Burner Impressions of Christianity

[Teo del Fuego]

My solemn pledge to God: I will post on this thread no more.

ahhhh, See, I'm an atheist!

[dana]

AIIZ: I don't beleive in a God who is involved in personal affairs. There seems to be a cosmic intelligence or cosmic force that pervades everything. We are just temporary bodies containing a fraction of this greater consciousness or "energy" if you will, and when we die we return to the source which infuses or informs other living things.

Teo, that's about as good of a working definition of God that anyone could come up with. Perhaps you should be very circumspect in blowing off this christian woman who seems to have all of the things you would want in a woman you would marry. Of the christians that I've met that I respected, they seemed content to know that you have some concept that could include God and a sense of personal spirituality.

Since you mentioned ego I thought you might like to know that relationships and love scare the shit out of our egos. It sees someone getting close as a threat. One way that it deals with that is to feed you all kinds of dumb reasons why you "could do better" or variations on the theme of whats wrong with this person and an excuse to walk away.
Ego = Devil
Try reading the bible that way sometime. Totally different read.

[Teo del Fuego]

thanks for the nice words Dana. I understand about the ego and "I could do better" fear.....I think I've overcome that...

I can handle a little religion, but as my mom told me (and she teaches Sunday School) you can overdo a good thing. IF she is intellectually curious and tolerant of others, then we have a chance, I fear she is not.

At this point, I dont think I could marry a woman who refused to go to Burning Man.

[dana]

I can handle a little religion, but as my mom told me (and she teaches Sunday School) you can overdo a good thing. IF she is intellectually curious and tolerant of others, then we have a chance, I fear she is not.

At this point, I dont think I could marry a woman who refused to go to Burning Man.

Face your fears. A central component to spirituality. Have you confessed those fears to her? (Dicey challenge)

And then there's the "shadow" component to relationships. That's the part of us that attracts those others to us who will show what we don't want to face in ourselves. All of us refuse to do some things that our loved ones want. Keep in mind that your fears about her seem to center around curiosity and tolerance. Give her a chance - she may surprise you! It may all end up landing squarely back in your own lap. Or you'll find out together it won't work.

just some thoughts....

(One of the greatest enduring regrets in life always seems to be for 'love lost' - only discovered in hindsight. It seems that my most cowardly moments happened when I was faced with Big Love.)
..

[mayavin]

[dana]

When will the logical fallacy end!

(can't let the thread die, so lonely up there on the cross, abandoned by all except the women.)

Jaycer, just checking - you're not just sore at me for bashing Wilbur's Pre, Trans and Post-coital rationality are you?

Seriously, do you think that logic is really going to get you very far in the pursuit of spirituality? In my experience when someone claims that they are the logical one and someone else is not, generally what's going on is that they've either encountered an idea that they themselves don't understand because it doesn't fit into all of the beliefs they hold in common with others (the consensus reality) or the idea is actually fairly implausible. But logic per se rarely has anything to do with it.
Another way to look at logic is that it is the careful consideration of things, events, actions which are already done (not in a sense a play still in motion.) Logic requires that you be able to take consideration of the "things" and in a sense pick them up and be able to examine them from all angles. Any kind of "black box" phenomena will automatically preclude the application of logic. However the reality of spirituality is that the bulk of it is truly one big black box. (Actually I could say that about much of what we take for granted as valid "science" such as psychology, the workings of the brain, even many areas of human biochemistry are still poorly understood. For example did you know that very legitimate and respected neurophysiology researchers actually consider the Brain/Mind dichotomy to be a valid area of research? They see activities of the mind that appear to be separate from brain function.)

I've told you before - take it apart. Do that with logic. Ask yourself what you are trying to do with logic. What are you demanding of it? How do you think it really works? Does it really do everything that you try to make it do? Are there other "tools" in your belt that might actually work better? Do you use it only as a kind of intellectual fortress, a way to feel superior?

However I think I understand what you're after. (You hold the same belief I did when I was younger. I thought that if something was not "logical" or reasonable, it was probably just bullshit.) So you are probably really after a sense of surety, some measure of the validity of a belief or perceived reality. (I'm assuming that anyone with the stomach to read Wilbur must have some keen interest and degree of seriousness in their pursuit of understanding.)

This is the crux though. Logic is fine for reviewing the known. It can show you how well you understand the known. But.... spirituality is about the unfolding of mystery. You will waiste your time trying to apply logic to mystery. Does that automatically mean that your spiritual understandings are bullshit, invalid? No, because you have other even more significant measuring devices to measure that reality. Logic is always going to be a mere intellectual exercise that is alway separate from experience. You do want a sense of plausibility though. Otherwise it is just fantasy, delusion, or faith apart from experience.

I've learned to use other means than logic to piece together a kind of map that allows me to consistently progress into that mystery. I use vision, intuition, experience, belief and least in importance - reason. I still like experience best as a final measurement because it always tells me about the accuracy of the working map that I'm using. It also tells me very quickly places on my map that are inaccurate.

Does that make sense or are you going to scream for some solid logic here?!!!