Mod+ 254. HOWARD STORM TRANSFORMED BY NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE

This is the kind of thing I mean. "Great souls", "earth plane". Like all words they have connotations, but what do they actually mean? Is God and Jesus more bankrupt intellectually than "great soul"? There's a tendency to assume some terms reflect the nature of reality more than others, but on what authority are those based? Why sink into political correctness over terminology? It just holds up the debate and allows someone to let off steam at the expense of the topic.

You said people assume that some terms reflect the nature of reality more than others. You keep defending and defending Christ, which is fabulous, but doesn't that mean that you are assuming that Christianity reflects the nature of the reality better than other modes of understanding?

Someone who is greatly self-realized who claims to see nature devas or be able to interact with ascended masters is not "psi". It is someone having a mystical experience much like those listed in the Christian bible.

The question is: Is their experience somehow to be considered less reflective of the true nature of reality because it doesn't involve Christ or God?
 
You said people assume that some terms reflect the nature of reality more than others. You keep defending and defending Christ, which is fabulous, but doesn't that mean that you are assuming that Christianity reflects the nature of the reality better than other modes of understanding?

Someone who is greatly self-realized who claims to see nature devas or be able to interact with ascended masters is not "psi". It is someone having a mystical experience much like those listed in the Christian bible.

The question is: Is their experience somehow to be considered less reflective of the true nature of reality because it doesn't involve Christ or God?
Who said that? You are projecting. I'm complaining about NDEs containing Jesus being relegated to fiction while ascended masters with pointy goatees and a lotus blossom inflatables advance directly to Go.
 
No, you're projecting what you think I think as a Christian, with a sideline in scorn. I don't believe Christianity is lacking in philosophical rigour or spiritual scope, and lots of smart people agree. My appeal to authority meets your appeal to ridicule. Something has to give. Nobody has yet answered why Rupert Sheldrake gets a free pass on morphic resonance and Anglicanism. Or is he a genius-chump?

I don't know anything about Sheldrake other than what I have read on this forum. I have defended Christianity on this forum in the face of some who claimed that religion was basically evil and had never done anything good. I regularly follow Francis Bennet (https://www.facebook.com/FrancisDaleBennett?fref=nf) on Facebook who has achieved a high level of self-realization through his relationship with Christ. I'm not a Christ hater. I'm honestly trying to find out where you are coming from. If you think Christianity is the highest answer then that would go a long way toward explaining your attitude and I would accept that 100% and respect you none the less.
 
Honestly I doubt it. Scientology is based on strong claims refutable by today's science.

Mormonism is equally refutable (even South Park did that :)) but it thrives. All discussion of religion has to include a sober look at our tendency to fall for cults.
 
The complete book "The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross" is available in PDF for anyone interested. Tried to link with no luck.
Uh-uh, you first.

Well it is eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ right?
How about Manna? What's all that about?
Why does the fly agaric appear in hundreds of medieval christian artworks even way back to around 1200 ad? What's the deal there?
Why does the original depiction of the tree of life look like a mushroom?
Talking bushes and serpents?
Why the mythraism?
I got lots more questions.
 
Who said that? You are projecting. I'm complaining about NDEs containing Jesus being relegated to fiction while ascended masters with pointy goatees and a lotus blossom inflatables advance directly to Go.

Well I for one am not saying that. You are aware that Jesus is considered just one of many ascended masters, right?
 
Were all expressing opinions based on how we perceive/experienced this world. I think that can be called having a bias. In recognizing that, one can consider how one's own bias is only as valid or worthless as any other opinion. Any feeling of conflict dissipates. Even Mr. Storm has taken this approach.

There's quite a few stories, where a Jesus encounter transformed the NDEer's life. One example is Mr. Storm. I choose to believe Mr Storm, that's my bias.
Its also interesting to note that those cultures ignorant of Jesus, such as is recounted in Sciborg's attach. did not have any encounters with him. Rather their experience is either with other entites, or encountering one's own divinity as in the Tibetian Book of the Dead.

I see 2 completely diametrically oppossed versions of reality. It's funny, one comes the West, the other comes from the East. One version cited by the majority of Mediums in communication with their spirit guides and connection with people who have passed and NDEers who encounter beings of light is that becoming is a process. One has to learn how to love, be compassionate, through self sacrafice, acts of kindness, meditative techniques and possibly faith in some authority of goodness, i.e the Bible, Jesus, Gurus, Mohammed, blah, blah. Raising one's vibrational level requires learning from experience. That is basically the Christian belief system. We are born in sin and must be redeemed. It appears to form the very fabric of our western view of spirituality.

The other version is there is no becoming. There is only recognition of what is. The effect of becoming or seeking perfection is in itself a hinderance to self liberation. Stories attributed to Buddha have him engaging in seemingly contradictory statements about god and achieveing perfection because the immediate present can only exist in absence of the seeker. Death occurs at every moment so the self is extinquished. There is a hint of this in messages from NDEers. Be joyous, be loving. The trancendental experience of leaving the body and it's brain full of stuff appears to be liberating. There is the description of an overwhelming sense of peace and being enveloped in intense joy and love. This is remarkably similar to the description of samadi and nirvana. I forget who the wonderful person was who attached Tony Perkins in this forum. He basically explodes the whole mystery of this process of growth. Its quite beautiful.
 
Why do you care?

I'm just trying to understand where you are coming from. Instead of saying "Yes. I'm a devoted Christian and I think he is really and truly the one God above all others," you pick on my avatar, which is not "Dan Dare" and basically call hooey on the idea of there being ascended masters. You want it both ways. That's cool. It's a forum.
 
But when people call you myopic you get your panties all in a bunch.
You're saying a major world religion is misguided and I'm misguided for accepting its principles. How do I counter that? Give you a reading list? Battle your Inquisition with my Christian charity? How will that pan out?
 
I'm just trying to understand where you are coming from. Instead of saying "Yes. I'm a devoted Christian and I think he is really and truly the one God above all others," you pick on my avatar, which is not "Dan Dare" and basically call hooey on the idea of there being ascended masters. You want it both ways. That's cool. It's a forum.
Your avatar never once entered my mind. The ascended masters thing made me laugh out loud.
 
I have no idea what the greater aim of this forum is. It might be world peace or a commercial venture, but I observe some traits people need to overcome if it's to move forward. First, there are no clear conclusions to be drawn from any of the evidence on psi. Some of it is suggestive, but nothing I'd put the house on. Second there's an Orwellian double speak to some of the contributions, with thought crime lurking just beneath; so God = bad, higher self = good. Christ = error, Christ consciousness = correct. It's insulting in a number of ways, it excludes a lot of intelligent scientific thinkers from a valid role (and I suggest people Google scientists who are Christians and believers in God who are scientists to see their contributions) especially when it replaces intellectual and philosophical rigour with sentimentality and vagueness. It also pushes people like myself who have no interest in expounding our personal convictions into time-wasting, defensive postures, just to stay above the tide of misrepresentation and new age waffle. I use new age pejoratively, because behind the wall of inclusion and be-nice there's some really bad philosophy and slack conclusions.

Forums are made up of the contributors and there are some seriously bright, well read people on Skeptiko and a lot of good will, but at the end of the day Von Daniken and Aquinas, Icke and Kastrup aren't equal, and no amount of feel good rhetoric will make them so.
yada yada... we got to get to the bottom of the "wacky Christian" thing. It's either wacky (like Mormonism is wacky) or it's not. All this other stuff we've been arguing about is a sideshow.

So, prove me wrong... educate me. Find a guest who'll come on and show me the light. Send them links to the "wacky anti-Christian" shows I've done and then invite them to come on and set me straight.

This would be a nice contribution to the forum... it would show that you're willing to pull your weight around here :) Of course, if you can't/won't then I would expect you to back off of this blathering on about "wacky Christian" ideas.
 
I love Dr Julie Beischel " That’s a really important point. The scientific method is a list of steps and people forget that the thing performing the steps is a human being. Lots of scientists like to think that they can remain objective to what they’re studying but they can’t. Because you are a person and you have a human brain, you will always have biases and you will always have assumptions. So the best you can do is address your assumptions and recognize your assumptions."
 
You're saying a major world religion is misguided and I'm misguided for accepting its principles. How do I counter that? Give you a reading list? Battle your Inquisition with my Christian charity? How will that pan out?

I'm not! I'm totally cool with people who are utterly devoted to their own religion. I think there is nothing more awesome that seeing some images of Hindus completely blissed out on devotion sitting in front of a picture of their guru. And I think it is amazing that in the town I am in there are probably six different Christian churches that I can see from my house and that they are used for worship and soup kitchens and all kinds of fellowship. That is awesome.

I'm not on an inquisition to root out your Christianity. I accept it 100% and think it is fantastic. I even accept that you may feel that Christianity reigns supreme over all other notions of God on this Earth. That is cool, though I don't share that particular view.
 
But the fact remains that being utterly devoted to one religion does tend to shut one off from other very valid ways of knowing god.
also, I think it's ok to take a hard look at the claims being made. It's ok to be skeptical. It's ok to be blown away by the mystery and the impossible contradictions... why does God make things so complicated :)
 
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