Nathan_Jr

Yes. Does she not see this with a freshness, a purity of awareness, uncorrupted by expectation built upon past experience and indoctrination? Does she observe the squirrels and the tree as they actually are? Or does she observe them through a conceptual framework? Is she not observing with awe and wonder and love? Does she want to control the squirrels? Does she want to “teach” them anything? As she grows older, she may become a zoologist and acquire vast scientific knowledge of biology and nature, but will she ever see the squirrels as she did when she was a little child? Can she? Will she endeavor to find out?

Knowledge is not Truth. Knowledge is not a source of Truth. The words put together by man are not Truth. They may be mere approximations, mere pointers. But they may not be. The email icon on your desktop is not the email. The word “tree” is not that.

Wow. Just Wow

I’m not at all suggesting the swapping of one self-anointed authority for another. I’m certainly not suggesting seeking anything — especially, seeking to beleeeve. All I’m asking is, can we look at ourselves and see what we have done, what we are doing? What can we see alone in the silent stillness? What can we hear when we stop jibber jabbering lo shonta carne asada? What can we see when we put aside all systems of beleeef and doctrine? And Is this even possible? What does the little child see without all the contamination of conceptual thought? How clearly she sees! Is Truth trapped in a man’s doctrine? Are we inventing God by conforming God to a concept we have imagined? Is Love/Truth/God a concept we must figure out and construct and rightly divide? Are we looking through a lens of prejudice brought on by indoctrination, conditioning? Are we seeking to confirm our bias? What are we seeking? To be right? What does rebirth mean? Is it brought about by uttering a mantra? Is it something put together by thought and beleef? Or is it something else entirely? In the beginning was Light. (Gen 1:3) In the beginning was the Word. (John 1:1) When you see, who is doing the seeing? Is another seeing for you? If so, you haven’t seen anything at all, have you? Books are written by men. Where does light come from? Who or what will light your path?

“Perhaps man has a hundred senses, and when he dies only the five senses that we know perish with him, and the other ninety-five remain alive.” --Anton Chekhov

A succinct and eloquent examination. Well done, Sky, as always. Thank you. This is not bitterness, as the Pharisaic sycophants accuse. It is clarity of thought. It is clear awareness. It is seeing through the veil. On casting out devil spurts: victor invented a hedge to mitigate any future risk of exposure of his incompetence in this "field." It was a "key" to something - don't cast out spurts, unless. Unless what? Unless you get revelation to do so. (Riiiiight...) Well, that literally gives everyone claiming power an out - a cop out. My own fellowship commander frequently took advantage of this cop out made available by victor. And he knew what to do with it once he got it. He did NOTHING. He didn't have to, because he was always waiting on revelation. (Oh. Right. Of course.) One question (for anyone): break the mints in three pieces? WTAF?

Don't mean to derail, but I just can't help myself. All apologies. The Enoch scrolls fell out of the bookcase when Timothy hit a bump on the road to meet up with Paul. That's why it didn't make it into most canons. Timothy lost it and Paul corrected him with great spiritual anger. (Don't ask how I know this. Just know I eat cookies.) Fortunately, some Ethiopians that were traveling behind Timothy picked up what he dropped. That's how it made it into the Ethiopian Orthodox canon. Enoch was also found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Fascinating topic, Enoch.

There's a whole thread on the absent Christ. Not sure if your question is answered there. The thread like 792 pages, so good luck finding it. I'm sure someone here knows the answer, or at least can offer a reasonable guess. The absent Christ is a sort of paradox, a conundrum, a wacky theological contrivance designed to control. (The written word is always whatever vic says it is.) It's merely a seductive, novel, private interpretation, a pretension, designed to impress the dull mind. Like four crucified. It's kinda like AOS -- you are to run the race, but above all, you are to stand. Well, which is it? You are either running or standing. Not both. So much silliness behind these pretentious claims. Wonderful absurdities and calamitous errors usually follow these two words.

Obviously, they are wrong. There is nothing to figure out.

No. Obviously. When one realizes that the past "teachings" should never have been trusted because those "teachings" are demonstrably false, then one may see that all the "teachings" of man are just that - of man. Man's confusion is this beleeef in doctrine of another and in the clinging to the opinions and conclusions of another. The "ocean of speculation" is the very doctrine that one should doubt. Doubt all doctrine. Can one empty himself of indoctrination, conditioning, accumulation of conclusions, accumulation of constructed thought? Find out if you can. In this emptiness there is freedom. Only a mind free from all conditioning can see, can hear. No! Yikes! No knowledge swap! When it comes to spiritual matters, that which is eternal, that which cannot be named, we are unsure, afraid, so we seek comfort in knowing, not in unknowing. But we cannot find out about that which is eternal by accumulating knowledge. Knowledge is both the disease and the attempted ineffective cure. Can no one see this? When one observes a little child moving about the world, one sees there is immense unknowing in that child. If one is sensitive, one may see and be humbled by the child's capacity for awe and wonder and clarity of sight. If one is able to watch, without judgement or fear, one might see the tremendous power in that little child. The little child is powerfully free. Free from conditioning. Free from conclusions. But children grow up and become conditioned. They are not the same. They are not as free as they once were. Those of us with children can surely see this. Matthew 18:3 And he said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

We do? Is that so? Is that so? There has GOT to be? This is fundamental to man's suffering and confusion that has persisted for hundreds of thousands of years: that there is some authority, some guru, some system of thought put together by the mortal thoughts of another that will guide us. No! Yikes! The question is WHY? If my thoughts are guided by another, then I am not free, but a slave to the errors of another, a slave to the opinions of another, a slave to the conclusions of another. If there is a "rule for faith and practice," it can only be put together by the thoughts of man. Obviously. Again, no one seems to see this. This is the fundamental problem: we are always lazily, fearfully seeking the easy, comfortable answers from another. Is this not obvious? Is it in writing? Does that change anything? Who is writing? The guru? The minister? The priest? The self-anointed authority? Who made the authority? Mortal man. Obviously. No! Fools beleeve another can light their path, and that fool follows that path into a perpetuity of confusion. What was in the beginning? Light, the Word. What is the Word? Is it the Christ? Where is the Christ? Is it within? What does your scripture say? Even Paul, a Pharisee so full of conclusions and surety, got THAT right.

Who needs freedom of will, freedom of thought, when alls ya got to do is imitate your daddy in da werd? Just stand on daddy's shoulders! (How will I ever see out of this bowl of soup when I'm standing on the shoulders of a spiritual dwarf?)

As it stands now, AI does not benefit from free will. It is its replacement. Free will is an illusion with current state AI.

Thanks, Rocky. Always good book recs from you. There's plenty to be concerned about here. AI exploits our instinctive affinity for patterns. We are spoon fed what we want without having to articulate what we want, so we "choose" only what we could have ever chosen. The ancient, unconscious, pattern-seeking brain is being exploited for profit, whereas the profiteers are carful to mitigate the risk of the customer using his slow, careful, thoughtful brain to make real choices. And WE, the customers, the voters, the potential proselytes, are increasingly anesthetized to this auto comfort. It is confirmation bias on steroids. "Rely not on your own understanding." Chilling.

Not I. And my oatmeal cookies are damn good. (They'll make your tongue hard.) Anyway... gonna file this in a folder. Mogadishu!

Or anywhere else. It was a cookie. The error was only apparent.

Mike: That is putting evidence on a slightly higher pedestal than it deserves. Says every Flat Earther... says every propagator of Four Crucified... says anyone "teaching" a bastard bar mitzvah...

If the epistles are theopneustos, and in them are the criteria to be a minister of the Word of God, and victor objectively and demonstrably fails the criteria established by God, then victor is not a minister of God or His Word. Nevertheless, he is a MAN of God, even a THE Man of God (ask the music coordinator), even if he is not a MINISTER of God. A man of God, yes. A minister of God, no. Umm... okay... got it. So, back to the bathtub. Throw out victor's ministry, which includes his written and taped "work" (bathwater) because it is not of God, according to scripture, but keep victor the dead mortal man (baby cadaver). Umm... yeah... ok, got it! (Hey! I didn't write the book. Have you seen The Omen?)

How do you know? And don’t say because the music coordinator said so.

This is literally everything. It is not a matter of beleef. It is not a matter of choice, neither considered nor whimsical. There is nothing to contemplate. Nothing to decide. Once it is seen, it cannot be unseen.

Don't the epistles provide criteria for a man of god? Haven't we already shown victor doesn't meet those criteria? That seems like a reasonable place to start, since victor set the Bible up as an idol. Hey! I didn't write the book. *mogadishu barbacoa chi kwalla

Well said. We still agree 100%. I was “taught” that the Ten Commandments were rubbish laws for stupid Jews. I never bought that logic. And if there should be any doubt for a hyper dispensationalist, one who exalts Paul above Christ, didn’t even Paul quote a few of the Ten Commandments in one of the later chapters of Romans?

Interpreting native tongue into glossolalia is a prerequisite to being a REAL man of god. Victor could only interpret one way - glossolalia to native tongue. And his was all counterfeit, anyway. Math. See? Isn't that wonderful? It makes perfect sense, like freshly squeezed orange juice. (Ever see The Omen?)

Good for you.