Thus non-gonadal fleeting glimses of unreality on the ceilings of temples ... where soul children abide?

Definitely a people full of divine laughter, hilaritas

Adrongyous critters ... without adornments?

You can't dress eM up and take eM anywhere ... absolutely nowhere ... thus the incident on the mountain in the wilderness ...

Could this refer to androgyny that hangs about here ...?

Derogatory is de rogue, but  a tory that won't change, or grow in wisdom! Like a sole that won't functions as the doings don't work ... a mind as it first arrives on the brain ... needs stimulation to adorn it! Thus the dark lass ... Eve?

Tis a mystery, Ur for mortals can't see ID as abstract!

Yes, Neo, "Schmuck," in High German, is a piece of jewellery, or a decorative item or adornment. In Yiddish, which is a German-based dialect that was spoken by most European Jews, "schmuck" or "shmuck" came to be known as the opposite. Actually the same, but in an ironic and opposite way: "Some shmuck you are!" when somebody disgraces themselves, similar to the way we would say "Some hero you are!" when someone leaves an emergency situation without rendering assistance.

Most North Americans who use "shmuck" as a derogative term probably know neither German nor Yiddish, just the negative use of the word "shmuck." So "shmuck," in American English, is a disagreeable person. That's how language evolves.

I better quit talking about shmuck, or I'll become one.

A piece of jewellery I am already. What I don't want to become is negative jewellery.

But then its all in the way we look at it, eh? One person's Schmuck is another person's shmuck. 

Arminius & Neo,

nice illustration of the quantum mechanical nature of reality with your discussion on shmuck

Off with you two yentas!

Quick question - Is Armininius a diamond in the rough!

And here in the western world the rule is to just hang about the high places innocently ... just don't think of anything good or bad ... as just hanging ... you won't know the holy difference about utilitarian philosophy that demands giving a hand to all people committing a stupid act of passion ... without clues ... or did I say that before?

How intelligence slips out of mortals hands .. as they can't get a grip on nothing ... or anything with holes ... maybe brass knuckles as persuation towards numb states ... such people are far more perswasive than gentile type ... for we have no respect for thoughtful lessers ... Dewi Saints in Welsh myth ... Davi Johns Locher ... that whetted sinking feeling when the bubble is pricked ... by a thorn ... the coming of another Urchin? This suggest that the pall or fabric was Pauline ... in reversal of sects in the myth ... a mental flip flop?

Arminius is about the search - that's what I think a lot of us appreciate about him. He doesn't tell people what to believe, and he doesn't necessarily believe in God himself. The UCCan loves to have people like him come through their doors.

Were he to become a UCCan minister, many other ministers couldn't get rid of him fast enough.

Arminius knows well how to occupy the place where he finds himself, in the circumstance of his unfolding days. In occupying that place well, he brings gracious gifts in and through all of his relations. Not something he does, something he is. This includes being humble enough to realize that he has not yet wholly obtained the goal.

We are led forward by our questions. From infancy I struggled with the intimidations of death. Grandfather died and my emerging consciousness, for the first time, realized the presence of death. I have been actively questioning the problem of death for the whole of my life. A big question animated me; "If we are to die why do we bother to live?"

Death is my constant companion, present in every step I take along the opening way. Years of deep yearning and eager questioning opened my understanding so that the fear of death was by increment diminished and is now overcome.

Life with Death eclipses Life in the Fear of Death.

Might I be wrong?

George

Actually I was, I thought, maybe, sort of making a joke.  The responses are good though.

It might be interesting to have a thread on Geo's thought.............

 "If we are to die why do we bother to live?"

"If we are to die why do we bother to live?"

Reason ... although this may be irrational to stoic polity:

That odd conception of the question: "My prodigal child what did you learn out there?" The basis of inner space and great subtle things unseen by reality and filmous strings of disjointed thoughts in a world hell-bent by religious passions not to know anything little more everything (G~O~D?) a profound mystery to say least of a larger subject than Ju-çid and militant types would rather not know ...

This coming from the bit of intelligence that Juda'ns and Romans were the only people that didn't believe in infinite (like imaginary things) and nothing ... an eL-uv a thing to die for ... like Gabriel a mind blowing or ecliptic event ... given simply as icon so that you would know more would come of it!

There, that's it the demonstation that the myth goes on ... but only on the imaginary side ... sumptin po-po'd by absolutes that believe they have it all to themselves ... a matter of pride and avarice ... condemned by lessor gods as they were loaned a bit of good sense and sensitivity to outrageous things like mortal rants by earthypowers ... followed by thought (an impossible thing) they say when in an emotional state ... but nothing's impossible ... a very form of speach creating dilemma or further satyrs to resolve! Thus that's not the last word ... as there is a great Shadow out there ...

The opposite of spiritual life is not temporal death....

we live spiritually because we are from and of God; we die (temporally) because we are not God

And that tue will pas ...

And you will pop up as an alternate, perhaps a tree over your gravid roots ... or in other words where the tree came from as logical! Tis a vicious Circe ... well rounded life ... to know a bit of everything as a KISS of God ...

Such things can blow a mortal mind ru'aghly ...as it learns that wasn't all ...

Big odds that could flip the din Eire Koine right out of it ... sent the poor window searching for the l'st common Eire ... now stop and have a breath!

That too will pass...

But passing only happens in time and space....

Yes, he is, but so is everyone—if only we bothered to find the diamond underneath all that rust.

The diamond is our ultimate self: the universal and eternal divine. The rust is the smut of concepts that has built up all around the crystal clear core.

In order to experience the diamond, all we need to do is get underenath all that smut, and experience the crystal clear core.

Then, if we act directly from the experience of being the crystal clear core, we can't go too wrong.

Good luck, pilgrims all!

If we are to die, why do we bother to live?

Well, as the snake in the Garden of Eden assured us, we will not surely die if we eat from the Tree of Knowledge.

In our day and age, science assures us that our ultimate substance is energy, which was never born and will never die.

Energy, capable of transcendence, is what we ultimately are: eternally and limitlessly creative.

"But passing only happens in time and space...."

Is that spatial like a gemstone in your eye as created in the carbonacious cycle of burning stars ... my ass some would say as they believe nun ovite ... leaving inuit grandmothers to gum soles ... or chew on the grandchildrens 'ears ...

The latter Eris 's giggles and RIFTS of laughter ... rejected from the kirkish ...

Mandella, you ask:

1. What do you think of the question?

 

2. What do you think is the “most important theological question”?

 

3. Yep. The most important theological question is “Has it ever occurred to you that you might be wrong?”

=======================

Before I answer your interesting questions, I ask myself: Is there such a thing as an unimportant theological question?

1. I am thinking.

2. I am still thinking. Is there such a question as a "most important theological one"? IMO, all sincere questions deserve a respectful hearing and response!

3. From whom does this obviously rhetorical question come? And to whom is it addressed, to God? Or to us?

BTW, I do have my own theological point of view, which is not one with a fixed position. Therefore I make no claim that I am theologically--or, for that matter, in any number of ways--infallible. Nor do I claim that 'god' skypes me, regularly. This means, and it goes without saying that I make no claim that I am right and all others, who may disagree with me, are wrong.  But it is fun having a civil dialogue with all interested in such issues.

THEISM IN THE EXTREME FORM

Ordained in 1953, over the years I have personally met and chatted with many extremely theistic evangelists--always with the spirit of Agape-Love in mind. Also, I have heard numerous fundamentalist theists preach their Bible based fundamentalism from their own church pulpits. Others like, Billy Graham have taken The Word to the road spreading The Word of the one true God, to large public gatherings called crusades for "Christ and his Kingdom" and using all forms of media as tools.

Over and over, I have heard many evangelists make the claim that with Christ at the lead, victory is guaranteed: "As Bible-believing, born-again Christians who are in personal touch with Christ and the one true God, we know that God does not need us. We need Him, so heed this warning: "God plus one makes for a majority! So repent of your sins, now and for the salvation of your soul, join the majority. If you put this off and fail to make this choice before you die, then it will be too late!" 

Of course, people who came to hear evangelical preachers were NOT encouraged to ask questions and to think through all the issues involved. I assume this is still the model used. The evangelists told all, who came to hear The Message, to simply accept what the Bible clearly states: Jesus Christ, is the son of God, and he will soon return. Then he will resurrect the just and the unjust from their graves, lead the just into the last battle--the battle of Armageddon--against all enemies of God. Following this battle, which the just will win, the Kingdom of God on earth will be established. From that point onward, "Christ will reign--and the righteous with him--forever and ever ....

What of those who fail to repent of their sins before death, at Christ's return? They--along with Satan and all his wicked angels and demons--will be cast into the fiery pit and the flames of a literal hell. End of story.

THE RISE OF MILITANT ATHEISM

Interestingly, beginning in the early 2000s, a new kind of evangelism--even with a kind of fundamentalist and militant flavour of its own--has made its appearance in all forms of media on earth: It is atheism.  By now millions of readers interested following what is going on in the world of religion have heard of the late Christopher Hitchins's (he was a well-respected journalist) book: god is not great--How Religion Poisons Everything. Also, there is the book by the Oxford University, biologist and scientist, Richard Dawkins. His book is called The GOD Delusion. Since then, many books by others have entered the fray.

As an outcome of the above, leaders of the atheist movement have challenged all religions--not just the Christian ones--to produce valid and testable kinds of evidence to back up the major dogmatic claims that religions often make as they spread their WORD of God. Atheists offered to listen to theists once the evidence is made public.

So far very little, if any, real evidence has ever been forth coming and worth bringing into the light of day, or has even passed the smell test. I am not surprised. Little that I am. However, I always like to keep my options open.

Hi chansen:

I couldn't become a UCCan minister because I wouldn't make it through theology.

I mean, what is there to study in the study of theology? No theo, no theology! Sure, I agree that God is a metaphor, but the literary and liberal arts study metaphors. I'd love to study those, or the humanities. And maybe some of the social sciences. And maybe philosophy and ancient history. But not theology!

I haven't even gone to high school. My only formal education is grade 8, and that in a one-room village school in rural Bavaria. I'm as far removed from qualifying for a church minister as a duck, but I have conducted a dozen or so lay services, which were well received. I wonder what Jesus graduated in, or where he graduated from? Or John the Baptist? Or Paul?

In my opinion, God is a metaphor for the self-generative universe. The universe is best studied in the study of nature, or the natural sciences. Whether or not the universe is self-creative is speculation, and is the subject of speculative philosophy.

I am, however, somewhat of mystic, and this may qualify me somewhat. But all I extol as a mystic, and as mystical, is the pure, un-conceptualised or non-analysed experience of being, and taking it from there. In this experience we do, from my experience and in my opinion, experience the oneness of being, but I leave the explanation of their experience up to each experiencer.

An unlikely minister, eh? Or maybe, in some people's opinion, a likely one.

*IF* you did, they'd treat you like Gretta. The idiot Cruxifictionists would see to it. That bothers me. It bothers me that any suggestion that Jesus was not divine, or did not necessarily exist, automatically disqualifies you from a leadership position in he most progressive sizeable denomination in Canada. At least in the eyes of other UCCan ministers who want to stay in the dark ages and believe patently stupid things above any decent evolved morality.

Our dilemma is rooted in the refusal of life as it is. Whether by magical or material means, we have done all in our power to overcome what we consider to be disagreeable. Nature for an example. First we wanted God to order nature to serve our desires. Now we want Science to order nature to serve our desires.  Our means change, but our aim remains constant.

By our effort to overcome what we consider undesirable and unwanted, we upset the balance integral to life as it is.. By a process well understood as incremental fluctuation, our refusal and resistance of life as it it has disturbed the balance. This has produced a consequential resistance by which balance will be restored. We may think of the familiar axiom: "For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction."

We have come far along the way of human will imposed on life as it is. Turning towards the balance now will introduce a great challenge. That challenge will restore us to that relationship with life as it is by which balance is served and secured.

We are formed by the questions which lead us forward, encouraged by the voices of others met along the opening way.

George

(paradoxically, dead and alive in the consciousness of God)

God's a metaphor ... you can't take Ur/heh/ID out in God's attire a thinly cloaked fabrication like Spanish Lace? The fore shortened perspectives can't see through it ... to the wee ðitties on the other side; small sayings for profits? Leaves the dais mon giggling .. about ready to bust with Eris in Ve Nous ... and ho'de eL understands Greek Nus? That old hacking up or hysterical spitting out of what's classic ... cause man never learns about emotional packaging or fleeting cloaks in the night ... and what such non-fabricated rye souls can get you into!

The feeble fabric covering what amounts to nothing ... and the seach goes on for it due to infinite curiosity about nuth'n ... what adolescents due without clues ... for it is territory they are unlearned in ... real people don't know how to react to it in absolute fashion thus it becomes (not being)  an abstract or obtuse target ... like  re dais in the morning after a go with the spirits ... it's the case were' in at presence .. a temporal passing until we become timeless.

But your not supposted to say that in the presents of mortal gods ... gifts of data on how not to due wit!

Kinda leaves a person thinking latently ar as they say when the weaving, warping and roving pass ... one settles into the recess .. a' gape in time? With mouth wide open in  Scream ... that's a graphic illustration of emotions spouting ... like a' muse in a rant! Things mire mortals don't like to hear ... good or bad or even para goric a call to numinous states ... you know paragoric ... an arc oð IHC ... so you don't sense nut'n ... some people will do anything to avoid thought and the fallout thereof ...

Essence tuols ... gifts of the head thing ... or as ARM would say spiritual tolles ... mostly arriving here without 2 clues ... and many stuck that was as they're told emotions are best leaving latent thoughts in temporal modes passing ... some myst the bote as a twist of the tongue caused different phonetics and alien expressions became mystical ... you know how realmen are about unknowns ... and thus the opposing regressions causing OCD ... which is different than the Greek COD as a phi-sha thing spelt with a gamma ... dark and deep in the pool of the non-thing called pysche ... lost out there leaving a'mon not to think ... on the threshold of dae gons! After that things got foggy ...

All caused by a beautiful vision in the night that is felt not seen a contrary explicit like succubus and incubuss, or KISS in the dark ... an abstract thing thing that leads on ... to probing the un-gnoen ... un nani-mously as a grandmother times ... in a feather ticked  abba'd ... like a separatory flask a jinni in a bote eL or a spirit in de vorm?

That's a boðe in Cyrillic and yet people tell me there's no sacred code ... to thoughtless scro'ups! Only for people that misunderstand numbi sects ... and don't wish anyone else to get a ' head a mon ...

Early 2000s is too late, really. I have a friend who has been a "militant" atheist since our teens in the 1980s. They may have been fewer (don't have hard numbers so can't verify that) and weren't as public as Dawkins and Hitchens, but they were certainly there and were almost certainly the seeds of the "New Atheist" movement of today. Arguably, the modern atheist movement could be traced to Russell's "Why I am Not a Christian" and other writings by him on religious matters, with the "New Atheists" as the popularizers who made the movement more visible and mainstream. Certainly, Russell was the big name for the atheists I knew in the 1980s and 90s.

Mendalla

Who do you say that Jesus is?

Words always seem to undo us... What was a single question once upon a time, may now be two or more questions: Who do you say Jesus is? and, What is it that Jesus does?. When asking who someone is, are we not also asking what someone does in their existing/existence?

But to your point... Are you asking what Jesus is to us, present to us here and now today?

Of the things created by or born of, Jesus/Christ is first; and is that reality through which we are actually able to commune with God in created existence.

More simply put, Jesus is the one to follow to find, engage and be both saved (experience spiritual life) and holy (live spiritual lives).

regards

Well, Jesus is the figurehead of the Christian religion. Apart from that, definitions diverge widely.

To me, he is a legendary rather than a historical figure, a mystic and teacher of compassionate love, much like Gautama the Buddha who taught compassionate love 500 years before Jesus.

Good one, Jae. Quite central to any Christian's theology.

My own answer is a bit of a moving target but currently goes something like this: The historical Jesus (and I do strongly suspect there's an historical figure at the core) was likely a prophet/teacher who managed to stir up some folks with his teaching. Stirred them up enough that a cult built around him and his teaching. Possibly stirred them up enough that the establishment took him down hard. The Jesus of the Gospels is a product of that cult, accruing various theological notions on top of the teachings and story of the historical Jesus to the point where it becomes hard to figure where the line is. In the end, it is the latter that we must contend with as it is the latter that is the basis of Christianity.

Mendalla

I should have said that I think Jesus was a historical and legendary figure.

Like most legendary figures in history, he was a historical personage who became a legend already in his own time. The legend grew after his death, and elements of mythology were added to the legend.

If Jesus was a legend at all in his own time, where are the contemporary writings about him?

... forget history... the active alive jesus is whst anim as tes follow err s not a story from long ago.... one can discus and explore the relation between the reality of the present day Christ and the histotical Christ... but the present reslity Christ is about present experience, present existence and present spiritual formation...
seems to me that if one is limited to something that existed once upon a time... one may miss the reality standing before us...

That some people are nuts?

that was .. what actually animates followers in the present is not....

All the writings about Jesus that I know of are not from his own time but were written after his death, and refer to the legendary Christ rather than the historical Jesus. Although most historians are inclined to think he was a historical personage, there is no actual record of that.

It's the most important theological question, because who Jesus is to us signifies our relationship, or lack thereof, with God, and also our eternal fate.

There were no contemporary writings about many historical figures from that time period and we still accept their existence (many of the Roman and Greek histories are about much earlier events and persons that are not otherwise recorded). I do not think that the historical Jesus was the Jesus we know from the Gospels but based on my readings and study of ancient history, their is definitely a good probability of a real human at the core. It's just that that core is so buried in the later theology it is likely impossible to ascertain much about who he really was and what he really taught (in spite of the best intentions of the Jesus Seminar).

He was a preacher from Nazareth is likely okay. He seems to have preached about a coming end time and the need for renewal/repentence seems likely but that was hardly unusual. Jewish prophets had been preaching that since at least the Babylonian exile. He was regarded by his followers as a/the Messiah is quite probable but, again, hardly unusual.

In the end, though, it is the Jesus of the Gospels that matters because that's the Jesus Christians follow however much they may try to argue they are finding the "authentic, historical" Jesus. The historical argument matters little unless you are hung up on him being the literal incarnation of God in the world or on atonement theology. Man or myth, his story and how we engage with it is what matters.

Mendalla

If Jesus is legend is this like myth that could survive with the myth of mind as a heavenly state?

That would be like a spark in a dark place ... thus expaining when people who are losing it at death see a dark tunnel with light at the end and the myth explodes in abstract reality ... an alternate state of mind? Sort of a passing sensation!

I bet some atheists wouldn't believe that either ... as it would set your head in a spin or a twisted DOS device ...

not the historical Chridt, not even the Jesus of the Gospels.... what matters is the actual present Jesus.... real apart from history and text... Chist and the work of Christ must stand on his own 'two feet' here and now... if that is absent all else fails...

There is no present Light, Lam, Lambda, Lameth, or Levite as we live in dark times ... when Christ can only be seen at the end of a weird wormhole ... the warped mentality of man that worships war ... the Red Q'weenie ... who'll gladly remove you're thoughts ...

But the "actual present Jesus" is still a product of our engagement with the Gospels, is he not? We would not be using the terms "Jesus" or "Christ" were it not for them.

Mendalla

That's like setting a fire in the non-descript mind or other desemminated device ... as scattered!