I don't need to be saved.

[Scarpia]

Believe it or not, there are all kinds of people who listen to people like that, often subconsciously but just as often out a need for masochism and/or fear of success/failure.

It is good to leap high but to think about having a reasonably soft place to land if things don't go as planned.

(Insight obtained while grousing about a long traffic light, then seeing a homeless man begging for money among the cars stuck at the light.)

[AndyD.]

We call them "sheep."

Traps do not often advertise themselves.

You guys said it all right there.

[snyprrr]

As a,..uhm,...Blood Soaked Believer in Our Lord Jesus Christ,...aaaand a failed horror writer (seriously, we'll have to talk), and heavy metal guitarist, I can certainly state that my "New Family" was not Chosen because of their intelligence or social skills!

I guess I apologize for them,...they give me FacePalm too!

I personally do not concern myself all that much with non-believers: I have all that I can handle within the so-called ranks.

I remember when I was a Baby Believer. All you had to do was say "Jesus" and I thought we were all brothers. NOW, if you say you're a Christian, I've got 20 questions for ya!



btw Dave- AS a horror writer, I can tell you that Scripture is the KEY to effective horror writing (we will have to talk!). No other place I can think of explains better HOW the dead can come back to life after three days. It's in thar!

I have always wondered why there has never been a Scriptural horror movie. NEVER! Noe thaaat would be a mind blower! I've been trying to come up with a premise,...it always ends up with The Conquerer Worm.


Look up Michael Aquino/Presidio (totally unrelated).

[snyprrr]

btw- the only reason one don't need to be saved is because one is not hanging off a cliff at the moment.

I would rather have this conversation with someone dangling by a hangnail over a gorge.

jus sayin

[AndyD.]

Ah.

[karlhenning]

Perhaps, someday, he may find someone to oblige him in this . . . .

[Elgarian]

Now, why did I listen to those people who told me to let my dreams and loves die and find a little cell to be trapped in?  What was I thinking?

Yeah, but this needs thinking about. Those dreams and loves really do take it out of a chap, in my experience, and a little cell would be a whole lot easier to keep clean.

[MN Dave]

btw Dave- AS a horror writer, I can tell you that Scripture is the KEY to effective horror writing (we will have to talk!). No other place I can think of explains better HOW the dead can come back to life after three days. It's in thar!

Yeah, I've read it. 

[karlhenning]

btw Dave- AS a horror writer, I can tell you that Scripture is the KEY to effective horror writing (we will have to talk!). No other place I can think of explains better HOW the dead can come back to life after three days. It's in thar!

Nyuk-nyuk.

[karlhenning]

Yeah, but this needs thinking about. Those dreams and loves really do take it out of a chap, in my experience, and a little cell would be a whole lot easier to keep clean.

Hm. The potential cruelty of dreams . . . .

[karlhenning]

If Dave wore a beard, I should read this thread as I don't need to be shaved.

[MN Dave]

Wifey does not like the facial hair. 

[Guido]

I have to register my slight disappointment that snyprrr is a christian - I thought you'd be something really esoteric and outlandish if anything (the vibe I got from your far out posts!!)

[AndyD.]

I have to register my slight disappointment that snyprrr is a christian - I thought you'd be something really esoteric and outlandish if anything (the vibe I got from your far out posts!!)

If we all just stay calm...

[drogulus]

     I can't imagine beliefs being passed around like viruses. It takes me a long time and study to decide whether I think any novel proposition is true. I imagine that I'm normal in this way, so belief as it's used here must refer to something else. It does. What people mean when they adopt therapeutic beliefs is that it's good to believe them, not that they do. Thinking a belief is good puts you on the side of those you imagine really believe what you think is good to believe, and this seems to be the point.

     But maybe the believers are only saying they believe x, maybe they're doing what you're doing, "trying" to believe. Since one normally scales belief to evidence and plausibility it appears that this beliefism doesn't actually involve belief in the ordinary sense at all, just a process of proclaiming and taking sides. That does all the work that real belief does except that highly optional part about thinking what you believe is true.

     So I take it with a grain of salt when I hear that someone believes something. If it's really a case of thinking something true that will make itself evident. If not, if it's just a belief that too will become evident, largely by a lack of curiosity about how such a divergent belief is supported, and by obviously bogus rationales about "other ways of knowing" that never actually show up. This belief thing is really pretty transparent when you think about it. Just think of how easy it is to expose the flaws in a religion you don't "believe", and how hard it is to do so for your own.

     It occurs to me that while implausible beliefs aren't necessary to form stable social groups that offer the advantages that religions do, there may be good reasons to include them. Beliefs that are hard to accept increase the social distance of a group from society at large, fostering group cohesion and solidarity. This may also form part of the rationale for religious "budding". Then there's the "antler theory" of W.D. Hamilton and others, but that's a real stretch.

[Guido]

Don't know what you're reacting to here, but I like it!

[drogulus]

Don't know what you're reacting to here, but I like it!

     I have an itchy bump on my leg. Maybe a god or insect bit me. Can you suggest a helpful belief?

     

These kind of people give real Christians a bad name.  0:)

      No such distinction can be made. On my theory it shouldn't be easy to separate out real from fake believers. Are you a real Democrat or do you just vote that way? What do you really think, and what if you change your mind? Anyway it's probably not a good idea to say someone is something because of a professed belief.

      Is the Pope Catholic? In an operational sense he is. Does this require him to believe certain things? I think not. He's no more capable of performing that trick than anyone else. It does require him to say certain things, which he does. So to the extent it's possible for a person to be a Catholic he's one. No one can tell how deep that goes, though. People aren't always honest about things like that. You commit to beliefs when you're young and then when it's too late you find out it isn't like that. What do you do? Make the best of it, I guess.

[AndyD.]

     I have an itchy bump on my leg. Maybe a god or insect bit me. Can you suggest a helpful belief?

It could be Spring Fever. But, like, in the Fall. Or whatevah.

[snyprrr]

I have to register my slight disappointment that snyprrr is a christian - I thought you'd be something really esoteric and outlandish if anything (the vibe I got from your far out posts!!)

My folks were Rosicrucian,.......a,......ah,......ahhahhahhahahahaha,....true.

snyprrr is more like benjamin button!



But yes, my life did changed "in the twinkling of an eye",... starting with a car accident that made me go a seekin and a searchin.

I have a lifetime of blavatsky-pike-crowley knowledge (gnosis), but the simplicity of Christ is what's hard! Remember, Paul says that "the Greek always seek something new" to tickle their esoteric brains, but all the esoterics in the world couldn't save me from that car accident that one "fateful" day.



I most absolutely feel the pain of people who were brought up in a religiously abusive home and/or school. I believe I had a very Buddha like experience, in that I was a great prince who (through the car accident) went out of his pampered world to see the horrors outside.

If I hear one more story about one more abusive nun, I don't know, I'll scream.

...one more parent who only breathes slaughter...



And yet, I have turned into the most Brimestone



ahaha,...no, it's late.

haha,...maybe you would accept me as a Christian because I say so, but I would be quite suspicious of anyone like me!! I feel much more hypocritical, than saved, most of the time. I certainly can't live up to my own standards.

Christianity, not Churchianty, is esoteric and exoteric, indeed, but it would be nothing without Power.



oy,...i ramble on,....goodnight Forum.

[Elgarian]

When I contemplate Cezanne's paintings, I find myself perceiving real landscapes in a different way, with what seems like enhanced awareness and unusual insight. Can someone suggest a helpful theory of brain chemistry?