Posts by JamesThomas

29

Would You Build an Ark...

by AGuest in

jw
friends

if you heard [god] ask you to?

or would you.... 1. check to see if he told anyone else to build one, too.... 2. ask anyone else if they also heard him tell you.... 3. check with your family, friends... or religious leader... to see what you should do.... 4. worry that you're "gonna look crazy".... 5. worry that you are crazy.... 6. wait to see if it's going to rain.... 7. wait to see if it's going to flood.... 8. say "no".... 9. ignore the request... and say/do nothing.... i'm just askin'.

peace to you!.

JamesThomas

Do you know, Shelby, if a builders permit is required in the East Bay to build an ark? And would just the County need to sign off on that, or also the Coast Guard and Animal Control? Big old timbers are hard to come by now days; may be a good idea to look into a cement hull or inflatable ark. Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Mom was right, I'm no good.

Seriously, dear, you just messing with us, or have you received some form of questionable demand, that would motivate you to ask others of their opinions?

j

57

Do you suffer from RELIGIOUS HYPOCHONDRIA???

by Terry in

healthy people don't go to a doctor.

if they do they are hypochondriacs.

hypochondriacs spend their time and money on imagined illnesses.

JamesThomas

Journey:

Are you only talking about religion's interpretation of God?
What about people like me that believe in God as the Creative Energy that produced space and matter and continues to evolve intelligently interacting with its own creation?

I certainly can not answer for Terry, but if you don't mind here is my take on your situation.

Religious interpretations and beliefs in a god are -- upon inspection -- only mental constructs to which we come to identify and become addicted, and which have no basis in reality. They are stories and imagery passed down to us from someone else's imagination. Does this make sense? Can you actually see this?

You openly confess that you now embrace beliefs and interpritations of a "God" far larger than the Biblical interpretation. Have we not just traded one illusory interpretation and belief for another? The names have changed, the story line has changed some, but the fiction remains the same.

The mind is a wondrous and powerful tool. However, when we allow it to determine and conceptually create our most foundational significance and reality, we are left holding no reality at all; only more beliefs. Such endeavors are a misuse of the mind.

There is another way.

j

32

How do you deal with this feeling of emptiness?

by DeusMauzzim in

jw
friends

this feeling that you have seen it all, that there's nothing more in the universe to live for.... i know that it is rubbish, i know it's related to post-exit syndrome.... but how do you deal with it now?.

it's just so ridiculous to have the feeling that you're life is over at 19... but i can't help it.. help me!.

- deus mauzzim.

JamesThomas

Dear Deus alt

All you have lost is beliefs, which are nothing but thoughts and concepts in your mind. Reality has not changed, it is still here for you, and patiently waiting for your attention.

I suggest backpacking out in the wilderness for a few days. Get a genuine sense of the endless wonder and beauty of existence. Open to the intimate connections you have with nature and life. Shift awareness out of the minds labels, beliefs and interpritations, and into the actual senses of what it is to breath, to walk, to smell, to hear, to exist.

Silently and openly meet with Reality, and you'll be more than fine.

j

57

Do you suffer from RELIGIOUS HYPOCHONDRIA???

by Terry in

healthy people don't go to a doctor.

if they do they are hypochondriacs.

hypochondriacs spend their time and money on imagined illnesses.

JamesThomas

It seems that some are becoming a little perturbed at our dear Terry.

My sense is he is going through something I too went through not very long ago; and that is an acute awareness of the dangers and harm of religion and their deities. In fact religion may very well be the most mind-numbing, divisive and destructive machine of the past 2000 years. You see this, and natural instincts arise to save your fellow man from drinking the poison. Sometimes we may slap the glass out of peoples hands a little too hard. We forget that folks may not see the bigger picture and present dangers that we see, as they sing koom-by-ya, live and let live.

Since I don't have any religious beliefs or god to protect, it's easy to sit back and enjoy Terry's intelligent efforts of educating people and revealing their illusory and harmful mental constructs; and he certainly does make many think about and see things they may never have allowed themselves to ponder or behold before.

So, savor Terry's posts, as this too will pass, and he will likely return to the fluffy little love-bunny that he really is.

j

alt

10

To believe or not believe...

by changeling in

that seems to be the question around here lately.. people's panties have been getting into quite a twist over this one.. personally, i don't believe.

but i'd like to put that aside and focus on something else.. i'd like to focus on: now what?.

what can we individually and collectively do to make this planet a better place to live?

JamesThomas

Changeling:

I'd like to focus on: Now what?
What can we individually and collectively do to make this planet a better place to live? What can we do that trully makes a difference?

Once we have clearly seen the folly of beliefs, the next step is to meet with Reality. alt

I strongly suggest, either buying the book, or better yet getting your hands on the audio book: A New Earth: Awaking to Your Life's Purpose, by Eckhart Tolle.

I have just finished listening to the audio book version narrated by Eckhart himself. It's a masterpiece!

The audio version is also available as a torrent. I've met with Eckhart, and can assure you he would find joy in the fact that you felt it important enough to swipe it off the web.

j

9

Hey! An all-purpose mental healt med!

by Madame Quixote in

jw
friends

common uses:

"this medicine is used to prevent or treat seizures.

this medcine is used to treat acute manic episodes.

JamesThomas

Gabapentin?

284

NAME JUST ONE thing....ONE THING...revealed by God....

by Terry in

somebody is always insisting they have an invisible and mysterious source of divine information and selling it like hotcakes and syrup.

but, why are you still buying?

when will you ever learn that this is a scam among many scams.

JamesThomas

Terry:

Rationally, I'm merely pointing out that every OPPORTUNITY for demonstrating something HIGHER than man's knowledge is failed time and again.

I agree, in that the very act of attempting to demonstrate or exhibit requires some small isolated and definable thing (god/deity) that can be objectively witnesses and demonstrated as higher than man's knowledge; and this must always fail as our gods and deities are merely products of the mind, as is all man's knowledge. They are one in the same. So, like a snake eating it's tail, it's doomed to failure.

This does not negate the fact that the entire universe came into being without man's knowledge. Is it so irrational then to sense there is a greater intelligence than that which our brains contain? Of course to discover such would require a looking past the confines of all mental knowledge, concepts, abstracts and gods.

Easily said, but problem is we come to identify "self" as the contents of the mind. So then there can be great inhibition to question not just our gods which have been weaved into our conceptual identity, but our entire believed construct of "self" and universe. Yet, this is the doorway, to allow conscious-awareness to nonjudgmentally and radically investigate and uncover what is false-self and false-reality that the mind has assembled. When what is false is clearly seen, what remains -- is true; and in this undeniable realization of our genuine Identity, the confusing dualities of self and universe -- ends.

j

284

NAME JUST ONE thing....ONE THING...revealed by God....

by Terry in

somebody is always insisting they have an invisible and mysterious source of divine information and selling it like hotcakes and syrup.

but, why are you still buying?

when will you ever learn that this is a scam among many scams.

JamesThomas

Milky Way solar system? Perhaps some of us could use a refresher course in astronomy as desperately as I need to learn how to spell.

What I continually find intriguing, is how people can so unquestionably and tenaciously attribute the Bible-deity for all existence. How pray-tell, does what is INFINITELY vast, originate from some thing so moronically human-like and small? and what is it in us that creates the illusion that it is actually honourable and wise to shrink and belittle it to such?

If we are incapable of pondering the blatant obviousness of this absurdity through, then it's little wonder we so easily come to cherish fairy-tails and myths.

Certainly the true source and sustenance of all universes (there may be countless universes) must be greater still than all existence and not so severely diminutive as an anthropomorphic tribal deity. If there ever was a glass-darkly we can place before our eyes, it a book we have come to know as The Holy Bible.

j

45

"Thy Kingdom Come..."

by AGuest in

jw
friends

to the household of god, israel, and all who go with, may you have peace!

i am compelled by the spirit of our lord, jaheshua mischajah, son and christ of the most holy one of israel, whose name is jah of armies, to share the following truth with you.

true, we hate suffering and pain, but all of mankind does, whether they belong to the christ or not, whether they are righteous or unrighteous.

JamesThomas

Hello, dear Shelby.

I was thinking about you just the other day and wondering how you are doing. Seems you're well and up to speed.

Thank you for your sincere concern. It has always shined brightly through your posts.

j

26

Are Jw's trained to be just plain mean spirited?

by AK - Jeff in

not long ago, i would have defended them slightly with opinions about those 'under mind control' etc.

but the further i get from jw think, the more i believe that jw's are just plain mean and hateful asses!

two situations that i relate in my life.. 1- an elder i know works in a grocery store.

JamesThomas

Totally entombed within a smothering egoic structure whose walls are built of greed for a perfect body and life, and fear of death at the hand of their murderous deity, they are driven insane.

What else can we expect from them but pathological behavior?

I feel the best we can do for them is show our compassion and understanding; as hatred and bitterness never heal any ones ills.

j