Not one of us is God.

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

Fascinating stuff:
Psalm 82 4-8

The context is important here……this Psalm was specifically addressed to judges….ones that are authorized to make judgement….yet somehow we take that to mean each one of us….God is the one judge and anyone that holds the title of judge is essentially serving as god in proxy….these particular judges abused their office….they were not faithful custodians so their authority was no longer recognized by God…..oh yeah IMO……:)

[FallingLeaves]

i woke up this morning with a memory of something that happened to me when i was young and then I was reading around again like i sometimes do and you are touching on the same basic issue... so...

Originally Posted by Maisy

We live in a perception made for us, (our human body.) But it's not really "what is."

In my mind the story of the cherubim with a flaming sword that twists this way and that and keeps us out of eden gives symbolism inidicative of how the veil is constructed...

But I think it's a pretty big challenge as life tends to be about the body and it's perceptions and experiences and it can be overwhelming.

it can be overwhelming at first, but so can anything new... in my mind what really gets pretty much everyone though is the intensity of the need to be relating to one another... like you say nearly everyone is taking their bodies seriously and I think it is hard not to do the same given the social repercussions of stepping out of line.

But I think a heck of a lot of other thoughts we accept are not only not real or true, they actually block a perception of our source or God, our true being that is always at peace, content, and happy. .

i don't know some have proposed that if you simply don't give recognition to the fact that a bear is chasing you it can't affect you. But that might be harder than it seems... most of us would be back to piling something like that idea on top of the preexisting idea the bear is chasing us so the bear would still be chasing us and then we'd say that meanas such ideas are hokey....

but yeah I've had a lot of opportunity to deal with 'untrue thoughts' many of them seeming very real as if a bear was chasing me... i trooped through again and again and again and there never was a bear. i never did decide to classify a group of similar thoughts as if that would always be the case though so it is always possible that if I get another thought like that it wil be an actual bear chasing me lol.... I was like, all i need is another mental construct that tells me there can NEVER be a bear.... but anyway i think being afraid can be somewhat fun anyway....

as far as naming things in the positive, what they are, I would rather deal in what they are not... then I don't have to chase around some idea that I don't really understand and really just kinda made up anyway... I'm also *very* leary of any kind of meaning that tells me what this places is (ala einstien's theory of everything) at this point. Too much meaning and my experience is I'm gonna get it wrong anyway and it is back to the whole thing about dealing with fake realities.... which aren't a bad thing in my mind it is just they hurt when they are about what this place is lol... if i'm going to have a fake reality anyway why buy one that hurts?

all that said I am still trying to see more clearly... don't know that I can ever get entirely past seeing what I want to see though...

[BigJohn]

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

Psalm 82 4-8
They know not, neither will they understand; They walk on in darkness:
All the foundations of the earth are out of course. I have said, Ye are gods; And all of you are children of the most High.
But ye shall die like men, And fall like one of the princes.

That word for "gods" in Hebrew oddly enough is first used in the first verse of the Bible.
In English, people probably would not recognize that connection but in Hebrew it stands out to me like a flashing red light.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Molearner

this Psalm was specifically addressed to judgesthese particular judges were not faithful custodians so their authority was no longer recognized by God

Nice. Context is everything! Seeing that Psalms are more or less poems, and this particular one was scribed by a songwriter, one can assume some creative license.

I prefer the line from Tenacious D: "He asked us, 'be you angels?' And we said, 'Nay, we are but men!'"

[Gem]

I don't get the 'waiting for Christ' thing because I thought Psalms was a book in the old testament. In those day, just as now, Jews waited on the promise of a Messiah. Later, Christians claimed that was Jesus, so they view through that lens, but the Jews disagree. The Muslims emerged a few centuries later to regard Jesus as Messiah, but in a different context. In their view he's not the son of God. He is a great prophet who miraculously ascended to heaven, but He's not their own prophet, and especially not an object of worship. The Abrahamic religions disagree. Regardless if Jesus simply died, was miraculously risen to heaven, or crucified and risen from death (depending on which tradition), all three religions basically claim the old testament as their thing. To claim one tradition is right and the others wrong isn't reasonable. The reason their accounts are inconsistent is no one really knows.

You might favour the Return of Christ as a belief because 2 out 3 believe that's going to happen. I like those odds, but the Messiah is coming according to all three so there's no real reason to quibble over the details of His characteristics.

[BigJohn]

Jews did and are still waiting for the Messiah.
In the first century, some Jews recognized a fellow Jew called Jesus as the promised Messiah. Those Jews started a new sect of Judaism and later, excepted non-Jews into their fold and broke away from Judaism and began Christianity.

[caze4]

children of God, brothers & sisters in Christ.