Too Taboo To Chew! (Religion) (Page 7 of 16)

That was really a short response

No.

okay, I'm going to try to pare it down, as per your request:

Absolutely. Reason is dualistic...reason and causality are one and the same. Truth is instantaneous, complete, all-encompassing. Reason is not. Reason is the dissection of the components of Truth...so naturally, reason is dualistic. Truth is not. Truth is timeless, nonlocal, and unchanging. Reason shifts with context, time, perception, understanding, etc.

Nonduality is actually the opposite of plurality, lol. This is partly why you don't find me claiming a particular standard for my view, because nonduality does not permit one apart from reality, as that would be dualistic, to have a reality and a standard for belief that were separate(dualistic).

Conflict is perception. In a hard science context(excluding soft sciences like psychology), there is no conflict...only impact. Intention and conflict are projections and inferences. The roots of the tree are not in conflict with the soil that they are growing in. When everything is viewed as the perfect expression of that which it is (yes, the criminal is the perfect expression of his own criminal-ness), then there is no conflict. Reality is not divided against itself.

If God has 3 distinct personhoods, what makes God a trinity any more than 3 people? to be One and 3, there must be both some form of distinction that is not apparent in other groups of 3, and some manner of distinction that is apparent.
What is a 'center of consciousness' anyway? is it in your brain? somehow localized in your body? what happens to it when your body dies?

Salvation is NOT the same as enlightenment. Salvation is a necessary prerequisite to enlightenment. Christ taught Salvation, and Buddha taught enlightenment.
Also, I'm not sure why you think that enlightenment is any more due to personal effort than salvation is. Enlightenment consists in progressive surrender of negative/false positionalities, worldly attachments, and dualistic views. Salvation saves us, enlightenment perfects us...and both occur by the grace of God alone. (remember the parable of the master and his two students? it's not by effort that enlightenment is achieved, but by Grace, and surrender to God/Truth).
Also, I prefer not to use the term 'glorification'. Why not simply 'improved' or 'perfected'? Glorified doesn't seem clear in meaning...you have earthly and heavenly...first fruits...future glories...I'm not concerned with all that...future glorification sounds great, but right now is right now, and there's no sense in sitting here waiting for God to improve me...every second of every day is a quest to be in closer union with God, regardless of some hoped for reward in the future.

There is no such thing as 'authenticate belief'...authenticate belief is 'knowledge'. Belief occurs when one is persuaded/manipulated/compelled to consider something true, without knowing for sure that it is in fact true. Now, I'm not saying that Jesus was a deceiver/persuader...only that in order to be compelled, Jesus had to make a case for his incarnate Divinity. He did this in a number of ways...by appealing to what the people considered divine(scriptures) and by performing miracles. If he only did miracles, he might have been considered magical/supernatural, but not divine...and if he only appealed to scriptural accounts of divinity, then he'd be viewed as a heretic or as some strange sort of philosopher. He didn't have to authenticate his own incarnate divinity to himself...he didn't have to learn about God through the scriptures in order to know God's will...he is God incarnate as man! All the rest of it was for the benefit of the people.

Suffering happens because of sin. Suffering is not exclusively physical either...there is mental, physical, emotional and spiritual suffering. Mere desire is a form of suffering as it consists in a sense of lacking.
Not measuring up to God's law or standard at all times throughout your life happens due to ignorance.

Also, are you the same you as you were a few days ago? How long is life? and how long is the life of my former self? If I change, what is more 'me'? the old self, or the current self?
At all times in my life once I have learned the error of my ways and once I have turned from that error, I am not the same personhood that partook in that error. Once I have been shown the way to truth via revelation of my errors, I am a new person, without the burden of the past sin.

The kindom of God is within you? do we have people in us?

Ahh, but I think we agree on what you've written above...only that I disagree that you rely on anything but your own perception. You think that right interpretation of the bible is not perception? it is! you're relying completely on yourself for verifying your own worldview...you hold the bible to be authority(your perception) and you act according to that perception, and you use that perception to verify things. I agree that God is the only authority...but I also believe that an experiential relationship is required in order to actually be able to perceive God's authority. A purely theoretical relationship(where the guidance and theory of the bible is taken to be 'knowledge') is a construct of a relationship...not an actual relationship.
I mean, surely you're not completely ignorant...you're an integrous person, obviously...and you don't deny all of your experiences as being trustworthy, do you? I mean, you've spoken about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in you...and I hope that you don't doubt the experience of that indwelling against the letter of the bible....

Equal room for delusion in both cases. You do not accept the possibility that the scriptures are not 100% correct/accurate...
I accept the possibility of my delusion(in fact, I'm sure that i hold incorrect views), and that is a great defense against being deluded. You do not think that the bible as you perceive it could possibly lead you astray...you've taken a stubborn view of God. You'd trust less in the appearance of God before you than you do in the bible, because you are so averse to trusting in experience.

Also, actions are not the result of knowledge...they are the result of how we apply meaning to information....again, that is not knowledge. Experience potentiates knowledge more than the gathering of information does. You can accumulate all sorts of data about what it is like to go sky-diving, but without experience none of that data can amount to a true knowledge of sky-diving. You know about it, but you do not know it.

If Spirit is the compass, then self has to act on it. If you say you're not dedicated to yourself, you're deluded. What do you care whether you go to heaven or not except for the projected pleasure that your self will get from it? from the future glory that you get from believing in Christ? Your dedication to God comes entirely out of a dedication to yourself. If you weren't dedicated to yourself, you'd have no motivation for being dedicated to God. It's not a one or the other thing....in doing what is truly best for God, we do what is truly best for ourselves, and vice versa...why do you insist that one must preclude the other?

No. Let's define what self-deification is:
self-deification is where one claims to be/have the power of God, while remaining separate from God. To truly be One with God is not self-deification, as there remains nothing that wasn't already divine that could possibly be deified. To understand what is meant by unity/oneness in a nondualistic context, you can't forget the nondualistic aspect. God was and always is Divine...to be one with God is like a raindrop falling in the ocean...it loses all verifiable separateness from the ocean.

everything is the perfect expression of that which it is. A sapling is not an imperfect tree; it is a perfect sapling. To become the tree, the sapling needs nourishment....just as the perfect current expression of what I am still requires spiritual nourishment to become what it is destined to perfectly become.
To be 'fallen' I'd have had to have been 'up' somewhere previously. I don't recall ever being up, so it's really of no interest to me whether I'm fallen or not...my main concern is in the getting back up.

I never said that.

How do you choose?
If you base your choices on anything, the choice is not free...it is caused in deterministic fashion, just like everything else in your deterministic billiard-ball world. If you experience a 'weighing-of-options' it is merely the two external forces acting against one another, and the more powerful force always wins, and you think you have made a free choice.
In a deterministic world, free will requires that choices are not based on anything. If they are based on something, they are not free, but rather, an extension of the deterministic causation that was set in motion by the 'first cause'.

And that desire to suppress the truth comes from an ignorance which says that in the context of the present difficulty, the choice to suppress truth is better than the choice not to. Even if you come to instantly regret it afterward, you sin due to ignorance.

We're ignorant that the intended relationship with God is ALWAYS preferable. Sin is due to ignorance.

Ignorance of truth. Perhaps not ignorance of 'thou shalt not lie', but of other relevant factors pertaining to the situation...ignorance of long term vs. short term benefits for example...ignorance of the unconscious lies that we've been telling ourselves long before we ever learned that lying is wrong.

life vs. Life. truth(relative) vs. Truth(absolute). Perception is delusion in varying degrees. The manifest and the unmanifest are even one and the same in nonduality.

Truth/God/Reality/The Supreme/The Absolute...our perception of these things is not reality, just like perception of a cat is not a cat. Truth is verifiable only by identity with it, not by knowing about it.

When one is happy, there is no checklist against which one must verify that one is happy. Happiness is experiential. What breaks us from delusion is salvation(one cannot tell that they are deluded when they are deluded, thus, they require intervention). Once one has been made aware of delusion(saved), then comes the challenge/opportunity of seeing through 'illusions'(basically, delusions that one is not invested in/that one does not subscribe to as reality)...basically, the path to enlightenment.
Once one has salvation, they're saved...and following the path to enlightenment is not a requirement but an opportunity. I can remain fallen once I'm saved, as Christ has ensured that 'saved' status for me....or I can accept salvation, and then work at addressing what led to being fallen in the first place.

Dualism does not break us from delusion. Dualism is what is responsible for our inability to tell appearance from essence(what we think is true, from what is actually true). Nondualism does not immerse us in more delusion, because nondualistically, delusion is the absence of truth, not its opposite...nonduality in its purest sense consists in no possibility for falsity. Dualism is expressed in varying degrees...and at the level of reason, it is seen as truth VS. falsity....in an ongoing battle. Nondualistically, there is no falsity to fight against as the darkness is entirely vanquished by the Presence of the Light/God.

I thought that I mentioned some aspects of Buddhist teaching that I consider to be a mistranslation/skewed teaching? in my last post, about the Buddha's teaching of finding the space between thoughts in meditation?
In any case, there are plenty of explanations. Firstly, you don't seem to be at all familiar with Buddhist scriptures...only with generalized ideas about what Buddhism is. Thus, I've had no reason to express concern about them as they've not been the subject of any debate here. Secondly, Buddhism doesn't have such rigid requirements for belief in the absolute truth of scriptures as they don't have the same sort of 'canon' literature in the sense that Christianity does. There are definitely classics of Buddhism...but buddhism itself is about transcending belief systems in favor of Truth itself.
Also, not all of Christianity is the teaching of Jesus...there are a lot of prophets that paint widely different pictures of what God is, so I feel the need to exercize great caution in wading through the bible. etc. etc. etc.
Nonduality in fact, is more central to Hindu philosophy than Buddhist, though there is a tremendous deal of overlap between the two.

In any case, I accept nonduality, as I believe there is only One Truth, which can explain the entirety of existence...I do not believe that there are other forces that can compete with Truth(duality), but that we are able to perceive the absence of Truth, which we generally term 'falsity'.

I don't think we are without possibility for change, either sinful, or not sinful. We may be sinful, but we can turn away from that. He who has turned from sin is free from death...he gets eternal life. That's basically the theory of reincarnation/rebirth too.

And yet you think the best of me is to be sinful and deluded, and not trustworthy, and all-around incorrect? Do you really believe the best of me, or is that just a verbal nicety?

What others believed or accepted is of little consequence...they're all fallible.
And, as a matter of fact, there are some strikingly huge differentiations between aramaic and greek manuscripts. This one is probably the most jolting:
NIV:
Matt 27:46
46About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"—which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Lamsa edition:
46 And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice and said, Eli, Eli, lmana shabachthani! which means, My God, my God, for this I was kept!

http://www.aramaicpeshitta.com/

http://www.aramaicpeshitta.com/AramaicN … _bible.htm

There are some other striking differences in other areas...but yeah...big difference in the passage above.

Karma, to repeat my extensive dissertations concerning it in our early essays, is NOT about right and wrong. Karma is about righting, and refining, and reforming. It is a matter of degrees. I choose one thing over another because that is the nature of what I have become...a thing cannot act against its own nature, after all. What I become is concordant with my degree of surrender and alignment with the Absolute Truth/God.
What makes any action of moral worth is the value that we project upon it. Ultimately, it's fine if we go to hell, or if we go to heaven...the worth of either of those is in your perception. I perceive Truth as being preferrable to falsity, so I pursue it, and grow accordingly, and act according with the nature of that which I have become.
What's wrong with anything outside the projected worths and values that we infer? What's wrong with going to hell if you want to go to hell? Surely God is not threatened by any happenings...there is a point where right and wrong must be surrendered in favor of the wholeness of Truth. One doesn't need to hate vanilla in order to prefer chocolate....vanilla doesn't need to be wrong in order that chocolate is right. In fact, vanilla is a necessary prerequisite to chocolate, so how can I villify it? Why blame a sapling for not being a fully grown tree?
I act morally not out of aversion to wrongness, but out of attraction to rightness/Truth.

i think the above is an adequate response to this query...though if further clarification is required on some points I'd be happy to provide.
On the matter of unanswered questions though, I'm still curious what makes a personhood distinct. I also hope you don't use terms that are ambiguous to you like 'consciousness' and 'ego' to define it...unless you want to go ahead and define those as well.

...anyway, I hope I answered all of your important questions...did my best to pare it down...was only relatively successful.
I'd seriously love if you'd quote the parts that you're responding to from my posts if you could, as your responses aren't always explicit on indicating just what you're trying to refute, and I have to scroll down and play the matching game.
If that's too much for you, I understand though.

-Rob

for some weird reason i am starting to like Mxy posts in here

Well, on the road to Damascus, it wasn't the persuasion of the mind that transformed Saul/Paul...it was direct experience of Christ/God/Truth itself. The mind is highly important, but it is not reliable as a means to carry one all the way. The mind is unable to comprehend things like Love and Creativity. Thus, the mind is best employed in service of things like Creativity, Love, and God...
I cannot truly know the master without actually being the master...I can know about the master...and about my relationship with the master...but to truly 'Know God' is not possible so long as one is not God Himself. Whether this is a possibility or not, I don't yet know subjectively....but at least logically, I'll not pass off 'information' as constituting 'knowledge'. No matter how much information you have about God, it is not the same as Knowing God. Without subjective verification, information is inert, meaningless and nothing more than a construct of the mind.
It could just as easily be said that you sacrifice Truth and God on the altar of your own mind(not that I am saying that - only that the same could be said about holding supposed 'knowledge' so highly as you seem to....because the knowledge of man is foolishness to God - and though you may think the Bible to be the wisdom of God, you are not the bible...your understanding of the bible is man's knowledge...any knowledge you encounter, by virtue of the fact that you are just a man, is man's knowledge/the world's knowledge...and the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight...)

Well, I'll give you my answers to the test in a clear form:
Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God
Jesus did come in the flesh(but he was not of the flesh any more than I am of the car that I drive).
but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God
I acknowledge Jesus. I don't acknowledge the Bible in the same way that you do...but I certainly acknowledge Jesus.

This part I find interesting though...
We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit[a] of truth and the spirit of falsehood.
...because by virtue of the fact that you've brought up this 'test' you're inferring that you are the one that is from God, and that one of us is from God and the other is not(because we're of such different perspectives that one of us just must be aligned with the antichrist, lol). Now, by your own admission you're a sinner, and will always be fallible up until the day of judgement/the day of your glorification before the father. So I'm not sure whether I should listen to you(since you're 'from God'), or if I should not(since you're incurably prone to sin until you die and something can be done about it)....
I wonder if it's better for me to just listen to the indwellingness of God/the Spirit, since you've made such a strong case for your own fallibility.

Errant philosophy? is not philosophy of the mind? I'm looking to go beyond the mind! The mind is of the world/of perception....and yet you trust so firmly in yours....you trust(using your mind/your perception) in the scriptures....you trust in your own perception of what the indwelling of Christ means...and to me, these are qualities that are 'of the world'...

And what indwelling of Christ could you be experiencing? surely his physical body is not physically inside you! what could it be but Spirit/Consciousness? It's not a physical imprint of his literal name, 'Jesus' that dwells inside you, is it? It can only be Spirit/Consciousness.

umm, 'incarnate' means 'embodied in flesh'. So yes, i believe Christ(aka God/Divinity/an Energy Field/The Absolute/The Supreme/Truth) became embodied in flesh. I do not idolize that flesh, for that flesh is not God...it'd be like saying that the wrapper is what is most valuable about the chocolate bar...that the bottle is what is most significant about the wine...

Well, he did, but I may differ in my belief concerning his motivation for doing so. I do not believe in prophecy as being anything more than a prediction...I do not believe that they are certainties in prophecies.

I believe he died on the cross and forgives us for our sins...though I am not priveleged to know for sure if dying on the cross is specifically what enabled the undoing of our sins, since he forgave people for sinning even before his physical death. In any case, it's really immaterial....the current condition is that I may be free from condemnation because of Christ. The details of why or how that is so is how we got here, and I needn't be an authority on it...what matters is that freedom from sin is available through Christ.

I'm not sure if I believe that his physical body arose again (I'm sure you've heard all the zombie Jesus jokes, lol), though I definitely believe that he appeared to the disciples after his death...whether in physical or spiritual form, we can't be cartain. It would account for the non-immediate recognition of him if it was his Spiritual form that they encountered...but either way, it is testament to the eternal life that is promised...whether the physical body dies or not, the Self/Consciousness does not.

I believe that he will advocate for me before the father if need be. I also believe that he will guide and inspire me on my path to living sin-free...that he's not just waiting for some distant time to forgive me, but that his forgiveness and encouragement, and inspiration are constants....not temporary....and that being disconnected from those can be dealt with....I don't believe that sin is my permanent nature here on earth.

Even if you have a problem with me, I don't have one with you. As mistaken and sinful as I may or may not have been, I don't believe that i can threaten God, or God's Love for us...and I feel the same of you...
Just because I prefer chocolate, doesn't mean I have to hate vanilla. I prefer the 'pluralistic' path that I am on(the path that is inclusive of, but not exclusively, Christian), but I don't hate your exclusive path.
All you have to do to be Christian is believe in the teachings of Jesus.
Even Jesus knew that the teachings are more important than the teacher....otherwise he would have protested and avoided his crucifixion. Whether it is communicated verbally, literally, psychically, educationally, prophetically, or any other way, it is not the medium that is important....it is the message. Truth above all things.

And if you deny my path on authority of your own understanding of scripture, it is not in the True Spirit either.

I take a hard line as well...out of humility and faithfulness to the Truth/God, not out of arrogance or duplicity. I believe that God is unconditionally Loving...no exceptions. I do not believe that God has a stake in the affairs of the human ego(if you do, you must think you're pretty important - so your non-arrogance claim would be rendered false). It rains equally on the good and the bad...
My hard line simply doesn't take the same exclusionary standard as yours. All sin is due to ignorance...and thus, even if you are completely wrong in your approach to God, in my hard-line view, you're eventually destined to see the error in your ways and find Truth.
 

Hey, if God doesn't want me in heaven, then, if that's God's will(for me to not be in heaven) then that's what I want. "Thy Will be done", after all. If I am not worthy, I accept that. I see no benefit in reducing myself to some fallible sinner and leaving it at that though...I credit my Creator with being greater than that...I have free will, and i may employ that in having complete and full integrity(or at least in the pursuit of experiencing such a state)...if I sin, I'm forgiven, and I move on. a 'sinner redeemed' is more like it. I'll certainly not dwell in my sinfulness, if that's what you're insisting. 'Oh woe is me!, I suck, and have no hope of being better'...boo-freaking-hoo! Flawed as I am, I have strength in the Lord...he leads me not into temptation, and delivers me from evil...
Why pray such a thing if one does not believe it can or will be answered?

He absorbs it? that's just plain weird. It'd be much simpler if he'd just say, Rob made some mistakes, but he Loves me, and I Love him, and he is thus forgiven.
And I'm not dwelling on sins that I've been forgiven for. When I was 9, I pulled my sister's hair...and I have since learned the error of my ways, and have even been forgiven by my sister. Christ's forgiveness is even more immediate than hers....I'm not waiting to be forgiven....
And I'm not sure why you keep bringing up this notion of things happening according to my own actions. I'm constantly trying to surrender myself to God...giving up my Will in favour of His Will alone. Now, the 'giving up, and surrendering' might be considered as my own actions, but I assure you that they are no more and no less the product of my own actions than your belief in the authority of the bible is.

What you've said has no assurance at all either. What you think the Spirit is might just be delusion...what you think the authority of the bible is might just be delusion. Assurance is subjective(just like 'relevance'), and as uncertain as any prediction is. The only way to know the Truth is to BE the Truth.

Beautiful lyrics...you can tell that the words are subjectively embedded in the heart of the author. It's not the assurance of external sources(like the Bible, though she may have the same kind of faith in it as you do), but the subjective experience of Christ's assurance via her experience of the Presence of God in her day to day life.
I happen to have the same thing, though I don't couch it in Christian terminology and symbolism quite as much.

What matters is not so much what he did(though it may be historically significant), but what is evident right now. Right now, I am saved, and forgiven...I don't need to understand the history of the cross in order for that to be evident this instant. I don't need to know what sort of arrangements were made in the past in order to appreciate their fruits in the present. Why believe? because of the subjective experience of God right now.

Perhaps you need assurance in order to have praise, faith and joy...I don't. Those may all occur for their own sake. the mere fact of Creation is cause for all of that....and having an appropriate afterlife to answer for the fact of this life is great! how could that be disappointing? If an afterlife consisting of punishment is most appropriate for the condition of my soul, then I welcome it....and if my soul is deserving of heaven, that's great too. Christ is great enough to deserve praise, even if I don't go to heaven...Christ is God!
Now you have revealed that it is only yourself that you're concerned about...that you wouldn't have faith or even care about Jesus except for the assurance of your salvation...
Like a friendship you maintain, only because you're getting something out of it...not because you think it's good to be caring and joyful for its own sake.

And the assurance of God in other religions and spiritual expressions is why there is worship music for all faiths...
here is a favourite of mine:
http://georgeharrison.lyrics.info/mysweetlord.html

oh, but you wouldn't praise the giver without first getting the gift, right? because your faith depends on that assurance?

I don't doubt it...I'm simply not invested in a future glory, when God is Present right now...if I go to heaven, great, if not, oh well. I'm more concerned with God now, than with God later.

No fear here...I'm sure that I'll end up where God sees fit for me to end up...and I trust completely in God's decision making; that it will be the best for me...just as right now, this instant, is the blessing of God. Amen.

-Rob

Well I'd say that I am too, although saying that is a fairly vague sort of thing. In biology a child is the offspring and the consequence of genetic influences. In spirituality, it isn't so concrete...you have the DNA of your parents...so it's different if you're a child of God...what is a child of God made of? At best, the term 'child', in the context of spirituality, denotes a relational quality, in the same way that an adopted child is the child of an adoptive parent. The fact of the relationship doesn't actually indicate what the child is - only that it is related to the parent.
I accept that you are related to God in a similar sense, but I'm interested in knowing what you are....wht is it that relates?

I agree that the soul lasts forever...though I'm curious what you think the soul is. Do you think it is an ego/self? In psychology/psychoanalysis there is the ego(personality) and the superego(conscience) and the Id(Instinct/unconscious, pleasure-seeking drives, behavioural programming).
Socrates...or maybe it was Aristotle...one of the two...anyway, they said that the soul was indivisible and unchanging. I happen to agree with that notion of the soul, but it complicates things, as it precludes the ego/personality from being the "I", since the personality may change over time....as well as the conscience, since circumstantially different things are deemed acceptable vs. unacceptable(i.e., your insistence that there are occasions where punching someone in the face is not sinful)....and the Id probably experiences more change than each of those.
All of these are masks that the soul appears to wear.

How does it define you? Is it like the word 'gravity'? meaning something akin to 'whatever it is that I truly am' is the 'soul'....just as gravity is 'whatever it is that keeps us from floating off into space'? Or can you actually say what the soul is?
We don't really know how gravity interacts with us...only that it does. Is it the same with the soul? We don't know what it is or how it works...we don't know who we are at all...we just know that somehow we're in interaction with God?

This is why I mentioned the ego vs. superego earlier...they are not one and the same...they are different mechanisms,  and they may be in conflict with one another. For example, the personality/ego may enjoy pornography, while the superego/conscience does not approve. I don't expect that the soul can be divided against itself, so i'm curious if one of these is more likely than the other to be what we call the 'soul'.

Did Jesus have a separate soul from God?

You call it an 'internal spiritual construct'....and this is getting to the core of my curiosity. If it is 'internal', then I assume it is inside you, correct? If it is inside you, then I'm even less clear on what you think you are, for the 'You' would have to be larger than the soul in order for it to be 'inside you'.
So would you say that you 'are' a soul, or that you 'have' a soul? Is having a soul something like having a body? You're more a steward of it?

Well, for clarity's sake, I'd like to differentiate between them. Awareness is Consciousness, but Consciousness is not Awareness. Kind of like "All football players are athletes, but not all athletes are football players". Consciousness, at least in the way I use it, encompasses the conditions of awareness, intention, subconsciousness, unconsciousness, (the soul?), etc.
Awareness is a state of consciousness.
Does that make sense? I think it's at least a practical implementing of the terms, even if most thesauruses list them as synonyms.

...because we are a soul? or because we have a soul?
In either case, I'm not sure that I have a soul (I mean, I think I do, but I don't know what it is so I can't be sure)...but I do know that I exist. Is this a case of "the knife can't cut itself"? The knife(soul) can only experience by cutting things(being outwardly focused)....is that how it is with the soul? the soul experiences only via awareness, but cannot be aware of itself?

Fair enough...only you haven't explained what a soul is yet. If you accept that the screen is a soul, then it relates both to the world(the images) and to God(Via the projector and the light of consciousness).

Guilt is spiritual error. It is dysfunctional and self-destructive. Responsibility and acceptance of consequences is the healthy expression of what people think guilt is supposed to achieve. Offense is in the eye of the beholder as much as beauty is. Guilt is selfish and egocentric and damaging - it is the ego/personality making a spectacle of itself and imbuing itself with specialness. Responsibility is humble and unnoticed...a decent regret is all that is necessary. Guilt is not the product of spiritual awareness. God doesn't need us to beat ourselves up over our mistakes.
...so yeah, I don't tend to feel guilt.

...being divided against oneself....I think it would be helpful to make a distinction between that which was drawn to error/sin and that which was aligned with conscience. This is why it's important to figure out what you are! Are you the part lobbying for sinful indulgence, or the part that is aligned with the will of God? Can you be responsible for both? Is it me that sins, or is it some sinful mechanism within me that I do not know how to control on my own? If I am the conscience, should I feel guilty and responsible when the body does not abide by my guidance? Am I the sinful aspect of myself? is that what the soul is? or is the soul my conscience?

Fear and shame are as dysfunctional as guilt is. Fear is obsessive, inflating, irrational and non-faithful. Humility and caution are the healthy expression of what the ego attempts to achieve through fear. Shame is dysfunctional too...the unwillingness to face up to reality...shame would rather have us become invisible and disappear from existence than to face up to what we have done, to learn from it, and to do better in the future.
There is the aspect of the soul that pulls us away from God (into guilt, fear and shame) and that aspect that brings us closer to God (into humility, compassion, forgiveness, responsibility, greater awareness, acceptance).
In any case, if the soul is affirming that I've broken some law, who is it affirming that to? am I something other than the soul? or is the soul affirming that to itself?

I'll refrain from addressing your scriptural quotes until we can clear up just what the soul is and what the self is. Through the law we may become conscious of sin...but what are we? What is conscious?

Is this anything like what you understand? I don't think it really works for me...but I find that visual representations tend to help a lot since they help to at least isolate the parts that we're concerned with addressing.

-Rob

how about this model?

-Rob

So he will absorb my sins pending my acceptance of Him. If that's the case, then it's really not fair to say that he already absorbed all of sin through all of time.

-Rob

It helps to form communities, and communities are what decided of our intellectual evolution and allowed us to become what we are. Science, tv shows, star trek or star wars, Linux are not religion, but they all achieve same goal. People gather around and form community. And the best thing is that none said that one should belong only to one community. That's probably why there were so many gods before Christ, and there wasn't much of a religious struggle between people, at least not significant one, like muslims holy war or our crusades.

you did not revive this thread. dear lord.

and do not blame me for not warning you

BAH GAWD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmut6FBx4xk