Where would yo like to live?

[BobCatholic]

I want to live in the Garden of Eden. But I’m not allowed to because God holds me temporally responsible for Adam and Eve’s sin. Not spiritually responsible, that was taken care of by Jesus Christ.

 

[Gaber]

If you could choose, would you prefer to live in the Garden of Eden, or here and now? Please give a short explanation if you answer the poll.

Couldn’t answer the poll: what I see as the correct alternative isn’t stated and the two are mutually exclusive. I sayhis because unless the awareness is “cast out” from instinct, which was the “Garden,” it cannot pass through the “subject/object” phase of elevated awareness we regard both as “normal” for humans, and mistake as the result of “original sin” as an “evil,” or turning away from God, or Union. But having progressed to the kind of awareness we call “human,” we have the option, that few take, of transcending th mind, or “the adversary,” and attaining a state that can be understood to be fundamental to either a Garden or eing human, or even Heaven as it can be more closely and correctly, as I see it, approximated.

 

[Cristiano]

But have you done it before?

I don’t think even believers can fully appreciate what it’s like to stand face-to-face with God for eternity, and for that existence to be the greatest happiness you could ever imagine. We have an idea of what it’s like; maybe you’ve felt it on a pilgrimage or at Mass, after witnessing a miracle, or after God has done something spectacular in your life. But even that experience is only an idea of what we would expect in heaven, because earthly happiness is not only temporary, but it also comes from earthly experiences.

I never said anything about full appreciation. However, if I do not like to be burned with a match because I experienced it and so I am quite sure that I do not want to be doused with gasoline and put on fire. You make my point with your paragraph describing how we already get an idea of it here and now.

 

[GEddie]

As nice it would be to walk around naked, eat free food, live forever, have no bills, no work, no predators…I’d rather live in the real world. I think Eden would be boring.

I don’t think so.

We experience boredom because we feel that we MUST be active at all times, so we are uncomfortable just “breathing and being”.

We have that sense because we feel the hand of death digging into our neck. Death requires us to “make every moment count” and so it feels wrong not to.

If you were alive forever, you’d see nothing wrong with lying around naked and filling your mind with God’s mind

IMNAAHO

ICXC NIKA

 

[Gaber]

I don’t think so.

We experience boredom because we feel that we MUST be active at all times, so we are uncomfortable just “breathing and being”.

We have that sense because we feel the hand of death digging into our neck. Death requires us to “make every moment count” and so it feels wrong not to.

If you were alive forever, you’d see nothing wrong with lying around naked and filling your mind with God’s mind

IMNAAHO

ICXC NIKA

That is very pious, and yes, the inevitability of death can be used as an advisor, if one consciously practices that. But ordinarily, I’d say that people keep as busy as some do, we here looking mostly at our own culture, do that to avoid, consciously or not, looking at themselves and how thy atctually think react, and generally are. Introspection is often frowned upon, and the most uesful form actually gets a look ascance from our Church.

And “alive forever” is easily metaphoric for something not pertinent to the physical body at all.

 

[GEddie]

That is very pious, and yes, the inevitability of death can be used as an advisor, if one consciously practices that. But ordinarily, I’d say that people keep as busy as some do, we here looking mostly at our own culture, do that to avoid, consciously or not, looking at themselves and how thy atctually think react, and generally are. Introspection is often frowned upon, and the most uesful form actually gets a look ascance from our Church.

And “alive forever” is easily metaphoric for something not pertinent to the physical body at all.

I don’t know what you mean, introspection is definitely encouraged by the Church. What useful form do you think it disapproves?

(BTW, when I say breathing and being, I mean just that, and not “introspection” if by that you mean an intense effort to think about oneself. I mean just lying around in your naked body, and enjoying your being; I imagine A&E did some of that before they fell.)

And at least in association with our LORD, Him being alive forever did indeed involve His human body (although not HIS standard–issue human body, but pneumatikon soma).

ICXC NIKA

 

[Gaber]

I don’t know what you mean, introspection is definitely encouraged by the Church. What useful form do you think it disapproves?

(BTW, when I say breathing and being, I mean just that, and not “introspection” if by that you mean an intense effort to think about oneself. I mean just lying around in your naked body, and enjoying your being; I imagine A&E did some of that before they fell.)

And at least in association with our LORD, Him being alive forever did indeed involve His human body (although not HIS standard–issue human body, but pneumatikon soma).

ICXC NIKA

Yes, some forms of it, which are primarliy used, as far as I can tell, for determining guilt, eg, the examination of conscience, something that has gone awry in my opinion. And of course it encourages contemplation of the Sacred Heart, and of other such things, but they are all premised on division, Catholicism bein an “ascending” religion. But many Catholic mystics and contemplatives have circumvented that premise successfully while appearing not to, as the actual question implied in the search for God on that basis is very present. In that way those who succeed join their brothers and sister of both East and West and come to the inevitable conclusion of that practice. But the direct question, as it is most useful, in my opinion, is not asked as such by the Church, and discouraged by implication.

It doesn’t take an intense effor to think about oneself. Most people do that rather naturally almost all their wakiing hours, and do it intensly enough to miss much that would be otherwise useful if they were mindful, instead.

As for just lying around in your naked body, and enjoying your being, I do that anyway, even under my clothes. I have a notion that I’m not alone in that, despite all of us being “fallen” without which grace we couldn’t enjoy that bit of recreation anyway, and certainly not as an abstraction.

And though it is, of course, wonderful that you have book learning about such a thing as “pnematikon soma,” do you ever wonder if you have even a clue as to what that might mean in actuality? I mean beyond an intellectual definition that allows so many of us to convince ourselves that we know something as distinct from simply having retained some relative information?

 

[GEddie]

Actually the Church understands a great deal about pneumatikon soma, via S. Paul, who first introduced the term in the Church context.

Pneumatikon soma is not something esoteric and mysterious as you seem to imply. It is exactly what the term means, a body, spiritual body. Just as much so as the one you are breathing in now under your clothes (which body S. Paul referred to as psychikon soma).

Our LORD breathed and moved His way out of death, a living human being in a live body. And while you and I will not, like HIM, escape the physical corruption under the law of entropy, His example shows that we will emerge into life everlasting anyhow, in a full-body form. That is the hope expressed via the term pneumatikon soma.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Gaber]

Actually the Church understands a great deal about pneumatikon soma, via S. Paul, who first introduced the term in the Church context.

Of course it does, and so do you, perhaps. but that is not what I’m talking about. Paul, and many others, had an experience of being face to face with the Divine. He spoke and wrote about that, *dilineating his own experience *as a pointer to a possibility. That pointer has come to be taken as actual knowledge of its referent, Nothing coould be farther from it, because not having experiened there is ther thought “I know this exists and I can talk about it and make extrapolation.” Nonsense. That is book learning and embodies the danger of any group of faithful claiming they “know” the truth. In fact, they have thoughts about what someone with an original revelation said about the truth. So faith is in fact an about an about, not an “it.”

Pneumatikon soma is not something esoteric and mysterious as you seem to imply. It is exactly what the term means, a body, spiritual body. Just as much so as the one you are breathing in now under your clothes (which body S. Paul referred to as psychikon soma).

Wuld you please include a reference as to whic of Paul’s epistles you find this, or in which of the ones attributed to him contains it. It sounds like the original to me, but I don’t have the referece. And though it may not be esoteric and mysterious as far as an intelectual definition, even the Catholic Church has an esoteric tradition which is concerned with that question as those who are more thatn superficially interessted in what that is do some serious work, not being satified with reading about something and saying “Oh, That’s simple; I know.”

Our LORD breathed and moved His way out of death, a living human being in a live body. And while you and I will not, like HIM, escape the physical corruption under the law of entropy, His example shows that we will emerge into life everlasting anyhow, in a full-body form. That is the hope expressed via the term pneumatikon soma.

As good and true as that may be up to a poiint, we won’t go there until a few other things are cleared up. Or we won’t go there at all.

 

[GEddie]

Of course it does, and so do you, perhaps. but that is not what I’m talking about. Paul, and many others, had an experience of being face to face with the Divine. He spoke and wrote about that, *dilineating his own experience *as a pointer to a possibility. That pointer has come to be taken as actual knowledge of its referent, Nothing coould be farther from it, because not having experiened there is ther thought “I know this exists and I can talk about it and make extrapolation.” Nonsense. That is book learning and embodies the danger of any group of faithful claiming they “know” the truth. In fact, they have thoughts about what someone with an original revelation said about the truth. So faith is in fact an about an about, not an “it.”

Wuld you please include a reference as to whic of Paul’s epistles you find this, or in which of the ones attributed to him contains it. It sounds like the original to me, but I don’t have the referece. And though it may not be esoteric and mysterious as far as an intelectual definition, even the Catholic Church has an esoteric tradition which is concerned with that question as those who are more thatn superficially interessted in what that is do some serious work, not being satified with reading about something and saying “Oh, That’s simple; I know.”

As good and true as that may be up to a poiint, we won’t go there until a few other things are cleared up. Or we won’t go there at all.

Not at all, perhaps, unless you are willing to drop the philosophical jargon and talk like an average (nonphilosophical) human being.

I am a nonphilosopher and proud of it. To me, things mean what they say. I don’t look for hidden meanings. Our LORD said body. I take that to mean body. SP said, pneumatikon soma. Greek is not my language, so I trust my Church, which teaches that that, too, means body, although not precisely the same as I know and breathe in now.

You seem to rely on personal experience as your source of knowledge. OK. Maybe you should relate that experience such that others may understand you.

God Bless and ICXC NIKA

 

[GEddie]

Gabe,

The term pneumatikon soma (spiritual body) is used only twice in Scripture, in 1 Corinthians 15. (by S.Paul).

The context is the resurrection of the dead, particularly the question of their soma (body). On the basis of this scripture, it is clear that pneumatikon soma is a body in the same way that psychikon soma (natural or “human body”) is a body.

God Bless and ICXC NIKA!

 

[Gaber]

Gabe,

The term pneumatikon soma (spiritual body) is used only twice in Scripture, in 1 Corinthians 15. (by S.Paul).

The context is the resurrection of the dead, particularly the question of their soma (body). On the basis of this scripture, it is clear that pneumatikon soma is a body in the same way that psychikon soma (natural or “human body”) is a body.

God Bless and ICXC NIKA!

Thanks for the info! I appreciate that. I will look those up.

 

[InJesusItrust]

Here and now, but that only because I believe Adam and Eve were considered creations and not children and the Garden of Eden is not heaven but an earthly paradise. The suffering is worth it to go to heaven.

 

[Gaber]

Not at all, perhaps, unless you are willing to drop the philosophical jargon and talk like an average (nonphilosophical) human being.Is there such a thing?? I thought one of the defineitons of “man” was “The animal which philosophizes.”

I am a nonphilosopher and proud of it. To me, things mean what they say. I don’t look for hidden meanings. Our LORD said body. I take that to mean body. SP said, pneumatikon soma. Greek is not my language, so I trust my Church, which teaches that that, too, means body, although not precisely the same as I know and breathe in now.