Jesus knocking at your door:

Jesus: Let me in.

You: Why?

Jesus: So I can save you.

You: Save me from what?

Jesus: From what I'm going to do to you if you don' let me in.

Lol. That is about right.

Haha i have always asked myself that, what the hell am i being saved from?

Ziller fixt what Razortooth Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Jesus knocking at your door:
>
> Jesus: Let me in.
>
> You: Why?
>
> Jesus: So I can save you.
>
> You: Save me from what?
>
> Jesus: You owe a debt that you cannot pay. If you don't pay it, you have to go to prison. The debt collector is right behind me. Let me in and I will pay it for you.

-------------------------------------------------------
> hie fixt what Ziller Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Jesus knocking at your door:
> >
> > (silence) Jesus is imaginary.
> >
> > Me: any debts I owe, I owe to real people. And will pay
> > myself.

I have never understood the concept of salvation.

Starting when I was growing up (and began visiting our local Baptist church with our down-the-hill neighbors...my first experience with Christianity), I have asked a number of Christians (most of them both educated and intelligent) to please explain the concept of salvation to me....which they did to the best of their abilities.

It never made sense to me when I was growing up, and it has never made sense to me as an adult.

I just don't get it.

I am saddened by this thread. Not because I am any kind of churchgoer (much more in sympathy with Vedanta) but because it displays such a lack of insight.

Salvation = from the human condition of ego identification.

Because of that identification (called "false predication" by Advaita/theosophic philosopher Franklin Merrell-Wolff), virtually EVERYTHING we think and do is a denial of, and attack on, the true core identity or Higher Self of all whom we interact with, and of our own Higher Self (= the 'inner Christ'). And as long as we persist in that false-self identification, we are blind to any higher possibility and we actually fight against it through the ego's own survival instinct (even though Buddhism, Taoism, Vedanta, etc. all say that ego identity is an illusion, a deluded 'action' of consciousness, not a real separate being).

It is obvious that ego cannot 'save' the human consciousness... from ego identification itself. This is where the "Jesus Saves" trope comes from, Jesus representing the awakened being, like the Guru in the East. But people so deluded by their own ego identity mistake this for some kind of flatland operation where the ego itself is somehow "saved" from the consequences of its own characteristics and fantastically lives happily ever after--the fantasy of an immortal 'ego.'

It's OK.

I'm saddened by all that stuff you just wrote.
But as long as you're an honest, kind human being, and treat others well, I don't really care :)

My response was to Tevai, who said she didn't get it, and I tried to put it in terms that she might understand with her background.

Richard Foxe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My response was to Tevai, who said she didn't get
> it, and I tried to put it in terms that she might
> understand with her background.

And I appreciate your response...

I've been thinking about what you said in Atman/Brahman terms, trying to "visualize" whether this parallels, or fits into, in some way, a Western-oriented "salvation" concept.

If Christian personal "salvation" is (or can be conceptualized as) Atman, then not only do I finally "get it," but it actually makes sense (in a kind of Hellenistic way, maybe?; I am iffy on Greek cosmology).

For the most part, Jews don't go past death with theorizing or with theology.

Once in a while (and usually separated by fairly large chunks of time) there are kind of hesitant stabs in the form of what to say to loved ones when their loved ones die, but this kind of speculation is usually marginal as well as infrequent.

The closest you get to genuine, after-death theology (that I am aware of) is gilgul (Jewish reincarnation)...discussion of which (before contemporary times) was usually restricted to particular geographical or cultural areas (Tsfat/Safed, for example...or geographically-centered groups like the Hasidim)...

...usually, when there was a Jewishly-accepted, mystical sub-group whose studies and learning spilled over to non-group relatives and close associates.

In general, most Jews don't "know" and don't care, and are only a bit interested in what happens after death.

For many Christians in at least certain denominations, however, I do get that "salvation" is a priority (I got THAT when I was accompanying my down-the-hill neighbors to Baptist church when I was in fourth grade or so. Ditto when, at our across-the-street neighbor's house, I was watching (on TV) Billy Graham speaking live at some big convocation or something when I was in about sixth grade---to me, one of the weirdest experiences of my life up to then).

If Christian "salvation" can be approximated to Hindu "moksha" or "samadhi," then you have answered one of the vexing questions of nearly my entire life, Richard Foxe!

Thank you!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/15/2017 11:36PM by Tevai.

Jesus can't even heal my neck or any other injury i have had so him saving anything is a huge stretch for me.

Tevai, you might look up that Franklin Merrell-Wolff (1887-1985), who was a mathematics teacher at Stanford before he gave it up in order to pursue "moksha," a higher dimension of consciousness beyond perception and conception which was indicated by various texts and philosophers, East and West. He FOUND it, around age 49. He wrote an 'experiential journal' of his transformation called "Pathways Through to Space" (this 'Space' being irreducible consciousness), and one of his earlier meditative realizations was that his "I," when all identifications were released, was identical with the Buddhist "nirvana." Amazing guy, and his realizations connected several main spiritual traditions.

Richard Foxe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Tevai, you might look up that Franklin
> Merrell-Wolff (1887-1985), who was a mathematics
> teacher at Stanford before he gave it up in order
> to pursue "moksha," a higher dimension of
> consciousness beyond perception and conception
> which was indicated by various texts and
> philosophers, East and West. He FOUND it, around
> age 49. He wrote an 'experiential journal' of his
> transformation called "Pathways Through to Space"
> (this 'Space' being irreducible consciousness),
> and one of his earlier meditative realizations was
> that his "I," when all identifications were
> released, was identical with the Buddhist
> "nirvana." Amazing guy, and his realizations
> connected several main spiritual traditions.

I just ordered "Transformations in Consciousness," and I expect to be ordering several of the others as time goes on.

Thank you for this! I had never heard of this man before, and this fits beautifully into something I am researching right now.

Very muchly appreciated, Richard!!

:D

Correction: The book ordered IS "Pathways Through To Space."

I wasn't the one doing the ordering, and the printed copy of the order was misleading.

:)

"PTTS" is the best beginning. His next, The Philosophy of Consciousness Without an Object, has a one chapter presentation of his experience in more academic terms, and that is good, too.

Jesus knocking at your door:

You: Who is it?

Jesus: It's me, Jesus, let me in

You: WHO?

Jesus: JESUS, LET ME IN

You: Jesus?

Jesus: Yeah, it's me Jesus,

You: Jesus isn't here



/have to give credit to Cheech and Chong

in b 4 ~ https://youtu.be/kCXqbjo6cb0

As a Christian, I should probably be offended, but I’m not. I guess I’ve been hanging around with wankers here long enough to understand the humor :)

Now, someone come up with an “Atheist in a Nutshell” pithy explanation. It’s got to be funny. And, for fuck’s sake, please don’t attack any posters on this—Let’s see if we can all laugh together! Hugs to all! The Boner.

An atheist a day keeps God away!

Hahahahaha that has got to be the funniest thing i have read in a while.

I didn't realize you are a Christian. I am, too. :)

I used to have a necklace with a life-sized, peanut-shaped charm on it. Inside the peanut it said John 3:16. That's the gospel in a nutshell.

Funny! Nice sense of humor :)

That is the condensed version for sure.

Convince someone they have a problem only you can fix. Oldest control tactic in the book. Religion ratcheted it up a notch and sold people a problem that doesn't even exist. Clever. And, it works!

"“The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies. We are so insignificant that I can't believe the whole universe exists for our benefit. That would be like saying that you would disappear if I closed my eyes.”

Makes me feel so ennobled!

caffiend Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Makes me feel so ennobled!

Doesn't mean it's wrong, though :)

Hie, you remind me of a young corporal who once said to Winston Churchill, "Sir I want you to know that I am a self-made Man" Churchill looked at him and said "Young man you've just relieved God of a very solemn responsibility."

[;=}

...not to mention the man's parents :)

They have a number of references to the possible origin of the "self-made man" quip. One is is the Churchill, above. Also, in reference to Horace Greeley and Benjamin Disraeli, each accused of being "the self-made man who worships his creator."

Perhaps the best is this excerpt from the 1858 poen, "Two Millions," about an ostentatious millionaire, by William Allen Butler:

To love his maker, for he was SELF-MADE!
Self-made, self-trained, self-willed, self-satisfied,
He was himself, his daily boast and pride.

Modestly submitted by the Rt. Irrev. Caffiend, Master of Humility

(:-/

It's different things to everyone who hears of it. I take it more seriously than some and less seriously than others. For me, this hymn sums it up. it may not be your cup of tea. (I wish I could have found a better versions.).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpr_WtYAJVs

Spot-on! This can apply to Mormon priesthood leaders, too.

Looking back on my BIC life, my greatest fears came from inside the cult--abusive TBM parents, TBM brother, TBM husband; scary threats; horrible lies; polygamy, child rape, stealing of money under false pretenses; affinity fraud; shunning, hopelessness, fake friends, and more.

I wasn't afraid of earthquakes and hurricanes, of climbing high cliffs, of speaking in public, of making my own living, of giving birth, of lions and tigers and bears--but the Mormon cult terrified me. Especially the blood oaths in the temple, and my temple ex-husband beating me, while he justified it by quoting D&C 132.