Carl Smuda

Roy, How exciting! Tell me, what is the year 2027? Is that the Parousia or something? Anyway, how exciting! I've read chunks of the patristic letters. Do we call them that? Ignatius letters, and the like. The didache. Some of the apocrapha. I had a lot of fun reading chunks of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Those people really loved God and His Law and His Sabbath. Looks like you've read some of the Nag Hammadi find too, yes? I was blown away when I saw how much material is out there that the Scholars know about that 99% of the Christians are clueless to. It looked to me that for every book in canon there are several amazing ancient writs that didn't "get in." Carl

Mark, Look at post #14 on this thread. There Free2Love posted and here is part of it: I hope that helps. I'd have to go read over it again to give you context. I was responding to my memory of trying to apply the reproof of I Corinthians 14 from that old article "Patterns of Fellowship." I remember back in the late 1980's and I was real confused. Coming out of Way-think. That, of course, was almost 20 years ago. I have no idea how exwaybes have hashed out I-Corinthians-14. I apologize for the "sandblast" remark. Not very clear was I? Of course there is much joy&rejoycing in the Christian canon. Personally I'm a HUGE fan of the book of Job. What it is is, I am interested in the mysticism of Paul the Apostle. The book of that title I studied closely about eight years ago. The author, Albert Schweitzer, only used the church epistles I listed because the Scholars of the NT only consider those letters to be, without question, the writings of Paul the Apostle. And the revolutionary ideas in the old article "Patterns of Fellowship" is using uncontested writings of Paul. I'm a big fan of Paul. It is the revelation that Paul was given that gave the world Christianity. If we think Christianity Today is the same thing as Paul's generation?, well that may be another thread. respectfully, Carl

Interesting. Thank you Abigail. This duality that has come up in this thread; I've read some about Zarathustra. His influence on Persia and the surrounding area. Did duality come from him, do you think? I do agree with the idea that duality began when Adan&Eve learned about the knowledge-of-good-and-evil. Some Christian historians I respect do not believe that the Adam&Eve& the serpent is literal. So I take note of that, BUT, it is hard for me to put that together with Romans 5. Not that I'm worried about contradictions. I am not. Just that Romans 5 makes me line up a literal Adam with a literal Christ. Or should we make Romans 5 non-literal?

Are there any spiritual exercises that you would recommend to this end?

It helps a little. Do you use any of the Christian church epistles as inspired writ? If you had to put your inspirations into the categories of manifestations-of-the-spirit (I Corinthians 12-14) where or how would you label your understanding? I'm not really that much into labels, I'm just fishing for a comparison between your post here and the uncontested writings of the Apostle-to-the-Gentiles?

I do not know what He knew, knows... I no longer belief in soul sleep. I think the positions of this Faith are positions against the majorities around them. e.g. Abraham took a position against the many-gods beliefs all around him in the fertile crest of Iraq. What about what Free2Love seems to be saying here? What about "forget Faith and walk in Love"?

this part about the spiritual child in the womb of our hearts depends on Christ.. how does manifestations-of-the-spirit and fruit-of-the-spirit fit into this?

E.W., you must be, what?, 200 years old by now? I've read all books mentioned in this thread. Kept not one of them. My wife tells a tale of, as a child, her family had to destroy a television they got from someone. Ectoplasm frequently came out of it at night and crawled up the ceiling and some moaning sounds I think. She didn't use the word 'ectoplasm' but I recognized the description. I find it easier to understand these spiritual things if one moves outside of the Christian dichotomy.

Dancing, thank you for the Elmo's Fire video. that really blessed me. 20+ years ago that movie touched my messed up WayBe heart. It was a real blessing to stir up those memories. sincerely, Carl

AND THE SPIRIT OF GOD MOVED UPON THE FACE OF THE WATERS.... I believe that is Being. The God divided the waters from the waters...and called it the heavens? In Being we live and move. The thought struck me, the Christ eliminated the "Them and Us" dualism. The Apostle-to-the-Gentiles called it a "Great Mystery."

I believe in a scorecard. Some call it Karma. There are many ways to describe and compare it in personal terms and impersonal terms. As I embrace the idea now, we cannot remove karma we generated in this life In This Life. Our next life is likely to be an animal. Amphibian or higher. 1-out-of-12 lives is human, so try not to fritter away this one. The Father analogy is good for me since I am "married with children." And the mention of the book of Job caught my eye because I do so love that book. You remind me I need to study it again. Yes I think the great omnipotent powers of the great Atman has no choice but to "keep score," albeit I wouldn't put it in those terms...maybe I'd use the Law of conservation of energy...

Greetings Mark, I'm an exwaybe. Most of my adult life I accepted without question "soul sleep." No longer. I wish I had a couple more life-times to study this. I mean anthropologically. (is that a word?). I skimmed this thread. My response to Mark, I think, is but I'm jumping in. God Bless & "Isn't that special?" What Free2Love posted on "Patterns of Fellowship" is POTENT, to say the least. In fact, I'd gladly sandblast off all holy scripture save the Church Epistles. The unquestioned uncontested core would be: Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, First Thessalonians, and Philemon. It took some time for the "Pattern" to sink in. In fact mostly now it may be more what it is NOT. But I recognize the "leadership" epistles as something added that cannot be ignored. The winners (orthodox) said this is canon and this is leadership. The Apostle-to-the-Gentiles mentions leaders but in I Corinthians 14 he doesn't tell them to get leaders, he says seek that you may excel to edify. respectfully, Carl