This is a Heretical Thread lol.
This is a Theological Thread.
This is a discussion thread: Christianity (any branch and view), The Bible, other Faiths, different Views, etc., as long as you preserve a decent amount of tolerance and respect for the others, regardless of our different interpretations, are all welcomed in this thread.
Let’s see what sort of holy or unholy jewels this begets lol.
My current theological views on God, The Divine, etc. are these:
God is within: the argument can be found in Luke 17:21 (“Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, Io there! for behold, the kingdom of God is within you”)
(to be continued)
(give me 5-10 minutes lol)
Of course He/She/The Supreme is Without too, but the idea is that you can find Him within, thus no need or absolute necessity to search for the Divine outside yourself.
“God who made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of Heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made by hands” (Acts 17:24, what Saint Stephen the Martyr said, before being stoned to death by the Sanhedrin)
Logion 3, Gospel of Thomas (discovered in q946 at Nag Hamadi and containing teachings which were either rejected by the church or churches or simply kept hidden for obvious reasons) : "Jesus said: if those who lead you say to you: See, the kingdom is in heaven, then the birds of the heaven will go before you; if they say to you: it is in the sea then the fish will go before you. But the kingdom is within you, and it is outside of you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, then you will know that you are the sons of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you are in poverty and you are poverty. "
So, the kingdom is within and without AND you need to know yourself/yourselves!!?
It sounds pretty… Yogic or Yogic like to me.
Also, it sounds close to certain mystery cults and non Christian or even gnostic or pagan (" pagan" meaning anything branded as such by the institutionalized Christianity) views or beliefs etc.
Christ spent years in Egypt and possibly elsewhere…
Let’s not forget that he was visited by… Three Magi!!
They came “from the East”, were guided to his birthplace by a “Star” (well either astrological insights or literal higher beings guiding them or well both), they worshipped Him and brought gifts before Him.
Interesting how some magicians or anyway, people with great spiritual knowledge, coming from a far away land, knew about Christ…
It kinda connects with the following verse, the Lpgion 77, from the Gospel of Thomas:
“Jesus said: I am the light that is above them all. I am the all; the all came forth from me, and the all attained to me. Cleave a piece of wood; I am there. Raise up a stone, and you will find me there.”
So, according to this text, Christ is everywhere (well according to official Orthodox and Catholic and other churches and denominations too), literally in all things, thus the Magi could have had knowledge of him either trough shamanic practices, magic practices of some kind, any sort of Nature worship or through or from pretty much anything, since Christ was there too…
Possibly through a Divine Revelation as well.
Anyway, the Divine transcends all our temples, houses of worship, churches, services, he transcends all places and is… Everywhere, at all times.
According to the official orthodox stance and I think according to the catholic Dogmas too, the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles and they started speaking “in tongues”…
(Now, my own conclusion) Observe something: it was not one tongue, one language, but rather multiple ones.
The Divine is approving of multiple tongues, but each tongue has its own way of expressing itself, thus here we can speak of potential different ways to worship or express the Divine and potentially… different frequencies, according to the individual.
The Divine is manifesting (in) a multitude of ways for communication…
Just like the colors of the rainbow are different frequencies of light…
The same light manifesting differently.
The prodigal son…
You know that he strayed for years in a “foreign land” no?
Well, a day before God is like a thousand years, according to Scriptures, thus years could represent many, if not countless thousands of years of… vagrancy, of identifying with the flesh (material world or the external matrix), forgetting about the Divinity, about our own divinity.
You, me, anyone can be or rather is the prodigal son, at some point, if not for many lifetimes / incarnations.
Throughout our long journey, we return at some point…
To the Divine within (and without).
Thats the Return of the Prodigal Son, the Return to Self.
Councils and votes chose the basic doctrines and later other doctrines the Churches upheld for millenia… or centuries, for the newer splinter groups.
They always had fights with each others: who should be the first amongst the Apostles (and remember Jesus ’ answer: “If anyone wants to be first, he must be last of all and servant of all” lol), if Paul was legit or not, if gentiles should be allowed or only keep it Jew friendly, later thry bickered about anything: icons, in which direction to pray to God (lol), which scriptures were valid or not, IF Christ was Divine or simply a special creation, if there was a Trinity and HOW that Trinity works (still bickering about all of those BTW)…
And they VOTED and the majority WON!
Voilla… The Dogmas!
And those who had different views?
OUT!
OR have a nice final… barbeque.
I am a little bit cynical here, sure, but since when does the Holy Spirit decides through democratic elections?!
Well, since the church fathers said so!
Of course under the benevolent guidance of Constantine, a mighty emperor who even killed his own son!!
And he got promoted to SAINTHOOD!!
Well, they had to obey their political master, else those bishops would have had the promotion…
Politics…
The WORSE of mankind.
Religion too…
Socrates got killed for being “Impious” (he was probably the most decent human being among those hypocritical Athenians), Jesus got crucified, even though he was clearly waaaay above those priests and rabbis, others were killed for “witchcraft”, while others for promoting… Science.
Or nowadays refusing to submit to some desert folks’ religion.
Or facing fines or jail for speaking against invaders in Britain or daring to dislike Gay culture in America (at least there is no death penalty for these “crimes”)…
Etc.