Original Sin affects innocent child

[Whit_Dupree]

In discussion, Fr. gave this explanation for how best to view a child born into a state of original sin: the world is one of a broken relation with God due to acts by first parents; the new born child of 2013 has not sinned nor has an intent to act in such a way; and thus should not be punished for first parents’ actions. Rather, says, Fr., the child suffers from an “ontological wound”. I raised the objection that being is unaffected by the relation between God and man. Fr. did not understand my comment. A group member mentioned that God was the ground of being, thus if He has a broken relation with a creature or class of creatures, then in that way being is affected. I objected that God may well be being + more (to include some ilk of personhood), but that being just is; does not have characteristics; and thus is neutral in a moral debate. I think of being as a substratum, a ground. The description by Fr. involves a category mistake: not useful to conflate being with morality. Please comment and set me straight according to Catholic tradition and teaching. Thank you.

 

[Love4All]

In discussion, Fr. gave this explanation for how best to view a child born into a state of original sin: the world is one of a broken relation with God due to acts by first parents; the new born child of 2013 has not sinned nor has an intent to act in such a way; and thus should not be punished for first parents’ actions. Rather, says, Fr., the child suffers from an “ontological wound”. I raised the objection that being is unaffected by the relation between God and man. Fr. did not understand my comment. A group member mentioned that God was the ground of being, thus if He has a broken relation with a creature or class of creatures, then in that way being is affected. I objected that God may well be being + more (to include some ilk of personhood), but that being just is; does not have characteristics; and thus is neutral in a moral debate. I think of being as a substratum, a ground. The description by Fr. involves a category mistake: not useful to conflate being with morality. Please comment and set me straight according to Catholic tradition and teaching. Thank you.

In the state of Original Innocence, there would never have been made a distinction between “being” and “morality.” There was only the Garden, and God, and Adam and Eve, and God’s Creation, and Love. Adam and Eve were created in the state of sanctifying grace and in moral perfection. (Before the Fall, they found their perfection in God’s grace.) After the Fall, human beings are born into nature without grace. It is called the state of Nature, to contrast it with the state of sanctifying grace, but it is not, in reality, the intended nature of a human being. We were created to live in grace. Sanctifying grace is completed nature. As it is, we are born into a condition of nature sans grace, which is why the Church baptizes infants. Baptism infuses sanctifying grace, but does not take away concupiscence, which is left for our exercise in virtue. By struggling against concupiscence under grace we acquire merit, and a better place in Heaven.

So, the category distinction you are making between being and morality, in the first place, is one of the effects of the Fall. Man is divided against himself; it was not like that in the Garden. Being sans morality is indeed wounded, and such was not the original intent of our Creator.

 

[MJC2013]

In the state of Original Innocence, there would never have been made a distinction between “being” and “morality.” There was only the Garden, and God, and Adam and Eve, and God’s Creation, and Love. Adam and Eve were created in the state of sanctifying grace and in moral perfection. (Before the Fall, they found their perfection in God’s grace.) After the Fall, human beings are born into nature without grace. It is called the state of Nature, to contrast it with the state of sanctifying grace, but it is not, in reality, the intended nature of a human being. We were created to live in grace. Sanctifying grace is completed nature. As it is, we are born into a condition of nature sans grace, which is why the Church baptizes infants. Baptism infuses sanctifying grace, but does not take away concupiscence, which is left for our exercise in virtue. By struggling against concupiscence under grace we acquire merit, and a better place in Heaven.

So, the category distinction you are making between being and morality, in the first place, is one of the effects of the Fall. Man is divided against himself; it was not like that in the Garden. Being sans morality is indeed wounded, and such was not the original intent of our Creator.

This is quite a wonderful description of what I call the Night-Cycle, the fall from Grace, the loss of Eden, which begins with a Tower of Babel experience, the splitting of the original whole man into a duality, man opposed to himself. (1983-2001 was a Day-Cycle creation period. The Twin Tower attack in 2001 is a wonderful graphic image of God’s splitting the United proud man into two, the Tower of Babel experience. Clearly God is still alive, and giving signs for those who wish to read them.)

The original sin idea is manufactured by human minds to put the onus of sin on man instead of on God, who created the system. Mortality was God’s design, or at least the Creator God’s design. Of course, Death is in nature. Death is in the body. And the body is the Mortal Principle. Making the Body a prison for the soul. Making Death the liberation of the Spirit.

The full story, of course, is more majestic. The resurrection awaits those who have lost Eden, a new body, a pure body, as pure as the child’s body, as light as a feather, which floats back into heaven. The story of the Full Round needs the Mortality Principle, and the Rebirth Principle. How man became the cause of Nature’s (in my mind, everything is Nature, Nature has a mind and spirit, and Nature has a body) duality I still do not understand.

The prayer "Our Father’ suggests that it is the Father-God who tempts us to sin: “…lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil, amen.” Who, what tempts the angels to fall into flesh, and to create the World, the Earth, in the image of God?

There is an Earthly Eden (the culmination of the Day-Cycle expansion: 1929; 1965; 2001…) and there is a Heavenly Eden (the culmination of the Night-Cycle deflation – material deflation IS spiritual inflation: 1947, 1983, 2019…) There are two Falls from these Two Edens: the Angels fall and take on Human form (1956, 1992, 2028…); and Men Fall and take on Angelic form (1938, 1972, 2010…) Angels fall from Heaven, become men, and then become the Kings of the World, the Devils of the World; Men fall from Earthly power, and become pure angels again, living with God in Heaven…

Original Sin puts the onus for this creation on man, women and children, linking it to sex, and to knowledge of the world – the angels desire for knowledge of the Daughters of Men. This is a metaphorical reading. The angels are impelled down to Earth, as the White Hole impels matter to rush into the world; as the Black Hole compels matter to rush back out of the world…

Of course, HOW each angel responds to the White Hole expansion and to the Black Hole contraction is the essence of the Free Will story. Some angels become murderes and thieves and some do not.

 

[MJC2013]

In discussion, Fr. gave this explanation for how best to view a child born into a state of original sin: the world is one of a broken relation with God due to acts by first parents; the new born child of 2013 has not sinned nor has an intent to act in such a way; and thus should not be punished for first parents’ actions. Rather, says, Fr., the child suffers from an “ontological wound”. I raised the objection that being is unaffected by the relation between God and man. Fr. did not understand my comment. A group member mentioned that God was the ground of being, thus if He has a broken relation with a creature or class of creatures, then in that way being is affected. I objected that God may well be being + more (to include some ilk of personhood), but that being just is; does not have characteristics; and thus is neutral in a moral debate. I think of being as a substratum, a ground. The description by Fr. involves a category mistake: not useful to conflate being with morality. Please comment and set me straight according to Catholic tradition and teaching. Thank you.

Whit: Love-for-All gives a wonderful description of the principles of Original Sin. The Original Sin was a desire for Life, for the Tree of Life, and for the Tree of Knowledge. This led to the fall of the angels into the bodies of men – for the fertilization of Nature.

The Father God tempts the angels to fall: “Be fruitful and multiply.” This was a command of the Father God, the Fertility God. But hidden in this command was the implicit punishment, mortality. Children are also cursed with mortality. Life, the gift of light in Youth, turns into Death, the curse of darkness in Maturity.

But there is a happy ending, in that angels who become sinful men also rebecome pure angels again.

If you look at Collective Man, the desire for empire, for power in the world, is the Fallen Angel story. The empire is the devil’s game. Temptations for wealth and power and pleasure and sex. When the empire falls, man returns to a purer state again.

 

[fhansen]

. I objected that God may well be being + more (to include some ilk of personhood), but that being just is; does not have characteristics; and thus is neutral in a moral debate.

Being, at its most basic level, happens to be love, so it does have charateristics, and moral ones in terms of being goodness itself.

 

[human_genome]

Being, at its most basic level, happens to be love, so it does have charateristics, and moral ones in terms of being goodness itself.

Whit, I have no clue where you get your information from in the bible. I may not have the exact version that you have, however I do know one thing for sure and I am referring to Holy catholic Scripture: We are all - ALL born in to sin! All of us! Not one excemption there! Not one. That is what the apostle Paul says, and I do not doubt him (More specificially it says, “We have all come short of the glory of God”. That’s it! God is perfect - we are not (not after the Fall!). He made Adam perfect, but Adam comitted high treason against God - and fell from a point of perfection.
A child is a child is a child. We are born into this world as sinners, dead in trespass and sin as the Apostle Paul says, and all of us will experience death at some time or another. The question is what happens to us in the meantime, during this life that we have been given. Do we find our way to the second Adam, Jesus? And if we do, do we reject Him or accept Him as Lord and Savior? And if we do, we are then born again - into life eternal with God the Father through Jesus Christ our Savior, the one who shed His blood on the cross for our sins, :“was chastised for our inequities, and by His stripes we were healed”.
Regarding a small child that suffers death; that child will go to Heaven and live until such time as God appoints for that child to be old enough to make a cognizant choice regarding Jesus Christ and who He represents to that child. God is loving and just, He never takes away our choice that He gave us, our will to choose. He is faithful to us and to His Word. He is loving and kind and wants all to come to Him through Jesus Christ (John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His begotten son…).
Reading from your text it seems to me that you are delving into “religiosity” and made up mysteries regarding this issue and others. Regarding who God is; He says so in Genesis 1, He is referring to Himself in the Creation account and a number of other places (i.e God is Spirit, and you must worship Him in spirit and in truth) He created us with a soul that lives in a body and we have a spirit. Thus, when God says we are made in His likeness, He is a lot like us, yet so much higher than us! We have a soul and so does God, we have a mind and so does God. We are a spirit and so is God; yet our spirit is fallen, yet when we confess our sins and accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, our old spirit is replaced by a new spirit from God - we are born again!
This is not difficult or complex, and we should not make it so. How do you Whit expect to witness to someone with this “heavy message” that you have? Isn’t that what our responsibility is, according to Jesus?

 

[fhansen]

Whit, I have no clue where you get your information from in the bible. I may not have the exact version that you have, however I do know one thing for sure and I am referring to Holy catholic Scripture: We are all - ALL born in to sin! All of us! Not one excemption there! Not one. That is what the apostle Paul says, and I do not doubt him (More specificially it says, “We have all come short of the glory of God”. That’s it! God is perfect - we are not (not after the Fall!). He made Adam perfect, but Adam comitted high treason against God - and fell from a point of perfection.
A child is a child is a child. We are born into this world as sinners, dead in trespass and sin as the Apostle Paul says, and all of us will experience death at some time or another. The question is what happens to us in the meantime, during this life that we have been given. Do we find our way to the second Adam, Jesus? And if we do, do we reject Him or accept Him as Lord and Savior? And if we do, we are then born again - into life eternal with God the Father through Jesus Christ our Savior, the one who shed His blood on the cross for our sins, :“was chastised for our inequities, and by His stripes we were healed”.
Regarding a small child that suffers death; that child will go to Heaven and live until such time as God appoints for that child to be old enough to make a cognizant choice regarding Jesus Christ and who He represents to that child. God is loving and just, He never takes away our choice that He gave us, our will to choose. He is faithful to us and to His Word. He is loving and kind and wants all to come to Him through Jesus Christ (John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His begotten son…).
Reading from your text it seems to me that you are delving into “religiosity” and made up mysteries regarding this issue and others. Regarding who God is; He says so in Genesis 1, He is referring to Himself in the Creation account and a number of other places (i.e God is Spirit, and you must worship Him in spirit and in truth) He created us with a soul that lives in a body and we have a spirit. Thus, when God says we are made in His likeness, He is a lot like us, yet so much higher than us! We have a soul and so does God, we have a mind and so does God. We are a spirit and so is God; yet our spirit is fallen, yet when we confess our sins and accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, our old spirit is replaced by a new spirit from God - we are born again!
This is not difficult or complex, and we should not make it so. How do you Whit expect to witness to someone with this “heavy message” that you have? Isn’t that what our responsibility is, according to Jesus?

God is the only being whose existence-whose being- depends on nothing else. So, at that level, beingness itself already possesses the attribute of love/goodness because love is the nature of God.

 

[Whit_Dupree]

“In the state of Original Innocence, there would never have been made a distinction between “being” and “morality.” *** So, the category distinction you are making between being and morality, in the first place, is one of the effects of the Fall.”

Very good point: so the distinction between Being and Morality could not have been made. In Original Innocence there was God, Adam, and the Garden, which Adam tended, except for the center tree, the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. Satan wearing the skin of a snake talks Eve into disobedience of God’s command. Adam has enough free will to disobey, and without hesitation he follows his wife. I am not sure what the meaning of “knowledge of good and evil” might be and why it is so dangerous, but 1) evil existed in both God’s mind and 2a) inchoately in fact in the garden that comes to be fully grown when Adam and Eve are 2b) expelled from the Garden and become mortal.

Being now gets reduced from a neutral subsisting web that holds the furniture of the world to a flux of love with strong teleological characteristics.

I am tired and cannot develop the story further tonight, but I invite all interested parties to continue this dialogue toward whatever end is best.

 

[fhansen]

Very good point: so the distinction between Being and Morality could not have been made. In Original Innocence there was God, Adam, and the Garden, which Adam tended, except for the center tree, the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. Satan wearing the skin of a snake talks Eve into disobedience of God’s command. Adam has enough free will to disobey, and without hesitation he follows his wife. I am not sure what the meaning of “knowledge of good and evil” might be and why it is so dangerous, but 1) evil existed in both God’s mind and 2a) inchoately in fact in the garden that comes to be fully grown when Adam and Eve are 2b) expelled from the Garden and become mortal.

Being now gets reduced from a neutral subsisting web that holds the furniture of the world to a flux of love with strong teleological characteristics.

I am tired and cannot develop the story further tonight, but I invite all interested parties to continue this dialogue toward whatever end is best.

What God knows is that anything which lies outside of His will is ipso facto evil. The very act of rebellion-eating of the fruit-was the first instance of such a state for man. Evil was already known by that act, which is why shame and guilt also entered simultaneously. From then on man would continue to know the evil of being separated from God, especially as he would now exist in a world where other fellow humans were likewise separated, going their own ways, “doing what is right in their own eyes”, as scripture tells us, with sin very often the result. All humans know good and evil in this life; all human beings suffer from separation from their Creator. Jesus came to restore faith in God, ultimately to effect communion with Him, where order and man’s justice are realized- the only way they can be realized.

 

[MJC2013]

What God knows is that anything which lies outside of His will is ipso facto evil. The very act of rebellion-eating of the fruit-was the first instance of such a state for man. Evil was already known by that act, which is why shame and guilt also entered simultaneously. From then on man would continue to know the evil of being separated from God, especially as he would now exist in a world where other fellow humans were likewise separated, going their own ways, “doing what is right in their own eyes”, as scripture tells us, with sin very often the result. All humans know good and evil in this life; all human beings suffer from separation from their Creator. Jesus came to restore faith in God, ultimately to effect communion with Him, where order and man’s justice are realized- the only way they can be realized.

Adam and Eve eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge (of Good and Evil) represents what? Biblical writing is metaphorical. What is it we do (the allegorical Adam and Eve did) that separates us from God? What is Knowledge of Good and Evil, and how do we gain this knowledge?

Isn’t it birth, itself, that separates us from God? Coming in to this world? Incarnating or reincarnating? This world, the Earthly world, exists to show us the difference between right and wrong? Jesus came down to the Earth to show humans on Earth the ‘way’ back to heaven. He became the path that humans needed to walk to get back to heaven. All the values the Earth celebrates – wealth, power, success, glory, pride, glamor most of all – these are sinful values in the eye of Heaven.

This suggests the idea that Life is evil, life is a fall. The Original Sin was choosing to be born or reborn. Choosing Life. Then one wonders why we have that choice; or do we really have that choice? If it is not a choice, and simply something we experience, like a wave of water in the ocean – and then we are tested on Earth to see if we can find our way back home, then life is less a SIN than it is a TEST, which we all pass when we die and rejoin our God in heaven – or which we don’t all pass. Why would God tempt us to fall, tempt us to eat of this outlawed Tree?

The East views rebirth, reincarnation as an evil to be avoided – because it necessitates death in the future, a painful sense of loss and hopelessness and empty experience. The West views resurrection as a gift from God, a return to heeaven. But is this resurrection permanent? Or does it end again in death and alienation? Those seem like important questions.

 

[LilyM]

Adam and Eve eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge (of Good and Evil) represents what? Biblical writing is metaphorical. What is it we do (the allegorical Adam and Eve did) that separates us from God? What is Knowledge of Good and Evil, and how do we gain this knowledge?

Isn’t it birth, itself, that separates us from God? Coming in to this world? Incarnating or reincarnating? This world, the Earthly world, exists to show us the difference between right and wrong? Jesus came down to the Earth to show humans on Earth the ‘way’ back to heaven. He became the path that humans needed to walk to get back to heaven. All the values the Earth celebrates – wealth, power, success, glory, pride, glamor most of all – these are sinful values in the eye of Heaven.

This suggests the idea that Life is evil, life is a fall. The Original Sin was choosing to be born or reborn. Choosing Life. Then one wonders why we have that choice; or do we really have that choice? If it is not a choice, and simply something we experience, like a wave of water in the ocean – and then we are tested on Earth to see if we can find our way back home, then life is less a SIN than it is a TEST, which we all pass when we die and rejoin our God in heaven – or which we don’t all pass. Why would God tempt us to fall, tempt us to eat of this outlawed Tree?

The East views rebirth, reincarnation as an evil to be avoided – because it necessitates death in the future, a painful sense of loss and hopelessness and empty experience. The West views resurrection as a gift from God, a return to heeaven. But is this resurrection permanent? Or does it end again in death and alienation? Those seem like important questions.

Being born into this world is not in itself separation from God. Christ became Man - fully Man - and was born into our world - and remained perfect and perfectly united to God even so.

As a Catholic I do not understand how a fellow Catholic can memtion reincarnation with a straight face. The question is definitively answered. Scripture says ‘it is appointed to man to die once, and then the judgement.’

One death. One life. No multiple deaths, no rebirths, no do-overs.

 

[fhansen]

Adam and Eve eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge (of Good and Evil) represents what? Biblical writing is metaphorical. What is it we do (the allegorical Adam and Eve did) that separates us from God? What is Knowledge of Good and Evil, and how do we gain this knowledge?

Isn’t it birth, itself, that separates us from God? Coming in to this world? Incarnating or reincarnating? This world, the Earthly world, exists to show us the difference between right and wrong? Jesus came down to the Earth to show humans on Earth the ‘way’ back to heaven. He became the path that humans needed to walk to get back to heaven. All the values the Earth celebrates – wealth, power, success, glory, pride, glamor most of all – these are sinful values in the eye of Heaven.

This suggests the idea that Life is evil, life is a fall. The Original Sin was choosing to be born or reborn. Choosing Life. Then one wonders why we have that choice; or do we really have that choice? If it is not a choice, and simply something we experience, like a wave of water in the ocean – and then we are tested on Earth to see if we can find our way back home, then life is less a SIN than it is a TEST, which we all pass when we die and rejoin our God in heaven – or which we don’t all pass. Why would God tempt us to fall, tempt us to eat of this outlawed Tree?

The East views rebirth, reincarnation as an evil to be avoided – because it necessitates death in the future, a painful sense of loss and hopelessness and empty experience. The West views resurrection as a gift from God, a return to heeaven. But is this resurrection permanent? Or does it end again in death and alienation? Those seem like important questions.

Disobedience of God is what separates man from Him. It’s no different than to think of it as man disobeying the will of the universe-of nature. Injustice, disorder, disharmony rocked the world as a result. We experience-we know-both good and evil in this world, a knowledge that can, with the benefit of revelation and grace, cause us to run to the good alone, recognizing the perfection of the Fathers will after all. That recognition is our wisdom, that turning back to God is our choice.

So, yes, this world can certainly be looked upon as formative, rather than merely reformative/punitive, but in any case here is where the choice faces us: good over evil, life over death, God over no God. God is in the business of perfecting His creation, having created it “in statu viae”, in a state of journeying, as the Catholic faith puts it. The resurrection is the culmination of Gods purpose for man: eternal happiness with Him in a relationship of an ineffable love-so huge and profound we have little way of even beginning to relate to it in this life.

 

[MJC2013]

Being born into this world is not in itself separation from God. Christ became Man - fully Man - and was born into our world - and remained perfect and perfectly united to God even so.

As a Catholic I do not understand how a fellow Catholic can memtion reincarnation with a straight face. The question is definitively answered. Scripture says ‘it is appointed to man to die once, and then the judgement.’

One death. One life. No multiple deaths, no rebirths, no do-overs./QUOTE)

What we Catholics call resurrection the Eastern religions call reincarnantion.

Jesus was sorely tested as a man. He even accused his Father God in Heaven as having abandoned him: “Why hast Thou foresaken me?” Jesus was cut off from God – he came to Earth to demonstrate the path of those cut off from God, and he, Jesus, could not come to Earth without that separation. Jesus was ‘perfect’. I don’t know what that means. He BECAME perfect; I can accept that. He disappeared (probably to Asia to study mystical philosophy) for many years. We know very little about his life as a man. The Gnostics believe he loved a woman and perhaps married her. That, to me, does not seem unreasonable or sacriligsous…he was a man; men on Earth marry women on Earth. Jesus was the Apostle of Love; it seems reasonable that the Apostle of Love would fall in love with a woman.

Religious philiocophy is very deep and very mysterious. What does it mean to have God in one’s life? Does it simply mean following the Ten Commandements? Or does it mean being inbued with God’s mystery? Is God, or at least God’s messengers, walking with you through this life, showing you mysteries, giving you signs? If not, then your religion is dead.

The ideas of reincarnation are not so troubling. In a sense, we reincarnate every day when we wake up from sleep and keep going with our daily life. We have a spiritual life and night, when we dream. This is a kind of psychic death. We lose track of who we are in the Daytime world, the world of Time. We can carry our Waking Identity another step into the future every day. In a sense, that is our choice. We can go to work; or we cannot go to work. We can abandon the life we are living. We have choices.

One dies everythime one feels real grief, which is usually what accompanies the loss of a dream. Falling in love is a waking dream; losing that love is a death. Having a loved one die is a death – a death for you as well. Mourning is the death experience.

Spiritual literature is very rarely meant to be taken literally. Thou shalt not kill is literal; but the world was created in six days is not literal. The Noah story of the Flood and the raining for 40 days and 40 nights is not literal in its duration – this is a metaphor, an allegory, suggesting a reality symbolically. People who take religious writing literally are misunderstanding the nature of spiritual writing, which is a kind of literature, a kind of poetry, which ancient cultures loved and perfected. There is a truth embedded in alll literature and all poetry; but one has to dig to find it. These are the mysteries that God and the angels show to men, but only to those who dig to find that truth.

Priests are the class that loves to dig for spiritual truths historically. Anyone who digs for truth about God and God’s creation is a priest, in a metaphoric sense. Again, those who are more comfortable with literal understandings will insist a priest must wear a black cassock and a collar, or must wear a mitre or a yarmulka. Uniforms make us comfortable, because they make us believe in a world of experts. But Jesus was a High Priest who did not wear a uniform. There are many priests in this world who do not dress like priests. The literary world is filled with people like this: seeking God one solitary paths and not in communities. Instead of being fearful of these priests, and wanting to cast them out of your community, you might benefit from their presence, and contact with them, because they are in contact with the Mystery God, the God who prerforms miracles, and who reveals himself.

If you God left the Earth 20000 years ago, and is found only in the New Testament, and not in your life through real miracles and revelaltions, then you are cut off from God, even though you follow the laws the priestly class sets down. God is alive, in your heart, performing miracles today – but Reason, literalism, cuts the world off from Him, and makes Him a relic of the past.

God is not a relic of the past.

 

[LilyM]

LilyM;10729882:

Being born into this world is not in itself separation from God. Christ became Man - fully Man - and was born into our world - and remained perfect and perfectly united to God even so.

As a Catholic I do not understand how a fellow Catholic can memtion reincarnation with a straight face. The question is definitively answered. Scripture says ‘it is appointed to man to die once, and then the judgement.’

One death. One life. No multiple deaths, no rebirths, no do-overs.

Reincarnation is entirely different to resurrection - reincarnation means you are reborn with a different identity in a different body - you come back as your grandchild, a dog, a worm or what have you.

Jesus showed us what resurrection is - the SAME identity in the SAME body albeit a glorified one - right down to the same wounds of the Crucifixion! Resurrected but not by any means reincarnated. Recognisably Him and not a different person with a different name or face or hands, nor a worn or a dog.

As for the rest of it - truth is one as God is one. The Eastern philosophies you so adore have massive differences from each other let alone from Christianity. They cannot all possibly be the one truth.

Yes God is very real and very present to me and very much still on Earth. His own body and blood and very self is really present to me in the Eucharist. Not some facsimile or reincarnated fantasy version 2.0 but the very one and same God.

Who promises me eternity with Him if I am faithful - ME, not some imaginary reincarnated hooey version of me.

And who speaks to His children plainly, in a way they can all understand, not in secret mumbo jumbo nonsense masquerading as deep so-called Gnostic philosophy.

 

[MJC2013]

MJC2013;10730000:

Reincarnation is entirely different to resurrection - reincarnation means you are reborn with a different identity in a different body - you come back as your grandchild, a dog, a worm or what have you.

Jesus showed us what resurrection is - the SAME identity in the SAME body albeit a glorified one - right down to the same wounds of the Crucifixion! Resurrected but not by any means reincarnated. Recognisably Him and not a different person with a different name or face or hands, nor a worn or a dog.

As for the rest of it - truth is one as God is one. The Eastern philosophies you so adore have massive differences from each other let alone from Christianity. They cannot all possibly be the one truth.

Yes God is very real and very present to me and very much still on Earth. His own body and blood and very self is really present to me in the Eucharist. Not some facsimile or reincarnated fantasy version 2.0 but the very one and same God.

Who promises me eternity with Him if I am faithful - ME, not some imaginary reincarnated hooey version of me.

And who speaks to His children plainly, in a way they can all understand, not in secret mumbo jumbo nonsense masquerading as deep so-called Gnostic philosophy.

Resurrection is a new body, the replenished resurrection body, which is called the Causal Body by the Hindus. The real Hindu philosophy teaches that there is a continuum to rebirth. Humans come back to continue their lives – of course it is not possible to contiue them literally, as Time does not stand still. But to continue the quest.

In truth, Hinduism teaches that Human Energy reincarnates only into the lower forms when the soul is falling into denser and denser forms. The idea is that the energy which animates life is REAL. And that same energy descends a ladder from God down to the planets to the Human Kingdom, to the Animals, to the Plant Kingdom, and to the Mineral Kingdom. Then the energy climbs back up toward Heaven through those same Kingdoms: Minerals give birth to Plants, Plants give birth to Animals, Animals give birth to Men – Man is the Middle Principle and can contact the high and the low. It is a very scientific picture of evolution in fact. Don’t be too literal when studying metaphysical ideas.

The Energy in the forms is God, or the Logos. The forms veil God. The forms get denser and denser, cutting man off from God. The forms are absolutely dense in the lowest world, the Mineral World – but the Mineral World also exhibits through crystallation the Mind of God, and God’s thoughts as geometry. Then the forms get less dense, and climb back up Jacob’s Ladder. These ideas are very similar to the Old Testament and Jacob’s Ladder: which is a ladder of evolution (climbing back to God), and involution (falling away from God).

You can focus on the difference between Buddhism and Hinduism (Buddhism was a reformaltion of Hinduism) and you can focus on the differences between Judaism and Catholicism (Catholicism was an attempt to reform Judaism) and you can focus on the differences between Catholicsm and Protestantism…but you can also focus on the similarities. They are all descriptions of a complex process, a process every human and every human culture takes, no matter what time they inhabit. The Source of all life is the same God. The forms of worship and the concepts are local, but the quest is universal: to find and know God and God’s laws. The Mind loves to focus on the differences; the Heart focuses on the similarities. The Mind brings war to the world. The Heart brings peace to the world.

Why do you feel so threatened by a world view that does not separate all religions and all peoples into strict warring categories. You want to be exclusive, and on the right side. This is your Moral Ego wishing to define yourself as the King, as the Right Side, as being on the Good Team, as Having the Truth, as the Virtuous One Blessed by God in a world of discord and evil. Does God want our world fighting and does God want people killing each other? If you answer yes to this question, then you have forgotten that the goal of this whole process we are all engaged in is to build the New Jerusalem, to bring Heaven down to Earth. This is the Mystical Marriage which results in the completion of this process.

I’m not suggesting you teach your children Gnostic mumbo-jumbo – mumbo jumbo is usually what we call something we don’t understand. The gnostic philosophy is reserved for those chosen for the deep philosophy, the Priesthood, like the Essenes during Jesus’ time, like Jesus himself. Jesus was a rabbi, initiated in esteric mumbo jumbo in Judaism, and perahps also a student in India or Egypt, studying mumbo-jumbo. It is not meant for everyone. When the human soul needs MORE, he goes deeper and finds another aspect of God, the spiritual quest. It’s not meant for everyone. It’s meant for the priests. This is the real meaning of the Priesthood: those initiated into what you call mumbo-jumbo. The inner truth. The wheat hidden inside the husk.

The literal is the husk; the golden knowledge is the wheat.

 

[Whit_Dupree]

Love4All;10724601:

“In the state of Original Innocence, there would never have been made a distinction between “being” and “morality.” *** So, the category distinction you are making between being and morality, in the first place, is one of the effects of the Fall.”

Very good point: so the distinction between Being and Morality could not have been made. In Original Innocence there was God, Adam, and the Garden, which Adam tended, except for the center tree, the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. Satan wearing the skin of a snake talks Eve into disobedience of God’s command. Adam has enough free will to disobey, and without hesitation he follows his wife. I am not sure what the meaning of “knowledge of good and evil” might be and why it is so dangerous, but 1) evil existed in both God’s mind and 2a) inchoately in fact in the garden that comes to be fully grown when Adam and Eve are 2b) expelled from the Garden and become mortal.

Being now gets reduced from a neutral subsisting web that holds the furniture of the world to a flux of love with strong teleological characteristics.

I am tired and cannot develop the story further tonight, but I invite all interested parties to continue this dialogue toward whatever end is best.

Now, back to attempting to think about how ontology could be “wounded”. Depends upon how one defines ontology. I take it to be the study of being, being as being and separate from the study of what kinds of entities, and within those kinds, what entities exist, which I take as metaphysics. Existence exits is a tautological statement that seems to tell us something new. Why is there something rather than nothing? Fooled by word smithing again: nothing does not exist; something exists necessarily. Being is not predicated of x. X just is; it may be a brute fact or a fact; and that fact has to exist prior to having characteristics. Existence, subsistence, substance, and characteristics of a thing. So, I remain skeptical about how being can have number greater than one, have color, shape or size, or be wounded by an act of sin or healed by kindness. Yet, I could be wrong and you may correct me.

 

[fhansen]

Whit Dupree;10729063:

Love4All;10724601:

“In the state of Original Innocence, there would never have been made a distinction between “being” and “morality.” *** So, the category distinction you are making between being and morality, in the first place, is one of the effects of the Fall.”

Very good point: so the distinction between Being and Morality could not have been made. In Original Innocence there was God, Adam, and the Garden, which Adam tended, except for the center tree, the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. Satan wearing the skin of a snake talks Eve into disobedience of God’s command. Adam has enough free will to disobey, and without hesitation he follows his wife. I am not sure what the meaning of “knowledge of good and evil” might be and why it is so dangerous, but 1) evil existed in both God’s mind and 2a) inchoately in fact in the garden that comes to be fully grown when Adam and Eve are 2b) expelled from the Garden and become mortal.

Being now gets reduced from a neutral subsisting web that holds the furniture of the world to a flux of love with strong teleological characteristics.

I am tired and cannot develop the story further tonight, but I invite all interested parties to continue this dialogue toward whatever end is best.

Now, back to attempting to think about how ontology could be “wounded”. Depends upon how one defines ontology. I take it to be the study of being, being as being and separate from the study of what kinds of entities, and within those kinds, what entities exist, which I take as metaphysics. Existence exits is a tautological statement that seems to tell us something new. Why is there something rather than nothing? Fooled by word smithing again: nothing does not exist; something exists necessarily. Being is not predicated of x. X just is; it may be a brute fact or a fact; and that fact has to exist prior to having characteristics. Existence, subsistence, substance, and characteristics of a thing. So, I remain skeptical about how being can have number greater than one, have color, shape or size, or be wounded by an act of sin or healed by kindness. Yet, I could be wrong and you may correct me.

But if any being “can have color, shape or size, or be wounded by an act of sin or healed by kindness” what should prevent a “primordial being”, from whom any and all other being issues forth, have the same? What is existence without properties or attributes for that matter?

 

[Whit_Dupree]

Well, yes, theology is in there from the beginning of trying to think through what ontology includes. There seems to be room for a possible god qua Christian God the Father creator in the notion of necessity that arises from “Why is there something, rather than nothing?”, in that something necessarily exists. God could be existence in and of itself, the ground. And also – by way of conjunction (&) – other things that do indeed have characteristics, like some ilk of personhood with a sense of humor, the ability to self-multiply and to design de nova and sub-create, and value systems like aesthetics, morality, economics. Now we have built a possible structure of Christianity’s theology which history can include the notions of Original Innocence vs. Original Sin (good/bad), and other apposite opposites that seem to necessarily require and include both characteristics.

Which came first or which is more important: the study of being, ontology, or the study of the divine, theology? Secular/religious? The two sets of enquiries do not have to be ranked. The Catholic Church needs the apposite opposite laity/clergy in order to function, i.e., to be active in order to save souls. I take saving souls as the objective of the Church.

Comments, edits, suggestions, recommendations, critiques are invited. Have a good Saturday all! Whit

 

[Whit_Dupree]

Whit, I have no clue where you get your information from in the bible.

Response: Within western literature, which includes the Christian Bible, there are other works.

A child is a child is a child. We are born into this world as sinners, dead in trespass and sin as the Apostle Paul says, and all of us will experience death at some time or another.

*Response: Yes, I agree this condition of mankind is a given empirically confirmed by observation and history. *

The question is what happens to us in the meantime, during this life that we have been given. Do we find our way to the second Adam, Jesus? And if we do, do we reject Him or accept Him as Lord and Savior?

Response: In Europe and America, we are usually aware of this Christian notion of Judgment.

Reading from your text it seems to me that you are delving into “religiosity” and made up mysteries regarding this issue and others.

Response: The term religiosity means, what? – a broad sociological study of religion?. The western tradition with its history of philosophy has been influenced by early Christian Fathers, like Augustine and Aquinas, and conversely, philosophy has affected Christian theology. The two are not mutually exclusive as this string of posts is held within the category of philosophy.

when God says we are made in His likeness, He is a lot like us, yet so much higher than us! Response: Yes, that would be correct assuming God exists, and I myself do believe that God does indeed exist, so I take this part of your statement to be true, where true means correspondence between a statement and a fact.

This is not difficult or complex, and we should not make it so. How do you Whit expect to witness to someone with this “heavy message” that you have? Isn’t that what our responsibility is, according to Jesus?

**Response: So far of what I have written seems to me to be simple and clear and distinct. The NT does say, as the Mass ends: “Go forth, Mass is ended/Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life”, which includes announcing the “Good News” of Gospel. *

Best to you, and thank you for you comment. Whit*

 

[Whit_Dupree]

LilyM;10730029:

**

Resurrection is a new body, the replenished resurrection body, *** that there is a continuum to rebirth. Humans come back to continue their lives – of course it is not possible to contiue them literally, as Time does not stand still. But to continue the quest.
***Then the energy climbs back up toward Heaven through those same Kingdoms: Minerals give birth to Plants, Plants give birth to Animals, Animals give birth to Men – Man is the Middle Principle and can contact the high and the low. It is a very scientific picture of evolution ***The Energy in the forms is God, or the Logos. The forms veil God. The forms get denser and denser, cutting man off from God. The forms are absolutely dense in the lowest world, the Mineral World – but the Mineral World also exhibits through crystallation the Mind of God, and God’s thoughts as geometry.***Buddhism was a reformaltion of Hinduism) Catholicism was an attempt to reform Judaismbut you can also focus on the similarities. They are all descriptions of a complex process, a process every human and every human culture takes, no matter what time they inhabit. The Source of all life is the same God. The forms of worship and the concepts are local, but the quest is universal: to find and know God and God’s laws. The Mind loves to focus on the differences; the Heart focuses on the similarities. The Mind brings war to the world. The Heart brings peace to the world.*that the goal of this whole process we are all engaged in is to build the New Jerusalem, to bring Heaven down to Earth.

Interesting summary, thank you. I would rather say to bring Earth up to touch the bottom of Heaven. Yep, only one Absolute, and if somewhat humanlike, then God would love the Buda, too, as well as animals.

Suppose you asked me to tell you a bedtime story, and tell me no lies. And I say that I had a close friend who had the ability since age 12 when her beloved Aunt died, of being able to converse with certain dead people who inhabit a nearby world and who are appointed to be her guide in the last stage of a reincarnated development. My friend undertakes to ask a series of metaphysical questionss: “Does God exist?” No answer; just a straight face back at you. “Does the historical Jesus exist?” Answer: “Yes”. Can you arrange for me to go ask Him a question? Answer: “I’ll go see.” The Guide (guardian angel) returns and indicates to hitch on to her tail feathers to travel a long distance fast; a light appears in the dark that gets brighter as they approach. Jesus is standing with his hand raised and says “Peace!” My friend asked the question, a metaphysical one, which is immediately voided into meaninglessness, because the immediate answer is an overpowering contextual sense of love with a repeated “PEACE”. My friend retreats in reverse as Jesus fades and her Guide rejoins her for the return trip.

Other answers the Guide provides directly: we are given up to four reincarnations for the moral development of our souls; our heads have an aura of light about them that in the other world can be seen; it is a moral thermometer; purity is white; red is less so; blue is rational; if one commits murder their chance of another reincarnation drops to a low number. Most people take four tries; but a few graduate in one life. If you don’t make it to Heaven, your soul is tuned down to zero; the soul is not destroyed; it just sits there without a heart beat; Satin does indeed exist, but he is chained to a frozen lake, half submerged. Are mankind’s religions and philosophers correct? Yes, in part, even when they appear to contradict, because reality (of Earth and Heaven) is vastly more than man knows. Will man colonize the solar system and the universe? Yes, as mankind is early in its history. Is Jesus the In-charge? Yes, He is the Lord. Does God exist? No answer [that is, I take ti to be: grow in knowledge and faith; as a third source of knowledge is revelation.]

Would you believe that story? Stories are half truths. Thus, stories are lies. Even real stories.