Abortion Debate – First Principles Posted in: Pro Life, Social

In my opinion this most important of topics must not be hijacked by religious dogma or women’s rights issues. Views on all sides of such things are passionate, fiercely defended, and for me, paradoxically, they simply cloud and distract.

Instead I suggest invested parties step back … way back … and review their personal convictions about who/what we are, and what life is? …

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Suffering By The Will Of God? Posted in: Aggressor-Victim, Suffering and an all-powerful benevolent God

That God is benevolent and completely in control, yet at the same time bad things happen in this world is a problem for logical and rational thinkers. I think. If we embrace any idea that artificially distances God from something he/she is absolutely in control of, i.e. to explain the suffering of this world without implicating God … as most religions tend to do in one form or another (law of karma, natural law, punishment for sin, our fault, the devil) … even though at the same time believing not a blade of grass moves without the sanction of God aren’t we deceiving ourselves and turning our backs on logical and rational thinking? …

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How are we all always serving God? Posted in: Divine Expression, One And Different, What are we doing here?

1. God chooses to taste and explore rasa.
Our life adventures, dark or light/conscious or unconscious regardless, contribute, albeit in a small way, to the completeness of that exploration. How? Our personal experiences of emotion/feeling, by dint of our enternal jiva individuality, together with our current lifetime tailored conditioning, have a uniqueness about them, and thus value because they add to the completeness of God’s exploration. …

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It’s not that I don’t believe in karma per se Posted in: Divine Expression, The Self Divine

When I say I don’t believe in Karma, it’s not that I don’t believe in karma per se, but I don’t believe in karma as reaction to thought and/or deed that one is obliged to accept. I find that sort of understanding fundamentally incompatible with the divinity of the soul in that this idea of karma is simply a thinly disguised version of against-my-will-obliged. …

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Rethinking Faith and Belief Posted in: Faith

The questions ‘Do you believe in God?’ and ‘Do you have faith?’ are both often taken as ‘Do you believe God exists?’

I propose a more personalised way of understanding.

‘Do you believe in God?’… not so much about ‘Do you believe God exists?’ but more along the lines of one person saying to another ‘I believe in you’. Others may doubt you, defame you, misunderstand you, but I still believe in you. …

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Self Divinity Posted in: The Role-play Game, The Self Divine

Bondage of karma, fallen soul etc., … this type of thinking can go unchallenged/sit comfortably with the idea that we are not God. That our being a separated part and parcel of God more or less minimises the fundamentals of our continued divinity. I feel this is a false argument … much in the vain of the passing of huge amounts of time makes the ideas of natural selection / random mutation / man from monkey / big bang / primordial soup / something-coming-from-nothing, seem plausible. …

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Life on Earth – like a wonderful vacation? Posted in: What are we doing here?

In pondering my own mortality, and in particular the temporary nature of life on Earth, I stumbled into a comparing of my life here with the taking of a vacation.

That a vacation is temporary is not normally perceived as a problem.  And that a holiday is not forever is not actually thought of as an impediment to enjoyment of the holiday. …

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Spiritual ABC: Everyone is brother / sister Posted in: Seeing the Divine

How strange it is that cultivation of the sense of ‘other’ is prominent in so many of the religions of the world? Surely understanding that everyone (and I’m not just talking about human beings) and everything comes from God is at the very ABC beginning of spiritual vision? That being the case, we are all family … brothers and sisters so to speak.  …

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Non-judgementalism Posted in: Freedom From Judgement

Many religions consider freedom from judgement of others a saintly quality. But how attainable is it for a person of faith? Especially when at the foundation of their existence are a number of huge personal judgements. For example

  1. What I believe to be truth IS true (I judge it to be true)
  2. My beliefs are not actually beliefs at all … they are knowns – revealed to me by God
  3. I know a lot about God … certainly enough to know that others who disagree with me are wrong
  4. The goal of life is prescribed by God

How is it possible to maintain such convictions, and at the same time whole heartedly celebrate the divinity and perfection of others – and especially when their life paths are opposed to your chiselled in stone truths? …

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