What to believe......

No, I have not heard of him, but I will see if he's in at my library; thanks for the suggestion!

Ah come on Hal. There isn't any doubt about your ability to move things physically; where there is doubt, as with your mental power, how would you know what did the actual moving?

But why does doubt matter? It is really a question of faith that I can move my pencil with my hand or my mind?
I'd like to know that, so that's why I'm going through this now, who knows, where I'll end up?

I guess I've been misunderstanding you. It's got nothing whatever to do with faith. The "faith that moves mountains," if that's what you have in mind, is built on faith in Jesus, and moves mountains through His power. Without faith in him you can't move nuthin. ("Without Me you can do nothing") Except if you figure out how to concentrate your mind into a ferocious weapon -- OR the demons who have been put in charge of you are given orders to draw you into belief in such a power, whichever.

In my view, language is one way we have of knowing and it's of great significance and utility especially for our way of life but it's not the only way. Our organism's sensory motor chemical genetic functions are prior to and only partially modeled by our knowledge and yet without it we wouldn't be alive.To limit knowing to what we can model by language is literalism and it tends at the extremism to fundamentalism or nihilism and the organism caught by a brain programmed to believe that it's linguistic model is "reality" tends to function in the rigid mode of the "true believer".If you used nihilism as a joke I'd find it funny but you don't seem to get it. "Being" can it be understood? So what if you can't "really" understand it, It Is. And claiming that because you can't plainly and precisely explain it, life is meaningless is very funny! Neither the Bible, nor Gita, nor words of the Buddha explain it either and to think that they do is to miss the mark.lfen

I am reading Rudy's interviews and he is amazing!
Reminds a lot of Tim Leary.
Thnaks again!

First understand that I'm not of the no language school of knowledge. Both Korzybski and Wittgenstein wrote books. The Buddha as well as Ramana spoke though both of them preferred teaching through silence they accepted that words were functional and necessary. I believe that one has to understand what language is and come to an appreciation of it's limits.I think a thread about the the philosophy of language, what Wittgenstein came to call language games might be interesting or not however it turns out. Most things that interest me don't seem to catch on here.I've run out of time this morning. I'll leave with a few questions for thought. In philosophy I believe it's called Theory of Knowledge.If I say I am 6 feet tall and you understand the meaning of that statement, what is it you know?If I say E=MC^2 and you understand that statement, what is it you know?lfen

So I'm going to hell for wanting clean dishing and willing myself to go into the kitchen, and using my will to wipe them in soup and water?"Dear Lord, I see my dishes are still dirty. It obviously was not your will to wash them or they would be clean. I humbly accept these dirty dishes to eat my food from. Thy will be done, not mine. Amen."lfen

I know that if we are both using the same definition for 'feet', then you are as tall I am.

Was it really so unclear? Willing something TO HAPPEN {abe: without my physical intervention} is OBVIOUSLY what I was talking about Lfen. Sheesh.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-24-2006 02:26 PM

Whats not Christian about it? Call it an occupational hazard.See if you can get a Christian to tell you that they were never swine themselves - now that would be an un-Christian attitude. Everyone is that way until God makes them otherwise. If it weren't for him that's were I'd be. It wasn't that I did anything to deserve it or am any better than anyone else. So don't take it as an insult or me being judgemental. It might sound that way. But "sounding like" and "being actually" are two different things. Like, the gospel "sounds" like a load of... er...hogwash to many. But it isn't "actually"

Where exactly does christ tell you to refer to non believers as 'swine'?
Does this apply to only those who have rejected christ or to those who have never known of his existance?Must be cold up there on the moral high ground.

I think you are over-reacting there. "Casting your pearls before swine" is a metaphor. It is not literally calling the non-believers "swine", just as it is not literally calling what is presented "pearls." Christians aren't the only ones who use that metaphor.

I hang suspended above an abyss of moral depravity of my own (ongoing) making. I didn't put the thread there and I didn't suspend myself from it and I did nothing to deserve my being suspended from it. And if that thread could be cut then straight down into the abyss I would most surely plunge.The phraseology is not meant to insult - what position am I in to insult - so please don't read it so. Man is born an enemy of God, up to his neck in filth. Thats the way it is.Do let me retract the statment if it still causes offence

Not nonbelievers, but people with certain attitudes, and it is in the Bible, which nobody so far seems to have acknowledged, so here it is:Matthew 7:6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.