@lantern53
ill agree with the sentiment of your comment if not the wrongful use of certain words.

bush was a big business president.
perma tax breaks anyone?
to use the term "progressive" in describing bush is being inaccurate at best and dishonest at worst.

the bush admin pushed through some of the most extreme expansions of executive powers (thanks addington and woo).they are guilty of war crimes.they are guilty of spying on american citizens.they are guilty of perpetrating an illegal war based on total fabrication.
and all of it.every last bit...retroactive immunity.

now here comes obama.
and while his rhetoric is beautiful and poetic,having a strong populist flavor,the facts remain that not only did the obama admin CONTINUE the bush executive powers,his admin EXPANDED them!

/waves to the NSA

so i do not know where you get this "fundamentally changing" this country when it has been business as usual.
unless you are speaking of oabamacare and i would point out that obamacare is a health care provider bail out.

bush bails out the banks.
obama bails out big pharma and health insurance industry.

and we get to pick up the tab.

the rhetoric may have a progressive tilt but the reality is business as usual.socialism for the rich,capitalism for the poor.

and it bothers me that some people i know who were ultra critical of the bush admin are relatively silent in regards to obama.

@VoodooV
when i use the term "extreme nasty" i am not referring to a civil war but rather the american public finally reaching its boiling point.

it started bubbling with the tea party,and if people recall it was NOT the rabid christian rightwing fascist group it is today.
they had real grievances and rightly so.

but they got co-opted by private monies.

then occupy blew up and they too had real grievances and since the power elites could not co-opt them like the tea party they were systematically shut down by targeted governmental edict.

thanks Obama.

for years the poor and working poor were disenfranchised,made irrelevant in a political system that only used them as talking points to garner sympathy during an election cycle.

but now the middle class are finding themselves falling into the ranks of poor and working poor and ALL have been made irrelevant and inconsequential.

the american public has been kept in a constant state of fear for over 25 years.
fear of brown people.
fear of losing their job.
losing their house.
hell they even fear their own neighbors!

while the beautiful and poetic nationalism of american exceptionalism and ingenuity sound great,most americans are aware its all bullshit.
the political system is corrupt and sick on its own hubris and greed.

the american public know that this government no longer serves their interest.just look at the data.time and time again the public has a strong opinion on a subject and yet our elected officials vote to serve their masters.
war in iraq? americans shouted NO!
bank bail out? resounding NO!
the examples over the past (especially the past 15 yrs) are staggering.

so while i admire your optimism in still using the political system to enact positive change.i just dont see it ever becoming a reality.
mainly because the system is rigged and not in our favor.

so that leaves only ONE option:take to the streets.
refuse to go to work.
keep your purchases to a minimum and trade with each other.
refuse to feed the beast.
clog it with bodies.
clog the streets..halt business from operating properly.

but avoid violence.

thats what the state uses and to give it reason to engage in violence will only serve to beget more violence.

make those in power afraid.
remind them who they really work for and that if they dont the whole fucking thing is gonna come crashing down.

its the only real option i see and if it comes to pass you will see those who wield power do so..and it will be very nasty.

see:the labor movement
see:civil rights
see:anti-war
see:woman sufferages

This video has been seconded as a duplicate; transferring votes to the original video and killing this dupe - dupeof seconded with isdupe by chingalera.

This video has been nominated as a duplicate of this video by lurgee. If this nomination is seconded with *isdupe, the video will be killed and its votes transferred to the original.

Sorry brother man. *dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Hubbard-s-Grt-Grandson-Poetically-Exposes-Man-Behind-Myth

Thanks Eric.
*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Hubbard-s-Grt-Grandson-Poetically-Exposes-Man-Behind-Myth

This video has been declared a duplicate by the original submitter; transferring votes to the original video and killing this dupe - dupeof declared by pumkinandstorm.

http://videosift.com/video/Hubbard-s-Grt-Grandson-Poetically-Exposes-Man-Behind-Myth

Skyclad
Historically, Witches worked Naked, and there are many references to naked Witches standing on their clothes. In a few illustrations, the Witches are clothed in the clothing of their time, but examination of the drawings indicates that the artist rarely knew a real Witch.
Gardner introduced the term Skyclad into the Craft in the 1950's with the reference to "Witches worship naked which is called in the East (Indonesia), 'Skyclad'" and the term stuck as a poetic way to refer to ritual nudity. Witches worshipped Skyclad in 1950's and today, but in the 70s, the Welsh and American Celtic Witches began to wear robes, which became the standard way to worship for years. By the late '70s, the Feminist Witches began to experiment with Skyclad worship, so by the late 80’s about half of the American and European Witches worship Skyclad.
There are a number of reasons for nudity, the first being that in the Charge, which was written by Doreen Valiente from older sources, The Goddess said,
"And as a sign that ye be truly free, ye shall be naked in your rites."

This Charge is so beautiful that many Witches who reject the Gardnerian Traditions, retain the Charge as one of the few declamations that, if not directly from the Goddess, was unquestionably inspired by Her. Thus, the argument follows that we MUST worship naked because it is the will of the Goddess whom we love.

This argument is countered by a later version of the Charge that says,
"as a sign that ye be really free, ye shall be equal in your rites."
However, this is a later American version not as originally written.
A more convincing counter to the Charge is simply to reject the Charge outright.
Reject all Traditional and Gardnerian ideas, so it is then easy reject nudity as well.

A second reason for ritual nudity is the practical one. Witches all over the world often report that naked is safer.
In rites where I have been robed there have been accidents, incidents where a person stepping on the hem of another’s robe, and causes them to trip. In a nine-foot Circle, if one person goes down, usually all follow.  

Naked people are more aware of their surroundings, so you step more carefully and bang into the Altar and others less than clothed Witches.
You feel the heat of candles, as opposed to not detecting the heat until after your robe is in flames, so it is simply safer to be naked.
At Sabbat where we had three Covens worshipping together in Circle, some were from our Outer Court, so wore robes. During the rite, one woman stood too close to the West candle and set her robe on fire. She did manage to extinguish the flames with little disruption, but I did hear about the accident after the rite ended.

The magickal reason for nudity is that anything worn upon the body will interfere with and change the energy given off by the body. This includes clothes, make-up, perfumes, jewelry, glasses, contact lenses and so on.
This argument is quite logically countered by stating, “energy that can pass through a wall, cover miles of distance, and influence another person would not be stopped by a layer of cloth. “ Consider the greater awareness of your surroundings, being closer emotionally and physicality to the others in the circle. Being able to raise energy without the distraction of avoiding stepping on robes or pulling your sleeve up to keep in out of the candle flame.
Think of the Coven body, mind, and spirit that must generate a tremendous amount of power to send that spell over that distance. Once the Cone of Power is sent the spell won’t be deflected, but it can be deflected at the source by a relatively little. In other words, wearing clothing or non-craft jewelry or non-consecrated materials can easily deflect or alter the power that leaves the Circle. The spell, when it reaches its target, may be different or it may even reach a different target.
Nudity is rarely sexual, after ten minutes the naked Witch becomes bored with seeing bare breasts and genitals and is then free to work. A woman wearing a robe that cuts low in the front and is slit up the side to her hips will introduce into the Coven an attitude of sexual desire to the men as they try to see a nipple or thigh that, by being hidden, is desirable but when revealed by nudity is simply another body part. The men, in this situation, may have difficulty concentrating on the work in an effort to see what is barely hidden. Similar things occur in the female mind when the situation is reversed, though women are often trained to deny these thoughts to others and even to themselves.
There are Psychological factors to Nudity are that the people must accept themselves as they are or change themselves. It is difficult to put on a facade when you are denied a girdle, bra, wig, make-up, deodorant, aftershave, codpiece or other enhancements to your image. Once naked, the individual with their sags, and bulges shines and, becomes themselves and not a mask. 
When working magik, it is vital to know yourself and accept your own good and ill, for to attempt the path with false illusions will cause trouble when your subconscious rebels and forces your work to conform to a hidden truth.
To be naked indicates freedom from conventional mundane thought. When clothed in a suit or dress, you conform to societies expectations and become what they wish you to become. Your style of dress and hairstyle are a reflection, not of your own desires, but of what your peers wish you to be.
Equality between class and gender is assured when naked, as the rich no longer have jewels to show their class worth, and Women must face men as equals, both showing their inadequacies and realizing that the other sex is just as physically imperfect as you are. With this barrier down, men and women can accept each other as equals.
Once naked, you are free to place your mind into a sphere of magickal thought. A place between the worlds where the God and Goddess are not symbols hanging on a wall but REAL DIVINITIES, where all is possible.
It is necessary to be clothed at times; in public or when outdoors in winter it may be necessary to be clothed to allow the mind to concentrate on the goal and not to be thinking that the body is slowly freezing to death.
When this is necessary to wear a robe, it should be one that interferes with magik and mind as little as possible. It is best to wear a plain robe that is exactly the same as all others. To make a personal robe will introduce ego and class or sexual differences into the rite.
There are some uses to wearing robes. The simple act of putting on a robe that is reserved only for Ritual use causes the inner mind to awaken and to develop the attitude that "Now the mundane world is behind me, it is time for the magickal world to appear." This can be very effective to your working and will counter some of the physical drawbacks of wearing robes. If all are wearing identical robes, the attitude of equality within, 'the group' is enhanced, for there is nothing different between the people or sexes.
The robe must also be of a natural material such as cotton or wool since synthetics cause a great deal of interference with the power. A simple list of materials which will interfere with magickal power when worn from the least to the greatest effect is as follows: cotton, wool, conductive metals from silver, gold, copper, iron, synthetic materials such as nylon, or rayon, and Silk though a natural material is a strong magickal insulator.
In today’s world, you will find Witches who work Skyclad, robed, in costumes and even in their street clothes. Street clothes however; bring into the Circle all the influences that have become attached to those clothes over the day. These influences will affect your workings as well as your mind because the subconscious will see no difference between the mundane and the magickal, and as we spend most of our time in the mundane world, it is easy to see which will win.


"Nudity establishes a closeness and honesty among conveners and 'is a sign that a witches loyalty is to the truth before any ideology or any comforting illusions.” Starhawk.

Yessss...one more, and you even included songs!!

I really like the cool vibe of "Jubilee Street" (I haven't heard it before either). Oh come on!!! You are not going to believe it but this video of "The Knife" is also blocked!!! I was able to find another one on youtube that does play for me though, and it was worth looking for. We have such similar tastes in music. I really love all of these. I have 6 songs in my playlist now. That should keep me entertained during my commute to work tomorrow.

Not only is my user name poetic, but also mysterious...it gets better the more you talk about it.

Ok, I just have to respond to this last one before I go...

That last song is blocked it says. DAMN, I wanted to hear it before I closed. I will look up the song name and artist up on youtube later on when I get a chance. Keep sending more songs....don't stop now. I wouldn't mind if I logged in and there were 100 new ones on my profile.

A poetic ring to pumkinandstorm!! Well that's nice to know. Maybe I don't mind it so much after all.... Yeah, it is too bad that once you join most sites, you can't even change your name without closing the account and re-opening a new one....and that can't be done here. A person will be banned for having a second account. Oh well, lesson learned...don't be hasty when making such important decisions.

I understand now why you garner such hostility from other Sifters . Still at least your trying to engage me intellectually, in that respect at least you may consider yourself light years ahead of most of your brethren.

I garner hostility here because most of the sifters here grew up in Christian households and they've rebelled against their parents and God and they don't want to hear anything about Him. This is their sanctuary where they enjoy mocking God and Christians without any dissenting voices. I'm here because I care but I wouldn't be here unless God told me to be here. I've tried to leave a few times and He keeps sending me back. Although not so much lately.

There appear to be two fundamental points of disagreement/misunderstanding here.

...Instead we apply Hegel's Dialectic:

Thesis- all statements are false

Antithesis- therefore the above statement must be false and some statements must be true

Synthesis- statements can be both true and false simultaneously!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are two ways, and only two ways, to know truth. Either you are omnipotent, or an omnipotent being reveals it to you. Since humans are not omnipotent it is impossible to know truth unless it is revealed to us by an omnipotent being, ie God. If you think there is another way to know truth, name it. Otherwise what is there to debate? If you don't think it's possible to know truth then you don't know anything. If you don't know anything then you have nothing to talk about.

"Nothing is true" is mere expression. It is a poetic sounding mantra which contains therein a deeper wisdom about the foundations of all human knowledge. You are not specially equipped to break the problem of "under-determination" as outlined by Philosophers like David Hume. God himself could appear to you and say/do anything he liked, it would not change the fundamental limits of the human condition.

Could God reveal Himself to you in a way that you could be absolutely certain of it? It doesn't matter what we can prove to one another; God could sufficiently prove Himself to me (He has) or to you and it would transcend every piece of rationale you've offered.

How could you possibly know for certain that it was not Satan out to trick you? Satan is a deeply powerful being after all, powerful enough to fabricate a profound spiritual experience don't you think? How could you ever prove that the God you worship is not the greatest impostor in the cosmos beyond all doubt?

I know it for certain because God has made me certain. I've seen things only an omnipotent God could do, such as arranging and timing circumstances which would require Him to be in complete and precise control of everything and everyone. Satan certainly can generate profound spiritual experiences (and blindness), which is why he is able to deceive the whole world.

I ask this because the God you worship DEMANDS that you do in fact worship him (and only him) on threat of divine punishment. No true God would ever require worship, let alone demand it! What kind of sick egotist are we dealing with? (the changes in the system related to that whole Jesus thing don;t make a difference here. Either This "God" started perfect or it is not what it claims to be! Past crimes count no matter what token amends were made later on)

God doesn't need us, woo. He had perfect love within His Trinity relationships before He created anything. He doesn't demand that we worship Him because He is egotistical, He commands us to worship Him to put us in right relationship with Him as the supreme good and sustainer of all things. He is the only appropiate object for our adoration, which also puts us in right relationship with other people. Human beings are built to worship; that is why the world is littered with the carcasses of false idols. I don't just mean pagan deities, I mean power, money, fame and all of the other things human beings lust and pine away for. The thing man most likes to worship is himself. Humanists worship the intellect, and the accomplishments of human civilization. These too are idols. Everyone has something they worship, when God is the only appropiate object of our worship. The love that we have to give to all of those things comes from Him, and that is why we return it to Him, which in turn leads to greater love for all people and things. Every other kind of worship is selfish and ultimately spiritual dead(and destructive). Thus this command to worship Him alone (we were created to be in relationship with Him) is for our growth, our protection, and so that we can be who He created us to be.

Your not the only one to have experienced encounters with things you might call "Gods" or "Angels/Daemons". But the God I found lies entirely within and demands/threatens ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, and sets ABSOLUTELY NO CONDITIONS. It knows that all Monads (souls) will inevitably make their way back to it, and that it has the patience of eternity with which to wait.

How do you know that?

The fundamental difference is that this God did not create the universe (an absurd answer which demands infinitely more explanation than it provides), this God is created BY THE UNIVERSE!

The explanation you provide only pushes the "absurdity" back one step; you're still left with the same problem as you say I have. Yet, it is not a problem to believe in something eternal. To believe something came from nothing wouldbe the absurdity. Do you believe the Universe is eternal?

We are all "God" experiencing itself subjectively as it evolves teleologically towards perfection. If Consciousness is eternal then this is the only outcome that makes any sense. God being perfect and beyond all time experiences everything it is conceivably possible for a perfect being to experience within an instant of non-time. With all of eternity stretched it before it does the only sensible thing it could do, it commits suicide and returns the universe to a state of pure potential, ready to undergo the experience of evolving from the most basic "mathematical" principles to fully actualised and all powerful consciousness (i.e. back at God again). A fundamental part of this entire process is the journey from elemental and animalistic unconsciousness to fully self aware enlightened consciousness, the highest truth then is to discover that you yourself are God (at least in-potentia), not some mysterious external power.

If God is perfect, which He is, then He isn't limited. His joy never ends; it is the limitation of the human intellect that prevents you from understanding an infinite being, so you have devised a scenario based on those limitations where you impose a limitation on Gods experience so that He is forced to "commit suicide" in order to have new and enjoyable experiences. An infinite being experiences infinite joy. A perfect being will always be perfect. God doesn't evolve; a perfect being has no need to evolve or ever become "basic". He is eternally perfect, and we are not.

1 John 1:5 This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

The other is your conviction that the Gospel is absolutely true and that you appear to see everything related to it and the greater human spiritual quest via this filter. I'm not going to trade scripture with you on matters of pedantry it'll take all day and get neither of us anywhere. Instead I shall focus on one key argument that undermines the entire house of cards. If the God of Abraham and the old testament is one in the same as the God of which Jesus preaches (/is in corporeal form) and further more that the Old testament is in some way a true account of his/its actions......Then the God of Abraham and Jesus is demonstrably A. not perfect and B. malevolent/incompetent.

Yes, the God Abraham is the God Jesus is referring to. The error is that you think you understand God better than Jesus did. Jesus is the perfect representation of God; His exact image. If you've seen Jesus you have seen the Father. They are one and the same in terms of their character and every other attribute. You don't see that because you don't understand the scriptures. Jesus did, which is why He said things like this:

John 17:23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

The atheist version of studying the bible is to look for something that seems to contradict the claims of Christians so that they can throw it in the garbage and be done with it. You would see the same God that Jesus represents in the Old Testament if you understood the history that it presents.

Go ask the Benjamites or the Canaanites how they feel about this "God". Or how about the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah? The firstborn of Egypt? etc. etc.

Go ask the criminals on death row how they feel about the judge and prosecutor who sent them there. Does that mean they don't deserve to be there?

Yaweh demands Abraham sacrifice his own son, truly the act of a benevolent creature no? And while were on the subject what kind of "God" demands a blood sacrifice for anything? Even if it was a legitimate test of Abrahams faith (a highly dubious notion unto itself) what about the poor goat sacrificed in his sons stead?
This leads into the key difference between the Gnostic God/The Buddha/Dau/Chi etc. (Esoteric) and the Abrahamic God (Exoteric).....

God didn't ask Abraham to do anything that He wasn't willing to do Himself, but unlike Abraham God did sacrifice His son. This is what I mean when I say that you you're not understanding what you're reading. The sacrifice of Issac is a picture of Jesus Christ. You don't see these things because you don't know what to look for.

One merely offers the wisdom to transcend the suffering inherent in mortal life and make ones way back to union with that which we were all along. It is not invested in the material world, it is merely a higher expression of consciousness no longer bound by emergent natural laws. It never judges, it never condemns or punishes and it helps only those who are ready to help themselves.

The other demands blood sacrifices, incites genocides, sets strict rules and threatens you with damnation if you don't obey, demands worship (WORSHIP! WTF!!!!), inspires/authors deeply contradictory and difficult to understand written works (it expects you to accept on faith alone), claims to be a perfect creator of a universe into which suffering and imperfection are inherent (perfect beings do not create imperfect things) etc. etc.

Here is the difference..the God you describe wants to "help" you out of a situation that it created because of its own limitations and need for self-gratification. It is not only responsible for evil, but it does nothing about it. The God you describe is limited, selfish and immoral.

The way you describe my God is a strawman argument in itself. It is not an accurate representation of the biblical account. The God of the Universe created a perfect Universe and endowed His creatures with free will. The creatures He created freely chose to do evil and this is what brought sin and death into the world. This is the reason for the imperfection, and God, at great personal cost to Himself, restored and reconciled His creation through Jesus Christ.

You won't be able to understand the bible without Gods help:

1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

That's why I suggested you read the gospel of John, if you really do want to understand God accurately, and pray for assistance.

I don't side with Lucifer (I think she has the opposite problem to Jehova i.e. enlightenment at all costs as quickly as possible and damm the journey to get there), but I do recognise her as the fundamentally opposing force to Jehovah/Allah out of which a higher synthesis emerges (Abraxas the Gnostic God of light, or whatever you want to call it). Jehovah represents supreme attachment to the material world (R>0),

It's a false dichotomy. What you're describing when you refer to God is the gnostic demiurge, which bears no resemblence to the God of the bible. There are no opposing forces to be spoken of because there is no actual duality. God is only light and the only thing He is attached to is His children, because He freely loves them. He is the only power in the Universe. Satan has a paper kingdom; it is just shadows on the wall. In any case, you can't escape the corruption caused by your sin nature. If you shatter a mirror, no matter how well you glue it back together it will never reflect purely again. It doesn't need to be repaired, it needs to be replaced. This is why Jesus said you need to be born again:

John 3:3 Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."

When you receive Jesus as Lord and Savior, He will send the Holy Spirit to live inside of you and make you a new person. You are spiritually dead in sins and transgressions, but the Holy Spirit will regenerate your spirit and cleanse you from all of your sin.

while Lucifer supreme attachment to the spiritual/mental (R=0). A wise man see's the two as a personification of the two highest drives in the human psyche and thus concepts to be transcended/mastered.

Satan desired one thing, which was to be God. He became prideful because of his great beauty and intellect and based on his ignorance of Gods true nature, he tried to form a rebellion against God to replace Him and was kicked out of Heaven. This is essentially the process you are describing for those who believe they are God. All Satan is trying to do is duplicate his errors in you and as many other people as he can so that he can destroy them before his time comes. He can't strike back at God directly so he goes after his creatures. Satan is an imitator; he is a potter just as God is a potter. He is doing everything possible to shape and mold you into his image and character, and he has entire universes of deception waiting for you, filled with as much "secret knowledge and wisdom" as you desire. He has a door for every kind of person, every kind of philosophy; his is the broad road that leads to destruction. Jesus said enter through the narrow gate:

Mat 7:13 "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.

Mat 7:14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Either way I regard worshipping the God of Abraham as the "one true God" to be a supreme mistake, if Jesus professes to preach that same God's gospel then following him would be a supreme mistake also. I show no fealty to torture Gods, I have more self respect than that.

You surely prefer the idol you have created in your own mind, because that is the god who allows you to do whatever you want. That's all this is really about. Do you know what Jesus said the reason is that men won't come to God?:

John 3:19-21

19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.

21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”

You don't get to decide who God is, and just because you don't think you should be accountable for what you've done in this life doesn't mean you won't be.

For the record. I love you as much as any other creature in this cosmos but I don't pray to anything for your soul to be saved. Truly it was never in jeopardy in the first place! That part of you which lies beyond the limits of mortality will find its way back to the highest state eventually no matter what, even if it takes eons. In the mean time however I'm happy to waste a small portion of said eons arguing (I suspect futilely) with you on the internet.

God loves you and I love you, and that's why I am telling you all of this. The highest state is the lowest state:

Mat 23:11 The greatest among you shall be your servant.

Mat 23:12 Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

(I'll get back to you on some of your other more specific points at a later point, I don't have the time or inclination to dig out the texts to make those counter arguments right now.)

Take your time. God bless.

I understand now why you garner such hostility from other Sifters . Still at least your trying to engage me intellectually, in that respect at least you may consider yourself light years ahead of most of your brethren.

There appear to be two fundamental points of disagreement/misunderstanding here.

First if your reliance on Aristotelian Logic to attack my Dialectic argument. When I said you were using the language with which I described to counter instead of addressing the underlying concept it was to this I was alluding (not clearly enough it seems).
Philosophers (good ones anyway) have largely up on traditional Aristotelian logic as a means to extrapolate objective truth because it functions only upon linguistic syntax. The very fact that such a fundamental assertion as "nothing is true" is mutually contradictory as a prime example of this. The language we use to describe and frame the problem simultaneously limits our ability to comprehend it. As I suspect you well know deeper conceptual matters are often too deep to be fully expressed by mere syntax based language.
Instead we apply Hegel's Dialectic:

Thesis- all statements are false

Antithesis- therefore the above statement must be false and some statements must be true

Synthesis- statements can be both true and false simultaneously!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Nothing is true" is mere expression. It is a poetic sounding mantra which contains therein a deeper wisdom about the foundations of all human knowledge. You are not specially equipped to break the problem of "under-determination" as outlined by Philosophers like David Hume. God himself could appear to you and say/do anything he liked, it would not change the fundamental limits of the human condition.

How could you possibly know for certain that it was not Satan out to trick you? Satan is a deeply powerful being after all, powerful enough to fabricate a profound spiritual experience don't you think? How could you ever prove that the God you worship is not the greatest impostor in the cosmos beyond all doubt? I ask this because the God you worship DEMANDS that you do in fact worship him (and only him) on threat of divine punishment. No true God would ever require worship, let alone demand it! What kind of sick egotist are we dealing with? (the changes in the system related to that whole Jesus thing don;t make a difference here. Either This "God" started perfect or it is not what it claims to be! Past crimes count no matter what token amends were made later on)


Your not the only one to have experienced encounters with things you might call "Gods" or "Angels/Daemons". But the God I found lies entirely within and demands/threatens ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, and sets ABSOLUTELY NO CONDITIONS. It knows that all Monads (souls) will inevitably make their way back to it, and that it has the patience of eternity with which to wait.
The fundamental difference is that this God did not create the universe (an absurd answer which demands infinitely more explanation than it provides), this God is created BY THE UNIVERSE!
We are all "God" experiencing itself subjectively as it evolves teleologically towards perfection. If Consciousness is eternal then this is the only outcome that makes any sense. God being perfect and beyond all time experiences everything it is conceivably possible for a perfect being to experience within an instant of non-time. With all of eternity stretched it before it does the only sensible thing it could do, it commits suicide and returns the universe to a state of pure potential, ready to undergo the experience of evolving from the most basic "mathematical" principles to fully actualised and all powerful consciousness (i.e. back at God again). A fundamental part of this entire process is the journey from elemental and animalistic unconsciousness to fully self aware enlightened consciousness, the highest truth then is to discover that you yourself are God (at least in-potentia), not some mysterious external power.

R>=0 (R= distance between two points)



The other is your conviction that the Gospel is absolutely true and that you appear to see everything related to it and the greater human spiritual quest via this filter. I'm not going to trade scripture with you on matters of pedantry it'll take all day and get neither of us anywhere. Instead I shall focus on one key argument that undermines the entire house of cards. If the God of Abraham and the old testament is one in the same as the God of which Jesus preaches (/is in corporeal form) and further more that the Old testament is in some way a true account of his/its actions......Then the God of Abraham and Jesus is demonstrably A. not perfect and B. malevolent/incompetent.

Go ask the Benjamites or the Canaanites how they feel about this "God". Or how about the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah? The firstborn of Egypt? etc. etc.

Yaweh demands Abraham sacrifice his own son, truly the act of a benevolent creature no? And while were on the subject what kind of "God" demands a blood sacrifice for anything? Even if it was a legitimate test of Abrahams faith (a highly dubious notion unto itself) what about the poor goat sacrificed in his sons stead?
This leads into the key difference between the Gnostic God/The Buddha/Dau/Chi etc. (Esoteric) and the Abrahamic God (Exoteric).....

One merely offers the wisdom to transcend the suffering inherent in mortal life and make ones way back to union with that which we were all along. It is not invested in the material world, it is merely a higher expression of consciousness no longer bound by emergent natural laws. It never judges, it never condemns or punishes and it helps only those who are ready to help themselves.

The other demands blood sacrifices, incites genocides, sets strict rules and threatens you with damnation if you don't obey, demands worship (WORSHIP! WTF!!!!), inspires/authors deeply contradictory and difficult to understand written works (it expects you to accept on faith alone), claims to be a perfect creator of a universe into which suffering and imperfection are inherent (perfect beings do not create imperfect things) etc. etc.

I don't side with Lucifer (I think she has the opposite problem to Jehova i.e. enlightenment at all costs as quickly as possible and damm the journey to get there), but I do recognise her as the fundamentally opposing force to Jehovah/Allah out of which a higher synthesis emerges (Abraxas the Gnostic God of light, or whatever you want to call it). Jehovah represents supreme attachment to the material world (R>0), while Lucifer supreme attachment to the spiritual/mental (R=0). A wise man see's the two as a personification of the two highest drives in the human psyche and thus concepts to be transcended/mastered.
Or if you want to put your scientific head on for a moment they represent the Left and Right hand brain (all truths are relative, one can approach this from a purely psychological/neuroscience position and argue the same case just with less colourful imagery ).

Either way I regard worshipping the God of Abraham as the "one true God" to be a supreme mistake, if Jesus professes to preach that same God's gospel then following him would be a supreme mistake also. I show no fealty to torture Gods, I have more self respect than that.


For the record. I love you as much as any other creature in this cosmos but I don't pray to anything for your soul to be saved. Truly it was never in jeopardy in the first place! That part of you which lies beyond the limits of mortality will find its way back to the highest state eventually no matter what, even if it takes eons. In the mean time however I'm happy to waste a small portion of said eons arguing (I suspect futilely) with you on the internet.

(I'll get back to you on some of your other more specific points at a later point, I don't have the time or inclination to dig out the texts to make those counter arguments right now.)

Hedges -may- be one of the last remaining "good guys", but the press sold out their freedom long ago. The AP is not press, hasn't been for a couple decades now...they're just a part of the Bureau of Propaganda.

I could not give a shit if they now find themselves on the other end of the stick. I'd call it poetic justice.

I found Ravi's previous lecture much more compelling. The foundation of morality could certainly be defined simply by the UTILITY of peace and cooperation versus the anarchy that would result if atheists simply decided that all decisions should be based on purely on selfish motivations.

Atheists are perfectly able to find value and beauty in life, created, evolved or otherwise. I find his argument incoherent, circular and indefensible. Poetic, sure. But ultimately invalid.