Rituals and Culture

Can try but I don't think anyone will know it...

RexRed,

In a transcendent meditational state there is no distinction between physical and mental,,,,self and not-self,..... mind and brain etc. But equally there is nothing outside that experienced "holistic realm" which either creates it or energizes it. The myth on which the concept of "a creator" rests is based on our psychological yearning for "closure" of this boundless realm. Closure = the comfort of "control"....if not by us then "another".

Very close, I would say that is a generalized answer. It would be prayer or meditation but specifically it is a certain type of prayer that qualifies.

Do you know specifically what type of prayer? (I am talking Biblically not generally)

Also, not only does prayer glorify God but so do miracles, healing and faith.

But prayer of this special type is the only thing that the Bible says "builds the spirit". No other thing is attributed with "building the spirit".

fresco doesn't recognise the "spirit" Rex.

I thought this might stump you all.

This is another relatively under classified Biblical tidbit. Speaking In Tongues.

Most people have not personally discovered what speaking in tongues is.

I will try to fill in the blanks. There is speaking in tongues, speaking in tongues with interpretation of tongues and prophecy. We will stick with just the speaking in tongues aspect which is "supposed" to be done in private in the mode of prayer. I can go into interpretation and prophecy in another post.

It is perfect prayer. Perfect prayer of course is going to glorify God better than imperfect prayer. Right?

Here are some interesting characteristics of the Biblical speaking in tongues that I will share and what it represents to God and the believer.

One, I have touched upon so far is the perfect prayer aspect. I will expound a bit on that. When I am speaking in tongues to myself and someone talks to me I can understand every word they are saying to me even thought I am speaking in tongues. Why? Because speaking in tongues does not involve my understanding. It only involves my mechanical motor skills of speech and vocal inflection.

It involves my breathing, tongue, throat and lips to formulate the words. But my intellect is free to think of other things. Why? Because I am speaking an unknown language to myself. Even if I was speaking tongues and I spoke a swear word it would not be a swear because it is an unknown language. It would only be a swear word in the language I am familiar with. Yet in God's language it would be speaking divine secrets.

This is why it is perfect prayer. Because I am not in control of the words and the content, but God is. This is another example of God's image in us not our own...

God's own image is what pleases God most.

Some more interesting facts about speaking in tongues...

Besides divine secrets it is also peace and rest to God's people.

Now, I am not talking about these misguided people who jump up from their seats in houses of worship and start screaming in tongues. They obviously do not know the meaning of the word "prayer" and that speaking in tongues is to be done most often in private between the believer and God. Isn't that what prayer is, something personal shared alone in private with God and his beloved?

Now when tongues is going to be interpreted then there needs to be three or more present and it is to be done decently and not all crazy like they are possessed. These are other devil spirits possessing their vacant ignorant minds.

But the tongues of God cannot be corrupted by malpractice though sometimes sorry and languid they travail.

But it is the perfect prayer in private that I talk of. Speaking in tongues in private.

It may be interesting the comparison of the tongues of Christianity compared to the OM. Where the OM is locked into one single utterance where tongues are fluid and move with the believer. Tongues are dynamic and rich with divine utterances.

Another quality of speaking in tongues is that it is the observable proof of the external manifestation in the senses realm of the internal presence and reality of the holy spirit. In other words speaking in tongues is proof that a believer is born again and nothing then can remove that spirit because it is "seed"... For one cannot speak in tongues but by the holy spirit thus it is an indicator of the new birth. The seed is proof of eternal life likewise speaking in tongues signifies eternal life and cannot be ever removed.

So if you can speak one word in tongues you can speak a whole river of words. It will be God behind those words edifying and building your spirit and the spirits of others.

It will be the image of God in motion moving through you in perfect prayer. Prayer that our understanding could never pray because we are all incapable of the of the supplication required to please God... This is why God prays within us, to supplicate for us and make a way for us in eternity..

Speaking in tongues can be audible but should be private but one can also sing in tongues. The tongues are usually arranged in natural sentence structures and are spoken boldly but not intimidating and scary. They should be reverent words spoken like you are praying in the solemn presence of God, not preaching.

Some more information about tongues. It can be abbreviated S.I. T. which connotes that a believer will sit, stand then walk. Speaking in tongues is a part of early development of faith and report with God yet it will always be beneficial to the believer's walk with God.

The idea that speaking in tongs died with the apostles and that it was only for the early church is some more of the traditional messed up theology.

Here is Paul speaking.

1Co 14:18
I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all:

Comment:
That was Paul's attitude on speaking in tongues. His attitude of perfect prayer and the image of God in us. Speaking in tongues is the greatest asset to the believer until the return of Christ which is future. When that which is perfect is come then that which is known in part shall be done away with.

If you have any questions about tongues and prayer please ask. Otherwise, God does not move your tongue or formulate the words for you. God does not take the breath before you speak them, you do. God does not utter the words, you do. It is by your own will that you speak in tongues but it is God who gives the language and the prefect intersession for the saints, Amen.

RexRed,

I note that you advocate ritual (i.e. prayer) to solve "the closure problem".

Most definitely, perfect prayer.

The idea of ritual and culture takes me to an understanding about Biblical patriarchs that lately I have been considering. I guess I learn as I go sometimes and it is extremely beneficial that I can express what I believe in coherent words with precise meaning and intent. I compare the things I learn by my five senses with that which the spirit has taught me and in this we discern the truth of God.

I have a picture in my mind of Moses and the people who he lived with. They were quite refined in culture and ritual.

Just as Noah came from a world that was full of iniquity to a new world this was like Moses also. Egypt was like the mountain and Moses was the fountain that bought life out of Egypt.

Just as before Moses was Abraham and he was also like the spirit in the mountain flowing out to the world. They all seem to have this same imagery to their stories of a metaphysical body of substance being overtaken by a small substrate that overwhelms the whole with a certain spirituality involved.

The fountain giving life to the mountain, God giving life to man/woman, Adam and Eve giving life to us, just as a small lump of evil can grow and infect a whole organism in complacency and cancerous ignorance.

Then love, hate and murder manifest themselves in the world through Cain and Abel. Their offerings divide ritual into those acceptable to God and those not.

Yet it is this imagery of a mountain that has this fountain of life flowing down from it's often insurmountable heights pouring down through the expanse of heaven and earth. A pool of water to reflect your face and image within and quench the thirst while you survey the world from such a great height.

Once long ago the deserts were inhabited in mass. The people sought the deserts for the spirit of God. Many thousands of them all at once would journey to the deserts and would seek the spirit among the high places and oasis.

For the spirit of God was lost. They sought the voice of God and the wisdom of God yet there was only seemingly the silence of God. The rituals to God were of pure heart and a delight to God.

There were namely the rituals to the Creator and the stars and the rituals to the Shepherd King and the harvest of the land and livestock. (a personal inner character of God.)

Yet there was division among the peoples. There were many old sagas and they were all divided among the tribes. Moses was the uniter of these tribes. These sagas each tribe held a certain piece and character of God's image.

For instance one tribe knew the stories of Genesis and the creation, where another tribe knew the redemptive names of God where another tribe would know the laws of God and another would know festivals, rituals, times and seasons... And it went on.

This led to countless diverse orders, stations and customs divided among the various tribes they all making up the image and body of God.

These customs were passed on from Abraham and Abraham learned them from Melchisidec and Melchisidec learned them from Noah and Noah learned them from Adam. Yet the sagas were only stories scattered over the population and the rituals and customs had never been written into "law".

The truth always seemed to flow out of often unlikely yet wondrous places and permeate the times of the past.

Moses being a uniter, a fountain that flowed out of all of the libraries of collective history that he had available at the time. Moses revealed the unity surrounding the various aspects of God.

These aspects of God were all old stories that stretched back into antiquities. These stories went back to the beginning and were taught to Adam by God. Yet the cohesiveness of the tribes became lost and certain of the tribes became hostile to God's way.

Even Noah retained these stories and taught them to his sons. Yet some of Noah's sons were good and some evil. Even in their evil state the truth could not be completely hidden.

The language was even altered, names were changed in the stories and the glory given to evil gods and men/women, but the stories were retained to one day be seen in the presence of the light of the true God.

So Babylon became the mountain and the tiny fountain of truth was the spirit of Babylon. Yet this fountain was not enough to weight Babylon's sins in the balance of God's need for true worship.

Thus Melchisidec taught Abraham, the ancient way of God from Noah and Adam that survived the spiritual tyranny of Babylon. This fountain of life led to Abraham's offspring of many nations and ultimately the witness of the fulfillment of the messiah.

So we see this fountain coming out of many places and infecting all that surrounds it to change the world around it.

So these desert people all journeyed to the desert to find Moses in his enlightened state and Moses united the stories of the tribes and filled them with this new truth. With the spirit of unity.

So they suddenly all had one purpose and they saw their deity as one entity. For they were before meant to carry on the tradition of a particular aspect of the deity. But after Moses they were the able to comprehend all of the various parts of God in one way.

So it was also with the prophets who were like a mountain and the word that flowed through them.

And then it was kings who were like the mountain the the prophets who carried on the spirit of the kings as the kings likewise carried on the spirits of the people. The word carried the spirit of the prophets. Then Rome became that mountain and Christianity sprung up from it's soil and flowed down from it's highest peaks.

King Herod was like a catalyst for Christ to rise and infect Rome with the spirit of God where Rome fell to it's knees and became humbled before God for all the world to witness.

Then Rome became the fountain for the spirit to flow out into the farthest most reaches of the world in the name of Christ Jesus..

So that the richness of the word and the ritual and culture of God could be known to all who seek the truth.

So that the stars could proclaim the power of God and the Christ could show his love toward us all in the unity of the spirit.

For the mind is also a mountain and the spirit is the fountain that satisfies the thirst of the soul.

So how does a spiritual Christian view modern paganism in light of Babylon , Rome and the rituals and customs that once honored God?

I will give you a hint... It has something to do with images.

Images are not to be worshiped as Gods... Yet we have images used with and by Christ... Images like lambs, doves, sheep, wolves, deserts, crosses or trees, and even serpents.

What is the post reality of Christianity and images and rituals, which are to be associated with God and how are they associated?

In the beginning God created the heavens (formless) and the earth (that with a form)...

And the earth BECAME without form (image) and void (empty) due to darkness upon the "face" of the deep...

For in total darkness there can be no image or form visible.

So it is the contrast of light and dark that brought the world of images.

So images can be seen from two perspectives, as from a good perspective or a bad one.

It is how you view it.

If you think of a "rock" as an image. It can be a rock of salvation or a sinking stone pulling your down into sin.

So when we think of "Hollywood" being the masters of culture and imagry what do we have? We have a group of radical liberals creating a new culture from thier ideas of what they think society should be like.

They slowly decay the meaning of the images and they likewise decay the soul of the viewer. ( the Hollywood democrat factory)

"and darkness was on the face of the deep and the spirit of God moved across the face of the waters" and God said, "lights, camera, action!"

RexRed,

Don't you think soap box preaching to an indifferent audience says more about you than your chosen subject ?

The concept of "ritual" is potentially interesting but not from the point of view of its arbitrary content. A psychological and philosophical analysis of the relationship between repetition, group dynamics and concepts of "the eternal" might yield a coherent answer to your question.

Thanks Fresco for the info yet I do not take this personally I take it simply as part of the trade and discipline... I am a grown up spiritually and do not feed completely off of the opinion's of others.



I am not looking for a psychological or philosophical but a spiritual analysis.

There are at least a couple reasons why I get few replies. (Though I am not a glass house you can throw stones if you like. But beware I throw them back and I surprisingly usually hit my target (ignorance))

1) People do not want to be reasoned wrong in front of their peers. They don't want to go down in history as the person who "didn't know"... (How about some holy guts? I was unlearned about these spiritual matters once myself. I almost checked out because of it so I know how it can get.)

2) Most have not reasoned the spirit enough to think fluently in spiritual terms. (When I arrived at this forum not a single person here could even rightly define "the holy spirit" while I have had over twenty years to understand the ramifications of body, soul and spirit. I would keep silent if I was completely in the dark about a certain subject too. If I knew I was incorrect my sense of spiritual inquisition would overrule my human pride.

Jeremiah 2:13
For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

Comment:
I am very proud of what I know spiritually. I am very well aware that I am one in a million with this wonderful truth.

Romans 1:16
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

Comment:
I will say I am like a magnet to Christians. If they are not a Christian I will get them thinking. I will mention Christ whenever it suits God's will not the will of others. Others may get upset but then they know my heart and usually realize they are in good hands from that point on. Then comes the change of heart.

I have witnessed the truth of the spirit to many Protestant ministers and even a Roman Catholic bishop. The spiritual truth always comes as a complete surprise... They erroneously think of the spirit as a ghost or person not a gift of Christ within... So technically they are still at square one (just like nearly all of you) no matter how much they have read "around" the word... Yet they have entire congregations in need of their guidance. A bit ironic, huh?

I have not lived my life in only books and a vacuum but the truth has set me free to be outward and outspoken. I have contradicted almost everyone on this forum when they are proposing only the traditional side of Christian logic. The thing is that I am well aware of their truth because I was once a part of their religious systems too (though very long ago). I know your side of the discussion already because I was raised in it but the chances of you knowing what I have been taught are next to nil. People want tradition and ritual, not truth. They are trapped in their mono culture they cannot see the way out. I am so certain of the way that I need only to hear their contradiction (which is the social norm) to see they have no basic understanding of the spirit.

So the choice is, would you rather be proven wrong yet learn at the same time? What is more important your pride or the truth? I chose the truth over my pride a long time ago... Do you think I had no teachers?

My personal tutor was the greatest spiritual doctor of the last millennium. You ARE in good hands my friends...

There seems to be an erosion of the value placed on certain images like life, the human body, the soul, the spirit/God and the value of faith.

This erosion is due in part to gross misunderstanding of the liberty of the spirit and the benevolence of the one true God.

Thus images are degraded and they pull all other considerations down within them. These images have been counterfeited by the forces of evil since the beginning of time...

The only spiritual leader chosen by the United Nations to address them (as far as I know) was J. Krishnamurti who with reference to "ritual" said:



Clear historical evidence of the pernicious nature of ritualized religion leads me to concur with these views. As far as I am concerned chanting mantras/texts is no different to magical incantation and at worst a deriliction of intellectual responsibility irrespective of its individual comfort aspects.

Although that sounds very sincere Fresco but it is simply wrong. Truth and guidance by the spirit does not come from self introspection but it comes from looking outside of the self to the perfect "image" of another.

RexRed,

You are entitled to your opinion, whatever its level of futility, provided it gives no succour to the religious lunatic fringe who threaten us all.

Fresco,

If this was "my" opinion we would be in agreement considering where one looks for truth. Yet the truth I speak of is not my own but it is the truth of the word of God. Anyone can see this if they seek the truth with "meekness".


I had to go against my own self protective instinct to put my trust in God. To reflect his image instead of my own. This single event seems to have been my only saving grace...