posted March 11, 2007 10:28 PM            

The name "Jesus" has been so muddied with self-serving connotation that I find myself repelled by the mention and that saddens me.

As much as I want to embrace the whole thing, something deep inside me rebels fervently.

Even through my resistance, your words reach me.

posted March 13, 2007 01:29 AM            

Some thoughts:

posted March 13, 2007 09:12 AM            

I have a personal question for you, and if you choose to keep your answer private, then please excuse my probing, but do you subscribe to any particular religious philosophy?

I could talk about this all day, as I view myself as a spiritual seeker. I was raised Christian (if anything) but I find it difficult to exclude spiritual teachings that fall outside the realms of Jesus Christ.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this if you are willing to share.

posted March 13, 2007 06:44 PM            

I've always been interested in philosophy and religion, but I've never been able to tell the difference between the two. I've always understood religious scriptures philosophically, and I've always revered philosophy. I've also always found that the scriptures of various religions and classical philosophies are saying essentially the same things. This never confused me. What confused me was how other people could be so blind to what I saw so easily.

I was raised agnostic, in New England, where bible-thumping is scarce, so I was lucky enough to come to religion without any dogmatic baggage. Partly because there was almost nothing for me to unlearn, I learned quickly. At different times in my life I have felt closer to different religions. In fact, I tended to be the most fascinated by whichever religion I was discovering at the time.

To my mind, there is really only one Religion, and all the religious systems of the world are just different prophets, speaking in different languages, on behalf of the same God.

If there is one religion (one prophet) which most closely and clearly reflects my own understanding of metaphysics, it would probably be Sufism, but only because Sufism has focused, more than any other religion that I know of, on what is essential and common to all religions. Sufis often describe their religion as "the heart of all religions". I recommend Omar, Sanai, and Rumi. http://www.amazon.com/Persian-Poets-Everymans-Library-Pocket/dp/0375411267/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-4250960-2388847?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173825719&sr=1-1

I'm also fond of Taoism, Zen Buddhism, Hinduism, Stoicism, Neo-Platonism, Hermeticism, and, of course, Christianity. I think Christianity is amazing, when it is interpreted correctly.

My religious philosophy can be summed us as follows:

"All is One. No, really."

And, alternately:

"No, no, nope, nope, uh-uh, nope, that's not it, wrong again, sorry, no, 'fraid not, nahh, try again, oops, no, no, no, almost had it, nope, uh-uh, no,... I give up! -
Ah-ha!!"

If there's a specific question that interests you,
and you want to know my thoughts,
you can ask me and I'll answer you,
to the best of my ability.

posted March 13, 2007 09:05 PM            

Here is where I stumble:

Christianity says that Jesus is the ONE and ONLY way. My beliefs (which are born of themselves and are unfazed by thought or fear) encompass many religions/philosophies.

I question the exlusivity of Christianity, yet I fear Hell absolutely.

You can see my dilemma.

posted March 14, 2007 01:13 AM            

Sorry to interrupt, I was just planning on saying:

but your question called to me.

I would also like to mention that pausing to "camp", rather than ascending or descending is also rather nice. Stopping to smell the flowers... but because things are said to be in a state of natural decline (or dillution rather than condensation), it is necessary to keep a slow ascent, following the teachings of the Masters (Jesus) simply to avoid a descent.

posted March 17, 2007 04:48 PM            

I was inspired to reply to your statement

quote:

---

If there is one religion (one prophet) which most closely and clearly reflects my own understanding of metaphysics, it would probably be Sufism, but only because Sufism has focused, more than any other religion that I know of, on what is essential and common to all religions.

---

Sufism is not a religion. It is an Esoteric Philosophy rooted in Islam.One may be a Christian Sufi (with many Prophets),A Muslem Sufi (one Prophet) a Jewish Sufi and soforth. Sufism doesn`t have a specific Prophet/religion.

The Sufi Master Ibn Arabi gives us this timeless and enchanting poem on religion.

My heart has become capable of every form:
It is a pasture for gazelles
And a monastery for Christian monks,
And a temple for idols,
And the pilgrim's Ka'ba,
And the tablets of the Torah,
And the Book of the Qur'an.
I follow the religion of Love:
Whatever way my love's camel takes,
That is my religion, my faith.
-- Ibn Arabi

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~
What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

posted March 18, 2007 02:05 PM            

Briefly, Philosophy is of the Intellect and Religion is of the Heart. When both are in balance/Harmony, the Heart becomes the eyes of the intellect and the Unity of the two are Known.

------------------
~
What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

posted March 19, 2007 05:55 AM            

So, if Religion is of the heart,
how is it that Sufism is not a religion?

posted March 22, 2007 03:41 AM              

Alot of Sufi references being tossed around. It seems you like Rumi.

At the beginning of the journey or path, no one has free will. There is no free will. Everyone is a mass of reactions that are a product of their culture, family and other personal associations. They are a product of their conditioning and CANNOT act, do or think contrary to that conditioning. Of course this is not "free will" since the will is determined by a whole host of other people and factors that have nothing to do with the human being in question.

At the end of the journey/path, no one has free will. The personal will has been annihilated in the Supreme Will. The "wills" have become "one" and are indistinguishable from each other. Jesus and the will of the Father were "One".

So when can we say that there is free will?

Well of course we cannot and that is perhaps your final point. We can say that there is the illusion of free will at the beginning of the journey till the end. That is because, at the beginning, it is impossible to separate "you" from "your conditioning" so "you" think you have free will although it is an illusion. At the end of the journey, there is no "you". you have been annihilated in union with the divine. At that point we really cannot talk about free will.

None of what I have just said is new or original. It is well described, in great detail from the 10th century to the present day. More intellectual formulations or less intellectual formulations but the point is the same.

Now we can say something else that is not original, but that has also not been covered in the posts that I have seen, and I admit I cannot say I have seen them all.

There is a general mystical teaching that until you can see and know the future of any one thing or few things or many things, you must act as if you have utter and complete free will and all the responsibility for good or evil is on you.

In Sufism, the essential sin of Satan was in making the deterministic argument and colloquially saying "well, you MADE me do it since I could never act without your permission". So, the sin that damned him was not just misleading Adam and Eve, it was the self righteous justification.

In contrast, Adam found redemption because he said "I have sinned, I have done wrong". Adam's redemption was in taking responsibly. Taking responsibility constitutes repentance.

So, that is the warning contained in the story of the Lion and the hare from Rumi. The Saints understand determinism, or as it is called in Islamic Philosophy "necessitarianism", but they also understood deeper dimensions of human action on the world stage of destiny.

Arguing Determinism will get you high marks in intellectual discourse, but get you into a spiritual bog that can lock you into inaction or wrong action.

So, there is not much new here. Nothing original that I can see. But we should keep in mind that it is not originality or intellectual discourse that we should be seeking, rather we should seek knowledge and depth of knowledge.

When Rumi met Shams, Shams asked him, "who was greater, the saint Baizid or the Prophet?"

Rumi responded "The prophet. Bâizid's thirst was quenched by one drop, and he boasted of satisfaction, because the vessel of his intellect was filled thereby. That light was as much as the little window of his house could admit, whilst Muhammad was subject to a great dropsy and thirst,—he was daily praying for closer intimacy."

As the Sufis say "increase your need and ever increase your thirst"

Happy New Year

posted March 23, 2007 12:06 AM            

I've always loved the book of Job. Job's entire argument is deterministic, while his "friends" seek to defend God by denying the truth, and not by affirming God in spite of it. In the end, we find Job humbled and resigning himself to the authority of God "because He is God", and because it is a losing battle to rage against the infinite. God rebukes the friends of Job, and punishes them. Though he rebukes Job for questioning Him, He says "Job has said the things which is right." This is my superficial understanding of the story, at least. Never read a book or taken a class on it.

Anyway, I agree with everything you said.
I hope you stick around and continue to post here.

posted March 24, 2007 02:04 PM            

quote:

---

So, if Religion is of the heart,
how is it that Sufism is not a religion?

---

Sufism is the REALITY behind the RELIGION...or more properly, it is the illumination of the Reality behind the Religion...a short cut if you will...but all have access even those who do not practice Sufism...so, more properly sufism is not a religion or a Way, it is a practice and a discipline to shorten the Way and illuminate the Religion...

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~
What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

posted March 24, 2007 02:09 PM              

that's what a sufi master wrote of anyway....

posted March 27, 2007 11:40 AM            

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

posted April 18, 2007 06:07 PM            

------------------
~
What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

posted April 24, 2007 07:50 AM              

The second is Jesus was not his name.

Nor is Christ.

To continue:
[Middle English Crist, from Old English Crst, from Latin Chrstus, from Greek Khrstos, from khrstos, anointed, verbal adj. of khrein, to anoint; see ghri- in Indo-European roots.]

Christ is the English translation of the Greek word (Christós), which literally means The Anointed One. It translates the Hebrew word (Mašía), usually transliterated Messiah.

The word is often misunderstood to be the surname of Jesus due to the numerous mentions of Jesus Christ in the Christian Bible. The word is in fact a title, hence its common reciprocal use Christ Jesus, meaning The Anointed One, Jesus. To clarify this, Jesus is sometimes referred to as "the Man". Followers of Jesus became known as Christians because they believed that Jesus was the Christ, or Messiah, prophesied in the Tanakh (which Christians term the Old Testament). The majority of Jews reject this claim and are still waiting for the Christ to come (see Jewish Messiah). Most Christians now wait for the Second Coming of Christ when it is thought he will fulfill the rest of the Messianic prophecy.

Full etymology

The spelling Christ in English dates from the 17th century, when, in the spirit of the enlightenment, spellings of certain words were changed to fit their Greek or Latin origins. Prior to this, in Old and Middle English, the word was spelled Crist, the i being pronounced either as "i" (see IPA pronunciation), preserved in the names of churches such as St Katherine Cree, or as a short i, preserved in the modern pronunciation of Christmas.

The term appears in English and most European languages owing to the Greek usage of Christos in the New Testament as a description for Jesus. In the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, it was used to translate into Greek the Hebrew Mashiach (Messiah), meaning "one who is anointed". While many Christian writers claim that this term implied a match to the criteria of being anointed that Jewish tradition had given to their predicted future saviour, some argue that there is no "saviour" concept, as suggested in Christianity, in the Jewish tradition. The "anointed" one more closely means 'high priest', 'leader', or even 'ruler'.

The Greek term is cognate with Chrism, meaning perfumed oil; in fact Christos in classical Greek usage could mean covered in oil, and is thus a literal and accurate translation of Messiah (just as Saul the King was oiled up when he was proclaimed king). The Greek term is thought to derive from the Proto-Indo-European root of ghey-, which in Germanic languages, such as English, mutated into gris- and grim-. Hence the English words grisly, grim, grime, gizm and grease, are thought to be cognate with Christ, though these terms came to have a negative connotation, where the Greek word had a positive connotation. In French, the Greek term, in ordinary usage, mutated first to cresme and then to creme, due to the loss of certain 's' usages in French, which was loaned into English as cream. The word was used by extension in Hellenic and Jewish contexts to refer to the office, role or status of the person, not to their actually being an oily person, as a strict reading of the etymology might imply.

According to Tom Harpur, a former professor of Theology at the University of Toronto who denies the historicity of Jesus, the Christian usage of the term Christ derives from Egypt. Harpur has argued that the application of the term Christ to Jesus derives from the Egyptian use of the term Karast (covered in cooking oil) to describe Horus, who Harpur also alleges that much of the descriptions of Jesus are copied from. Karast is a false cognate to Christ, and Harpur has alleged that this co-incidence was the reason that Christians chose this appellation of Horus rather than any other, since in Jewish circles, Christ readily brings to mind the Jewish belief in a Messiah.

Another theory states that name Christ and his story could have been adapted from the Hindu god rama rama Krishna because of similarities in their names and life. Both Krishna and Christ are said to have lived a life of a shepherd. In both stories a king seeks and kills children, hoping to kill Krishna / Christ. There are similarities in their deaths too - Krishna is killed by an iron-nailed arrow piercing his feet and Christ crucified by iron nails. Long before any references to Krishna appear, the Elamites in the 3rd millennium BC also had a deity named Kiririsha.

'Chrestus' is a similar Greek name, which Suetonius confused for 'Christos'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ

The Messiah

The promised Deliverer is twice called the "Anointed" or Moshiach (Psalms 2:2; Daniel 9:25, 26), because he was anointed with the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 61:1) which, in the text, is an expression of nobility and greatness. According to the New Testament, Jesus of Nazareth is this anointed One, the Moshiach of the Tanakh (John 1:41; Acts 9:22; 17:2, 3; 18:5, 28), and the Gospels state that he was physically anointed by an anonymous figure who traditionally is interpreted as Mary Magdalene. The word Christ which now looks like a surname is actually a title derived from the Greek Christos roughly meaning 'anointed' (creamy or greased would be more cognate as translations).

According to the Jewish Bible, whenever someone received the anointing, the Spirit of God came upon this person, to qualify him or her for a God-given task. However, it was not always required to be physically anointed in order to receive the Spirit of God.

Priests and kings
In the Hebrew Bible, the High Priest and the king are each sometimes called "the anointed" (Leviticus 4:3, 5, 16; 6:20; Psalms 132:10). Prophets were also anointed (1 Kings 19:16; 1 Chronicles 16:22; Psalms 105:15).

Anointing a king was equivalent to crowning him; in fact, in Israel a crown was not required (1 Samuel 16:13; 2 Samuel 2:4, etc.). Thus David was anointed as king by the prophet Samuel:

Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel rose up, and went to Ramah.—1 Samuel 16:13.
The French Kings adopted the fleur-de-lis as a baptismal symbol of purity on the conversion of the Frankish King Clovis I to the Christian religion in 493. To further enhance its mystique, a legend eventually sprang up that a vial of oil (cfr. infra the crowning ampulla) descended from Heaven to anoint and sanctify Clovis as King. The thus "anointed" Kings of France later maintained that their authority was directly from God, without the mediation of either the Emperor or the Pope.

Legends claim that even the lily itself appeared at the baptismal ceremony as a gift of blessing in an apparition of the blessed Virgin Mary.

Christian monarchy

In Christian Europe, the Merovingian monarchy was the first to anoint the king in a coronation ceremony that was designed to epitomize the Catholic Church's conferring a religious sanction of the monarch's divine right to rule. A number of Merovingian, Carolingian and Ottonian kings and emperors have avoided coronation and anointing.

English monarchs in common with the French included anointing in the coronation rituals (sacre in French). The Sovereign of the United Kingdom is the last anointed monarch. For the coronation of King Charles I in 1626 the holy oil was made of a concoction of orange, jasmine, distilled roses, distilled cinnamon, oil of ben, extract of bensoint, ambergris, musk and civet.

However this does not symbolize any subordination to the religious authority, hence it is not usually performed in Catholic monarchies by the pope but usually reserved for the (arch)bishop of a major see (sometimes the site of the whole coronation) in the nation, as is sometime the very act of crowning. Hence its utensils can be part of the regalia, such as in the French kingdom an ampulla for the oil and a spoon to apply it with; in the Norwegian kingdom, an anointing horn (a form fitting the Biblical as well as the Viking tradition) is the traditional vessel.

Christian sacramental usage

Early Christian usage
In early Christian times, sick people were anointed for healing to take place:

James 5:
14 Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
15 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.

Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox usage
In Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox usage, anointing is part of the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick. Consecrated oil is also used in confirmation, or, as it is sometimes called (especially in Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Rite Catholic churches), chrismation, from the Greek word chrisma , meaning the medium and act of anointing. Eastern Churches perform the sacrament of chrismation immediately after the sacrament of baptism during the same ceremony. Orthodox Christians may re-request chrismation at will, but usually this is done during Holy Week.

Consecration of the Oil in the Orthodox Churches
Among Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Myron ( Holy Oil) for anointment is prepared periodically by the Orthodox Patriarchates (such as the Church of Constantinople -- see an announcement and process for preparation, with some sample dates of preparation) and by the various heads of autocephalous administrations (such as the Orthodox Church in America -- see photos of the process). The consecration of the Oil, when performed, occurs during Holy Week, and thereafter the Oil is distributed to the Orthodox Churches within the authority of the administration. The Myron is made of olive oil and a guarded recipe of aromatics (myra) that are infused therein.

At the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the process is under the care of the Archontes Myrepsoi, lay officials of the Patriarchate. Various members of the clergy may also participate in the preparation.

Pentecostal churches
As in the early Christian church, anointing with oil is used in Pentecostal churches for healing the sick and also for consecration or ordination of pastors and elders.

The word "anointing" is also frequently used by Pentecostal Christians to refer to the power of God or the Spirit of God residing in a Christian: a usage that occurs from time to time in the Bible (e.g. in 1 John 2:20). A particularly popular expression is "the anointing that breaks the yoke", which is derived from Isaiah 10:27:

And it shall come to pass on that day, that his burden shall be removed from upon your shoulder, and his yoke from upon your neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of oil.
The NIV translates this passage as, "the yoke will be broken because you have grown so fat." The context of this passage refers to the yoke of Sennacherib, and how his oppressive nature is overturned by that of Hezekiah who was said to be as mild as oil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anointing

Additionally, around the mythos sprang a diversity of nomers for the man Yeshua; with different connotations, and implications, depending on one's beliefs.
It is no wonder that the message has veen virtually ignored.
Too many folks dwelling on their desire to deify and want saved, rather than taking responsiblity for themselves and their actions.

Moby Thesaurus words for "Christ":
Christ Jesus, Emmanuel, God the Son, God-man, Immanuel, Jesu,
Jesus, Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, King of Glory,
King of Heaven, King of Kings, Lamb of God, Lord Jesus,
Lord of Lords, Lord our Righteousness, Messiah, Our Lord,
Prince of Peace, Redeemer, Savior, Son of God, Son of Man,
atonement, intercession, judgment, mediation, propitiation,
redemption, salvation, the Advocate, the Anointed, the Christ,
the Christ Child, the Door, the Galilean, the Good Shepherd,
the Infant Jesus, the Intercessor, the Judge, the Lamb, the Life,
the Master, the Mediator, the Nazarene, the Only-Begotten,
the Risen, the True Vine, the Truth, the Vine, the Way

I would add here to Moby's list:
The Morning Star...from NT/Revelation
The Alpha and Omega...from NT/Revelation
Sun of righteousness ...from OT...Malachi
Son of the Father.....