Why are the New Age movement and other exotic ideas so attractive?

[Sufjon]

J

ust what is this elaborate fluff you put out with each post. Your spin on trying to combine your pagan and polytheistic approach with the Catholic faith is strictly a homespun creation that is blow away with even the most casual of inspections. But the root problem lies with insincerity - and this you must address in the mirror!

I think this is editorial commentary rather than a talking point, but that said, was there a point in fact that you wanted to discuss?

I tell you Christ is not an avitar and this is insulting and I am offended by this. You ask for an explaination so you can understand you will then apologize. I provide the explanaiton and you then dismiss it. I will not address this matter again.

-Can you explain why you are offended, and can you explain how Jesus was not an Avatar?

-I simply asked you if He was God in living form. This is what an Avatar is.

-Was Jesus God in living form?

-Was He Gos among us?

-If the answer is yes, then He was an Avatar.

I cannot help that you are offended by what I see as the truth. I have only asked you a simple question. You are free to answer it or explain how the definition doesn’t fit.

Christ is the Only Son of God - and not one of the players in your list of your human-made dieties. None of these creations of the human mind came from heaven to die for our sins - only Jesus Christ.

Calling the experiences that other of the world’s cultures have had of God among us human made or fabricated doesn’t make them human made or fabricated. You are of course aware that you have absolutely no proof that what you believe is true, yet I respect what you believe.

Your renunciation of your Catholic Faith is your choice, your issue and your responsibility. Many have tried to gently point out that your have chosen poorly - over and over again. You rebuff their attempts and spin out futile efforts at trying to effect congruence between paganism and the Living God. It isn’t going to happen and I have no idea who you think you are trying to deceive.

I haven’t renounced anything to my knowledge. I have only stated what I believe, and what I believe is inclusive.

In looking at pictures of the Hindu dieties, I am reminded of David’s criticism as recorded in Plasms 115 and 135 - “…they have eyes and see not, mouths and do not speak…”. Paganism and its slavery of the human mind has been with mankind for a very long time - Christ came to free us from such demonic bondage - but, we must use our free will to take His nail-imprinted Hand and follow Him. It is not too late to change course.

Again, as I have told you many times, Hinduism is neither pagan or polytheistic. We believe in one God. It is as though I would call you polytheistic because you believe in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. See there - three Gods! Of course not - One God in three persons. Same concept, but you only seem to be able to understand it in regards to your own faith. That’s fine, but you should refrain from throwing stones at what you don’t understand.

For your sake, I hope any such deceit presented to your CCD students has been corrected. You may find the following verses of specific bearing to this issue:
Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:42 and Luke 17:2.

I followed the program and lesson guide as prescribed. I have no interest in converting anyone. My Greek Mythology professor in college didn’t believe in Greek Gods. but he taught the class very well. I used that role model when teaching what I was given to teach.

Your friend,
Sufjon

 

[PRmerger]

J
-If the answer is yes, then He was an Avatar

It’s just that little old word: an
to which we object.

If you must apply Hindu words to Christianity, you must say, for it to be true, Jesus is THE Avatar.

 

[Sufjon]

It’s just that little old word: an
to which we object.

If you must apply Hindu words to Christianity, you must say, for it to be true, Jesus is THE Avatar.

This is kind of like waving the “Number One” finger for your team at a football game is it not? Of course on the other side of the stadium there are thousands more waving a number one finger for the other team. That makes it an opinion or a vote and not a fact in substance. What you are saying takes into account the experience of one group of people and gives it preference over the experience of other people, rather than to see the experiences of all people as components of a larger whole.

Your friend
Sufjon’

 

[PRmerger]

This is kind of like waving the “Number One” finger for your team at a football game is it not? Of course on the other side of the stadium there are thousands more waving a number one finger for the other team. That makes it an opinion or a vote and not a fact in substance. What you are saying takes into account the experience of one group of people and gives it preference over the experience of other people, rather than to see the experiences of all people as components of a larger whole.

Your friend
Sufjon’

Just 'splaining what is objectionable about your calling Jesus an avatar on a Catholic forum.

 

[Sufjon]

It was supposed to be your belief too when you had yourself baptised as Catholic.

My experience in Catholicism was partaking in a subset of a larger whole. There is no problem with that in my faith. I could as easily join a Muslim temple for a few years and still be a Hindu. See the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. He did the same.

Gog id Being itself

Again, what is being? I only asked for a definition. What is the being of something that exists before the existence of the material world?

Exactly. But not only that. It highlights that Christianity and Hinduism disagree on a quite a lot of major points, so your attempts at syncretism just does not work.

Can you explain how this is so? Saying that they disagree over and over again doesn’t make them disagree. It only means that you are saying the same thing over and over again, does it not? Look, I am open to discussion, but rattling back the same answer without substantiated discussion is like talking to Robo-Call.

But re-incarnation is not evolution. Suppose that you are already in the lowest caste in India (the untouchables) and you are also an extremely evil person. Do you still evolve upwards?

Yes, the two concepts are very inter-mingled, and yes, everything can move up. Remember that a lot of possibilities are open when the playing field is broadened to many lifetimes.

If this is so, you are saying that all those in the upper castes are better persons than anyone in the castes below them?

Again, this is like talking to a wall. The Caste system is not a religious convention in Hinduism any more than capital punishment is part of Christianity. If you want to start a thread on the evils of one society vs another, then we can do that.

First off, Christ is not an avatar.

Explain how this is so.

Secondly, the other so called avatars didn’t know Christ.

Sorry, but many of them have made reference to Christ.

I don’t believe in Avatars. I only believe in God.

So you are now Jewish?

Because you do not understand Christ. To understand Christ, study Judaism. Christ was a Jew, not a Hindu.

He was an expression of God to the Jewish people, yes.

Fact remains that whether you are worried or not about it is neither here nor there.

Yes, He is neither here nor there, yet both here and there.

Yes, and it is so very contrary to Hindu belief. So there’s the fork again.

Really, how so? It would be helpful if you would elaborate on some of your talking points rather than make proclamations. Remember, I have witnessed the proclivity in your faith to click one’s heels to proclamations, however one should not assume that everyone will react that way, rather, they may ask you for an explanation.

And I am sure of God’s love for you too.]

Good.

Who says I fear His wrath? You really don’t know Christianity. It’s horrifying to think you taught CCD.

Suppose you tell me? You are the one who keeps talking about the need to fear things like the devil and hell. That was simply my reply to your preoccupation with these things.

Only psychopaths don’t feel guilt at their wrong doing.

…and perhaps those who are not guilty of anything.

T

hat was not an insult. If it is a possibility for re-incarnation theology then what makes you think that you are above that possibility?

I have already explained that.

Your friend
Sufjon

 

[PRmerger]

Again, what is being? I only asked for a definition. What is the being of something that exists before the existence of the material world?

I suggest you read the Catholic Scriptures and you will find your answer.

 

[Sufjon]

I suggest you read the Catholic Scriptures and you will find your answer.

Hi PRMerger: If there is a particular passage or passages that define it, would you mind sharing them? My point is that God is conscious, and before there was form there was consciousness. I don’t see consciousness and the state of being at the formless level to be different. What we are at the level of form is sentient, which is not quite the same.

Your friend,
Sufjon

 

[GEddie]

Consciousness is a matter of science and medicine, not a matter of philosophy or religion. And being is of course separate from consciousness, at least for human beings. You are conscious because your working human head enables you to be conscious. If your head stopped working normally for whatever reason, you’d not be conscious, but you’d still continue being.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Sufjon]

Consciousness is a matter of science and medicine, not a matter of philosophy or religion. And being is of course separate from consciousness, at least for human beings. You are conscious because your working human head enables you to be conscious. If your head stopped working normally for whatever reason, you’d not be conscious, but you’d still continue being.

ICXC NIKA

Hi GEddie: It may be more correct to say that consciousness is not generally thought of as a religious matter by adherents to your faith. It is very much a part of the Hindu faith. What you have described in regards to the head is more a matter of sentience in our thinking. What is inside your head is the matrix of your nervous system and synapses that connect due to neurons firing off in reaction to (name removed by moderator)ut from the rest of the sensory system. Consciousness is far more vast than that, however, in most cases (particularly the west) sequestered or eclipsed by the sentient experience. In fact, this sentient experience is often mistaken for consciousness, as you have just demonstrated. We would say that God is the consciousness that pervades all of creation, and if you are not part of that consciousness, exactly who are you, where are you and what are you? If what is in your head is what you are, then you are a transient physical phenomenon, destined to nothingness. If you are clearly watching what you are, you will see that you are consciousness, and the bodily processes that are often mistaken for consciousness are just epiphenomena of consciousness, but not consciousness in themselves. Consciousness uses them to experience what consciousness creates, but they are nothing more than that. I believe that one could find this position to be consistent with modern science as well.

Your friend
Sufjon

 

[tqualey]

Hi, GEddie,

Excellent

Some heads are burdened with mental illness and other encumberances that cause many other problems before they actually stop.

God bless

Consciousness is a matter of science and medicine, not a matter of philosophy or religion. And being is of course separate from consciousness, at least for human beings. You are conscious because your working human head enables you to be conscious. If your head stopped working normally for whatever reason, you’d not be conscious, but you’d still continue being.

ICXC NIKA

 

[PRmerger]

Hi PRMerger: If there is a particular passage or passages that define it, would you mind sharing them? My point is that God is conscious, and before there was form there was consciousness. I don’t see consciousness and the state of being at the formless level to be different. What we are at the level of form is sentient, which is not quite the same.

Your friend,
Sufjon

Sufjon, it is defined on* every* page.

But, lest you fall into the fundamentalists’ trap, you must take the *entire *Word of God, understood in light of the faith which presents and preserves it, in order to apprehend God’s revelation.

 

[PRmerger]

Consciousness is a matter of science and medicine, not a matter of philosophy or religion. And being is of course separate from consciousness, at least for human beings. You are conscious because your working human head enables you to be conscious. If your head stopped working normally for whatever reason, you’d not be conscious, but you’d still continue being.

ICXC NIKA

Indeed. And when someone is under anesthesia, he is unconscious, yet still being.

Indeed, even a person with global developmental delays who has no consciousness is still being, yes?

 

[PRmerger]

If you are clearly watching what you are, you will see that you are consciousness, and the bodily processes that are often mistaken for consciousness are just epiphenomena of consciousness, but not consciousness in themselves.

What does Hinduism teach regarding human persons who have no consciousness? That is, the severely developmentally impaired person?

Also, do your Hindu gods create?

 

[Lokabrenna]

I just thought I’d interrupt to say that I find this discussion interesting (if a tad removed from the original topic).

 

[GEddie]

Indeed. And when someone is under anesthesia, he is unconscious, yet still being.

Indeed, even a person with global developmental delays who has no consciousness is still being, yes?

Anesthesia is a deliberate interference with head’s normal functioning to enable necessary treatment of the human body; the developmental failures you describe are a natural, long-term failure of such normal functioning.

ICXC NIKA

 

[GEddie]

Hi, GEddie,

Excellent

Some heads are burdened with mental illness and other encumberances that cause many other problems before they actually stop.

God bless

Well yeah, however, in mental illness and such, consciousness remains, as head function is only partially disrupted. Consciousness is lost only from major disruption: drugged states, a knock on the head, a choke hold on the neck (although those can also end your being).

ICXC NIKA

 

[PRmerger]

Anesthesia is a deliberate interference with head’s normal functioning to enable necessary treatment of the human body; the developmental failures you describe are a natural, long-term failure of such normal functioning.

ICXC NIKA

Okay. Not sure what you’re pointing out. Are you saying both are being? Neither are when they’re not conscious/aware? Or only one is?

 

[GEddie]

Okay. Not sure what you’re pointing out. Are you saying both are being? Neither are when they’re not conscious/aware? Or only one is?

No, in both situations, being remains; although stuations severe enough to end one’s being would also abolish consciousness:shrug:

ICXC NIKA

 

[benedictus2]

I agree, but does it mean then that “inter-religious dialogue” will never progress beyond an airing of views, and will mostly culminate in a hardening of positions? The complaint of the other religions is that we are sitting on a perch and “talking down” at them. Are we even sensitive to this perception, or do we say “too bad, but that’s it way it is”?

I would not call it talking down. Rather, it is acknowledging the fact that there is a major difference and that those from other religions who want to claim that their faith lines up with Christianity is under an illusion.

I have always maintained that the only way we know that there is some truth in other religions is because we know the truth. Otherwise we cannot determine which is true and which is false in that religion.

A fuzzy wuzzy approach gets us nowhere. And if there is a hardening of position on our part then that is to only to be expected if we claim to have the fullness of truth. Otherwise we compromise that fullness.

 

[benedictus2]

PR Merger, I have explained to you et nauseum in prior posts that the caste system is an outdated social convention and no longer prescribed as a religious component of Hindu society. In fact, it has formally been denounced by Hindu saints. If you would like to re-cover the numerous paragraphs wherein I explained this to you in detail, you should be able to find it in my prior post listing.

Your friend
Sufjon

That still does not get you out of the flaw in the “upward evolution” that you equate re-incarnation with. For the fact remains that the caste system exists because of this doctrine. And if the lowest caste is there because of some evil that they are paying for then that means that somehow, those in the higher castes have moved upwards because they are better as persons than those in the lower caste.

And again, suppose you have reached the bottom of all bottoms in the “human sphere” and still you remain evil, where do you go to in the next life if reincarnation is upwardly mobile?

You are taking it for granted that having experienced hardship, people will be come better persons. But some don’t. Will these who remain evil and perhaps worse than their previous life still move upward?

You gave the example of Himmler. You said that he will be sent to do some kind of hard labour in Korea. But Himmler was actually in a better position whilst being German so therefore the movement is downwards for him.

The upward movement would therefore apply only if one continuously becomes a better person. But how do we know that that is indeed the case.

And if begin a good dog is better than being a bad human being, then why move upward at all?