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Twirlip;WARNING MAY NEED TO BE READ SLOWLY OR TWICE
Do you really find irony in the loss of faith?
I know you weren't trying to be mean with this, but what did you mean?
Only you can know if you are being faithful to yourself and to your God.
You must induct yourself.
Which means you need to know the job you think and believe your religion should be.
You need to believe in the task put down before you.
Job description ergo religion.
To SAVE you is not always to 'spare' you.
Character of organised religion?
So write and imagine your own.
All faith should be fought for or fought against.
Faith needs you as much as you need faith.
Faith needs you to fight it, faith also needs you to be victorious.
A weak faith needs a remedy.
You train to be a better boxer,
you need to train and put your faith to task, you need to make your faith fight for its life. You need to make your life fight for its faith.
You cant be saved and you cannot save if your will and faith are weak.
(well you certainly cant save if that what you are looking to do)
Ethical, Moral, what is the difference?
There probably is one, one is what you are told and one is what you tell, for a start.
There probably is mor eto this difference, please expand on htis possition of yours, please.
As well as your understanding of what original sin and the Fall are???
We are all original, is there one sin which can relate all to the all?
One sin which can deny every of their uniqueness?
I have a lot of questions, but a philosophical forum such as this one might not be the most appropriate place for them, and perhaps there is some specifically Christian forum to which I might be referred, if I'm going to go into any detail.
I have never had any supernatural beliefs, and I still have none. Since shortly after the birth of my daughter, in an extremely conflict-ridden marriage to a Christian woman, I have had some paranormal beliefs, which are extremely tentative, and hard to put into words. (I think the distinction between 'paranormal' and 'supernatural' can be maintained: that is a philosophical problem which I shall have to discuss some time.)
Most orthodox Christian doctrines still seem like gobbledygook to me.
But a sense of connection with a suffering God is becoming increasingly important to me. I don't know how specifically Christian the idea of a suffering God is, and that is one of my questions.
I'm also not sure to what extent Christians tend to think of God as continuing to suffer in the present moment (as opposed to performing some sort of obscure ritual of sacrifice of Himself to Himself at a specific historical moment, which is part of the "gobbledygook" I mentioned); and that is another of my questions.
I have recently had two dreams in which Jesus appeared; one of them was a rather terrifying kind of vision, which left an emotional mark on me.
Yesterday I had a distinct sense that I was becoming some kind of Christian.
As there are indeed many kinds of Christian, this raises the question of what distinguishes a Christian (of whatever species) from a non-Christian. Is it something to do with using the name "Jesus" without fear or embarrassment? If so, does having some sort of religious sense about Jesus constitute membership of a religion, or can such a sense be combined with other religious influences?
It was an encounter with a Muslim cleric on the Internet four years ago which finally nudged me into starting to believe in God. (I recently learned of that man's death by suicide ... er, not a bomb, nothing like that! He wasn't that kind of Muslim, and indeed, ironically, he had lost his faith.)
I still have no sense of belonging to anything that can be called a "religion", and I still don't like the character of organized religions. On the other hand, if I now have some kind of "faith", I need to assert it in some way.
If this faith means anything at all, it becomes a kind of framework for all other experiences, and a new light in which everything I already know has to be re-evaluated (although in a sense everything is still the same, including all the familiar crap of my ridiculous and unpleasant life).
The best way I can describe it, although it's rather vague, is that the form of the self remains the same, but the substance of the self is transformed, becoming as if more transparent, less opaque.
The difference seems to be something to do with being ethical through-and-through, as opposed to morality being somehow added on to a self which is free and rational but not wholly ethical. The concepts of original sin and the Fall seem to be involved. (But I am still extremely averse to the cynical use of the doctrine of original sin to inculcate shame and self-distrust.)
It is a personal relationship it is necessarily two way communication of spirit. Thus it is different for everyone much the same as every friendship you have is different.
If so, I have a remark, and a further question. My remark is that is not clear to me what kind of communication I am having, except that it is with some kind of suffering God, and that the connections with Christian theology are increasingly obvious. (And, of course, that Jesus was definitely Jesus by name in both my dreams. However, dreams might speak in code.)
My question is whether a personal relationship with a being who can be identified with the historical Jesus is necessarily exclusive of other religious commitments. (A Buddhist said to me recently that Buddhism is not exclusive in this way.)
But that difficulty of mine is not the main thing (even for me). The main thing is this attempt to get in some sort of right relationship with God, by whatever name God is known, and by whatever means He is known, including the Incarnation, whatever exactly that was.
I wouldn't make a fuss over it at all, were it not for the fact that people kill each other over such details, so perhaps my fussing is not so bad.
Is it something to do with using the name "Jesus" without fear or embarrassment? If so, does having some sort of religious sense about Jesus constitute membership of a religion, or can such a sense be combined with other religious influences?
There is a rather large assumption in the rational mind as to with whom one is having a spiritual relationship.
I wouldn't make a fuss over it at all, were it not for the fact that people kill each other over such details, so perhaps my fussing is not so bad.