Jane's Why I believe (split from tbright's thread)

[Jane]

Split from this thread

I'll give this a shot, as to Why I believe [though I question, research, including yes To God, I argue all the time, maybe to myself, conscious, entity, deity, insanity, yes I've pondered all of these, as well as to nature, the life forces in nature]

ok, for starters I believed as a child, when I first heard, but prior to hearing I had seen firsthand occultist type of paranormal things that I could not just dismiss, as night terrors, now here's where it gets Weird, I was born in D.C. and my father's family all work for the government, no joke, not kidding you...NO I wasn't a monarch as is going on out there in conspiracy land but NOT saying that these conspiracies are not True, I've seen enough to validate that there is Something, out there, ok, and without going into All the gory details, not only was the occult tied into secret societies but one of the main religions [Catholic], now By that I mean, influence, threads, things I can't explain as I was only a small child but what I know, is enough.  Also there was paganism involved, I know there was Venus, one of the vivid memories I do have.

Now if that isn't enough, we lived in the South, and while my mother was not religious for many years, I did live in a religious conservative town, so I had lots of exposure.  So I for numerous years was of the conservative mindset on many things however as a woman I had a lot of cognitive dissonance and I rebelled, a lot, and left the South, left Christianity for numerous years after seeing the misogyny and so forth that I witnessed and got into the other pole, revolutionary politics.  I never like stopped believing in Jesus but at that time I just didn't care to follow Him, and the more I got into secular and revolutionary thought [far leftism, anarchism, etc., radical feminism of which I am still radical feminist] and the more I got into activism especially fighting poverty and Anything to do with a pyramid hierarchy the more I moved away from religious thinking....

then I met a Muslim, learned firsthand what That life was all about, no thanks, seen enough to Never submit, all I'll say on that matter, but like in other religions the being woman and dealing with the cognitive dissonance from cultures/mores that are All about oppressing and treating women as subhuman, something even ANIMALS don't do to their own kind, not even the patriarchal 'baboons' of Africa deal with their own female species with the sadism that human religious men do--[don't worry, I'll get into the secular here in bit] that got me to questioning...Again,

and then, in the Secular, and I'm talking the fiercely anti-religious secular revolutionary movements, I saw what some disturbing similarities between the misogyny though guised under a friendly we love women but really it's just that we love to FK them...or be entertained or Indifferent to the rapes/violence of women, etc., as long as they of course, know they are equal in the public work sphere and well, good political Fodder, and the Group Think 'type of ideological pyramid' structures I witnessed though it took me Many more years to deconstruct the 'myths' and 'fantasies' of what I believed to be THE liberation, emancipation and Progress.  And this really came to the forefront when after Years of investing in yes the Human Revolution for Progress and Enlightenment and Change and all that, I ran so often into two main ideological themes, with the usual, Excuses that were EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE RELIGIONS I GREW UP WITH, AND WITH THE FASCISM AND 'TERROR' I KNEW AS A CHILD in the secret society/cults and so forth

1.  the indifference to the humanity of women kind, be it violence including Gendercide on a mass scale, including emotional and psychological terrorism that I always was seeing [and other women]

and

2.  the indifference and even the dismissal of the reality of horror that survivors of slavery and sex slavery especially, children, endure, for lifetime, by the very ideologies that promised they were different than Religions, etc., conservatives, etc.,

and the straw that broke the needle's back was when dealing with one incidence where a very anti-religious platform fought to protect pedophilia, that I saw blood, literally, so much for progress and fighting social oppression, inequality and human brutality and Supremacist and patriarchy and capitalism and all the other 'isms' out there

and the other, the same damn excuses I heard in Religion I heard in anti-Religion ideology which Then,

made me question, a lot.  And so I for a long while didn't believe in Anything, just wanted to kill the world...yea went through long period of that, severe depression, etc., you see I also spent years in advocating women's human rights and know the horrors because that is what I did, not just women, but human rights in general, and the answers given to me, the rationale, by non-religious just didn't cut it,

not when it came to misogyny, economic injustice, feminization of poverty, relativism that doesn't give a damn if it's females thrown to the wolves, etc.,

so then, I went back to the Bible...thought, OK well maybe God was right, but at first, I wasn't heart wise ready, and I remember opening up the Bible and sure enough, opened to Judges, about the story of the concubine who was ganged raped...needless to say, I told God what HE could do with His misogyny and I threw that Bible across the room.

and then, this voice, said, instead of just being narrow and assuming why don't you DIG deeper...

so I did, I picked it back up, and read it, five times...and I could see that the Lord God did yes, punish those men who gang raped the concubine, but I still wasn't satisfied with that, and I said to Him, OK but you spared the asshole husband who obviously Has to hear something and well I can't remember all but I remember going back and forth with it...and the voice said, Dig deeper, keep reading,

and so I did, and then it jumped out, at the end of the book, Judges, it says,

there was no king and men did as they darn well pleased.

Several times it said that.  So, OK then, so I thought, well that explains That one, and so for like a Year, this would happen, I would read, see something, get Furious, ask, and then the voice or prompting and I would do some further digging...and like one little verse would like put a Whole different meaning and then it was like it became clear, but it would Also cause more questioning, such as Why was the concubine nameless?  Well because she represents All women, who are raped, society, misogyny, treats women as non human, men who rape do not see women as human, as persons with personhood, and the unmarked graves of thousands of women who are raped and murdered, today, are evident of this Still, be they women killed by honor killings, prostitutes [and concubines were sex slaves] or the thousands of butchered women through out the world due to sex trafficking [I prefer sex slavery as term, trafficking is the white washing of the horror but anyway] and so...

Then I was prompted to read ancient societies/do research and especially ancient Mesopotamia.  But now here is where it gets weird,

I start having numerous dreams...about my childhood and things that well, were just Way too vivid, so I would wonder, OK what do they mean.  Then I would remember key things in the dreams, and look them up, some were in Bible, but they all had links to child sacrifices and so forth, and so I googled/researched key things in the dreams, things I knew nothing of,

and then over time, this took a year, the things dreamed could no longer just be dismissed as anomalies or just coincidence or just my own concoctions, and Yes I did question them all.  And then a couple of like really weird paranormal things happened, one I still have in my house, after I asked God what was iniquity.  I turned on the humidifier and for some reason, I added salt, something I don't Ever do--and the next morning, on my wooden wardrobe all these faces were there, in this dusty like film that Wouldn't come off...faces that were alien/demon like, and not just one--ok, like how that one scientific explanation explains them away, but about Twenty.  And it was like, I KNEW what they meant, it was the ancestry of the occult in my family, now Here's the even weirder part, we moved from my father when I was six years old, from D.C., I never saw him again, ever.  Talked to him ONCE...on the phone, when we had left, and he died in 92, I never knew him.  But my brother met the family, back east and learned some about him...like he was a Shriner, etc., and then this past year I learned, for first time, my grandfather was bookie, That I knew, but what I didn't know, is that he was a bookie for Senators, also in D.C. area, back in the day.

OK so anyway...so like I'm freaking out thinking, OK this is just loony nuts, or I'm going crazy, or there is Something to this...then it got even weirder....things in my life, the dreams, they all began to connect, things I never though, ok, but then I saw...like towns we lived in, had either strong history in Masonry and also Native Indians were butchered there either by war [one town strong mason links] or by Catholics...coincidence, well Maybe if that was all, and only one town, but every man I knew, occultist ties of some kind...other gods, etc., and so the more I attempted to find logical rational explanations the more I would see that there was none...it was like, this thing or things controlling my life, all this time, without me really understanding,

and this didn't give me a feeling of ease, no, it caused me to question God even more.  And all this time, it caused me to question myself and to see myself, how when I was 'religious' per se I was just that, religious, and that was heavily influenced by the occultist forces in my life even though I was not aware of them--I knew religion and a mental assent to Jesus but looking back I didn't know or believe in Him personally in heart--now I knew scripture, I knew the if you believe you will be saved, etc etc etc., I even had a conversion experience in my twenties, all of it,

but all in all, I had no real life transformation and yea, prayers didn't get answered, etc., in fact my life got worse.  So I fell away, didn't believe, or became cynic and skeptic, so forth...and then, coming Back to the faith, well I tried church, but it was like I could see something was so off, and then I tried to get into fellowship with other Christian women--and I find that so much has deteriorated and what Really just blew me away, was the evidence of the very same occultist things I had seen as child/grown up with and then seeing them in numerous doctrinal teachings, Especially to women.  

So---that left me to tear apart everything I ever believed, went through months of questioning whether or not Jesus was real or just some concoction of men/leaders to rule mankind through terror, I questioned aliens, Illuminati, all of it.

All the while staying in the Bible, looking, for answers...also during this time, because of the years of just so much needed healing because for years I was in denial about what transpired in childhood OR because Christianity taught me to just forgive, forget, and I didn't deal--I was prompted to spend a lot of time, in nature, just listening, observing,

and Then, then it's like, I don't know how to explain...I met God.  But not like the God I had always been told about, and when I tried to share, with Christians, I found that what I was understanding was not what the Western religions teach, well there are hints of it here and there, but I found more similar or in harmony to what I was seeing with the inner mind so to speak, or heart, with Native Indian beliefs...not All of them, but many of them.  And so I paid attention to nature,

and then, I just got this whole new way of seeing God, Jesus, and then what was even more confirmation was I saw things in Bible that in doctrine/dogma are glossed over, but they are There, all over the Bible,

but they are So not like what traditional religion teaches, not even close.  They are what is deemed as earth centered, what Christians call pagan,

but ironic thing is, what is known as Christianity, is actually what is Pagan, based on Rome/Greece and Egypt, all of which, I knew as child...

anyway, the hard part about all of this was seeing who I really was, when I saw who God really was and was not, for so many years I could point out the flaws and evils and horrors of the world, and yes, they are true, but I could not really see, how I was a part of that--how I was a consumer zombie just like those I detested,

I think--to me, that the Bible is a lot of allegory of things we don't understand because we can't see but that it's really about what is Inside of Us, does that make sense?

Like, good and evil, yes they are externals but to me, more now than ever, it's all about what is Inside me...like, OK the whole thing today is the end times and image of beast and Satan and all that,

and not saying I don't believe in the 'externals' of those things, I do--but more and more after all I've been through, I think it's really about the beast inside of us, that the heaven or hell is a place of BEING, matter changes form, energy--bacteria, all of it,

we may not See this energy but it changes form.  In nature, things yes die, decay, but that decay is the fuel that creates new Life, hence tree of Life...in all the food chain, life is interdependent, even someone said here, the mountains, are beautiful and that's subjective, they also cause [plates] earthquakes,

yes, they do, those earthquakes however also cause new land forms...hurricanes destroy and at the same time they create new life systems on new land forms caused by volcanoes.  The story of Jesus is that He lays down His life to give Life to us, etc.,

we are the anti-thesis of all God is, we Take life, more than we give...we consume from nature, every day we walk by trees, plants, and do not think that it's Their taking our carbon and then converting that to oxygen that WE depend on to live, etc., we don't see the Feminine in nature, the SHE part of GOD but she's all over,

even our bodies, are the exact image of God, nature...our blood system, the rivers, plasma, just like on this earth, Bible says the life is in the blood--on our earth, that's true as well, without Water, streams, oceans and that whole water cycle, life dies.  The hair on our arms looks like the grass of the plains, everything from the womb to our hair to our feet, there are similar patterns and fractals in nature, earth,

which Biblically isn't far off, from dust ELEMENTS are you formed and ELEMENTS are you returned...take vitamins, well those are elements of earth, oxygen from air, four elements we all need, etc., found all in space, so forth.  And the thing is, while doctrines of institutions say this is new age [and there is new age, no I don't believe in new age just saying] and the nature connection, Especially the Feminine is rejected, even despised, erased, there is/are numerous revelations of this in Bible, both testaments,

Jesus healing the blind man...with dirt and spit [dirt earth or Mother Earth] and spit the water/air cycle, etc., that's one example, Elijah and the water and the bear, very similar to the bear clan beliefs and water and so forth...it's All there but humanity doesn't see it because we are disconnected,

the material, greed [root of evil love of mammon, etc], hierarchies, violence, lording it over, consumption, degradation, etc.,

does this mean I take the Bible as all truth?  No, I think, well theory, it's the knowledge of good and evil, presented to us, very much like the fruit of that tree was presented to Eve...in the Garden,

has it been tampered with?  Very possibly so, never say never...if so, then Why did God allow?  Well I question that one...maybe the thing is the human heart, is or if it chooses love or To love, to overcome evil, then the heart sees,

but to get to that, is to face the one truth, that we are good at pointing out the evil or flaws of God...but IF we are made in the image and likeness of God or gods, then yes, we could say, man created the Bible/books and God/gods in his image--or vice versa,

one thing can't be denied...Garden, where the Lord God says to Eve, ye shall desire your husband and he shall rule over you...no amount of progress, has changed this fact...the minute Adam told the Lord God, it's YOU and that Woman YOU gave me...and turned onto her, rather than say,

yea I took it, I wanted wisdom or I wanted to be 'like the gods'...same goes for Eve...the serpent tricked me,

is still heard today, all the time.  The blame, the fear, the hiding Who we are, the pretense, all of it--God was evil because God committed horrible genocide,

well two hundred years from now [if the world lasts that long] don't you think that Iraq and Afghanistan won't say the Same about US?  

See, mirror image, that's what image means btw, mirror.

Sin, sin is doing contrary to love, so many say, God killed in OT and allowed rape--same could be said about the world that fought in WWII, but IF that war did not go on, where would we be today?  Not justifying genocide, not what I am saying here...but in looking BACK I think we have to be careful in how we judge the books, written in B.C., by standards that WE today, are in NO shape or form condition of making judgments against God or even the people of that time.  Slavery...oh yea...we consume vast amounts of chocolate made from yes, child slaves, Brutal slavery in fact--we buy it, knowing [many who do know that is] and yet we can say, well the Bible justifies slavery but WE'RE immune from those same judgments?

Same with cotton industry that pillages vast amounts of water from areas that people so need it so we can have mega clothes to cover our nakedness and shame because to BE accepted one has to LOOK accepted and never mind that there are sweatshops and child slaves harvesting that cotton--Slavery still exists, it just moved shores that's all,

and sex slavery, do I even NEED to elaborate there?  I can't count how many times I've read/heard rationale for porn that is no doubt made by sex slaves and prostitution we KNOW is trafficked slaves but hey--it's over THERE, it's THEM people, there's Always an Excuse,

but now if it's done in B.C. well now that's a whole different thing...see I think, the Bible is really a mirror of mankind's or humanity's condition, that no amount of Knowledge and technology has changed much--we may have evolved in technical advancements, but WE are still just AS barbaric as those prior to us, if not More so, because WE should know better,

because WE have what?

Knowledge of good and evil...

so, guess that leaves me to question, WHO is God then?

[modbreak]Added link to original thread[/modbreak]

[Jane]

part two of reply, sorry it's so long

All those, prior to us, who learned as we are, maybe?  I don't know...I don't have the answers, I wrestle with these things a lot--more so because I see my own depraved state, I wasn't a nice person--toxic for years, pain does that, I saw through anger, pain and hate, self hate, all of it,

I still question, though I believe, yes, I do question, I still argue with God and Jesus about all of this...I think women got a shaft raw of a deal--I still think that Christianity is a phallic central religion, yes the seed germinates and gives life,

ok a baby is made, germinated...without breast milk, formula and Nurture, that baby DIES...so it ain't just 'seed' if ya know what I mean, the erasure of female, the man God misses it, so much--[case in point, orphans in Romania, don't think Women matter, mothers, that the State can do it...we've seen the emotional detachment and what it DOES to babies/toddlers, Romania, Hungary, and other Soviet style experiments],

same goes for nature.  There is balance--interdependence, this Tree of LIFE,

Jesus is supposed to represent Tree of Life--but he's male, it's man centered, funny thing is, when Jesus was pierced in His side, water and blood gushed out,

what gushes out during birth of a child?

water and blood

One can yes, take things literally, form legalism, hatred, why are their starving people--did we not remember, Jesus said, those who Feed the poor, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner...WE are the ONES supposed to be Doing that--GOD in us, if WE can see it, then WE are supposed to be doing something--that is what LOVE does, that is what LOVE does to give LIFE,

goats or sheep, consumers or those who cover with love

so, well, for me, I can't say, what is going to happen or whether or not the Bible is true of whether or not there IS a GOD without shadow of doubt, like be able to Prove it and all,

but I know there has to be Some reason for why we are here...all of nature, is part of a LIFE cycle--whales, lately they have found whales that eat sharks--I wondered, do WE become part of the energy source that Feeds on us?  King David in Psalms says there are worms in side of us...that drives us to our graves, well when we die worms consume us, Jesus said, the worm dieth not, etc.,

well IF we become an energy source of what Consumes us [earth, God, light, darkness, etc] then it's interesting...whales recently have been found to be eating sharks--Then they were found, to eat stingrays, something Whales [Orcas] don't normally consume--but guess what Does consume stingrays?

Sharks do.

Coincidence?

I don't think so--heaven and hell--answers to prayer [maybe what that means is that prayer is the knowledge inside of you...mountains removed, the darkness that blinds us from seeing, evil happens, free will, cause and event, sometimes there is intervention but it's usually through people, God in them...if they choose that, love], as for heaven and hell,

eternal life--maybe it's part of being a part of the whole process...new earth, etc., and hell, part of the darkness in space or the fires that burn that yes, give life, the always consuming, fire never quenched, thing is we don't know, are we conscious of or not?  I don't believe in this place of eternal torment--that to me is typical pagan occultist teachings but I do believe, we are either part of the life or part of the death--I don't think the death eternal is pleasant, I do believe there is eventually perishing/putting out, but WHO wants that, when realization dawns, there is eternal life giving that is so connected to the love of God and light force?

or maybe we become, in totality, what we choose here on earth,

all in all, I think we get into this huge distortion by trying to Prove God, Demanding signs, when really, it's right there in front of us and inside us all the time--there are externals, what or who or how, I don't know, I've seen enough to know Something's there,

but through all, what I did see, is that the real war, doubt, fear, lack of love, love, insecurity, was INSIDE of my own self, the God I disliked so much--was really, ME.  The God I condemned in others, was ME--
and that,

is what I am working on to Change...think the Bible calls it,

Repentance.

maybe the reason people don't believe in God is because they're waiting to see this huge God from the sky, when really, what people Need to see,

is GOD in you and me--love,

love that covers, nakedness.

know this was super long--too much info, but there it is.

[Rokusho]

Jane.  Thank you for sharing this with us.  It was a very interesting read.  At least at first.

Initially, I was confounded and confused what your underlying philosophy was, I struggled to pin it down.  But I got there eventually.

To sum it up in one word.  Guilt.  It seems like you've looked at the Western world and seen all the problems and all the evils generated and seem to accept that this is how it will always be.  That humanity cannot change, that we are doomed to repeat history and ultimately destroy ourselves.  A near Rousseau style of thought where culture, society, politics, philosophy and knowledge destroys us.  Humanity is a terrible thing.

Yet I submit to you, that you ignore the ideas of progress, that things can change, that the world can be made a better place.  To identify the problems of the world, such as starvation, rape, child abuse, peadophilia etc. is a fine place to start, but then you seem to essentially end there.  Throw in the towel and accept that the world cannot change.

It can change.

The world as it is today, compared even to a few centuries ago is a hell of a lot better than what it once was.  It ain't perfect, sure.  But it could be a hell of a lot better.  Modern agriculture, better understandings of economics, new political ideals, technology, science, the enlightenment, human rights, education, understanding of the world has allowed humanity to live better, longer lives, at least in some geographical areas.

We can make progress and we can become better and I believe we can easily do it with reason, science, freedom, liberal democracy and rights for all.  We just have to defeat those who would stand in our way for personal profit, privilege and power.

But you seem to abandon this idea.  You collapse onto guilt, that humanity (yourself included) is only out for oneself, that we need saving from some higher power, that we need something to protect us from us.  This thing being god, the one who created us.  Perhaps not so much Rousseau here at all, but more Hobbes.  That we need a power above us, that we need a book of rules with which to guide our lives, because without it, we will be too greedy and self-centred to build a world which we can all live in happily without evils.

While the world is depressing in some areas it's beautiful in others.  But not here, your ideas are among a very sad and depressing set.  Not so much the ideas themselves, but because you subscribe to them.  You've given up.  And you're looking up asking someone to save us, save us.

("and I'll whisper, No.")

Just my 2 cents from what I get from reading your posts Jane. I mean no offence of course and hey, I may have gotten the wrong end of the stick.  Who knows.

[Noman Peopled]

ok, for starters I believed as a child, when I first heard, but prior to hearing I had seen firsthand occultist type of paranormal things that I could not just dismiss, as night terrors, now here's where it gets Weird, I was born in D.C. and my father's family all work for the government, no joke, not kidding you...NO I wasn't a monarch as is going on out there in conspiracy land but NOT saying that these conspiracies are not True, I've seen enough to validate that there is Something, out there, ok, and without going into All the gory details, not only was the occult tied into secret societies but one of the main religions [Catholic], now By that I mean, influence, threads, things I can't explain as I was only a small child but what I know, is enough.  Also there was paganism involved, I know there was Venus, one of the vivid memories I do have.

I'm sorry, that sounds very like what Mod_016 told tbright not to do: ver unspecific. If you want to protect your family that's fine, but don't expect phrases like "I know there was Venus" to hold any water here.

and then, in the Secular, and I'm talking the fiercely anti-religious secular revolutionary movements, I saw what some disturbing similarities between the misogyny though guised under a friendly we love women but really it's just that we love to FK them...or be entertained or Indifferent to the rapes/violence of women, etc., as long as they of course, know they are equal in the public work sphere and well, good political Fodder, and the Group Think 'type of ideological pyramid' structures I witnessed though it took me Many more years to deconstruct the 'myths' and 'fantasies' of what I believed to be THE liberation, emancipation and Progress.

Again, specifics. Is there something specifically secular about that mysoginy? If not, it would be a mistake to judge secularism based on that. You're a tad unclear here, I think.

And this really came to the forefront when after Years of investing in yes the Human Revolution for Progress and Enlightenment and Change and all that, I ran so often into two main ideological themes, with the usual, Excuses that were EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE RELIGIONS I GREW UP WITH, AND WITH THE FASCISM AND 'TERROR' I KNEW AS A CHILD in the secret society/cults and so forth

Again, specifics. Which ideological themes? Secular or religious?
Also, same question as above.

1.  the indifference to the humanity of women kind, be it violence including Gendercide on a mass scale, including emotional and psychological terrorism that I always was seeing [and other women]

To put it bluntly, people are assholes. Indifference and sadism is not limited to women in any case.

and the straw that broke the needle's back was when dealing with one incidence where a very anti-religious platform fought to protect pedophilia, that I saw blood, literally, so much for progress and fighting social oppression, inequality and human brutality and Supremacist and patriarchy and capitalism and all the other 'isms' out there

I should tell you that if you want a productive conversation, you should clear up your diction and capitalization. Your posts are hard to read. Not all of us here are native speakers.
Am I getting this right? You saw one anti-religious platform defending pederasty (pedophilia is a different animal entirely), and that was enough to dismiss atheism?

and the other, the same damn excuses I heard in Religion I heard in anti-Religion ideology

Here I'd be especially interested in specifics. Of course atheists can come up with the same crap religious people do, but in general I'd say that if you got nothing but bunk from atheists you haven't read any representative material.
For one, nothing follows from atheism. Not that pederasty is okay, not that treating women or whoever else badly is okay, nothing.

the answers given to me, the rationale, by non-religious just didn't cut it,

What were those answers? Who gave them to you? Are they co-dependent with non-religiosity?

and like one little verse would like put a Whole different meaning and then it was like it became clear, but it would Also cause more questioning, such as Why was the concubine nameless?  Well because she represents All women, who are raped, society, misogyny, treats women as non human, men who rape do not see women as human, as persons with personhood, and the unmarked graves of thousands of women who are raped and murdered, today, are evident of this Still, be they women killed by honor killings, prostitutes [and concubines were sex slaves] or the thousands of butchered women through out the world due to sex trafficking [I prefer sex slavery as term, trafficking is the white washing of the horror but anyway] and so...

This is referred to as the "magic decoder ring". In essence, be aware that your reading is just one among many that are consistent with the text - it doesn't exactly jive with the laws about rape. (If a rapist gets caught in the act he has to pay the woman's father and marry her - provided it was her screams that led to his capture, otherwise she gets stoned.)

I start having numerous dreams...about my childhood and things that well, were just Way too vivid, so I would wonder, OK what do they mean.  Then I would remember key things in the dreams, and look them up, some were in Bible, but they all had links to child sacrifices and so forth, and so I googled/researched key things in the dreams, things I knew nothing of,

and then over time, this took a year, the things dreamed could no longer just be dismissed as anomalies or just coincidence or just my own concoctions, and Yes I did question them all.

Again, specifics would be very helpful.
Too vivid for what?
Why were you assuming they mean something?
Why would it be surprising you'd get bible-themed dreams if you had read the bible several times?

I turned on the humidifier and for some reason, I added salt, something I don't Ever do--and the next morning, on my wooden wardrobe all these faces were there, in this dusty like film that Wouldn't come off...faces that were alien/demon like, and not just one--ok, like how that one scientific explanation explains them away, but about Twenty.

Salt is chemically aggressive and attacks the lacquered surface of anything. And pareidolia. When I'm sitting on the toilet I have fun trying to find faces in the texture of the tiled floor. Yes, literally.

And it was like, I KNEW what they meant, it was the ancestry of the occult in my family, now Here's the even weirder part, we moved from my father when I was six years old, from D.C., I never saw him again, ever.

Regardless of whether you were right, you didn't know, you interpreted.

OK so anyway...so like I'm freaking out thinking, OK this is just loony nuts, or I'm going crazy, or there is Something to this...then it got even weirder....things in my life, the dreams, they all began to connect,

Did they connect or were you conecting them? Also, specifics please.

and Then, then it's like, I don't know how to explain...I met God.

This happens to many people, and their descriptions tend to be mutually exclusive. What's your take on that?

and then, I just got this whole new way of seeing God, Jesus, and then what was even more confirmation was I saw things in Bible that in doctrine/dogma are glossed over, but they are There, all over the Bible,

Something the linguists were unable to find? Specifics.

I think--to me, that the Bible is a lot of allegory of things we don't understand because we can't see but that it's really about what is Inside of Us, does that make sense?

I think I get your meaning, but I disagree. For one, if the problem is inside us, why would we trust our judgment when it comes to the bible?

Like, good and evil, yes they are externals

How so?

we may not See this energy but it changes form.  In nature, things yes die, decay, but that decay is the fuel that creates new Life, hence tree of Life...in all the food chain, life is interdependent, even someone said here, the mountains, are beautiful and that's subjective, they also cause [plates] earthquakes, yes, they do, those earthquakes however also cause new land forms...hurricanes destroy and at the same time they create new life systems on new land forms caused by volcanoes.  The story of Jesus is that He lays down His life to give Life to us, etc.,

Aside from the last sentence, that's just a description of how the world around us works. People thousands of years ago could see that cycle aspect just as well as we do, and put it into text form.
Also, note that this state is not eternal. It will stop at one point.

we are the anti-thesis of all God is, we Take life, more than we give...we consume from nature, every day we walk by trees, plants, and do not think that it's Their taking our carbon and then converting that to oxygen that WE depend on to live, etc., we don't see the Feminine in nature, the SHE part of GOD but she's all over,

even our bodies, are the exact image of God, nature...our blood system, the rivers, plasma, just like on this earth, Bible says the life is in the blood--on our earth, that's true as well, without Water, streams, oceans and that whole water cycle, life dies.  The hair on our arms looks like the grass of the plains, everything from the womb to our hair to our feet, there are similar patterns and fractals in nature, earth,

Similar patterns are easily explained scientifically. What leads you to believe similarities have a deeper meaning as opposed to merely being based on the same laws of nature?

which Biblically isn't far off, from dust ELEMENTS are you formed and ELEMENTS are you returned...take vitamins, well those are elements of earth, oxygen from air, four elements we all need, etc., found all in space, so forth.

Again, this was readily observable when the bible was written (except our findings are more exact). Also, it's a common mythologeme far from unique to the bible.

There is no feminine side to nature.
Just like there is no masculine side.
Well, unless the one particular piece of nature we're talking about happens to be feminine or masculine but in the end that's just a biological distinction. Or cultural.

very similar to the bear clan beliefs and water and so forth...

Humans share a very similar brain architecture. Why would similarities be surprising? Or meaningful?

See, mirror image, that's what image means btw, mirror.

No it doesn't.

Sin, sin is doing contrary to love, so many say, God killed in OT and allowed rape--same could be said about the world that fought in WWII, but IF that war did not go on, where would we be today?

Relevance? Also, who's to say it wouldn't be better? Even if the state of affairs were worse, wouldn't it be better than dozens of millions dead?


Again, bad stuff going on doesn't lend veracity to anything but the claim that people are assholes.

but WE are still just AS barbaric as those prior to us, if not More so, because WE should know better,

Who's this we? In Europe, we've had the longest period of peace since ever. Governments no longer regard war as the first and best option to defend their interests. Women are allowed to vote, as are blacks. Yes, we're privileged and we haven't yet shed the barbarism. But to state that we are just as barbaric? (I do think we can be, given the "right circumstances").
Again though, relevance?

so, guess that leaves me to question, WHO is God then?

You haven't yet established his (and here, I use "his" with gusto) existence with any kind of certitude.

I still question, though I believe, yes, I do question, I still argue with God and Jesus about all of this...I think women got a shaft raw of a deal--I still think that Christianity is a phallic central religion,

That we can agree on.

what gushes out during birth of a child?

water and blood

That's not water. Also, people would have known that and could have easily used it for their symbolism.

that is what LOVE does, that is what LOVE does to give LIFE,

Is it? I'd say love is a property of life.

but I know there has to be Some reason for why we are here...

Why, how do you "know"?

well IF we become an energy source of what Consumes us [earth, God, light, darkness, etc] then it's interesting...whales recently have been found to be eating sharks--Then they were found, to eat stingrays, something Whales [Orcas] don't normally consume--but guess what Does consume stingrays?

Sharks do.

Coincidence?

If you got a source on this, put it into the Science subforum.
Also, yes, coincidence. Have you ever played a TCG or role-playing game? A beats B beats C. So what? Even assuming there's something significant about it, what is it?
Also, orcas are technically dolphins.

all in all, I think we get into this huge distortion by trying to Prove God, Demanding signs, when really, it's right there in front of us and inside us all the time--there are externals, what or who or how, I don't know, I've seen enough to know Something's there,

What is it that's in front of us? How do we distinguish significant connections from insignificant or false ones?




To sum up, you seem to be projecting yourself onto the world (and god) wy too much. Not everything surprising has to be significant. There's no female/male side to anything but people (and animals). Parallels to real-world phenomena or interpretations of such in dreams and mythologies aren't surprising.
You also seem to be keen on finding what works for you, which is not the same as looking for what's true. I haven't, for example, seen much in the way of arguments in your wall-o-text.



//edit: this post was written for the thread Jane's post originally appeared in, thus the emphasis for specifics and the reference to Mod_016. I think he/she made a valid point so I left it in.
Also, since this is now Jane's own thread I want to emphasize that if I come off as condescending or hostile, I really didn't mean to; I was merely trying to be concise.

[Graybeard]

[...]whales, lately they have found whales that eat sharks--I wondered, do WE become part of the energy source that Feeds on us?  King David in Psalms says there are worms in side of us...that drives us to our graves, well when we die worms consume us, Jesus said, the worm dieth not, etc.,

well IF we become an energy source of what Consumes us [earth, God, light, darkness, etc] then it's interesting...whales recently have been found to be eating sharks--Then they were found, to eat stingrays, something Whales [Orcas] don't normally consume--but guess what Does consume stingrays?

Sharks do.

Coincidence?

I don't think so--[...]

No, really, it is a coincidence - whales and sharks eat a lot of other things too.

but through all, what I did see, is that the real war, doubt, fear, lack of love, love, insecurity, was INSIDE of my own self, the God I disliked so much--was really, ME.  The God I condemned in others, was ME--

And it always will be.

and that, is what I am working on to Change...think the Bible calls it,

Repentance.

No it doesn't. Look up the word Repentance - it means being sorry, it's nothing to do with Change

maybe the reason people don't believe in God is because they're waiting to see this huge God from the sky,

If they were waiting for that, it would mean that they thought there was a good chance of their being a god...

when really, what people Need to see, is GOD in you and me--love, love that covers, nakedness.

I am afraid that there is nothing in the Bible that indicates you are right. The god of the Bible rules by fear - he only loves those who keep His Word, and that includes killing witches,homosexuals, children, and whole races. It was He who created Hell as the final horror that lasts eternity.

If you think that God = Love, then you are just saying your opinion and have not experienced God at all.

[screwtape]

Split from this thread

I'll give this a shot, as to Why I believe [though I question, research, including yes To God, I argue all the time, maybe to myself, conscious, entity, deity, insanity, yes I've pondered all of these, as well as to nature, the life forces in nature]

ok, for starters I believed as a child, when I first heard, but prior to hearing I had seen firsthand occultist type of paranormal things that I could not just dismiss, as night terrors, now here's where it gets Weird, I was born in D.C. and my father's family all work for the government, no joke, not kidding you...NO I wasn't a monarch as is going on out there in conspiracy land but NOT saying that these conspiracies are not True, I've seen enough to validate that there is Something, out there, ok, and without going into All the gory details, not only was the occult tied into secret societies but one of the main religions [Catholic], now By that I mean, influence, threads, things I can't explain as I was only a small child but what I know, is enough.  Also there was paganism involved, I know there was Venus, one of the vivid memories I do have.

I stopped here.  Not only was it too long, but conspiracy theories of catholic-paganism in the government in the first paragraph is a giant red flag telling me this is not going to be a good use of my time.

Good luck with your issues, Jane.

[MockTurtle]

I stopped here.  Not only was it too long....

Has anyone else noticed that believers have a remarkable inability to summarize?
If the long post is really necessary to tell the story, they could at least hint at the
main ideas in the first paragraph.

[Anfauglir]

.......
but through all, what I did see, is that the real war, doubt, fear, lack of love, love, insecurity, was INSIDE of my own self, the God I disliked so much--was really, ME.  The God I condemned in others, was ME--
and that,

is what I am working on to Change...think the Bible calls it,

Repentance.

maybe the reason people don't believe in God is because they're waiting to see this huge God from the sky, when really, what people Need to see,

is GOD in you and me--love,

love that covers, nakedness.

Was this the longest way of saying SPAG ever?

[Gordon Freeman]

As Homer would say: Boring!

Nothing I didn't already hear/read. Except the catholic conspiracy and such.

[Emily]

...and one time at band camp...

[William]

... maybe the reason people don't believe in God is because they're waiting to see this huge God from the sky, when really, what people Need to see,

is GOD in you and me--love,

love that covers, nakedness.

Jane, exposing all these thoughts here is quite brave of you.  But if you want my honest feedback  ... to me it looks like you're making stuff up to justify an awkward belief you don't have sufficient courage to reject.  

People (and animals) can love each other without having to invoke the idea of God.  Remember this particular God supposedly made a bear kill 42 kids for teasing a bald guy - allegory or not it's repulsive to modern understanding and moral ideas beyond God.  The only way God makes sense is when you finally understand it's a fucking meme.  Ideas like yours arise thousands of times over throughout history and get tested in the melting-pot of religious excusiology. If they work on other people they get sucked in and you become a prophet ...

[jetson]

Jane - all gods are imaginary.  It really is that simple.  Drop it like it's hot.

[pingnak]

"is GOD in you and me--love, love that covers, nakedness."

Where things are covered up, hidden, there is no love.  Only deceit.  Love should revel in nakedness.  All kinds of love.  All kinds of nakedness.