Organ matters - Organs matter!

Organs can modify the way we perceive => No need for church redundancies - the Kingdom of God is nigh . . . => Topic started by: David Pinnegar on December 28, 2015, 07:45:09 AM

Title: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on December 28, 2015, 07:45:09 AM
Following a discussion with my son in the thoughts of http://www.organmatters.com/index.php/topic,2035.0.html he pointed out to me http://www.eauk.org/church/research-and-statistics/how-many-churches-have-opened-or-closed-in-recent-years.cfm which details the vast increase of Pentecostal churches and a corresponding collapse of Anglicans. This is wholly dangerous for the human race because in simplification of faith, the religions grow farther apart and segregated, from each other and from The Creator of All who or which is everywhere, invisible and all powerful in everything and this will lead to destruction.

We will face a Germany of the 2030s not unlike that of the 1930s because the circumstances will be the same.

The human race hasn't learned - only turned its back on the nonsenses and finding Atheism. That doesn't understand the work or power of the Creator and the skills of creating. It is only blind.

http://www.eauk.org/idea/should-christians-do-yoga.cfm is interesting. We could well expect to see such an article written by a Muslim.

This sort of blinkering and deliberate blindness is not at all in harmony or worship of God the Creator nor the Creator of All.

If we don't want churches to close, we've got to get away from the worship of the square root of minus one without working + and x first in all that we do and with everyone, (explained a little in http://www.organmatters.com/index.php/topic,2035.0.html ) we have to understand all things in context and in the way they are all the work of the creator, but in dealing with "-" negative numbers remember that 1 is made up also of -1x-1 . . . . and we've got to get into + and x mode, the decisions that create, the meanings of texts which lead to creating and the putting aside of meanings that don't help us create, instead of 1 and 2 mode.  In other words we have to think in the operator dimension rather than the material number dimension. So we have to see the creator process between things rather than the things.

This is equivalent to the analogy of the surface of the Sea of Circumstances on which we are boats visible on the invisible sea. In order to understand where we're going we have to understand the sea, the circumstances, the decisions which link one piece of matter to another, one human being to the next and the furthest.

That article on Yoga is saying "Watch out - there's a Hindu boat over there" rather than appreciating that we are all boats of the Creator, and we all part of the same Sea.

Perhaps on that Hindu boat we can help them to see more clearly the Creator whilst we might see his component parts.

The Parthenon frieze is interesting in the section above the East Door of the Parthenon, showing the Homeric Council, or Assembly of Gods who sit in First Judgment about the creation of mankind. . . . Though we are many we are one body. In the debate on that Frieze being part of our psyche we carry it in our heads, each quality having been given by each god inserted into Pandora from whom we come, and being a hung Council, the Chairman there and in us is in charge. The Parthenon is monotheistic but through the Greek we are better able to understand its component parts and in the identification of eliminating Desire, Deceit and Hate from our hearts to achieve Paradise, Nirvana, we have a better focus in the Buddist.

Last week before Christmas I had to remind a devout Philippine Cristian of this in marriage guidance before Christmas - as the Christian perspective wasn't coming through. On Facebook she's the most devout of Christians, praying to Jesus all the time asking to be saved from this situation and that, and the cruelty of one person and another.

But the reality is that she could not embrace her husband, let alone Jesus, with anger rather than love in her heart. No amount of explaining love for Jesus would do the trick, as she didn't have love in her heart. Simply couldn't understand. No point in the Lord's Prayer - she didn't understand how to forgive. Always blame on someone else and she was always right.

The Christian message didn't get through - Jesus is a prop and a superstition and Jesus will do it for you if you ask him - but Jesus only works if we too are Sons and Daughters of the Creator and understand + and x mode. Some people can't get there, especially if they have an ego the size of an elephant and brain the size of a pea, without being enlightened from another of the perspectives. The family had a Happy Christmas as a result that Jesus alone could not have achieved.

In togetherness is power. That's why the forces of man in this world, and very apparent in our texts of all religions, want to split us apart.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Paul Duffy on December 29, 2015, 03:38:56 PM
People seem to be turning their backs on churches mostly because of the divisiveness you speak of. I can't see how you are going to turn that state of affairs around. Either people attend church to worship something that is perceived to be apart from them, or they realise that they are A PART of God and do not feel it is necessary to attend public worship to be pigeon holed by a particular creed or religion. Or of course, they become atheist. Though you seem to be searching for it, there is no middle ground here. The church age seems to be slowly coming to an end.

I have had what some people might term a 'spiritual experience' over the past two years and I fully concur with Gandhi when he said that God is not bound by religion. Though I am Catholic, only Hinduism could really explain what was happening to me. So for me, there is nothing wrong with a Christian doing yoga. After all, it did prolong the footballing career of Ryan Giggs.

Best wishes,
Paul.
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 03, 2016, 02:34:28 PM
Dear Paul

Thank you so much for being very brave and bringing your thoughts to life.

Perhaps we might possibly bring wider perspectives . . .

I hope that others might share here too . . .

Best wishes and a Happy New Year to all!

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 04, 2016, 10:22:00 AM
We are at war with our planet, and war with each other, and the consequences of both hold fatality within realms of probability.

As worshippers of "The Creator" it is up to us, each of us, to stop the practices of worshipping our teachers and instead start to learn and understand and apply the processes of what they taught, how to create, Creation and creating.

With regard to war with our planet, there is no reason to suppose that thermodynamics applies to electrodynamics or magnetodynamics and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK3JOlY0V8Y is worthy of attention.

With regard to each other, the headlines this morning make shocking reading
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/12079647/Saudis-give-Iranian-diplomats-24-hours-to-leave-Iran-following-Shia-clerics-execution.html
https://www.rt.com/news/327755-saudi-embassy-iran-protest/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3383516/Is-Jihadi-Junior-British-toddler-sick-new-execution-video-bears-striking-resemblance-son-woman-fled-London-Syria.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3382674/Muslim-boys-kidnapped-brainwashed-suicide-bombers-traded-jihadis-30-000-time.html
and the troubles in Paris and Belgium will spread.

Rather than shake our heads in helplessness and denial, we who worship the Creator have the tools of empowerment to shake our spears at the forces of separation, discord and ununderstanding, ignorance.

The first thing we need to do, to help those who we can see are horribly misled in the world, is to de-personify. Personification and anthropomorphism is natural but primitive. It's also easier to ask our teacher to do our homework for us than to do it ourselves, but we don't learn the subject that way.

Perhaps the first anthropomorphism we should put in the bin is . . . the Devil. There is no Devil nor battle with the Devil. Our enemy isn't the fictitious personage we invent but with ignorance itself. That which does not understand. It is merely darkness. Darkness is only a place where there is no light.* Darkness is only a place where there is no understanding. "Forgive them for they no not what they do". To counter ignorance we need process and discipline.

So in our readings of texts we need to put on one side texts or understandings of texts that lead to separation, to things that don't bring together but instead split apart. If there is anything in Christianity that we hold dear, we have no fear, because in worship of the Creator God, anything true will resurrect. That's what our religion teaches us. It not what we have to enforce on anyone, it's the natural way and we can have confidence in finding it.

Is anyone else interested in running with the challenge of bringing peoples and faiths together?

If we have faith in the Creator God we can create and do with confidence.

Best wishes

David P

* This was one of the arguments between Einstein and his professors in Zurich - there is no cold - only heat. Cold is a place only where there is no heat. Ascribing a personality to cold gives it a power which it does not have. Heat always overcomes cold. There is no cold below absolute Zero. Cold is a description of no heat, but is not a force or power in itself. Likewise the personification of that which does not create gives the randomness of ignorance, of ununderstanding, a power that it does not command. The only force in creation is the power of the process of creating itself.
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: revtonynewnham on January 05, 2016, 09:10:41 AM
James   PeterSorry David - the Devil/Satan or whatever (s)he's called is very real.

Jesus has a great deal to say about him in the gospels, as does the rest of the Bible, which is, let's not forget, the Word of God.

To say that the Devil does not exist means that he has won a victory and encourages us to lower our guard.  He is the source & origin of evil - and I think you'll agree that evil is all too real!

May I suggest you read (re-read?) C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters".

Every Blessing

Tony
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 05, 2016, 12:29:18 PM
Dear Tony

The "Devil" or "Satan" is only a description of that which is against creation, against the Creator. But actually the physics of creation is that there is no Devil, no Satan, that can undo creation - there is no cold that can undo heat . . . because there is no cold colder than -273 degrees C, absolute zero. Creation always happens because it's the only process that produces anything. Whilst others might destruct, none can destruct beyond the last brick . . . so those who create will always result in more than what destructs. Destruction is finite, whilst creation is infinite. For this reason the concept of holding to a name and giving something life by creating it where no such power exists gives the "The Devil" false existence.

In the face of destruction, we have to focus on what creates, on the worship of the Creator. That is the power of the Lord's Prayer, which gives us specific instruction on how to create in all circumstances. Temptation is that of taking the shortcut - that doesn't create with the foundations of what creates, and evil is that which simply does not understand what creates. By following the path of what creates one is always delivered from the circumstances of that which does not understand creation.

By recognising the power of the Creator and of creating, one has already defeated the phantom which is "The Devil" and robbed the concept of the force and power of mere superstition. The Devil does not exist.

Once we kill "the Devil" so that it does not exist, and in this we are supported by John Chapter 1's illumination of logos, then the victory against "Satan" is won. It is a description of a force which doesn't exist, it being merely ignorance, and as such we are freer to get on with the work of the Creator unhindered, unobstructed. Darkness is no force and has no energy - only light has energy and power.

As soon as we kill "The Devil" and focus only on The Creator God, the devil not existing so needing no attention, instead of giving half our energy to fighting the non existent leaving only half our energy available for creation, we are released to give Creation full power.

So as soon as we kill "The Devil" we become freer to be to be Christian, hearing the Father's word and doing it as brother and sister daughters and sons of the Creator, loving The Creator with all our heart and our neighbours as ourselves, not only to our sisters and brothers, not only to our families, not only to our Clubs - including the clubs of religions - but to other human beings as human beings and not as demons to be clubbed into submission of false beliefs.

I was going to start a thread too today on killing God! Why do we need to kill God? Charlie Hebdo explains why - http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/the-times/a-year-on-charlie-hebdo-blames-god-the-terrorist/news-story/af3e55b2361faf6a97ebec4d2d0c96d3
http://seatingchair.com/2016/01/05/one-year-on-charlie-hebdo-blames-god-for-killings-66779.html
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/01/04/one-year-charlie-hebdo-blames-god-attack/

The problem is that "God" has been forgotten as merely the description of The Creator and has been taken for a name. "Hallowed" - "Sacred" by thy name . . . we say. Hallowed - feared - too powerful to be invoked - too powerful to be said - frightening - leading to unsaid.

But we allow the word to be said, used as a name.

Said, the name "God" becomes an idol and becomes as misunderstood as it has been. It does nothing but give false faith. It's idle, without power. That's why MP Benoist Apparu says
Quote"The convictions of atheists and secular thinkers can move more mountains than the faith of believers."

The power of The Creator has been forgotten, lost in being named.

By holding on to words which we hold dear, that don't hold in themselves the power of the process of creating, our actions are no more powerful than a child's comfort in a teddy bear.

But by operating the process of the Creator, whatever the Creator is called, and which has created ever since all began and way before we were born to name it, we can ensure that we are part of the process of creation by being its operands and so that the illusory forces of ignorance have no effect on Creation.

In doing away with words of tarnished meaning, we lose nothing, because whatever we do in faith by the Creator will resurrect. Only the Creator gives life, as it always has and always will. Whatever words we choose to use or not use, the process of creation will always happen. But it's better for us to be part of its happening.

By looking at our faith in terms more fundamental than our language, in the common sense of the power of creating, The Church, with organs as well, can flourish and will be seen not as irrelevant as now, not only relevant, but necessary to our understanding and our survival.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Nicolette on January 05, 2016, 01:01:14 PM
"By looking at our faith in terms more fundamental than our language, in the common sense of the power of creating, The Church, with organs as well, can flourish and will be seen not as irrelevant as now, not only relevant, but necessary to our understanding and our survival."

How about adding prayer into the mixture? 
N.
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 05, 2016, 06:02:02 PM
The addition of prayer is vital but prayers in the wrong directions don't do much, and despite much prayer, churches are closing.

Indeed, the central core of the Mission Action Plan of our now doomed to closure local church was particularly a prayer something like "May we see a new vision of your glory, a new . . " and various other things along the same line, and God - sorry The Creator - has answered that prayer, and firmly, by closing the church.

So prayer most certainly works, but the answer to a prayer may put in front of us a challenge. We either have to work with The Creator in following the direction of the answered prayer, or cease to be worshippers of the Creator.

"A new . . . " is not only needed but He (remembering that that is only a description of the behaviour of the nature of the Creator process rather than a personification as fact) has answered . . . by closing the church . . . making way for something new.

How do we find the new?

Follow the lead of the Creator.

We have followed linguistics . . . and texts edited for 17 centuries since the Council of Nicea when a not very Christian Emperor Constantine saw the value of the religion of Jesus incorporating so much of the Greek before (http://www.organmatters.com/index.php/topic,2038.msg9314.html#msg9314) as a means of holding a Roman Europe together. The Gnostics were excluded. They believed in a living faith.

The reality is that so much of what the Church teaches us about Jesus, focussing on Jesus in contrast to The Creator, errs on being a personality cult with which St Paul was in harmony and which suited the Empire.

Quotethe dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you,  how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already,  by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ),  which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit . . .

The reality is that Paul's as Gnostic as the next guy. Indeed the "mystery of Christ" was inherited from the "mystery religions" with which so many in the Greek and Roman world were familiar.

For that reason we should reopen matters enforced by Emperor Constantine, which put forward a worship of Jesus which has caused all sorts of wars, all sorts of treacheries, unkindnesses and sufferings, and start to look again at the texts of the sort found at Nag Hammadi, and Essene texts lost and found in obscure monasteries such as those translated by Szekely, the Lost Book of Enoch, and the Gospel of Thomas. We should be open about these texts and free to discuss them, without shouts of "heresy".

In the modern age, in which scientists have discovered that there is no cold, but only heat, as the mechanism of Creation, we should be able to say "let's do away with demonising" and only seek enlightenment, and see if that corresponds more with the wisdom of John Chapter 1.

Then we might get Atheists more sympathetic to what happens inside churches. If we can get Dawkins to understand that he studies the process of The Creator too, then perhaps even He might set foot within a church.

And if we can dig our religion out of love only with the sanctity of its past texts rather than the Spirit, the Idea, of the Creator and doing it, as Jesus told us Matthew 12:50, Luke 8:21, Mark 3:35, Thomas Saying 99 . . . then we might encourage other religions to see similar light and to do the same.

Perhaps we might find that we share more than we appreciate, and work the process of the Creator thereby.

Sometimes one sees only a brick wall in front and one's imagination can find only explosives to put at its base . . . without noticing the gate at the side to walk through. The religions have seen only the brick walls of their words and their languages, having failed to heed the warning of the legend of Babel, and placed explosions between them at the walls.

Of course the owner of the garden gets very frustrated when people insist on putting explosives at the base of his wall instead of using the gate. And the more explosives you put at the base of the wall, the stronger the lock that's put on the gate for fear of ununderstanding inside were you to enter.

"Seek and ye shall find." "Knock at the door and it shall be opened." 

Stultified in dogma and sanctity of texts and its idol, the Church has not sought, nor knocked on the door of what Jesus taught about The Creator, and the Church is closing its churches.

When I was young, I was fascinated by chemical photography. Two people taught me photography. I worshipped them.

But when I studied what they were teaching me, showing me how to reveal the hidden image, the vision that arose in the darkroom developing tray underneath the safelight became a matter of process, not magic any longer, and I was grateful to my Masters.

If we hear the voice of our Master and understand what he is telling us, rather than merely worship of the sound of his voice, then there is future in our Churches.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Paul Duffy on January 05, 2016, 08:06:17 PM
The Devil is a servant of God. To create, one must first destroy that which previously existed, as the Hindu Goddess Kali does.  The Devil is also a part of our nature which we have to integrate.

Best wishes,
Paul
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 05, 2016, 11:37:39 PM
Phew!

That's an enlightened view!

In fact it's The Creator at work in the Parable of the Talents taking away the unused talent buried in the ground by the lazy God's Servant and giving it to the bloke who created most.

It's the destruction of excess beyond the capacity to create when what should create doesn't. That happens when the process of creation isn't properly understood.

What we all talk about is really just the same sort of thing that we all sort of know and end up arguing merely about the words that describe the processes.

Certainly the sort of process that you describe in destruction isn't the sort of "Devil" "Demon" or "Satan" that we need to give any energy to by taking notice of it. At best it's a naughty little boy who's best ignored in the corner . . . and in creating, the creation makes any destruction irrelevant because the creation creates more than the destruction can achieve.

When we come from a clear understanding of the work of the Creator we can still celebrate what is taught to us in the teachings from Jesus and in the context of our Christian heritage, so that we need lose nothing and yet gain the world in understanding.

The religions have been pitted one against the other by language for the purpose of men in the mantra "Divide and Rule", quite contrary to the purpose of the Creator in bringing all and all things to work together to create.

I hope that in these heresies all who understand the light will be encharged with the enthusiasm of the common sense that allows all to speak with the enthusiasm of flaming tongues, drunken with the obvious that we have been blind to see and in language that all can understand.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 06, 2016, 10:16:53 AM
I'm very serious about the matters above. If organs and our great cultural heritage are not to be lost, left to rot, decay, oblivion to Mammon, or worse violence and destruction, then we've got to move churches and the wisdoms that our teachers have taught us to being seen to be relevant, not just by us but to all.

Checking the forum this morning I scrolled down past http://www.organmatters.com/index.php/board,40.0.html - The Zurich Resolution. And the relevant signifier there is 2011. Here in 2014 what was recognised as the dying throws of a culture in crisis is now a collapse beyond a last gasp.

Zurich is a very interesting place, in extreme preoccupation with material existence, with at least a dozen or 20 churches all with the most wonderful and wonderful variety of organs, of which possibly three quarters will not exist within a decade.

It's wake-up time.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: JBR on January 06, 2016, 10:32:39 PM
"Zurich is a very interesting place, in extreme preoccupation with material existence, with at least a dozen or 20 churches all with the most wonderful and wonderful variety of organs, of which possibly three quarters will not exist within a decade."

I'm surprised to hear you say that.  In Britain, perhaps, but I thought that in most other European countries, especially Holland, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, they valued their organs more highly.
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 06, 2016, 11:55:16 PM
I'm sorry - the reports of the Zurich conference on the forum here are very sketchy and more set out the realm of the agenda rather than the detail of the information gleaned. But the conference was actually set up intended as a catalyst foreseeing the collapse of support for the churches in which the instruments are housed.

My wife and I returned to Zurich last year and joined a paltry number of congregation in one of the vast churches.

So the issues in this thread have been on my mind for a very very long time, which is the reason for the rather deep thoughts and profound ideas expressed that perhaps many are surprised to find expressed.

Day by day we see the screwed up results of religion - not in any way results of belief in the Creator. Our religions are not appropriately dealing with the work of the Creator in the modern world.

Today was the story of jihadist mother http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3386771/Jihadi-Junior-s-British-mother-underwent-exorcisms-thought-possessed-evil-spirits-divorced-husband-rejected-jihad.html, the title of which says it all.

The Devil doesn't exist. The Devil only exists for those that believe the devil exists. It's an example of believing that materialises the thought and manifests. If God the Creator is the + that joins 1 and 1 which otherwise would not make 2, then the Creator also understands - too. So the process that's referred to above worshipped as Kali can be understood in this way or in terms of "the compost effect", similar to the man who buries his talent in the ground, so that what isn't being usefully employed in creation is broken down to be re-cast in a new form that might create better.

With the closure of churches perhaps we're seeing our religion being turned to compost.

But it needn't, and our churches needn't have to close were our religion to embrace and truly work the understanding, idea-spirit and embrace the power of the Creator. (That's another description of the Trinity).

The Lord's Prayer is a mantra for the positive "May the kingdom of paradise be the kingdom onb earth - may the will of paradise be our will on earth".

Were that Jihadist mother converted to Islam from Christianity to have been told that the Devil was an illusion and that evil spirits were only a superstition, and that by working the power of the process of creation, she might have understood. The work of the Creator 1+1 is commonsense and if explained is transformatory. Were that lady to have been given a dose of commonsense rather than mumbojumbo superstition, our religion in service of the Creator, and the world itself would be a better place.

The mumbojumbo, the indoctrinations of non sense, those ideas of words that are misunderstandings not leading to the work of the creator, all of this is being broken down even by people who are destroying themselves, for the reason that they don't understand the simple proces of creation.

By working together, by testing our understandings of texts by whether they lead to the work of the Creator, we can avoid the pains of being broken down by weavels and fungi in the composting bin.

Just as the Devil can be banished by eliminating belief in the Devil, ceasing to give the Devil existence, the Creator can be manifest by believing the existence, idea and power of the Creator process and operating it. It's so simple, it's doable, and the world can be changed and the Churches are where it happens.

With reports about immigrants in Germany over the new year in Cologne http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/05/germany-crisis-cologne-new-years-eve-sex-attacks
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/cologne-shocked-by-sexual-assaults-on-new-years-eve-a-1070583.html
our failure to embrace the Creator in our churches and provide a format of sharing celebration of that wisdom to other places where it's needed will lead to a 2030 repeat of 1930 or perhaps even before.

The Church must earn itself out of the marginalised irrelevance perception it's achieved and the process of the Creator must take centre stage for us as a race and our planet to play its part in creation. The alternative is compost.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Paul Duffy on January 07, 2016, 01:08:57 PM
I am appalled by what happened in Cologne, and I am disgusted by the recent news that school exams in England are being moved to accommodate Ramadan. I think the question you should be asking is not why are churches closing but why is our culture being flushed down the toilet by the politically correct brigade?

You have to accept David, as I do as an active church organist, that the church age is coming to an end and the decline won't be reversed. The cathedrals will always exist but parish churches will gradually disappear from the cultural landscape.

Best wishes,
Paul
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 07, 2016, 01:38:33 PM
Dear Paul

The answer is that unless we create, the natural order of things is that we will be compost.

That applies to our churches, our organs, our nations, our people, our being and the planet.

Our enemy is ignorance of the process of the Creator. Our enemy is to our blindness to the plus in life - the "+" between one and the other.

When the Church embraces the Creator rather than merely worships His teacher, then the Church will be relevant to all, our organs will play and our choirs will sing.

As visible ships on the invisible sea, we have to stop looking at the ships and instead see the currents of the sea.

Are there ways that the Church can succeed in this?

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Paul Duffy on January 07, 2016, 03:14:27 PM
It's not going to happen David. I think we need to be realistic. As a church organist I have witnessed a sharp decline in weddings taking place in church in the past few years. People generally find church dull or embarrassing, and would more than likely view organs as being dull as well. You are living in a dreamworld if you think this state of affairs could somehow be reversed and bring people flocking back. Your intellectual argument about the Creator is very interesting and stimulating but it would completely go above the head of your average celebrity/football obsessed cage-dwelling Brit.

Social media is where the future lies for humanity, sad to say. The old world of community values is on its way out. We are entering the age of the dystopian nightmare as presaged by Fritz Lang and George Orwell.

Best wishes,
Paul
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 07, 2016, 03:55:38 PM
;-) It can . . . and it will if we are minded to.

We have to be the Creator's creators rather than the Creator's compost.

As a human race we have to work out whether we're going to be the wheat that Jesus taught about, or the chaff.

I'll make some suggestions before long of how we can attempt to achieve it in the Church but it would be great to hear other suggestions also.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: JBR on January 07, 2016, 09:02:33 PM
Quote from: Paul Duffy on January 07, 2016, 01:08:57 PM
I am appalled by what happened in Cologne, and I am disgusted by the recent news that school exams in England are being moved to accommodate Ramadan. I think the question you should be asking is not why are churches closing but why is our culture being flushed down the toilet by the politically correct brigade?

I'm afraid you've hit the nail on the head there, Paul.
Although I admit to being and atheist, and should therefore avoid commenting on Christian matters, I am also a traditionalist and find it sad that we are slowly but surely losing our culture.

Admittedly, I don't attend church services or visit churches at all other than to hear organ recitals and examine the buildings' architecture and decoration, but I do worry that a loss of Christianity might eventually impact on buildings and church music.
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 08, 2016, 02:04:17 AM
Quote from: JBR on January 07, 2016, 09:02:33 PM
Although I admit to being and atheist,

As a physicist who does not believe in a person who created the universe but a process which created the content of the universe, in terms of the addition and cooperation of matter, in recognition of the power of + between 1 and 1, that + being the creator . . . and in worship and attempted operation of that creator process am I an atheist or a believer?

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: JBR on January 08, 2016, 01:06:27 PM
Quote from: David Pinnegar on January 08, 2016, 02:04:17 AM
Quote from: JBR on January 07, 2016, 09:02:33 PM
Although I admit to being and atheist,

As a physicist who does not believe in a person who created the universe but a process which created the content of the universe, in terms of the addition and cooperation of matter, in recognition of the power of + between 1 and 1, that + being the creator . . . and in worship and attempted operation of that creator process am I an atheist or a believer?

Best wishes

David P

I'd say you are an atheist.  A theist is someone who believes in a god or a supernatural being who has created everything and has the power to influence what we do.

It's a nice philosophical argument to determine whether the world (or universe) was created by a sentient being or by a coincidence of natural events.  In any case, I don't think anyone will ever prove anything as there is no evidence to prove or disprove either.

Having said that, I believe that organised religion can be a good thing or, conversely, a bad thing according to how man utilises it.
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 08, 2016, 02:37:00 PM
Ha!  ;) :) In that case I'm an Atheist who believes in God! :o

I'm an Atheist who believes in the Creator, our Father, our origins, where we came from, which creates.

"Who made the universe?" is as daft a question as "What is Time?" but unfortunately many people give silly answers to silly questions and then take them seriously.

Asking "What made the universe" becomes so much more interesting, because it would not exist other than for the plus between 1 and 1 that gives one life. Matter adding to matter to create more sophisticated matter . . . more useful stuff of the process useful to the process.

It's the plus that is the Creator between matter, between numbers, and between us.

It's the plus that is God, the operand - that which does, that which creates.

All the mumbo-jumbo we hear is solved when we cease to look at the material realm, objects, stuff, numbers, things we can see, and intead look into the realm of "plus" which does, which creates, without which we and nothing would be here, which is all powerful, everywhere and which we cannot see. We can only see it by what it does.

So as Atheists we can believe in the Creator. The process is much more than a person can achieve, much greater, and overcomes all the silly differences between us, if we will ourselves create and do the work of the creator.

In order to understand what happens in our churches we have to understand those meanings that are of the "plus", of God, of the Creator that put together to create, and those meanings which are of men who have not understood and are of the primitive view of an anthropomorphism, not as a description (as the description can work as far as it goes and as far as it's understood to be limited) but as a being.

The stuff that is created, works together, is intelligent. The stuff that doesn't work together doesn't exist. This is why we see an intelligence within or behind the universe that we might describe as the mind of God.

In fact the mantra "As above so below" operates. Just as the universe might not be born by an intelligence and yet displays an intelligence, acquiring the intelligence by operating "The Process" of creation, neither are the neurons of a brain innately born as intelligent until they make the connexion process between them that gives them an intelligence as a brain, as they put the "plus" between them in patterns of creation and know how to think.

It's possible therefore in my view to talk about the Universe and all that we experience in language that all can understand. The differences between seeing the Creator as an intelligence external to the universe and seeing the Creator internal to the Universe, as a process that is innately intelligent giving the Universe an internal intelligence, becomes rather irrelevant. Is our own intelligence inside or outside our brains? Is our intelligence derived from elsewhere or merely the manner in which our neurons can connect, if we use them? The Universe as its own creation as a product of its own intelligence is akin to our DNA which is created by its own intelligence, the code, which in every species is reproduced. The codes that are more useful create more than those which are less useful.

The magic that the Church has for all, if only the Church could see it, is that Jesus had an innate inner understanding of the process of Creation and taught wisdom which can enlighten us in how to use it.

The magic is in what Jesus taught about the Creator and not in what the Church after the Council of Nicea taught about Jesus.

How can we operate the Creator process between all mankind? What part can the Church play in that?

Best wishes

David P

Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: JBR on January 08, 2016, 10:46:41 PM
Some very interesting points.

Looking at the matter of the creation of life on Earth, I can understand how this came about without the need for a sentient 'creator'.  Scientists have proposed very believable concepts of how life can be created from simple chemicals under the right circumstances, and from simple life forms can evolve more complex systems and, eventually, us.

As for how the entire universe was created, I have heard nothing convincing other than the theory of the 'big bang' and, even so, I don't understand anything about how that was created/started.  Perhaps there was a 'creator' who was responsible!  I'm sure that no-one knows.
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Paul Duffy on January 09, 2016, 11:42:01 AM
I want to try to answer David's question as best I can. I do not know if there is a solution to church closures, but I at least understand why we stand on the brink of a third world war:


•"The Third World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the "agentur" of the "Illuminati" between the political Zionists and the leaders of Islamic World. The war must be conducted in such a way that Islam (the Moslem Arabic World) and political Zionism (the State of Israel) mutually destroy each other. Meanwhile the other nations, once more divided on this issue will be constrained to fight to the point of complete physical, moral, spiritual and economical exhaustion...We shall unleash the Nihilists and the atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm which in all its horror will show clearly to the nations the effect of absolute atheism, origin of savagery and of the most bloody turmoil. Then everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the world minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate those destroyers of civilization, and the multitude, disillusioned with Christianity, whose deistic spirits will from that moment be without compass or direction, anxious for an ideal, but without knowing where to render its adoration, will receive the true light through the universal manifestation of the pure doctrine of Lucifer, brought finally out in the public view. This manifestation will result from the general reactionary movement which will follow the destruction of Christianity and atheism, both conquered and exterminated at the same time."


That was written in a letter dated 15th August 1871 by a man called Albert Pike. I think you'll agree that Mr Pike is getting his wishes fulfilled. And that is because the organisation to whom he belonged have actually brought about two world wars through staged events and hoaxes, and are now in the process of doing so again.

I stated yesterday that I was appalled by the events in Cologne. However, I now understand that these sex attacks were co-ordinated. Some eyewitness reports say there were 'men in suits' giving out orders to the attackers. In my opinion, the people behind this are the same gang that Pike belonged to. They call themselves 'The Family', but most people know them as the Illuminati. Forget the Dan Brown hokum, these people are far more clever, secretive and intelligent to go running around Rome branding cardinals. Their task is to create and foment as much negativity and division as possible through stagecraft or co-ordination. There are suggestions that they were also behind the recent attacks in Paris: the 'goings-on' in the Casa Nostra café are strange to say the least.

'The Family' are trying to drag us all into a third world war. And unfortunately, because of human nature and the 'collective unconscious', they are going to succeed. And they know it. They have been dropping subtle hints amid film and media, and because of Jung's collective unconscious they have gone largely unnoticed amongst the public. The 23rd Sept 2015 was a special day to them. It marked the start of their 'operations'.

But don't just take my word on all this. Have a look at this link from 2010:

http://www.illuminati-news.com/00363.html

For those with an open mind, I also ask them to look at this:

http://thebookoftruthonline.blogspot.co.uk/

I know the latter may be difficult for many to swallow, but I believe it is genuine because it deals with the same themes I have just outlined. Sadly, it has been largely discredited by the Catholic Church, which is a shame. Nevertheless, I still believe it to be true.

Best wishes,
Paul.

Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 09, 2016, 12:54:54 PM
Dear Paul

THANK YOU for your most adventurously wider spirit than many might admit to.

The only defence to these things is to break down division. But many want to hold on to their divided identities that for them give them identity, as the comfort of their personal teddy bears.

Being led down the paths of division is falling prey to exactly what the Pikists intend.

The worship of Mohammed and the worship of Jesus, rather than the understandings of what they were teaching about the Creator, has come forward and divides. We have to shake away those divisions.

If anyone's interested I'll write at greater length - but I think there is a solution in our churches.

Services could continue to follow the style of worship that is most comfortable to them - but for many that is before the Victorian period of world corruption started - and so I wiould plump for Book of Common Prayer or Latin. This provides a framework, only that, but a powerful statement of not losing anything, retaining our culture but . . . being open.

Within that format one might take the First Lesson from the five Gospels - I include Thomas - with specific focus on what Jesus taught about The Creator, and without focus on what the Nicean Council's church wanted to teach us about Jesus. We have to escape the trap of the specific teacher-worship that divides the world and focus only on what creates. We can also include the first four books of the Old Testament, together with Psalms, the book of Deuteronomy to be excluded. We can invite people of others faiths to share with us and celebrate the work of the Creator and ask them to take from their texts for the Second Lesson teachings from their texts that match the teachings from ours. In this way we can celebrate the work of the creator together, inviting and sharing.

One would not have any priest nor sermon, but any member of the congregation might be invited to speak for no more than three minutes.

Just as one has choir practices, one might invite speakers or readers (to be drawn by lot or a rotation of volunteers) to speaking practice so that no electronic amplification is necessary. The Church has traditionally been a place of training for other skills beyond its walls. The church has to be seen to be relevant, attendance of which brings benefit in life beyond.

One could also have evensong with a meaningful "symbolic supper" possibly preceding a communal larger meal, although it might stand alone.

Around tables, one might be seated, pass bread, and wine in quantities no larger than a sherry glass, and some red juice such as pomegranate for those not wanting alcohol. Bread has to be in a form that breaks nicely. One might introduce the symbolism by a reading of Jesus "Who are my brothers and sisters?"* "those who hear 'my father's words' - the idea of the Creator - and do it" followed by the request by Jesus that we do it in honour of him and that by eating of the idea of the sons and daughters of the Creator and doing the work of the Creator we are all the more empowered to create as sons and daughters of the Creator.

In my view this would be a powerful antidote against the forces of division ranged against us, in which many feel merely helpless and bystanders hoping that holding on to our teddy bears will protect us.

This is a blueprint that could spread, bringing all together, sharing with the faithful of other paths which illuminate creation, bringing welcome between peoples and communities, spreading widely in England and possibly to Germany, Belgium, France and Denmark where not by division but by coming together all in belief of Creation as a process can stand firm together, and educate and illuminate others who haven't yet understood and are being manipulated.

It's the best inoculation against manipulation.

We lose nothing but gain the world.

Best wishes

David P



* There is interesting distinction indicating meddlings with translation, in some "Who are my mother and my brothers?"
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 10, 2016, 08:45:38 PM
I've tried in the jottings above to put together a formula which preserves our essentially christian traditions, culture and teachings but brings relevance and interest in today's world where people have turned their back on separatists, fed on the sop of materialism and preferring atheism to silly uncreative manmade battles about manmade issues in the misunderstood name of God, YaHWeH, the sound of the breath of life that gives life, life that we all share, all who breathe but which many ignore.

Do other people have other suggestions preserving the heritage and yet bringing interest from all in a world where no village is separate from the whole world and all cultures?

Paul - the reference you mention as hard to swallow is interesting. Whilst I don't take specific account of it as it echoes the voices of many before in similar vein but not always wholly on track, it speaks the sentiments that to a large degree perhaps all of all faiths can appreciate and share in the sentiment:
QuoteChristians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews and for all those faiths, deduced by the fallible mind of mankind – I call on you all, one last time, to open your eyes to the True Word of God the God that sent you the Word through the prophets. The Truth was written and documented in the Holy Word of the Scriptures, which no man can amend, change or attempt to twist to his own interpretation. There is only one God. So put down your weapons, open your eyes and follow Me to eternal life.

This is interesting in avoiding saying that any texts are wrong but that interpretations are not always divinely guided.

It's simply a matter of finding the + between one and another to make something more useful.

Perhaps it's time for us as followers of the Almighty, to find that + that links us as Christians to all others who understand the Plus to life that the Almighty can bring. By doing so the relevance of churches will be retained as well as the most enjoyable heritage of our organs.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Nicolette on January 11, 2016, 10:16:18 AM
"Perhaps it's time for us as followers of the Almighty, to find that + that links us as Christians to all others who understand the Plus to life that the Almighty can bring."

Did anyone see Adrian Chiles' documentary on BBC2 last night, entitled "My Mediterranean" - part 3?   He was looking at religious worship in various parts of the region and came to exactly this conclusion.   It was excellent.
Nicolette
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 11, 2016, 04:52:18 PM
Dear Nicolette

Thanks so much for bringing this to attention - is it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jggJplu_oCo on YouTube?

Many thanks

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Nicolette on January 11, 2016, 10:13:18 PM
Yes, David.  (It did say part 2, now I remember!)

Best wishes,
Nicolette
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Paul Duffy on January 12, 2016, 10:39:47 AM
David,

Your viewpoint on these matters suggests you a reaching a higher level of consciousness. According to people who are often cynically termed 'New Age' by the mainstream, all of us on this planet, animal and human alike, are going through a transitional period in which we will gradually come to understand our connection with God and each other. We are all a PART of God, not apart from God. According to the 'New Agers', we are each a divine spark encased in a body. If we can look at it that way, issues of gender, sexual orientation and religious observance become irrelevant. I think that is perhaps the point which yourself and Mr Chiles are putting forward.

Best wishes,
Paul
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 12, 2016, 02:05:26 PM
Dear Paul

I think you might have reached somewhere way before - but it really comes from being somewhat down to earth and looking at things from a matter of common sense. That's why Mr C's documentary is so powerful. It's an inevitable understanding to which all must come when we realise that we are all neighbours, in the true sense of Jesus' teaching. And that's the important thing, for those friends who count themselves to be Christians, that coming to the wider understanding that I believe Jesus taught, beyond the teaching of the Church about Jesus, that we can lose nothing and gain the world by taking on board what he taught.

The power of Jesus' teachings is that he taught in parable. His teachings were an analogue . . . and those that don't read the bible in that way lose the dimension in which He taught.

It's really a matter of the Garden of Eden. The climbing of the tree of knowledge shows us that the Eden of which we are told to believe as paradise is in fact a prison, in which we are kept as children with the understanding of animals. This is literally the state of innocence of Adam and Eve.

In these threads I've probably mentioned this before, but the Bible, as the Book of Knowledge at the foot of the tree, incriminates us. As soon as we pick up the book, before we get to Chapter 2, we have started to climb the Tree of Knowledge.

Just as we expect our kids to grow up, get out of the parental house and make their own and better way in the world than we have succeeded in doing, and in fact expect them to have an adulthood in which they can look after us as our parents when we are incapacitated in old age, "God" expects all of us worthy of being called human to grow up in our spiritual development and find the religions in which we are confined as sects, limiting, and not the Paradise of the Garden of Eden but in fact its prison.

It's then that the walls of Paradise fall down, the shackles fall away and we have to go out into the world and grow our own mental crops of God among all the philosophical thorns and thistles that hold us back.

We then, in the wilderness beyond, cry as lone voices.

The paucity of participation in matters of belief here, which should be of far wider interest than merely the quantum of interest in organs, is testimony to the power of the walls of paradise, and the lack of desire to grow crops grappling with the thorns and thistles beyond.

The trouble is that in the absence of willingness to grow crops, people inside the walls of false paradise are starving. The food is running out as the gardens of paradise with too too much sun and too little water don't build bridges with the gardens of paradise flooded by too much across which to trade, let alone share. Some die by flood whilst the others die by fire.

The process of creation, God, expects us to grow up, and hear the Father's words, and do them.

I urge all to go down their local Charity Shop's bin and see what the material world wastes, all stuff created from the stuff of this planet, and thrown away for compost. You'll find all sorts of stuff even of value thrown in that bin - and - God's in that bin too. When you've got everything out and sorted it into an adjacent bin - and argued with the local police who haven't got enough drunks to arrest on a Saturday night who want to arrest you instead - the God that we find there in the bottom of that bin has got to be the God that both you and I and everyone else created can see, and that all and all religions can see too. You and I shouldn't have to consult a medium or a psychic or metaphysical majick man to ask "Can I see God down there in the bottom of the bin?" Our Creator is that which is there for all to see . . . and it's as simple as the PLUS that joins one and another, and everything else.

It might be invisible, but it's more powerful than the mere words in any book, and more than the confines of any religion that tries to claim it for its own.

As soon as churches do the "+" (addition) and work the work of "x" (multiplication), and show the mosques how to do likewise and all the other houses of God, then our traditions can be celebrated and organs will sing.

The whole of "creation" adds up to what's created within.

Best wishes

David P

Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 13, 2016, 12:26:27 AM
In view of http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/12/church-of-england-attendance-falls-below-million-first-time announced today it's more vital than ever for us as Christians to examine what role we play in the mind of the Creator. Increasingly as we are, we're looking to be irrelevant, and compost with the rest of the planet.

Rural churches which hold rural communities together are under threat http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/07/church-of-england-decline-heralds-calls-for-innovative-use-of-church-buildings as are their organs, and choirs, and if the CoE looks holistically in the role that the Creator has for the 21st century church in the light of the above, there is no need for the impending destruction to happen.

The obliteration will be as wholesale and universal as that of the Reformation, and even more destructive. But it can be avoided.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Paul Duffy on January 13, 2016, 12:13:24 PM
David, I don't know why you keep banging on about churches. You are about twenty years too late. These issues were being discussed back in 1995 when I became a church organist. They haven't been addressed because the culture has changed. Society is moving away from regular church attendance, and it is something we have got to accept.  Even if the C of E went ultra liberal, it would still not arrest the slide.  People are either turning atheist or are finding spirituality within themselves. The future for the parish church is grim, but the cathedrals will survive, mainly thanks to tourism.

Best wishes,
Paul
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Nicolette on January 13, 2016, 02:47:49 PM
""I think, in another generation the church will be different and it may well be smaller, but I don't think it will be extinct," she says. "I think the spark is there, and I just feel it will always be there in rural churches."   

Closing quote from the second link in David's post.  I agree.
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 13, 2016, 04:09:55 PM
Quote from: Paul Duffy on January 13, 2016, 12:13:24 PM. . You are about twenty years too late. These issues were being discussed back in 1995 when . . .

I hope it's not too late. There is much in the world that understanding of the process of creation in echo of that which created us can accomplish, and much to be lost if it isn't.

Quote from: Nicolette on January 13, 2016, 02:47:49 PM"I think the spark is there, and I just feel it will always be there in rural churches."   . . .

There are many who are eager for healing of understanding in a disjointed world. People have turned away from the churches because what they have heard inside doesn't match up with the outside: it's ceased to be relevant to them. That's a reflection not upon the people . . .

But the work of "+" that puts one with another to create something more than one is always relevant to everything, everybody, everywhere, and is powerful enough to heal all that we experience in discord in the world. It's what Jesus taught, if only the Churches will teach it.

When people realise that what Jesus taught to the crowds that came to hear him was universal rather than limited http://www.organmatters.com/index.php/topic,2035.0.html, then the crowds in similar numbers will come to the churches to hear it.

It's important for people to know that what Jesus taught is for them, and is as old as the hills. That's the importance of tradition, the framework of the old language, and of traditional music of which the organ plays its part.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Paul Duffy on January 13, 2016, 05:34:11 PM
Quote
I hope it's not too late. There is much in the world that understanding of the process of creation in echo of that which created us can accomplish, and much to be lost if it isn't

It is too late. I am a church organist. I have seen the decline with my own eyes, both in an Anglican church where I used to play, and in my own church. Both churches knocked Sunday afternoon services on the head because of low attendance, and weddings are very few and far between. In my own church, we used to have 25+ weddings annually. Now it has been whittled down to two or three. You think people are going to suddenly have a change of heart? Forget it, they aren't. Go back to the French Revolution. People only took note of religion and what it meant to them when it had gone. The Christian faith in godless, materialistic Britain has gone into a modus operandi of managed decline.

QuotePeople have turned away from the churches because what they have heard inside doesn't match up with the outside: it's ceased to be relevant to them. That's a reflection not upon the people . . .

Funny that you should twist things around and blame the churches, including myself, for I am 'part of the establishment' so to speak. Ask any person on the street about their perception of churches and the first thing he or she is likely to say is that they are 'boring'. Therefore, your 'organ and choir renaissance' is holed below the waterline already. Your average person is more likely to want churches to resemble the materialistic world they inhabit outside. In my opinion, this does not include your traditional organ and choir, though it might possibly include the Gareth Malone 'pop choir' model instead, though they would have to sing secular songs with no mention of God or Jesus in them, because your average Brit is embarrassed by these things. It certainly doesn't include the organ, that is for sure. Some 'progressive' churches are actually embarrassed by their organs and want rid of them.

QuoteIt's what Jesus taught, if only the Churches will teach it.

It IS what the churches have been teaching, but people don't want to hear it. Fact it, your average materialistic Brit thinks Jesus is a joke or just a nice story for the kids at Christmas. Oh yes, we get plenty of people through the doors at Christmas, but they all vanish like smoke in the wind come January.

If you think this state of affairs is going to suddenly and magically turn around, then, with respect, you are deluded. If you want to know what the real problem is behind all this, it is that we are the first generation in human history which no longer feels the need to worship something. You aren't going to change that state of affairs with a few ideas about making church relevant. It is like re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. We have gone through a severe cultural shift.

Best wishes,
Paul.
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 13, 2016, 08:27:02 PM
Your dose of reality is wonderfully refreshing. But you also hit the nail on the head.

For some years my fortnightly Sunday mornings have been listening not to what Jesus taught about God but what the church wants us to believe about Jesus. The cult worship of Jesus rather than the worship of God have driven people away to the point at which two out of the three churches in the Parish are now one closed and the other about to be.

Were the Church to return to worship of God that Jesus taught the position that you describe would be much more optimistic.

The radicalisation of our religion has turned it away from something in which all feel that they can share.

In sharing in the spirit of the universal "+" that as a matter of commonsense joints one with another people of all faiths, and none, will see whichever brand of religion that leads the way as putting a light to guide in front in the very dark times in which we live.

As the world becomes darker and hate and distrust lead the way no amount of materialism will be an adequate sop to ease the pain, and then will the Church that preaches understanding of God, love, the breath of life, the means by which all is created will be seen as essential.

But any religion that promotes separatism in any way which was good enough in the world of local villages is seen as a matter of commonsense to be a world away from God in which the whole world is one village.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Nicolette on January 13, 2016, 08:30:21 PM
Maybe the answer is somewhere to be found in Revelations.
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 13, 2016, 08:43:42 PM
Yes - I quite agree! I particularly warm to the Essene version of Revelation. http://reluctant-messenger.com/essene/revelation.htm The Essenes were very much in harmony with the earth, and God's interaction with the earth. They prayed to the Angels of the Earthly Mother every morning, and the Angels of the Heavenly Father every evening.

The speech of the Angels of the Earthly mother speak poignantly to us in our age:
QuoteAnd I opened the first seal.
And I saw, and beheld the Angel of the Air,
And between her lips flowed the breath of life,
And she knelt over the earth
And gave to man the winds of wisdom,
And man breathed in.
And when he breathed out, the sky darkened,
And the sweet air became fetid,
And clouds of evil smoke hung low over all the earth.

And I turned my face away in shame.

And I opened the second seal.
And I saw, and beheld the Angel of the Water.
And between her lips flowed the water of life,
And she knelt over the Earth
And gave to man an ocean of love.
And man entered the clear and shining waters.
And when he touched the water, the clear streams darkened,
And the crystal waters became thick with slime,
And the fish lay gasping in the foul blackness,
And all the creatures died of thirst.

And I turned my face away in shame.

And I opened the third seal.
And I saw and beheld the Angel of the Sun.
And between her lips flowed the light of life,
And she knelt over the earth
And gave to man the Fires of Power.
And the strength of the Sun entered the heart of man,
And he took the power, and made with it a false sun,
And he spread the fires of destruction,
Burning the forests,
Laying waste the green valleys,
Leaving only charred bones of his brothers.

And I turned away in shame.

And I opened the fourth seal.
And I saw, and beheld the Angel of Joy.
And between her lips flowed the music of life,
And she knelt over the Earth
And gave to man the song of peace.
And peace and joy like music
Flowed through the soul of man.
But he heard only the harsh discord of sadness and discontent,
And he lifted up his sword
And cut off the heads of the singers.

And I turned my face away in shame.

And I opened the fifth seal.
And I saw, and beheld the Angel of Life.
And between her lips
Flowed the holy alliance between God and Man,
And she knelt over the Earth
And gave to man the gift of Creation.
And man created a sickle of iron in the shape of a serpent,
And the harvest he reaped was of hunger and death.

And I turned my face away in shame.

And I opened the sixth seal.
And I saw, and beheld the Angel of the Earth.
And between her lips flowed the river of eternal life,
And she knelt over the Earth
And gave to man the secret of eternity,
And told him to open his eyes

And behold the mysterious Tree of Life in the Endless Sea.
But man lifted up his hand and put out his own eyes,
And said there is no eternity.

And I turned my face away in shame.

And I opened the seventh seal.
And I saw, and beheld the Angel of the Earthly Mother.
And she brought with her a message of blazing light
From the throne of the Heavenly Father.
And this message was for the ears of Man alone,
He who walks between the Earth and Heaven,
And into the ear of man was whispered the message.
And he did not hear.

But I did not turn away my face in shame.
Lo, I reached out my hand to the wings of the angel,
And turned my voice to heaven saying,
"Tell me the message. For I would eat of the fruit
Of the Tree of Life that grows in the Sea of Eternity."

And the angel looked upon me with great sadness,
And there was silence in Heaven.

There follows the passage with which we are more familiar.

Then -
Quote'O Man, would you have this vision come to pass?'
And I answered, 'You know I would do anything
So that these terrible things might not come to pass.'

And he spoke: "Man has created these powers of destruction.
He has made them from his own mind.
He has turned his face away
From the angels of the Heavenly Father and the Earthly Mother,
And he has fashioned his own destruction."

And I spoke: "Then is there no hope, bright angel?"
And a blazing light streamed like a river from his hands
As he answered, "There is always hope,
O thou for whom Heaven and Earth were created."
[/size]

There is always hope.

All we need to do is to turn to the Creator, to operate the process of creation ourselves in our own lives and it is never seen other than a light to others.

The sooner we turn to the operation of hearing our father's voice and doing it, operating creation and healing rather than destruction and separation, the less treacherous the darkness . . . . and the corresponding silence of organs.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 14, 2016, 01:00:59 PM
It's not until the Church gets a handle on its relevance to all people that organs will be singing again.

The Times' headline today http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article4664724.ece "Soppy Christians are their own worst enemy" rather says it all. A further sentence echos exactly what I've been saying "People want meaning in their lives, and will flock to those who offer it".

There are many so-called Christians who I meet whose understanding of God is no more than a superstitious belief in the teddy bear in the sky who will do it for them. Such Christians will not attract more than the simple and the gullible into their churches, but when people realise that the God of Love, the God of Creation is as simple and as effective as 1+1=2, so obvious and under our noses as 1 PLUS 1, then the penny drops. As soon as it's allowed to say that one's God, The Creator, doesn't have to be defined as a person, so that the PLUS can be viewed as that which creates and which is a valid tool of all things and for all people, then even "atheists" realise that Jesus in his teachings has something for them too.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 14, 2016, 06:59:55 PM
Dear Paul

Thanks for that - one clearly has to read things within the context of the time and sense of the document involved.

The document that you're referring to is actually a different document which portrays Jesus not as a majickman working metaphysical miracles but as a very down-to-earth medical practitioner of the time. There are many even today who swear to the miracles achieved by enemas. But that is beside the point here.

There seems to be widespread depresssion, lack of any feeling of empowerment to be able to achieve anything, and particularly any role that the Church can play. But yet through the Creator, there is always hope.

The law of population is that those who don't breed die out in the long run, overtaken by those who breed. That is the nature of the law of the process of Creation. It does not apply only to population numbers and physical objects but to ideas and actions too.

Rudyard Kipling's "If" comes to mind. The last line of the Lord's Prayer about which I've written more than once here, also, teaching us how to Create in worship and echo of that which has produced us, Our Father . . . "Deliver us from uncreation". By creating, even though those around us operate in ignorance of what creates, we shall each create more than the uncreators, and creation produces the results. Uncreation is only finite and temporary whilst creation is permanent, eternal.

It's for this reason that there is life of which the Church is capable in bringing the Creator to the fore, and with such perspective will thrive and lead the way.

One very easy way in which it can be achieved is outlined above in retaining as traditional services as anyone wants but by the inviting and inclusion of others of other faiths incorporating their texts in textual and meaningful agreement with ours to come together to be read at our services. Congregations will swell and the Church will have full support, actually achieving the purposes of God.

Best wishes

David P

(Merely in the nature of a footnote, whilst there may be controversy about Szekely https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Bordeaux_Szekely - and make of that what you will - the passage quoted above from the Revelation text is extraordinarily communicative in terms of our relationship with our planet, each other and God. It's a visible rather than risible accurate description of now. Putting that version of Revelation aside,  in the conventional text there's clearly more than meets the eye http://www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=410693)
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 15, 2016, 02:29:21 PM
No doubt readers will think me mad for bringing faith to the top of topics on an organ forum. But to atheists and believers alike who love organs and the music of the instrument, our instruments depend on their hosting venues, the overwhelming majority of which are churches. And our churches are in decay, dying, and are under attack as, in the circumstances, they should be. Those circumstances are that the religions, including Christianity, are increasing divides between people and not bringing them together in the nature of the worship of whatever, personified or unpersonified, we might recognise as The Creator which through whatever mechanism brings things and people together to create.

Without examining why our organ venues are moldering in support for them, we simply won't have organs. It's a crisis for the instrument.

In another article today, The Times, Philip Collins who admittedly doesn't look a very nice piece of work (http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00038/PHILIP-COLLINS1_copy_38348w.png)
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article4665762.ece attacks the Church. I don't agree with his limited perspective as both he and Hawkins, who he quotes, blindly misses the obvious - that all matter, and us, have something that connects it which causes things more useful than themselves to result from their union or cooperation. This model, that Jesus taught, has a great deal to give in people's lives so in my view there is future in the Church and our organs need not be under threat.

But the Church has lost sight of this in preaching a creed of superiority and separateness, rather than holistic understanding and cooperation.

So Philip Collins has a point in writing:
QuoteThank heavens we're all losing our religion . . .

Some of his cynicism he says relates to realising that the sherry his grandmother bought at the Coop one day became on the next day transformed into the blood of Christ. This truly is a misunderstanding of the Cult of Bacchus, and a failure for the symbolism of the Eucharist to bring its true meaning to light. It's for that reason that above I've outlined an idea of a symbolic supper at Evensong, in an effort to bring the appropriate depth of meaning to better light.

In secularisation he looks forward to
Quotea move towards progress and rationality and away from superstition and vain cosmological hope

In that I can agree. The tragedy of wasting the usefulness of lives in this life in expectation of heaven in the next, is not at all the sentiment or meaning from The Lord's Prayer which invokes the mindset to create paradise here on this earth now. It's not at all unchristian for the Church to look at its God, the Creator, in that sense and perspective, and the Church could so easily seize its moment and the initiative, and win to itself so much support.

Collins refers to the current Church as the new Pharisees:
QuoteJoining a (political) party and going to church are becoming sect activities for Pharisees, the original meaning of which is "those who set themselves aside from everyone"

In my view I think Jesus himself would compare the religion created in His name and resulting as now likewise.

I was so grateful for the stimulus yesterday to look again at Szekely's sources, through which I found another heretic, who's work I cannot understand but whose conclusions echo the sentiments of so many who turn away from the Jesus Cult as the Church now so much more promotes than in my youth, in terms of hocus pocus.

http://www.peshertechnique.infinitesoulutions.com/index_Water_into_wine.html
Quote
The 'Jesus of history' is looking very different from 'the Christ of faith' - the distinction made by 20th century theologians. My own view, which perhaps more are sharing now, is that it is inappropriate and even idolatrous to concentrate so much on the person of Jesus. He was a heroic figure, who came at one of the turning-points of western culture, and he helped to make the turn. But he was only part of an organisation that was ready to make the change. Grown-up people need to look beyond a human cult figure, to that which is higher than human. I think we are moving away from the language of all the traditional religions, into a language that expresses better our sense of what we call 'God'.

It's that figure of Jesus as an idol that he has become to so many against which in my view so many people turn their backs.

In another place Thiering concludes
Quote
Jesus was not a divine figure, not a Son of God.* He was a noble reformer, standing out against oppressive and destructive religion in his own day. He was a part only of a great institution that preceded him and followed him. The choices he made, within his own circumstances, were those that the finest of human beings make, responding to that within us that we have always thought of as divine.

She concludes in commentary on the subject of the Gospel of Mary http://www.peshertechnique.infinitesoulutions.com/The_Other_Gospels/Gospel_of_Mary.html
QuoteIt seems to me - to offer what is simply my opinion - that we have moved beyond the necessity for human-centred cults. It may be the effect of this newly recognised history that we find such language spiritually limiting. It is all part of a rich past, but we stand on the brink of a future that has to take far more into account. We haven't got there yet - perhaps we never will - but, as human beings always do, we can find a greater freedom by not being bound excessively by the past.

In recognition that we have a crisis, in common with others, we need to share with others to seek that upon which we can all agree and find understanding and meaning. The Church has the most wonderful opportunity to do so, and to lead in bringing peace to this world.

Best wishes

David P

*I quote italics above because the statement really depends upon definition, and it's as a result of different definitions that people argue. The clue to the statement is Jesus' own answer as to who were his mother and his brothers . . .
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Paul Duffy on January 15, 2016, 08:23:14 PM
David, I take back what I said the other day about you achieving a higher level of consciousness. Your recent posts have shown you to be an atheist. Of course, you are entitled to this viewpoint as we live in a free society. But I do find it odd that in your atheism you are on the one hand displaying some sort of mock-concern for the churches yet wholeheartedly joining in with the general open season on faith and religion on the other.

As a church organist and believer, I am disheartened every time I read your comments on these matters, not inspired. You are a complete atheist, and I wish you would have the honesty to admit that and write as an atheist instead. If you want to show the 'farcical nature' of religion, then be honest and do it properly. Don't hide behind this pretence of concern, because you know full well that any modernisation of church life to make it relevant would have to step beyond the walls of a stone building. The model you appear to be hankering for does not require organs and choirs.

QuoteThe tragedy of wasting the usefulness of lives in this life in expectation of heaven in the next...

QuoteAnd our churches are in decay, dying, and are under attack as, in the circumstances, they should be.

I can't figure you out. You appear to lament the decline of the churches but then state that they should be attacked. Again, this shows you to be an atheist, albeit a very confused one. You still haven't grasped it though, have you David? The real reason that people are leaving church is everything to do with image, apathy, embarrassment and celebrity culture and nothing to do with what the churches teach. People just use 'because of what the churches teach' as an excuse not to attend. The word 'Jesus cult' is classic atheistic language.

I thought you were somehow reaching a higher level of consciousness, but your latest post reveals you to be an atheist who enjoys posting links to the writings of other atheists. I find it personally distasteful that you are now resorting to attacking the persona of Jesus Christ and posting links to these Gnostic writers. Gnostics do not believe that Jesus died on the cross, or that he was the Son of God. It is atheism by another name. You post this Essene garbage in which 'Jesus' encourages His followers to shove the stalk of a gourd up their back passage and give themselves an enema. You bring Bacchus into it. Bacchus, whose initiates rended animals (and sometimes humans) alive as a sacrifice to their god and ran around with thyrsus wands cavorting and having sex. Are you really suggesting we return to those days?

David, I thought you were a spiritual person who was perhaps searching for something. But you are not. You are an atheist and I find your comments increasingly confusing, de-moralising and antagonistic.

I feel that you are correct in your assertion that you should not be bringing matters of faith to an organ forum, particularly as some of us are church organists, and one of us is an organist AND a reverend. We have enough ignorance to put up with in the outside world.

I shan't be posting on this forum again.

Best wishes,
Paul.

I
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 16, 2016, 10:49:58 AM
Dear Paul

Thank you so much for your critical stimulus.

Your personal and withering attack is entirely justified and for that reason it seems appropriate to answer those assertions below.

I have a very strong belief in God. So did Einstein*, and much of Victorian debate was in the interpretation of religion in the light of physics and biology. For reasons of seeing meaning in interpretation of language, I don't see conflict between religion, science or rationalism.

In fact I believe that the conflicts that we experience in religion and between religions result from language and, if we take singular meanings, inadequacies of language to encompass all things. It's for this reason that Mediaevalists looked for five meanings in all texts and Hebrew itself has multiple meanings to each word. I have a friend in the south of France who is Jewish and shows me the way in which the meanings of words are linked by their numbers. Roman writers referred to the Hebrews as good Pythagoreans**. This related to the number system behind their language and why for instance when I see a commentary such as http://www.peshertechnique.infinitesoulutions.com/QandA/Questions3.html upon the 153 fish of John 11:21 I see someone who's making the right enquiries whether or not I choose to follow her conclusions, which may or may not be bizarre.

There are many matters on which we can share belief and in which we can have the certainty of faith - that
(a) there is a God
(b) that by "God" we mean "The Creator" by which all is created.
(c) Because that Creator created everything, including us, if we take "The Creator" as our model in life, then we too will create more and more harmoniously
(d) that in making all, "The Creator" is All Powerful, Invisible and Everywhere
(e) faith in the Creator is a way of life

Where we may differ is that I believe that
(i) The Creator may not be a person but is a process. That idea is supported by the language of the New Testament, in the structure of the Holy Trinity and in Jesus' response to "who are my mother and my brothers?". The language of son and daughter processes is used in computing.
(ii) The universe may have been created by a force within itself rather than outside itself.
(iii) The result of the process of matter and things and people coming together as a result of the work of the creator displays an intelligence. It's for the simple reason that stuff that doesn't work together is rather stupid, so of course anything that works together is more intelligent than the stupid stuff. That operates at every level.
(iv) The intelligence displayed by the interaction of everything in the universe, because we are limited to the human comprehension of our own intelligence, appears to us and behaves as a person, and behaves as a Father to us - but it's a good deal more, even more than that. Our personification of the Creator is limiting.
(v) Personally the way of life is a philosophy in which I can have faith because it works and is based on rationality.

With regard to the latter some apparent symbolic "Hand of God" presents itself into my life and when it does I metaphorically reciprocate with thanks. But I note these things and test the outcome to ensure their reality and to ensure not to be misled by the illusory.

For the reasons above we need to amass what we are told about the Creator and see if and how it matches up with the result that it produces. By their actions shall ye know them.

We see currently
(a) churches in decline
(b) people not appreciating that faith or church has any relevance to their lives
(c) loss of social fabric which could be vastly improved were the concept of The Creator to be returned to consciousness
(d) peoples in conflict with each other on account of which cult teacher they "believe" in
(e) people following "beliefs" which do not attempt to understand what the teacher was teaching but demand only blind faith in their chosen idol
(f) the human race in the position of capability of its own extinction by reason of its weapons, war and corrosive destruction
(g) the human race in the capability of destroying the earth which supports it. It's for this reason that I find the Szekely Gnostic texts*** of particular relevance and are worth reading for their beauty and wisdom. The creation of a False Sun given by the angel of Power is a very dangerous thing to do, as we are currently concerned with the actions of the governance of North Korea. ****

For all of these reasons were the Church to take on a wider and unblinkered position in the perspectives of the work of the Creator God, the legacy of the wisdom of Jesus Christ would neither be under attack nor considered irrelevant.

In the processing of analogue colour television signals, something known as a comb filter was applied to test the signal coming in to see if it matched up with the result expected. The fact that the introduction of colour to television was so successful was testimony to the process.

All therefore that we need to start doing is to measure up our beliefs and our texts as to whether the interpretations and meanings actually result in the action of creating, bringing together, harmony, working together, loving our neighbours. Where they don't then we need to put them on one side for later work when we understand them more.

Within the church it's so easy for us to accomplish this, inviting other people in and asking them to read from their texts where they and we know that they are saying the same thing.

Inviting people in to evangelise is more effective than going out to do so. We simply have to welcome.

Best wishes

David P

PS

* Einstein famously said that Jehovah's only excuse for all the bad in the world was his non-existence, but he said that he had great respect for "The Old One". That's a belief in God, The Creator, by any definition, and a proper rejection of a name that becomes an idol, and against the ancient injunction against saying The Name. Einstein was a true believer in the One god.

** "Good Pythagoreans" My friend in the south of France shows me how for instance the square of the numbers associated with the Hebrew words for for instance "God" and "Children" when added together equate with the square of the number of the word for "children of god"

***The Szekely Essene version of the Book of Revelation which speaks to us so clearly only causes offense not for its content but because it's outside the realm of "acceptable". By what criteria? We have to ask whether what it says accords or not with the work of the Creator - and as it clearly shows us how currently the human race is not pursuing creation with our planet, then the text which identifies clearly our errant ways is more Divinely inspired than we, and we do well therefore to drink of its wisdom. What is wrong with the Gnostic texts? Only that the Council of Nicea convened by that very nice Roman Emperor who drowned his wives in boiling water told us that they were the work of the devil and shouldn't be read. Should we still be in fear of Constantine's punishment?

**** In just the same way as Einstein told his professors that there was no such thing as cold, only an absence of heat, and by analogy that there is no Devil, only an absence of understanding of Creation, and in just the same way as there is no Darkness but only an absence of light, we will achieve a more enlightened position when we stop demonising others, demonising other faiths and no faiths, and get on with the work of the Creator. In this, the work of the Church and of the other religions likewise, is only part way up the ladder.
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Nicolette on January 16, 2016, 07:43:44 PM
"......we will achieve a more enlightened position when we stop demonising others, demonising other faiths and no faiths, and get on with the work of the Creator."

Yes, David. And this was Christ's example.
Best wishes,
Nicolette.
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 17, 2016, 01:01:34 PM
One day there were different people going to do the work of God.

They had to reach the city for a meeting.

One group of people arrived at the mainline station and bought their tickets and got on the train they expected to catch.

Another went to a minor station along the way. A bloke at the ticket machine took an extraordinarily long time and the queue behind him thought that they would miss their train. The bloke apologised saying that it was cheaper to buy his tickets splitting the journey into two, and it also cost more to use the main station as the destination.

The next man, in a hurry and distracted listening to the tedious man, pressed the wrong buttons and bought the wrong ticket, a single rather than a return.

Thinking that God had let him down, he was annoyed with himself asking why God had allowed him to buy the wrong ticket.

He arrived on the platform and found that the train was listed as going to the wrong station. Walking up and down the platform he paced in desperation asking why God had let him down, wondering if this really was the train to catch at all, perhaps thinking that he should wait for the right train and knew that in any event he had to find the guard on the train to change his ticket.

After a little while, the "wrong" train turned up.

It's then that as people of faith have to make that decision as to whether or not to work with the God that's apparently abandoned them, and get on the "wrong" train with the wrong ticket.

As the long 12 carriage train stopped at the station, exactly where the man was on the platform, the doors opened right in front of him. Those doors were the one of all 24 on the train where . . . the guard got out . . . and the man walked in.

Sitting down he told the guard he'd need his help to change his ticket because he'd got the wrong one. "No trouble" said the guard, who changed the ticket. "And don't worry - you've caught the right train - the signals are wrong on the other line so don't get out at the junction halfway up the line to get on the other train".

After that the journey was easy. The Hand of God* led the way.

Meanwhile the others who'd got what they thought was the right train didn't switch to the other line at the junction. They had to stand on what they clung onto as their "right train", squashed together like sardines in a can, uncomfortable, delayed, stifled and experiencing the antithesis of heaven.

All reached their destination.

The extent to which the majority of population have abandoned the church is because the signals have gone wrong.

It takes faith to abandon what's thought to be the right train from the main station. It takes faith to go to the small station and get the wrong train with the wrong ticket, and to walk straight into the carriage where the guard is.

An article in the weekend FT is worth reading http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/4dd82d8c-b948-11e5-b151-8e15c9a029fb.html "More than British" about assimilation of foreigners and in particular about how the writer's Jewish ancestors became and felt very British.**

QuoteDespite the common slights and professional setbacks, my grandparents never felt they were rejected by Britain in the way German Jews were rejected by their country after 1933. Perhaps this should be obvious. They were grateful for something that ought to be a given. But it meant everything to them.

I think about this often when I read about the difficulties experienced by European Muslims. To be sure, there was no Jewish equivalent of violent jihadism. But most Europeans with a Muslim background are not jihadis. They want to be accepted. Violence is all the more likely when they are not. My grandparents were fortunate. They found their place in a relatively decent society during frequently indecent times. One can only hope that, eventually, other children of immigrants will feel as lucky as they did.

Inviting those practicing other faiths in to share with us in our churches their texts with us also describing the work of God and to celebrate worship in understanding, harmony and peace with them is not unchristian. It's the work of the Daughters and Mothers and Sons of God as Jesus commanded us to be.

I'm apparently an Atheist. And I'm not frightened to get on the wrong train. In faith we can do so.

Best wishes

David P

* Incidentally, my Jewish friend to whom I've referred above in connexion with Pythagoreanism tells me that this is the true meaning of the title of Homer's epic, the Iliad - "The Hand of God".

** Ian Buruma is author of 'Their Promised Land: My Grandparents in Love and War' (published by Penguin Press in the US on January 19 and in the UK by Atlantic Books in March)
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 18, 2016, 08:26:24 PM
Being berated above for being Gnostic, and on account of the ferocity of attack relating to the work of Dr Barbara Thiering http://www.peshertechnique.infinitesoulutions.com/index_BarbaraThiering.html who by any manner of opinion must rank high in measure of erudition and scholarship I returned today to some of her work http://www.peshertechnique.infinitesoulutions.com/Reflections.html

She was radical, had courage, and had clearly observed the same processes of radicalisation of the Christian faith on which I have commented http://www.organmatters.com/index.php/topic,2035.msg9294/ being known for
Quotedeconstructing many of the fundamentalist theologies most Cold-War Christians had been taught
Most certainly she did not put God in the bin but promoted anti-fundamentalist religion. In these days when we see fundamentalism elsewhere but not in ourselves, we need more voices such as hers and more of her more universal theology.

She comments
http://www.peshertechnique.infinitesoulutions.com/The_Other_Gospels/Gospel_of_Mary.html
Quote
What was basically an organisational necessity was clothed in the gnostic gospels with the mystical language that gnostics delighted in, illustrating their belief that what was earthly was at the same time heavenly. It is the mystical language that has survived, lending itself to a cult of Mary Magdalene that continues the cult of Mary the Mother.

It seems to me - to offer what is simply my opinion - that we have moved beyond the necessity for human-centred cults. It may be the effect of this newly recognised history that we find such language spiritually limiting. It is all part of a rich past, but we stand on the brink of a future that has to take far more into account. We haven't got there yet - perhaps we never will - but, as human beings always do, we can find a greater freedom by not being bound excessively by the past.

My own perspective comes from an immersion in the 18th century. This was at the end of the period of the Renaissance without which humankind would not have advanced so much in the last millennium. But much of the 18th century was dumped by radicalists in the 19th century who needed to present a simpler dumbed down view to more uneducated people coming into the work of the Industrial Revolution and associated prosperity.

The Moravians had set up communities not unlike those described by Thiering at Qumran with rather strict separation of the sexes and the early removal of children to Moravian headquarters for education. Their school at Fulneck in Yorkshire flourished and at the age of 7 or so the children were sent off to Niesky in Saxony. The land was given to them by Count Zinzendorf.

Europe at this time had major problems, each village and valley and town alternately ruled by Protestants, Calvinists, Anabaptists and Calvinists. If you said the wrong thing in the wrong place you'd get your head cut off, not very unlike the dangers of identifying with Shiite or Sunni Islam now.

The sort of Freemasonry espoused by Pike referred to above is a very different animal to that of the 18th century, and might even have been a result of radicalisation and fundamentalism in the Christian domain in the 19th century itself.

It was thanks to 18th century belief in the Great Architect, that dissolved the silly differences between the brands of Christianity.

Increasingly I find reference to the worship of Bacchus or Dionysus nowadays in derogatory terms but as a proto-Christ he was central to the 18th century views, the Dionysiac Artificers having been sent by the King of Tyre (King Hiram) to assist in the building of Solomon's temple.

The misunderstandings about Bacchus arise through ignorance and the sort of response one might expect from the Sun newspaper about the word that will no doubt be in your mind as following the word "Bacchanalian". We live in a sexualised material world of frustrating animal consciousness nowadays.

It is that consciousness that Christianity in its Mystery has been intended to raise, but in its fundamentalised manifestation does not.

It's very apparent from
http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/sta06.htm in relation to the Eleusian and Bacchic mysteries that the Renaissance in which such learning was encouraged was very much in a different consciousness about consciousness in the days in which we live.

Whilst Dante is revered, perhaps many might sling grenades on which "heresy" had been written before pulling out the pin and hurling it at his inspiration
QuoteThe crux of the Eleusinian argument was that man is neither better nor wiser after death than during life. If he does not rise above ignorance during his sojourn here, man goes at death into eternity to wander about forever, making the same mistakes which he made here. If he does not outgrow the desire for material possessions here, he will carry it with him into the invisible world, where, because he can never gratify the desire, he will continue in endless agony. Dante's Inferno is symbolically descriptive of the sufferings of those who never freed their spiritual natures from the cravings, habits, viewpoints, and limitations of their Plutonic personalities.

The understanding of Bacchus and Dionysus is particularly different to that which is given by the ignorance of the modern age:
QuoteMan is a composite creature, his lower nature consisting of the fragments of the Titans and his higher nature the sacred, immortal flesh (life) of Bacchus. Therefore man is capable of either a Titanic (irrational) or a Bacchic (rational) existence.

In teaching about wine, the only thing for which he is famous now, it's forgotten that he was responsible for the teaching of growing of grapes - because you can't have wine if you haven't grown the grapes. He was the teacher of agriculture and fertility. So you would invoke him to preside over the blessing of a wedding. But this was not merely fertility in the material world - it was fertility in the mental world too.

This was the fertility of which we understand when Adam and Eve's paradise falls away from them and they have to grow their crops of the mind among the thorns and thistles in that realm.

Those thorns and thistles are why perhaps this thread causes angst in some in its reading.

Rather interestingly
QuoteBacchus is the all-inclusive idea of the Titanic sphere and the Titans--or gods of the fragments--the active agencies by means of which universal substance is fashioned into the pattern of this idea. The Bacchic state signifies the unity of the rational soul in a state of self-knowledge, and the Titanic state the diversity of the rational soul which, being scattered throughout creation, loses the consciousness of its own essential one-ness. The mirror into which Bacchus gazes and which is the cause of his fall is the great sea of illusion--the lower world fashioned by the Titans. Bacchus (the mundane rational soul), seeing his image before him, accepts the image as a likeness of himself and ensouls the likeness; that is, the rational idea ensouls its reflection--the irrational universe. By ensouling the irrational image it implants in it the urge to become like its source, the rational image.

Understaning Bacchus was a study in the mirror.

It might surprise radicalised Christians of today that this is part of our story too.

"Man made in the image of God" . . . . and whether we see God in the image of Man.

"We see through a glass darkly - but then face to face". Certainly Paul with his Roman origins would have been familiar with the Mysteries.

Szekerly, referred to above, has that passage written not by Paul but said by Jesus himself according to John. Whether one likes to believe it or not, Thiering has John written by Jesus Himself. It doesn't really matter.

The point is that we're simply looking at different reflections of the same Old One, to use Einstein's term for the one faith in the one God the Creator.

In contrast to the Titanic state in which we live
QuoteThe Titanic state signifies the diversity of the rational soul which, being scattered throughout creation, loses the consciousness of its own essential one-ness.

we need to re-find that one-ness in order . . . please excuse the pun, for our civilisation to avoid the fate of
(http://www.titanicfacts.net/images/the-titanic.png)
the giant iceberg of religions that otherwise will split humanity apart and cause such loss of life.

QuoteThe Bacchic state signifies the unity of the rational soul in a state of self-knowledge

Perhaps it's time to restore Bacchus in our understanding.

The world is a village. No village is an island. It's now time to talk to our neighbours and say "Hey! Let's share our visions of the Creator. Let's do the work of the Creator". This is humanity in the image of God. This is Christianity in the doing of the work of the Father.

In doing so, the Churches will sing not as an organ with dying wind able to support only one rank, but with sound as inspirational as full chorus can bring.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 19, 2016, 07:31:25 PM
The thrust of religion in its "Jesus loves me" simplicity is no more than a superstition and as debased as a Hope Jones organ.

For nearly 20,000 British men who died 1st July 1916 in the Battle of the Somme the Hope of the God who loves you, the big Teddy Bear in the sky with which for at least thirty years has led the wave of Evangelical Christianity, failed to do it for them that day.

The thrust of radicalised fundamentalism that only sees the texts in literal glory is wrong and is seen to be wrong by people of common sense who have turned their backs on the church and see no relevance of God in their lives.

The Hope Jones instrument might be fun to dance to, happy and clappy, but as organists we know there is something more, and greater.

The Fairground instrument, the "unit orchestra", was no better, exciting at a funfair, but with the music on punched "books" operating the keys, mindlessly played the same tunes and couldn't adapt.

The reading of the same texts in our churches is leading the Church to go the same way as these organs, preserved as matters of curiosity in remembrance of times past.

The "Doodle" today is rather relevant inspired by a little known 20th century artist*.

Our religions each take a colour such as green**
(http://www.organmatters.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2037.0;attach=9;image)

and say that the other colours
(http://www.organmatters.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2037.0;attach=7;image)

are not allowed and that black
(http://www.organmatters.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2037.0;attach=11;image)
is positively evil.

If only limited colours are allowed then understanding of the idea is made rather uncertain and people will argue what it's all about. And yet even when we have all the colours,
(http://www.organmatters.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2037.0;attach=13;image)
we'll probably still argue what it's all about unless we happen to understand the name "Google".

He who searches finds.

The Creator, which we call "God", is not much different.

We have to measure up the meanings we understand of our texts and see if they measure up to creating and as to whether their actions spell out the work of The Creator.

Jesus said that it was not necessary to offer live sacrifices in the Temple to appease God. For goodness sake, to do so is only superstition! Does the killing of an animal on an altar have any relevance to the process of creating, the construction of matter, the PLUS between 1+1 which then enables 2 to be created?

Should we therefore separate ourselves from other faiths each leading people to the idea of creating because Jesus was killed on a cross? How can the killing of a Son of The Creator on a cross have any relevance to our process of creating? How can the killing of the Son of the Creator have any relevance to our own actions of not having created, having taken wrong steps, trespasses?

If there is any understanding of these things it is not in the mode of "Jesus loves you. Jesus loves you so much that he died to save you from your sins".

The only way in which the Son of the Creator saves us from our sins is in teaching us the way of creation, in which wrong steps are irrelevant, or actually through forgiveness and subsequent usage in the process of creating provide variety that enhances creation.

The truth arises from the substance of what Jesus and other teachers taught, and not in worship of our teacher.

May our churches and our organs progress beyond the spirit of Hope Jones.

Best wishes

David P

* http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/google-doodle/12106374/Who-was-Sophie-Taeuber-Arp-One-of-the-most-important-female-artists-youve-never-heard-of.html

** The only reason for saying that only green ink is allowed is in order for men to sell more green ink.
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 20, 2016, 01:16:42 PM
We are not very far from kristallnacht upon seeing the newspapers this morning http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4669721.ece reporting that asylum seekers have been housed in places with red front doors.

This is most certainly all darkness from krist and so far from the teachings of Jesus Son of Man that if the Church can adopt Christianity in the broadest worship of the Creator God it espouses it will earn for itself kudos in the initiative to bring relevance to all, peace and harmony.

Indeed, we need a force of Christianity relevant to all in order to avoid the consequences of another Kristallnacht.

We've seen in this thread http://www.organmatters.com/index.php/topic,2037.msg9338.html#msg9338 a conspiracy to divide the world in disharmony, profiting out of selling blue ink
(http://www.organmatters.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2037.0;attach=16;image)

to some and telling others that "truth" is only the red and yellow ink
(http://www.organmatters.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2037.0;attach=8;image)

and to others only the green ink in short supply
(http://www.organmatters.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2037.0;attach=10;image)

whilst to others the profit of selling an absence of light
(http://www.organmatters.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2037.0;attach=12;image)
entirely at all.

The only way of overcoming the Pikist forces to which reference has been made is to put all the colours, all the light, together in the darkness so that the real picture
(http://www.organmatters.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2037.0;attach=14;image)
is revealed.

So if we are to believe this thread the dangerous Gnostics with only a tiny green view of the picture
(http://www.organmatters.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2037.0;attach=10;image)

are a terrible threat to those who believe the blue picture of the world
(http://www.organmatters.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2037.0;attach=16;image)
to be the whole "truth".

The Gnostics in the opinion expressed above might dare to believe that Jesus, biological supernatural son of the person of God, did not die on the cross but continued to live out his days days somewhere else.

Really might Christianity lose or gain by finding language and meaning in which both scenarios were or are true?

The sellers of ink who want to divide the world in the selling of coloured paint with which to mark the doors of asylum seekers will promote that to have mentioned such a thing might even be the matter of the ultimate darkness
(http://www.organmatters.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2037.0;attach=12;image)
clearly blatant nihilism and Atheism at its most offensive.

Physicists have had to grapple for two centuries with the incompatibilities of light being both particles and waves being true at the same time. Having done so has demonstrated the value of such mental leaping as the computer you're using with which to read this would not work without such understanding having been gained. But it turns out that the quanta of the particles wasn't a property of the light at all but instead merely of the electronic energy levels of the matter with which the light interacts.

Christianity can cope with, benefit, flourish and bring benefit to humanity by doing the same, finding the truths between and beyond the incompatibilities. The religions argue merely about whether the 4ft Principal, the 2ft Fifteenth or the Twelfth is the Fundamental of the organ, and whether the tickling Septieme should not be allowed.

Can the Church survive if Jesus Son of God died on the cross and if Jesus Son of God did not die on the cross are both true? If both are true, what definitions about words permit both truths? And what is the teaching that comes through that is valid in either or both circumstance?

Best wishes

David P

PS http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-35341256 is the very reason why we ourselves as Christians have the duty to demonstrate getting beyond love of our teacher and instead understand what he was saying. The Prophet would have told the boy that cutting off his hand could not help him to do the work of the Creator which requires our minds, hearts and hands to bring into effect.
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Paul Duffy on January 20, 2016, 05:53:43 PM
David, I wish to apologise for my fundamentalist rant. You had touched a nerve. It was indeed a Titanic response, but there is a reason for such a harsh reply. Since I posted it I fully intended to lurk occasionally on this forum. However, what you have said in subsequent days has struck a chord. Allow me to explain.

QuoteBeing berated above for being Gnostic

The sort of Freemasonry espoused by Pike referred to above is a very different animal to that of the 18th century, and might even have been a result of radicalisation and fundamentalism in the Christian domain in the 19th century itself.

It was thanks to 18th century belief in the Great Architect, that dissolved the silly differences between the brands of Christianity.

As I have stated in previous posts, I have been experiencing some sort of 'spiritual awakening' these past few years. I am in little doubt that it is 'divinely motivated', but the experience has pointed very firmly towards Gnosticism and Freemasonry. I have been pushing against this for a long time because I simply did not wish to accept it. For a start, believing or dabbling in Freemasonry will get me excommunicated from my Church and Faith. However, I cannot ignore Gnosticism and Freemasonry any longer. They contain sacred truths, and the awakening is returning me to them time and again, together with the Rose Cross, The Holy Grail and The Black Madonna amongst other things. I don't know what it all means, but I will have to re-think EVERYTHING I believe in. This is why your comments on Gnosticism touched a nerve.

But it was this comment which compelled me to reply, even though I did say I would never post here again:

QuoteIncreasingly I find reference to the worship of Bacchus or Dionysus nowadays in derogatory terms but as a proto-Christ he was central to the 18th century views, the Dionysiac Artificers having been sent by the King of Tyre (King Hiram) to assist in the building of Solomon's temple.

Perhaps it's time to restore Bacchus in our understanding.

The awakening has pointed VERY STRONGLY to Bacchus, via an astonishing experience which I cannot go into in an open forum. I didn't want Bacchus to disturb my beliefs. I didn't want the upheaval. I wanted the Bacchus episode to go away because it did not fit with my beliefs. But this is what Bacchus does. He turns everything upside down. Here am I, a mainstream Catholic, having to accept the very real possibility that I was 'spiritually initiated' into the Bacchic/Dionysian mysteries. That is why I reacted in the manner I did. I didn't want to accept it because it sounds insane and it doesn't reflect my beliefs.

I apologise once again. Keep going David, you are on to something.

Best wishes,
Paul


Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 20, 2016, 06:51:07 PM
Dear Paul

You're most welcome and forgiven, not that you need to be. Sometimes in natural healing a very strong reaction is experienced and expected. (In that understanding you'll now enjoy more Szekely's "Gospel of Peace" however repugnant its first reading might be.) Indeed I owe you a lot, because without stimulation ideas are stagnant and the inspiration you caused in my having to answer was most helpful to say the least. Indeed I would not have stumbled upon Barbara Thiering's work without your having guided me to look more at Szekely.

I have only just got my hands on the "Jesus the Man" book by Thiering. Her knowledge and understanding of ancient Greek is not to be discounted and there are one or two things that are starting to suggest to me that she might not have been the first to have stumbled upon the code and coded information about which she writes. The Elizabethans were bonkers about encoding secret things, much of which remains that way, Sir Francis Bacon was central to it all . . . and one might ask what inspiration there had been to all of this, although that is in itself a red herring.

Thiering talks about the Community at Qumran, and a replication of the Community at Jerusalem . . . and at Rome.

What we see persisting at the Vatican is a community not very different to that of 2000 years ago.

We all know that the Second Coming was expected in around 80AD when the Messiah was expected to return to over throw the Romans . . . so the reality is that we've heard echoes before of which Theiring identifies and illucidated in her research. There was a lot of politics around. Was Palm Sunday a purely peaceful event? Or was it the sort of "peaceful" event that Neru might have led in India?

That's the human story . . . and this doesn't at all take away from the story in the spiritual dimension.

Theiring puts other colours on the meaning of being reborn - reborn within the community. This is what many monks and nuns have experienced in all such communities for two millennia.

The "miracle" of turning water into wine works in both dimensions. On the one hand it may be a description of what happened at an actual event, and I might well have written here on the forum about that event in the physical world, but in her book Thiering suggests that the turning of water into wine is a spiritual reference to having been baptised with water and then in maturity coming to the table of the sacred feast, of bread and being baptised into wine - within the Community.

It's odd, to say the least, that in my suggestion for a meaningful evensong above in the course of suggesting a reinvigorated Church Service http://www.organmatters.com/index.php/topic,2037.msg9339.html#msg9339 I move in that direction - and someone told me that there are some churches which do adopt the idea of the sacred meal or symbolic feast.

But this is a red herring also. I mentioned a hunch that Thiering might not have been the first to have stumbled upon the coded documentation about the Qumran community. The Moravian community at Fulneck in Yorkshire seems to have been a striking echo of the spirit of the Essene arrangements, with separated quarters for men and for women and for the education of their children, and focus on the study of Greek and the languages.*

More research might be useful relating to Christian Ignatius Latrobe. The Latrobe motto was interesting - Qui La Cerca La Troba - he who searches finds, in the old French, the Langue D'Oc. The family may well have descended from the Troubadours, who had travelled, searched, found, and related their epics. London in the 1780s and 1790s was an extremely vibrant and erudite place in the shadow of Samuel Johnson, and Dr Burney, the musicologist who was one of the last people to have been able to travel Europe with a common language . . . Latin.

I hope that perhaps there is inspiration in this thread for other people on the path to join in. It's not necessarily the destination that's important but the path, the process, by which one finds it.

Just as there is commonality between the normal understanding of turning water into wine and the very special nature of us as common water also being turned into the best of wine (Bacchus again) as a result of our encounter with the wisdom of Jesus, with luck more people might see the value and relevance and enrichment of spirit which rewards way beyond the literal "acceptable" readings of the texts.

It's more than this, as when we find the meanings that actually accord within and between all the religions, we have the foundation for peace in the world.

The matters of which I'm writing are not unknown and nor of my invention: I was introduced to them by reason of an encounter with a building of a style and construction known by some as "rebirth architecture".

In relation to the fears of disapproval about which one might worry by contemplation of the ideas here, none can deny the circumstances outlined in the posts above, all matters which we as believers in the power of Creation now have to be concerned.

An example is the gift of the Angel of Life
QuoteAnd gave to man the gift of Creation.
And man created a sickle of iron in the shape of a serpent,
And the harvest he reaped was of hunger and death.

Whether that iron is that of weaponry which destroys life, or abuses of DNA in the shape of a serpent responsible for life, by what we do now, all of us, of every creed and faith and religion or none, we have the opportunity to bring forward either destruction or eternity and have the duty to work to the latter rather than sleepwalk into the former.

Best wishes

David P


* The Unitas Fratrum -  http://missionaries.griffith.edu.au/missionary-training/moravians-herrnhut-1722-1869
QuoteThey lived in a choir system where community members were organised as single men's choir, single women's choir, widows' choir, boys and girls choirs. they lived in choir houses each with their elder and group meetings to arrange housekeeping, craft production, education and worship. The choir system created spheres of influence for women and also facilitated arranged marriages.

There was a strong ethos of egalitarianism, and education was available to males and females. The Herrnhut school taught the Bible languages Latin, Greek, and Hebrew as well as German, French and English, history and geography. This meant that a high standard of schooling was available to children of both sexes from all social backgrounds, and both men and women engaged in translations and hymn writing.
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 21, 2016, 02:43:48 AM
In following through from replying above, anyone might get lost in Reformation history. The point above is that Zinzendorf and the Moravians may well have discovered before what Thiering has looked at again. The extent to which the 18th century demonstrated expertise in code writing, and no doubt inspired by code breaking, was exemplified by Wesley writing in code.

The details really don't matter. It's not the destination that's important but the process, and seeking destinations can land one up in all sorts of false destinations and down rabbit holes.

The only thing that matters is that test of "Does this meaning or understanding help to create and to create holistically?", in other words whether it forms part of larger creation.

The ancients were happy to define a god. That definition is within the understanding of something. When we look in a mirror it's difficult to decide which side of the glass we are on and which the other is on. So one can look at the possibility that defining the Creator as God leads to its understanding.

In 13BC Emperor Augustus defined Peace as a Goddess. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ara_Pacis This may be part of the story that became the bible story, it being clear from Thiering that what was happening in Rome was part of what was going on in Qumran. Perhaps the Pietists, knew a thing or two, Moravians and Quakers. Even the Rosicrucians. Even those who the coloured ink makers tell us to demonise.

It's all caused differences and arguments all before and one has to avoid the destinations provided by the shortages of other colours of inks.

The Tower of Babel is the most important parable of all. It's the one that if we're not careful we all climb and then fall down. The story is that everything originated as one . . . and then was split apart and caused us to argue. So we have to resist the temptations to find differences, and to argue.

This is the power as Christians loving our neighbours inviting in others in worship of the Creator and sharing understandings of our texts.

There are interpretations and understandings in which all texts are right and only our interpretations which don't match Creation are wrong.

In such can those who want to be be reborn. In commonsense the Churches can ring with the sound of tongues afire that all can understand and with enthusiasm drunken.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Paul Duffy on January 21, 2016, 11:18:23 AM
Thank you David for your kindly reply.

QuoteIn 13BC Emperor Augustus defined Peace as a Goddess

This brings me back to the Black Madonna I mentioned in an earlier post. People think that it is a statue of the Virgin Mary holding Jesus, and that it is black because of candle smoke. Well, one could take it that way, and certainly it is easier to explain it like that rather than the controversial truth behind it.

The Black Madonna is deliberately coloured black, and because of this it is actually a statue of The Goddess (Kali, Isis, Athena etc.) giving spiritual re-birth to an initiate. (Gnostics go even further, and suggest it is a statue of Mary Magdalene carrying Jesus's child.) My weird experiences over the past two years linked the book 'The Secret Life of Bees' with the Black Madonna and a chap called St Bernard of Clairvaulx. It was almost like wheels within wheels. Bernard instituted worship of the Black Madonna and he is a patron saint of beekeepers; and the Secret Life of Bees centres around a Black Madonna statue. Bernard haunts all my steps! You mentioned the Dionysian Architects. Many months ago I discovered that Bernard had worked with them to build the Templar-Cistercian abbeys. I had buried all this stuff and forgotten about it. But it seems that Bernard wants to be noticed! Over the Christmas period, he appeared in a picture in the background during a scene in the BBC's 'Dickensian' programme. And now you have drawn my attention to him once again.

QuoteEven the Rosicrucians

I have learned much from the beliefs of these people. Before I ever knew anything about them I had a dream in which three rose crosses were borne horizontally in procession in some cathedral or religious building. I later learned that this concerns spiritual healing. I now know that the cross is pre-Christian. Indeed, the early Christians used a five pointed star as an emblem, not a cross. The rose cross symbolises the soul 'crucified' on the body. This is a pre-Christian concept.

There are many more things I could share with you. To be honest David, you are the only person I can talk to about these secret and sacred things. Other people are likely to demonise me or label me insane. What I have come to understand, is that God/the Great Architect/ the Universe, does not give out orders. He/It does not interfere with free will. Instead, He/It encourages us to write our own stories, to create our own Heaven. He does alter the minds of certain people, but that is so they can step out of the collective unconscious and see how everything is connected within the Universe. He makes some people into Prophets, and there are some really good ones. But the things they wrote are their own conclusions. God didn't dictate anything to them. Isaiah is a particularly intelligent and clever prophet, but my personal favourite is our very own William Blake. People labelled him insane in his day, as they are wont to do, but in my opinion Blake was indeed touched by God and he understood that God is above morality. Blake is my hero really. It's sad that people only seem to remember him for one thing, because he was multi-talented and could do illuminations, etchings, engravings and poetry as well. He had a great sense of humour which comes through in his poems, though the elite at the time often baulked at this because they expected all poems to fit a certain mould.

"Men are admitted into Heaven not because they have curbed and governd their Passions or have No Passions but because they have Cultivated their Understandings. The Treasures of Heaven are not Negations of Passion but Realities of Intellect from which All the Passions Emanate Uncurbed in their Eternal Glory."

"I must Create a System, or be enslav'd by another Man's. I will not Reason & Compare; my business is to Create."

How can such a man be labelled insane by his contemporaries? Surely they are the ones who are mad, including Chesterton, whose biography of Blake is a travesty.

Best wishes,
Paul.
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 21, 2016, 02:00:51 PM
Dear Paul

Thank you so much for sharing these things. I hope that you won't live in fear and that no-one will and that others will come forward and contribute in this thread.

The idea is simply a suggestion, above, of how in the Church we can be wider, do the work of the Creator, lose nothing and gain everything.

If we look for the interpretations and meanings in all sorts of ways then we can find ways in which the texts fit.

There is no evidence whatsoever that the second pyramid was a burial chamber. But having been there, and having accidently come across "rebirth architecture", one can understand perhaps how one might have gone into the chamber, through a bent passage, been left there for three days, descended into hell, thinking that one would die there physically, or actually in sensory deprivation come to think that one had died, and made a pact to do things better if ever one came out. It was the ancient equivalent of the NDE. One came out of the chamber, through the bent passage, and emerged from the womb of the earth, the womb of the building, reborn and into a new life.

In this new life, having realised our mortality and come face to face with it, the material world is of less significance.

Our destination as humans is that of being returned to whence we came. Bones in the ground. Dust and dirt.

This is why it's not the destination that has any part of life. The destination is dead. It does not live. Only the journey lives.

So this is why no-one offering a destination has the answers.

We journey whilst we are alive. How we journey and how we live is part of how everything and our planet and our universe lives. That life is eternal and we are part of it.

Our teachers tried to tell us how to do it. How to live, and to show us the God of Life.

So what does Jesus tell us coming out of the tomb? RISE with me! In whatever form doesn't matter. He is asking us to raise our sights, our minds, our actions and our lives above the material so that we too may live in life.

What happens in death, a great matter of importance apparently for so many, has no relevance to those who live in life.

When we see this perspective, the actions of violence in this world become so pointless. It is for that reason that I believe the vision of greater understanding within the Church of the God of Life that lives will bring the Church its role to play. Jesus asks us to rise again, in life.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 22, 2016, 01:02:29 PM
A view of the newspapers today demonstrates that we have a very fundamental need that is essential and unavoidable for the Church to start to play its proper role in society. The common sense that Jesus taught should be brought visible to all, and its relevance as clear as daylight.

The Times reports http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4671629.ece
In God we used to trust, but now we prefer a hairdresser

This is the ultimate disgrace of the Church and of all who espouse and promote mere superstitious and exclusive Teddy Bear Christianity.

We read about
- a major world power in the hands of a criminal, murderer and abuser
- debate over whether it's necessary to renew the Armageddon machinery of Trident
- reports of vast resources being poured into killing machines in the form of autonomous robots
- migrants with little having what resources they have being confiscated http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article4671090.ece

This uncreating world is leading to its uncreation. Extinction. It's not what humanity, capable of operating the process of creation as part of that creation, is.

I referred yesterday to Jesus asking us to rise with him. We are dead to life, dead to what the Creator has done for us and what we can do, and Jesus wants us to rise from the dead with him.

Not as the God of After Death, but as God of Life, the Creator of Life, the process of Creation requires us to live, here and now. The Creator is the PLUS.

Whether Jesus died physically and arose in idea, in spirit, or whether he didn't die and continued life ending his days somewhere else, that new life was dead to the old life. Jesus arising from the tomb asks us to put that old life, dead, behind us and look towards life creating and above the silly pettinesses of the material world. "What do the birds care for what they will be clothed with tomorrow?" It's a new life, a spiritual life, as Thiering would enlighten us, within the Community.

People's of this connected world now cannot get away from its function as a community.

Enlightenment is depressed by rules, and goodness cannot be enforced. It can only come through banishment of ignorance, education. This is the role of the Church.

After arising from the tomb, asking us to arise, reborn putting death behind us, what are we killing and putting to death? What are we embracing? In our new life we are being asked to embrace the consciousness of the creator. What in that tomb have we put away and left there? Our animal, instinctive consciousness.

So in the way in which we respond to others, and to circumstances, we kill the instinctive reaction, the emotional jerk, and instead we embrace the rational, that which creates, how to create, how to work the tools of creation.

We have to nail our instinctive emotional reactions to that cross, and leave them there hanging on the wood. The tomb allows those to be left in Hades, and like Orpheus, and like Lot's Wife looking back at the hell of Sodom and Gomorrah, we have to leave our dead selves in that tomb, arising in the spirit, the consciousness of the new life operating the work of the Creator.

I mentioned the second Pyramid as such an initiation chamber. Why do you think that our Gospel stories relate a visit to Egypt in the course of being born? The Christ is a birth in an idea-realm. The physical story is one that's wholly different and until we understand the idea-realm, causes difficulties and differences between peoples, texts and religions.

As soon as we invite others, migrants in the spiritual realm as well as the physical, into sharing with us the work of the Creator, then these understandings will enrich the creator consciousness.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Nicolette on January 23, 2016, 12:36:53 PM
David,

I think that as long as believers exist, even in small pockets, here and there, there is Hope.    Otherwise, we wouldn't have the prayer, "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.  Amen".   Amen = so be it.  I take heart from that.   And that inspires me to play the organ!

Nicolette
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Drinkell on January 23, 2016, 04:50:56 PM
Amen to that!

David
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 30, 2016, 06:29:24 PM
The current threads reporting the fate of organs with churches closing, being vandalised, set on fire explicitly demonstrates the reason for this thread about why the Church is shortselling itself to the human race and what the Church is able to do to make it relevant.

By the time that the human race has picked silly arguments between its religions, stupidities, "beliefs" that are only egos held more dear than life itself, and annihilated each other with weapons, and in arrogant illusion of supremacy over the earth, poisoning it with noxious gasses and nuclear radiation, any remaining people will curse the days when the superstitions of religions weren't fit for purpose.

With regard to mother earth, at our funerals we refer to dust and ashes from whence we came and to which we return. This is a false arrogance. We supreme in illusion hold the earth as worthless as dust, to which we, made by a wonderman personally in "his" image with superior intelligence, acquire false superiority. Whereas the reverse will be apparent that the Earth is our Mother superior to us who are the dust.

The Creator is of course the process through which all life is made, all comes to life and all that breathes and moves. It is energy, and what we call love, working together, as each other, caring, producing, creating. It is intelligent, for the reason that the stuff that doesn't create is random, idiotic, stupid.

We can see that the only difference is perspective, from the anthrocentric to the holistic, from the selfish to seeing from the other point of view and it's this that gives us different and arguable interpretations of language. We can only unfathom the meanings when we forget ourselves and think from others, and then having forgotten ourselves we find ourselves.

We've lost our way in religions and need to press the reset button to the 18th century. It is quite apparent that Francis Bacon placing codes in the translation of the Bible wasn't intending us to get away with thinking that the bible was to be read only on a surface reading in literal plain sight. The 18th century Moravian mission at Fulneck in Yorkshire was probably by no means a unique recurrence of a mission structure for which the example had been discovered by linguistic scholarship of the texts and the sort of linguistic code rules noticed and documented by Thiering. I personally marvelled that Benjamin Henry Latrobe was fluent in excess of 6 languages, and Latin and importantly Greek both revered. The practices such as the Methodist Agape, Love Feast, that derived from this time came from where? Certainly were the Pesher understanding of the texts to have been available to them, their 18th century practice and problems echoed that of the 1st century Church.

I hope therefore that readers will have picked up copies of Thierings books. On the surface they can be misread as destroying Christianity - but I should rephrase that - in the light of the analogy about our anthrocentricity above - her books can be read as destroying what we in our baby state love about Christianity for ourselves and oursake, just as it's obvious that Father Christmas who comes down chimneys every year to give presents to children is destroyed when we discover that Father Christmas doesn't exist.

But when we become adults and we create and have children, we discover that we are Father Christmas himself, whether it's the wife or the husband that plays the part.

Father Christmas has a lot to teach us about Christianity and Theiring's work helps us on the pathway to growing up.

Unfortunately the wide population has discovered that the Church's brand of Father Christmas in its current state of development doesn't exist. Baby stories have no use for them any more.

Theiring's work on the Dead Sea Scrolls puts a lot of jigsaw pieces into place that have been ignored and swept under the carpet for too long. They help us to see a bigger picture in which the clues of symbolism start to sweep aside differences between the religions.

As Christians we have great admiration for the martyrs who died and those so cruelly put to death by Nero.

Some would argue that under Roman rule there was remarkable tolerance of differences. We're presented with the picture that the Romans were anti-Christian but that's clearly not at all the case. Judaism was special and highly regarded but their system had its quirks.

One of these quirks was a set date since God made the earth. Because He made the earth in 7 days, the number 7 was important. 7 days, 7 weeks, 7 weeks of weeks, years of weeks, all sorts of permutations and the Jews weren't the only ones playing calendrical games - the Mayan Calendar being another famous example. Wasn't it 2012 when it was all set to happen?

The priests were responsible for keeping time. Hourly prayers had to be maintained. Prayers were said to time to keep time. Edmund Szekerly's work, whatever the sources, echoes the the morning, noon and night prayers of the Essenes. Then there was the problem that their time didn't match with the earth's year and other niceties.

The gut reason for this timekeeping was that their Living God was meant to intervene at the auspicious times. This was prophecy. If the prophet didn't get the calendar time right, he was declared a false prophet and killed.

"Killed" - this might have been a real bodily death or merely a symbolic death, stripped of his exalted position as priest, now a non-person still alive but demoted from his exalted position in "heaven" as a position among the social peer group. So we start to see rather different understandings of these words here than we are normally given to see set in the belief context of our indoctrinations.

By around 50BC special intervention by God has been expected but he hasn't manifested an earth shattering event recently. Isiah predicted things, and the other prophets too, and it all focussed on this special time. In one way and another it had to happen or the priests would have lost their power.

What would you do? You'd make it happen.

Thiering puts a perspective on what happened. Her work should not be dismissed lightly.

The particular relevance of this for us today is rather shocking. The Dead Sea Scrolls make it appear that there was Jerusalem and New Jerusalem - at Qumran. Among the religious there divisions happened between east and west, and arguments as to whether to allow gentiles to become Jews, and for Judaism to be given beyond the race and circumcision. The other main argument settled on how the Roman rule was to be overthrown or kept in control. Politics between the lines of Herod and lines of David "Born of David's line", the given title of our particular hero. Who among them was to be King, who Chief Priest, and who "Pope"? These were not inventions of Christianity. Among the differences were whether the Romans were to be neutered by incorporation and cooperation, or military rebellion. The Zealots were the militarians and were a threat to Rome.

The Zealots were expecting Divine intervention to shake off Roman rule. They were driven by their beliefs. They were driven by their Calendar. It had to happen. God required it to happen and if they helped Him He would intervene. They'd rule for 1000 years. Their militaristic impetus was something that terrorised Rome. Nero had to do something.

Has anyone heard of ISIS? People driven in belief of a Divine Caliphate and a 1000 year rule? Have we not learned from the outcome of the 1st World War causing a nation to want to throw off the perceived oppression of the other nations and inventing beliefs in false narratives and mythologies to justify an attempt at another example of a 1000 year rule?

We've seen it all before and it's time for the Church to fulfill its responsibility in bringing people together and doing the work of the Creator for which it says it stands.

That means throwing out the fairy stories, doing away with Father Christmas, and finding Father Christmas again thereby.

The idea always resurrects, because that is the nature of the Creator.

We cannot expect to have any more success in suppression of ISIS terrorism than Nero had in suppression of Christianity represented by the Zealot terrorists. All who were Christian were tarred with the Zealot brush, just as Muslims today.

We can only succeed against what we see to criticise by correcting the faults in our own eye first.

Construction stands only on foundations of stone, not edifices built on sand.

Our future can be assured only if we invite all to come in and share and work the work of the Creator doing away with the misunderstandings put deliberately in front of us to divide us. By example we can show how openness to multiple meanings of language allow all solutions to be found and result in harmony between the brothers and sisters of the human race. This Jesus would have understood. Others also.

The Creator as a process is a God that even Atheists can believe in. And other faiths too. The Church is in a position to be able to prove it, by doing it, and demonstrating that it works.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Paul Duffy on January 30, 2016, 08:48:35 PM
I thought you were Gnostic, David. As I am sure you are well aware, Gnostics believe that the Earth was created by a Demiurgus, not the 'Real God'. The Demiurgus created the Universe imperfectly, which explains human suffering, and he is known by certain names which I won''t repeat here because it is controversial to do so. According to Gnostics, the 'Real God' doesn't create. You are probably aware that all the Pagan traditions, including Norse, Greek, Egyptian and Irish mythology and Hinduism and Gnosticism all fit with each other, yet Judeo-Christian and Muslim traditions stand apart in their monotheism (though Jesus fits with the Pagan traditions because of his death upon the World Tree.). As we know from Akhenaten in Egypt, monotheism is usually instigated as a means of control and power. This is the root of the problem, in my opinion.

Best wishes,
Paul
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 30, 2016, 10:27:45 PM
Dear Paul

;-) Yes - perhaps we can resolve issues by finding two different answers as to the creation of the Universe from outside and the creation of the Universe from inside.

The ancients were happy to define concepts as God - as is evidenced by the Ara Pacis, defining Peace as a Goddess and personified.

They were happy to define rulers as Gods also and when one has witnessed an Indian Royal wedding where the Prince about to be married is presented on a Dias, enthroned, against a sunburst backdrop it's easy to see how local Gods in human incarnation were revered. The processions through the streets echo those of millennia ago with all humanity crowding the streets and houses and balconies from above and the roofs showering rose petals upon precessions of white horses and silver carriages . . . and the whole splendour of the occasion demonstrating the majesty of the King, God incarnate.

When we start to open our eyes with our brothers next door we start to see where we come from.

And whilst there's much to strip back, there is also stuff of the east to which you refer which was universal and inherent also in Jesus' understanding. Alice Bailey and many others have been comfortable with Christian-Eastern compatibility.

One can strip back as much as one wants and find the knub from which the Church has a position to play. The variations between beliefs diminish as we remove their clothes.

Best wishes

David P

Postscript - my post above http://www.organmatters.com/index.php/topic,2037.msg9387/topicseen.html#msg9387 is more than whether or not being gnostic matters or even what it means. Thiering reports Dead Sea Scrolls sources to refer to Jesus as Gnostic . . . and as the Anti-Priest . . . . There were factions in the 1st century Church.

The thinking of the Judaic sect at Qumran was ascetic, in sympathy with the Greek including concepts common to Plato. They had names for the titles of office among them in the group such as Adam, Moses, Abraham and Elijah. Difficult passages in Christianity such as the Ascension become easily visualised when one places these office holders by such titles in flaming robes (silver or gold) ascending to the High Place (in the temple).

The point is that we might long for and wish for our supernatural given interpretations to be true, but when understood they become down to earth fact of no cause for discord or argument between faiths, leaving core teachings about the Creator to be more important than questions of "who" God is or isn't and who Jesus is or isn't and in what dimension.

Crucially Jesus taught in parables. That command of the other dimension can therefore justifiably be expected to have been applied to the whole text and the titles of people accordingly likewise. I do recommend readers to read Thiering's work, not merely online but in her published books.

The human race currently needs the recipe for survival. That depends on creating in contrast to destroying. Learning the process, a process irrelevant of personalities, teachers, names or factions. I'm not writing to joke around.

Here's the image of pollution
(http://www.organmatters.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2037.0;attach=18;image)
(http://www.organmatters.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2037.0;attach=20;image)
from a hill 20 miles from Rome last week. Breathing it kills but we continue to make it.

Jesus' parables about loving neighbours, loving the creation, worship of the Creator process that brought matter together even resulting in us has a lot to give humanity. It's the process that the Church has to give once we've peeled away the layers of supernatural beyond common sense and superstition.

Anyone can choose to believe that the world is carried upon an elephant's back if they want - but that won't help humankind's survival.

The Church has a serious task and role to fulfill. There is none other which can.
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on January 31, 2016, 12:35:27 PM
According to the BBC today http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35409883 it's not just the Parish Churches at risk. Those who think that Parish Churches will disappear leaving the Cathedrals to survive might well have to think again.

This thread is as relevant to Cathedrals as to the Parishes.

A friend wrote to me in regards to this thread:
Quote
I think our society has problems to communicate properly at the moment. With society I mean the EU, not only germany. But that wouldn't be the biggest problem. We have a devided society in which everyone has their right and delusion about the currently problems like emigration. And this problems also influence the faith to god. Since the human race is forced to focus the attention on their currently difficulties, they're forced to lose the thought to god. But this is normal because to beliefe in god first you must have a piece of tidiness and order in your life. And even then, it's a question of faith. Faith is always emotional, never rational.

Currently we have a part of people in every EU country, which are missing the identity of their country. They're missing the feeling to be in France, in Germany or in Poland and having the possibility to enjoy their manners, customs, also their religion and their mentality. But sadly many of them are going to far and evolve fascist attitudes, because they don't feel well in their own country anymore. They simply lose their humanity 'cause they get the feeling to lose something personal. Last summer I was in Paris to visit the Louvre ( Miah, my girlfriend and I love the architecture  :D ) but Paris has somehow changed........ I am 30 years old but I didn't have the feeling to be in France, like in the end of the 90s.... Also Poland looks very similar like Germany....... same shops, same media, same fashion, even similar cuisine....

David, it's beautiful to learn and enjoy different cultures with their history, manners, customs, mentalities and religions and even to use them for his own life for evolving oneself. That's very important for the human race in my opinion.
But I am not sure anymore, if it's still beautiful to LIVE with them all........ Everyone also needs their own, private "home". Not only the nature, the animals, insects or botany... also humans created by god. ;)

Perhaps faith is rather something vague. Jesus taught us that it shouldn't be. He likened it to having to be secured as to a rock.

For anyone new to this thread my response might helpfully summarize:
QuoteYou put it so very well.

But even faith can be rational! You have faith that your car will get you from A to B . . . because the car has been built with rational foundations. Those are foundations built on rock. The so-called faith that so many people find in the nebulistic ectoplasmic exotica is something built on sand. Because they all see only through the eyes of their own imaginations, and the ego requires each to be right and his own right, all the egos argue. Those arguments are now dangering life.

Both Jesus and Buddha were teaching the putting aside of the ego.

One is only reborn when one puts to death the animal reaction, the ego imagination, and rises in spirit to see the whole view of creation.

The religions fall down in teaching to worship our teachers rather than get to the knub of what the teachers were teaching. That knub is what creates. One quark working with two others. One proton working with an electron. One atom working with another atom. In fact everything on earth that we experience is on the molecular level. Nothing exists that we touch that is its singular atomic form, only molecular - even O2. It all works together. Proteins. DNA. Species.

Golden rules apply to the process. What is more useful is more useful than the less useful and what is less useful can be less useful to the point of irrelevance. That is the parable of the Talents. That is also in effect Darwin, and population management. That which outgrows its usefulness or exhausts its raw materials ceases to be useful to the process of Creation.

The random processes are described by the parable of the Seed and the Sower.

So we are made through this process of stage selection at every level of stuff that has cooperated at every level to be useful. But we have forgotten what we are made of.

Anyway, the point is that 18th century Enlightenment view of religion is a rational foundation less tainted by the troublesome personality cult worship that the religions have become, both in Jesus and in Mohammed.

So in brief I am trying to encourage Christian churches to retain their traditions, their traditional music and services, read from what Jesus taught about the Creator rather than what the Church wants to teach about Jesus, and invite members of other religions in together to read from their texts which say the same.

Once we can start doing that and feeling that we can share and understand and still retain our senses of cultural roots, then we will come to celebrate peace and even Paris might feel the same again.

But we will also achieve the triumph of learning and understanding, upon which faith is well founded, rather than the vagaries of superstition.

The most potent model for behaviour is that offered by the example of matter itself. Matter can cooperate with other matter mechanically without losing its own identity. A stone wall is more useful for a building than a pile of stones. The individual stones are beautiful but none so beautiful as the stone wall they can make and to which each can contribute acquiring a greater identity as the wall. A wall can be beautiful and not lose its beauty, indeed acquire greater beauty as part of a magnificent building.

Just because we embrace others with whom to build does not mean that we lose our identity. Indeed the whole point of one interpretation of the feeding of the 5000 was that we can share without fear of losing and still end up with plenty left over.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Paul Duffy on February 01, 2016, 11:40:44 PM
David,

I urge you and people on this forum to read the Book of Truth. After much soul-searching and a great deal of thought and introspection, I believe this book to be, indeed, the truth. It is corroborated by other non-Christian sources. Our planet will shortly separate into New and Old. Your wish to preserve the continued existence of churches is commendable, but it is immaterial. Planet Earth is beyond repair and has to be made into a New Earth. The situation is much worse than man thinks it is. From what I have read, one wouldn't want to remain on Old Earth when this separation occurs. The Book of Truth mentioned a coming global vaccination back in 2010. We now have the Zika virus which has suddenly been declared an international emergency.  We shall see if this indeed results in such a vaccination.

Best wishes,
Paul
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on February 02, 2016, 11:17:21 AM
Dear Paul

Thank you so much for the directions that you're exploring.

To say that I'm confused is an understatement - although to be honest, I'm not confident that anyone who says they're certain isn't mistaken.

It's for these reasons that personally I put a measure upon the conflicting philosophies in terms of results - "by their actions shall ye know them".

I too find the Book of Truth interesting, but am not entirely trusting about it. The reason for this is that it could easily be written from the point of sources of deep south "conservative" America where, to be blunt, religion is causing people not to be very happy or even very "Christian".

There is great focus upon the evils of sin, and mortal sin. Perhaps I am one of the progressives that the source considers to be one of the current evils of this world - but I don't think so. The origin of these things has been the ascetic cults which predate Christianity and go way back to Plato and before and relate to the image of the eternal soul. They have resurfaced in the Marian cult and these writings very much follow that line.

The problem with the run of the texts is that they perpetuate exactly the problems that we see in the world causing division and discord, indeed railing against a "one world" single religion.

Perhaps that's the importance that I place in suggestions above of losing nothing but gaining everything by retaining traditions of services but welcoming in others for the second reading to read from their texts what accords in the world of the creator. This does not create a new religion, preserves the identity of the Church, but promotes mutual understandings, friendship and harmony.

A book that anyone will find helpful in navigation through these ways is by Jonathan Black (Mark Booth) "The Sacred History" - "How angels, mystics and higher intelligence made this world". He was the author who put me onto the Moravians, and the concept of the rebirth initiations in his book "A Secret History of the World". Both are worth reading.

Another is Dolores Cannon "Jesus and the Essenes".

Cannon is an interesting author, a past lives regression therapist. I don't put whole belief behind everything she reports but her subject reporting on his life in the Essene community has a very interesting and shockingly radical approach on the subject of adultery.

This leads one back to the conservative view on mortal sin and what is presented by the ascetics in relation to non reproductive sex.

The problem is that when we view our creation from the very mechanistic understanding of matter coming together (what is matter . . . where does it come from . . . some would argue a spiritual manifestation - in which this mechanistic view becomes less so) and we look at evolutionary process at every level in the creation of us . . . we cannot avoid having manifested in the animal realm rather than the purely spiritual realm.

In order to achieve paradise, heaven in our minds in this life, perhaps which others might refer to as Nirvana we cannot achieve that in states of frustration.

Our daily bread is necessary to our stomachs . . . and in relation to our spiritual food to our minds and the breath of God breathing through that. But our stomach food is referring to our animal food, that which keeps our animal senses content and not interfering with our spiritual life.

It's a matter of balance. When that life is thrown out of balance - which I perceive to be a serious flaw in the ascetic view of "sins" in contrast to the concept of tresspasses, wrong steps which don't create, - then the human psyche can go seriously wrong.

Priests denied marriage, denied sex . . . go off their heads and go astray in secret.

Wives convinced of the distastefully animal nature of sex simply send good husbands astray elsewhere in secret. How can the keeping of the human animal sensuality contented be a sin?

This of course is a distraction, but is important to consider when some voice or text is telling us in absolute terms what is "right".

The only rules are that we should love the creator, and love one another. The structure of "sins" in absolutes by the "Book of Truth" goes way beyond that, and indeed is a set of limitations circumscribing contentment way beyond the reports of the old souls documented by Dolores Cannon.

It's important to avoid voices promoting fear as this is often for the purposes of control.

With regard to the absolutest interpretation of Jesus' voice in the messages of the Book of Truth, Barbara Thiering reported that all four gospels in their Pesher code reported _exactly_ the same story in all four books. That raises issues about in what sense Jesus "died" and in what senses the Son of God was resurrected.

There are helpful signposts among all manifestations of belief in the Creator.

To take some examples, in the text to which you point -
Soul
http://mybookoftruth.com/people-dont-know-what-their-soul-is-the-answer-is-simple/

This is the reason why it is the Church that must take on its responsibility to bring its relevance back to people in the widest sense. It must not pursue an increasing format of self isolation in any sort of personal cult worship. The concept of the Creator is the only way of enlightening from the spiral of mindless pursuits of materialist satisfaction. That concept can be explained to Atheists from a mechanistic point of view, but when one finds that events become Created, one finds the mysterious Hand of God, influence of the hand of the Creator, manifesting, as I related above in the story of the train journey in this thread. But discernment is necessary to distinguish the random and the delusory, castles in the air, from the active result of the Mind of God which is built upon the firm foundation of stone in knowledge of the Creator process and its application.

Prayer - http://mybookoftruth.com/prayer-can-avert-disharmony-in-the-world/
Not just in moments of danger - that's merely superstitious reliance on a cult personality and a hipocracy, as a friend of mine puts it. It's active in seeking the path of the Creator.

The second coming - http://mybookoftruth.com/mother-of-salvation-beware-of-the-man-who-declares-himself-to-be-the-son-of-man/
Jesus Christ is not returning to earth in a bodily form. Interpretations of the Book of Revelation are flawed and dangerous. Barbara Thiering's Pesher research applied to Revelation "Jesus of the Apocalypse" puts a very different understanding on the book and documents how it is part of the story of the creation of the four Gospel texts.

Perhaps people like Thiering might be vilified http://mybookoftruth.com/among-the-evangelists-there-will-rise-many-false-prophets/ but the reality is that one must guard against all, and measure up by actions.

The Book of Truth is in a line of End of World prophecy, which Thiering identifies as a process from 50BC to 70AD. God's intervention was expected to be manifest - an earthquake, a sign in the sky, something that none of humanity could ignore. Excuses were found, priests were demoted or killed, false prophecy was blamed.

In http://www.organmatters.com/index.php/topic,2037.msg9387.html#msg9387 I pointed out how Nero's reaction to the mistaken Zealots is no different to our situation with ISIS today, people driven by the same forces.

2012 was the year of recent expectation.

12 July 2012 http://mybookoftruth.com/the-warning-for-many-will-be-a-frightening-event-when-it-will-seem-like-the-world-has-come-to-an-end/ should be borne in mind if and when it happens and then readers will know.

Jonathan Black's book does document manifestations which have been witnessed by thousands at once.

The Book of Truth is very much a singular point of view. It however warns of the peril of a singular one-world religion.  Black opens his Introduction to Sacred History with a quote from Blake
"God save us from single vision"

Indeed, it is that exclusive singular vision that the religions each have followed that have turned all but the modern zealots away from them. *

Best wishes

David P


* Postscript In his preface, Jonathan Black quotes Ibn Arabi, a Sufi mystic "No single religion can fully express the Reality of God". There will be numerous claims by religious quarters frightened of losing their hold on power that they are the only truth. It is for that reason that I consider the messages of the Book of Truth having truth only in part and coming from human rather than purely divine source. Black explains writing his book upon the premise "what if the claims of the world religions are true?" and he explores them in their pluralism. From this we gain a wider view of the Creator.

In reference to mentions of Bacchus / Dionysus in the thread above he shows a frieze from the vase of Salpion, not dissimilar to that known as the Borghese vase. He understands the Greek pantheon in a manner understood in the 18th century and wholly mistakenly presented in the ignorance of Christian supremacy of the 21st. I referred above to my friend in the south of France relating Hebrew meanings by numbers and he tells me that numbers were the common lingua between all the ancient languages, Sanskrit and Greek too. Black refers to this in Greek, commenting "Adding up the numbers attributed to letters in a word or name could yield a significant number, and it is astonishing but demonstrably true that the names of Apollo, Zeus and Mercury yield mathematical constants according to which the natural forms of the world are constructed". The only ones who seek to suppress such understandings and say that their's is the only way are those who wish to preserve the states of ignorance causing isolation discord and war so as to hold on to their own particular lines of earthly power. This is obvious as the world has become joined up and it's why people have turned their backs on such institutions. Those who say they own the only exclusive route to salvation are not in understanding of the divinity of the universe.
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Paul Duffy on February 02, 2016, 05:27:11 PM
Sorry David, I won't post trash like that again. I don't know why I did it. I am cursed by a restless searching mind. A trepanning procedure would do me good.

I was reading a Dolores Cannon book last night (The Three Waves of Volunteers and the New Earth) before I read your reply this morning. Odd, isn't it?

Best wishes,
Paul
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on February 02, 2016, 07:06:14 PM
Dear Paul

No need to apologise. We live in very confusing times in which it's really rather difficult to find our way. The response for many is to retreat into the safety net of what they know whilst for others it is to reject any idea of creation and swim in the materialist mindlessness of wastefulness and consumption. The problem is that the safety net of known has gone in the directions above and past being fit for purpose.

We're beset by many voices and in this confusion finding discernment is no easy path. In raising things here that others have not been brave enough to mention, we have been able to explore ways to sweep aside the autumn leaves to find the foundations, even to look at the archaeology of our faith without which our religion is rather much at sea.

So I hope that you'll continue and perhaps that others might contribute too. The Church is suffering a cold winter for which it failed to gather fuel, relying only on the colours of the autumn leaves to keep it warm. It needs to apply mental exercise if it's not to die before Spring.

The Church has an important part to play and a large challenge to embrace. And there is no other way.

Best wishes

David P

Postscript - Whilst the mechanistic "process" by which I describe "The Creator" can in itself be capable of Atheist interpretation, such that by creating we appear to work a mechanistic model of merely our own intentions, this is far from the case. The process requires our harmony with others and all of other forms and nature of creation, and to respond to it, putting the other first and ourselves subordinate to it. By referring to the PLUS between 1+1 we are not necessarily engaging in a self initiated construction into 2 - that might in the course of life be in the wrong direction and not what the Creator wants. The PLUS is that which brings one alive, alive to the possibilities of constructing at all times and in whichever direction the Creator process desires at the time. This is a relationship with a living system and one in which different religions and faiths describe merely in different languages words and concepts. The Sea of Circumstances is always alive and always changing.

It's reported that Terry Wogan lost his faith after his young son died. This is the sort of failure which the worship of a cult personality type of religion produces when the cult figure fails to provide the personal benefits promised. The point of this thread is in seeking directions in which the Church might be encouraged to promote "grown up" understandings of the Creator to grown-ups, and then it will win back all.
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on February 03, 2016, 12:54:18 PM
It's not only the Church of England that's under threat - the Ecclesiological Society warns not only of the impending collapse of rural CoE churches supported by congregations of 10 people or less but also the same phenonomen for Roman Catholics:
http://ecclsoc.org/2016/02/02/roman-catholic-diocese-to-halve-number-of-parishes/

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/salford-catholic-churches-close-shortage-10483208

In this thread I'm suggesting that the Church needs to attain relevance in people's lives, with focus
- on God, "The Creator",
- defocussing from the personality cult of Jesus as "Son of God" in the current limited point of view that it has become and
- with more openness to exploration of different meanings which are possible.
- Focus on "the Creator" as a process can lead to more constructive ways of viewing how people live, how they can live holistically and in harmony with others around them and the earth and therefore offers the benefit that people missing something from their lives seek. Offering the religion as teaching how to create rather than how to consume is the only way of solving the environmental issues critical to the survival of humanity
- inviting into our services people of other faiths to read from their texts demonstrating common understandings. This welcome would pull all together and set the scene for human accord defusing discord and violence.

In the latter, our services, traditions, music, heritage would be retained and promoted whilst demonstrating usefulness to whole swathes of people who would never otherwise have come into a church.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on February 04, 2016, 07:01:49 PM
In witnessing the collapse of rural churches with so many churches supported by less than 10 people nowadays, the Church seems emasculated in doing anything other than licking its wounds and curling up to die.

It's like a gypsy seller wandering round the streets of a well populated tourist destination with no more than clumps of heather goodluck charms. "Surely the world must want my bunches of heather", says the gypsy, mortified that the world doesn't - and then when the customer says "I don't want your bothersome useless goodluck heather" the Church fails to see that the punter has more need for red roses.

Of course the Church has tried selling heather perfumed with red roses. It's tried simple baby language, it's tried happy clappy music, it's tried this and that but it's still selling goodluck charms and in the modern age, that's not red roses.

Selling the story that putting a bloke on a cross and killing him 2000 years ago to save me from my wrong steps 2000 years later really simply doesn't make sense. It's a superstition.

In the exclusive interpretation that the bloke bodily magicked from the state of being medically dead to be alive again in the same body, and that on a wonderful day in the future all bones in coffins beneath the ground all our bodies are going to be reconstituted and live again, is no more than a vain hope that we might want to believe in but we know to be a vain hope and really rather infantile. It's no surprise people have turned against the 20th century church.

But there are other interpretations of the texts which are entirely envigorating and life giving, and which enrich us as Christians if we can be brave and adventurous enough to explore them.

Doing some marriage counselling before Christmas with an infuriatingly superstitious sort of Christian was incredibly constructive. The lady loved Jesus as her brother and her teddy-bear dearly, and could not love her husband. Everything the husband did hurt her feelings and bruised her emotions and everything he did was so unfair. She could do no wrong because she loved Jesus.

I counselled her upon God as The Creator, offering the process by which all is created. By hearing the father's words (the process), and doing it, becoming brothers and sisters of the son and mother of the process, means we are saved from our sins, because then we don't do wrong steps, and we turn them around as part of the process too. So this offers a much more helpful view than killing the bloke 2000 years ago to save us from our sins now. It's a rationality that anyone can understand, that actually becomes useful to modern people.

However, this had no sway upon the difficult lady, at the time.

Eventually I walked away telling her what she wanted to hear. I told her that she was always right.

Phew! What a difference it made - it was the first thing she couldn't argue about or excuse herself for, nor blame her husband about.

The problem with the religions is that they go around saying they are always right too! Utter any criticism, and it's our fault for being a heretic, an atheist or a gnostic! Or a Pagan or an infidel!

No - the religion's always right. Each of them. All of them. And we are always wrong and out of order daring not to believe every nonsense they proclaim in their ignorances.

The 18th century and discovery of the interior of the pyramids, and the enlightenment and studies into Greek and the ancients, and the understandings of the secrets of the Egyptian priests of 9000 years ago . . . suggest a life after death that the Church will need to find after its own death.

The initiation chamber, the womb, the tomb, into which one is shut, confined, and dies - whether one fears one will die or thinks one has died, one descends to death in one's mind, descends to that torture of hell in which one wishes one had done things better . . . "I wish I had done this; I wish I had not done that; loved whoever, worked with whoever, had not broken relationship with so and so, not missed the opportunity to do whatever, taken advantage to construct, create. . . . " "Oh I promise Lord that if ever I have the chance to do it again I'll do it right this time . . . " and so one emerges from the tomb, one emerges from the womb, and one is reborn.

The old life has died, and a new life is resurrected.

One's animal reactionary emotional gut impulses are quelled, killed, and instead one's new life is within the Creator consciousness, the rational understanding of how to Create.

The religions are still in their animal consciousness where they are always right and all those who have turned their backs upon them are wrong. It's not until the Church understands the real life after death, beyond that of superstition, that Christianity will find its proper place in a creating world.

Whilst the Church is always right, adhering to the superstitious doctrines of bodily resurrection despite literal resurrection passages being added to Mark, the Church gives the flag to Islam to be right.

Both religions wanting to be right cause the problem.

If we as Christians can have faith in our faith, in the knowledge explained above that we can throw away and crucify Father Christmas and find Father Christmas again in doing so, in the knowledge that our faith resurrects, then our faith can work its magic.

The point of the initiation chamber, and so much of Jesus' teachings, is that we can throw away our own selves to find ourselves. Instead of going around saying "we've got heather to sell" we might find out what others want to buy . . . and in that way instead of us being the problem we become the solution. It's more intelligent. The world of commerce embraces and understands it. If we find out what other people need, then we find out how better we fit in to their world, not our world, the real world, the holistic universe. We have to stop being so egocentric, egoimportant, and work out how we fit in to create.

Currently our religions go forward to block creation rather than to be part of it.

Bodily resurrection and life after death when we're bones in the ground has been responsible for so many nutters in this world causing death and destruction, from the Zealots who Nero had to suppress tarring more peaceful manifestations of Christianity with the same brush, to the whacky Waco cult of Branch Davidians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege, to those going to any means today to bring about a Caliphate. It's all blocking construction and causing death rather than creating and bringing life.

So just as Christianity wants to be right, in talking to committed Muslims Islam wants to be right too.

In the spirit above of the difficult wife, who couldn't understand until she realised she was always right, and perhaps wasn't . . . as Christians we can be more Christian, and more understanding, by telling Islam that it's right.

According to Islam, Jesus wasn't the magickal result of a biologically virgin birth or a manifestation of the anthropomorphised ectoplasmic Holy Ghost of God coming down in bodily union with the Virgin. Jesus Christ was just a man. According to Islam, Jesus didn't die on the cross, or most certainly wasn't resurrected in body. Jesus was just a man just like any of us, but a special one who was a prophet who taught about God.

Instead of Priests going about cursing the other religion with insults, what can we learn by being more enlightened in our behaviour? Killing the animal reaction and instead adopting the learning of the Creator. What happens when we say Islam is right?

Perhaps Islam is right! As soon as we are able to say that Islam is right, then what power of superiority does Islam hold over Christianity? It gives militant Islam something less to be militant about. What's left then? And what's left of Christianity? What is there for Christianity to be miliant about? Can we be more Buddhist in our Christianity?

Can our faith survive crucifixion of the Virgin Birth? Can our faith survive Cruxifiction of bodily  Resurrection? Does our faith and understanding of the Creator have to rely in fairy stories? Or is it something more?

Of course it is, and it's this that the Church must find in order for it to become useful again in society, binding people together, binding all of all religions who understand that there is the work of the Creation to do together, and necessary for humanity, and the planet, to survive.

In going on such journies as outlined above, as Christians and as the Church, I'm sure that we will witness the ability of faith, God and it's usefulness, to resurrect. With us will come many friends from all parts of the world and who will be amazed at the miracles that can happen when we abandon that which we love most in the faith that it will be found and all the stronger again.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Paul Duffy on February 05, 2016, 07:00:37 PM
David, your point of view becomes more offensive to me with each new post. And now, Jesus, the God-man, is relegated to a 'bloke' who perhaps didn't even die on the cross at all. I sympathise with your yearnings to get beyond the often divisive walls of religion, but now you are insulting the gods themselves. You seem to be totally embarrassed by the idea of a Virgin birth, so I suggest you make a thorough study of the religious traditions of ancient Greece, because that it is where the idea seems to originate. It seems that divine beings are coming down to Earth to inhabit human bodies at regular intervals throughout history, and such events are usually accompanied by advances in human thought, skill and behaviour. You deplore the Titans, but you have seemingly and wholeheartedly took on the Titanic mantle of materialism. The Gods created us. Without the energy of the gods we cannot move or do anything. Perhaps we wouldn't have advanced as much as we have without their help. You might think it odd that a Christian should be espousing polytheism, but if you substitute the word 'Angels' for 'Gods', you might better understand my point of view. And now you wish to airbrush them from history and relegate it all to a fairy story.

You seem to want to avoid church closures, but you attack Christianity at every opportunity. And now you regard the crucifixion as mere superstition, despite it being recorded by four different writers, and supported as a concept by the World Tree of Norse mythology. ("I knew I hung on a wind rocked tree, nine whole nights, spear-wounded, to Odin offered, myself to myself"). Can't you see that there is something greater at work here? The Christian faith, although it cares not to admit it, has remained faithful to these old sacred truths and believes them. Islam and Judaism do not believe them. And neither, it seems, do you. If you think you are somehow going to bring people back into churches by ridiculing the faith which they profess then you don't know human beings very well. They will just feel affirmed and vindicated by their non-attendance if it is all just 'mere superstition'.

Best wishes,
Paul
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on February 06, 2016, 12:08:01 AM
Dear Paul

;-) We have to be prepared to sacrifice what we hold dearest in order to find it. It's as the testing of ore. We have to put the ore in the furnace in order to find the precious stuff within.

I'm leading through the process of asking what our religion is really about. Is it really about the clothes or the body therein?

In the post in which you find great offense I have actually junked one meaning of death and rebirth and found another.

The Church achieves paucity and abandonment because it has abandoned the rich heritage of multiplicities of meanings that were inherent in Elizabethan understandings and to which Sir Francis Bacon and his circles give hints.

It may well be that the literal meanings about which I have uttered blasphemies actually need to be junked in order to find the deeper and more profound areas of meaning and communication with which Christianity can enrich.

Words are inadequate descriptions.

When we are able to junk the clothes of our religion and find its naked core then we will share the work of the Creator naked with the other religions capable of doing the same.

Is our religion only clothes? Of course the work of the Creator doesn't need clothes, and indeed can be obstructed by them.

At times we have to shred our clothes, rend them, burn them. Only then can we see 1 Corinthians 13.12 "through a mirror in a riddle". The clothes obstruct our view in the mirror.

Often I speak in another voice, an exploration of self and other. Our problem between religions is that one provides a mirror to the other and then we don't like what we see. And as soon as we say that our religion is right, we get it wrong. And as soon as we start to say that the other religion is right, only then can we understand our own all the better. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. What we see in the mirror is left to right reversed.

Gospel of Thomas:
Quote37. His disciples said, "When will you appear to us, and when will we see you?"

Jesus said, "When you strip without being ashamed, and you take your clothes and put them under your feet like little children and trample them, then [you] will see the son of the living one and you will not be afraid."

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: revtonynewnham on February 06, 2016, 09:49:34 AM
Hi

I'm pretty much in agreement with Paul.  I've kept out of this discussion in the main, because I really don;t want to spend time researching ancient writings - I've got more interesting things to do.  However, your post yesterday, David, is virtually supporting syncretism - a heresey that was problematic for the Jews in the Old Testament, and the Early Church.

As to the resurrection and you're throwing doubt on the reality of it, words fail me.  Paul's words to the Corinthian church are very relevant here:-

"12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith." (1 Corinthians 15:12f)

It looks to me as if you are over-intelluctalising something that in essence is simple, yet profound.  "Christ died for ou sins".

Christianity is not a religion, in the sense of other faith systems, it's a relationship with the Creator Himself, through faith and BELIEF.  It seems to me that the church needs to stop looking inwards, and get back to the core business of "making disciples" as Jesus command us - but that's really another discussion. 

The bottom line is "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)

Every Blessing

Tony
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on February 06, 2016, 11:48:48 AM
Dear Tony

Thanks

Perhaps those who have advocated elimination of the mystical in churches, doing away with angelic symbolism, splendid robes and sung psalms, might now appreciate the errors of having done away with the splendid resulting in the paucity of my vision.

However, humanity faces a bigger problem, that of survival itself.

Conflict between religions is leading into violence at its worst, and lack of cooperation at best. This is not the work of the Creator.

Likewise it is not the work of the Creator to put a man on a cross to die to save me from my wrong steps that I take 2000 years later. For the Church to insist on saying so as a basic tenet of Christianity will not bring the population into Church because it's a patent nonsense. But what Jesus taught about the Creator is not nonsense- it's common sense that people will welcome and support.

That's why I recommended above services which focus not upon what the Church teaches about Jesus but what Jesus teaches about the Creator.

In the FT Weekend Magazine today Simon Kuper writes "Lessons in listening" opening with an example of a ladyfriend who does a lot of online dating and is baffled by the seduction techniques of the men she meets. Most, apparently, merely boast at great length. Few of them, she says, stumble on the winning formula: to ask her about herself, and actually listen.

This is the point that the religions haven't learned yet either. They want to tell each other how they are right and how they are the only truth.

But what does true Christianity say? Love your enemies! That means listen to the opposite number! Learn from the skills of seduction. If we want people to come in to the Church, by free will rather than force, we've got to welcome them and actually operate the skills promoted by Jesus that we've forgotten and that the secular world is now doing better.

Islam denies the Virgin birth in the language in which we are given to understand it. It denies variously that Jesus died on the cross and or that he rose from the dead and as a result Christianity hurls insults at Islam in varying degrees of the perjorative - just as factions in the Qumram community referred to Jesus as the Wicked Priest, the Anti-Priest and as according to Thiering Jesus referred to some of them such as Simon Magius as Satan.

Appreciating myself that there may be other meanings by which "Virgin Birth" and "Raised from the Dead" can still hold true without contradiction of general standards of common sense about such events I ask the questions
"What happens when we listen to Islam?"
"What happens if Islam is right and we remove from our belief the clothes in which the Church wraps up Christianity?"
"What is left of Christianity when we do away with the physical interpretations of Virgin Birth, Bodily Resurrection after medical death, and concepts that putting a man to death on a cross can save us from trespasses 2000 years afterwards?"

In fact with regard to the latter, if our religion cannot survive being stripped naked, then it's a worthless faith and belief.

But there are many interpretations which bring very significant wisdoms to those willing to tease through their riddles. Christianity is all the stronger when we are able to focus on what Jesus taught and how he taught it, and when we do it. In my belief, Christianity grows all the stronger.

It's like pruning a vine. The more you prune it back, the more vigorous it grows and the sweeter the grapes.

In the lesson of marriage counselling which I experienced, the transformation of the lady concerned upon being told she was always right was miraculous.

So it will be with Islam.

One of the lessons that Jesus teaches us is strength within weakness. By saying that Islam is right gives Islam no strength - it removes its self justification in being right. It then has nothing to fight against and no reason to acquire self righteous strength in the need for the suppression of Christians.

In seeing ourselves as Christians through the Buddhist mirror there is much to see in what Jesus taught and perceiving Buddhism through the Christian mirror Islam has much to gain. This is the work of the Creator.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on February 06, 2016, 02:11:49 PM
Quote from: revtonynewnham on February 06, 2016, 09:49:34 AMPaul's words to the Corinthian church are very relevant here:-

"12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith." (1 Corinthians 15:12f)
. . . .

The bottom line is "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)


Perhaps we should ask "From what death was Jesus raised?"

Was it death of the flesh and blood?

Was it death of the mind?

Death of the ego?

Death of the animal instinctive reaction? Recent research has suggested that the human concentration span has been reduced . . . I thought that the concentration span used to be about 20 minutes. Then I heard people feared it having been reduced to two minutes. Apparently in 2000 it was 12 seconds. Microsoft Canada researching 2000 Canadians determined in 2013 that it was then just 8 seconds. Apparently that is a concentration span one second less than a goldfish.

So human beings are currently operating on a feedback mechanism of concentration that is as animal and instinctive as goldfish.

This is far from the intelligent understanding of the coordination of working out the processes of cause and effect that the process of Creation requires.

So yes, it's all the more imperative to bring death to the instinctive emotional response and find the eternal life of the Creator process in governing our lives. In doing so we bring life to the eternal.

In what sense was it that Jesus died? Who? Or What? Jesus Son of Man or Jesus Son of God? The bible makes these distinctions but in reading it, we do not.

Is Jesus Son of Man the same as Jesus Son of God? Who, or What is Christ? The anointed one. Barbara Thiering identifies that Christ was a title of, within, the Community, the Mission and that the title was not therefore a singular one. Is Christ Son of God a product of ectoplasmic manifestation or is it a title Christ Son of the Creator whose brothers and mother are those who hear the Father's words and do it? Is Christ a concept, an idea rather than a physical singularity?

One and only God. One and only Christ?

In what sense?

The Creator that creates is the only means by which matter comes together to produce quantities of useful matter. 1 and 1 are useless without PLUS between them. There is only one sort of PLUS and its the magic that brings 1 and 1 together to work with each other to make 2. There isn't a red plus and a blue plus and an evil green plus that entangles ectoplasmic wickedness to break the process. There is only PLUS. And in understanding PLUS and carrying out the process, as Jesus asked us to in being His brothers and sisters and mother, now being 2 we add together with other 2 and discover that, 2+2 being also 2x2, the X is the magic between them. There is only one son of PLUS and that is MULTIPLY. There isn't green multiply nor orange multiply, but only one. PLUS is God and MULTIPLY is the Son of God. There is only one MULTIPLY. There is only one Son of God, which in doing it is something in which we all share. Though we are many we are one body.

It's in this way that lifting ourselves above the paucity of singular meanings we can rise with Jesus from the dead - the dead of mind.

It's in this way that we can feed of the Creator of the bread that gives life, life to the mind. The mind in which the instant reaction, the instant insult, the instant gut emotion is killed, dead, and we, with Jesus rise in our minds to embrace what is the work of the Creator.

The texts are dead texts. It's only when we explore them with our minds in fullness of questioning that they become alive and through their image in our minds can come to life. He who searches finds.

In not searching we do not find God. Only dead texts, things that defy common sense, trenches of mud into which we dig, and shoot missiles across no-man's land to others who have done the same. The religions have dug their graves, fire insults at each other and forgotten to listen as Jesus asked us to. People have turned their backs upon the Church doing so, and walked away from the war between.

In what way did the Virgin Mary "conceive" of the "Holy Spirit"? Conceive - conception - the idea - the idea of God the Creator?

The Goddess of Peace, a Virgin, had been conceived by Emperor Augustus in 13BC.

(http://www.organmatters.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2037.0;attach=24;image)

The Virgin in the manger with cattle lowing and heavenly babes . . .

In what sense was Mary a Virgin? In what sense did she conceive?

(http://www.organmatters.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2037.0;attach=26;image)

We experience so much enrichment as Christians when we ask these questions. Abraham tells us that we can do so, that in order to find God we have to be prepared to sacrifice that which we hold most dear to us, and that when we do He will find a goat in the thicket so that that which we feared we would lose would not be.

Perhaps we can love our neighbours, and love our enemies too. Perhaps we can listen to the other voice and tell them that they are right. And in doing so then they might too find another language in which they discover something else and unexpected. This is the work of the Creator.

We have to throw away the language of being right. We have to throw away our goodluck Heather charms that we insist on pressing upon the tourists. The successful ones aren't the gypsies touting heather, nor the red rose sellers either, but the restaurants selling food to eat that people want to eat. And it's no use selling steak and chips to vegetarians, nor selling curry for breakfast to those with a delicate stomach. It's not that heather is good nor that red roses are evil, but that food sustains the energy to create. It's not that steak is evil or that curry is the work of the devil and that green organic vegetables are great.

In order to Create we have to find the +, the PLUS universal to all, and the X that multiplies the work of the Creator. Singular descriptions with plural manifestations.

We have to throw away the animal insults and human distinctions, perjorative words about words, heretic, gnostic, synchretic, pagan, gentile, infidel, all things that divide and feed the ego separated from others, and instead embrace the work of the process of Creating.

When the religions do so, they will thrive, and so will the human race.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Paul Duffy on February 06, 2016, 02:50:35 PM
David, the language you are using is not even Gnostic, it is Atheist.

Tony (and that other Paul!) summed it all up for me:

Quote"12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith." (1 Corinthians 15:12f)

If there is no resurrection, churches, organs and choirs (and our faith) are indeed, useless. As an organist I serve my parish church on a voluntary level. I simply would not do this if there was no resurrection and it was all based on a lie. In seeking to intellectualise it all and treat the resurrection as some sort of superstitious fairy story you would actually take away all meaning from services and rituals.

David, you know full well you are an atheist and you are deliberately setting out to be provocative. I suggest you go onto an Islamic website and be openly hostile to their faith too, because they also believe in life after death. I suggest you post grossly offensive remarks akin to this one:

QuoteLikewise it is not the work of the Creator to put a man on a cross to die to save me from my wrong steps that I take 2000 years later. For the Church to insist on saying so as a basic tenet of Christianity will not bring the population into Church because it's a patent nonsense.

And then there are other comments you make, which frankly I can't make head nor tail of:


Quote;-) We have to be prepared to sacrifice what we hold dearest in order to find it. It's as the testing of ore. We have to put the ore in the furnace in order to find the precious stuff within.

Sorry David, I won't be sacrificing my beliefs for anything or anyone. Either you are at the level of pure materialism, scientific equations and rationalisation, or you believe there is more to our existence than meets the eye. I believe that both Jung and Nietszche had some sort of 'spiritual experience' but in the end they had to rationalise it, reason it away and intellectualise it. You are doing exactly the same. You can't do this with 'The Creator'. For 'The Creator' interacts with humans in the grey area which straddles 'spiritual awakening' and psychosis. 'The Creator' is very clever. I would even be so bold as to say 'devious'.

QuoteWhen we are able to junk the clothes of our religion and find its naked core then we will share the work of the Creator naked with the other religions capable of doing the same.

So why have you started this thread in the first place?. If religion is just clothes, then organs and choirs are certainly even more so. They are mere adornments. In this one small sentence, you have singularly undermined your argument and apparent concern for the continued existence of churches. You have essentially admitted that we don't really need them, we just need thought and reason. But why didn't this work after the French Revolution if it is such a good idea? Why isn't Notre Dame de Paris still a Temple of Reason?

QuoteThe lady loved Jesus as her brother

Please tell me where is the wrong in this? It is far better to love than to ridicule, which is what you are doing.

QuoteCan our faith survive crucifixion of the Virgin Birth? Can our faith survive Cruxifiction of bodily  Resurrection?

Mine certainly can't. And your use of the word 'Cruxifiction' is utterly disgraceful and very much the language of militant atheism. It marks you out as a deliberately provocative closet atheist. And if you insulted the faith of a Muslim person in such a manner you would find the same response coming your way. I actually think it would be a good idea for all the faiths to coming together against the rising tide of pure materialism and its proponents such as yourself, who have basically got our existence down to a cold set of numbers and a soulless body of flesh and bone.

You are not a Gnostic. You are not even an Occultist. You are an Atheist, plain and simple.

Best wishes,
Paul





Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on February 06, 2016, 03:52:43 PM
Dear Paul

I accept all criticism that you throw at me. But I am not an atheist. You might recall the account in this thread above relating a train journey. That account is not an account of an atheist.

What I am suggesting and trying to do is to get all from all directions to challenge their assumptions.

I think it's possible even to get atheists to start to understand that there is a process which creates which is god. Thomas Aquinas was leading in the direction that God was a process. There is merit in the perspective and one with which it's possible to get so many more people into an understanding of the Creator.

The consciousness of matter, whether inherent in the wave-structure of subatomic particles, or whether simply by the multiplication of cause and effect, leads to to an interconnexion of physical reality with a the sequence of events by which we experience time and through which we experience something more that we can better describe as something associated with the intangible and what we might call the Divine.*

Quote from: Paul Duffy on February 06, 2016, 02:50:35 PM. . .  In seeking to intellectualise it all and treat the resurrection as some sort of superstitious fairy story you would actually take away all meaning from services and rituals.
. . .  If religion is just clothes, then organs and choirs are certainly even more so. They are mere adornments. In this one small sentence, you have singularly undermined your argument and apparent concern for the continued existence of churches.
. . . .

Far from it. Organs and our traditions are where we come from. These are our roots from which we reference the rest of the world. Organs are a wonderful asset to churches as they are capable of bringing people into our churches. The rituals and narrative that the church provides preserves the teachings of Jesus which in my view are essential to humanity and to civilisation, and without which humans tend towards only the animal consciousness.

The problem arises when the narrative that the Church provides, and over the past four decades putting the Christ in a very literal series of beliefs and in front of the worship of God the Creator, becomes an obstruction to people coming to the understanding of the Creator and between others of other traditions.

Quote
QuoteThe lady loved Jesus as her brother

Please tell me where is the wrong in this? It is far better to love than to ridicule, which is what you are doing.

The point is that the lady was in love with love. Jesus she thought she loved but this was only that of a teenage crush in which one is in love with an illusion and she wasn't actually loving the son of the Creator at all. The point is that she could not love her husband. In not loving her husband she was not loving her daughters either. She was not loving. Her love-affair with Jesus was merely a loveaffair with her teddy-bear, a reflexion and invention of herself.

Only when she started to work the process of creating could she then understand her husband, find happiness with her daughters, love them, and then and only then begin to understand loving the Son of God who asks us to hear our Father's word, and to do it.

QuoteAnd then there are other comments you make, which frankly I can't make head nor tail of:

Quote;-) We have to be prepared to sacrifice what we hold dearest in order to find it. It's as the testing of ore. We have to put the ore in the furnace in order to find the precious stuff within.

When we put the ore into the furnace we lose the substance that we hold precious and we fear to lose. But we get out of the furnace the refined substance of much greater value.

At the heart of our Abrahamic faith is the story of how Abraham took Isaac out into the wilderness where God tested his faith. Because Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac, God spared him and instead produced the scapegoat from the thicket to put upon the altar.

Our faiths have caused us to sink below the trenches, poking our heads out only to fire at the opposite armies with insults and ununderstandings. In doing so they do not achieve the work of God. They do not enable humanity to create together, in harmony with each other nor the earth of which they are part.

It is time for faiths to put away the language of insults and perjorative terms, gnostics, syncretics, infidels, pagans, gentiles, atheists and all the rest, and instead to bring forward together the work of the Creator, creating, and which is God. In bringing all together in understandings of all meanings of creating, in doing the work of God, the Church will live and thrive, as will the human race, whilst in failing to meet the challenge the implosion will be severe.

Best wishes

David P

* Postscript It is in this that many might say is the value of so much of classical music and in particular the interwoven and interconnected lines of Bach
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: revtonynewnham on February 07, 2016, 08:43:38 AM
David

I pray that God will reveal to you the basic truth & simplicity of the real gospel message - "believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved".  It really is that simple - and that profound.

Your comments about choirs & organs are a red herring - they are not essential to the Christian faith - and indeed, certainly in the UK, most churches didn;t have organs until well into the 1800's.

Yes - religions can and should work together to try & bring about peace and the releif of suffering and so on - but that in no way is the same thing as saying all religions are equally valide - they are not.  "Jesus said:- I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except by me".  That's pretty conclusive - unless you say that Jesus isn't the Son of God - and in that case, you are not a Christian (by  the simple definition of the word). 

Every Blessing

Tony
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on February 07, 2016, 12:33:25 PM
I do understand the dilemmas but the reality is that the monotheistic religions say the same, each of them, and then put themselves into conflict.

This is why I have written above in terms of PLUS being God and MULTIPLY being the Son of God, and that these are singular but have plural manifestations.

The only way in which the religions can be understood is to put aside those tenets that cause them to conflict until we can understand them better.

We are limited by language, by definition, and by multiple levels of meaning that we take mistakenly for singular.

Thus the questions that I have asked above

Quote from: David Pinnegar on February 06, 2016, 02:11:49 PM
Perhaps we should ask "From what death was Jesus raised?"

Was it death of the flesh and blood?

Was it death of the mind?

Death of the ego?

Death of the animal instinctive reaction? . . . .

In what sense was it that Jesus died? Who? Or What? Jesus Son of Man or Jesus Son of God? The bible makes these distinctions but in reading it, we do not.

Is Jesus Son of Man the same as Jesus Son of God? Who, or What is Christ? The anointed one.

. . . Is Christ Son of God a product of ectoplasmic manifestation or is it a title Christ Son of the Creator whose brothers and mother are those who hear the Father's words and do it? Is Christ a concept, an idea rather than a physical singularity?

One and only God. One and only Christ?

In what sense?

are not questions of an atheist.

I have deliberately set fire to the clothes in which the Church dresses Christ because in doing so the animal reaction to insult burns out. In becoming born again we take upon ourselves the mantle of the consciousness of creating. It is only when we can rise above the animal, and rise above those things that give differences between our religions, that we can access the point of view of the Creator, of God creating.

In order for people to find relevance in the Church, it has to bring the universal truth of creation to people, to atheists, to those of diverse religions and teachings, and to put aside those things that split us apart as not understood in the realm in which we are currently thinking, until such time as we can understand them.

It has to hear the father's words and do them.

It has to reflect the mind of god. Man made in God's image, has to show the face of God in reflection. That reflection is of man from Japan, from China, from India, from Arabia, from Israel and from all of those who consider themselves western. All made in the image of God, the Church has to create as the Creator.

In his commentary on Dionysus Richard Seaford suggests that 1 Corinthians 13:12 references Dionysiac practice, the Greek translating literally as "In a mirror in a riddle".

Harmony between humankind cannot be achieved in singular meanings other than the result in that which creates. Until we come through this man-made obstacle, mankind is in danger of self annihilation.

We have to hack away at the vines that grow wildly cutting out the sunlight and draining sweetness from the fruit. They will regrow stronger than before and with fruit more concentrated with sweetness, so that at Pentecost those who understand will be more drunken. It takes bravery, and faith, to take a saw to prune the overgrown, apparently healthy and flourishing vine but one hiddenly dead at its core.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: revtonynewnham on February 08, 2016, 09:29:50 AM
Hi

The church cannot & must not lay aside the basic truths of the gospel message.  Compromise with the secular or with other religions is a dangerous path - just read your Old Testament!

Every Blessing

Tony
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on February 08, 2016, 11:04:17 AM
The problem is that the failure of churches, their closure, indicates a failure to have got the message through to the vast majority of people who exist in a material illusion without the guidance of god, and who argue that the divisions that religions have caused are dangerous to the future of humanity.

Both absence of understanding of the Creator in people's lives and the division between religions which does not come from the process of creating but instead from human processes of division and control are equally damaging, and the attempts by the religions to hold on to power for themselves are seen to be what they are, and past their sell-by date.

Only when the religions examine their language to find the meanings in which all are compatible and illuminatory in their different ways will whichever church or religion that does so flourish.

The impending collapse of the church and its lack of presence in the countryside will be testimony to its failure to have carried out the work of God, the Creator.

The rise of proportion of human beings operating only in animal or robot consciousness will be a torture for anyone still left with a brain and with the wider vision that the Creator gives.

The Church faces a challenge which it can meet.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on February 09, 2016, 04:49:12 PM
Both accounts of the feeding of the 4000 are very interesting.

They are most certainly a mirror in a riddle and the standard explanations make no attempt to dig at the image.

Not only did Francis Bacon insert deliberate clues as to the inclusion of code in his translation http://www.baconlinks.com/VVILL/Psalm46.html
(http://www.baconlinks.com/VVILL/images/Psalm46.gif)
but this pointed those with eyes to read and brains with which to observe the codes in the original.

Whilst the original Greek might be available to scholars such as Barbara Thiering and not to those of us without classical education . . . the very specific reference to both 7, twice, and again 12 in this one of 7 miracles is there to tell us that there's more than the superficial story.

The first line of The Gospel of Thomas http://gnosis.org/naghamm/gosthom.html puts eternal life into a very different context from that which is superficially taught and conceived in the interpretation of Christianity. It's very much in the spirit of that mirror in a riddle:
Quote
1. And he said, "Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death."

Saying 14
QuoteAfter all, what goes into your mouth will not defile you; rather, it's what comes out of your mouth that will defile you."
is Matthew 15 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2015&version=NIV
Quote8 "'These people honor me with their lips,
    but their hearts are far from me.
9 They worship me in vain;
    their teachings are merely human rules.'[c]"

The teachings that what we read superficially in the Gospels are the whole and only truth are worshipped in vain and are human rules. It's only that which does the work of God, bringing Creation among humanity, which comes from the heart of God.

Mark 8 and Matthew 16 continues with Jesus now across the other side of the lake, putting the mirror in a riddle:
Quote17 But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, "Why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive nor understand? Is your heart still hardened? 18 Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments did you take up?"

They said to Him, "Twelve."

20 "Also, when I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of fragments did you take up?"

And they said, "Seven."

21 So He said to them, "How is it you do not understand?"

When we read scholars such as Barbara Thiering who understand and illuminate the codes it's apparent that we can say to Islam "Yes - there are certain things about which we can be certain that you're right".

Does this reduce Christianity to naught? Of course not. But it requires those who preach Christianity to find its heart, and not let its clothes get in the way.

If the Church will bring through the message of God rather than merely those things that humans want to hold on to which divide them, then the Church will not die and will thrive.

Our world faces ISIS driven by similar desires to that which Nero experienced with the Zealots 2000 years ago, driven by numbers, and an overruling faith requirement for the Divine to be manifest. In Islam which we find in internal conflict between Sunni and Shiite we see differences in interpretation and misery caused in mankind.

Our bible codes tell us that we must dig deeper into our meanings and understandings, beyond that promoted by men, if we ourselves are to find God. In doing so we can say to Islam that what it has said about Christianity may help us to understand it more, and instead of focussing on meanings which distract us from God, find the heart of God better through our religion stripped naked. In doing so perhaps we have something to bring to strife striken parts of the world. This is the work of the Creator.

When Jesus himself exhorts his disciples to look at the mirror in a riddle from the other side of the lake, in encouraging exploration of such meanings and their consequences does not make me unChristian nor Atheist.

The Church itself needs to heed Christ's own exhortations. Country churches then will not be closed and town and city churches will flourish all the more.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on February 13, 2016, 04:53:10 PM
The passage from Mark 8 above is rather interesting.

What extraordinary detail. It has no relevance whatsoever to a surface or literal reading of the Bible text.

7 miracles and 12 parables . . .

Nothing could be clearer to tell us to look for the codes.

Of course these parables were instruction manuals to a philosophy taught to the monastic initiates in the communities.

Just as we see reference to going to the other side of the lake . . . which reflects as a mirror, we see the Dionysian origins. Worship of Dionysos was organised within Chapters or Lodges . . . that we see continued or echoed in Freemasonry. The understanding of parables and miracles as instructional texts would represent steps along the way, just as the 33 degrees of Freemasonry.

The so-called miracles might read on one level as extraordinary manifestations of the power of God, but on the other hand are quite likely to have represented special meaning within the monastic orders.

The story of Peter cutting off the ear of the High Priest's servant, for instance, might not be a physical action at all but a metaphorical cutting off of communication, the sword being a metaphorical weapon rather as "excommunication".

A reality is that in both 29AD and 33AD there was intense expectation for the hand of God to be manifested. It wasn't. The chief-priest who got wrong the dates of prediction was then seen not to be God incarnate, and fell from heavenly regard, was demoted from his place in heaven, the upper echelon of the community. There was division between the Jerusalem and Qumran communities and the Damascus community as to whether to use the solar or the lunar calendar . . . and with regard to the date of Jesus' birth, the new heir to the Davidian dynasty was expected in year 3930 from Creation. Thiering identifies that the Magi, Magians identified this with 7BC whilst Herod had identified it with 5BC.

Perhaps one might see how 4000 might have been rather near to a significant number.

Corinthians 13 - the verse before that of seeing in the mirror in riddles:
QuoteWhen I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

The greater part of the population have turned their back on the clothes in which the religion is wrapped and in which the religion has been radicalised in its simplification. The church's replacement of worship of God by worship in a Jesus personality cult, such as a teddy bear who will save you - and as a result of which Terry Wogan famously lost his faith when his young child died - is a childish religion and one that the majority of people reject for its nonsenses.

It's now the challenge for the Church to put away its childish things and to teach the worship of God, to hear the Father's words and to do them.

As soon as one realises that our texts have more meanings and intent than we can understand, it begins to be apparent that we should be talking with other faiths, as our meaning we've understood to date might not be the whole picture.

Islam is finally moving towards teaching "God", in Italy on account of 40% of worshippers not understanding Arabic, now bringing teachings into Italian rather than Arabic. It's apparent that real understanding of Islam has failed to reach rather a high proportion of its nominal adherents. Islam is making the sacrifice of its love for Arabic in just the same way as the Church of old did away with Latin.

But love of God is more than love of texts. It's love of the Creator, and that means sharing and celebrating the work of the Creator which is why I advocate bringing together people of different faiths together sharing texts that teach the work of the Creator.

The Church has a job to do, and one where Islam has failed to reach its targets. The news this week of the 4 year old son of the British mother who went to fight with ISIS being used to push the button to explode a carbomb to kill three people is testimony to the ignorance of God, the Creator, caused by a failure of the religions to practice it and preach in language that people can understand and can accept.

The language of babes fails to reach all.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on February 15, 2016, 12:41:35 PM
When we look at what we have in common with other religions, rather than our differences, and bearing in mind what are significant alternative understandings of both birth and death, and cutting off of an ear (Have you ever "Had the Ear" of someone you regarded Important?), and of things that have been held dear in the past such as the Date of Creation - oh whoops - what was that - in 3668, 4088, 3941 and prophecies for AD60 and AD70 and the Last Judgment expected then . . . and the factions between those holding dear to such sacred numbers which have proved themselves to be superstition and valueless . . . it's a really good thing to conceive of doing away with meanings we hold dear, and to see what is left.

A birth . . . is a Bar Mitzvah - so there are perhaps other ways we might look at the Virgin Birth.

What happens when we take the Virgin birth out of Christianity? What happens when we take away the Crucifixion? Bearing in mind John 19
Quote39 And Nicodemus, who at first came to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds.
. . . what on earth was he doing with all those Aloes? The are not part of an embalming. So what went on in that tomb? What would have been the medical effect of administering all those Aloes? Myrrh causes blood to flow, whilst Aloes are a purgative. Hyssop was an agent of sweating and attack on the central nervous system.  Whatever. Just for the purposes of academic exploration . . . what happens when we take out the supernatural from the narrative?

After all, the supernatural didn't intervene on time for the different factions of Judaism who were relying on their dates . . .

What then is left of Christianity? I suggest it's rather a lot, and in fact the pure Gold at the centre of the heart of the teachings.

And then a lot to share with others, to celebrate, to bring together, and with which to work the work of the Creator.

When the Church does this, it will have wholehearted support from so many.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on February 16, 2016, 05:31:33 PM
No doubt what I write is frightening to many. But the reality is that Christianity has something very special - by parables, the teaching of thought in a parallel dimension beyond that which the overt text implies.

My "sin" is to take that practice to find where its limits are . . . and in that exploration wonders are revealed.

When one starts to find that the texts are not bounded by the accepted meanings promoted by the organised religion, one finds that the paradise of the Garden of Eden is not a paradise at all and its walls drop unbounded. It's only then that as children we can put away childish things in the spirit of Corinthians 13, and grow in fertility of thought, alive to thought, among the weeds and thistles that want to choke us and see not in a glass darkly.

In its radicalised form, literal "fundamentalist" Christianity does not reach beyond the Christianity of "childish things". Adults away from the Church have found it difficult to rediscover the truth of Father Christmas as they grow up themselves with children. Religion, faith nor understanding of God does not stop at the stage at which we discover that Father Christmas does not exist.

In reliance on the supernatural, "believers" can cease to take responsibility for themselves, in absence of understanding the work of the Creator and the instruction book on "how to Create".

As a result our Angels and Saints delegated to help and look after us unseen have such a lot extra of work to do that their presence isn't as frequently witnessed as it might be on account of their efforts having to be so diluted. An Italian friend says that it's better to pray for the assistance of other Saints, such as Anthony, as Mary herself is so overworked. I'm most certainly a supporter of the Trades Union of Overworked Angels, which encourages people to learn how to do it themselves rather than have to rely on others for the whole of their lives.

The Church would have such support were it to teach how to be Father Christmas* , as those of us who have children find ourselves to be, rather than relying on Father Christmas.

Best wishes
David P

(* through the teachings of Jesus rather than worship of Jesus)
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on February 18, 2016, 01:10:36 PM
It's great that people are making a case for the preservation of churches for more than religion . . . http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/12161771/Ding-dong-for-bell-ringers-as-row-breaks-out-over-bid-to-be-classed-as-a-sport.html as then more people might be encouraged to come into church.

It's also an opportunity for the Church to bring the message of God to more.. . .

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Nicolette on February 18, 2016, 04:56:05 PM
I often visit the website Pray As You Go, which, through spoken daily readings and related questions, encourages people to view the teachings of Jesus from their own personal standpoint - to be alive to thought, as you say.  It's a very thought-provoking and helpful website.   Every day's session starts with some music and then leads into the spoken bit.   
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on February 18, 2016, 08:19:41 PM
Quote from: Nicolette on February 18, 2016, 04:56:05 PM
I often visit the website Pray As You Go, which, through spoken daily readings and related questions, encourages people to view the teachings of Jesus from their own personal standpoint - to be alive to thought, as you say.  It's a very thought-provoking and helpful website.   Every day's session starts with some music and then leads into the spoken bit.
http://www.pray-as-you-go.org/home/

It's one of those strange things about God that when one goes in a special direction, relevant things will come.

Today's reading is actually upon a theme of this thread - "Search and you will find" and the prayer pondering about what is not quite right about ourselves . . . and that all we have to do is to ask . . .

Not merely individually but collectively The Church can ask the same, and when it does, more support will come.

When we hear something of which we think we know the meaning of what we hear from what we are told . . . that is the position from which to search, and to knock on the door for the meanings that are hidden behind the closed door. And the door will be opened.

Thank you so much for this site, I'm sure it will be useful to all.

So many people act without prayer, whereas prayer in the consciousness of the creator is so much more powerful than life in the consciousness of the unknowing.

People without understanding of "God" cannot start to know the forces of the unseen, all powerful, all knowing and universally everywhere way in which the world, and all else, works . . . a hidden dimension of cause and effect. In the material world we might see a car. We might see a car move. But without understanding of forces, which are hidden, and powerful, we cannot understand the motion of the car, whether it will continue to move, or to stop, other than an observer of a 2 dimensional image on a television screen. Without understanding the forces, we are subject to the randomness of what we don't understand, but understanding how those forces work puts us in the driving seat.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on February 19, 2016, 11:27:11 AM
Taking the Daily Mail reports, for no more reason that they're colourful, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3453193/Pope-says-Trump-not-Christian-views-plans-immigration.html
it's great to see the leader of a branch of Christianity saying that building walls is not Christian.

These walls about which he's speaking are physical, but the walls of interpretation in our minds are much more powerful.

When we can break down the walls of our minds, then we will be "Christian" and "Muslim" and "Judaic" and "Hindu" and "Buddhist" too.

Not until we do can we possibly understand "God".

When the Church invites others in, and reads texts of common understanding in parallel with our own, the real effect of the Creator will start to work, and churches, bells and organs will have their futures assured.

Best wishes

Harem
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Nicolette on February 21, 2016, 02:18:11 PM
Quote from: David Pinnegar on February 19, 2016, 11:27:11 AM
it's great to see the leader of a branch of Christianity saying that building walls is not Christian.

Pope = Pontifiex = builder of bridges............
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on February 23, 2016, 07:42:26 PM
Yes - that's an important observation - and the Churches that build the most bridges putting the most "+" between people will be the most successful and "x" their support.

Today I met a plumber repairing the heating system of the local church.

He doesn't go to church other than to do plumbing. I asked him why not - and the reasons were
a. that the religions were out of date, their book writers being thousands of years ago
b. that so much war and killing has been done in the name of religion it's a load of rubbish.

That's the typical view of the man in the street.

I explained the idea of 1 PLUS 1 and the parable of the talents as being an amazing insight into how matter was constructed, and that events in life are able to be understood in the same way, and he was able to understand.

I explained the idea for Christian churches to confine readings to Jesus' teachings about the Creator, putting other things that divide for later consideration, and inviting other people of other faiths to read the second lesson from other agreeing texts, and he thought it was a great idea.

When the Church builds these bridges, it will be relevant and the Church's future will be assured.

There's much more to draw together than to argue about.

In this thread, above, we've looked at how Christianity drew upon Dionysian worship - the reflection in the mirror - the understanding of the other and from the other side, the deity who was killed and resurrected and who offers eternal life. The Deity as "The Life Force of all growing things"  - one can't really get closer to The Creator, God of Life, Living God, than that.

With Paul above, in argument about an atheist understanding of that which creates as the Creator, we narrowed down a difference in belief as to whether the "Intelligence" that we perceive in the Creator is internal or external to the universe. Really does this point matter? The important thing is that we can perceive an intelligence to what gives life.

Heroes of admiration since the Renaissance . . .  Blake, Milton, Shelley, Leonardo de Vinci were influenced by the Egyptian and Greek philosophy handed down from Hermes Trimegistus. Why does the New Testiment tell us of Jesus journey to Egypt in the beginning? It's where he started. The book by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy is essential illumination.

"Atum is Light - the everlasting source of energy - the eternal dispenser of Life Itself"

Clearly the "Life Force of all growing things" is not far away.

Nor is  - that dreaded thing - Sun Worship!
"The sun is an image of God, and as God gives Life to the whole universe, so the sun gives life to the animals and plants of the Earth. The light of the sun nurtures nature in the same way that the Light of God nurtures our souls"

Is that very far from Christianity?

What is the Mind of God? It's the Mind of the Cosmos and everything within the Cosmos is part of it. And the Cosmos is the reflection of God.

How can we tell which side of the mirror glass we are on? Does the reflection that we see as God have to be outside the Cosmos . . . or can that reflection be a projection of that which is within?

Is this far from Christianity . . . ? And is there a right answer? If that right answer is only a matter of opinion which divides, it's not the right answer that the Creator gives.

What is time? Hermes instructs that there is no time.

The Past has gone, and does not exist. The Future has not happened yet, so does not exist. The present disappears as fast as it appears, and is less than a blink of an eye, an illusion that does not exist. So the only time that exists is eternity.

- - - - - - - - -
What is eternal life? That which exists outside the realm of the instant. It's to that which Jesus invites us to join him  . . . in this life. And that's the life to which Jesus was resurrected.

Perhaps at Easter all might be resurrected to eternal life. Life which exists outside the realm of the instant.

So in throwing away our teddy bears, there is everything of value in Christianity and in building bridges, with people of other religions, and with the previous religions which were part of the universal understandings of the ancients, the Church has everything to gain.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on March 04, 2016, 08:25:00 PM
Further to ideas above in this thread the Hermetica gives some clues. We've explored above whether the "Creator" is external or internal to the Universe, or Cosmos, and as to whether that intelligence responsible for the Creation is external or internally inherent to the process.

I have been accused of atheism for suggesting that the intelligence of creation is inherent to itself, and that all results from the operation of "plus" and "multiply" of matter, and relevant to us, people cooperating with each other, inherent to our cosmos within.

Hermes Trimegistus refers to "the self fertilising womb" . . .

Isn't that amazing . . . that the Virgin Mary (not in the original texts) is self fertilising?

Isn't the Virgin Mary, symbolising the Mother of the Creator symbolising the Cosmos symbolising the self fertility of the Cosmos itself?

Really is the rather academic issue of whether the intelligence of the Creation internal or external to the Cosmos rather an esoteric issue? Is it enough for people to fight about it? Between religions? Between theists and atheists?

Is it enough to frighten people away in terror?

As a self intelligent Cosmos which obviously has a self awareness, all are part of it, and all, each of us is part of the intelligence of Creation. Shouldn't we be rather more about being aware of being intelligent about what the intelligence of the Creator process at the root of such intelligence wants each of us to play our part?

That's what in doing the Church can be most successful in leading the way.

The following is rather interesting -
https://www.youtube.com/embed/HsrorOSirzY

The Church is not redundant, however -

(http://www.organmatters.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2037.0;attach=28;image)

It's a message for all mankind, not just for Christians, and all religions resonate to the common core.

There's a lot for the Church to do, and it will be successful if it does it.

Best wishes

David P
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Nicolette on March 08, 2016, 08:27:53 AM
I wish the church would highlight the widespread flippant and offensive use of the initials OMG.   Anyone who does revere the Almighty as their God wouldn't say that.  The words "Oh my God" are often used as an opening to prayer.  To say "My God" is to acknowledge something very profound.  The fourth Commandment says "Do not take the Lord's name in vain."  Saying OMG does just that. 
(I know this doesn't reply to what's been posted here, but it needs to be said.  Thanks.)
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Barrie Davis on March 08, 2016, 09:12:40 AM
Well said Nicolette.
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: David Pinnegar on March 08, 2016, 11:42:44 AM
Yes - I agree - but perhaps I wish that people might say it even more often and _mean_ it! Perhaps change it to Oh My Creator! - For goodness sake what is "God" other than the "Creator"

There was an example the other day where the whole ridiculous division between people about misunderstanding of God by reason of its personification came to the fore - http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/scientific-paper-saying-human-hand-was-designed-creator-causes-outrage

What was the Creator? The authors in mistranslation had to correct the word to "Nature". What is God if it is not Nature? What is the Creator if it is not Nature itself, part of the universe, the cosmos?

Why do we have to have bloodchilling, bloodspilling, arguments about whether the intelligence of "Creation", the intelligence of the Cosmos, the self fertilising womb just as DNA is self instructing hardware, is internal or external to the Cosmos - as to creation by an external intelligent being or whether the Cosmos is internally self intelligent?

Does it make that much difference? Indeed is there any difference?

The fact remains that the wisdom taught to us by Jesus' parables in applying the principles of the Creator, the principles of Nature alike, to our own very lives has validity either way.

By adopting the teachings of Jesus, rather than merely promoting worship of him, the Church has a good hand to play.

Best wishes

David P

Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: Nicolette on March 08, 2016, 11:56:22 AM
Quote from: David Pinnegar on March 08, 2016, 11:42:44 AM
Yes - I agree - but perhaps I wish that people might say it even more often and _mean_ it! Perhaps change it to Oh My Creator!  Best wishes  David P

Absolutely, David - and in a tone of reverence/praise, rather than when they're ridiculing something. 
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: JBR on March 08, 2016, 10:28:45 PM
Quote from: Nicolette on March 08, 2016, 08:27:53 AM
I wish the church would highlight the widespread flippant and offensive use of the initials OMG.
It seems to me that the Americans are the worst offenders.  "Oh my Gaaard!" appears to be the preferred expression whenever they are surprised or outraged!.  And I was led to believe that they tend to be more religious than the average Brit.
Title: Re: Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.
Post by: KB7DQH on March 14, 2016, 06:36:39 AM
Quote: Good afternoon, Mr. LaRouche, this is D— from the Bronx. I have a very touchy question to ask. It's in regard to the closing of churches. In the past, I'd say three years, four churches were closed in our 20-block area around the church that I attend. Have you any idea, could you give us any insight as to what's causing it and what we can do to keep them open?  Because as one of the only means by which people in the community...?

LAROUCHE:  Well, you've got one real problem to deal with. First of all, the degeneration of the morals, of the citizens of the United States, since the beginning of the 20th century, that is since the birth, so to speak, of Bertrand Russell, there has been a consistent degeneracy in every respect, not just in this religion or that, but in every respect, which has been becoming worse, and worse, and worse. And that's the problem.

Yes, the religious question comes in.  But it is not clearly understood what the religious question is. There is a meaning, but, what's the meaning? What's the basis of the existence of a baby?  How does a baby come into existence, and what is the consequence of the baby existing? Well, if the baby is smart, the baby will be smarter than its parents? And it will be an actual achievement, not some kind of boo-boo this or that, boo-boo that.

So therefore, when people are being religious, there are two kinds of religious. One is a concentration on understanding of the meaning of mankind's life, from the birth to the termination of that life; and that termination of that life is the instrument which brings mankind into improvements, in the understanding of what mankind's mission is in the universe. And if you can look at it that way, which is I think is the only short-term way of expressing it, you have the solution. You have to understand what's the requirement? What is the goal of man's existence, after the parents of the man or so forth, have died? Is the man who lived after the parents had died, did that have a meaning? Is there some causal effect of that? Yes! And the question is, how does society help mankind realize that opportunity?

Q: [follow-up] Thank you very much for the information, sir. And I hope that things progress in our affair here in New York City.

LAROUCHE:  Good.  Very Good.

Q:  Hi, Lyn.  Just on that, in fact, adding on what we've been talking about before, I wanted to brief you on what we've been doing in Brooklyn to build this Messiah we're doing on Easter Sunday.  And the idea, what I wanted to communicate is, this church we're going to be performing at, is in an area quite similar area to the last one. And, in fact, what's happened in this area, since those two performances we did in December, of the Messiah, there's been a great reverberation in these communities around these two performances that we did.  And that's having now an impact on what we're doing now to build this next one, which is at a church which has—which was almost shut down in 2011.  Right now they're resurrecting this church, which is about 30 years older than the Statue of Liberty. And it has amazing acoustics.

And so right now, what we're doing, is creating a major field in this area, where you have now a lot of people very excited about the process. In fact, one lady told me, because I've been going to her place of business for the whole time this has been going on, she told me that "I like seeing this saga unfold, what you guys are doing."  So there's a whole development that's being shaped by this. And you can see, as we're going through this whole process, you can see that the more we have of this music program, the more you're actually going to create a real process of development, much like Lorenzo Da Ponte did in shaping the Italian culture in New York in the early 1800s, where he actually created the opera culture.

I've been thinking about that, on top of also doing this whole process as well. So I wanted to see what your comments were on that.

LAROUCHE:  No the point is, this kind of process is well known.  The relationship to the Italian model, is really very significantly known, and it's distinctive. There's a German version, which is also somewhat differently tuned, but it's the same kind of thing.

So these kinds of forms, they're not based on religion as such; it's not explicitly religion, as such; it's on the idea that mankind has a role beyond its society, and that is the role. It takes the form that's often called religious form.  But you have to be very careful about this, because there are religions, and there are religions and so forth and so on; and you've got to make sure you've got the right message.  But the point is, yes, there is a process of this nature.

But the key thing is, you've got to get people to stop thinking about looking at the graveyards.  They've got to look at the future embodied in the human being.  And we have to take the child, the child of parents; is this child going to be a creative force for mankind?  That's the issue!  The purpose is to have people who are good people. But! what you really need, what mankind needs, when you think about how many evil people there are running around in the United States right now, you say, "Wait a minute!"  This is not just a name, something to name. The point is that you want people, young people, who will develop themselves into becoming a creative force for the future of mankind.  And if you don't have that, you've lost the message!

https://larouchepac.com/20160312/larouchepac-manhattan-project-town-hall-lyndon-larouche-march-12-2016

Considering the nature of the discussion I have linked to, the quoted text appears in its midst?

Eric
KB7DQH