cheating on God...

[LeoSalinas22]

Originally Posted by MindFreak666

Faithfulservant, I dont mean to offend but saying that "whether you acknowledge him as your god or not .. he still is" is a very ignorant statement. You should not state your beliefs as fact because I could just as easily say that God is just a concept created by the limited human mind whether you acknowledge it or not. But stating our beliefs as fact in this way does not make for a constructive conversation.

hi mindfreak. are you an atheist? if you are then, i completely understand how you feel. if you are an atheist, can you please tell me how you know there isn't a Creator? thanks. hope i don't offend you. thanks

[17th Angel]

While you await his response Leo.... One thing to consider... If I told you I could fly.... Who should have to bring the evidence? Should I have to prove to you that I indeed can fly... Or should it be your responsability to prove I can't fly?

[LeoSalinas22]

hey dauer:

There's a hasidic hanhagah, an instructional teaching from hasidism, concerning prayer. In prayer there is a motion some Jews make of rocking back and forth called shuckling. This teaching suggests that when a man prays (it is, as you will see, quite clearly directed to a male audience and does not reflect any personal bias against women practicing an analogue to this hanhagah) he should imagine he is making love to the shechinah. In Judaism the shechinah is God's presence and the Divine feminine. Can you imagine the power of that, starting off the davennen maybe by engaging in a little spiritual foreplay. Whispering a few sweet nothings to the Beloved, garbing oneself in something that makes you feel holy, then maybe just standing there, still, looking into each other's eyes, drinking each other in. Then you start off slowly in your prayer, fully present for each moment. As you get more excited the intensity increases. The words are pouring from you. Your heart breaks open in a climactic moment of union with the Beloved.

Standing still, you catch your breath, ground yourself, offer gratitude and smile.

you know dauer, this is an amazing idea. strange and foreign, but amazing nonetheless and makes sense, making God the Husband and me the wife. is this mentioned anywhere in the bible? is this a jewish teaching? i guess doing something like this is the same as King David dancing half-nekid in front of the slave girls, but dancing for God in 2Samuel 6? have you read that? it is so cool to know that you practice this method of worship without shame. how often do you do this? and be truthful please! you should also make this known, especially to christians since all we do is just pray to God. i don't understand, though. if you do this then you must truly love God, but something confuses me. i need your help with an answer of a question. have you ever read the new testament? and if you have, what did you think? and if you haven't, why not? you have really helped me realize something, man. i am about to get personal so bear with me. me and my wife have been having problems because in my case, i am very hard to satisfy. she on the other hand is easily satisfied. i often get frustrated, but upon realizing this, i realize that God must be frustrated with me as well, since i don't satisfy Him!
praise God, dauer! hope to hear from you soon.

[LeoSalinas22]

Originally Posted by 17th Angel

While you await his response Leo.... One thing to consider... If I told you I could fly.... Who should have to bring the evidence? Should I have to prove to you that I indeed can fly... Or should it be your responsability to prove I can't fly?

are you doing it in Gods name? or are you doing it for fame and fortune like chris angel? i mean, i see this guy doing things no regular man can do. should i believe it? no, because he is doing it for all the wrong reasons. he can fly, walk on water, etc. but he isn't really doing it. he lets evil spirits do it for him. know what i mean?

[17th Angel]

Sorry, lets make it more simple....

I claim something that seems pretty impossible and unreal.... Who should have to proove it is real? Me or you?

[LeoSalinas22]

Originally Posted by 17th Angel

Sorry, lets make it more simple....

I claim something that seems pretty impossible and unreal.... Who should have to proove it is real? Me or you?

well, let God do the proving, no? let God's will be done and not ours.

[17th Angel]

That is kind of my point, you claim there is this ultimate being.... Those who do not believe this..... You ask them for proof? But, I don't think they have to prove a thing... ;/

[LeoSalinas22]

i never said that mindfreak should prove anything. it isn't our place do do so. i just asked his thoughts on wether he believes in God or not. besides i thought you said you don't believe in God? how is he ever going to prove anything to someone who doesn't look for Him?

[17th Angel]

I see, just it seemed different when you said "how do you know there isn't a creator....."

[LeoSalinas22]

geez, man, don't get your panties in a bunch! lol. i am just curios because i used to be atheist and just want to know his/her point of view. thanks for responding though. its always a pleasure chatting with you!

[dauer]

you know dauer, this is an amazing idea. strange and foreign, but amazing nonetheless and makes sense, making God the Husband and me the wife. is this mentioned anywhere in the bible? is this a jewish teaching?

The analogy of marital relationship between G!d and His people, as it were, is mentioned in a few places, but I think you might mean this practice imparticular. It comes from hasidism which was a popularist Jewish mystical movement that was much simpler and more direct than kabbalah and began the task of psychologizing some of the more esoteric stuff. However the idea of G!d as Beloved, of being a lover of G!d is more universal language in mysticism. For example, this is from St. Francis of Assisi, translation by Daniel Ladinsky from his book Love Poems from God:

"God came to my house and asked for charity.
And I fell on my knees and
cried, "Beloved,

what may I give?"

"Just love," he said.
"Just love."

i guess doing something like this is the same as King David dancing half-nekid in front of the slave girls, but dancing for God in 2Samuel 6? have you read that?

I think that the context may be a little different, but similar content. There was a time where there different types of prophets. If you examine the types of prophets mentioned in the Tanach you see some of them are more about speaking out against injustice and admonishing the people, foretelling of future times (what we today generally tend to associate with prophecy the most), there are others who seem to go on grand journeys with the supernatural, like Elijah. There are also others who seem more to be the practicers or leaders of ecstatic practice. There's one passage that makes reference to them in a particularly derogatory manner when Saul's mad at David, and ruach hakodesh or what you would call the holy spirit comes upon him and he goes a bit bonkers.

it is so cool to know that you practice this method of worship without shame. how often do you do this? and be truthful please!

This is actually not a hanhagah I have practiced before, but I have practiced things similar and davenned with a similar approach to the pacing of prayer, and also looking at prayer as similar to intercourse, in that it should build and build, there should be a peak, a climax, and then a return and connection back to the world around me.

I used to davven (pray) shacharit, the morning service, every day, and when I needed to cry out spontaneously I'd recite tehillim (psalms) or offer my own words. I also was meditating each evening for about an hour on G!d. The practice I had at the time was a bit too structured I think. I did a particular meditation on the tetragrammaton. When I was part of a group meditating at another time, without that much structure, I realized how strongly I'd connected meditation to that particular tetragrammaton visualization. It was hard for me to try and meditate without the visualization coming up.

And it's not to say that every time I davenned was mindblowing. Sometimes I didn't want to. At those times, when I did, sometimes I found it very powerful and meaningful, doing it would invite more depth in the practice, and at other times it was an effort all the way through. There's a great song in Yiddish that I learned at a fabrengen with Reb DovBer Pinson about how sometimes you really don't want to pray but you still have an obligation. Unfortunately within a month I'd forgotten it. Great song.

Lately my spiritual practice has not been as regular as I'd like it to be, but I've gotten the strength to start up again. I'm bipolar and I'd been taking some medication that really dulled me. I find since I've stopped, the past few months I've felt much more alive, and the holiness in life is much more palpable. Kavod, the word for glory in Hebrew, like G!d's glory, suggests a certain heaviness or weightiness. So on my new blog, actually in response to what a fellow Second Life resident and one of the leading figures in the Muslim and interfaith community there said on his, I committed myself to davven shacharit every day next week starting Sunday, which is the first day of the Jewish week, and not let myself become overwhelmed by thinking further ahead.

you should also make this known, especially to christians since all we do is just pray to God.

It's actually been my experience that many Christians are much more in touch with experience, with the non-rational (not a bad thing) aspects of religion than the average Jew. The enlightenment, which I think I mentioned before in this thread, saw a lot of that as irrational and unfortunately liberal Judaism is heir to that. As a work of tikkun, of repair, it seems very necessary to remind people that religion's meant to be lived, breathed, experienced, not just thought about and practiced in a rote manner. That type of religiosity is just a big turn-off for me. Of course there are also people who are very happy with it and wouldn't want something more experiential. That's okay too.

i need your help with an answer of a question. have you ever read the new testament? and if you have, what did you think? and if you haven't, why not?

I've read some of it, and I read some of the Book of Q which was an attempt to construct a sort of proto-gospel, a source text based on those passages shared in the other gospels that at one time they may have all had access to.

What I thought of it is a fairly general question, so I'll keep my answer general. Like all of the sacred texts I've put come across including my own, it had some very beautiful ideas and passages as well as those that seem to need to be transcended or reinterpreted.

you have really helped me realize something, man. i am about to get personal so bear with me. me and my wife have been having problems because in my case, i am very hard to satisfy. she on the other hand is easily satisfied. i often get frustrated, but upon realizing this, i realize that God must be frustrated with me as well, since i don't satisfy Him!

That is a really beautiful insight. I hadn't thought of it quite like that but it's very true. I think, and this is to use an analogy a bit different from your personal reference, a lot of folks are spiritually frigid. G!d pursues them, shows a little leg, and they avert their eyes, busy themselves with whatever distraction is available, and somewhere inside a part of them knows that if they got a really good look they wouldn't be able to to resist G!d's charms.

You know I completely blanked on your earlier question related to G-d as lover. I guessed the direction the conversation might go in and already had part of my answer in my head. Shir HaShirim, the Song of Songs, is so rich in that type of language. Its canonization in Jewish scripture comes up in the mishna, whether or not it should be allowed. The conclusive answer comes from R. Akiva who says that all of the songs are holy, but Shir HaShirim is the holy of holies. My favorite translation of it comes from Reb Shefa Gold:

Song of Songs Translation, Rabbi Shefa Gold

of course any translation, Jewish or Christian or other should probably do, except for Artscroll which tries to avoid the sexual language of what is clearly a love song.

Dauer

[dauer]

There are two pieces I wanted to add to this that I remembered. One was triggered by my mention of the holy of holies and the other related directly to your idea of G!d getting frustrated.

In the Talmud there's a really beautiful idea that the cheruvim, the cherubs, that were above the ark in the holy of holies were in the form of two people. When things were going bad, their backs would be turned to each other. When things were going good, facing each other. That's two people in embrace.

The other is a hasidic story. I believe it's about the Baal Shem Tov, but don't quite remember. I'll tell it as if it is. The Baal Shem Tov's son came up to him very upset.

"Why are you crying?" He asked.

The boy said, "We were playing hide and seek, and I was hiding. Everyone else was supposed to go find me, but they got distracted and went to play another game."

So the Besht, the Baal Shem Tov, suggests that this is what it is like with us and G!d. G!d is like the child who is hiding and only wants to be found. And when we stop searching, He feels abandoned and hurt.

Dauer

[Bruce Michael]

Originally Posted by LeoSalinas22

i don't know if this has been done before but i'll go ahead and start this thread. my question upon starting this thread is if things like playing videogames, watching movies, "erotic self-pleasure", reading other forms of works like comic books or novels, or listening to music, etc. would offend God because they are a form of idolotry. let me use an example, batman, spiderman, mickey mouse, etc. they seem harmless. having statues of them or posters of them is harmless and doesn't hurt anyone and some look to these "examples" as a form of guidance or answers. but how different is it from statues of virgin mary or greek gods or that big ass statue in egypt of the half man half lion? also, for example, people can read novels like war and peace or lord of the rings but can't finish the bible? or another example, working out. isn't that worshiping the self? i could go on and on, but i won't. i ask this because i compare doing these things to like praying to statues or pictures or offering sacrifices to pagan gods. i mean the above mentioned "hobbies" seem harmless, right? we aren't hurting anyone, right? no one dies, no one gets offended, so its ok! to top it off, they would be worse because we actually put our emotions into it! we curse video games because we lose to them or we cry at a certain movie because it moved us more than Gods Words. but i can't help but think that God is like the Husband and we are like the wife. from my experience, if my wife isn't paying attention to me then that bothers me. even if she would rather watch one of her mexican soaps instead of hang out with me.lol. she isn't hurting anyone, but i want her to be with me. i would imagine that God sees us the same way. He wants us to always be with Him and be faithful to Him. am i overreacting? should i just "chill" and continue to do all these things without considering His feelings? i hope i don't sound "preachy". it isn't my intent. i hope to read all responses very soon since to me it is a very interesting and important subject.

Dear Br. Leo,
What you are talking about is soulless activies. We must learn is to connect with the world through investing our soul in our activities.

Of course we must be careful of just who we idolise. Our best model is Jesus Christ.

Warm Regards,
Br. Bruce

[LeoSalinas22]

Hi muslimwoman,

All the Prophets "walked" with G-d and have a special place in heaven due to the task they were given. Does this mean we can all attain the same level of servitude or does it mean we should endeavour each day to follow their examples?

what do you think about these scriptures:
Psalms 82:1 God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.
Psalms 82:6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.

Will you try to heal the sick tomorrow?

according to the scripures mentioned, we will in God's name.

I don't mean that rudely in any way but Jesus (pbuh) was given special gifts by G-d and we should all try to follow his example not try to be him.

i know you aren't coming rude at all and you are absolutely right, for it is written:
St. John 21:22 Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.
we should always follow His example.

Sorry Leo but to me you make a huge leap in thought here. No sin can be destroyed, unless G-d wills it, we commit sin and on the Day of Judgement we will answer for that sin. However, as I understand it (forgive me if I am wrong), the remission of sin was the act of absolving sin, when a person is truly repentant.

no i meant that our sins are in remission. i know they aren't destroyed, they have just subsided. still my sins are there because God remembers them, but one day He will forget them completely. believe me, i do repent, but does the demon stop attacking? nope.

Did Jesus (pbuh) not say "that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem" (Luke 24:47).

yes, He did say that. amen.

I think it is fair to say that once we recognise something as a sin and repent, that we should fight the urge to return to this sin.

i completely agree. but it is a long, hard road and evil spirits are everywhere i look.

Have you ever asked yourself how, if known, this would make your wife feel? Would she feel hurt?

she knows how i am, muslim. she always calls me "pornografico". its spanish and the meaning is obvious. we often fight about this.

Would she feel inadequate?

she already does and it breaks my heart.

I only say this because perhaps you should try to consider this, ask what is truly important to you and what is fantasy compared to reality?

i know what is real and what is fake. being married is real and being with various partners is fake. but the flesh is very easy to succumb to. know what i mean?

Would you really wish to make your wife feel inadequate for a fantasy you could never have? All I am suggesting is that you try to adjust your though process to what is important to you rather than what is gratifying.

i don't mean to make her feel inadequate, i really don't. only God in time will change me.

But sometimes I still falter and give in, I am only human. I do however have a life, I found 'good' methods of entertainment and each choice is made with the question in mind "how will I answer for this".

how do you falter and in what? if you don't mind my asking. if it is personal, feel free to pm me, if not just don't answer. i just want to know if i am alone in temptation since everyone else seems to have conquered it but me. man, i am such a loser!

Errmmm, in the Quran we learn that Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they were both sinful and both equally guilty. Eve did not pin Adam down and force a piece of fruit into his mouth.

well, i know that muslim, but she was the first one to be tempted, no? adam was following God's commandments up until eve tempted him. now, now, i ain't pointin' fingers but if you look around, the women tempt the men not the other way around!

Some women do, some women don't have a problem with temptation. Some men do, some men don't. That's life, we are all different and all capable in different ways. I find that avoiding temptation comes easier with age!!

i am 28 yrs old and the more i learn about God the more i feel i am being tempted by evil spirits. i don't know how old you are, but you must be pretty old to have conquered temptation.

So who is the greater sinner, the man that loves batman but gives in charity, treats everyone equally and believes in G-d or the pious man, who has bad knees from praying and does obsene things with children? I am sorry but I do not believe you can judge anyone by their outside appearance and only G-d knows what is truly in our hearts. Should we not be more concerned with dealing with our own sins than pointing out perceived sins in others?

no i ain't judging anyone, either. i live and die by this verse:
Matthew 19:17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
(imo) i am no better than a child rapist. just because i have knowledge of God does not make me more righteous. (imo) i not worthy to tie His sandals.

Perhaps if we both love G-d and desire to be good servants of G-d, then we are already on the same level?

you are so nice muslimwoman, thanks for your patience and thanks for your responses and God bless you. hope to hear from you soon.

[LeoSalinas22]

hi bruce micheal:

What you are talking about is soulless activies.

finally someone agrees with me!

We must learn is to connect with the world through investing our soul in our activities.

i don't know about connecting with the world bruce for it is written:
James 4:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
but then again it also says:
Ecclesiastes 3:13 And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.
but i understand what you mean. thanks.

Of course we must be careful of just who we idolise. Our best model is Jesus Christ.

amen, bruce and God bless you.