godnotgod
Thou art That
:biglaugh:
You and he make such a lovely, complimentary pair! Strict anal, bloodless rectitude on the one hand and nearsighted slobber on the other. Boy! I never knew this could be so much fun!
:hugkiss::dan::seesaw:
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Is Christianity based upon Pagan ideas?
- Thread starter godnotgod
- Start date
:biglaugh:
You and he make such a lovely, complimentary pair! Strict anal, bloodless rectitude on the one hand and nearsighted slobber on the other. Boy! I never knew this could be so much fun!
:hugkiss::dan::seesaw:By that argument, you and I make as good of a pair, as you and she (your sexism again) are equally without any basis for your arguments. You both use your religious faith as evidence.
godnotgod
Thou art That
I already explained that to you, but you ignored it completely: HIGHER MAN HAS THE MALE/FEMALE PRINCIPLES INTERNALLY RESOLVED TO PERFECTION. THERE IS NO CONFLICT WITHIN HIS BEING. ANY CONFLICT IS WITHIN YOUR MIND ONLY. GET OVER IT, ALREADY.
I am beginning to see that you understand less and less as we go along. The Garden of Eden was a metaphor for Paradise. What you fail to understand, is the degree to which Christianity has become corrupted. In the original sense, Heaven and Earth were the same place. This is also true in Buddhist thought. Buddhists say:
"Nirvana and Samsara are One."
They still do. Buddhism has managed to keep its focus on the Present Moment where the spiritual and the physical worlds have always been One. Christianity lost it, and so created the idea of "another realm" in some future time and place.
You mean like when you state that wine is a symbol for blood and blood is a metaphor for sacrifice?
Higher Man is beyond male/female aspects. His consciousness is transcendent and without preference. His focus is now IT, rather than he or she. For him, he sees and understands that these two essences must be complimentary one to the other. They are relative values, neither of which is more important than the other. If he did not understand this, he would not be Higher Man. Now, you will either understand this or you will not. Stop putting up a fuss over nothing.
Lookie here, fool! Learn to read: I never stated that they were IMMORAL: I said they were AMORAL, dig?
From the get go, Christianity is concerned with obedience to the law of God. Adam and Eve broke that law and were banished from Paradise. If you don't understand that this is about MORAL LAW, then you simply don't understand the core teaching of Christianity. Moral Law is not Cosmic Law, because Cosmic Law is about The One, while Moral Law is Dual, and a product of Reason.
Now, the problem is this: When God told Adam and Eve NOT to eat of the Forbidden Fruit, most people understood this literally. There was a commandment and that commandment was violated. There was the Original Sin of Disobedience and Adam and Eve blew it for their progeny, being the rest of humanity. Result: Long Way Home. This is the corrupted version. The original story is that God wanted Adam and Eve to eat of the "Forbidden Fruit", it being a symbol of Higher Consciousness, or God Consciousness, dig? You see, God, in his infinite wisdom and love, was setting up a psychological piece de resistance; yes, a little mind trick; a koan, if you will, designed to burst the bag of REASON. Why? Because God wanted Divine Union with his children, with his creation. Divine Union is the goal of all religious endeavor. The problem was that the minds of Adam and Eve had to be raised to the level of the divine. They had to be transformed somehow, but Reason stood in the way. This is exactly what Jesus meant when he warned his listeners that they were mistaken to think they would find eternal life within the scriptures. He was saying that they needed to get the spiritual experience first, because the kind of mind they had was incapable of understanding what they were reading. That is what Zen and all the other mystical teachings are telling us as well. So Adam and Eve needed a little coaxing, and so God went away, and then re-appeared to them as a serpent in order to insure that they would eat of the Fruit. Remember what the serpent said? He told Adam and Eve that God did not want them to eat of the Fruit because their eyes would then be opened allowing them to "see as He sees". This is none other than Higher Consciousness. See? It is not about Belief, or Morality, or Good and Evil. It is about Divine Union. So Adam and Eve partook of the "Forbidden Fruit" and all lived happily ever after. Story end. The Kingdom of God is within.
Short way home.
Orthodox Christian version: man is separated from God and needs to go through mountains of crap to get back home, even having to first die to get to some heaven in some afterlife and blah blah blah.
Original Version: Divine Union is achieved in the Present Moment. Story End.
Tribal Man is concerned with Moral Law and Obedience to that law.
The Mystic is concerned with Union with the Divine Essence, the Gnosis within. By following Virtue, Higher Man is always in accord with Cosmic Law.
:angel2:
Christians interpet what Cosmic Law is through the filter of their Moral Belief System. What they call Cosmic Law bears no semblance to actual Reality. Why? Because Moral Law is about an Ideal Concept of Moral Perfection that can never be achieved; Cosmic Law is about the way things actually are, which Christians cannot accept, because they see the way things are as being intrinsically Evil. So, in the mind of the Christian, what he calls Cosmic Law is merely Moral Law with a Controller Boss running the show. It is completely contrived and unnatural.
I defined tribal as adhering to mores, folkways, and moral law. Can you give an example where Buddhism follows such tribal rules? Buddhists themselves call their practice a transcendental one. What do you think they might be attempting to transcend? Or are they just full of so much tribal ****?
Bravo! And then he invites them to DRINK it, does'nt he? And before that, he tells others that by drinking his blood, they will gain eternal life, does'nt he? Therefore, the symbolic blood he invites them to drink is a nourishing drink, is it not? After all, we eat and drink for nourishment, don't we? Don't we?
Apparently written later, but still referring to a time when Jesus was obviously still alive.
And where is this "Heaven"?
Jesus's message was supposedly universal to all men. Anyone should be able to understand his message. Universality is beyond any particular culture and the language of the spirit is beyond words. Unfortunately, Yeshua's original message became corrupted by St. Paul and others, who concocted their dying and resurrecting god-man.
The problem with you, Oberon, is that I point to the moon, but instead of looking at the moon, you viciously attack my pointing finger.
"The sage is amoral. The sage, in other words, is not a man of the tribe and the tribal mores have as little importance for him as they have for Heaven and Earth... The universe is not moral, not 'our kind,' not kind in the way the Rites requires. The sage regards men--including himself--as straw dogs. But the universe, amoral as it is, supports us. If we call on its orderliness, it never fails us--any more than the law of gravity will fail. Try to call on morality the same way, and you will quickly exhaust its support. Forget morality; follow your inner nature. In the opinion of the sage,...our inner nature is an extension of the nature of the universe. To follow one is to be in harmony with the other. The sage returns to his own nature as it originally was [the 'uncarved block'] and dedicates himself to helping society return to its natural state as well."
excerpted from: Taoism: The Parting of the Way, by Holmes-Welch (edited)
*****
continued below...
godnotgod
Thou art That
The Master doesn't try to be powerful;
thus he is truly powerful.
The ordinary man keeps reaching for power;
thus he never has enough.
The Master does nothing,
yet he leaves nothing undone.
The ordinary man is always doing things,
yet many more are left to be done.
The kind man does something,
yet something remains undone.
The just man does something,
and leaves many things to be done.
The moral man does something,
and when no one responds
he rolls up his sleeves and uses force.
When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is morality.
When morality is lost, there is ritual.
Ritual is the husk of true faith,
the beginning of chaos.
Therefore the Master concerns himself
with the depths and not the surface,
with the fruit and not the flower.
He has no will of his own.
He dwells in reality,
and lets all illusions go.
Tao te Ching, Ch. 38
thus he is truly powerful.
The ordinary man keeps reaching for power;
thus he never has enough.
The Master does nothing,
yet he leaves nothing undone.
The ordinary man is always doing things,
yet many more are left to be done.
The kind man does something,
yet something remains undone.
The just man does something,
and leaves many things to be done.
The moral man does something,
and when no one responds
he rolls up his sleeves and uses force.
When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is morality.
When morality is lost, there is ritual.
Ritual is the husk of true faith,
the beginning of chaos.
Therefore the Master concerns himself
with the depths and not the surface,
with the fruit and not the flower.
He has no will of his own.
He dwells in reality,
and lets all illusions go.
Tao te Ching, Ch. 38
Mr Cheese
Well-Known Member
I like your ideas
But you should be clear to express that you are ONLY discussing exoteric Christianity
Any mystical or esoteric insight contradicts much of what you say here and in other threads/posts.
For example read soem Eckhart (not Tolle)......
But then online in such forums and places, anything below the surface in Christianity gets small or very little attention.
You have to remember Fred Phelps and Pat Roberson are Christians
But then so are St Francis and Thomas Merton.
godnotgod
Thou art That
Oberon, I do apologize for my uncalled-for outbursts. I had no right to jump all over you as I did. I do consider most of your comments to be intelligent and insightful, and I enjoy having a discussion with you. Please disregard the nasty type things I said to you as there really is no substance to them. :kissbette
I didn't ignore it. I simply have read enough feminist literature to know that the use of "man" even in "higher man" would be taken as both elitist and sexist, even if you are saying that there is no gender. It is the use of the word itself that causes the problem.
I don't care what you think the garden of Eden was. This is about what christians believe and have believed. They believed that there was no kingdom of god for humanity until Jesus absolved humanities sins with his death and opened the gates with his messianic rise to power. Whether you believe that heaven and earth are supposed to be the same or whatever is irrelevant.
No. I don't believe that wine is a symbol for blood. However, having extensively studied christian history and theology, and the NT, I know that according to the gospels Jesus used it as a symbol for blood. I also know that the references to blood are using metaphorical speech to invoke a sacrificial theme.
It isn't a matter of understanding. It is a matter of thinking it is all bunk.
You are wrong either way. According to any commonly accepted definition of moral, buddhists moral doctrines.
For christians, God's law is cosmic. You can believe whatever you like about cosmic law, and you can disagree, but again your argument boils down to:
1. My beliefs are that of higher man, and my morals are really cosmic law
2. Everyone who doesn't believe what I believe is tribal.
Not there he doesn't.
No. The wine and bread were part of a passover seded, and religious in nature.
You said Jesus was fulfilling scripture by offering bread and wine as body and blood for eternal life. WHERE in scripture is this?
For christians? Some magical place or something outside of this universe.
Not according to many. The catholic church, for example, teaches that Jesus' message must be taught by people who have studied it (i.e. priests). And although other denominations disagree, most of them have priests or clergy who go to seminary to study, because the message in the NT was composed nearly 2000 years ago in a different language and produced by a different culture.
You use condescending and elitist terms like the derogatory tribal man, which I guarentee you would get you in a lot of trouble if you published something about it, and then make these terms fit what you believe anyway. You started this thread on how christianity is based on paganism. However, you main point is that your beliefs are that of "higher man" and everything else is "tribal."
godnotgod
Thou art That
According to The Master Game by Arthur de Ropp, there are about 5 or 6 levels of consciousness. Most of the world's people are on the Third Level, that of Waking Sleep.
Do you believe/suspect that there are levels beyond the Third Level of ordinary everyday consciousness, but which are unknown to most people? If so, you believe in what I am terming Higher Man. If you feel more comfortable with something like Higher Human, then I can use that term.
Higher Consciousness is not elitist because it transcends the ego.
The Fourth Level is that of Self-Transcendence, and the Fifth is Cosmic Consciousness.
Where are these "gates" you are referring to?
John 6
48 Yes, I am the bread of life! 49 Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, but they all died. 50 Anyone who eats the bread from heaven, however, will never die. 51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and this bread, which I will offer so the world may live, is my flesh.”
53 So Jesus said again, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you. 54 But anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise that person at the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. 57 I live because of the living Father who sent me; in the same way, anyone who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 I am the true bread that came down from heaven.
I fail to see any reference to "sacrifice" here. All I see, over and over again, is the comparison of the temporal self to the eternal self, and the two kinds of nourishment associated with them.
"...these two essences [male & female] must be complimentary one to the other. They are relative values, neither of which is more important than the other."
Is the foregoing "bunk" to you?
"In Buddhism, sin is largely understood to be ignorance. And, while sin is understood as “moral error,” the context in which “evil” and “good” are understood is amoral. Karma is understood as nature's balance and is not personally enforced. Nature is not moral; therefore, karma is not a moral code, and sin is not ultimately immoral. Thus, we can say, by Buddhist thought, that our error is not a moral issue since it is ultimately an impersonal mistake, not an interpersonal violation. The consequence of this understanding is devastating. For the Buddhist, sin is more akin to a misstep* than a transgression against the nature of a holy God. This understanding of sin does not accord with the innate moral consciousness that men stand condemned because of their sin before a holy God (Romans 1-2).
Since it holds that sin is an impersonal and fixable error, Buddhism does not agree with the doctrine of depravity, a basic doctrine of Christianity. The Bible tells us man's sin is a problem of eternal and infinite consequence. In Buddhism, there is no need for a Savior to rescue people from their damning sins. For the Christian, Jesus is the only means of rescue from eternal damnation. For the Buddhist there is only ethical living and meditative appeals to exalted beings for the hope of perhaps achieving enlightenment and ultimate Nirvana."
What is Buddhism and what do Buddhists believe?
Morality is an issue of the interplay between Good and Evil. Christians see this interplay as being in eternal conflict, and so the need for Moral Law. Buddhists and other Higher Humans see it as complimentary. The conflict is illusory, and therefore, in need of being transcended. For the Buddhist, reality is not dual, but One. To see it as dual is to be deluded.
The Chinese see it this way:
When a concept of The Good is formed, a concept of Evil is also automatically formed. Having formed a concept of Evil, it must now be fought, as dictated by The Good. In fighting Evil, one only makes Evil stronger. Therefore, the sage never tries to do [moral] good.
...and Yeshua said: 'Resist not, Evil"
For Christians, God's law is necessarily moral; without which there is no law; therefore, cosmic law, in Christian terms, is actually moral law, based upon Good and Evil, and a system of Reward and Punishment. Therefore, cosmic law has no meaning except when seen as moral law. We can conveniently dispose of the term "cosmic law", as used by the Christian, as it is just so much window dressing anyway, being a device to let everyone know that the Christian God rules all.
It is akin to the fact that, for Christians, belief equates with truth. When a Christian states that he believes in the Resurrection, for example, he means that the Resurrection is an actual fact.
Your logic is that of "I see a horse with 3 legs; therefore, all horses have 3 legs
"The facts....show conclusively that the Last Supper was not a Passover Seder meal. It was a common shared meal before the Passover Lamb was killed in late afternoon on the 14th of Nisan/Abib."
Prophecy Truths -- Was The Last Supper A Passover Seder?
That is rather meaningless both in Christian and non-Christian terms, since there is no "outside" to the universe.
So it only really had full meaning, both in terms of language and significance, to Jesus's immediate audience, most of whom were common people, and in the context of a specific historical time period.
The use of the term 'tribal man' is not derogatory, nor is the use of the term Higher Man elitist or condescending. Those are your interpretations only. I have already explained the meanings of both.
*Probably the original meaning of sin, or hamartia, which translates as "missing the mark", an archery term.
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I don't believe in any of that.
Why are you mixing freudian terminology with buddhist belief?
The "gates" to heaven, or whatever you want to call it. And I am using the term metaphorically. The point is that christians believe no human being went to "heaven" prior to Jesus' death and resurrection. God didn't close it off to humanity, it was never open to them. Then Jesus came along, and his death absolved sin, and his messianic rise to power in the kingdom of god allowed humanity to enter with him.
The early christians and jews did not distinguish between types of self. The dichotomy was body and spirit, but even this was not a complete dichotomy, as a belief in a bodily resurrection of the dead has been a part of christianity from the beginning.
As for the "eating and drinking of Jesus" here in John it refers to partaking in Jesus. This is part of Johannine theology, not really found elsewhere in the NT, where the talk of flesh and blood is limited to the sacrificial metaphor (e.g. the last supper).
Yes.
All of the above is just a fancy way of redefining morality so that buddhism isn't considered a moral religion. According to any accepted definition, buddhism DOES require moral behavior, and IS a moral religion.
You are using a source which declares the Pe****ta to be the original NT. No expert believes this. As for what "really" happened we can't know if there even was a last supper. But christians believe there was, and they believe the last supper was a passover seder.
Wrong on both accounts. Plenty of physicists argue that there are multiple, or even infinite universes. And christians believe that heaven is not a part of this one.
Most of the NT isn't from Jesus, so no.
Even in Homer (hundreds of years prior to the NT) the noun and corresponding verb meant both "to miss" and to err or sin.
godnotgod
Thou art That
The first two levels of consciousness are described as 1> Sleep without Dreams, and 2> Sleep with Dreams. You do accept that there is a level above these first two, the one you are now in, don't you?
The ego is also recognized in Eastern wisdom, and long before Freud ever came on the scene, though the East uses the term differently. From Hinduism we have:
[FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, SANS-SERIF][FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, SANS-SERIF]The ego and the Self dwell as intimate friends in the same body, like two golden birds perched in the same tree. The ego eats the sweet and sour fruits of the tree, while the Self looks on detached. For as long as you identify with the ego, you will feel joy and sorrow. But if you know you are the Self, the Lord of Life, you will be free from suffering; the supreme source of light; the supreme source of love. You will transcend duality and live in a state of Oneness.
[FONT=VERDANA, ARIAL, SANS-SERIF]-Mundaka Upanishad[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]
and from Buddhism:
The Buddhist doctrine of egolessness seems to be a bit confusing to westerners. I think this is because there is some confusion as to what is meant by ego. Ego, in the Buddhist sense, is quite different from the Freudian ego. The Buddhist ego is a collection of mental events classified into five categories, called skandhas, loosely translated as bundles, or heaps. If we were to borrow a western expression, we could say that "in the beginning" things were going along quite well. At some point, however, there was a loss of confidence in the way things were going. There was a kind of primordial panic which produced confusion about what was happening. Rather than acknowledging this loss of confidence, there was an identification with the panic and confusion. Ego began to form. This is known as the first skandha, the skandha of form.
After the identification with confusion, ego begins to explore how it feels about the formation of this experience. If we like the experience, we try to draw it in. If we dislike it, we try to push it away, or destroy it. If we feel neutral about it, we just ignore it. The way we feel about the experience is called the skandha of form; what we try to do about it is known as the skandha of impulse/perception.
The next stage is to try to identify, or label the experience. If we can put it into a category, we can manipulate it better. Then we would have a whole bag of tricks to use on it. This is the skandha of concept. The final step in the birth of ego, is called the skandha of consciousness. Ego begins to churn thoughts and emotions around and around. This makes ego feel solid and real. The churning around and around is called samsara -- literally, to whirl about. The way ego feels about its situation (skandha of feeling) determines which of the six realms of existence it creates for itself.
An Overview of Buddhism
..and from Taoism:
Through out the teachings of Lao Tzu you are reminded that the sage forgets himself. He places himself last, and leads without notice or recognition, therefore, to see beyond boundaries to the subtle heart of things, dispense with names, with concepts, with expectations and ambitions and differences.
Ego is just the opposite of that. Ego is about Me, self centered thought, and self recognition. By focusing on Me, one loses sight of the profound oneness of all things. Instead, one sees only the material manifestations. When ones focus shifts to the material manifestations, dualities arise. Duality separates one from the Tao.
Thus one must forget self, lose ego, and see beyond the material to the unity of all things.
http://www.dharmathecatcartoons.com/15blog/?p=98
According to Christian doctrine, Adam and Eve had free will. Therefore, they also had the choice not to commit Original Sin, in which case the gates of Paradise would have remained in their original opened condition.
According to the Christian Baltimore Catechism No. 1:
God did not abandon man after he fell into sin, but promised him a Redeemer, who was to satisfy for man's sin and reopen to him the gates of heaven.
...otherwise knows as the Doctrine of the Incarnation.
Another Christian source tells us:
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Times New I2]For their disobedience, the gates of Heaven were closed to Adam and Eve and to all their children till such time as God would send a Savior who would reopen those gates to them.[/FONT]
and...
[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Times New I2]By His perfect obedience to God, even to torture and death on a cross, Jesus Christ, the Word of God made man, did reopen the gates of heaven by accepting upon Himself, the punishment for the sins of the world. [a scapegoat] This put Heaven in our reach again[/FONT]...
[ie: ...reopened by his punishment via of crucifixion, for the sins of the world. It was the crucifixion that did the trick, not his "messianic rise to power".]
Home Page
...from another Catholic doctrine we have...
...to reopen the gates of heaven, and so to reconcile man with God, God became man... This is a historical event... It is called the Incarnation.
The Eucharist: the source of happiness. - Free Online Library
The point is that there exists two conditions, one being temporal and subject to death, while the other is eternal, and which overcomes death. Jesus is saying that these conditions are dependent upon which type of food one partakes of. Manna nourishes the temporal body that dies, while his own flesh and blood nourishes the spirit, and renders eternal life to it. This is not about sacrifice, but about nourishment and vitality.
Yeshua did not believe in the resurrection of the body. That is a Pauline concept.
You have not established that as fact.
So you are saying that male and female are not relative to each other?
The source I quoted was a Buddhist one. It is a Buddhist that is telling us that Buddhism is amoral. You are negating what a Buddhist says about his own practice, and deciding for him? I supplied a Taoist and a Buddhist source to explain the amoral nature of Eastern wisdom. Did you understand what they were saying?
Evidence Area #1: From John 13:29, we know that the bread and wine ceremony and supper were already completed; and that when Judas Iscariot left, the disciples speculated that he was going to buy supplies for the upcoming Passover meal.
Evidence Area #2: The Pe****ta Aramaic and Greek New Testament manuscripts are in 100% agreement on every text in the NT covering the bread and wine ceremony; that the bread used in the bread and wine ceremony was regular bread and not unleavened bread.
Where does one universe begin and the other leave off? There can only be one uni-verse.
Therefore, the original meaning (hamartia) coincides more with Buddhistic thought than it does with Christian belief, another clue that points to Buddhistic influence on the Essene religion, from which Christianity broke.
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This discussion is, more or less, about the basis for christian beliefs. I am not getting into what I believe concerning levels of consciousness. My understanding of cognition comes from neurophysiology and cognitive pyschology, not from either Freudian-type pseudoscience or eastern philosophy.
Ego is latin. So know, the east never used the term. There may be a similar type of thought, but I doubt you have studied Freud a great deal in order to judge, and again this is irrelevant for our purposes.
The doctrine of original sin wasn't around when the NT was written. It came later. According to christian doctrine, prior to Jesus there was no life in God's kindgom after death. Period. It wasn't that "the gates had closed" but that they were never open.
Most of the below confirms what I already said. Jesus was sent to allow access of man into heaven. Now, it may be that some modern protestant faiths call this a reopening, but in christian literature from NT onwards it is quite clear that humanity never had access to heaven, therefore the gates were not "re-opened" but opened.
Even in John, Jesus never talks about vitality. The whole point is "eternal life." Now, as christians had already died by the time John was written, there is no way that "eternal life" can refer to some spiritual nourishment. Rather, it is entrance into the after life through Jesus. Jesus says this explicitly elsewhere: no one shall enter except through me.
You have no idea what Yeshua believed, and this doctrine is found outside Pauline theology. Moreoever, we are (again) discussing what christians have believed. And they have believed in a bodily resurrection, and believe that Jesus did as well.
Jesus says explicitly, in John, that he is the only way to heaven: No one comes to the father except through me (Jn 14:6). Elsewhere he adds the eating and drinking of his flesh and blood. However, this clearly refers to the same concept. Jesus does not actually offer them blood and flesh. Shortly before, he states :I am the bread of life. Whoever comes [participle of the verb erchomai] to me will hever go hungry, and he who believes [participle of pisteo] in me will never by thirsty. (Jn 6:35)
We can see that it is "coming to Jesus, the bread of life," and believing in him that is important, even though John uses the metaphor of eating and drinking. Shortly after this verse, John makes the metaphor even more exotic: "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." (Jn 6:51)
Now we see clearly that the bread/blood metaphor IS about sacrifice as well. Jesus "gives" his flesh for the life of the world. Then below, finally, we have the verse you cited (whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood...etc). When seen in the context of all of Jn 6, it becomes clear your interpretation does not hold. Jesus IS using flesh and blood as a metaphor for believing in him, AND referencing his sacrifice.
Yes. Because your source is just playing with semantics. Any practice/religion/philosophy where behavior and/or thought are altered, restrained, constrained, directed, encouraged, or modified in anyway because of what is considered "right" is a moral practice/religion/philosophy. Buddhism teaches that there are proper/right ways to act. I've read a number of buddhist writings. That is considered morality, even if a buddhist doesn't want to call it that.
No, it was still going on.
Not upcoming. They thought he was getting something more. Jn 13:28 states: "but no one of those at the meal understood..." The participle is in the present tense. The passover meal is still going on while Judas leaves.
Hardly:
Matthew 26:
17On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?"
18He replied, "Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, 'The Teacher says: My appointed time is near. I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at your house.' " 19So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and prepared the Passover.
And luke and mark agree.
Why? This isn't just a matter of religion. There are plenty of physicists who believe in multiple or infinite universes.
The meaning of harmartia that is in the NT is also in Homer, way before buddhism. So no, it doesn't point to any sort of buddhist influence. Homer used the word in the same way, before buddhism was around. If you want to believe there is a connection between the greek harmartia and buddhism, then that means the buddhist borrowed it from the greeks, because it was around before buddhism.
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godnotgod
Thou art That
The system of Levels of Consciousness I described is not from Freud or Eastern thought; it is from a book called The Master Game that reflects Western psychology. Arthur de Ropp is a noted biochemist who is a researcher into the biochemistry of the brain. You stated that you 'don't believe in any of that', referring to the Levels of Consciousness I outlined from his book. All I am trying to establish is whether you think you are now on the level just above the Second Level, that of Sleep with Dreams. You do accept that such a state exists, don't you? If not, can you tell me briefly, which level you think you are now on, according to your understanding?
I originally said that "Higher Consciousness is not elitist because it transcends the ego". The point is that, contrary to what you are suggesting, HIgher Man cannot possibly be elitist due to the nature of Higher Consciousness. It automatically excludes egoism which would produce an elitist attitude. If it did not, it would not be Higher Consciousness. Simple as that.
His field is plant physiology, not the brain.
Wrong. His specialty was not neurochemistry at all.
Right. His work on consciousness is not science. It is pseudoscientific psychobabble.
There are no "levels." We have conscious thought, automated thoughts, and automated reactions. The ego, id, and superego are just ideas that neither Freud nor anyone else ever had any proof or even evidence of.
It is elitist. "Higher" implies a level above the rest, by virtue of your level of consciousness. That is elitist. Especially when you deem other spiritualities "tribal."
godnotgod
Thou art That
"Right" in the Western sense of the word is not the same as "right" in the Eastern view. You are interpreting the Eastern view through Western eyes.
One of the aspects of the Buddhist Eightfold Path, that of Right Thinking is defined as such:
Right View is the beginning and the end of the path, it simply means to see and to understand things as they really are and to realize the Four Noble Truth. As such, right view is the cognitive aspect of wisdom. It means to see things through, to grasp the impermanent and imperfect nature of worldly objects and ideas, [which includes morality/immorality] and to understand the law of karma and karmic conditioning.
This says nothing about morality. What happens when one attempts to pursue morality? Invevitably, there must exist a concept of what is immoral. In condemning immorality, conflict ensues. Conflict leads to hatred and violence. Understanding how the concepts of morality/immorality, good/evil work together, is to have right view. It is not a moral view in and of itself. It is just seeing things as they really are.
Buddhism is amoral, as is Taoism.
I studied buddhism as an undergrad. I still have my collection of buddhist scriptures, as well as a number of other works on buddhist history and thought. By any normal standard, it is a religion concerned with morality. You can redefine morality all you want (by calling buddhist morality not morality but "cosmic law"), but it is still morality.
godnotgod
Thou art That
Sorry about that. The name is Robert de Ropp, not Arthur de Ropp
No, it is not. Elitist does not equate with "higher"; it equates with "special", and one of the marks of Higher Man is that he himself thinks of his Enlightenment as "Nothing Special".
You are still looking at the issue in terms of your own ego.
godnotgod
Thou art That
Studying Buddhism and realizing it are two different things. You have my permission to burn your scriptures.
Just don't do it out of any sense of duty or morality.
I know, I figured that out. He is an expert in plant physiology, not neurochemistry.
Special is still elitist. When you think of your spirituality as "special" compared to "tribal" spirituality of everyone else, that is elitist.
Another aspect of Freudian theory I reject.
We are dealing with semantics here. You are refraining from calling buddhist morality what it is (morality) due to a belief that really it is cosmic law. But in doing so you are altering the meaing of morality. I have spoken with many practicing buddhist, and so far you are the first to deny that morality is central in buddhist thought.