Where is East?

A tree grows up, it bears leaves and fruit, the fruit is harvested then the leaves fall in autumn and winter comes, then spring and the leaves grow again and it bears fruit again in summer...

This is the way of the tree of life.

The sword that spins in every direction is the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

Words are found and consumed, the knowledge bears fruit and the way of life is illuminated.

Birth, death and rebirth.

There are two ways... one is the way of death and one is the way of life.

The way of life is a process... of rebirth, through fire and purification.

There is a certain kind of eagle that lives in the Middle East, this eagle grows its feathers and over time they get old and lose their ability to catch the wind. So, in a last effort, the eagle flies way high up into the sky and then turns and falls as quickly as it can back to earth and lands in the water. The force of the water removes all of the feathers from the eagle. The eagle swims to the edge of the shoreline. It takes months for the eagle to grow back its feathers and relearn to fly.

This is the way of the tree of life.

"A flaming sword which turned every way..."

This particular riddle has been difficult to decipher.

I shall continue further with the explanation of this.

A flaming sword which turned every way.

A few pages back I wrote that the god of the tree of life was objective and the god of the tree of knowledge was subjective.

The subjective god is measured from the center of the earth (or creation).

The objective god is measured from the center of the seed that is scattered and grown from the tree of life.

This is why there is a flaming sword which turns in every direction.

When we are born with physical earthly seed, we learn and gather knowledge and this knowledge leads to the spiritual seed; to spiritual birth.

A flaming sword which turns every way not only turns north, south, east and west but it also turns up and down.

These are the direction the seed can grow out from its center.

The seed plants itself in relation to the earth's center.

The earth is measured from its own center. This does not need to be the center of the universe it only needs to be the center of how we look out from our own perspective. How we are measure in the grand scheme.

We measure knowledge from the center of the earth and we measure life from our own center of being.

As we walk or run through the "way of life" we can grown down or up, we can go backwards or ahead and lean from side to side.

Our identity and who we are perceived to be changes as we mature and build/grow the inner person or spirit.

This spirit within is fire, the swords are truth and the many directions are liberty...

The flaming sword which turns every way is a vector within with which to measure the length, breath, depth, height and stature of a person in the process of the way of life.

You know, you can get professional help for this. Maybe a drug therapy.

Setanta is on ignore.

As for my last post I will be back to clarify my points written there.

Life, psychology, philosophy, vector geometry... are all complex subjects to try and express in layman's terms.

What is human spirit? I could spend a day on that subject alone presenting the various points of view from many disciplines. One of my points would be that spirit may not even exist at all. Spirit also could exist and if so, what is it?

This is a thread about history and prehistory as it pertains to "civilization".

What are the oldest religions and what did the adherents of these religions believe? Can religious imagery help explain life?

By decoding what the ancients believed, this does not likewise validate these religions.

But these ancient religions are not totally devoid of truth either, we can learn things from them too.

Some obnoxious and arrogant atheists are even more toxic than the devoutly religious...

Obviously the earth can evolve consciousness from the dust of the ground.

The earth is a living organism that can "create" a myriad of highly complex and diverse life forms.

The earth breaths, it responds to the sun and the earth has a written language (DNA) that is by far more sophisticated than any human language. The earth has written this language within billions upon billions of cells in our bodies. The earth has the exact same magnetic syntax that is in the neurons of human brain cells.

The earth's written language of DNA can breathe life into dust and create intelligent beings "in its own image". The image of the earth is atomic...

The creative abilities of the earth are not religion, they are pure science, and some atheists do a disservice by dumbing down the earth into their own image of ignoramuses, head in the sand, witless authorities of "nothing". Many atheists are oblivious to the fact that atheism is a belief system and thus a religion also. They are no less radical and fanatical and tiring as those who sincerely believe in their power of God through blind faith. As an agnostic who lives in the state of, "I don't know if God exists or not". I see many atheists cut from the same cloth as the most ardent religious "freaks". Many of the greatest ethologists and evolutionary biologists like Richard Dawkins are not atheists but they are agnostic. Agnostics are honest about what they don't know for sure.

I will be back to clarify more on how trees are analogous to knowledge and life.

Tonight's words are "brain stem", I wish a few more people had them connected....

I believe that geometry i.e. circles, lines, triangles, spheres etc... they are not implements used by an intelligent designer. They are intelligence itself.

I have read and studied the book of Job many times and never really understood it.

God make deals with the devil and allows tragedy to befall humans and we are supposed to somehow love God even more for this.

If the story of Job is supposed to be a comforting one, well, it seems to be missing an element that brings that point across.

God in the end gives Job more than he had and Job is the one blamed for somehow having fear in his heart. End of story...

Neither God nor the devil take responsibility for Job's misfortunes.

But God takes credit for Job's newfound revival...

This story has good Christians thanking God for shitty things happening and a whole dogma has arisen that God tests us and our faith.

God must love to see us fail so we can prove how much we love him.

Abraham almost sacrifices his son for the same kind of logic. To prove his faith..

Is this the ultimate answer for why bad things happen to good people?

Because God is testing us?

God is a figment of the perfervid imaginations of thousands of years of fools. Yeah, sure . . . your imagination is testing you.

Hows that "ignore" dodge workin' for ya, Bubba?

Can you prove that God is imaginary? I bet you can't.

Setanta has a guilt complex and suppresses the idea of a higher power out of fear, this gives him the license to be an ass to people.

Setanta is his own arrogant and self-centered God; he believes in God more than I do.

I have explained the concept of two gods.

The subjective and the objective gods.

One God is outside the world and one is inside the world. (Elohim and Jehovah)

Do I believe in either of these gods?

I believe in a higher power, this is so I always know humility.

Matthew 4:45 (KJV) That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

Getting back to Job...

It would seem that bad things happen to bad people too.

But, which god is making it rain or the sun shine? The objective god or the subjective god?

So the ignore campaign is not workin' out too well, eh?

Matthew 4:45 (KJV) That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

Romans 6:23a
23 For the wages of sin is death;

Comment:
One scripture says that it rains on everyone equally and the other says sin is what leads to calamity.

How does one make any sense of this?

There are some possibilities here.

One, is the writers were simply contradicting one another.

Another possibility is that they may have understood things then that we do not see as clearly today.

There are natural laws in this world and no god is needed for them to exist and have consequences.

Consequences are often the result of treachery, this was one of Shakespeare's reoccurring themes in his works . One can get away with corruption and "evil" for only so long and eventually it catches up with them.

Life is its own umpire and no god is needed for justice to be fulfilled.

Perhaps the writers of the bible never believed in god either...

They knew there was no flood, no apple on the tree and no burning bush... But they also knew that ignorant, selfish, self important people would miss the whole point and not benefit from the hidden wisdom due to their own ego and arrogance.

It takes meekness to learn...

"The meek shall inherit the earth."

The wolves will never learn, only the lambs have eyes to see and ears to hear.

If you would like to support this thread please do so by voting appropriately.

There are a few wolves on this forum whose only agenda is to silence reasonable and rationale discussion.

Over the years (Since I was a member of Abuzz) I have seen these rabid atheists (Setanta is the worst of them) drive off may learned people who only wanted to discuss different points of view openly and without judgment.

Setanta badgers, belittles, insults and relentlessly derails the topics until these "highly educated" people with specialized learning simply leave.

How does that make this forum neutral and provide a platform where knowledge can freely be reasoned?

Our ability to know has been stolen from us by arrogant, narrow-minded fools who have no understanding of how wisdom is obtained.

1 Corinthians 13:8 kjv
Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

Comment:
What did the ancients mean by this?

Knowledge shall vanish away?

We may never know what this means if the rabid wolves of A2K have their way.

Rabid wolves . . . that's cute.

The problems with the world is that science is so pure and religion is so impure.

Religion and science were once much closer and a lot of the greatest scientists are moderately religious. Science gives people more insight into religion.

Science has entire fields that are devoted to social study and religion is a social concept.

The problem is that a lot of non scientific people are running religion. They are deciding on the doctrines and interpreting scriptures based upon their own set of narrow standards rather than standards represented by a collective consciousness of religious "researchers" .

Should religion be taught in schools?

Well, I was taught Greek mythology in 5th grade.

I think the problem is that there are so many differing views on religion and this is because religion has not been tackled by the greatest minds of our day.

Instead, charlatans and hookeypooks are left to set religious dogma and doctrines and this is why we have people handling snakes for Jesus and parents depriving their children of healthcare because it is a "test of their faith".

We have relegated the study of religion to get rich quick opportunists and taken it out of the public forum.

Oh, we are not supposed to talk about religion because it is "taboo".

This is why when people talk about it they are so misinformed.

I was taught in my religious studies that faith picks up where science leaves off.

There are millions of questions that science does not have an answer for yet.

I do not suggest using faith to bridge the gap . I prefer an educated guess over faith.

Some of the more foolish beliefs are made plain when they are exposed to the light of society and reason.

This is no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Does god exist? No one really knows that answer for sure either way.

The universe is so expansive that it makes it both unlikely and likely at the same time.

It makes the idea of god both improbable and probable.

So instead of answering that question maybe we can start with a few lesser questions like what is the essence of life? Spirit? Breath? Wind? Fire? DNA?

What is our purpose here? Who are we? What is the meaning of the past and how does that change the future?

How does the concept of god work?

Instead of looking at religion as truth why not look at it as history?

History can teach us both truth and error.

The problem arises when both law and religion become mixed.

And especially when law is inferred to be "God's law", and then this law is imposed upon people in a narrow way.

THIS is why we need to understand the two gods and how law fits into the whole picture.

Is law part of the subjective god or the objective god?

Who is bound by this law and who decides if this law is just?

Instead of running from this like frantic lemmings, we need to face it, understand it and give it its right weight and perspective.

Then everything else can become discernible.

Science should embrace the possibility of god not the surety of god.

Then it can teach the rational version of the historical God as it relates to many faiths.

Yes and even aliens and a few stories from the X-files.

This is no different than an episode of Star Trek or any other "science fiction" story.

We don't have to believe in the flood of Noah to teach that it was once believed in by a lot of really naive people. Though, it may have psychological, metaphysical and spiritual meaning buried deep within its fabrications.

I was one told a story about a snake in a dark room.

Religion is a snake in a dark room, people flip on the light switch in the room and see the snake and they become fearful and flip the light switch off again. They think the light is what made the snake appear.

But the snake has keen senses and can see in the dark, hear and smell you better than you can them.

Our only hope of defeating the snake is to leave the light on and face it using reason and cunning...

Many good, intelligent people have flipped off the switch and our world is being ravaged by this snake in the dark...

I am back with more of my fanciful imaginations.

I just thought I would make some remarks here.

First about the sun, I believe in science and this is precisely why I believe in creation.

The big bang, what is that but creation?

Poof and there it is. Our purest scientific models of the universe describe creation. Not by God, but by something called an event horizon with which time as we know it did not exist before "then".

Light itself and its properties were set at that very instant of creation.

And light as we know it is bound by time and space.

So do scientists believe in creation?

They sure as hell do.

Do they believe in God? They believe in darkness before the big bang and that everything that is, came from absolutely nothing.

This is the realm of the supernatural and in this place even the existence of chaos is not possible.

There was no Yin and Yang, no opposing forces, no matter and no cults to argue of whose God came first.

Just pure creation.

This is the only epoch when there was no good and evil, no dichotomy, no fire and ice, no gravity force and no substance whatsoever.

No love, for love needs an image to exist. There was no yearning, for yearning needs a reference of fulfillment to exist.

There was nothing. No war, no sex, no race, no reason and thought.

Even silence and darkness were undefined.

What caused creation? Perhaps that is the only thing nothing can do is create?

I remember being in the womb of my mother.

I felt constrained like I could not move and I could feel the limits of my surrounds. Often I think back and remember exactly how that felt to be bound to a place so small and confining.

Each time I tried to reach out I was held back, I felt a groaning and an isolation. I could not see but I could feel the constraints of my muscles always trying to free myself from something I could not comprehend.

Then a doctor removed me out of my mother's womb by a Caesarean section.

I cried because I could finally move my arms and the pressure surrounding my body was gone.

I retained this memory throughout my childhood and often I would have moments where my body would think it was back in the womb.

Is this how creation felt being born?

That it was held within some constraint until it was freed from its bounds and able to cry and move freely throughout space?

Did creation speculate about its existence while waiting in the womb?

We grow from tiny cells and form into complex beings and sometimes thought and consciousness are given to a rare few to perceive their state of life, and we remember this state as if it were only yesterday when we were waiting to be born.

How this process echoes the creation of our universe, and why life is such, that we all begin in these humble and austere circumstances.

The sun,

There is much confusion about the beginning.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

Comment:
Many theologians reconcile their doctrinal contradictions with this scripture below.

Psalm 90:4 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

Comment:
Even so, the earth is billions of "years" younger than the heavens.

It would seem like a lie or a huge exaggeration of fact that the universe and earth were both created within the same thousand years in the beginning.

There is no possible way that any reputable scientist would ever believe that in a million years, let alone a thousand years or a day.

So, one might have to stretch that and say that billions of years are like a day to God.

Maybe the "heavens" (If the heavens do not represent the universe.) were created on the same day the earth was created, and the heavens and the universe are separate things.

Well there is no way that science can answer that question or speak to its validity. The heavens may be a place outside of our created universe.

Or, maybe "the heavens and the earth" are speaking about "energy and matter".

Then, science is 100% in agreement with this. Energy and matter were both created on the same day as time in the big bang..

Then,

Genesis 1:2 And the earth [matter] was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God [evolution] moved upon the face of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Comment:
We have water here that is comprised of the most vital life giving elements, hydrogen and oxygen.

Billions of years later the earth was formed.

This was the "beginning" of the earth as it relates to our planet.

There is no way to fit a thousand years between the big bang and the formation of the earth. no matter how you warp time.

How God perceives time and how we perceive it are relative.

A thousand years to God is a thousand years to us. Or are we supposed to believe this was a miraculous creation of seven days (but read the disclaimers and fine print.)

A seven day creation of the universe and earth are simply not supported by millions upon millions of facts and proofs that all corroborate one another.

Seven days to create the universe is possible with the big bang. Perhaps the universe was even created within an hour it is possible and no scientist would argue with that.

But to lump the universe and earth together "in the beginning" is simply something that only a deluded, unthinking person would believe.

So then, it is clear there are two beginnings.

One for the universe and one for the earth.

There are two measurements for time.

One is the timeline of the the universe and one is the timeline for the formation of the earth from our sun.

One could argue that there is a third timeline of when humanity gained consciousness and the ability to reason...

That would have happened late in the earth's history.

So that would make three major timelines.

But the last two timelines are part of the life timeline.

One could argue, maybe the first day was billions of years long, the second day was millions of years long and the third day was thousands of years long.

That timeline will never ever add up to seven days and it is deceptive to try and propose that idea.

Is God all powerful or not?

Well it seem this seven day creation myth cannot be applied to the universe and the earth together no matter how you reason it.

If you want to use faith well, you need to also take a spoonful of gullibility and well deserved ridicule with that.

And why take a few thousand years if God can create a drop of water why not just create the garden, the universe and all that is, in an instant?

A week seems like a long time if you are God. In this case I am certainly not impressed.

...Considering what the big bang did in an instant.

So, the timeline of the universe is quite cut and dry, billions upon billions of galaxies and stars do not form in a day. It takes billions upon billions of years for light to travel across space. That is the merely one proof among many.

And how did the universe form?

Well, using much of the same rules of nature that evolution uses.

Survival of the fittest.

The elements which were most abundant had properties that allowed them create mechanisms that would allow them to evolve into matter and energy.

While some elements would become extinct and make up what we call dark matter and energy.

It seems that evolution is alive and well in the way our universe formed also.

Although the evolution model of elements and species are not identical they are similar.

So, our earth, sun and galaxies evolved out of simple elements that coalesced though the unique atomic properties of the various elements.

Likewise, life evolved out of the elements also.

So we measure the universe by one timeline and we measure life with another timeline. Each timeline has a marked beginning.

These two timelines are the subjective and objective "gods of creation".

One is a creator of matter and one is a creator of life.

One we measure by the world around us and one we measure by the world within us.

The Sun, (let there be light)

In Egyptian creation mythology "in the beginning" the world became a chaotic soup of chaos, the mound Benben rose up out of this watery soup of chaos.

[In Hebrew, the Egyptian Benben is replaced by Tohu wa-bohu (תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ), which is a Biblical Hebrew phrase found in the Genesis creation narrative (Genesis 1:2) that describes the condition of the earth (eretz) immediately before the creation of light in Genesis 1:3

And the earth became: tohu bohu or Benben]

On a secondary note: This gives a clue for why the pyramids were created, in a time of great flood, their steps would be a refuge for the king and the people to weather out the rising waters. An immovable shelter from flood waters. A highly practical purpose...

Okay,
Benben created Ra,

Ra not unlike other mythologies was a "titan" or giant with creative powers.

Out of Ra's tears came humanity.

We again see the these titans as the subjective Gods and the gods ensuing from humanity like Osiris and Isis as the objective Gods.

It seems the objective gods have the charm of captivating most of the earth cults because they are more relatable and less distant. They are more sympathetic of the human condition; more forgiving and less legalistic and judgmental.

They understand the inner ways of the heart rather than being consumed by the mundane workings of the greater cosmos.

They are less of an elusive spirit and more of an image that relates to life.

And within humanity is the innate desire to rule and be adored "as gods".

For all of these reasons the titans fell out of favor and those ruled by the deities became the rulers themselves.

Only a vague set of laws and a few rituals of bread and wine were spared through this flood of self-deification.

Call them titans, giants, angels or other, they are the watchers and observers who lost their high place in the pantheon for the fire from on high came down and rested upon humanity and it became this condescension that would make gods of humanity itself.

In the beginning was the word (BenBen/TohuBohu) and the word went from God to humanity.

I spoke of two timelines (actually three).
I will show you a 4th timeline.

One timeline is the timeline of the universe.
The second timeline is the timeline of the earth.
And the third timeline is the beginning of conscious life. (not all life is conscious to a sentient degree.) "And the word became flesh"

Well, there is another hidden timeline...
The earth has a moon...
And there is the pre moon timeline and the post moon timeline.

For it was this moon that took life on earth and made it sentient. Thus it is a vital part of the beginning of consciousness.

Prior to the moon life was incapable of evolving. (Language was obscured)

But the earth still benefited from a solar existence.

Many things on earth are remnants from this pre life time where the sun was the only major force upon the earth.

Rocks and stones bore a life of their own, they breathed and had properties that they no longer exhibit today. Crystals and gems radiated with powers that today are a mere glimmer of their past self. This is why neolithic stone works were so prevalent. (the rock of ages) (living stones)

Many people say that all astrology is fake and the planets are so remote that they have no effect upon life but this cannot be farther from the truth.

The planets are not imaginary, (like some gods and religions).

They have a great effect upon the earth and life, though not precisely the effect that is ascribed to them by astrology. But a tangible effect none-the-less.

Just as one would correctly argue that the moon also has a dynamic effect upon life on earth, but perhaps not the kind of effect to turn humans into werewolves... etc.

An effect none the less and over millions of years this effect is quantitative.

This is why we have two sexes and two hemispheres of the brain and a heart and mind to weigh the deeper matters of life. (the moon)

Because of the two timelines on earth, one of only the sun and one of the moon and the sun.

I would surmise that the sun was incapable from evolving life as we know it alone. It required the moon to oppose the sun so dramatically to provide the conditions were DNA could slowly over time be complied amino acid upon amino acid. All because of the slow ebb and flow of the moon and sun's energy trade-off gradually over many millions of years.

Thus a subjective God must include the sun and moon along with the earth as the true deities responsible for the creation of life as we know it.

They are the real creators of life, not some turtle pulling the sun on a cart across the sky or a God in the clouds snapping his/her fingers.

The sun and the moon are creative Gods... there is no doubt about this whatsoever. They created all life on earth as we know it, or rather, the conditions so life could evolve.

Our moon was not an accident but it is the very way a solar system is. The moon is the seed that impregnated the earth.

The rules from our solar system are based upon physical models of matter and how it would respond no matter what galaxy or multiverse it existed in. A circle will always be a circle and a square and triangle likewise. These are the rudiments of all things that are. A triangle will be a triangle and the most rigid of shapes no matter what multiverse it is applied to.

They are part of the subjective God, part of something real and as eternal as anything can ever be.

We can fantasize about the beginning as the Egyptians did because creation is an allegory and allegories are by nature expandable to the nth degree.

But, it is certain that the sun, earth and moon are the "higher powers" that created life as we know it.

Now we as humans may usurp the place in the pantheon of gods, but it cannot erase the truth that we are masterworks of the sun, moon and earth's skillful hands.

This is not mythology or religion, this is certifiable and observable scientific and mathematical fact.

Inanna is the ancient Sumerian goddess of love, sensuality, fertility, procreation, and also of war. She later became identified by the Akkadians and Assyrians as the goddess Ishtar, and further with the Hittite Sauska, the Phoenician Astarte and the Greek Aphrodite, among many others.

Inanna's Descent: A Sumerian Tale of Injustice
https://www.ancient.eu/article/215/inannas-descent-a-sumerian-tale-of-injustice/