignorance of Christendom ?

A cleric of Manhattan' Madison Av Church said: "the world is faced with a religious vacuum on a scale never seen before".

God tells us why this could be the case: " My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and have hewed out for themselves, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. (Jer 2:13)

According to Jeremiah then, it's because Christendom's religions have strayed from God's Word. They have hewed out for themselves man made cisterns, cisterns that can hold no real spiritual refreshment.

This was admitted by a preacher in Pittsburgh (Earl L.Douglas). He asks "Why have we so often failed in our efforts as ministers?
His answer:"They come seeking for the bread of life, and we frequently offer them philosohy, sociology, psychology, politics and a review of current events.

Are these the broken cistern God was referring to in Jeremiah 2 ?

I wonder why you use Lot, a guy who gave his daughters to be gang raped by a crazy mob, as a role model of morality. Or you take seriously anything he has to say.

If these are the moral role models of Christianity, then, well. May another god have mercy on us.

Ciao

- viole
 

viole

Ontological Naturalist
Premium Member
Amos.8
[11] Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:
[12] And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it.

A self fulfilling prophecy.

Ciao

- viole
 

Ellen Brown

Well-Known Member
A very astute point, and a very accurate one. Again, a story from my Bible College days.....

As young aspiring ministers in training, in a class for public speaking we were given an assignment to write a sermon to deliver before the student body. In searching out a topic to speak about, I happened upon the "Two Greatest Commandments" in the Bible, and that became my topic. I realized at that time that no other sermon than that was even necessary for preachers to preach, that everything else anyone could say about God was just fluff, noise filling the air. Jesus himself said just that, "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets".

You're right. "Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself", is the fulfillment of every single words spoken by any prophet at anytime. You don't need the Bible. You need God's Love in your heart, which when it is filled with that Love, wll naturally love others with that same Love you are filled with and love yourself. If you drop either the first injunction to "love God", that is to fill your cup with the Divine, you are unable to fulfill the second. If drop the 2nd, then you fail to fulfil the Truth of God by letting it flow from you to the whole world. God does this in creation, and we do it in ourselves as an extension of that Divine Love in the world.

It's that simple. Throw all the rest of what any other preacher or theologian may say away. "Biblical inerrancy"? Bah!! :)


Trying to be charitable to those who have not made that connection yet. Assuming there is a Holy Spirit, why do we write all these things down and "canonize" them, trying to make them holy? Why don't we simply ask for guidance from the Holy Spirit about how to order our lives? Would God do that and is that what he is waiting for us to do?

I once desired to be a Pastor, but found that to be unattainable. I wonder if the best service to God is service to others by hearing them, consoling them, and helping to get their needs met?
 

A Vestigial Mote

Well-Known Member
According to Jeremiah then, it's because Christendom's religions have strayed from God's Word. They have hewed out for themselves man made cisterns, cisterns that can hold no real spiritual refreshment.

This was admitted by a preacher in Pittsburgh (Earl L.Douglas). He asks "Why have we so often failed in our efforts as ministers?
His answer:"They come seeking for the bread of life, and we frequently offer them philosohy, sociology, psychology, politics and a review of current events.
I can understand the sentiment here, and just at the periphery of my ability to fully form the thought is the perception of what this "other" thing Mr. Douglas was attempting to hint at should be substitute for the "philosophy, sociology, psychology, politics and a review of current events" within a spiritually-bound setting.

However, I think that this "other" thing... this "spiritual refreshment" if you will - is a relic of the past. A thing that had a fighting chance in the times when many people were ignorant of many more things. Relevant in a time when news didn't travel so fast, when knowledge of such a vast variety of subjects was not simply at (almost) every person's fingertips. In these modern times, words of spiritual meaning (and literally no other) are simply not good enough. It is no longer good enough to just provoke the spiritual imagination of a person to a state of fear, elation or reverence. I think people are more and more often asking "what is the point?" Which, like it or not, is a completely valid question. You may say it is a question born out of pride - but in my opinion that would be you trying to cover for your own unfortunate suspicion that an adequate answer to that question may not actually exist.
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Trying to be charitable to those who have not made that connection yet. Assuming there is a Holy Spirit, why do we write all these things down and "canonize" them, trying to make them holy? Why don't we simply ask for guidance from the Holy Spirit about how to order our lives? Would God do that and is that what he is waiting for us to do?
The answer to the latter is of course yes. That's all it is. Whenever in meditation, and now in life in general, I have found a certain magic key as it were that unlocks that door. Of course, it has to be coming from the right place in you. It's a certain symbolic device that shifts the mind and intention away from the ego in its desire to figure out the mysteries of life and itself, and what to do about ones own condition.

It's very simple. I just say, "Show me," or "Teach me". Just that, like Pavlov's dog, those words tell the ego, "let go". And like a well trained dog, it let's go. But training it to begin with, that of course is the challenge everyone has to face. How do "do without doing", is utterly paradoxical to the egoic mind in its dualistic reality. Saying "teach me" is signaling that you give up trying to make it happen, and are willing to let it reveal itself to you without your prejudices and expectations. "I'm here", is also another, like a student sitting ready to learn from the Master. Just that, makes all the difference.

As to why people want it written down, why they want it to be canonized, etc., is because they are looking to be told so the mind can understand. It's very much the same as what a child looks for in their development where the rules and standards are set by authorities outside themselves, and their sense of approval and acceptance comes through adherence to those rules. "I'm a good person because I follow what is expected of me". This is not yet internally realized, that at a certain point, the rules emergence of themselves from within us without the need for any external authority establishing and enforcing them on you.

It makes me think of the verse in the Bible where it says the law will be written on the tablets of the heart. There is no need for scripture. You write it. You are a "living epistle". Fundamentalists are the most removed from their own inner landscapes where Spirit is found. Not just on a developmental scale, but a pathological dysfunction of a natural growth stage. They are trying to find God through the rules, but out of a dread fear of rejection.
 

Hockeycowboy

Witness for Jehovah
Premium Member
Just simply what I said. When I read any other part of the Bible, even parables that Jesus gave like the prodigal son and Lazarus and the rich man, they seem to me to be within the realm of reality. Even though those parables aren't based on real people and actual events they are within the realm of possibility. I have no problem with accepting the supernatural, but when I read Job and I read about Samson, fighting a lion and pulling down that building and setting fox's tails on fire . . . it reads to me like a Rudyard Kipling story rather than the more realistic parts of the Bible.

I understand that later Bible writers referred to Job, seemingly as a real person and his story as real events, but it just doesn't read like that to me. I can't help it, when I read it this is the way I honestly feel

What's that phrase? "Truth is stranger than fiction"? How much more so than when Jehovah's power is involved!
I understand that I could be wrong

That's a good attitude to have, especially if the Bible's explanation of an event sounds outrageous.
 

Jim

Nets of Wonder
Why don't we simply ask for guidance from the Holy Spirit about how to order our lives? Would God do that and is that what he is waiting for us to do?
The best way I can think of to find out is to try it. Have you tried it? If so, has it answered that question for you? I’ve tried it, and my answer is yes, He would do that, and that is part of what He recommends for us to do, but not all of it.

I wonder if the best service to God is service to others by hearing them, consoling them, and helping to get their needs met?

I think that is one of the most desperate needs in the world today, or as Hal David and Jackie DeShannon said, “the only thing that there’s just too little of.” “Not just for some, but for every one.” “Put a little love in your heart, and the world will be a better place.”

I would say more generally, that continually learning to be a better friend to more people, near and far, in everything we do, everywhere all the time, online and offline, is part of the best service to G_d, but not all of it.

I think that part of learning to be a better friend is learning to walk side by side with people, wherever they are in the path of G_d.
 
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sojourner

Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
The answer to the latter is of course yes. That's all it is. Whenever in meditation, and now in life in general, I have found a certain magic key as it were that unlocks that door. Of course, it has to be coming from the right place in you. It's a certain symbolic device that shifts the mind and intention away from the ego in its desire to figure out the mysteries of life and itself, and what to do about ones own condition.

It's very simple. I just say, "Show me," or "Teach me". Just that, like Pavlov's dog, those words tell the ego, "let go". And like a well trained dog, it let's go. But training it to begin with, that of course is the challenge everyone has to face. How do "do without doing", is utterly paradoxical to the egoic mind in its dualistic reality. Saying "teach me" is signaling that you give up trying to make it happen, and are willing to let it reveal itself to you without your prejudices and expectations. "I'm here", is also another, like a student sitting ready to learn from the Master. Just that, makes all the difference.

As to why people want it written down, why they want it to be canonized, etc., is because they are looking to be told so the mind can understand. It's very much the same as what a child looks for in their development where the rules and standards are set by authorities outside themselves, and their sense of approval and acceptance comes through adherence to those rules. "I'm a good person because I follow what is expected of me". This is not yet internally realized, that at a certain point, the rules emergence of themselves from within us without the need for any external authority establishing and enforcing them on you.

It makes me think of the verse in the Bible where it says the law will be written on the tablets of the heart. There is no need for scripture. You write it. You are a "living epistle". Fundamentalists are the most removed from their own inner landscapes where Spirit is found. Not just on a developmental scale, but a pathological dysfunction of a natural growth stage. They are trying to find God through the rules, but out of a dread fear of rejection.
Great post. This is exactly it.
 

viole

Ontological Naturalist
Premium Member
This is irksome. Do you think that Jesus says we are Gods? There are belief systems that teach that. I choose to be a daughter of God.

John 1:12 King James Version (KJV)
12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

You chose that? Could you have chosen something else?

Ciao

- viole
 

Neuropteron

Active Member
I think people are more and more often asking "what is the point?" Which, like it or not, is a completely valid question. You may say it is a question born out of pride - but in my opinion that would be you trying to cover for your own unfortunate suspicion that an adequate answer to that question may not actually exist.
....................................

Yes, asking what the point is, is a valid question, whithout understanding it, life has no meaning.

Isn't that the point Jeremiah was making ? Looking for spiritual guidance from the wrong source does not lead to fulfillement since we cannot get the right answer from them.

I think Solomon answered it :"The conclusion of the matter, everything having been heard, is: Fear the true God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole obligation of man".(Ecc 12:13)

Cheers
 

Neuropteron

Active Member
I wonder why you use Lot, a guy who gave his daughters to be gang raped by a crazy mob, as a role model of morality. Or you take seriously anything he has to say.

If these are the moral role models of Christianity, then, well. May another god have mercy on us.

Ciao

- viole
..............

You make a valid point.
Lot was showing hospitality and giving -as he perceived - protection to his guest, who were Angels send by JHVH. In those days hospitality was a major responsability for the host and failing to protect his guest was, at the time, an ignominy of enormous proportion.

Although it is almost impossible to understand his way of thinking, he must have had good motives, otherwise he would not have been called righteous.
Also we should keep in mind that nowhere does the Bible condone his proposed solutions to appease his agressors.

I simply used him as an example of someone that was grieved by the immorality surrounding him, not as an example of rational thinking.

cheers
 

Neuropteron

Active Member
Neuropteron,
There is a lot to what you say. True Christians realize that they are surrounded by immorality of every kind, but they also realize, the worse things get,the closer Jesus is to returning to earth, to cleanse the earth of all wars, all people who want wars, and all immorality.
Please read Matthew 24:7-14. These things were, in a smaller fulfillment, in the first century, but have a much greater fulfillment in our day. When we see all these things, that Jesus gave for signs that he would come, soon. Even though it is going to be a very trying time for Christians, we know that the end of this rotten system is near, Matthew 24:32-34. Notice that these things would happen on one generation. These things are, not just happening, but are happening on an unpresidented scale, so there can be no
Mistake about the generation that Jesus was talking about.
As for many of the Religious leaders of Christendom, they are called Hirelings, Hired men, who really care nothing for the flock, they are really Mercenaries, John 10:11-15. It is very interesting to consider how this is recorded at 2Timothy 4:2-5, they, meaning the vast majority will gather teachers to tell them what they want to hear, anything, but never the truth, because that would cause the parisoners, to fire them and get apreacher to tickle their ears.
I believe that Matthew 13:33, is a parable speaking about the leaven, which a woman, a term sometimes speaking about false religion, she bid in three large measures, until the whole mass was fermented, which means that all the religions that began with Abraham will be completely corrupted, all three Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Isn’t this exactly what has happened???
The God of the Bible always gives hope of something better, and today, we know there must be ONE religion that God favors, as we are told at Ephesians 4:3-5,
......

You make some good observations, thank you.
 

Neuropteron

Active Member
The broken cisterns might be the doctrines, creeds, rituals, and other devices that people have substituted in the place of learning from G_d, with His assistance, how to bring out the best in ourselves and in society.
.....
absolutly
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
If you are a serious student of God's word, do you at times feel like Lot ?
. . .for that righteous man by what he saw and heard while dwelling among them from day to day was tormenting his righteous soul by reason of their lawless deeds".(2 Peter 2:8)

Can the alarming crime rate and gross immorality among people who profess to be christian be a direct result of the spiritual ignorance of Christendom ?

A cleric of Manhattan' Madison Av Church said: "the world is faced with a religious vacuum on a scale never seen before".

God tells us why this could be the case: " My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and have hewed out for themselves, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. (Jer 2:13)

According to Jeremiah then, it's because Christendom's religions have strayed from God's Word. They have hewed out for themselves man made cisterns, cisterns that can hold no real spiritual refreshment.

This was admitted by a preacher in Pittsburgh (Earl L.Douglas). He asks "Why have we so often failed in our efforts as ministers?
His answer:"They come seeking for the bread of life, and we frequently offer them philosohy, sociology, psychology, politics and a review of current events.

Are these the broken cistern God was referring to in Jeremiah 2 ?

I think you are doing a huge begging of the question, first.

.......and second, it is not logical to blame the belief system for the actions of those who break its rules. As well to blame the laws against stealing for the actions of those who rob banks.
 

Ellen Brown

Well-Known Member
The answer to the latter is of course yes. That's all it is. Whenever in meditation, and now in life in general, I have found a certain magic key as it were that unlocks that door. Of course, it has to be coming from the right place in you. It's a certain symbolic device that shifts the mind and intention away from the ego in its desire to figure out the mysteries of life and itself, and what to do about ones own condition.

It's very simple. I just say, "Show me," or "Teach me". Just that, like Pavlov's dog, those words tell the ego, "let go". And like a well trained dog, it let's go. But training it to begin with, that of course is the challenge everyone has to face. How do "do without doing", is utterly paradoxical to the egoic mind in its dualistic reality. Saying "teach me" is signaling that you give up trying to make it happen, and are willing to let it reveal itself to you without your prejudices and expectations. "I'm here", is also another, like a student sitting ready to learn from the Master. Just that, makes all the difference.

As to why people want it written down, why they want it to be canonized, etc., is because they are looking to be told so the mind can understand. It's very much the same as what a child looks for in their development where the rules and standards are set by authorities outside themselves, and their sense of approval and acceptance comes through adherence to those rules. "I'm a good person because I follow what is expected of me". This is not yet internally realized, that at a certain point, the rules emergence of themselves from within us without the need for any external authority establishing and enforcing them on you.

It makes me think of the verse in the Bible where it says the law will be written on the tablets of the heart. There is no need for scripture. You write it. You are a "living epistle". Fundamentalists are the most removed from their own inner landscapes where Spirit is found. Not just on a developmental scale, but a pathological dysfunction of a natural growth stage. They are trying to find God through the rules, but out of a dread fear of rejection.


Of course. I've had prayer experiences and been helped when I did not even know to ask. Thank God.
 
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