True Christian theology

[Caoimhin]

I challenge anyone to study the saints, read devotional books, and the Bible and not become a Christian.  For me, I was stuck in new age and new thought for years, however I realized that I grew more and more enslaved to spiritual practices that wouldn't give me long term peace. I grew neurotic, spiritually arrogant and profoundly self centered. If I'm God, then it's what I want and what I manifest that determines reality. It is prideful and arrogant and narcissistic. I selfishly used people and tried to manipulate reality to get what I want and what's worse is I thought I was being "loving". However, returning to Christianity, I realized that it was the only religion of true humility. All other religions are about you saving yourself through works and practices. However in Christianity the idea is total surrender to the will of God. The foundational piece that got me is this: you can't do good unless God does good through you. 

I recommend studying the Christian mystics and reading the Bible with awareness that it's all about Christ's sacrifice, even the old testament refers to Christ. Ex: The ram stuck in the thorn bush that took Isaac's place as a sacrifice, Jonah being thrown into the ocean to calm God's wrath, Job's trials of faith and surrender, the Passover lamb and the manna in the desert, etc. 

do it as an experiment, I know a lot of you have read a lot of spiritual books, however, the Bible is one that most people don't give a fighting chance. You consider the Bhagavat Gita and the Tao Te Jing as having truth but discount the truth in scripture. 

Read books like "the Practice of the Presence of God" by Brother Lawrence, "Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence", and "the Imitation of Christ"

For an added challenge pray and ask God to guide you to truth and to soften your heart... see where it takes you and after a month you can drop it if it doesn't speak to you. At least you gave it a true chance before disregarding it. I believe that if you give Christianity a genuine chance you might come to appreciate the nuance and mystery of Faith or even be on the path to sainthood yourself.

I recommend the Catholic or Orthodox traditions and talking to a theologian, because they have the most connection to mysticism and true communion with Christ, not just backyard Bible study.

may God bless us and have mercy on us and let His will be done through us.

Fell free to reach out if you have questions or just want to chat.

 

Edited April 2 by Caoimhin
invitation to connect

[Aaron p]

@Caoimhin you ever study the baptism of the holy ghost homie, pretty weak in comparison to nondual awakening but still 0.1% cool

[Leo Gura]

4 hours ago, Caoimhin said:

I grew neurotic, spiritually arrogant and profoundly self centered. If I'm God, then it's what I want and what I manifest that determines reality. It is prideful and arrogant and narcissistic. I selfishly used people and tried to manipulate reality to get what I want and what's worse is I thought I was being "loving".

Of course, because you never realized what God is. And you still don't.

Christianity is a trap because it makes you feel humble, but actually it is a vast epistemic and ontological arrogance. So much is believed and assumed.

It take the highest arrogance to adopt all of Christianity's ideas as true with any direct experience, inquiry, or validation.

Feel free to follow whatever path you want. But are not doing truth-seeking. Which means you'll end up in self-deception.

The very idea that you believe Christianity is humble is self-deception. True humility would be to sit in silence in pure not-knowing without a single religious belief in your mind.

All religion is arrogance and idol worship.

When you reach the point in your journey where you realize that you know absolutely nothing. THAT will be true humility. You will have nothing to ground you and nothing to give you hope. And that very moment you will be closer to God than you've ever been in your life. God is not-knowing.

Edited Wednesday at 09:57 PM by Leo Gura

[PenguinPablo]

5 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Christianity is a trap because it makes you feel humble, but actually it is a proud epistemic and ontological arrogance.

Underrated and sharp observation.

 

[Princess Arabia]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Of course, because you never realized what God is. And you still don't.

Christianity is a trap because it makes you feel humble, but actually it is a proud epistemic and ontological arrogance.

It take the highest arrogance to adopt all of Christianity's ideas as true with any direct experience, inquiry, or validation.

Feel free to follow whatever path you want. But are not doing truth-seeking. Which means you'll end up in self-deception.

The very idea that you believe Christianity is humble is self-deception. True humility would be to sit in silence in pure not-knowing without a single religious belief in your mind.

All religion is arrogance and idol worship.

When you reach the point in your journey where you realize that you know absolutely nothing. THAT will be true humility.

Great response.

[Sempiternity]

And Faith is a trap. It seems to me that the biggest difference between religious people and spirituality people, is religion says that you can't know, so you have to have faith in what they say is true, which is dangerous. Whereas spirituality you can know what reality is, what God is, what is death, etc. I'd rather know for myself, than trust someone with an agenda (money and control over others). Problem is, most of the population of the world doesn't know that you can know, so the only path they have is religion. I look forward to a time when more of the world knows true spirituality. 

[Princess Arabia]

@CaoimhinYou say what you say with a lot of assumptions. You're assuming that most here haven't been through the religious circles and haven't come to conclusions on their own already that it's not for them. 

[Santiago Ram]

The devil works by:

1. Pride

2. Lies

Lying to please others is how satan operates.

[Santiago Ram]

6 hours ago, Aaron p said:

@Caoimhin you ever study the baptism of the holy ghost homie, pretty weak in comparison to nondual awakening but still 0.1% cool

No. Not weak at all. It is stronger. You realize there are an Infinite number of Gods and Christ is the most powerful of All.

[Yimpa]

[Hojo]

 

[kavaris]

i think my thing is like, im neither for or against, yet so much content is already occupying the space of adoptions in me, that i cant make room for a new identity/relation with christian/catholic -or wat-have-you. Id enjoy just being reborn, literally and figuratively, born-again, frolicking in the fields and praising some idea of myself as a christian, possibly with images of christ in the manger, and the baby lambs goin 'Ba-ah-ah-ah'; alas i cant fit anything, BECAUSE of how deep that the natural waterwell & circumstances of consciousness awareness are.. in the same way, i cant fit satanism, or whatever else, theres just no room beyond sayin how i like that story, or i like that picture, or that idea is interesting -type've thing.

Edited Thursday at 03:39 AM by kavaris

[kavaris]

and theres 'Mysticism'. As mysticisim is the one i get in arguments w/ ppl tryina convince em that they should just consider spiritualism and mysticism as the same thing all together. no one was on board w/ it so far

although i should add that, it was largely disagreed on what mysticism was too, which i dont understand how. i forget what it was i heard recently that gave the very best description, alas id have to go hunt for it again.

Edited Thursday at 03:47 AM by kavaris

[Caoimhin]

@Leo Gura so surrendering your will for the unknown will of God is arrogance? It is a truth claim so it is "arrogant" in that sense. But we are talking about the implications of that truth claim. The main assumption is that God loves us Perfectly through Christ. Christian mysticism is based on trusting in the unknowing of divine providence. I'm sure you've contemplated what God's love would look like if God was separate and higher than us, it would be Christ. Put the same rigor into studying Christianity and Christian mysticism as a steelman. If you can make a valid steelman argument disproving it, I invite it. I've already did for myself. Truth can't be threatened. If your right than believing anything has not consequences, so believing in anything is pointless, however we will believe in something so it might as well benefit us during this life. if Christianity is right then there is a consequence. 

[Caoimhin]

@Sempiternity if your claim is true then nothing is dangerous outside your own opinions and standards. So there is no harm in being Christian for a month or a year then dropping it... also, your own belief is a snake eating it's tail because knowing and not knowing are the same. be skeptical of your own truth claims.

[Caoimhin]

@Princess Arabia you're assuming that I made that assumption. If someone did give Christianity 100% effort and a genuine chance then i'm not actually talking to that person. If i offered a challenge to train for a marathon for a month to see if you like it, would a person who ran a marathon and didn't like it think i was making that assumption, or would they realize that i was talking to a different audience?

[Caoimhin]

@Aaron p never read it, but nonduality is pretty simple bro.

[Jodistrict]

In my opinion, this forum is biased towards intellectual paths to God, so most here don’t really understand it (including me).  Christianity works through the heart.  Christian theology doesn’t transform anyone.   It’s a mystical transformation involving a relationship with God.  People who adopt Christianity and live through their minds turn it into something that is judgmental and intolerant.  But, Jesus warned about this:  “look for the beam in your eye before looking at the spec is someone else’s eye”.   The Hindu saint Ramakrishna became a Christian for a time in order to verify if it could lead to enlightenment and he verified that is was a valid path.

[Princess Arabia]

1 hour ago, Caoimhin said:

@Princess Arabia you're assuming that I made that assumption. If someone did give Christianity 100% effort and a genuine chance then i'm not actually talking to that person. If i offered a challenge to train for a marathon for a month to see if you like it, would a person who ran a marathon and didn't like it think i was making that assumption, or would they realize that i was talking to a different audience?

 

15 hours ago, Caoimhin said:

I challenge anyone to study the saints,

My bad, I thought that's what this statement meant; anyone and everyone. 

 

15 hours ago, Caoimhin said:

I know a lot of you have read a lot of spiritual books, however, the Bible is one that most people don't give a fighting chance.

Seems like assumptions to me.

Anyway, this is just word games. There is a major issue at hand here more relevant to whether you've made assumptions or not so I won't dwell on this.

[meta_male]

@Caoimhin I prayed to God to guide me to truth when I was a Christian. I asked for clarity, for understanding, and for a deeper connection. I believed that the God I had worshiped would hear my prayer. The answer I received didn’t come from the Christian God. It came from something beyond those boundaries, a deeper sense of truth that transcended the labels I had placed on it.

There is no fear in love.