I Have Some Questions - New Age

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For those of you who are quick to dismiss my ideas as mumbo-jumbo, I wish you would explain what it is you aren’t understanding. Why would someone be drawn to these ideas? Well, because it was gifted to me by GOD in divine intervention, in my opinion. I was hopeless, broken, afraid, and on a path of confusion and strife. I had no clue about any of the things I have spoken about. During an episode of deep stress, I experienced what I consider to be a miracle and an act of GODS love which cured my lifelong and bone-wracking fear of death. It has been completely life-changing, and I’m seeking answers now. If you were suddenly just gifted knowledge from the blue I’m sure you, too, would be wanting to know what it means. These ideas came from the experience I had. They are not always clear, but I feel as if they are on the tip of my tongue, and that is why I came here asking questions. I can’t figure it out alone, and I also want to see other perspectives to expand my view. Casual dismissal of these kinds of questions, feelings, and ideas lead to those initial feelings of doubt, confusion, fear, and anger from half my life spent in the Catholic Church and community, who were very unaccepting and decisive. Do I believe all communities are like that? Not at all! Other posters here have shared they had a much more expansive and healthy experience with Catholicism and church, and I would like to perhaps visit some groups like this as I decide where to move after college.

I can see now that my new belief is very far different from the literal interpretation of the Catholic Bible, but I really very much feel as if we are discussing the same thing except in different perspectives. While it’s not a popular manner of describing the apple, it’s It’s like if we were looking at an apple, but you had on yellow glasses, and I have on green, and the tinted colors were created by our experience here on Earth which obscure our view of GOD. What I want to do, and what I want to spend a good portion of my time on in the future, is helping everyones glasses clear (in a sense) by providing a better understanding, phrasing, and explanation of the power that be. I feel like having a personal relationship with GOD is our responsibility and duty, and sometimes that can be obscured because of education, nurturing, environment, and more, like it was for me.
 
palm said:
Casual dismissal of these kinds of questions, feelings, and ideas lead to those initial feelings of doubt, confusion, fear, and anger from half my life spent in the Catholic Church and community, who were very unaccepting and decisive.
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Sorry, but I can’t endorse your incorrect, New Agey ideas of God in order to make you feel better.
I note that at least one of the posters who is responding to you at length isn’t a Catholic (per their profile).

If your goal in life is to be around people who endorse your ideas rather than tell you the truth, that’s your choice. It may make you feel better but it’s not ultimately helpful to you in the end. Sometimes the truth hurts.

I’m sorry that you had a bad experience of Catholicism as a young person, but once again that doesn’t somehow justify you going down a wrong path of false new age pantheism.

And it’s not a “miracle” of “God’s love” that you somehow got a bunch of wrong ideas out of the blue. Humans can get confused, especially when they rely on their “feelings”. I think that’s what’s going on here.

Edited to add, if you’re actually looking for something to read, Cath already gave you good suggestions above.
 
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You might enjoy reading Theology and Sanity by Frank Sheed. Or The One and the Many by W. Norris Clarke. Or even just Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Ludeig Ott for a better understanding of monotheism that isn’t just a Santa Clause in the sky watching everyone when they’re sleeping and awake.
 
palm said:
It stresses me out that it has been proven that the Bible has been altered throughout history to enable the wishes of different warlords and royalty and due to translation.
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Can you tell me who supposedly proved that and when? Some sort of reference or citation? Translation or transcription issues, sure, but to satisfy secular rulers?
 
I’m saying creature is part of creator, not really “is” creator. One small expression of GOD.

You expressing the mirror idea makes a lot of sense. So, Christian’s believe that we are completely separate from GOD, and just creatures that reflect his will from design (the mirror part), but are not OF GOD? That makes the distinction a little easier to understand, thank-you.

The only reason I keep applying these human attributes to inhuman things is because they are the only words I know to get close to the idea of what we’re discussing, so I am limited. I understand he doesn’t observe/learn/know the way we do, but I have to figure out a different way to put it into words.
 
What you’re basically expressing is a type of Spinozan aspect monism, with maybe a bit of Hegelianism in it.
 
Working on finding you a solid example, but there are plenty if you Google the question “how has the bible been changed in history”. Too many in particular to list, although you will find many sites puporting that despite these noted language changes/inclusions, the Bible is ultimately indifferent in its composition of truths.

Scribing issues are one thing, and they should be taken into account as well- even one word can change a whole sentence, or the stress on a word in the sentence.

Once again, when I am able to show you a source I feel is exact in its entirety, I will let you know!
 
We are born in the image of god, we try by his grace to be more like him we also share his graces but we are not god we are human only, we are his instruments. He is the potter we are the clay, in that we can be moulded by him., Jesus was both 100% human (like us but without sin) and (unlike us) 100% divine he created us and can save us.
 
Hey! Interesting. I am reading up on both right now, I have never heard of them before. Never took a philosophy class, I guess I need to! Thanks.
 
Palm, I sincerely believe that every Catholic who has responded to you regrets the confusion and sorrow of your growing up years and would be delighted to welcome you back into the Church if you can believe without reservations.

While some of your regular Sunday Mass Catholics aren’t as wrapped up in learning as much of the rich Catholic history and details as we here on CAF are, they and we know that we are following Christ’s Words—not some group of committeemen or Bible scholars, but the actual words of Christ Who walked the desert and temples and Who suffered for us with a brutal beating and hanging upon the Cross; the same Christ who gave us His Body and His Blood for our sustenance—ultimately, one day, for our very LIFE with the Triune God in heaven.

We want to win as many new souls and reverted souls for Christ as possible, but we know (because we’ve hoed that row) that people must start with a clean slate so that they can be open to Catholic teachings without the albatross of concepts that prevent their being able to fully understand.

Lol! Probably the reason we’re so adamant in our eyes—and so unwilling to listen to alternatives in your eyes—is that most here have already been through deep soul and conscience angst before we either converted or reverted.

It is apparent that you are very intelligent and, still hurting from your younger years, desperately wanting to be certain that the path you eventually choose is the right one. We want that for you, too!

If your college has a Newman Club, please talk to the priest and let him guide you in this critical quest. If not, seek a priest at the Church where you go to Mass, or have been thinking about going. A priest can help you far better than we can. That way, and perhaps even through group discussion, he can help with any semantics problems, too.

Best wishes to you!
 
palm said:
It stresses me out that it has been proven that the Bible has been altered throughout history to enable the wishes of different warlords and royalty and due to translation.
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this is not true. In fact it is the opposite. With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls it is absolutely amazing how little of the biblical text was changed over millennia.
 
St John of the Cross wrote that a person who has experienced the divine love of Christ, will take on the characteristics of the beloved(Christ). They will begin to love as Christ loves and see God in everyone and everything.

St Francis of Assisi once took a handful of dirt and said, “I can fee the pulse of God within it.”

Was he saying the dirt was God ? No he was not, but like a contemplative, he saw God in everyone and everything.

He spoke of Brother Sun and Sister Moon, as being part of God’s creation, as we all are.

It’s not New Age to see God in everyone and everything. Just don’t see those as gods, which they are not. They are of God, but not God himself.
 
palm said:
Scribing issues are one thing, and they should be taken into account as well- even one word can change a whole sentence, or the stress on a word in the sentence.
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and this is why Judaism and Christianity don’t rely on only the printed text. What people have forgotten today is that the actual concepts are passed down from authoritative teacher to student. The student must demonstrate a totally clear understanding of the teaching before being allow to rise to the rank of authoritative teacher. The printed text without an authoritative interpreter/teacher leads to chaos.

Acts 8: 26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 27 So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. 29 The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”

30 Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.

31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

32 This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:

“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth.”

34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” 35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

You are like the Ethiopian trying to understand scripture just by reading it. But Philip, an anointed apostle of Jesus, is the authoritative interpreter of scripture who then educates the Ethiopian.

The Catholic Church is the authoritative interpreter of the sacred scripture and sacred tradition. Jesus did not abandon us but left us the Church so that we might have the fullness of the faith.
 
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palm said:
For those of you who are quick to dismiss my ideas as mumbo-jumbo, I wish you would explain what it is you aren’t understanding. Why would someone be drawn to these ideas? Well, because it was gifted to me by GOD in divine intervention, in my opinion. I was hopeless, broken, afraid, and on a path of confusion and strife. I had no clue about any of the things I have spoken about. During an episode of deep stress, I experienced what I consider to be a miracle and an act of GODS love which cured my lifelong and bone-wracking fear of death. It has been completely life-changing, and I’m seeking answers now. If you were suddenly just gifted knowledge from the blue I’m sure you, too, would be wanting to know what it means. These ideas came from the experience I had. They are not always clear, but I feel as if they are on the tip of my tongue, and that is why I came here asking questions. I can’t figure it out alone, and I also want to see other perspectives to expand my view. Casual dismissal of these kinds of questions, feelings, and ideas lead to those initial feelings of doubt, confusion, fear, and anger from half my life spent in the Catholic Church and community, who were very unaccepting and decisive. Do I believe all communities are like that? Not at all! Other posters here have shared they had a much more expansive and healthy experience with Catholicism and church, and I would like to perhaps visit some groups like this as I decide where to move after college.

I can see now that my new belief is very far different from the literal interpretation of the Catholic Bible, but I really very much feel as if we are discussing the same thing except in different perspectives. While it’s not a popular manner of describing the apple, it’s It’s like if we were looking at an apple, but you had on yellow glasses, and I have on green, and the tinted colors were created by our experience here on Earth which obscure our view of GOD. What I want to do, and what I want to spend a good portion of my time on in the future, is helping everyones glasses clear (in a sense) by providing a better understanding, phrasing, and explanation of the power that be. I feel like having a personal relationship with GOD is our responsibility and duty, and sometimes that can be obscured because of education, nurturing, environment, and more, like it was for me.
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If you are so confident in your beliefs why are you placing so much importance on Catholics validating them? I converted to Catholicism from atheism, but before that dabbled in Eastern philosophy and New Age thinking very much like you are sharing. It never brought me any peace. Did I find some universal truths? Yes. But those schools of belief never seemed complete, nor did they truly change who I am.

Now, if these beliefs are truly bringing you peace you wouldn’t need so desperately to have it justified by those of another belief system, especially on a forum of strangers. It’s not that most here don’t understand, we just don’t agree. If you are truly happy with the knowledge you have gained, live with it in peace.
 
vsedriver said:
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palm:
Scribing issues are one thing, and they should be taken into account as well- even one word can change a whole sentence, or the stress on a word in the sentence.
Click to expand...
and this is why Judaism and Christianity don’t rely on only the printed text. What people have forgotten today is that the actual concepts are passed down from authoritative teacher to student. The student must demonstrate a totally clear understanding of the teaching before being allow to rise to the rank of authoritative teacher. The printed text without an authoritative interpreter/teacher leads to chaos.

Acts 8: 26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 27 So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. 29 The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”

30 Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.

31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

32 This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:

“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth.”

34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” 35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

You are like the Ethiopian trying to understand scripture just by reading it. But Philip, an anointed apostle of Jesus, is the authoritative interpreter of scripture who then educates the Ethiopian.

The Catholic Church is the authoritative interpreter of the sacred scripture and sacred tradition. Jesus did not abandon us but left us the Church so that we might have the fullness of the faith.
Click to expand...
This is an excellent explanation of the need for tradition and the way in which it works within Catholicism.
 
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