egotheistic pantheism revealed...

Thats no good. If you are short you would have to talk 'through' the body of the donkey. You run the risk of losing information because of the 'Donkey Sound Mufflage Coefficient'.There is an additional risk of the listener sneaking away from the talker if the donkey reaches the 'Critical Donkey Height/LoS Obstructive Level'.A better animal to use would be a kitten.Edited by Larni, : No reason given.

Yes you do, however you do it with grace - a quality lacking in many, including myself Ha! When young, I used that same plea - I agree with your cousins. I think I know what you mean. I always liked the silent church before any service begins. There is a certain calmness, that disappears during a service, when organized human affairs take over. It could be that it reminds me of the cathedrals of towering overstory old growth forests that I have stood in before. Do they really? Well shame - i say. I have heard preachers on the radio (Moody Bible channel) label environmentalist as wayward pantheist, worshiping the creation and not the creator. I never understood why though, as you would think that a believer would wish to honor the creation. I do know when I would borrow my Dad's truck and bring it back with a dent in it he would be get real mad.Maybe I am an unwitting pantheist and I need to sling some more arrows at Scottness (just kidding Rob I am done here, really)

I used to be the caretaker of a Roman Catholic cum Anglican chapel. I never once attended a service, but I always said it was one of my favourite buildings to be in. I've been there too. It is a very similar feeling.The problem with anti-pantheists is that they can't reconcile "God is everywhere" with "God is everywhere".

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

Well, wouldn't that work both ways? Why do you have to choose where to find God...church or nature?My point really has nothing to do with the architecture or grandiosity of a building...some churches entirely suck in regards to feeling 'uplifted' in them. Maybe I am going to church for the wrong reasons, since I usually get really mad at ugly churches What I am saying is that buidings are just places to house people...to have services in, to gather worshippers. Religion isn't housed in a building, but when I am done in nature I have no problem going into a building to pray. I get disappointed at the buildings, and the people in them, but I have seem some ideal situations where there was no harsh incongruity. As nuns, we DID pray in nature, every night when it was nice out. Or we chanted in church while violent storms howled outside. It was all ebb and flow, and blurring of lines. Just because it's not like that out here, I can't give up the ideal, and I don't have to chose between 'Good' and 'Good'.

Well, you don't. That was my point. If God is everywhere, you don't need a building to commune with Him. Nor do you need people with similar beliefs.Those things are nice too, but don't confuse communing with God and communing alongside your fellow man. Don't raise the edifice we built above the edifice He built. Hmm.... It occurs to me that a lot of those old cathedrals were shielded with lead.

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

Yep that is cool...My own experience draws from a century old Anglican cathedral in a small town in Saskatchewan. Modern church buildings just don't have the same soul.

I don't expect a Catholic paper to say saving trees is equivalent to saving the lives of the unborn...but I don't like quotes which sound like saving trees isn't important at ALL; Sorry, but I don't trust people who hate nature, no matter what camp they're in, and I don't like over-kill activists on any side either. I have too much trouble distinguishing the loonies from the heroes. I guess I can gracefully admit my losses, huh? Thanks though.Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.

Small world.

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

Archer:Tell that to the egotheistic (New Age) pantheists... I already know. That's what I've been trying to say. I do my best to tell people that Jesus is Christianity.I'm confused. Is the message getting through?Archer:No, you're wrong on that point. It impresses a lot of people when it is done in the name of 'freedom from moral absolutes', and under the guise of being 'inclusive'. Sounds to me like you're describing the gay rights movement.Archer, I am proud of you. You're preaching logical Christian reasoning and were not even aware of it.Do you see how easily we miss the obvious?

Thats not the issue. The issue is "God is everything". God is one thing. God created all things. (directly or indirectly) God is not everything.

I'm not following your math there.If "God is one thing" and "God created all things", then God created God? And you haven't explained how "God is everywhere" differs from "God is eveything". "Everywhere" implies in eveything, doesn't it?

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

Actually, according to the leading Christian scholars, God is three things all at the same time.Seroiusly, tho, Ringo did not say "God is everything," he said "God is everywhere." Small, semantical difference it may seem, but it if you are going to call your God a "thing," then I do not see the problem with others seeing their God everywhere they look.

Allow me to be more precise. God is Spirit.Behavior is important, and actions do speak louder than words.I have heard it described much as in this analogy. The Holy Spirit is very polite and never forces His way into your house or your heart. He is with everyone on the planet yet He is not automatically in everyone on the planet. He knocks at the door to your house and you choose to either let Him in or leave Him out. He sits patiently in the waiting area until you choose to open those innermost doors that guard your soul and trust communion with Him. If it were any other way, none of us would ever sin for it would be like cheating on our wife...so intimate is His presence!As to the fact of Him being in the table, or the floor, or all objects from the largest stars to the tiniest rocks, I see no need for a Creator to be in His creation any more than I see the need (or ability) of myself to be in the computer images of my written thoughts. As to where the limits of Gods presence actually are, I really do not know. All I know is that I love telling others what His unctions tell me!

Ahhh...but so many of us cheat on the ones they love, including self-professed God-lovers.But, why does He (the spirit) wait at our doors, if God so hates sin.Why would God want or permit so much sin, if He were the only creative force?Why would God be so shy? Because He wants us to fuck up and be so desperate as to allow no other salvation but Him? Not even salvation through personal forgiveness from actual people one may have wronged? All that matters is that some invisible person forgives you?Does Satan/evil have so much sway that even the creator of the whole universe cannot control it?That does not speak to me about the power and glory of God. What that says to me is that people (you and me) have power over God and the Devil.Maybe that is what some people are afraid of. Having no avenue for unconditional forgiveness and having actual power over their lives without taking it.

Keyword: self-professed perhaps the implication is that we are not in a pantheistic reality and God is not prone to force His Spirit on or in anybody. He gives us our space to allow for individuality. So what are the implications involved in a duality of creative forces? Is there really more than one? When I am creative rather than destructive, am I not tapped in to the same creative force as perhaps you are?Edited by Phat, : quotesEdited by Phat, : darn quotes Edited by Phat, :

---

Convictions are very different from intentions. Convictions are something God gives us that we have to do. Intentions are things that we ought to do, but we never follow through with them.
* * * * * * * * * *

"Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system. I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance."- --Sir Isaac Newton