The Doctrine Of Hell

[Ouroboros]

Here's on of my experiences.

 

Just a short while after I lost my faith, I was walking the dogs at night through the neighborhood. I looked up at the clear sky and the stars, and it was beautiful. And suddenly I had this intense feeling of unity with the universe, life, existence and everything that is. From that, I know my atheism is the only right thing. The feeling was sublime and and overwhelming. It was just as strong and convincing as the feelings I had at times at Church. But this time, I had it without a God, belief or a supreme supernatural superman causing it. Was it me? Or was it the Universe talking to me?

[Grandpa Harley]

You felt The Force...

[Ouroboros]

You felt The Force...

Or gas... kidding...

 

Yeah. Maybe it was the force, or whatever? But seriously it got imprinted into my memory. I have never done any drugs, but I suspect my feeling was like tripping. And it's a feeling I can't shake. It must be Nahweh, the Non-God who did it.

 

I've had similar moments afterwards at times. I also can get high on certain music. It can put me in trance and I feel an extreme happiness. Maybe my God is one of the Muses?

[Grandpa Harley]

Crazy-Tiger,

 

I now understand why your belief seems more than that based on subsequent occurances. Does the fact that this has never happened to me either before or since prove that mine was of a different order?

 

Kratos

 

'Higher', 'Lower', or just 'Different'?

[crazy-tiger]

Crazy-Tiger,

 

I now understand why your belief seems more than that based on subsequent occurances. Does the fact that this has never happened to me either before or since prove that mine was of a different order?

 

Kratos

To quote myself...

It sounds very much like your mind snapped under the strain and constructed a new way of coping by shifting the strain onto another entity

That is something that all too often happens with people under extreme amounts of stress, something very well known about, something proven to happen... but you're determined that it couldn't have happened with you. (and yes, single occurances are known of as well...) It's one of the ways of coping with what the layperson would term, a Nervous Breakdown.

 

Everything you've described points to that... the lead up to the experience, the experience itself, the after-effects, all point to the same conclusion. You were under a horrific amount of stress, you were ready to end it all... suddenly, you have this experience where you were given hope and a reason to live, and you've grasped that so tightly that to even consider it to be a figment of your own imagination would be to deny yourself since you've made it such a vital part of yourself.

 

 

I pity you, for you are unable to discover the strength you have inside... you attribute what got you through those times to something that doesn't exist, denying parts of yourself so you can hold on to the illusion that "saved" you all those years ago. I did it myself, and it is hard to let it go... but letting it go is the only real way people like us can ever discover ourselves and what we really are.

[Jun]

It was SATAN! He is talking to you.

 

HAIL SATAN!

[Kratos]

CT,

 

Please do not waiste your pity on me. I am in no way diminished believing that it is God in me that gives me the power to overcome in life. Especially when I know God to be Love and love never fails. Now if my God were angry and condemning and did not have my best interest in mind, that might be different. I am a very happy and joyful person. I have a great marriage and happy and well adjusted children. I really have a great life.

 

Though it does touch me to know you care enough to pity me. LOL

 

Kratos

[Fweethawt]

I went to dictionary.com and copied the first definition for belief:

That's cool. I went to Webster.com and got a definition for 'cretin'. Ya just can't argue with the meaning of that one.

 

 

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cretin

[crazy-tiger]

CT,

 

Please do not waiste your pity on me. I am in no way diminished believing that it is God in me that gives me the power to overcome in life.

Really? So if you did something, and people gave to credit to someone else, you wouldn't feel at all diminished? If someone did something, and you gave credit to someone else, would you have diminished their achievement?

 

Think it through...

Especially when I know God to be Love and love never fails.

But didn't you say that all you have is belief? I'm sure you did...

Now if my God were angry and condemning and did not have my best interest in mind, that might be different.

Congratulations... you've just described the Christian God.

 

Both the God of the OT and the God Paul talks about are angry, condemning, judgemental, capricious, violent, evil little buggers who only care about if they're getting praised right. THAT is your God... not love, but hate.

I am a very happy and joyful person. I have a great marriage and happy and well adjusted children. I really have a great life.

Which proves what? That this loving God has given you this because you're such a swell person for giving him credit, for praising him?

 

 

Guess what? I have a great life... I'm happy, joyful, a ray of sunshine in the darkest of days, I've got a wonderful partner, a loving cat. I had a wonderful marriage until my ex decided to have an affair with someone you know well and gave my ass the boot because I wasn't a person she could love, (so much for 12 years of my life... gone in a matter of months) and no kids, since I can't abide the bleeders for more than a few hours at a time, though I take care of unfortunates on a regular basis...

 

And all that without any help from any God... all done myself.

 

 

Now, it seems like you're attempting to show how, without God, you couldn't have done anything... yet it's obvious that people can manage to do what you've done ALL BY THEMSELVES! If you truely feel that you are incapable of accomplishing such works without an illusionary crutch, then I really pity you. You have managed to convince yourself that you are a failure and that you need God to be a normal, capable person.

 

However, I'm also angry at you... because you have dared to try and convince me that what I have done was with the help of your God. You diminish ME with that, and that is something that really makes my blood boil.

Though it does touch me to know you care enough to pity me. LOL

 

Kratos

Yes, I care... I care that there is someone here who is convinced they are a failure and refuses to admit the possibility that they are better then they give themselves credit for.

[crazy-tiger]

I went to dictionary.com and copied the first definition for belief:

That's cool. I went to Webster.com and got a definition for 'cretin'. Ya just can't argue with the meaning of that one.

 

 

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cretin

You, sir, have just won one (1) Internets...

[Fweethawt]

I went to dictionary.com and copied the first definition for belief:

That's cool. I went to Webster.com and got a definition for 'cretin'. Ya just can't argue with the meaning of that one.

 

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cretin

You, sir, have just won one (1) Internets...

I have no idea wtf you're talking about. But that's cool, too.

[Jun]

............it is God in me that gives me the power to overcome in life.

 

You attribute your own abilities to a fictional supernatural power?!

 

Anyone else in there with "God" or is he alone?

[crazy-tiger]

You, sir, have just won one (1) Internets...

I have no idea wtf you're talking about. But that's cool, too.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?...in+the+Internet

 

 

That, and I'm also a bit of a /b/tard...

[ogilvy]

Thank you for the welcomes despite the anger that comes with it.

 

You all just prove what I have been saying for years that the God that religious Christianity teaches is no one that is to be desired. This is the whole reason that Jesus was sent was to reveal the Father to those who could not understand Him to be anything but angry and vengeful. Jesus said that if you had seen Him then you know the Father and if you know how a good father here on earth would act then you can rightly understand the Father.

 

Anyone remember Jesus killing anyone or making anyone sick? No, He healed the sick and raised the dead.

 

So, you all can take Hell and the Lake of Fire and the flood parable as literal happenings as those who do not know God do and it will be easy to continue to hate Him and those who believe in Him. Or you can try to know Him as He is as revealed by the Son. Your choice.

 

Kratos

 

but Jesus backed up the OT, he was a Jew, kept the OT law, and quoted from the OT, saying that 'scripture cant be broken'. he mentioned the floos, and jonah in the whale, and said he was the fulfilment of a passage in isaiah i forget what chapter. so if you believe in Jesus you would have to believe in the OT as well. in the OT God is angry and vengeful and cruel. do you believe Jesus is God? than Jesus has to be the same way. and actually, Jesus is going to kill people. it says so in revelation. Jesus agrees with hell, the way he talks of it, as a threat. its so crazy that Jesus died for the sins of the world, yet Jesus created the world and knew this would happen.

pippa

[Mythra]

Jesus said that if you had seen Him then you know the Father and if you know how a good father here on earth would act then you can rightly understand the Father.Anyone remember Jesus killing anyone or making anyone sick? No, He healed the sick and raised the dead.

 

Hey Kratos - before you begin speaking so definitively that "Jesus said" this or "Jesus did" that - you may want to expand your horizons and go where no christian has gone before.

 

Step out, dude. Venture beyond Josh McDowell, William Lane Craig, Chuck Colson, and Lee Strobel. Christian authors who write for christian audiences to help shore up the cracks in the christian foundation. Christian authors who's sole aim (I mean - aside from making money selling books) is to convince christian believers that they are standing on solid ground. Christian authors who intentionally suppress any data that's detrimental to their argument cause. (SHAME on THEM)

 

Go where no christian dare go. Read "The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man" by Robert Price. Or a dozen other books that any one of us here can give you references for.

 

Read something that is a different viewpoint than you're used to.

 

And then, your statement above would - at a minimum - be changed to:

 

According to the gospel writer (whoever he actually was) that wrote GMatt - "Jesus said" or "Jesus did"

[Antlerman]

Antlerman,

 

I appreciate your reluctance to relegate our experiences to just a trick of the mind. It does show me that what you experienced was similar to mine as I could never do this either. You seem to have come almost to a new-age humanism belief that we are all God. Forgive me if I have trivialized your beliefs as I hate when labels are put on me, but believing in the supernatural with no other source than us has that ring to it. Is this how you see it?

 

Kratos

It’s difficult to communicate what I’m thinking. I agree with what Crazy Tiger says here, and appreciate how he put this:

… you are unable to discover the strength you have inside... you attribute what got you through those times to something that doesn't exist, denying parts of yourself so you can hold on to the illusion that "saved" you all those years ago. I did it myself, and it is hard to let it go...

but letting it go is the only real way people like us can ever discover ourselves and what we really are

.

Coming to that place is very important. I touched on this earlier saying mostly the same thing when I said:

But here's the problem with the symbol. When those symbols then become the focus of the experience -

you then miss the point of the experience!

The experience was about you to help you. If you instead focus on the sign, you miss what the sign is pointing to. The minute we de-emphasize the importance of the symbol and move away from defending to ourselves the vision as a true appearance of a true being, then we begin to recognize what it's about.

Where I go from this point is to the next step as I see it. I don’t care for the language of “trick of the mind” because – to me – it carries a dismissive tone to it and I feel that it’s something that, however it occurs, can and does provide great insight. “Trick of the mind”, to me sounds like it can just be dismissed and ignored. Instead what I would say is that there is a truth in the symbolism that bears consideration. These are “manifestations” from our deepest feelings taking symbolic form.

 

Think the peyote cultures of native tribes, sweat lodges, and other practices intended to bring about a hallucinatory experience (watch the movie Altered States). These are NOT recreational drug uses like kids on the street freaking their minds out. They are sacred experiences, because they are approached as a means to transcendent insights. They are an altered perception that casts new light on things of this world – because they come from inside the mind of man.

 

These are not nonsense, and to simply dismiss them as “just a hallucination” totally misses the point of it in these cases, and with your experience and with mine. This is not some “getting high” nonsense. These are, strictly speaking, products of the mind, but they were created from the deepest parts of our psyche at a time of great crisis in our cases to provide, in the form of mythological symbolisms, the same thing that art provides for us, as Matthew Arnold put it, “to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us.”

 

Mythology is a form of art and functions on the same level. I do not view anything in the universe or the human experience as supernatural. I am far away from a New Age follower. The best I could describe how I see things is from a more aesthetic philosophy, with atheistic existentialist thought. When I hear you speak of your experience, and when I hear Sojourner speak of her views of God, I see more a case of fellow humans in the same boat as all of us, using the structures of language and culture to talk to themselves to find their place in the world, as do I. This is not really mysticism, in the sense that it involves some “supernatural” force out there. It’s about human perception and response to the world. It’s a about the perception of beauty, and the anxiety caused when we consider the meaningless of our own existence.

 

It’s a struggle to respond to life as it presents itself through our eyes as it offers life, through the lure of the beautiful in the form, and the terror at the prospect of life being pointless. We create art to hold up this ideal as a form to represent the voice of beauty experienced in the human heart. Mythology is a form of art, it’s poetry, symbolic representations of beauty and consolation. Again, as Matthew Arnold put it, “the whole of the Christian doctrine is religious and efficacious only when it becomes poetry.”

 

Here’s a link I highly recommend you and especially Sojourner spending some time reading: http://www.dallasinstitute.org/Programs/Pr...ext/fturner.htm It touches into where I go in thought about the religious in the human experience. I really think it’s unfortunate when people are quickly dismissive of the religious thought, because they are overlooking the value of what drives it! It’s the same thing that drives all of us. Religion is simply a language to talk about it – if it remains symbolic, and not an institutionalized thing that fails its original function.

 

Like I said, it’s not simple to explain briefly. Does this help any?

 

Regards,

 

AM

[sojourner]

TY Antlerman for the link, I will read it in a bit.

 

I am really enjoying learning how others view the world , the experiances they have that I would term spiritual, and how they term them, fit them into their lives and what meaning they have to them.

 

It is very hard for me to just try and stand outside my own box and listen

 

I am thankful for how you respect that and dont mind that I can only express back to you what I see thru my own present language which to me includes God in those experiances.

 

sojourner

[Antlerman]

It is very hard for me to just try and stand outside my own box and listen

When we learn to, then it opens up and broadens our own perceptions, making our appreciation of life fuller, and richer. Plus it opens the door for respect and peace.

 

I am thankful for how you respect that and dont mind that I can only express back to you what I see thru my own present language which to me includes God in those experiances.

 

sojourner

I enjoy hearing how you peceive the world, how you use the language, and what you're saying for the reason I just stated above.

[Kratos]

CT,

 

I am sorry that what I said made you mad at me or made your blood boil. I did not describe my life to say I could not have done it myself, but just to say that there is no reason to pity me. I have been to many third world nations and very few Americans have a right to be pitied.

 

AM,

 

I second Sojourner's response that it is refreshing to hear an atheist who does not see us as insane or needing pity because God is still a part of our explanation for our experiences in life. I am very much of a live and let live kind of person. I do not tolerate well Christians who are always trying to save everyone from the devil or non-christian who are always trying to save everyone from God.

 

Pippa,

 

Nice to meet you and I am well aware that Jesus validated the OT. The problem many Christians and non-Christians have with the OT is that they do not understand that it must be spiritually discerned. Paul explained many of the types in the OT in order to help us to understand what was really being taught by the OT parable like teachings. Let me give one example that has given birth to the whole Calvinism misunderstandings.

 

Before Jacob or his older brother Esau were ever born, God proclaims that Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated. This makes God seem an unfair respector of persons and quite cruel and capricious if read only on the surface level. This carnal understanding gave birth to the Calvinist belief in predestination that God has already chosen some to be saved as vessels of honor and others to burn in an eternal hell as vessels of dishonor before we were ever born or did either good or bad. Romans 9 goes on to say that this was so election would stand based on Him who calls rather than on Him that works.

 

But, if you rightly read the whole chapter of Romans 9 and compare it with what is taught in Gal. 4, you see that the OT stories of Jacob and Esau as well as Isaac and Ishmael, Cain and Abel etc. is that these stories were alegories teaching about the first born whom God hates and the second born whom God loves. The firstborn is the man of the flesh and the second born the man of the spiriit.

 

God does not hate anyone before birth, but He hates the firstborn in all of us. He that is born of the spirit (the second born in all of us) is the child of promise who inherits the Kingdom. This is only because it is a spiritual Kingdom and not to be inherited by flesh and blood.

 

I do not share this to start another contraversy, but just to demonstrate that the only reason the God of the OT seems different from the God of the NT that Jesus came to demonstrate is some are reading it with the carnal mind instead of the mind of the spirit. The people and nations that God commanded destroyed utterly were types of the sin and carnality in all of us that must be utterly destroyed for us to prosper in the Kingdom. Paul said that in every house (every one of us) there are vessels of honor and vessels of dishonor. There are things in us all that need to be burned up by the fire of God and there are things in us all that are of God and should remain.

 

I know it is a cliche, but it is true. The Old Testament is the New Testament concealed and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. If you read the OT and think it is about natural people and natural nations, you will come away seeing God as very cruel and vengeful indeed. But, if you can see that the things that God hates in all of us are just the things that hurt us, you can appreciate that it is His love that is seeking to utterly cleanse us to make us better. Another cliche, but He loves the sinner and hates the sin.

 

Kratos

[Grandpa Harley]

Pretty words... I still see you a plague carrier.

 

 

Define sin, leper.

[Antlerman]

I do not share this to start another contraversy, but just to demonstrate that the only reason the God of the OT seems different from the God of the NT that Jesus came to demonstrate is some are reading it with the carnal mind instead of the mind of the spirit. The people and nations that God commanded destroyed utterly were types of the sin and carnality in all of us that must be utterly destroyed for us to prosper in the Kingdom. Paul said that in every house (every one of us) there are vessels of honor and vessels of dishonor. There are things in us all that need to be burned up by the fire of God and there are things in us all that are of God and should remain.

I'm responding to this because I have a question of curiosity. I believe you said before that you now consider yourself a Universalist Christian. So this question is really to both you and Sojourner. I notice some similarity in how Sojourner approached the Bible in another thread that I'll pull in here for the sake of consoldation.

I really do understand why God seems so schizophrenic to you all especially reading and actually trying to see the bible without my more mystical approaches to it, but as much more literal. That being said, if that is all I had to go on, or even all I chose to go on, I too would consider abandoning it altogether and sticking with the God Ive come to know within my own spiritual experiance, who looks nothing like the hateful God revealed in the literal reading.

 

However, I cant just chunk what is life to me. When I read the bible its not so much literal to me anymore.

 

I see ALL wrath of God against Sin - NOT people

 

I see the divisions shown as inner divisions, the old from the new, the literal from the spritual and so forth

 

I see the same processes of transformation happening in all men and taking ages, not being limited to this one age

 

I see this same way of speaking in Jesus words and I dont see him talking about dividing people, but speaking in parables and allegorically describing the same dividing that He is sent to do within men, to accomplish this transformation in them.

 

Therefore, all the dividing a child against its father and ect.......is talking about what is being seperated out of mankind to free them , not causing a child to hate its natural parent. Although in many cases coming to believe something so radical as what Jesus was teaching very well did set people in families against each other.

I'm noticing a similar approach to the Bible happening here, and am wondering if what I am seeing is the taking of a belief in the Bible as being the literal Word of God, but simply seeing with a new mindset; one of a spiritual lens of grand metaphors as opposed to the literal reading of the words? In other words, are you just carrying with you from your past beliefs by default, that the Bible is the directly inspired, infallible Word of God but now you are seeing through a different understanding?

 

Have you ever considered that the Bible may not always be “inspired”? That some of these really negative things recorded in the OT are not metaphorical, but rather simply reflective of people’s views of God back then? That what you have is not a ‘progressive revelation’, but an evolving sensibility?

 

You see, I’m finding myself struck by this at the moment. As much as I may respect that the Universalist may see all humankind as loved and saved by God, I’m hearing what seems to be still another attempt to “make the Bible fit”. Fit what? That’s my point. Have you ever considered how some modern theologians approach this, by instead of saying the Bible is the Word of God, they might say the Bible contains the Word of God?

 

How I see that would to me fit the more realistic view of the Bible as a collection writings reflecting a culture’s struggles to define itself, reflecting the values of the time and applying the name of their god to a Nationalistic spirit; along with spiritual thoughts of men reflecting those hopes for the ‘divine’ that is common to all humans – thus being ‘eternal’ truths?

 

In other words, at times in moments of insight and deep expressions of the longings and joys in the human experience, meaningful words come through that touch others, that you feel moved by? This is what is spoken of as ‘inspired’. Have you ever felt ‘blessed’ by the words of another, where the words just flowed from them and touched something in you? If you were to put the name God on this sort of thing, then you could say God was speaking through them to you. So in this sense the Bible would then ‘contain’ the word of God through men who spoke with the inspiration they felt, being expressed through the language their faith.

 

This to me seems a far simpler and much more elegant way to understand the Bible than to try, forgive me for saying so, yet one more interpretation hoping to make it fit this idea that the Bible is the hand delivered word of God. It’s far simpler to view it as not that, and I see no offense to the idea of God that would come from it. Is there? I can’t see it unless someone reads it literally.

 

Full circle back to what I said before about spirituality being the fulfillment of the whole person – both emotional inspiration, and the rational mind being satisfied. I could never be rationally satisfied with an answer that the story of God commanding Joshua to commit genocide against an entire race of people to be a metaphor of choice for God to communicate anything positive to anyone - except to those who viewed outsiders as non-humans. But if someone were to acknowledge that was what men thought back then, but that's not what God means to us today, now... you're talking something that is easily understandable and would could be acknowledged by anyone.

 

Your thoughts?

[sojourner]

Full circle back to what I said before about spirituality being the fulfillment of the whole person – both emotional inspiration, and the rational mind being satisfied. I could never be rationally satisfied with an answer that the story of God commanding Joshua to commit genocide against an entire race of people to be a metaphor of choice for God to communicate anything positive to anyone - except to those who viewed outsiders as non-humans. But if someone were to acknowledge that was what men thought back then, but that's not what God means to us today, now... you're talking something that is easily understandable and would could be acknowledged by anyone.

 

Antlerman,

 

For now Im going to only respond to this one part and give the other parts some more thought before responding.

 

I have never till now on this forum tried to explain how I view the ot and how I see so much metaphore in the stories to people that are in such a different place then me. Therefore, Ive never really gotten a look at my words from the same place I get here. This is another reason why this time here has been so valuable for me. Because, when I come here to chat I try very hard to look at my words and my heart thru your paradigm as best I can. I often fail and fall on my face but its been so good for me to try to see and hear me thru a different set of ears and eyes, the ones here. And to test what I believe in this way. It challanges me in ways that, wow, is all I can say.

 

So saying that, I have been thinking about that and I can see how selfish it comes off. Honestly I am very challanged as Im feeling my relationship with the bible has been one of selfishness and denial to some degree. Sort of a this satisfies my spritual side but at what cost? Is my humaness , my heart paying the cost? Just wrestling with it some.

 

sojourner

[Antlerman]

So saying that, I have been thinking about that and I can see how selfish it comes off. Honestly I am very challanged as Im feeling my relationship with the bible has been one of selfishness and denial to some degree. Sort of a this satisfies my spritual side but at what cost? Is my humaness , my heart paying the cost? Just wrestling with it some.

 

sojourner

Not to worry, I'm not out to convince you otherwise about anything. Primarily it's to hear your thoughts to things that stand out as what would be a problem to me, or to maybe challenge each other to stretch our thoughts beyond what we have maybe not considered. It's what keeps us alive and growing. I'm more curious to your thoughts about this other possible way of looking at the Bible.

[Jubilant]

In addition to being just as curious as Antlerman...how, by even reading the bible non-literally, are you led to believe that God is loving? How do you know for a fact, that God is not evil? If humans have the ability to love and hate...how do you know that God isn't leading some to hate?

[Kratos]

GH,

 

I define sin as anything done spirit, soul, or body that is contrary to the will of God. However, I do believe that Jesus paid the price for all sin so this is no longer an issue between man and God. Literally, the NT word for sin means to miss the mark as in an archer missing the bulls eye that they are aiming at. Those of us who try to live according to the will of God recognize sin as when we miss that mark and repentence as when we adjust a part of our life to correct that miss. I hope that helps.

 

AM,

 

I will try not to make this too long, but your question is not an easy answer. I agree and disagree with you. I do not believe that the Bible is the Word of God, but that the Bible contains the Word of God when it is seen with spiritual eyes and heard with spiritual ears.

 

I see God having forever existed in a perfect spiritual realm which we call Heaven. This is not a physical place, but a realm of existence in the spirit. In this realm, His will is always done and all is life and love. This is the home and the home base of His Kingdom. He decided to expand His Kingdom to include another realm of physical material and time as opposed to spiritual substance and eternity. So, He created man and placed our spirits into physical bodies. The immediate result was we became carnally or fleshly or physically minded. The result of losing contact with the perfect realm of the spirit, our world became one full of death and pain and sin and sickness and sorrow.

 

His purpose for man is to regain our knowledge and contact with the spirit realm and from that realm to bring the natural realm into the Kingdom. Jesus was the first to Overcome in this physical world by way of His spiritual knowledge and spiritual life and contact with God in the spirit. He then told us to pray that His Kingdom would come and His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. We are to bring forth Heaven on earth from the spirit within us as it works its way out. First, our mind, will, and emotions are renewed from the carnal mind to the mind of the spirit. Finally, our physical bodies will be changed into spiritual bodies. This is described as Overcoming through Christ in us which is our hope of glory.

 

So, I do believe that the Bible contains the Word of God, but it is not the Letter of the Law which kills which is the literal or carnal understanding and interpretation of the Bible. The Word of God or Spirit of the Law is the Bible understood by the mind of the spirit which has been renewed by the Holy Spirit to see it as God intended it to be seen. This takes a life-time of dealings in God as we grow up into Him in all things by the work of the Spirit from the inside out. This is what it means to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. Our spirit man is the innermost part of us and it works out through the renewing of the mind and the transformation of our bodies.

 

I know that this is a mouthful, but it is how I currenty understand it. I do not claim to be a Universalist as labels just give birth to denominations and further divide us. I am a work in progress and those on this path have been changed from glory to glory and from faith to faith by the working of the Spirit in our lives. So, you will find us never dogmatic like those who have closed their minds thinking that they already have the whole truth. Being created in the image and likeness of God is a process that will take ages. It is not a destination as much as a journey so I mean it sincerely when I state that this is just how I see it today.

 

Tomorrow...........who knows?

 

Kratos