Rev. 18:3: Evolution...Primordial Heresy as Royal Science of Man Becoming God

Renew America ^ | July 18, 2011 | Linda Kimball

[spirited irish]

“Is the flesh “BAD”... No I say.. but it is not “the Truth”.. for we are spirit(s)..
Evil spirits will choose the flesh.. to identify with it..
Good ones will choose to seek further..
Maybe, finding the “Truth”..

Spirited: There speaks a Gnostic psychic (matter-dwelling spirit) who aspires to be “born again” as a pneumatic, or immortal matter-free spirit.

Historically, Gnostics have been of two variants: materialist monists and neo-Platonist monists.

For the former, salvation is from all things spiritual, as made clear by the author’s brief timeline. For the latter, salvation is from matter.

Both views coalesce around the idea that Jahweh is the creator of evil. To the materialists as Creator of the immortal souls they seek to rid themselves of as well as of the entire order of being. To the pneumatics, Jahweh or perhaps an army of evil angels are guilty of creating the evil matter in which the pneumatic’s “spirit” (bit of soul) has been trapped.

In this view, salvation is through gnosis, that is, in remembering “who and what we really are,” to use your own words hosepipe. Gnostic pneumatics are spirits housed in “body suits” who know “we are spirits...and always will be” once “we” are reabsorbed into the one-thing...the impersonal “good” god-force.

Contemporary Gnostics, whether materialist or idealist also coalesce around the idea that there are two forces at work in the world. The immanentist god-force or energy of “good” and the force of darkness. Materialist Gnostics identified God the Father as the “god-force of evil” and satan as the god-force-of-good who liberated mankind from Yahweh. Idealist Gnostics (pneumatics) agree but identify God the Father as the Spirit-of-Evil and Satan as the Spirit-of-Good.

Hosepipe’s Manicheanism is seen in his claim that only “evil spirits are seduced by the flesh.. or bewitched by it.. indentified with it..” These “evil spirits” are the somatics, the lowest order of the three types of human beings as well as some of the psychics, or matter-dwelling spirits who have become “bewitched” by flesh.

The “fall” was not into sin, but into “matter.” Thus Gnostics are not sinners and have no need of a redeeming Saviour.

[spirited irish]

The “fall” was not into sin, but into “matter.” Thus Gnostics are not sinners and have no need of a redeeming Saviour.

Spirited: I meant to add that for Gnostic materialists the “fall” was into private property, which of course is “matter.”

[hosepipe]

[ The “fall” was not into sin, but into “matter.” Thus Gnostics are not sinners and have no need of a redeeming Saviour. ]

You seem to have “the Gnostics “ all figured out..
But they(gnostics) may have been Not been totally wrong..
I bore with spiritual mechanics.. fixing things..
Its like chimps tinkering with a Rolex..

Theres no doubt about tho.. I am a heretic..

[hosepipe]

[ I meant to add that for Gnostic materialists the “fall” was into private property, which of course is “matter.” ]

Orthodox chistians have a definite problem with “matter”...
Its hard to merge matter and spirit into an organized system.. as memes..
It starts with axioms concerning the body and the spirit..
AND cute formulas to explain it all..

Jesus never forbade denominations or sects.. or even heretics..
He never used the term heretic.. but he did use the term sheep pen..

I suppose heretic is determined by which side of the sheep pen you’re looking from..
That must be why? Jesus called them OUT of the sheep pen in John ch 10..

[metmom]

Nice verses but as I was saying who and what are “you”?.. What are “you” that a Spirit can dwell in “it”?.. Does the Spirit dwell in flesh or spirit?..

I am all and yes.

The very fact that you even ask those questions reveals your total and complete lack of understanding of spiritual truth and reality, that you don't have a clue what being born again in the Biblical sense of the word means.

The problem is, you need to be born again GOD'S way, not by some philosophical construct based on alternate definitions of terms. Simply being *born again* as in the reformation or self-awareness that non-Christian philosophies espouse is NOT adequate to attain salvation.

[hosepipe]

[ Simply being *born again* as in the reformation or self-awareness that non-Christian philosophies espouse is NOT adequate to attain salvation. ]

Like I’ve been saying.. born again is not a mental decision..
But it is a metaphorical Allusion to something else..

What is that something?.. is the sixty -four dollar question..
I see it as an identity change from one reality to another..
From a fleshly(temporal) worldview to another.. say an eternal worldview..

I’ve studied most major christian orthodox views.. and see problems with them all..
Nicodemus had a point.. how can you be born again?..
“Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit”- Jesus..

Are they both producing “matter”.. what does “birth” signify?..
-and/OR- is spiritual re-birth a matter of identity.. An identity change..

Before Jesus was born in the flesh, did God have flesh?..
Does God have flesh Now?.. Does God even need flesh?..
Flesh in the New Testament is portrayed in a negative fashion..
Flesh in the old testament(and the new) is metaphorically symbolized as “the WORM”..

The “worm” symbolizes metamorphosis.. so theres room for identity change..
maybe even actual change of form and/or identity.. a quale..
I see “darkly” thru illusion and allusion.. maybe you don’t

The qualia of being born again.. may not be mental or physical.. but spiritual..
Nobody (and I mean nobody) really knowing what the spirit/Spirit is, is left with faith..
Faith that it(born again experience) happened at all..

UNLESS it is just an identity change.. which is what was needed anyway..
You know; seeking after spiritual matters instead of fleshly pursuits.

[spirited irish]

“hosepipe: Theres no doubt about tho.. I am a heretic..”

Of all the spiritual foundations on which this nation was based, the mind/body dualism unique to Christian theism is of supreme importance, for on its basis, and its basis only arise our individual rights and freedoms, self-government, etc. As soon as we turn away from the living, transcendent Triune Creator, we unwittingly turn back to the only remaining “religion,”...nature. By any name, Buddhism, Hinduism, Gnosticism, materialism, Marxist Communism, evolutionism, Hermeticism, Theosophy, New Age, wicca, Liberal Christianity, etc.——all are constructs of nature religion, and therefore are variants of monism, discussed here in previous posts.

The America of the founding generation is fast disappearing for the reason that increasing numbers of Americans are, in the words of Hosepipe, heretics. Having rejected America’s founding faith they have either wittingly or unwittingly turned back to nature..to monism with its talk of collective consciousness, solidarity, army of one, ‘it takes a village,’ sustainability, green environmentalism, secularism, and egalitarianism (sameness).

America’s crisis is spiritual, for all of America’s increasing numbers of “heretics” cannot and will not support what they no longer believe in. Their souls have been taken captive by modernist ideologies and immobilized by the insidious apathy of unbelief, and though they can sense with mounting apprehension the coming implosion of America, they are helpless to do anything about it.

Like fiery darts, niggling fears have penetrated the darkness of the heretics minds. They ask:

If enlightened progress is liberty from God the Father, then why is it leading us into ruination and slavery? Why are we beset by nameless fears, especially the fear of falling into nothingness? And if authentic Christians are so backward and unscientific, why is it that they are the only ones not immobilized by apathy? Why are they, who we heretics hold in contempt, the only ones who are willing to fight? And why is it that we who believe ourselves to be scientific and forward-thinking come off as double-thinking irrational sophists while authentic Christians actually engage in rational discourse?

[hosepipe]

A particularly aggressive and snarky rant!... I like it..

However; you have presented "strawmen" as questions....
The strawmen divert from the conversation.. as a diversion..
As I've presented, "We see what we see".. therefore you see what you see..
As I did somewhat the same for many years.. much the same dogma..

Once leaving the "sheep pen".. and entering "the pasture".. I see things differently now.... (John ch 10)
However; I do not condemn you(or others) from the Cargo Cultic experience.. it may be needed..
No matter the cargo the rituals and ceremony's are similar..

The committee of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit serves a metaphorical purpose.. to explain God.. Why Not?.. We need something to explain the unexplainable.. The ineffable.. meme needs(maybe demands) a way of expression.. The bible serves that purpose handily..

Your axiomatic view of it(bible) is orthodox.. but being unorthodox is allowed.. Like Paul, who became unorthodox.. Like the rest of the Jewish apostles who became unorthodox.. Putting God in a box is capturing "the Wind".. You end up with a box of nothing.. i.e. chasing "dust devils"..

This convo with you and metmom.. is entertaining..
My hope is you are entertained too..

My "visions" from God has, alas, made me unorthodox.. as well..
Mentally grasping something is important BUT "seeing" it is wonderful..

[spirited irish]

However; you have presented “strawmen” as questions

Spirited: “We accept our mortality as best we can and try to get used to the idea of nothingness. We try not to obsess about it.”

“What can people hope for who have never believed in God or who have ceased believing in him? Nothing-—nothing beyond the ‘darkest reaches of death,’...which means that all our hopes for this life...run up against the ultimate nothingness: it engulfs all, joy and misery alike....It condemns us to seeing life as tragic-—or if we seek oblivion, as entertainment.”

These observations and confessions are those of Andre Comte-Sponville, one of France’s preeminent contemporary atheist philosophers in his best-seller “The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality.”

As Sponville grapples with his despair, and tries to find an answer to it, he unwittingly and sometimes openly confesses his unrelenting fears. The horrifying sense that “nothingness” waits just below his feet is particularly frightening for him.

Sponville’s book was understandably popular with the atheist/heretics crowd. All no doubt hoped for some “good news” but received none, unless hopes were pinned upon Sponville’s maundering ruminations about the “spirituality” he proposes to invent.

Yes, you have left the sheep-pen, as you like to remind all who will listen. But like Sponville, what you now “see” is “nothingness.”

[hosepipe]

[ Yes, you have left the sheep-pen, as you like to remind all who will listen. But like Sponville, what you now “see” is “nothingness.”]

Interesting view, you have, culminating from these latest posts..
You operate on weird wavelenghs..

Since Jesus came to make literally ALL religion(on this planet) Obsolete, and did..
One would think an atheist would "thank him"..

The secret is...... atheism is a sheep pen that houses GOATS..
A religion of people that hate religion..