God Spirit

Thoughts about Abraham and Jesus

2009-08-12T02:11:00.002-07:00

When God told Abraham to sacrifice his son, (an Angel told him to stop just before), many people interpret this to be a test of Abraham, was he willing to do Gods word even to the extreme of sacrificing his own son.

But I think it was more than that, it also relates to Jesus, how great of a thing it was to ask Abraham, and at the last moment Abraham's life was spared, but Jesus was sacrificed.

Also though, in the book of John, Jesus talks about forgiveness, and Jesus demonstrated a willingness to forgive even the taking of his own life.

Today throughout the world, we have many groups of people hating each other and we get a cycle of vengeance and that cycle never seems to end. Jesus took the first step in ending the cycle.

I have had dreams all of my life about a changed Earth, and while the physical changes are remarkable and beautiful, what is most notable is the society.

There are no fences, many houses have open doors and windows, there is no violence, very little in the way of material possessions and yet, we have all that we need.

People still have jobs, but much fewer hours are spent because we produce only what we need. The free time is spent with family and friends, telling stories, playing games, making music, and just enjoying and appreciating the wonderful world we've been given.

Such a society could never exist with the hatred and lack of love that exists in the world today. This new world is what God wants for us, this existing disaster is not. But it's up to us to change.

It's going to be hard for me and I know for many people. But I believe if I ask Jesus to come into my heart and change it, it will happen, and I do that. Admittedly, I fear the pain that will be involved, but I've seen what the new world looks like and I've come to realize that I'm not such a good director of my own life.

But we're all in this together. A lot of the people I've talked to are very turned off my religion, but I would suggest to you that religion and spirituality are very different.

I would particularly encourage you to read the book of John and the other gospels, and ask God to bring you wisdom. I don't claim any sort of wisdom myself, I've made a mess of my life and hurt others, but I understand now that Jesus showed us the way to a new and better world, and loved us so much that he died to give us life in that world.

So if you've been turned off by religion, or not; I would encourage you to try to read through the book of John, understand what is being said; and see if you don't feel the love of Jesus come to you.

I know I will be going through some material difficulties, and I know I won't live in this body to see that new world because I've been told I will not be here for the final hour, but I will see it in a new body if I do God's will. That's a big challenge but I want to see an end to suffering and craziness that exists in this present world.

Science, Religion, and God

2009-08-12T01:54:00.001-07:00

One thing that troubles me about our current state is science and spirituality are viewed as being at odds with one another.

Sure religion and science have run-ins, religion is a belief system, science is supposed to be a process, but after years of vested interest it often becomes an equally stagnant belief system.

There are things that we are told in the Bible that if applies to science would accelerate rather than retard it's advancement. The Bible tells us not to be proud and arrogant. A problem that seems to affect science is that people spend a lot of years studying to get letters after their name, then publish to earn a living. Their living comes to depend upon their reputation and there pride and arrogance become hard to resist. With that often comes an attitude that what has been learned is absolute and that everything is already known. Any evidence that contradicts that is an insult to the ego and discarded.

Science and direct spiritual experiences are two distinct ways of knowing, science deals with knowing that can be proven and demonstrated, but it is very poor at dealing with that which can't be easily proven or shared. Unfortunately, many natural phenomena fall into the latter category, especially those dealing with the more interesting aspects of nature such as consciousness.

Objectivity is highly prized, but impossible to obtain for it is impossible to rule out the role of the observer. Science often excludes spiritual experience and knowledge because objectivity is impossible to obtain, yet in truth, objectivity is impossible to obtain scientifically as well, the subject always affects the results.

Some areas that trouble me, science expounds the existence of the so-called "God part of the brain", suggesting that because seemingly spiritual experiences can be provoked by stimulating certain parts of the brain electrically or magnetically, that the spiritual experience is just a hallucination of sorts.

This logic is flawed, it is no different than saying because stimulation of the visual cortex creates visual effects, that everything we see is a hallucination.

What brain science fails to find or explain, is the man within the man. It can readily explain how various signal pathways and processing take place, but it can't explain why we subjectively experience something. A machines state doesn't automatically imply that the machine experiences that state, unless you suggest that all machines and perhaps everything is imbued with consciousness, and perhaps this isn't entirely off-track.

I believe that humanity would benefit if science and spirituality weren't always at odds with each other and if religions would be open to genuine spiritual exploration.

The more my understanding of both science and spirit evolve, the less they are at odds. I know that as a human being I can never fully understand God or God's plan, nor will I ever fully understand the universe that God created, but I am coming closer to understandings that are consistent both with observation and God's word.

I wish people could integrate these things more because they're both methods of knowing more about the same reality in which we live.

Egyptian Beliefs

2009-03-12T01:32:00.001-07:00

The guest on a late night television show is an Egyptologist. I didn't catch her name but it was a statement that she made that I found interesting.

She said that the ancient Egyptians believed that if you wrote something down it would come into being in the next life.

I'm curious how broad that belief was since many common day transactions and occurrences were recorded and surely those were more a matter of record than prediction.

This didn't seem entirely appropriate to this blog except that I'm curious as to how the ancient Egyptian belief meshed with Christianity. Someone once loaned me a copy of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, (translated into English), and their beliefs regarding the nature of humans and the afterlife was extremely complex.

Anyway, the idea that writing something down would make it come into existence in the next life is not something that I extracted from the book, so I'm curious where it did originate.

Modern Science in an Ancient Book

2009-02-26T00:41:00.000-08:00

I'm of the belief that science is not incompatible with Christianity or spirituality in general and I feel rather taken back at the constant fight between the ideas of creationism and evolution.

Creationists insist on taking all of the Bible entirely literally. While it is clear that parts of the Bible are historical narrative intended to be taken literally, other parts are metaphorical or poetic, and not to be taken literally.

That God created everything doesn't have to be at odds with evolution which only describes one process used to implement that creation.

Even things as fantastic as the sun standing still have a possible basis within accepted laws of phystics.

I believe that the more we advance science, the more we understand about the nature of reality, and the more we learn to correctly interpret scripture, the less science and religion will seem at odds.

Questions

2009-02-23T14:45:00.001-08:00

Many people who write blogs on spiritual matters do so from a position of assumed authority; I really created this blog as a matter of sharing my own exploration and hoping that it might further that of others as well.

I've had an instance of what I consider to be direct intervention early in my life; but after that really walked away and did not keep Christ in my heart.

And where Christ is not present, Satan has a field day and I can see now how a trap has been laid; I will not accept Satan's terms, whatever the cost.

So I am trying to follow God's will but find it difficult still but I am trying. I am trying to understand better what God intends for my life; why I am still here and I'm finding that difficult; there are many things I know I should do but to focus is difficult.

I try to understand Christ; forgiveness by God's grace, but the gospels, particularly John, are full of quotes of Jesus saying things like Judge not lest ye be judged, or forgive and they will be forgiven, which seems more legalistic. Clearly we're not up to being on par with Jesus when it comes to forgiveness or compassion.

I try my best, but my best doesn't seem all that good. Fear rules my life all too often and I find myself running away from doing the right thing.

Quodlibet Journal

2009-02-23T14:39:00.000-08:00

I was referred to this site by one of my customers who is a reverend and whom I had asked a question with respect to references in the Bible concerning references to Sons of Gods and the Nephilim. Unfortunately, the only thing I could conclude from the writings on this site was there were as many opinions as there are people who have thought about the subject. In the end it remains a complete mystery.

This website is interesting overall, although I don't agree with everything or even much of what is posted, particularly with respect to the death penalty which the author suggests is part of creation, but there is much in Mossiac law that was changed by the coming of Christ.

At any rate; it's some food for thought so I added it to the sidebar.

Victor Zammit

2008-11-04T20:28:00.000-08:00

I added a link to the sidebar to an interesting website, Victor Zammit; that primarily concerns itself with evidence for life after death; but also there is material relating to the general nature of spiritual reality.

I haven't posted here for quite some time because it really has come to feel like people aren't getting it.

But tonight; on my 50th birthday, the end of a half century of being alive; and the beginning of another; I watch the election returns; and the country that I had thought to be totally apathetic, uncaring, and doomed to self-destruction appears to have turned a corner.

I feel genuinely optimistic for the first time in decades.

Easter

2008-03-23T03:06:00.000-07:00

Easter really has taken on two meanings. The familiar bunnies and decorated chicken eggs that bunnies have to stay up late to hide so their kids (and/or family pets) can find them the next day. That part of Easter is really a fertility rite; bunnies and eggs, symbols of fertility; it's spring, crops are planted, we hope they do well and provide an abundance come harvest time.

Easter as a religious holiday is the day Jesus rose from the dead, after having died on the cross for our sins, to give us the gift of forgiveness.

I'm not a member of any organized religion. I've explored many, and I've found truths in many. But I do feel that Jesus was a real person, and that God sent Jesus with a message of forgiveness. This isn't the message you usually get from most ministries. The message we usually get is, "if you don't do as we say you're going to hell".

If you take the time to read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you find a message of Love and Forgiveness, Jesus died to give us the gift of forgiveness, but it comes to us only if we also accept the responsibility to love and forgive, to love God with all of our hearts, soul, and mind, to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to forgive and not to judge.

God didn't create us just to judge us and then send us to hell. What sense would that make? God didn't create us to hate and judge each other, we are all God's creation.

We all have what we would consider flaws; we hurt each other; we do things that are harmful to other life, and that can be anything because everything, even the rocks have life. But these things aren't really flaws; for if we were all "perfect", if none of us ever did harm, then there would be no choice to love, and that wouldn't be real love at all.

God could have made us perfect beings that always put others first, always thought in terms of least harm, the best for all life; the way we know we should think, but then our love wouldn't be genuine because it wouldn't be of our choice, and to the degree any choice did exist it wouldn't mean much. How hard is it to love someone who has always treated you perfectly, always put you first? God loves us and wants us to love God, and God could make our lives free of pain and suffering, but we need to make an unbiased choice to love. God gave us what we need to live a good life, but collectively we have to make that choice.

It seems pretty obvious to me why we have to forgive. Can you imagine a bunch of people going to heaven that still hold a grudge for each other? That wouldn't be heaven at all! And we can't ask God to ban others from heaven because we won't forgive them. We are all God's creation, why would God favor one over another? We could make this planet into a heaven if only we could all get love and forgiveness into our heart, and hatred and bitterness out. I believe that will happen eventually, but I do not know if it will be within my lifetime.

God has given us what we need to live a good life if we can get those things down but they are tough lessons and humans seem to be hard learners, some more than others, and unfortunately I'm pretty high up on the hard learner curve, but it's a question of how much pain we have to cause ourselves before we learn.

I believe this is why God has us here now; to learn to love one another; to learn to forgive. It's still a choice that we have to make ourselves, but the longer I live, the more I realize that not doing so only leads to pain.

I have wondered for a long time why God requires us to live in a way that is not our nature; when God does not place that same requirement on animals. But then I thought, what animals hold a long term grudge? And animals are infinitely better at giving unconditional love, real love; than people. It's already in their nature; for us we have to learn it. But then it occurred to me but that IS our nature; our human nature. Animals are born with instincts, they can do only what those instincts drive them to do, but humans do have the unique ability to adapt our behavior and learn; it just happens that pain is an unavoidable part of that process.

So I hope this Easter; we can see that Jesus came here to help us with that process; set the most perfect example that could be set for us and told us that we are capable of the same. Even greater deeds shall you do we were told.

Still, the world is full of discordance, bitterness, hatred, uncaring, greed. But I feel optimistic in that God has done things in my life that seemed impossible; and to be sure there are still some unanswered prayers requiring miracles, but I know all things are possible to God; and all things are possible to us with love, forgiveness, and God's help.

Hopefully, as a species, we can get over the name hangups, God is God whether God is called God or Allah, or number of names used by various world religions. Language is never completely adequate for communicating, it can only use symbols and all these names are only symbols for what God actually is. When we hear our leaders suggest that God will lead us to victory against our enemies, we must remember that our enemies are equally God's creation and God does not wish any of us to harm each other.

The basic truths underlying the world's religions are really all the same; even more so when you look closely at source documents and avoid the biased interpretations of religions institutions.

We need to give thanks for each other and love and forgive each other while we are here. Whatever comes next, right now we are here, and right now each other is what we have, and God's love. If we can love and forgive each other than I think there is hope for our species and our planet and God won't have to hit the cosmic reboot button.

Ongoing Life Experiments, New Format, New Theories, etc.

2008-02-19T05:00:00.000-08:00

I decided to change the format of all my blogs for several reasons. I've learned a bit of context style sheets and a bit of graphics image manipulation which gives me an opportunity to improve the look a bit. It is my experience that if people don't like the packaging, they won't even bother to look at the contents.

I hope I don't offend people with the banner image, but the image of God portrayed in the Monty Python film, "The Holy Grail", is not far from the image that I was presented with as a child. That God image involved jealousy, anger, insensitivity, and egotism. The image of God I was brought up with made God some kind of super-human with the emotional maturity of a below average thirteen year old. Most of all, God was external. This seems to be a fairly mainstream view of God still, however, it is no longer my view.

A blog is kind of like a public diary. Because it is intended to be public, I separated my thoughts to some degree and created blogs for different areas of interest. I feared that if I did not do so, my jumble of thoughts would confuse people beyond their ability to follow. However, it creates a problem because of the relatedness of everything.

I am interested in learning as much as I can about the nature of our reality, and I view spiritual paths and scientific paths as both valid avenues. Science and spirituality both have their limitations. Only phenomena that are readily reproducible on demand really lend themselves well to the scientific method of investigation. Spirituality and direct knowledge can teach us personally, but we can't share directly with others. We can know something but when we tell someone else, we can't prove it, unless they also experience it directly.

I have come to believe the following about God; that God is forgiving, loving, and continuously creating. I've come to believe that God is inherent in everything, and that God primarily creates our reality through directed selection of random events.

Let me explain that, evolutionists hold that life evolves by random mutations and natural selection. Religious fundamentalists believe that God created everything in seven days and from that point forward, it is static. I don't believe either theory is complete. Rather, I believe that natural selection isn't mindless, that "intent" of spirit drives the outcome of random events.

In the Bible when it says that in the beginning, there was The Word; it is my belief that what is meant by that is God's intent, and God's intent seems to have been to bring about the creation of a living, loving, conscious universe, of which we are one component.

There are still a lot of aspects that are mysterious to me; in particular why suffering is necessary. Is it necessary to have suffering in order to experience love? Is it a necessary part of our learning experience? Why do we have mortal bodies? I can speculate on these matters but really I don't know.

I do feel though there is a plan, a way that everything fits together harmoniously, and that we all have an inherent feeling when we deviate from that and then things don't fit well, are not harmonious, we have problems relating to each other in the loving manner that was intended.

I heard someone say that we have to be able to make wrong choices in order to make choices, and if we couldn't make choices, didn't have free will, then we couldn't really love. Maybe that's true, but wrong choices and their consequences seem to carry a high price.

Details

2007-09-18T03:46:00.000-07:00

Actually, here's a small detail I think I can share.

We can still believe in things we believed in as kids.
... from the Rocky and Bullwinkle movie

The relevance is that the physically impossible used to be regularly invoked in response to prayer when I was a child; and my question was, is it still possible as an adult; and as I was thinking about this; and actually writing about it, I heard that statement made by a character in the movie as if it were a verbal response to my question put forth to God.

If you're feeling like life is hopeless; think back to the difficult situations in life you experienced as a child. I had a few friends check out early over the past couple of years; and that's tragic because it eliminated any possibility for them to experience better times again.

Experiment Update

2007-09-18T02:45:00.000-07:00

After years of what felt like almost complete spiritual isolation, with only rare sporadic exceptions, I am finding myself flooded with communications. A conversation with God no longer seems one-way; and no, I don't have "voices in my head", but what I have been experiencing is an incredible amount of synchronicities and relevant dreams.

Unfortunately, I feel like I can not share the details right now. What I will say, if you feel lost; if you feel like there is no hope for your life; don't give up.

Jesus Doesn't Hate

2007-07-11T21:46:00.000-07:00

I went down to Alki today and there were a couple of people in a boat with religious hate messages. If one actually reads the Bible and tries to understand things in context, it becomes very clear that Jesus came here not to condemn the world but to save it, and Jesus repeatedly commands us not to judge and to love our neighbor, in fact he states after loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, that to love our neighbor as ourself is the second command and that these are greater than all of the others.

I had a discussion with one of my customers recently. They told me, if you want to understand the nature of Jesus, read the book of John. Having done so I've come away with the understanding that Jesus came here not to judge but to save and his message was a message of love and not hate.

Likewise, it is not my desire to pass judgment on the people in the boat. I am sure their intentions were good if misguided. However, I would like to encourage them and others like them to go back and read the book of John and also the other gospels.

If you want to motivate people to do the right thing, I feel it is better to motivate them through love, than through hatred, threats, and intimidation. People are attracted to love and repulsed by hatred, threats, and intimidation. If you want to bring people closer to God, it must be done through love.

Matthew 7:1

Do not judge or you too will be judged.

Mark 12:31

And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

Luke 6:37

Do not judge, and you will not be judged.
Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.
Forgive, and you will be forgiven.

John 3:14

We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.

Things

2007-07-10T12:13:00.000-07:00

Well things seemed to be going well and now a bit bumpy...

But, I ran across an article that was just too weird. I won't explain, go read it for yourself.

Experiments

2007-06-18T22:02:00.000-07:00

My experiment isn't exactly a pure one, and that's the frailty of human science, in as much as we try to be objective, the observer is part of the observed system and so true objectivity is not obtainable. None the less, things seem to be turning positive to some degree but there are still significant clouds as well.

I have been trying to be more spiritually aware, I've been trying to listen to God, if that makes any sense, and I don't have a firm belief system in any particular religion but I do believe in God, so I've pursued things on different levels. I have been saying the Lords prayer, sometimes several times a day because I believe in it pretty much everything important we can ask for is there and it helps to focus my intention on being what I believe God wants me to be. I've also been experimenting with some new meditative techniques and I think there is some benefit there as well.

Some positive things have happened, I was first put on Wellbutrin for ADD symptoms last August, and it would give me about three really good days and then about a week of moderately improved functionality and then by about three weeks I'd be more or less back to baseline. They'd bump the dose up and everything would repeat. I was told that "usually" one would reach a point where the benefit would remain but for me, I reached the maximum safe dosage and increasing beyond that had the potential for inducing seizures. So then they had to wean me off that and during that time I pretty much locked up.

Then they tried Provigil, again, it was beneficial initially, but I rapidly adapted to it.

Finally, Ritalin, or at least it's generic equivalent and that has given me lasting benefit. There was a couple of initial dosage adjustments to reach a beneficial dosage, and then it has provided me with stable benefits for about three months now.

During this time I've been able to get one years tax returns out of the way, still have more to do but I'm making progress, and I've been able to get much better broadband infrastructure in place for my Internet company, Eskimo North, and that is selling reasonably well and I expect will do much better once it's well documented on the web and advertised.

So those are bright spots.

On a very negative side, there are family members with age related health issues, and I worry about how long they are going to be on this plane and I feel like I'm losing a bit of them every day, and that's really hard to deal with.

My grandparents are all dead, many of my aunts and uncles have died, many of my friends have died and I am not yet at a point where I am either comfortable with their loss or my own mortality.

One of the things I really want to do before I die is document what I've learned and what I've experienced, and share those experiences and teach other people what I've learned. I feel that a lot of people could potentially benefit from what I know but I'm not a great communicator, or at least I don't think I am.

I made the mistake of borrowing money from my father when I hit bottom and I haven't been able to pay that back yet, so in his mind I'm scum of the Earth right now, but then I think I've always been too weird for him. Even before that I always had the feeling like I was being cross-examined when I'd talk to him but then I suppose that in part has to do with the fact that part of his career was working as a detective so perhaps that's just a natural response.

I wonder too though if being adopted isn't part of it, that being genetically unrelated, and different, is something that we are both unconsciously aware of. I was adopted when my parents didn't think they could have a child of their own and then my adoptive mother did get pregnant and they had my sister.

So I don't know, I pray for help with this but so far it doesn't feel like that help has been forthcoming.

One of the things that has always been puzzling to me is the nature of the Father/Son/Spirit relationship, it's something that has brought me disfavor with clergy I've asked because they always have pat answers that seem not to make sense. One of my customers made the simple statement, if you want to know about Jesus, read the book of John, and I've been doing that recently.

It's funny too because I've read through the Bible when I was younger, but now re-reading the book of John I am getting a lot out of it that I didn't before. One of the things I am finding through John is that Jesus is as I had felt Jesus was, someone who was loving not condemning which seems very contrary to the teachings of most churches that I've been exposed to, save for one, and that one wasn't successful at raising enough money to continue operating where they did.

I do wish I could read in the original language because I have read so much about inaccurate translations, and having learned foreign languages I understand that there are things that just aren't translatable. Languages do not allow us to fully express everything that is possible, at least not any one language, they all have words that have nuances that just do not directly translate. I learned Swedish and I found myself thinking things in Swedish that I could not directly translate into English; and not even indirectly entirely. There just weren't words to convey some of the nuances. I've been learning Chinese, and I am finding the same true of Chinese to the limited degree that I know it, I am not even close to fluent yet.

So I have to think that languages so far removed from English in time, there are going to be many things that just aren't accurately translated. I've had an interest in mythology for a long time and one of the things I find is that most stories in the Bible, there is a very similar story in mythology that predates the books of the Bible, but with one significant difference, the earlier versions are always polytheistic, while the Biblical versions in modern translations are mostly monotheistic though there are still some plural references to Gods. The similarity of the stories makes it hard to believe the Biblical versions didn't derive from earlier polytheistic versions and I've been told that references to God in Hebrew is mostly plural, but since I don't know Hebrew I can't confirm that myself.

Anyway, what I am learning about Jesus from John seems less "western" that the teachings of many churches or even other books of the Bible. I try to apply what I'm learning but I'm still not real good at it, still I am beginning to see there are many real truths present.

Easter, Judas and Jesus

2007-04-07T22:48:00.000-07:00

God so loved us that he gave Jesus Christ to die for our sins and to rise
again from the dead. We received the forgiveness of our sins and eternal life as gifts.

It would be nice if it were this simple but I think it comes with a responsibility, part of the Lords prayer:

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

While Jesus offers us redemption, it is our responsibility to forgive our fellow man.

The recent discovery of the book of Judah, and the knowledge that Jesus not only knew Judah would betray him to the Romans but in fact commanded him to do so, what that tells me is that he suffered and died knowingly and voluntarily for us, you can't love more than that.

I don't understand the whole son of God relationship; and actually for the first several hundred years neither did early Christians as churches disagreed, the council of Nicea dictated the meaning three hundred years after the fact. But I know Jesus loved enough to suffer and die.

I believe a prefect world eludes us only for our inability to love and forgive in this manner. I think instinctively we know this, that's the attraction in a pet, the desire for that unconditional love, and I think if we could all give that, and know we have it, the world would heal itself, at least that's my hope.

Chi, Qi, Ki, Prana, Pneuma

2007-04-04T14:05:00.000-07:00

The life energy, Chinese call it Chi or Qi, it's the same word really, pronounced "Chee", just a matter of what form of Romanization is used, Japanese call it Ki, Hindus call it Prana, Greeks called it Pneuma.

In all languages, it equates to breath or wind, we don't know where it comes from or where it goes, it flows. We breath it in, and if we choose we can become aware of it's diffusing into our tissues. It does seem to be intimately associated with breath or air or oxygen, it's flow affected by our breathing, and yet, it is not the same.

It's noticeably missing from Western religious traditions. I find myself wondering what mention of it may have existed in those books of the Bible that the Council of Nicea deleted.

I've had a number of lucid dreams in which I've traveled to other planetary bodies. Among them, Mars and Earth's moon. In both circumstances, I was aware of breath.

On the moon, knowing there was no air, in spirit form I could still breath. I was amazed by this but I could breath freely and easily. I know, if I took my body along for the ride, that would not be possible. Likewise for Mars, although there is some air, it is mostly carbon dioxide and has a thickness 1% that of Earth's atmosphere. But still I could breath easily there too.

I have seen demonstrations of what martial artists that refer to themselves as chi masters can do. I can't say for certain that a portion thereof is not illusion, but it was impressive.

I believe there is a reality to the existence "qi", and I think it's more than something that gives life to us, I think it is a part of God, or of God and directs the evolution of the entire universe.

Near Death Experiences

2007-04-04T13:57:00.000-07:00

Near death experiences fascinate me. People so often describe the experience as more lucid than normal waking life, super conscious, as if they had awoken from a dream and life had been the dream.

My mother tells me that she came home from work to find me passed out on the floor as the result of an asthma attack. I have no memory relating to that at all, not even that it happened.

It is the super conscious aspect of it that I find particularly intriguing. I'm not sure exactly what it is that is the basis for our own judgment of self-lucidity. Is our judgment impaired, or is the mind, freed of the brain, able to perceive more clearly?

While I haven't had any near death experiences that I can remember, I have had to two waking out of body experiences. In neither of those did I have any sense of super consciousness. My awareness of my surroundings seemed actually pretty ordinary.

Out of Body...

2007-04-03T00:08:00.000-07:00

On Coast to Coast AM, guest William Buhlman talks about out of body experiences. It's interesting to me because I've had two myself as well as many lucid dreams and I certainly haven't come to the same conclusions that Mr. Buhlman has.

At first I was thinking to my self, this guy is full of it... But then I got to thinking about how radically different the two experiences I have and given that I don't know that his aren't entirely different than either of mine.

He makes the statement that once you've had one you know you continue past your body. I certainly can't claim this on the basis of an out of body experience.

With the lucid dreams, I know for sure I can get information distant from my body because I have tested this by going some place in a lucid dream that I had not been to, writing down what I saw there when I woke up, then driving there and verifying what I saw matched, and it did.

Where lucid dreams are concerned, some might come to the conclusion that consciousness exists independently of one's physical body, however, from my perspective that only proves non-locality, that is that I can observe time and space not local to my body.

With the two out of body experiences I had, which were radically different from one another, I have had no such opportunity to test whether or not I can even obtain valid information.

In the first out of body experience, after meeting up with someone meditating in a basement, because I didn't want to travel great distances alone, we went to Alpha Centauri, which in this experience had a 4th planet capable of sustaining life. The specific goal was to go to another planet that had life.

The planet was larger than Earth, maybe 3-4 times larger, but like Earth it was a planet that the majority was covered with oceans and there were continents that had a very similar appearance to earths, that is not to say the same specific shapes or arrangements, but a similar land to water ratio, and similar over all form.

I observed the planet from out in space, at a distance similar to that of a geosynchronous satellite above Earth. When you see photographs of Earth from that distance, or even from the shuttles low earth orbit, you can see the atmosphere is very thin, just a sliver on the edge of the planet, but this planet it was substantial, much much thicker.

Still, much like our atmosphere it had water clouds and storm systems, but owing to the thickness of the atmosphere, it had a real three dimensional look.

I did not see a moon, at least not a large moon like Earth. Nor did I see polar ice. I've heard that without our moon earth would not be so hospitable to life because the polar inclination and with it the seasons, would be unstable. However the thick atmosphere on this Alpha Centauri 4th planet may negate that issue buy distributing heat making seasons non-existent.

I was then called back, had to return to my body; and break up a fight between the kids. I have no control over when these happens, the first one was spontaneous when I was trying a relaxation meditation I had just learned. I've repeated the meditation but without the same effect.

The second one happened when I was first put on a drug for ADD, and it was much less pleasant, accompanied by intense buzzy vibration feeling like being electrocuted, and a sound of 10,000 files buzzing around my head, and I kept going in/out of my body, and when I was out I was totally out of control, out in deep space somewhere and no control over where I went.

Still, I'm hoping that eventually a planet finder telescope system will be launched and determine what, if any, planetary systems exist there. So maybe someday it will be verified whether or not such a planet exists orbiting Alpha Centauri.

I knew nothing about Alpha Centauri prior other than the fact that it was close as stars go, 4.35 light years. After this experience I wanted to know more about Alpha Centauri, was it a viable terrestrial planet host? Well, it turns out incredibly that Alpha Centauri is incredibly Sun like. It is 1.09 solar masses (9%) heavier, but slightly older, such that the temperature spectral character of the light it gives off are identical. The orbits of Alpha Centauri A and B are sufficiently distanced that planets out to about the distance of the asteroid belt around Earth could have stable orbits around Alpha Centauri. So very likely Alpha Centauri could host life bearing planets.

So it's interesting to me that given the tremendous variability of stars in our galactic neighborhood, that Alpha Centauri should be so nearly a sun clone.

Bottom line though is that out of body experiences haven't proven anything to me in terms of my own continuance after I die physically, and neither have lucid dreams, so I'm not sure how these people come to the conclusions they do.

Experiment

2007-04-03T00:05:00.000-07:00

So far so far... My prayer experiment, I feel it's kind of mixed. Not an overnight success, not an overnight failure. Seems to be a general upswing but still some significant challenges.

My Religious Beliefs

2007-03-26T00:24:00.000-07:00

My beliefs are in a state of constant flux and revision so if I write something a week from now that is different, it only means that I've changed my mind about something. I don't feel like my beliefs are complete and they really are in a pretty heavy state of flux.

But as I mentioned in a previous post, I would consider myself an unorthodox Christian. Here is why.

I believe God and his creation (us, the entire universe) are not separate either from God in absolute terms, though I do think we build a kind of psychic barrier, or from each other. So in the end, whatever we do to each other we are also doing to ourselves.

I believe that because of our own embarrassment over harm we've done others or to protect ourselves from perceived harm, we build a kind of psychic barrier that cuts us off from each other and God.

I believe the story of Genesis involves the building of this barrier. The fig leaf, the hiding from God, is, like most of the Bible, symbolic, it's not the nakedness in a physical sense. It's being exposed emotionally that we are uncomfortable with.

Now there are some people throughout history who have been able to tear that barrier down. They have only been able to do so by leading absolutely exemplary life, treating everyone and everything with love and respect, and I believe these people were exceedingly rare, and Jesus went farther than any others in being willing to sacrifice his life.

Because of this I think Jesus was more connected, perfectly so, and that that is what is meant by the reference to Jesus as the Son of God. We are all sons of God, but the rest of us are isolated, because of our own sins.

The connectivity, if it existed, we would all communicate with each other perfectly, we'd feel what each other felt, know each others thoughts, and that's why we build this barrier, that is too frightening.

Further, we'd see everything in terms of the whole, and greed, and disrespect for the environment and other life forms, and all sorts of other problems wouldn't exist.

But the reality is that we are isolated, and we can't lower that barrier unless we can feel that when our sins are known we will still be loved. That can't happen without forgiveness, and there I think was the true message of Jesus.

Jesus was not, I'll die for you so you can be a massive screw-up and it's ok, Jesus was, I'm setting an example for you, you must be willing to forgive others even up to including those who would take your very life, and you must be willing to give it for each other.

The thing too is that we can only do our own part, and that's hard. We're all connected, so we all sink or swim together. We can only do the best we can and try to love others and try to forgive.

I believe this was what the message of Jesus was, prior to the Council of Nicea. Prior to the council, exactly what was meant by "Son of God", was not universally agreed to between churches, and that was one of the things the council, by decree, settled. But I don't believe they settled it correctly, I believe they settled for an agreement that would give the church the most power.

That's just my take and it might be different next week. But as we approach Easter, I think it's worth considering. When you think about Christ, nailed to a cross, waiting to die, and having done so willingly, think about what you think was intended. Just accept a gift, or accept a responsibility that goes with it, to forgive others.

Now all that said, it feels like to me that with all the evil that's in my heart, not to say all evil, there is some good there too, but the evil, can it be purged without ending my own existence?

I know the final outcome, when thy kingdom come, there will be no room for evil. And I want that kingdom to come but I do fear it may mean the death of me.

Now this part of my religious beliefs relate to Christianity fairly directly but not in an orthodox manner. Still, more different is that not only do I not believe we are separate from each other at the fundamental level, but we're not separate from God either except for this barrier we put up.

In the beginning there was the word. In the beginning there was no planets, no atmosphere, nothing to write on, so what is meant by "the word"? I think it meant intent. It was God's thought, God's intent, and that's all that was needed for everything to come into existence. But I don't believe God's intent created everything, I believe God's intent >is< everything.

There is a lot I don't understand though, I won't pretend otherwise, and it's all that I don't understand that is the reason I remain flexible and still revise my beliefs.

The whole free-will explanation that mainstream Christians give as the explanation for why suffering must exist, sorry it makes no sense to me. I do believe that most suffering is self-induced, but we seem driven to induce that suffering. I don't understand why that is but I'm certain it's true.

Anyway those are my thoughts on my religious views, not entirely complete but then my beliefs aren't entirely complete.

Now, with Easter coming up, how did symbols of fertility, rabbits known for their proclivity for rapid reproduction, and eggs, come to be associated with the death and resurrection of Christ? And why would a bunny want to steal and hide chicken eggs? Rabbits and chickens occupy such different ecological niches that I wouldn't think there would be much competition between them.

Life Experiment

2007-03-26T00:16:00.000-07:00

I am trying a seemingly minor experiment in my life. The experiment is very simple. Always, when I go to bed, before I go to sleep I say prayers. My prayers include the Lords Prayer, and a little one that I learned as a child asking God to take my soul if I should die in my sleep, and then one about life's present concern usually asking guidance.

Now when I was young, it seemed like prayers were answered, maybe not right away, but sometimes they were right away. But they always seemed to be answered, occasionally the answer was "no" however. And example of a "no" being when my father moved out. I prayed for his return but it didn't happen.

But in my later years as an adult the general trends in my life seem to have not been positive. It occurred to me that maybe it's because of when I pray. After the day is done, when I'm going to sleep, and then by the morning what I asked has been forgotten about and no longer in my heart or head.

So I'm trying an experiment, and that is to say the Lord's prayer in the morning, and try to think about what it means throughout the day. The idea being to keep it present with me and hopes that will help me find direction.

Now my religious views are kind of strange, I would consider myself an unorthodox Christian, in as much as I believe Christ was real, but my perceptions of Christ and what was intended by his presence here are not congruent with mainstream Christianity. I'll elaborate that is a separate post.

Sadistic God?

2007-03-19T14:38:00.000-07:00

Last night Art Bell had Maurice Cotterell as a guest on Coast to Coast AM.

His theories are many but one in particular is that through suffering we purify our hearts, and by purifying our hearts we allow the impurities of our soul to "drain out" through our hearts, and then we can return to God with a pure soul where he uses that pure energy to grow.

I believe in my heart this not to be true. I don't want to believe in a sadistic God for it would leave little purpose to life.

Sometimes the circumstances of my own life and those that I care about though make me wonder. I can't feel as rock solid about that as I would like.

Every night before I sleep I say the lords prayer. I keep trying to remember that prayers are not always answered instantly.

On the plus side, Maurice Cotterel also believes that the sun causes schizophrenia and I guess that would explain why Seattle, the city with the least sunshine of any major city in the continental United States, is such a sane place. Thank God the Aurora bridge is here, because if it were some place like, oh, Phoenix, the body count would doubtlessly be tremendous.

God's Plan

2007-03-01T14:44:00.000-08:00

I wonder if we did everything right, if we loved our fellow man, and all living creatures, and all of God's creation, and we loved Jesus and God, and never sinned, if we did all of these things would there still be human suffering?

Right now if we look at our world, we can see that much human suffering is of human origin. The starvation in Africa for example, enough food is grown world wide to feed everything but it's not distributed where it's needed.

All the people who have died or been mutilated in war, the people we killed in Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Laos to prevent communism from dominoing, (and what exactly would have happened if it had), or the people who have died in Iraq for oil company profits, suffering that didn't need to be.

At home all the cancer deaths that have resulted from various preventable things, cigarettes, bad food additives, and alll of the disease we could cure or at least better managed if the resources weren't wasted on are constitutes another huge group of preventable suffering.

I guess the big question I'm trying to get at, Does Gods plan require human suffering?

If we did everything according to God's plan, would we still have earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, forest fires, and other natural disasters? And if we did would they still harm us or would we somehow get out of the way?

The dreams I see of a changed earth in the Pacific Northwest, there are always two versions, and one version there is a lot of suffering, and the other changes still occur but they're gradual, gentle, give us warning to get out of the way and avoid harm.

The Nature of Good and Evil...

2007-02-22T21:43:00.000-08:00

I am confused about the nature of good and evil. Is it absolute or relative? A hungry cat is chasing a mouse. To the cat the mouse represents a good thing, a meal. To the mouse, the cat represents pain, torture, and death, evil. In human terms good or evil often seems to depend upon the social context. Is evil the absence of good as dark is the absence of light, or is it it's own entity? For example if light and dark were separate things then you could have dark bulbs that give off dark.

I had an experience as a teenager in which I was trying an experiment that allegedly could capture the voices of spirits on tape. The modern equivalent is referred to as EVP or Electronic Voice Phenomena. In the modern version using a tape recorder or digital record, a recording of the ambient is made in an area thought likely to have ghosts or spirits such as a mausoleum or cemetery. Then the recording is played back and listened to for voices other than the experimenters.

When I tried it, I was about thirteen, the protocol was somewhat different, instead of recording ambient noises, a recording was made of white noise, the sound you hear when you tune an FM radio or television to an unused channel. Then the recording is played back and listened to for voices.

I followed the protocol and played the tape back, and I didn't hear anything but I felt something come into the room which was incredibly cold and chilling, and challenging. I thought I could beat it but I believe it's hung around and caused problems for me throughout life.

My experience would tell me that evil is absolute not relative, and an entity in and of itself, not merely an absence of good. Maybe what I'm calling evil isn't though maybe the entity is just like a psychic cat and I the psychic mouse. It seems evil to me because it's drawing my life force. I think that is why it felt so cold; it was sucking the energy right out of me.

I've done that to other people and I know it's not a good thing to do. Every time I eat meat I feel like I've stolen something that belonged to the animal I am consuming. I feel I should become a vegetarian but then I feel drawn to eat meat like a smoker to a cigarette.

Suffering

2007-01-25T04:04:00.000-08:00

I wish I could pretend to understand some things but there are some things that just do not make sense to me.

We've had some wonderful neighbors for the 23 years we've been here. They were elderly when we moved in. Last night the woman of the couple died. I do not know exactly how old they are but her husband told us that if she had lived until the end of the month, they would have been married 87 years.

To me that is awesome beyond awesome. After all of those years I feel like God should have taken them at the same time. It seems nothing short of cruel to part them after almost 87 years together.

There are a plethora of religious sites on the web that purport to answer the question, "Why does God permit suffering?".

I am not satisfied with the answers they provide. Man is given free will. Man must be held responsible for man's actions. These neighbors were the nicest people you could ever hope to know. This was not the result of "mans actions", this was the result of mortality. We don't live forever.

I'm afraid it just doesn't make sense to me nor does it seem just. This guy is left alone at over 100, after 87 years of marriage, I just don't get it. Personally, I do believe in God, but I can't make sense of this.