Jason
Pluto
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jul 5, 2006 16:35:14 GMT -4
To more specifically address your point, Kiwi:
In verses 4 to 23 God is telling Isaiah to talk of a real, live man, an unnamed king of Babylon, and to publish a satire or parody about this king, whom he cynically refers to as a "bringer of light," among other classy insults. From this, we can infer that God had, or has, a sense of humour; perhaps even a devilish one, bless him! I think God has a definite sense of humor, though I might refrain from calling it "devilish".
The modern LDS view, if I'm not mistaken, is that Isaiah is comparing the king of Babylon to the devil, stating that his ambitions are similar and that they will have a similar end.
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Post by Kiwi on Jul 6, 2006 5:53:04 GMT -4
The modern... view, if I'm not mistaken... Therein lies the reason I'm not a churchgoer. Having seriously, and sometimes flippantly, if you haven't guessed, looked into such things since 1968, and through questioning many people (I got told off at Sunday School as a child in the late 50s for asking too many curly questions), and having examined many religions, I finally became apalled at the ignorance I struck (although I happily admit that it is indeed bliss for some people) and went off the usual man-made avenues. My conclusion regarding a fair few Christian churches was that they teach: 1. A great deal of churchianity 2. A great deal of religiosity. 3. Heaps and heaps of Paulianity. 4. Quite a lot of Old-Testamentanity 5. And lastly, away down the line, more befitting No. 10 on this scale, a tiny bit of Christianity (i.e.: a little of the pure, unadulterated teachings of The Christ). If you really look, you may sometimes observe all of the first four and absolutely none of No. 5. Cool, eh? Heavens-Above , they even use "Jesus Christ" as if they are forename and surname of the one individual, instead of recognising that the terms refer to two distinct individuals. Jesus the man (though more correctly, Yeshua or Joshua, sometimes with Ben Pandira or other terms appended, sort-of as a "surname"), and the higher being who took Him over for the few years of His public ministry and Whose "office" is sometimes described as "The Christ" or "The Messiah," among other things. It's not a personal name -- it's an "office". BTW, I apologise for my error in the previous post, not capitalising the Him in "bless him!" Like you, Jason, I'm perfectly happy to sit down and analyse some things to the death, or the nth degree as some folks put it. A national newspaper once described me as "that pesky pedant from the Manawatu" -- my province -- an appellation I happily accept. But I also believe in, at the end of it all, simplifying things as much as possible, as did a certain individiual roundabout 2000 years ago. What do I believe in? Simple: Karma and reincarnation. And neither of those are incompatible with what The Christ and many other teachers throughout the years and all over the world have taught. They are incompatible for those who couldn't bear the thought that karma is not an English word, or that Jesus wasn't a Christian, or that Abraham was neither Christian nor Jew, and therefore must be a "pagan." His name and the information we have regarding his origins indicate that he was highly likely a Brahmin. It's just interpretations and spelling. Abram could very easily be A-Brahm, could it not? "Good Lord! How dreadful, how impossible for one of the fathers of Christianity," some people like to think. But that's it. They don't think. (In my not-too-humble opinion. ) But it's no big deal. Karma is just a nice, short way to summarise "As ye sow..." The word itself is not in the Bible, just as the words antibiotic and television and rescue helicopter and short-wave radio and astronaut and pneumatic tyre and electricity and refrigerator and digital versatile disc are not in the Bible. And reincarnation? Well, first off, many people in western society are entirely ignorant of the Anathemas Against Origen and a few other bits and pieces and the man-made dogmas that arose as a result of them. Me? All my life I had a particular memory of a time I couldn't pinpoint within a few weeks and a place I *could* pinpoint within a few metres. I knew four of the five people involved, but not the fifth. Unlike many people I have many vivid memories from birth onward. For many years I made the mistake of thinking that everyone could remember the same sort of things I could, but I was wrong. Apparently most western adults have few memories before the age of five. Anyway, between about five and twelve years ago I pinpointed the exact date and approximate time through my late mother's diaries, through 1:50,000 survey maps, and through my computer and the program Skymap Pro 7 which located the sun at the time, as I "remembered" it: It was between about 3pm and 3:15pm on Sunday 30 January 1949. I now knew the name of the fifth person, who was an unrelated female of specific size and hair colour. The other four individuals were my mother, my two older sisters, and me, a male. I can explain a great deal more about what I remember, if anyone wants to know, which I doubt, but it's all quite interesting and involved at least one more discovery in the 1990s. The most interesting part is that I wasn't born until the evening of 9 March 1949, 5-1/2 weeks later. Interesting, eh? The only thing most religious people could tell me about the situation was that I had to be a "child of the devil" or something similar. Bless their poor, cruel, vindictive, ignorant little brains. They put me off. As usual, they feared what they didn't understand.
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Post by lionking on Jul 6, 2006 6:36:36 GMT -4
very interesting Kiwi. I have friends who remember exactly their past lives. True christianity, according to some sects , believed in reincarnation. www.essene.netMy friend remember eveything. Her husband, her political affiliations, her kid, the wife of her kid, her town,.. she went there and asked the wife of her kid about secrets which only both knew. Jesus was , according to the dead see scrolls found in Palestine, an essene. he preached many things they preached. among these was reincarnation. some of the traces of this is found in the bible . something like: Elia came but you didn't recognize him. and everybody knew he was speaking about John the Baptist. any more info is welcomed
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Post by Kiwi on Jul 6, 2006 8:20:34 GMT -4
Of course it's impossible to have a constructive dialogue with someone if you accuse them of being self-righteous, holier-than-thou, sanctimonious, and ignorant right up front... Of course. I agree entirely, and am neither big enough, fast enough, young enough, rich enough, nor ugly enough, to risk the consequences of saying such things to anyone in face-to-face dialogue. (Dash!! I forgot to mention silly enough.) The only time I could indulge myself in such preposterous behaviour is when I'm anonymously posting on some international bulletin board where someone has no chance of finding out that I live at 40:18:12 north or south and 175:14:43 east or west. But that has no bearing whatsover on what, besides pollen and cayenne powder, sometimes gets up my nose. There was a time, some years ago, when I like to think that I might have entirely changed how one Jehovah's Witness congregation did their evangelising, but I have no idea whether that's a good or bad thing. And I'm certain I had no effect whatsoever on one of their most obnoxious and incorrigible bretheren. There was a bunch of them, about five, and all female (which was unusual), standing in my front porch. It was, as usual when they visit, a beautiful, fine, warm, sunny Saturday morning, roughly about 10am, when most of us ordinary mortals who live in seaside tropical paradises would rather be mowing our lawns, trucking the kids to their rugby or netball games, going fishing, or untangling our nets from the previous attempts at fishing, etc. Nevertheless, I manfully stood there and took it as the main protagonist mercilessly battered me with the usual wall of words that barely let me do any more than occasionally grunt, let alone define whether it was in approval or disapproval. I even put up with the holding-the-Bible-in-the-left-hand-while-pointing-to-the-appropriate-scripture-with-the-right-index-finger-and-moving-close-to-the-poor-victim stuff, which apparently must work in some countries, but we Kiwis merely consider an obnoxious and childish invasion of our personal body space. But, of course, cultural differences have little to do with saving souls, do they? Hell, no! However, when my blood pressure finally reached about 340 over 280, I held up my right hand and yelled, above the cacophony, "Stop! Stop!" This had the result of causing at least eight eyes to pop and protagonist No. 1 to cease constructing her wall of words. Shock! Horror! None of them had ever experienced me behaving like that before. Unlike many people, I'd often invited some of them inside for a chin-wag. I quietly asked, "Why do you people travel here, come to our homes, and insult us as much as you do?" At that, eyes 9 and 10 popped too, and the mouth that belonged to them quaveringly asked, "What do you mean?" "Well, you automatically assume that I'm pig-ignorant about the Bible, and treat me accordingly. You automatically assume that I'm about as thick as two bricks on top of two short planks, and treat me accordlinly. "I would never treat you that badly. And I don't believe Jesus would either." "I would at least have the courtesy to ask you a few questions and ascertain your level of knowledge and what you believe in. At the same time, I would respect that you might consider such things to be private and no business whatsoever of a complete stranger. If you told me to wrack off, or something similar, I would respect your point of view. It's your home. You have the right to do that." "If you had asked such questions, and I had volunteered the correct answers, you would have found that while I'm absolutely hopeless at quoting chapter and verse off the top of my head, there is no way in the world that I'm otherwise as ignorant about the Bible as you assume. I have an NIV, an NIV Study Bible, a King James, a New King James, a New English Apocrypha, a Good News Bible, a Jerusalem Bible, a Hodder and Stoughton Illustrated Bible Dictionary, The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures (which you know), The books of Enoch, The Lost Books of the Bible, The Forgotten Books of Eden, the Book of Jubilees and two versions of the so-called Book of Jasher, Cruden's Concordance, and your own New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. Not the small one that you have there in your hand, but the big reference version. "I also have a few of your own books. And that's just some of the paper books I have. In my computer room there are CD-ROMs of other versions and translations and text books etc.. There is also the small booklet I typed up myself regarding the Bible and similar subjects. "But you didn't know all that, did you? You were too bad-mannered to ask, weren't you? Isn't it sad that we start off on such a bad footing?" A few years later, protagonist No. 1 thanked me for throwing a few things into perspective. For my part, not being on the ball at the time, I omitted to ask why her teachers had not done the same.
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Post by Kiwi on Jul 6, 2006 8:49:19 GMT -4
True christianity, according to some sects , believed in reincarnation. Sssshhhh, you silly person! There are people out there who don't want to know that!
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Post by lionking on Jul 6, 2006 9:32:01 GMT -4
Sorry I gave the site incorrectly. here it is : essenes.net/new/subintro.htmlYou can read about gnostics, and the bibles found at Nag Hammadi for gnostic sects saying they carried the true message of Jesus. Historians say these are closer to Jesus and most likely more true .
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Post by Kiwi on Jul 6, 2006 11:10:40 GMT -4
Thanks, Lionking. That's a valuable contribution.
To me, the beauty and simplicity of believing in karma and reincarnation is that they cut out so many other "rules". They de-complicate life and make it very simple. We can largely forget the Ten Commandments and many other legal, moral and religious laws.
However, there are a few provisos.
One little-known thing about karma is that it can come back to us up to ten times over. That knowledge sort of stops us doing anything bad if we know we could be paid back ten times over. If you don't want it done to you up to ten times over, don't do it.
Also we must not give in expectation of return. We must give freely, with no expectation of anything. No ego-trip, in particular. In fact, the best thing we can ever do regarding our ego is to swear at it, abuse it, and tell it to get the hell out of our lives -- that we are running this show, not it. The ego is probably that self-serving, selfish part of ourselves that was formerly called a demon.
I often wonderd why some good people suffered long, drawn-out, painful deaths. On the other hand, I often wondered why physically imperfect parents so often bore physically perfect children. It didn't make sense.
An explanation I heard that certainly satisfied me was that some people have a "bad" death in order to have a perfect body next time round. They work off their bad karma in this life so that they can start with a clean slate next time.
Also the sometimes-agnostic point of view that God must be an unfeeling ratbag because He puts innocent children on this Earth to do nothing but suffer badly and die young, has an explanation under karma and reincarnation. God didn't do it at all. The individual -- the responsiible, all-knowing person -- did. Came back and lived out the life it didn't complete last time because it had copped out by committing suicide.
That can sound very cruel, but think about it. Think. Get your emotions and ego, and perhaps even you life experiences as you understand them, out of it, and think -- clearly and unemotionally. Ask for help if you want it. If the time is right, you will certainly get it. The neat thing is, you don't have to be the slightest bit religious to get it, especially if you have been a good, moral, caring and thinking human being. Some people would no-doubt dispute that, but that's their problem, not yours.
See? Churchianity and Religiosity would like you to believe that you can only get anywhere in this life and the next one if you bow and scrape to their particular powers-that-be and perhaps cross their palms with a few bits of gold, silver, or something else of monetary value. Ever noticed what those televangelists continually ask you to send them?
Think about the most wonderful, mind-blowing, moving, and good things that have ever happened to you. Could you easily buy them at any time if you had the money? Probably not. And didn't some of them happen to you when you least expected it, or at an eleventh hour when you thought everything was lost?
It's highly likely that nothing much of that nature ever happened to you if you didn't in some way earn it. But if you did -- wow! Miracles can and do happen. And as for what we sometimes think we deserve... No way! Usually not true at all. Sometimes our help comes to us disguised as a hindrance. But don't ask me how to figure out that sort of thing -- I don't know!
If you want some evidence of karma, just study the elderly. Health problems aside, what have happy old people spent much of their lives giving? And, health problems aside, what have miserable old folk spent much of their lives giving?
But I whaffle. Enough for now....
Lionking, I can give you a whole lot of biblical verses that I think support the idea of reincarnatiion, if you want them. They make interesting reading.
For instance, think of one of the best-known biblical verses in a purely literal sense instead of how some churches interpret it and insist on you believing it:
John 3:3 "I am telling you the truth: no one can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born again."
Note the first six words. That is Christianity. Not Churchianity, not Religiosity, not Paulianity, not Old-Testamentanity. It is pure, unadulterated Christianity, stated cleary, briefly and unambiguously. Interesting, huh?
But not many people want you to know that.
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Post by lionking on Jul 6, 2006 11:40:43 GMT -4
Hi Kiwi. Read this : www.ladeeni.net/pn/Article89.html you can read on the essenes site how they interprit them. go to the verses down. they are translated to english I know there are lots of verses in the bible supporting reincarnation. I would be happy to read them. about Karma, the thing is, not everybody who suffers gets opurified. some insist on their way, but the good ones repent and consider what happened to them. And yes, there are good things we didn't deserve that happened to us, I believe. It is all of God's mercy. He never gives us suffering when we don't deserve, but can give happiness, even if undeserved. This is God's love to us.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jul 6, 2006 11:47:15 GMT -4
Heavens-Above , they even use "Jesus Christ" as if they are forename and surname of the one individual, instead of recognising that the terms refer to two distinct individuals. Jesus the man (though more correctly, Yeshua or Joshua, sometimes with Ben Pandira or other terms appended, sort-of as a "surname"), and the higher being who took Him over for the few years of His public ministry and Whose "office" is sometimes described as "The Christ" or "The Messiah," among other things. It's not a personal name -- it's an "office". I understand perfectly well that Jesus is a proper name and Christ is a title, but I'm not sure about the "taking over". In my opinion he was "the Christ" when he was born, he was "the anointed one" all the time he was growing up, and he was the same person during his active ministry too. If by Karma you mean essentially "you reap what you sew" then I'm with you on that one. I don't believe in reincarnation, however. You're probably correct that the Bible never explicitely says anything against it, but I don't recall anything specifically saying that's how things work either. Admittedly Abraham was no Jew - the Jews didn't exist yet - but LDS theology holds that he was a Christian, as were Noah, Enoch, and Adam before him. God's plan included Jesus from the start, and we believe he informed these early prophets of that plan, which would make them Christians. I've heard of Origen before but I admit that I had no prior knowledge of the Anathemas Against Origen. I'll research Origen a bit. Thanks for the pointer. You have a memory from before you were born? Child of the Devil! Child of the Devil over here! Or Something Similar! Heh. Just kidding. Like I said, I don't believe in reincarnation, but I do believe that our spirits existed before we were born, and the possibility of having some form of interaction with people who were later important to us - our mothers and such - is reasonable to me. Memory is a tricky thing though - I find it perfectly possible to remember things that I never personally experienced simply because of how vividly I imagined a situation when I first heard of it.
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Post by lionking on Jul 6, 2006 12:02:55 GMT -4
Jason if it was only fake memory, you wouldn't have beenable to go to the place where you lived and prove everything as my friend did.
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Post by Kiwi on Jul 6, 2006 12:19:28 GMT -4
If that vivid life-long memory was only fake, you wouldn't, over 40 years after the event, find the diary, the maps, the computer program, the medical book, and the eldest sister with the memory, that fitted everything together and furthermore confirmed a sneaky suspicion that something else happened off-screen, so to speak, involving a few more people than the original five, that were merely a "feeling" instead of a visual record, and therefore, possibly fake.
That's not a very good description, I know, but how does one adequately describe something that happened long before one had the linguistic tools to describe it adequately in a particular language, without it sounding fake? :-)
I never claimed this stuff was easy! After all, how does a fetus acquire a visual memory and have its consciousness zap in and out of its mother's womb in order to acquire it, when that consciousness alone can hardly have eyes as we know them, and obviously left its physical eyes behind, if indeed they actually worked over five weeks before birth. Most of my memories of the event are visual, but I also believe I recall hearing a few specific words.
And, by the way, this isn't the only before-birth "memory" I have. There was another odd one that made no sense until I found a particular newspaper clipping referring to an event almost exactly nine months before I was born, then queried my father.
And there's yet another, but it's a little cloudier because it involves events in the previous century on another continent.
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Post by lionking on Jul 6, 2006 12:42:55 GMT -4
another continent? where? I know that there are ppl who remember more than one lifetime. But they are few , as I notice.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jul 6, 2006 12:45:40 GMT -4
Also the sometimes-agnostic point of view that God must be an unfeeling ratbag because He puts innocent children on this Earth to do nothing but suffer badly and die young, has an explanation under karma and reincarnation. It has an explanation in LDS theology as well. In the LDS view, we all existed as spirits before we were born on Earth (called the pre-existence). There are two reasons we decided to come to Earth - to acquire a physical body and to be tested to see if we will act righteously and with faith. Those who die young were valiant enough in the pre-existence that they required little or no testing in this life.
See? Churchianity and Religiosity would like you to believe that you can only get anywhere in this life and the next one if you bow and scrape to their particular powers-that-be and perhaps cross their palms with a few bits of gold, silver, or something else of monetary value. Ever noticed what those televangelists continually ask you to send them? Giving money to one's church is an exercise in that ego-destruction you mentioned earlier. God certainly doesn't need my money, and by extension neither does a church supported by him, but I might need to prove to myself that money isn't the most important thing to me by giving it up (or at least some of it).
Miracles can and do happen. They certainly can.
For instance, think of one of the best-known biblical verses in a purely literal sense instead of how some churches interpret it and insist on you believing it:
John 3:3 "I am telling you the truth: no one can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born again."
Don't stop reading there. Nicodemus took the words literally and didn't understand them, so Jesus explained it a bit more: "4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? 5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."
So if Jesus had been talking about reincarnation, wouldn't he have said "yes Nicodemus - you have to be born of a mother again"? Instead he said "you have to be born of water and of the Spirit." Born again of water = the baptism Born again of the Spirit = the gift of the Holy Ghost. At least, that's how we Mormons read that scripture.
If you can think of a way that being born of water and of the Spirit can mean reincarnation I'd be happy to hear the explanation.
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Post by lionking on Jul 6, 2006 12:52:58 GMT -4
I have heard, but don't know if it is true, that Jesus was asked about a child born blind, is it his or his parents' fault. he said: it is neither, but the soul has many sinns. That is, it is not his fault here, but in other lives. This was commented on by Michael Na'aymeh, wa Lebanese writer who was at the time of Jobran Khalil Jobran, and who believed in reincarnation. He said something like: when did the child make these mistakes? in his mom's womb? or Jesus was hinting to other past lives that child had?
however, I am sure I read the Elisiah thing, that he came and people didn't know him, and that ppl knew he was speaking of John the Baptist.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jul 6, 2006 12:57:27 GMT -4
Actually I don't think Kiwi has said enough about this memory for me to tell him "it was fake" with any confidence. But I am a bit confused. It sounds like you're saying you were present as a fetus, which would mean this wasn't a memory of a past life, but a memory from your present life obtained by some unnusual means, right?
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