Conversations with God

[DrFree]

I think that Wil and Quahom1 have expressed the essential issue:

We are not punished for the sin, but by the sin. Call it what you may, our actions and thoughts speak for themselves and will haunt us as we allow them. God gave us a world that is open and allows all....we get to dig our own ditch.

versus

Originally Posted by Quahom1

How about the man with no concience? As with everything else in life (that we have observed, physical, scientific, emotional, and yes even supernatural), there are rules. When we choose to break them, we pay the price. Hence we pay for committing the "sin", not by the sin. In otherwords, even if we refuse to feel guilt, justice is served when we are caught. Nature does not care whether we accept blame or not. Neither does society. Both met out swift justice. Only God hesitates to see if we "repent."

The question is whether God want obedience or morality. Or if you don't like God-talk, is morality a matter of obedience. I'm inclined to think that obedience is something we require of children (for their protection and edification) while (or so that) they learn to be moral. A moral person chooses because the action and its consequences are right, i.e., they take into account the consequences on everyone. Such actions conform to the spirit of the Golden Rule, whether you formulate it as "love your neighbor as yourself' or "do unto others as you would have them to unto you" or the Wiccan "An it do no harm, do as you will". This rule doesn't tell you what to do; it's a meta-rule that you use to assess what you do.

People who make their decisions based on profit and loss, reward and punishment, heaven and hell, aren't being particularly moral. They're being practical. Unfortunately, our concept of risk is not very well developed, so we're not particularly adept at these decisions, especially since most of the important consequences of our actions depend on the choices of others as well. We do create our futures, but not individually. We concurrently, jointly co-create our common futures.

Since people are generally poor assessors of benefit and risk, if they really are choosing based only on that calculation, they are untrustworthy. Reliable people make their choices within the boundaries of loving relationships.

Wil's observation "We are not punished for the sin, but by the sin" is similar to what Plato said in The Republic, "The price they [i.e., evil people] pay is the life they lead." Although we might play around with the idea that the man with no conscience somehow has an advantage. Perhaps by some measures such a person seems more successful. But the price he pays is his ability to have a meaningful relationship with other people or with God. He is alone and alienated. Many of us might like the physical rewards that sometimes accrue to such a person. Few would choose his life.

[DrFree]

As the lawyer played by Paul Newman in the movie The Verdict said to the judge, "If you're going to try my case for me, your honor, at least try not to lose it!" I fear that Quahom1's reply to Akbar about Unitarian Universalism leaves a lot to be desired.

Q is right that Unitarianism emerged, most explicitly in Transylvania, only a century after Vlad Dracul, as a heresy in conflict with the trinitarianism of the Roman Catholic church and nearly all of the flavors of Protestantism that were fighting it out in Sixteenth Century Europe. It was quickly forced underground, after producing Sigismund II of Transylvania as the only Unitarian king in history.

Unitarianism re-emerged in 18th and 19th Century America with such notables as John Adams, Louisa May Alcott, William Ellery Channing, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Herman Melville, and Deniel Webster. (See http://harvardsquarelibrary.org/UIA%20Online/.) Their essential message was freedom of thought in an age (not unlike ours) when religions tended to impose doctrine on their adherents and hellfire on their opponents.

Universalism emerged in the 18th Century with the message that all people are saved; none would go to Hell. As Thomas Starr King once quipped, "Universalists believe that God is too good to damn people to Hell; Unitarians believe that people are too good to be damned." [Words not exact.]

In 1961 the national Unitarian and Universalist Organizations merged into the Unitarian Universalist Association. UUs ("you-you", as we call ourselves) are commonly charged with not believing anything. A better characterization is that we don't impose any doctrine on our members. Rather we agree to operate within a certain set of principles that, like the Golden Rule, keep the dialog civil:

• The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
• Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
• Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
• A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
• The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
• The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
• Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

(My own belief is that these principles work equally well for any interfaith interaction.)

That in a nutshell is Unitarian Universalism. For more information see http://www.uua.org/.

[DrFree]

Akbar,

I'm glad to be chatting with you. I've described Unitarian Universalism in my response to Quahom1's reply to you, so I won't say more here.

I find much to like in what you say about God,

Originally Posted by akbar

DrFree,

I am illustrating my faith through my topics and replies as I believe that the God is the God of universe, the God of mankind not of religions, communities or groups and that unlike religions faith in the God is neither a heritage nor an inheritance.

My own working formulation is that God is to the world as I am to my body (and as you are to your body). This makes God a natural rather than a supernatural being, about which we can gain empirical knowledge rather than mere dogma.

About my attachment to an earlier reply, I'm pretty sure that what I submitted was a Microsoft Word document. It was originally an HTML document, but this forum manager wouldn't let me submit it. If anyone can tell me how to attach HTML documents, I'd appreciate it.

[akbar]

Friend,

As I have already said I am illustrating my faith. I requested all friends who joined me in discussion to please let me know if I deviate from my declared route. I am an ordinory farmer from Punjab, Pakistan and do not know about this html or any thing alike. I have only learnt to send simple messages on net and that makes me able to communicate with you people. I claim to be an interpretor of a human heart and I believe that humans hearts are alike the world over.

[akbar]

Sorry, I forget to tell you that I have sent an E-mail to unitarian universalists association and I visited the site.

[harticulate]

I loved the book..........questioned whether this was a two person conversation and then went back to loving the book.

What it most sparked was.............in this book or any other book including the Bible how can I comprehend that any written words are from God? If I can't believe it from a current book...............how can I believe it from an older book/books?

And so my religion goes down the p**per!

[wil]

how can I comprehend that any written words are from God?

ah but Hart that is the blessing...every divine word has been printed and edited by man. It is in the discernment we find our connection....a connection to our life, right now, our circumstances right now.

Whether we we are reading CWG or the Bible or Paramahansa Yogananda.. or watching Harry Potter or Narnia, the words have and underlying current that has an effect on what is our accumulation of experience and knowledge and what is happening in our lives.

We've all seen our understanding of scripture change as our life experience changes...the same thing happens with the authors and editors of what they receive as divine thought...it is edited through their filters and fingers...and then through ours as we read and interpret...

And so my religion goes down the p**per!

only if your current thinking and understanding you grow out of it...and into?? and back to?? it happens, today is a stepping stone to tomorrow..

[harticulate]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.................Namaste Wil

Back to loving the book............and the walk....

[maggie2]

It's been a while since I read CWG but I certainly enjoyed it at the time I read it. I found it was a book that encouraged people to pursue their own spiritual paths and that was a positive thing for me. I think we each must walk our own path in finding God and CWG is a good example of someone doing just that.

[InquisitiveInHalifax]

Originally Posted by DrFree

Since people are generally poor assessors of benefit and risk, if they really are choosing based only on that calculation, they are untrustworthy. Reliable people make their choices within the boundaries of loving relationships.

Dr Free

I find this statement profound, you've expressed something that I think I've always believe but never been able to express myself.

Thank-you,
R

[taijasi]

I recently picked up a copy of CWG (vol. I) at the local library and flipped through it. Parts, I read in full, even reread repeatedly. Other parts I skimmed through, while some, I had to summon a certain degree of patience and non-judgementalness to get through. Bottom line? I think there is much of value in CWG, and I definitely appreciate the fresh approach. But it would have been much easier to swallow if the author had not repeatedly attempted to assign G-d as the author. I do not altogether rule out that possibility, and the relative value & merit of the writing defintely stands on its own. Yet, the chunk of salt necessary to take with the writing is that much larger - owing to the insistence that God dictated this to me. I'd bet my mortal soul in fact, that as such, this is not the case.

Is the book less valuable because of this slight problem? No. But, as one author puts it, we can ascribe the book's origin to one of the following sources:

1. Messages emanating from the relatively nice, well-trained subconscious nature of the recipient. These well up from the subconscious but are regarded by the recipient as coming from an outside source. Introspective people frequently penetrate into the layer of subconscious recollection and are quite unaware of so doing. Not knowing that they have done this, they regard what they find as unusual, beautiful and important, and then proceed to formulate it into messages, which they expect their friends and the general public to regard as spiritually based. These messages are normally innocuous, sometimes beautiful, because they are a mixture of what the recipients have read and gathered from the mystical writing or have heard from Christian sources and the Bible. It is really the content of their right thinking along spiritual lines and can do no one any harm, but is of no true importance whatsoever. It accounts, however, for eighty-five percent (85%) of the so-called telepathic or inspired writings so prevalent at this time.

2. Impressions from the soul, which are translated into concepts and written down by the personality; the recipient is deeply impressed by the relatively high vibration which accompanies them, [sensing them to be] of the soul. These are true soul impressions but usually have in them nothing new or of major importance; they are, again, the result of past ages of soul development. This accounts for eight percent (8%) of the writings and communications put before the general public by aspirants today.

3. Teachings given by a senior or more advanced disciple ... to a disciple under training. These teachings bear the impress and conclusions of the senior disciple and are frequently of value; they may - and often do - contain information of which the recipient is totally unaware. The criterion here is that nothing (literally nothing) will concern the recipient, either spiritually or mentally or in any other way connected with his personality, nor will they contain the platitudes of the religious background of the recipient. They will account for five percent (5%) of the teaching given, but this is in relation to the entire world and the percentage does not refer to some one [spiritual] group, one religious faith or one nation. The recognition of this is of vital importance.

4. Communications from a Master to His disciple. This accounts for two percent (2%) of the entire telepathic receptivity, demonstrated by humanity as a whole throughout the entire world. Western students would here do well to remember that the subjective Eastern student is far more prone to telepathic receptivity than is his Western brother; this has a definite bearing on all the above classifications, which is somewhat humiliating for the Western mystic and [esoteric] student. The World Scriptures emanate from another department of the second ray teaching faculty. In this statement I do not include The Old Testament except such passages as the Twenty-third Psalm and certain passages out of the Prophets, particularly the Prophet Isaiah. The World Scriptures were written for mystics, occupied with beauty, comfort, and encouragement, and were not written for [esotericists].

Some of this is perhaps superfluous, but I find the breakdown (as of ~1950) helpful. Perhaps now, after some amount of change in the world, the breakdown between the categories might be more like 81%, 10%, 6% & 3%, but regardless, the point is the same. CWG seems to me to fit into the first two categories fairly clearly, with perhaps some overlap into the third. Is it the direct word of "G-d"? No. But don't let that stop us from taking its message, and it's innovation, to heart.

As for Parts II & III of CWG, I cannot say anything, since I have yet to plow through them. I am much more interested in what might be said in these volumes, however, than in Vol. I. The first, was definitely platitudinous, and for much of it I could only nod and say, yes, if only people saw it this way! That's why I think it is nothing revelatory ... and that's probably true of the next two vols, but at least they purport to deal with stuff like aliens and origins, which grabs my attention faster these days than "God says blah blah blah."

cheers,

andrew

[earl]

Originally Posted by taijasi

I recently picked up a copy of CWG (vol. I) at the local library and flipped through it. Parts, I read in full, even reread repeatedly. Other parts I skimmed through, while some, I had to summon a certain degree of patience and non-judgementalness to get through. Bottom line? I think there is much of value in CWG, and I definitely appreciate the fresh approach. But it would have been much easier to swallow if the author had not repeatedly attempted to assign G-d as the author. I do not altogether rule out that possibility, and the relative value & merit of the writing defintely stands on its own. Yet, the chunk of salt necessary to take with the writing is that much larger - owing to the insistence that God dictated this to me. I'd bet my mortal soul in fact, that as such, this is not the case.




Is the book less valuable because of this slight problem? No. But, as one author puts it, we can ascribe the book's origin to one of the following sources:

1. Messages emanating from the relatively nice, well-trained subconscious nature of the recipient. These well up from the subconscious but are regarded by the recipient as coming from an outside source. Introspective people frequently penetrate into the layer of subconscious recollection and are quite unaware of so doing. Not knowing that they have done this, they regard what they find as unusual, beautiful and important, and then proceed to formulate it into messages, which they expect their friends and the general public to regard as spiritually based. These messages are normally innocuous, sometimes beautiful, because they are a mixture of what the recipients have read and gathered from the mystical writing or have heard from Christian sources and the Bible. It is really the content of their right thinking along spiritual lines and can do no one any harm, but is of no true importance whatsoever. It accounts, however, for eighty-five percent (85%) of the so-called telepathic or inspired writings so prevalent at this time.

2. Impressions from the soul, which are translated into concepts and written down by the personality; the recipient is deeply impressed by the relatively high vibration which accompanies them, [sensing them to be] of the soul. These are true soul impressions but usually have in them nothing new or of major importance; they are, again, the result of past ages of soul development. This accounts for eight percent (8%) of the writings and communications put before the general public by aspirants today.

3. Teachings given by a senior or more advanced disciple ... to a disciple under training. These teachings bear the impress and conclusions of the senior disciple and are frequently of value; they may - and often do - contain information of which the recipient is totally unaware. The criterion here is that nothing (literally nothing) will concern the recipient, either spiritually or mentally or in any other way connected with his personality, nor will they contain the platitudes of the religious background of the recipient. They will account for five percent (5%) of the teaching given, but this is in relation to the entire world and the percentage does not refer to some one [spiritual] group, one religious faith or one nation. The recognition of this is of vital importance.

4. Communications from a Master to His disciple. This accounts for two percent (2%) of the entire telepathic receptivity, demonstrated by humanity as a whole throughout the entire world. Western students would here do well to remember that the subjective Eastern student is far more prone to telepathic receptivity than is his Western brother; this has a definite bearing on all the above classifications, which is somewhat humiliating for the Western mystic and [esoteric] student. The World Scriptures emanate from another department of the second ray teaching faculty. In this statement I do not include The Old Testament except such passages as the Twenty-third Psalm and certain passages out of the Prophets, particularly the Prophet Isaiah. The World Scriptures were written for mystics, occupied with beauty, comfort, and encouragement, and were not written for [esotericists].

Some of this is perhaps superfluous, but I find the breakdown (as of ~1950) helpful. Perhaps now, after some amount of change in the world, the breakdown between the categories might be more like 81%, 10%, 6% & 3%, but regardless, the point is the same. CWG seems to me to fit into the first two categories fairly clearly, with perhaps some overlap into the third. Is it the direct word of "G-d"? No. But don't let that stop us from taking its message, and it's innovation, to heart.

As for Parts II & III of CWG, I cannot say anything, since I have yet to plow through them. I am much more interested in what might be said in these volumes, however, than in Vol. I. The first, was definitely platitudinous, and for much of it I could only nod and say, yes, if only people saw it this way! That's why I think it is nothing revelatory ... and that's probably true of the next two vols, but at least they purport to deal with stuff like aliens and origins, which grabs my attention faster these days than "God says blah blah blah."

cheers,

andrew

Hey Andrew, rather interesting, speculative way to look at so-called "channeling." If one's belief system allows for consideration of a multidimensional view of "being" or "consciousness," allowing for possibility of "realities" that extend from the personal earth-bound level through more ethereal, spiritual or non-material realms to the very heart of it all, then this partioning of origins for what is "channeled" makes sense to me, including likelihood that vast majority of what comes to/through someone is along more earth-bound levels whatever the %'s. I guess to some degree "author" aside, I tend to think the message is more important than the messenger/author in when a message carries some intuitive truth it seems to resonate with the recipient and perhaps nudge them in the direction they need to follow. In fact, if one attempts to listen for an intuitive reverberation from a message it may help them avoid the false, self-aggrandizing messengers that unfortunately travel this territory as well. Always a bit problematic for many reason, though, for someone to say "God told me so."

[Käthe]

Originally Posted by wil

We are not punished for the sin, but by the sin.

I'm going to remember this one, although in my own modified way, because it's pithy and deep.

"We are not punished for harmful action, but diminished by the doing of it"

[taijasi]

Originally Posted by earl

Always a bit problematic for many reason, though, for someone to say "God told me so."

Yeah. Gosh, call me narrow-minded, but I just don't think God speaks to us using English. Or any other human idiom. Some would say that's putting a restriction on God's abilities. Not hardly, as John Wayne might say. Nope, I don't think She needs to.

If our entire life - every thought, every emotion, every action - and all the ripples that these have generated & perpetuated throughout Cosmos ... can somehow just be present, right there, within the heart & mind of God, in a flash! - then why wouldn't it also make sense that the Divine could/would speak to us, in a language beyond words, beyond emotions, and even beyond thoughts? It makes sense to me, because I believe God knows/is the perfection of each of these - or rather, represents to us the greatest that we can accomplish, in each of these aspects of our being.

So, perfect Love, perfect Understanding, and perfect Empowerment to lovingly serve alongside Deity (versus the human tendency to fall short - of our greatest potential). When I envision, feel, or ponder upon that, I don't get any kind of big booming voice, nor do I see "whitey" (as a friend of mine used to call Him), sitting up there on his lovely throne. I do believe, that even the slightest vibration of the being Christians call `God' would literally shatter most of us to pieces, if we were not carefully prepared for this. And while I have no way of knowing (for certain) whether the author of CWG might have been prepared in this way, I would have to say that if he was writing down any kind of direct communication from `God,' he'd be setting a precedent in human history. That may not sit well with some, but - hey, I just don't think God sits around writing books. We do that.

And darn good ones, sometimes, too!

andrew

[Quahom1]

Originally Posted by taijasi

Yeah. Gosh, call me narrow-minded, but I just don't think God speaks to us using English. Or any other human idiom. Some would say that's putting a restriction on God's abilities. Not hardly, as John Wayne might say. Nope, I don't think She needs to...


andrew

Why not? He invented it...

who is putting restriction on whom?

v/r

Q