‘ … and when my mind is wandering, there I will go.’

bman

It has been my experience along the road from Stonewall to today that Christians as well as other people of faith have gone through the great sea change of attitudes with the rest of our society. For that I am thankful.

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Josef,

falwell,robertson and some others on tv preached hate of others.

And now they made Tebow a political issue.
.

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http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/12/17/how-job-creators-are-fighting-back/

An excellent piece from Stossel. We have now created a system where only the established “big boys” have a chance thanks to Government Regulation. Obama must be proud because he only believes in the “big boys”.

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getalife

And I should condemn the whole lot based on the bad apples? If I subscribe to that line of thought then I should condemn all straight people…

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Scout

I’ll wager there was more than one gay among them…

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Scout, are you aware that these Bible passages you are quoting, indeed the whole Bible, is of totally unknown authorship?

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getalife

Then, again, I should condemn all straight people and call the sea change “toning it down?” Y’all’s bad apples are still there and still in business, it’s just that your good apples finally found their courage and spoke up…so, too, have the people of faith…at about the same time and in about the same number and in the same fashion as “straight people.”

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Relgion is man’s attempt to reach out to God.

Christianity is God’s man’s attempt to reach out to man Christ.

Christianity IS a religion, or at least it was the last time I checked.

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How many more times are you Christians gonna crucify your Christ?

Just live in his grace and quit trying to show me how pious and indignant you are.

You contend this is a Christian country (yeah, I know technically you count us Jews, but who’s kidding who?). Who the hell do you think George Carlin et al are gonna laugh at? The Shintos? The Zoroastrians? The Buddhists?

And you’re really living under a rock if you don’ think modern day comedians rip on every group and every religion.

You Islamophobes should hope that cats like him are emboldening some new young Carlins in those Islamic countries, and that one day they can laugh at their religion without fear of reprisal.

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josef

Since they stopped sending out the memo’s with pictures, I have a hard time keeping up.

As far as religions go, I could care less what any other person believes as nobody can atone for my sins except for me. Nobody else will be able to believe me into heaven, so they can believe in the flying spaghetti monster for all I care. My beliefs, and my beliefs only will be my path to salvation.

That’s all I have to say on this topic. Y’all have a good evening.

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Tom Middleton@5:28

“In case, you haven’t noticed, the “Occupy” movement is all about a massive unwillingness of people to play victim, as is the “Arab Spring” as well, still going on in Syria and elsewhere as we speak.”
——————————————————-

Yes, I have noticed the similarity between the “Occupy” movement and the “Arab Spring.” True, the people involved do not want to “play victim” but I think it goes even deeper than that, or at least I am hoping that it goes deeper. One has to, consciously, see that one has been a victim in order to decide to no longer want to be a victim, and to change that situation through conscious actions. If, as you seem to have indicated above, there is not a fundamental change in consciousness, however, sometimes when the former victim is on top, he then reverses roles and becomes the force that creates victims under him. That is what I think is wrong with the mindset that says, “I will someday have my millions, just like the top 1% do now.” Often that thinking carries with it the perception that those who do not succeed in making their millions, also, are inherently unequal to the “winning” or top group. That worldview is fundamentally a hierarchial vision that “holds these truths to be self-evident. . .that all men are inherently unequal.”

What I hope is happening is that the world’s consciousness is moving away from that hierarchial view of oneself in relation to one’s fellow human beings into a more humane, egalitarian consciousness which confirms that all life is inherently equal, under God. None of us were created as gods; none of us were created as angels; and none of us were created as devils. We all fall into the cosmic category of human beings – an egalitarian view of humankind. When that collective consciousness lives in the minds of most or all humans, then we will see that it is not right for some to be subjugated to others, which implies that some are inherently inferior to others. What I hope is happening throughout the world is a global affirmation of our full humanity. I see the growing interest in animal rights as part of this evolving consciousness.

This past October, I attended the Martin Luther King. Jr. Memorial Dedication in Washington, D.C., and it was an inspiring ceremony, as was the monument of King, itself. The monument was symbolically authentic. Out of the massive rock of despair, was built a new reality of hope in which America is finally living up to our founders’ dream that “all are created equal.” Perhaps, at this point in human evolution, the world, itself, is hungry to move into that elevated consciousness, as is currently being made manifest in the Arab Spring movement, the Occupy movement, and earlier in the breakup of the former U.S.S.R. into sovereign states, as well as in the Civil Rights’ movements in both the U.S. and South Africa.

Peace, Tom, and happy holidays to you and yours. I enjoyed our exchange today.

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Carlos

And, look, we don’t “know” who wrote the works attributed to Shakespeare either…or whether or not YOU actually wrote that last post…jus sayin

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How many more times are you Christians gonna crucify your Christ?

Once a year, same as always.

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Josef,

I am against government in our bedrooms.

I thought I was clear on my position.

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Christianity is its follower’s “get out of jail free” card, I believe.

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Christians are heathens what got religion.

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The chronic cry babies on here who represent the far left who’re convinced that America is a country of those who have and those who have not are evidently in a significant minority that’s not surprising.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/151556/Fewer-Americans-Divided-Haves-Nots.aspx

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Del: I is one! Christian, that is!

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Before there were Jews, or Christiams, or Muslims … at the very dawn of religion, God was a woman. Do you remember?

In prehistoric and early historic periods of human development, religions existed in which people revered their supreme creator as female. The Great Goddess — the Divine Ancestress — had been worshiped from the beginnings of the Neolithic periods of 7000 BC until the closing of the last Goddess temples, about AD 500. Some authorities would extend Goddess worship as far into the past as the Upper Paleolithic Age of about 25,000 BC. Yet events of the Bible, which we are generally taught to think of as taking place “in the beginning of time,” actually occurred in historic periods. Abraham, first prophet of the Hebrew-Christian god Yahweh, more familiarly known as Jehovah, is believed by most Bible scholars to have lived no earlier than 1800 BC and possibly as late as 1550 BC.

It has been archaeologically confirmed that the earliest law, government, medicine, agriculture, architecture, metallurgy, wheeled vehicles, ceramics, textiles and written languages were initially developed in societies that worshiped the Goddess.

Most significant is the realization that for thousands of years both religions existed simultaneously–among closely neighboring peoples. Archaeological, mythological and historical evidence all reveal that the female religion, far from naturally fading away, was the victim of centuries of continual persecution and suppression by the advocates of the newer religions which held male deities as supreme. And from these new religions came the creation myth of Adam and Eve and the tale of the loss of Paradise.

Why do so many people educated in this century think of classical Greece as the first major culture when written language was in use and great cities were built at least 25 centuries before that time?

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Wiccan

In Judaism G-d has no gender…at least as far as the scriptural is concerned…written without vowels, Hebrew is formulated lexically on supplying those vowel sounds to refine the meaning of the three consonant base…only later did convention begin to ascribe gender to the Alm-ghty…

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josef

The religion of the Goddess is much older than Judaism. Maybe the reason the Hebrew God has no gender is because it was morphed from the older religion. It is definitely patriarchal now!

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the best gift I have ever seen – the 2 youngest got a book with a digital
recorder built into the back cover. Their granny read the whole book
into the recorder, with page breaks. Now, every time they need
grandma, they open the book and grandma “reads” to them, in
her real (recorded) voice, even though she’s way back at her house.
Coolest thing I ever saw for children, but we’re simple on de island mon.

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Patriotism has no bearing whatsoever on one’s religious beliefs in this USA and a true patriot understands that.

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Gettalife

Which is why I don’t hold him in particularly high regard…

Wccan

Not really…the idea was that the Omn-potent transcends the earthly definition…I.e. Idolatry…a totally new concept in time and place

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Keep Up the Goodfight:

“http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/26/snl-gay-wedding-mosque_n_739593.html

Well I see Scout is up to creating false rabbit holes. SNL has no problem making fun of Islam.”

I said “a fake Mohammed in a script” …………… not just Islam.

Of course Christians get upset if Christ is mocked. But those who mock Him don’t have to go into hiding.

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wet wiccan ,

Back in caveman days.

Fred Flintstone.

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People that truly served this country know that they fought for all citizens — not just the ones they proclaim to be of a proper persuasion and all true patriots know that.

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Sooth
Ooo….I don’t get into that one…

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“People that truly served this country know that they fought for all citizens — not just the ones they proclaim to be of a proper persuasion and all true patriots know that.”

Sez all the pi$$ complected $hit who never did serve but who now want to justify their pathetic guilty conscience. No takers you’re on your own.

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Wiccan

From the Jewish point of view, yes.

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St Simons

You sound like Unmentionable…folks ask him about the woo-woo “healing” …”how the he’ll would I know. This medicine man works in oncology…”.

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Look, I am sorry if I have offended anyone by my posts tonite. Religion has been around as long as there have been people … thousands of years … it is how we try to understand the unknowable. It gives people comfort and strength. How can anyone be against that?

Rest easy, I am not the wh*re of Babylon. I was raised in a Christian home and love Jesus. Just remember, the kindgom of God is within, in our own hearts, and was never meant to be a kingdom on earth.

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wet wiccan: cut the crap with the woman god stuff, OK?

JUST KIDDING! I’ve seen prehistoric statuary of rather Reubenesque women deity figurines so I know what you’re talking about.

Besides, everyone already knows that women rule the World. The control the thing that controls men! Those of us who aren’t gay, that is. And, that’s a whole other story!

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Sooth and Wiccan

Yeah, us gay folk just upset the whole order of things don’t we…it’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it.

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Soothsayer

I think in a previous life I may have been a vestal virgin. (JUST KIDDING!)

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“Climb back in your bottle and drink yourself back to sleep.”

Surely panty waist.

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“See you after the game.”

what game?

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bman: San Diego/Baltimore ch 11

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Change has come for North Korea.

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The game is a blow out.

Like the Saints game.

Ragin Cajuns won their first bowl game, Saints clinched the playoffs and LSU will win the National Championship.

Life is good.

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wouldn’t supporting NFL games be supporting the “1%” ?

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If only the Dawgs were that good!

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nice dodge lol .. ..

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Change for North Korea?

Yep, the idiot son takes over.

Does anyone have the number of people who have starved to death under that great system of government ?

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Mary Elizabeth

I appreciate what you say, Mary Elizabeth, but you seem to be claiming that there’s a natural limitation to human consciousness that I don’t accept. I’m not interested one bit in helping people become oppressors themselves, as I think I said in the second post, even though it sometimes happens.

You have spiritual training, don’t you? So you, probably more than most on this blog, especially the fundamentalists, would know that the path to God is as unlimited as God himself. In other words, as long as there is an “I” in spiritual terms, there is more and still more – all the way to the point of second birth, after which there is only God.

You can talk about “collective consciousness” all you want, but as long as there are some people ruling others, even the so-called “thinkers” of Marxism, there will be oppression, such as there was back in the USSR (speaking of the Beatles) and like there is in China today. (And don’t get me started on all the crap the right likes to do to the human spirit. We’ve all heard of “Der Fuhrer,” yes?)

But I can’t help but get amused by some on the left today who think that the only way to make the world a better place is to flip the coin and put them on top. But like you said, that’s just more of the same, with different AHs telling us what to do everyday, and how in hell is this better? (My phraseology…sorry.)

So as a spiritual devotee, Mary Elizabeth, can you accept it if I tell you that the human spirit is as unlimited as God. We all lived in God AS God before the creation, didn’t we? And weren’t we also told that the soul cannot die, as in “You can kill the body but not the soul”? And isn’t it also true that the unlimited spirit we refer to most often as “God” cannot be killed either?

And please show me in the Bible where God said, “And I will send unto you a government with a judicial branch, an executive branch, and two houses of a Congress that will not be able to reach agreement on a single damn thing, no matter how much money you pay them to serve your interests well”?

Instead, he gave us three years of the teachings of Jesus to help us realize our true divine nature should we decide to do so on our own, or as he put in “To become perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Where was the call for any government in this, except to say that by obeying the will of God “Ye will know the truth (God), and the truth will make you free.”

And what if I told you that every other religion on earth has in its essence these same basic principles under different terminology. Can you then maybe accept that government is not the perfect part of the divine equation we sometimes like to think, and was never really intended to be?

I mean, I’m extremely grateful for our democracy, and I adore the crazy (wonderful) thing. But in truth, it’s all about the perfect will of the one perfect God – who we were before the creation and who we really are at the last. And shouldn’t it then make sense if I tell you that, that’s where it’s all slowly headed, in a “let’s all work our way out of even needing a government” kind of mentality?

Every religion, as originally intended, is all about the love of God and one another, and there’s nothing inherent in the nature of that kind of love that tells us to oppress others in the name of God, again different from fundamentalist thought. Rather it tells us that we should realize that God to the fullest measure, however long it takes, and help others to do so as well. “Go ye into all the lands.”

Can you imagine a God who would tell us that he will only speak through a government, even a best government like ours? That God would have to be absolutely insane, as would anyone giving their ten percent for what we have today.

I’m sorry to tell you this, Mary Elizabeth, but it’s going to be up to people like you and me to make the good things happen from now on, and I think you probably know this as well. I mean, where is the equality when there’s no one who believes?

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Correction: “I am no so sure that there (not their) is a limitation. . . .”

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Tom Middleton@2:24 a.m.

“And when you seemed to imply that “Occupy Wallstreet’” was made up of millionaire wannabes, making them different, of course from those in the “Arab Spring,” I made even more of them.”
————————————————————————-

Tom, I can see how you easily thought that I implied that the “Occupy Wallstreet protesters” were made up of millionaire wannabes, but that was far from my thinking and, in fact, I do not think that at all. However, because I had made a “detour” of thought in my first paragraph to illustrate hierarchial thinking (which included thought that many millionaire wannabes, once they had achieved their millions, may look down upon others), it could be assumed I was referring to “Occupy Wallstreet protesters, which I had first mentioned.” However, that was not the case at all. In fact, I think that most of the “Occupy Wallstreet protesters” are not looking to become millionaires, but that they simply want a fair chance at the American dream of self-determination and they probably are protesting Wall Street’s penchant for greed of looking after themselves, alone, which may rob the “Occupy Wallstreet protesters” of their chance to live out the American dream of self-determination through solid work. From that standpoint, the young millionaire wannabes would have more in common with the Wall Street overlords than with the “Occupy Wallstreet protesters.” And, I suspect that both the Wall Street overlords, and the millionaire wannabes, probably, have a hierarchial view of humanity whether they are on top, looking down, or on the bottom, looking up and trying to get to the top. On the other hand, I think that the “Occupy Wallstreet Protesters,” as well as the “Arab Spring Protesters” probably have the commonality of an egalitarian view of humanity, and this is what connects them. Perhaps, they even share a collective consciousness of an egalitarian vision, which I speculate is growing, worldwide.

Using ellipsis marks of . . . to show removal of that “detour” of thought that I took regarding millionaire wannabes, in my first paragraph, and connecting my actual streamline of thought from the first part of my first paragraph to the first part of my second paragraph, below, you can see, how my actual thinking was and is. And, I suspect, that my thinking, in this regard, is probably aligned with much of your thought, also. See below my words at 6:51 last evening, with ellipsis marks included for that “detour” omission:
—————————————————–
“Yes, I have noticed the similarity between the “Occupy” movement and the “Arab Spring.” True, the people involved do not want to ‘play victim’ but I think it goes even deeper than that, or at least I am hoping that it goes deeper. . . . What I hope is happening is that the world’s consciousness is moving away from that hierarchial view of oneself in relation to one’s fellow human beings into a more humane, egalitarian consciousness which confirms that all life is inherently equal, under God.”

——————————————-

This dialogue between us demonstrates how human communication is difficult and can be misunderstood, but it also shows how having care enough to try to talk through differences, can have very positive results, and can even enhance communication. So, thank you for your late evening post to me at 2:24 a.m. and I do hope I have been able to clear up the lack of clarity in my earlier 6:51 p.m. post to you yesterday.

There is no need for you to respond about this particular exchange between us; I simply wanted to clear this up now, so that you would understand my actual thinking. I will need to take care of some personal matters, so I may not be blogging quite as much in the near future, so I wanted to clear this now for you and for any interested reader, who also may have misunderstood my remarks at 6:51 p.m. last evening. Best to you.

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DNRIP Kim

You were a terrible person

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(and UnU, my other social media interfaces were full of such jokes.)

see ya upstairs…

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The CD clocks in around 33 minutes, but feels much longer and most likely, your trip sounded like it was much longer. Such is life in the ATL in December. I though our cars would fly by 2011.

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