Being true to yourself

[jasonwill2]

When you are true to yourself and embrace what you are as a person and individual, Ha-Satan smiles, for that is all he ever wanted us to do: embrace our humanity and nature.

Likewise, I would say that any truly good religion would be about embracing who you are and about a connection with a higher power (whether it's just a higher form of yourself or an actual god), as opposed to denying what you are.

edit: I should note for threadhoppers that although we should embrace ourselves, that doesn't mean that we do not try to become better people. It actually means that to become better people we HAVE to embrace ourselves. We can't get rid of or change our nature, we can only work with it. So by learning to embrace what we are we can pragmatically learn to control our emotions, actions, and nature in general. That can only come though after we fully explore what we are and who we are, and then accept it. However the embracing of yourself does not imply that you embrace the undesirable aspects as they can be seen as malfunctions of the proper self or nature of the person. Thus to Truly embrace your nature you are accept yourself while ALSO working to eliminate behaviors that are holding you back from living a happier and fuller life.

 

[Bob Dixon]

What's an "I"?

 

[waitasec]

When you are true to yourself and embrace what you are as a person and individual, Ha-Satan smiles, for that is all he ever wanted us to do: embrace our humanity and nature.

Likewise, I would say that any truly good religion would be about embracing who you are and about a connection with a higher power (whether it's just a higher form of yourself or an actual god), as opposed to denying what you are.

denying what you are can and will lead to regret.

 

[jasonwill2]

What's an "I"?

The only time I said "I" was when I said:

"Likewise, I would say".

Which was used in the sense of a first-person identification of myself as the one who would say:

"that any truly good religion would be about embracing who you are..."

Are you trying to point out the fact that I stated an opinion that I will probably defend to to the death with reasons of why a religion based on denying who you are is unhealthy and was formed as an antithesis to pagan religions, to which I make a synthesis of both that embraces our nature while also striving to become better people by using our own nature in pragmatically calculated ways?

I call it overcoming yourself through embracing yourself. Sounds contradictory, but you can only overcome yourself when you learn how to use it to your advantage: or in other words by embracing yourself fully you will come to learn how to control yourself.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

When you are true to yourself and embrace what you are as a person and individual, Ha-Satan smiles, for that is all he ever wanted us to do: embrace our humanity and nature.

Likewise, I would say that any truly good religion would be about embracing who you are and about a connection with a higher power (whether it's just a higher form of yourself or an actual god), as opposed to denying what you are.

Amor fati - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
True Will - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nietzschean affirmation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To embrace "our nature" encompasses much more than just your human body.

 

[jasonwill2]

Amor fati - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
True Will - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nietzschean affirmation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To embrace "our nature" encompasses much more than just your human body.

I thought that was a given. Actually, I was more talking along the lines embracing who you are in terms of spirituality and emotion. Your personality, how you react, the fact that you feel hate, anger, love, and compassion, the fact that you need something to believe in or work towards, ect ect.

But good links none-the-less.

edit: WOOT my 1,000th post!

 

[Gjallarhorn]

I thought that was a given. Actually, I was more talking along the lines embracing who you are in terms of spirituality and emotion. Your personality, how you react, the fact that you feel hate, anger, love, and compassion, the fact that you need something to believe in or work towards, ect ect.

But good links none-the-less.

edit: WOOT my 1,000th post!

To embrace "how you react" is to embrace the world, backwards and forwards. Along with embracing and affirming your own emotions and actions, you must embrace and affirm the actions and emotions of the world, no matter how repugnant or ignorant they were, are, and will be.

 

[jasonwill2]

To embrace "how you react" is to embrace the world, backwards and forwards. Along with embracing and affirming your own emotions and actions, you must embrace and affirm the actions and emotions of the world, no matter how repugnant or ignorant they were, are, and will be.

I can't tell if you are agreeing with me or disagreeing.

But perhaps that wasn't the best way to put it... I was talking about internal emotional reactions in general, not an external response in any given instance. I should of actually said to embrace your emotions, which is what I meant by "how you react".

I was talking about the internal emotional reaction.

edit: outward actions can be changed, and inward emotions controlled and manipulated, but either way you still have to embrace the fact that you feel emotions and instincts, and when you do that, you can both control/somewhat manipulate your emotions and outward actions much more easier.

edit2: talking to him later somehwere else apparently gjallarhorn was agreeing with me and expanding on what I said.

 

[Thief]

How about embracing what you CAN be?

No room for improvement?....no desire to step up?
You already are the humane spirit you could be?

Born as animal...die as animal.
Spiritual increase is an everyday effort.

Chasing the flesh leads to the coffin.

Not that you can't enjoy your senses....I'm not in favor of abstinence.
I drink...I smoke...whatever....

A sinner?....maybe...
But God does not judge after the flesh.

 

[jasonwill2]

How about embracing what you CAN be?

No room for improvement?....no desire to step up?
You already are the humane spirit you could be?

Born as animal...die as animal.
Spiritual increase is an everyday effort.

Chasing the flesh leads to the coffin.

Not that you can't enjoy your senses....I'm not in favor of abstinence.
I drink...I smoke...whatever....

A sinner?....maybe...
But God does not judge after the flesh.

If you read the following posts you would realize that it is about much more than embracing yourself.

Yes, there is room for improvement, but you can only do that AFTER embracing what you are at the core. You can't fix human nature, you can only work pragmatically with it. But to work WITH your nature, you have to fully embrace it so that you can learn to control it.

 

[Thief]

If you read the following posts you would realize that it is about much more than embracing yourself.

Yes, there is room for improvement, but you can only do that AFTER embracing what you are at the core. You can't fix human nature, you can only work pragmatically with it. But to work WITH your nature, you have to fully embrace it so that you can learn to control it.

We might be on the same page....maybe....

But if you are seeking to 'control' what you are....
is it not because what you are NEEDS to be controlled?

And therefore...what you are is not the desired item.
The control will produce what you will become.

 

[jasonwill2]

We might be on the same page....maybe....

But if you are seeking to 'control' what you are....
is it not because what you are NEEDS to be controlled?

And therefore...what you are is not the desired item.
The control will produce what you will become.

No, as it is still you. You just learned how to not let it rule your life. If a dog becomes trained, it is still a dog, it will always be a dog and do dog things. It just won't misbehave nearly as much anymore.

Embracing yourself is a form of training by self-exploration and emotional/spiritual experimentation, at least it is for me. Perhaps it works differently in my mind because I'm bipolar

Also of note: I added in an edit for the first post to clarify for anyone else that might threadhop. It also puts what I said later down in a somewhat better phrasing, making my point clearer.

 

[InChrist]

I agree that embracing who we are brings wholeness and inner peace, anything else brings turmoil and confusion. Humanity was created in the image of God. That image has been damaged by sin and our God-given nature is flawed. Yet, Satan wants us to deny who we were meant to be and embrace these flaws and our fallen nature which lead to destruction. Our Creator wants to see us free from such flaws and reach the joy of the potential He created us for in the first place.

 

[Thief]

I think we are on the same page....but....
Embracing who we are NOW....implies we are content and complete.

Discipline and restraint is not embracing who we are.
Discipline and restraint is denial of who we are.

Previous posts lean to the notion it's the same coin....true.

But you can't look at both sides of it at the same time.

 

[jasonwill2]

I agree that embracing who we are brings wholeness and inner peace, anything else brings turmoil and confusion. Humanity was created in the image of God. That image has been damaged by sin and our God-given nature is flawed. Yet, Satan wants us to deny who we were meant to be and embrace these flaws and our fallen nature which lead to destruction. Our Creator wants to see us free from such flaws and reach the joy of the potential He created us for in the first place.

How can you say that when the Bible says things like no man is without sin, and that sin is bad and makes us evil? My entire point is that religions based on denying who we are and trying to ignore/change it are unhealthy. This includes Christianity. I believe the approach should be to accept who and what we are so that we can pragmatically work with our nature for the betterment of ourselves and others, not against it.

We are children of Ha-Satan, the one who embodies our challenges and triumphs, and is quick to point out failure and weakness where-ever it is. To live as Satan intended us is to over-come ourselves by accepting ourselves and to improve our life in all aspects, body, will, emotion, mind, and spirit. Oddly enough, when I said life then described those aspects, I essentially just labeled the five parts of the soul.

Satan is Lord, and Leviathan is God, and we are made in their image... adversarial. The Darwinian struggle for survival no longer is on a level of hunter-gatherer skirmishes with competing tribes. Evolution has put the developed and developing worlds into a position of being able to focus on more than our immediate needs, and with those met we need something to do with our instincts. I say, we find ways to channel them into modern uses that benefit us and others.

LaVey once said that abstinence leads to compulsion, and that Indulgence is the way to go. In a way I agree with him, but in a much more general way that isn't actually about hedonism, but just sometimes uses hedonism (emotional or not) as a tool. Also I don't agree on calling it hedonism, but rather embracing yourself, and talking more of denying what you are abstinence and calling compulsion a corruption of our nature. Now it may seem like the same thing at first glance, but the difference is that I'm not talking about hedonism, and that LaVey saw hedonism as an end in itself. I don't, I see an inner happiness that comes from within and a control of our nature as the end, at which various forms of hedonism can be a tool for reaching that point.

I think we are on the same page....but....
Embracing who we are NOW....implies we are content and complete.

Discipline and restraint is not embracing who we are.
Discipline and restraint is denial of who we are.

Previous posts lean to the notion it's the same coin....true.

But you can't look at both sides of it at the same time.

If you want to think dualistically, sure, you can't see both sides of the coin. But There are not two sides, and there is no dualism here. Perhaps I sometimes say embrace when I should actually say accept, but you must first accept the entire spectrum of your nature before you can embrace the parts that you identify as truly you and the parts you identify as corruptions of your nature which will overtime be corrected.

 

[InChrist]

How can you say that when the Bible says things like no man is without sin, and that sin is bad and makes us evil? My entire point is that religions based on denying who we are and trying to ignore/change it are unhealthy. This includes Christianity. I believe the approach should be to accept who and what we are so that we can pragmatically work with our nature for the betterment of ourselves and others, not against it.

We are children of Ha-Satan, the one who embodies our challenges and triumphs, and is quick to point out failure and weakness where-ever it is. To live as Satan intended us is to over-come ourselves by accepting ourselves and to improve our life in all aspects, body, will, emotion, mind, and spirit. Oddly enough, when I said life then described those aspects, I essentially just labeled the five parts of the soul.

Satan is Lord, and Leviathan is God, and we are made in their image... adversarial. The Darwinian struggle for survival no longer is on a level of hunter-gatherer skirmishes with competing tribes. Evolution has put the developed and developing worlds into a position of being able to focus on more than our immediate needs, and with those met we need something to do with our instincts. I say, we find ways to channel them into modern uses that benefit us and others.

LaVey once said that abstinence leads to compulsion, and that Indulgence is the way to go. In a way I agree with him, but in a much more general way that isn't actually about hedonism, but just sometimes uses hedonism (emotional or not) as a tool. Also I don't agree on calling it hedonism, but rather embracing yourself, and talking more of denying what you are abstinence and calling compulsion a corruption of our nature. Now it may seem like the same thing at first glance, but the difference is that I'm not talking about hedonism, and that LaVey saw hedonism as an end in itself. I don't, I see an inner happiness that comes from within and a control of our nature as the end, at which various forms of hedonism can be a tool for reaching that point.



If you want to think dualistically, sure, you can't see both sides of the coin. But There are not two sides, and there is no dualism here. Perhaps I sometimes say embrace when I should actually say accept, but you must first accept the entire spectrum of your nature before you can embrace the parts that you identify as truly you and the parts you identify as corruptions of your nature which will overtime be corrected.

I say this because I agree with the biblical evaluation of the destructive nature of sin and also agree that it must be eliminated before it destroys the real essence of who each person was intended to be. You wouldn’t tell a cancer patient to embrace or accept their cancer as it eats away at their body. Instead, measures are taken to eliminate and remove it from the body as soon as possible. Sin is like cancer that is eating away and destroying the eternal person the Creator of heaven and earth (not Satan a created being/ fallen angel) intended each of us to be.

 

[jasonwill2]

I say this because I agree with the biblical evaluation of the destructive nature of sin and also agree that it must be eliminated before it destroys the real essence of who each person was intended to be. You wouldn’t tell a cancer patient to embrace or accept their cancer as it eats away at their body. Instead, measures are taken to eliminate and remove it from the body as soon as possible. Sin is like cancer that is eating away and destroying the eternal person the Creator of heaven and earth (not Satan a created being/ fallen angel) intended each of us to be.

But the "cancer" is what we are! there is no "sin" and no "fall", we are what we are! the corruptions and malfunctions are not inherently bad, it's just what we are manifesting in inappropriate ways.

 

[sojourner]

why a religion based on denying who you are is unhealthy and was formed as an antithesis to pagan religions

What religion or religions do you think this (or these) might be?

 

[sojourner]

How can you say that when the Bible says things like no man is without sin, and that sin is bad and makes us evil? My entire point is that religions based on denying who we are and trying to ignore/change it are unhealthy. This includes Christianity. I believe the approach should be to accept who and what we are so that we can pragmatically work with our nature for the betterment of ourselves and others, not against it.

Hmm... Seems like that's what Xy does...

But the "cancer" is what we are! there is no "sin" and no "fall", we are what we are!

I disagree. I say there is no cancer. We have fooled ourselves into believing that there is a cancer, and then we invent these intricate dances that end up taking us away from our true nature, in order to avoid what isn't there to begin with.

 

[InChrist]

But the "cancer" is what we are! there is no "sin" and no "fall", we are what we are! the corruptions and malfunctions are not inherently bad, it's just what we are manifesting in inappropriate ways.

Really? Most people consider and know that cancer destroying their body is a bad thing and that certain things are bad. "Inappropriate manifestations" are still wrong. Things which are wrong are not right and are therefore not good, but bad. Playing word games doesn't change reality.

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;
Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Isaiah 5;20