Mike,
Thank you for keeping things civil, I'll try my best to reciprocate. I get worked over about certain issues that I feel are SUPREMELY important, like life and death important. My faith in this country and in freedom is an example, but God's place in our lives, or lack thereof is ABOVE ALL for me. And just as Jesus showed his strongest venom for those who claimed to represent God the Father, and DID NOT, I SHARE that kind of anger. He was angry, because people DO have the power to lead others, sometimes, to death, rather than to life. When someone claims to represent God, this is a COSMICALLY SIGNIFICANT MATTER.
You are sort of correct in that WE DO have "SOME" similar views.
But I am very concerned, because it is a small, very small, breath of a butterfly small, diversion from the path, that OVER TIME, can lead one to MANY false conclusions, and before long, without even noticing, that person suddenly is in a position diametrically OPPOSED to God's will.
Let me start with my position on God:
The Bible teaches that God is love.
I have come to understand that this is a very literal statement. It is my believe that God "IS" love itself. The power and force of LOVE. I bellieve that there is no stronger force in the Cosmos than LOVE. I bellieve that love is NOT a "feeling" but a FORCE. It is God's creative force. It is God Himself.
Believing this, means that when we, when ANYONE, shares LOVE, TRUE LOVE, they are sharing GOD with one another. When love (God) is shared with someone, and that someone returns love (God) then a circuit is in effect completed. The power is unbelievable, because God's love, has made a full circle, a union, a circuit completed, wherein the power flows unhindered in a perfect circle, a perfect CIRCUIT.
Because God is LOVE, and LOVE is a real and tangible power, then I believe that this power literally has the ability to form worlds. Because we have a very limited ability as humans, bound to a physical world, to contain that love in totality, then we cannot create worlds, but the amount of love, the amount of GOD, that we can contain, IS POWERFUL ENOUGH to do many things, like heal the sick, perform miracles, prophecy and many other things. It would be easy to get confused at this point, when one begins to have these abilities, to get off track, but this would be a SUPREME mistake, because it is not the human being Craig or Mike performing these feats, but it is GOD IN US which brings that power about. To forget this, is to err in a most serious way.
Yes, we agree that God, or at least some part of God, is in everything and everyone. But God's love creating something tangible, is not the same thing, as those things BEING GOD. Different things, are designed to contain varying degrees of God's energy. So while some people would like to think that a ROCK is equal to God, because it is made OF God, they are wrong. A rock cannot contain and then be a conduit for God's love. You cannot really have a relationship with a rock. But animals can respond more to God's love and force, and as we progress upward, the highest forms, HUMANS, ARE IN FACT designed to be the conduit, in this physical world, for God's love to be manifested and shared and reciprocated.
So, while I reject the basic tenets of Pantheism (The belief that all things are God) I also recognize that they have it right, in part. All things are not God, but all things are "OF" God, and have a part of God's energy and creative force within them.
I have come to learn that almost ALL religions, have various pieces of truth. And we get so hung up on our particular brand of truth, that it makes it almost impossible to JOIN THESE TRUTHS into a cohesive whole, that best resembles as much of God's truth that we are capable of contemplating and undestanding, as limited human beings.
You said you have psychic abilities. I do not find this hard to believe. And I do not agree with you that the Bible is against such abilities. On the contrary, the greatest figures in the Bible OFTEN held such abilities and displayed them and used them for good. You are confused about the wording. The Bible, for example, speaks against SORCERY, not psychic abilities per se.
Sorcery or witchcraft, is a FAR DIFFERENT thing than having various psychic abilities. People who are witches, believe for example, that there is power in things such as "incantations" or "voodoo like practices" or "potions".
The statement that then gets made, possibly without them realizing it, is that there is god-like power in THINGS or WORDS. In other words, it doesn't matter where my heart is, or where my faith is, I can speak these MAGICAL words, and my will can be accomplished. Possibly unitentionally, this BYPASSES the true power, that of God, and purports to hold mystical powers APART FROM or INDEPENDENTLY OF, Creator God. This is NOT TRUE, and is a lie. When naive or superstitious people then BELIEVE in a witches "power" they are placing their FAITH in a lie, rather than in God.
In this scenario, God is pretty much unecessary. I don't need to consult with God, and I do not need to pray to God, I merely need to repeat words on a page, words in a book of witchcraft, and I will obtain power ON MY OWN. I don't need God's permission for this, because the power comes through the incantation or through the mixing of a potion, or the treatment of a voodoo doll. I can have powers like god, WITHOUT the need for God Himself. Do you see why this would be unacceptable to God, whereas powers derived and extended FROM GOD HIMSELF would be the correct path, and would not exclude God?
Witches and many others, claim to have god-like powers, which in effect, sets them up as god-like, or even worse, as gods themselves, yet INDEPENDENTLY of the true God.
Your error, while unitentional, is HUGELY problematic.
Your belief is that, in being a PART of God, this makes you EQUAL in some way to God. This one step... this one LEAP, brings you away from the truth, and directly into the bowels of ORIGINAL SIN.
The ORIGINAL sin, both spiritually (angels sin) and physically (human's sin) was EXACTLY THE SAME!
Trying to usurp God's role, and become a god ourselves, reversing the true order of things, and making the Creator, into a created being, and making the created being, into the Creator.
Think about it.
The first sin in the spiritual world.
And the first sin in the physical world.
The same sin.
I'll explain this more in a separate thread, but for argument's sake, accepting that this is true, and that the same sin, caused BOTH angels AND mankind to fall... how big would this sin be? How tempting would this sin be? How hard to overcome, would this sin be, when both angels and humans, spiritual beings and physical ones, had the most practice with this sin, being the oldest one, and the FIRST one.
But to be "OF" something, or to be a "PART" of something, can NEVER be the same as BEING EQUAL TO IT.
When I blow my nose, a part of me has been expelled. That part of me, does not contain ALL OF ME. To be blunt, I am FAR MORE VALUABLE, and FAR MORE POWERFUL than the SNOT that is "OF" me, and a "PART" of me.
As a creative being, I have the ability to CREATE a work of art. My creativity and my work, and my energies, and my passions, ALL WENT INTO creating that piece of art. And while the pieces of art may RESEMBLE the nature within me, and it may even be IN MY IMAGE, nevertheless, it is not the same as BEING ME! It is not the same as "BEING" the CREATIVE INDIVIDUAL which CREATED the art.
The Bible NEVER says that WE ARE GOD. It says that we are made in the IMAGE OF GOD. These are VERY different things. When we look in a mirror, we see THE IMAGE OF OURSELVES, but you are not confused in that scenario, that the mirror's image is ACTUALLY YOU. It is NOT YOU, but merely a REFELECTION OF YOU! And while we could look at the cold hard glass, and get a good feeling of what you look like, and how you act, by seeing this image... would your children be satisfied with hugging the glass, rather than YOU? Would your wife be content sleeping beside your IMAGE in cold hard glass, or does she want your physical warm body and your heart beating next to her?
THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENCE between an IMAGE of something, and the ORIGINAL SOURCE of that image.
You can perceive MUCH about the creator of art, by the art he creates.
There are famous artists, well known throughout the world. And at certain periods of their creativity, they were depressed and made alot of dark paintings, and depressing and cold images that are haunting. There are scholars who call this their "dark period" for example. Then that artist finds more joy in his life, and suddenly that new found joy is reflected in his paintings.
In such an example, clearly, we could perceive a GREAT DEAL about this artist's life, and even his moods and feelings, through his art. We could perceive MUCH of the inner feelings and attitudes of this artist without even meeting him personally, because THE ART is IN HIS IMAGE. And the image gives us HUGE CLUES as to the invisible nature of the creator of that art.
The art is often MADE IN THE IMAGE of it's Creator.
But would the child or lover of that artist be content, when the artist died an untimely death? By your reasoning they should be, because they have THE IMAGE of the man, through his works. And THE IMAGE of someone, or a PART of someone, makes it EQUAL to that same someone. Right? Can the lover, or the kids, take these paintings and then not feel a loss, since they have the IMAGE in their possession still, though the source of the image has now gone?
Of course not.
And I "hope" that this illustrates the difference to you.
YES, we are "OF" God, YES we are "PART" of God, YES we are "IN THE IMAGE OF GOD" but this, CLEARLY, is NOT EVEN CLOSE to "BEING" God.
.
Last edited by CraigMaxim on Wed Aug 26, 2009 5:13 am, edited 5 times in total.