Hi Sleek Phantom Mystic:

You wrote: That is correct Sleek. Isn't that what The Creator within reveals to us? Doesn't It reveal to us how to become mature spiritually and live in the way we have been created to live?

You asked: Indeed, what is there to be afraid of? And what is there to be afraid of when we dismiss the idea that we might not be The Creator.

In a previous post I wrote to Myrddin:
And you wrote: Perhaps you missed my question Sleek. In my comments in bold there is a question there even though it is not ended with a question mark.

What do you think?

Again I say................

Are you afraid to be responsible for your own actions without having a God to lean on or a Devil to blame?

Hi Sleek Phantom Mystic:

You wrote:
... I've already answered that in part when I wrote in the last post ...


I also asked what you are afraid of if we might not be able to become creators. I don't think you are afraid of that so what makes you think I am afraid of the opposite?

As for responsibility for my actions, I had knowingly taken on that responsibility over 20 years ago when I was baptized. That responsibility of deciding what my actions were to be and their consequences was not usurped by The Creator nor the devil. However that did not end their influencing of my actions. That is where the influence of The Creator within comes in so that we can make mature informed decisions and grow out of our childish spirituality to become a full and sound creator when our time of FULLNESS comes. We don't have our FULLNESS just yet. We have to work at it. Isn't that what you have been talking about?

DCinC, I did not reply to your last post to me as except for a couple of differnt intrpreatations of scripture we agree.
Whyatever you think a paricular scpiture means I think we agree that we have to strive to lead a spiritual life. Even if we are seeing some signs of the kingdom here we know we will not reach the full kingdom of heaven yet.

This is why the attempts to make religion seem a clutch where we have to do nothing because God or the devil decides everything is wrong.
To lead a moral life is hard. It means giving up aspects of the world that bring us pleasure. Lees states He does not define the world but I think it means giving up worldly pleasures that we harm our vocation. As Augustine said before he was converted "I cannot give up women. I willingly give up my maddening profession, my money , and property. But I cannot give up women. I cannot". This was his weakness the part of the world he love most. But to love God we must give up what we love most.

Religion is not a way of escaping responsibility. It forces us to take responsibility.As DCinC said We alone must live our lives. We might have help from God butit is rarely obvious. We are more inclined to the see the temptations of the devil. In the end God only helps those who help tthemselves. The devil can only command us if we let him.Human friends will also help. When Augustine said "I will follow Jesus Christ he friend Alypius said "I will go with You" It was his relationship with his friends and his mother Monica that substained him. Yet even here he had to choose God before them . Monica died and his health was poor.
"Why do I feel so miserable, so abandoned ? Augustine ask. Religion does not stop us mourning and being sad and lonely. He needed his friends. Yet he could no go home to see them, at onces as he had work for God to do.

He struggle to explain his conversion to The Catholic side when the Majority at the time were Donatists. People who follow their religion sincerely will never be the majority even within their church. Advancement meant supporting the dominate party.Some people compromise in order to get power "I try to earn their approval rather than God1"yet he could not bring himself to hate the enemy. He was a clever man who was require to work hard to use his talents. Yet he said "I no longer chrish the deludion that I can somehow reach a higher level of sirutality by mere intellect".

We all have to sruggle in this world. We cannot escapt it. Yet we must live according to our convictions.As Dcin C concludes God can help a little but we do not have the FULLNESS of his help yet.So it up to us.

Time is not measurable, as far as I know; if anything is being measured by clocks, it is the progression of entropy, but entropy is not equivalent to time as it is usually stated.

Entropy is the increase in the amount of disorder in the universe, or if you wish, its a measure of how things tend to fall apart. Of course things fall apart, since the thing only exists in concept and the conglomeration that we call a thing, only temporarily exists.


Falling part, entropy, change, the birth and decay of "things"; this is the view of those who wish to grasp on to things forever, and the world of "time" in which they place themselves.

Well if we place "God" externally to ourselves, then we can use God as a crutch in hard times or a father figure to run to and tell our problems and from whom get solutions. If God is internal, then to a large extend you become the solver of your own problems and people often do not like that.

Also, in some religions, man is look on as being unclean, as being a vessel of sin and evil and that the very idea that God might live in such a dirty place full of lusts and greed, seems to them to be blasphemous. However this need not be the case, since lusts and greed come from ingoring our divine nature not from some taint or "original sin" that people are born with.

Of course we lust, we are animals from a biological point of view and the desire to mate and produce offspring is very strong within us, and because of our complex minds, sometimes that lust is gets attached to other things in our lives as well. Greed, is an outgrowth of the survival reflex, the desire to hoard things which we think will increase our physical wellbeing or desire to accumulate things to protect ourselves from voids we feel in our lives.

To feel sexual attraction or care about owns physical needs, these are natural things, its only when these things become addictions or we act without considering the feelings and welfare of others, that they become harmful. The removal of barriers between people, the defensive barriers of ego and greed should be one of the first priorities if one wishes to get closer to God, in my view.

I doubt that God can be reached via a book, though it might be simpler to just follow words in a book and not have to care about other beings on this spinning piece of rock we call Earth. I think its when you look up from the book and wish to help those around you, than you might find God. Only if you are not actively seeking God, will you find him. You can find God via empathy with other beings, not via some self-indulgent lone journey via dusty scripture.

Myrddin,I totally agree, and I could'nt have said it better.

You are already a creator, DCInC, in a most measurable and remarkable way. You create your own circumstances (and it follows that you create your own heaven or hell) by choices that YOU make. These circumstances and the ensuing results have a major bearing on your physical as well as mental development (evolution).

Why can't you own up to that? Is it such a loathesome idea to think that you are responsible for how things turn out for you?

Myrddin, that is without doubt the best explanation of God that I've ever read.

Namaste'

Hi wanderingspryte:

You wrote: I don't believe Lees has the inability to understand scripture any less or more than any of the rest of us.

Actually I have found it quite interesting how Lees has viewed some of the scriptures and I have learned a few things about that approach. It is a very narrow approach which might not always apply but where it does apply it is very effective. I think I generally take a similar approach as Lees does to scripture but come up with widely varying results as is quite evident.

I have tried different methods of responding to Lees to see if there are any consistencies to his approach. Generally I have found that agreeing with anything is out of the question for him on just about everything. If there is something that I think he might agree with me on there is no reply which I once took as agreement but Lees soon corrected me on that count.

There is at least one post that Lees has left hanging. I know he doesn't agree with me on it because I said so but I tend to think that his approach to the scriptures is too narrow in that case and he hasn't replied because he would have to change that approach in order to reply logically. At least that is my take on it at this point. No doubt it is all wrong as far as Lees is concerned.

At any rate if Lees does reply to that post he's going to have to resolve to himself how it is that he believes Christians are to not love the world. That is hard to 'prove' from the scriptures with his narrow approach without using some kind of spiritual discernment.

As for the attitude, that can be used as a learning tool as well although it is annoying and very unpleasant. It sure make it a pressure rather than a pleasure to exchange with him.