There is a certain area of vocabulary which is bound to draw derision from sceptics. Words like "sinner" "Truth" (capital T), and "awakening" are exemplars because they imply a "correctness of vantage point" on behalf of the user. There are approaches to "spirituality" which avoid such pitfalls, for example via meditational practices or interpretations of quantum physics, which have a much greater claim to "respect".
ossobuco wrote:People can have remorse without being spiritual, much less christian. Though this matter is off topic re awakenings, 'less of course remorse woke one up. Still, remorse is not owned by the spiritual amongst us.
No doubt people can have remorse without being spiritual. My post specifically was about awakening that accompanies repentance (turning) from sin.
I don't dispute that one can have regret and yet never turn from the behavior or attitude that caused their regret.
ossobuco wrote:The author of the thread was asking if anyone had spiritual awakenings.
He didn't get around - with good reason, since he was just asking the question - to grace and remorse. Your post on grace and remorse, which I admit to understanding, talks to a select group that understands your terms, that is, the awakened. But, this is a worldwide web site here. If indeed you only want to speak with awakened folk, you might start a separate website with closed membership.
Yes, it is a worldwide website. I do not limit anything I write to the "awakened folk". Are you saying that we have to determine who understands terms that are used before we post? Rather than speak for the author, you should really let him speak for himself.
snood wrote:The idea is to write out the things in your life that you are at impasse with, and put them in the box. [...]
Within 6 months, I had gotten positive movement in all those areas - a new personal relationship with a lot of physical affection, a brand new car (the circumstances that co-incidented to end me up in a new car were really wild), I will celebrate 2 years smoke free in July, and the work situation lightened up appreciably soon after, as well.
I had been shown the power of faithful prayer before, but this was a new reminder to me that I can ask for help, and get it.
What do you think about that?
I think that this routine helped you think about your problems in a more constructive way than you otherwise would have. The routine worked whether there was a god behind it or not. Good for you!
real life wrote:ossobuco wrote:People can have remorse without being spiritual, much less christian. Though this matter is off topic re awakenings, 'less of course remorse woke one up. Still, remorse is not owned by the spiritual amongst us.
No doubt people can have remorse without being spiritual. My post specifically was about awakening that accompanies repentance (turning) from sin.
I don't dispute that one can have regret and yet never turn from the behavior or attitude that caused their regret.
You appear to negate that a non-spiritual person can have remorse and change because of it. I'll take that as your opinion.
Indeed I wasn't posting in response to you when I typed the bit that you quoted, real life; I hadn't seen your comment.
ossobuco wrote: But, this is a worldwide web site here. If indeed you only want to speak with awakened folk, you might start a separate website with closed membership.
This is also a thread about spirituality, posted in the "Spirituality and Religion" forum of a website -- admittedly a worldwide one. Snood and Intrepid might be forgiven for expecting that the respondents to his thread show some minimal interest in spirituality. When religious zealots spam a science thread with creationist nonsense, we have no problem telling them off. Why shouldn't it work the same way when people show up in the "Sprirituality and Religion" forum and chill the sharing of personal spiritual experiences with their trolling?
(Full disclosure: The author of this post is not religious -- just tired of seeing usually reasonable people morph into trolls as soon as they enter this forum.)
Intrepid wrote:ossobuco wrote:The author of the thread was asking if anyone had spiritual awakenings.
He didn't get around - with good reason, since he was just asking the question - to grace and remorse. Your post on grace and remorse, which I admit to understanding, talks to a select group that understands your terms, that is, the awakened. But, this is a worldwide web site here. If indeed you only want to speak with awakened folk, you might start a separate website with closed membership.
Yes, it is a worldwide website. I do not limit anything I write to the "awakened folk". Are you saying that we have to determine who understands terms that are used before we post? Rather than speak for the author, you should really let him speak for himself.
The author did speak for himself with the topic question.
He is probably fine with speaking of grace and remorse re awakening. Actually I am too. I was arguing that remorse is not solely possessed by the awakened. Part of the problem on a lot of discussions like this is that we all tend to sound pedantic, lecture, and I include myself. And that pedantic tone, even without content, makes those who disagree sputter.
Fresco had a good point, re inclusion of a wider view.
Just caught that I've morphed into a troll. Really? Will have to review my posts. At this point I don't think so.
ossobuco wrote:Just caught that I've morphed into a troll. Really? Will have to review my posts. At this point I don't think so.
I didn't mean you, sorry. The people I had in mind were mostly Frank, Timber, and Setanta. But there's a general pattern here, it's not limited to those three, so I chose a generic term. Perhaps we should start a new thread to discuss that pattern; Snood's has been derailed enough already.
Yeh, I'd be interested in talking about that and I bet a lot of others would.
You can assume I have complicated feelings with a bias toward expressivity but disinclination to slamming. Does that sound mealy-mouthed?
Agree with taking it all elsewhere.
Good night, all, though morning for Thomas.
Thomas wrote:ossobuco wrote:Just caught that I've morphed into a troll. Really? Will have to review my posts. At this point I don't think so.
I didn't mean you, sorry. The people I had in mind were mostly Frank, Timber, and Setanta.
I am being a troll here???????
Not sure what you are thinking of, Thomas, but....you are all wet!
I have been completely respectful of this thread...and no remark I have made has been inappropriate or off topic (I did have a short, personal exchange of remarks with Bear early on. But even those remarks were asides and did not mock nor minimize what what being said on the subject issue.)
The "round up the usual suspect mentality wears thin!
Thomas wrote:ossobuco wrote: But, this is a worldwide web site here. If indeed you only want to speak with awakened folk, you might start a separate website with closed membership.
This is also a thread about spirituality, posted in the "Spirituality and Religion" forum of a website -- admittedly a worldwide one. Snood and Intrepid might be forgiven for expecting that the respondents to his thread show some minimal interest in spirituality. When religious zealots spam a science thread with creationist nonsense, we have no problem telling them off. Why shouldn't it work the same way when people show up in the "Sprirituality and Religion" forum and chill the sharing of personal spiritual experiences with their trolling?
(Full disclosure: The author of this post is not religious -- just tired of seeing usually reasonable people morph into trolls as soon as they enter this forum.)
Jeez - so I ain't imaginin" things, or playing a "victim card"? .... thank you Thomas.
Probably, if I had my 'druthers, the thing I'd like most to be able to capture and be able to reproduce at will is the feeling that Fedral described of being hugged and held by a presence that was so powerful that it completely reassured me and stilled all fear and doubt in an instant. It is an incredible, deeply moving experience. I can't capture or reproduce it - I can only try to be answerable to a faith in something much bigger and wiser than me in my life.
From Snood
edgar -
I see disagreements in all the religious and spiritual threads, its true. A couple of things...
You're not seriously saying there haven't been displays of thin-skinnedness in, say, the atheists vs. agnostics thread? It sounds like you're saying the disagreements there are all taken in stride, and good-natured, or something - surely that's not what you meant.
Also, I have seen threads started several times, for instance one recently in which the first post read, in part - "creationists, leave now" - that have a certain vein they want the discussion to take. I haven't posted on that thread at all. Why would I go there, except to start a fight? And if I do go there and someone points out to me that I was asked not to, how can I protest that I was doing anything but trying to start some mess?
Let's just be honest - if most who don't believe in spiritual phenomena have any reason for showing up on a thread expressly asking people to share spiritual phenomena, it is to scoff. Well, scoff away - but let's call a scoff a scoff. [end]
I'm not saying we accepted the posts with grace - We sent back a few barbs. But, we did not start a big old name calling fight over it. In that sense, we did take it in stride.
If you avaoid a thread because you don't feel it is addressed to you, that may be commendable, but it isn't the way a2k operates. The comment by dys that set off this row was not acidic, did not insult or hurt anyone. It was merely an opinion, and his right to share.
Okay.
I can live with that.
dyslexia wrote:spendius wrote:That's right ros-it doesn't matter.One respects everybody's way of dealing with these things.
NO "one" doesn't, some things deserve respect and some things don't.
Spendi, when I asked "does it matter?", I wasn't asking if it mattered to me, I already know the source of things matters to me. I was wondering if it mattered to Federal, to know whether it was just a feeling, or if it was something external to himself.
snood wrote:You and dys and rosborne have no experiences you yourselves deem spiritual, so you come to this thread to deride others.
Please don't mistake my questions for derision. I don't think I've objected to anyone's "opinion" on this thread or any other. I do get annoyed when people claim that their opinions are facts even when they fly in the face of reality. But I try to be careful to differentiate the two in my posts.
Intrepid wrote:The whole thing comes down to grace. There is no denying that we are all sinners.
Of course I can deny that we're all sinners. There is no such thing as "sin" in my world. To me, good and evil are merely judgements that I make about actions and situations, they don't have any intrinsic reality outside of the ability of humans to make judgements.
rosborne979 wrote:Intrepid wrote:The whole thing comes down to grace. There is no denying that we are all sinners.
Of course I can deny that we're all sinners. There is no such thing as "sin" in my world. To me, good and evil are merely judgements that I make about actions and situations, they don't have any intrinsic reality outside of the ability of humans to make judgements.
Webster doesn't seem to agree with your definition of sin.
Main Entry: 1sin
Pronunciation: 'sin
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English sinne, from Old English synn; akin to Old High German sunta sin and probably to Latin sont-, sons guilty, est is -- more at IS
1 a : an offense against religious or moral law b : an action that is or is felt to be highly reprehensible <it's a sin to waste food> c : an often serious shortcoming : FAULT
2 a : transgression of the law of God b : a vitiated state of human nature in which the self is estranged from God
The fact that you do not choose to recognize sin for what it is does not negate it's presence. Sin is not a judgement. Judgement is the result of sin.
Once again, we seem to be drifting off topic.
Some folks are given to judging anything other than "Oh, me, too! Me too!" to be derision - and to reacting accordingly.
Intrepid wrote:rosborne979 wrote:Intrepid wrote:The whole thing comes down to grace. There is no denying that we are all sinners.
Of course I can deny that we're all sinners. There is no such thing as "sin" in my world. To me, good and evil are merely judgements that I make about actions and situations, they don't have any intrinsic reality outside of the ability of humans to make judgements.
Webster doesn't seem to agree with your definition of sin.
Main Entry: 1sin
Pronunciation: 'sin
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English sinne, from Old English synn; akin to Old High German sunta sin and probably to Latin sont-, sons guilty, est is -- more at IS
1 a : an offense against religious or moral law b : an action that is or is felt to be highly reprehensible <it's a sin to waste food> c : an often serious shortcoming : FAULT
2 a : transgression of the law of God b : a vitiated state of human nature in which the self is estranged from God
Come on Intrepid, is definition 1b really what you meant when you wrote "we are all sinners"? I don't think so.
