"spirits"... human, the Holy Spirit, ghosts and demons: is there such thing as a spirit?

[alreadyGone]

On 12/24/2020 at 11:47 PM, Weezer said:

It is strange how that universal spirit that God injects into every human can turn out to be so different in different people.  ...

 

An excellent point.

[alreadyGone]

29 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

..... And my answer certainly wasn’t a purely psychological experience detached from others, or some attempt by me to induce the supernatural into my normal routine.

 

No, it was nothing of the sort.

 

And it is quite obvious that I am not the person stuck in his head making shit up, but each one of you are.

 

Sincerely, looking back at your initial post and those following, my impression was and is that you were simply unhappy that no one paid much attention to you.

You perhaps had the expectation that your post would incite more consideration and discussion than it did.

 

Again, only my impression, but in consideration of everything you've posted subsequently my impression remains.

 

[Brothermario]

For the record (since our history together is drawing to a close), I don’t begrudge you boys at all for having complaints against dumb Protestants waving their Bibles at you, or any fundamentalist religious people saying and doing crazy-ass shit in the name of God and their religion.

 

But I do have nothing but a problem with you taking your complaints and turning them into some great intellectual insight that judges all religious activity and God himself as a problem for humanity, when it is so obvious how a spiritual dimension in our individual lives can and does truly benefit humanity as a whole.

 

And I would never tell you skeptics that you need to find God to do his will, for his Spirit is with us all, and goodness is in our hearts like color in in our eyes.

 

I’m simply telling you to be honest about your personal acquisition of the intellectual abilities you so value, and not exaggerate them or use them to spread malicious false information about God and good religious people.

 

I never come to a bigoted website such as this with the intention of appealing to the intellects of its participants, but to the Spirit of God within them that is forgotten, but not gone.

 

God will not be mocked as long as his Spirit has a say in it.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

7 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

God will not be mocked as long as his Spirit has a say in it.

god is a dumbass.  There, I said it.  What's his spirit gonna do?

[midniterider]

Thank you for your word salad, Mario. It was delicious. 

[alreadyGone]

3 hours ago, Brothermario said:

.. Reading a book on virtues and then intellectually practicing them is a far lesser reality.

 

I do not and have never made a practice of presenting myself as "honest".

In the sense that is, as so many times people will declare "I don't lie!", etc.

I aspire to be honest. I wish to be.

 

I can however in total honesty say that my personal practice and code of "virtue" begins with a single precept which is mine and mine alone:

 

We as human beings are incapable by nature to live in nature as all other animals do.

We require human artifacts to survive the planetary environment.

We require material goods to live and survive, and to have any ability to contribute in any useful or meaningful way to the life and well-being of any humans other than ourselves.

(with only very limited and inconsequential exceptions geographically)

Therefore we consume and rely on a certain volume and quantity of material goods per day, each of us, without exception.

 

You, as a living human being generate the value you consume, at minimum as much as you consume, by the activities you pursue day to day across your years.  Or, you do not.

 

If you do not, then of the volume you consume each day, some portion is being created by someone else, someone other than you.

 

"Virtue", given the bare human mammalian reality of this life, begins with confronting this truth. And if you find that in fact a portion of your daily sustenance is being sourced by the life-energy of others, then honesty, any initial first-principals attempt at virtue begins by asking:  from whom then does my daily sustenance come? And what is the mechanism by which it comes into my hands?

 

In my experience this single fundamental aspect of our common universal human experience sends many people into spasms of avoidance and obfuscation.

 

And if you cannot even know yourself whether in fact your efforts in the world result in generation of value at least equal to the sustenance and resources you actually consume, then any pretense at recognizing "virtue" anywhere, in anything in heaven or on earth is laughable.

 

 

 

 

 

[Brothermario]

alreadyGone, your view of of me is conveniently the opposite of me.

 

 I quit the football team in the 10th grade to work a full time job on the back of a garbage truck from four to midnight. I was the starting halfback in both the Junior Varsity and Senior Squad, and had the sexiest girl in school as my girlfriend, but was practical and ambitious. You read that I had five steady girlfriends when God showed up, and got out of that I was unhappy and no one paid attention to me? Sure you did.

 

What’s happening to you right now is that I have stirred up the demons of pride and self-love you have listened to and served for so many years. And they’re now instigating you to attack me with the worst insults you can muster, no matter how baseless they are. And I’m talking about actual demons, and you know why I claim they exist.

 

At 19, my girlfriend was a 29 year old beauty queen, who paid quite a bit of attention to me. And I sold about 200 ounces of weed a week out of the trunk of my old Mercedes to kids throughout my city, causing a Narc to once say to me, “All I here is Joe Mello.” No. I never lacked attention.

[alreadyGone]

"Attacked you"... ?

 

Quote please?

[alreadyGone]

I've only just noticed the posts on this forum are not numbered, but assuming for the moment you may be making reference to the post above where I simply responded to your presumptions of how I derive my sense and understanding of "virtue".

(though to be clear, you were addressing those assembled here, not only me)

 

Therein I posted that I too am flawed.

And I followed that with a statement of where I personally found the beginning, the genesis of virtue. By simply confronting some hard universal realities of human existence.

Simple fundamentals of our selves and our temporal existence that are seldom examined or questioned.

 

We can argue all day about whether there is this God in which/whom I once believed.

 

I don't expect you to argue over whether human beings live a material temporal existence which is totally dependent upon human artifacts, either those of our own hand or the hand and mind of other humans.

Gotta eat, yeah? If you may perhaps be at this time in the northern hemisphere, you're probably reliant on shelter and even man-made-and-controlled energy sources.

 

You don't find that insulting, and therefore not "an attack".

No one here will believe you if you declare otherwise.

 

I have not insulted you. Not in that post nor earlier posts.

I fail to understand use of the term "attacked" in any context here other than insult or ridicule, neither of which I have directed to you personally.

 

I did post questions that could easily be understood and perceived as disagreement with things you've posted. But uh...  I originated this discussion, I did so in expectation of discoursing and possibly not agreeing with other posters here.

And the expectation that their expectation would be the same.

 

Whut?

 

 

You have attacked me with assertions that I believe myself to be educated or intelligent. You have made rude assertions that I am "full of demon pride and self-love".

 

From what platform of pride do you hurl such things at other humans?

 

Can't you just discuss, without need to rely on angry accusations?

 

We can discuss what I myself believe and see myself to be, or to be not in another thread, perhaps "Why ex-Christians believe what they do", or "Ex-Christian Ego... what about it?" or somesuch.

 

 

[alreadyGone]

1 hour ago, Brothermario said:

...What’s happening to you right now is that I have stirred up the demons of pride and self-love you have listened to and served for so many years. ...

 

Forgive me, I also intended to ask...

Is there a flaw or sin, a defect in one's character as a human being in loving your self?

 

(discounting for the moment the question of what is actually meant by "love", not to digress here)

 

Speaking only for myself, I find a love of self essential in order to make rational judgements day to day for my own self-preservation, health, and well-being. To generating and sustaining my level of effort and rationally-driven motivation to do so.

 

Bound in my love for myself is not only the drive to preserve my life but to do so using only that to which I am rightfully entitled.

 

Excepting one individual who stole from me, there is no one on this planet who owes to me any material thing.

 

My love of self is such that I want the luxury of waking to know that I am able one more day to sustain my own life in the material realm without taking from anyone else. Without reliance on anything which is not mine by having either created it or given fair value for it.

 

It's just something that matters to me, to my sense of what is and what is not. To my understanding of who I am. Which understanding of self did not perhaps come as easily for me as it did to you, I dunno...

 

[Brothermario]

The forces we are fighting against and for are not simply human, but “principalities and powers”.

 

We are existing for a brief time “a little less than the angels”, but still important participants of a greater reality that our senses cannot experience.

 

Any thoughts we have or actions we take are not simply our own, but are a part of this greater unseen reality.

 

And our thoughts and actions are sometimes influenced by willful evil forces hell bent on our destruction for the true purpose of diminishing the Glory of God

 

In a word, Satan and his angels are really pissed at Michael and his angels. And we are stuck in the middle.

 

And I’m not being allegorical.

[florduh]

39 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

The forces we are fighting against and for are not simply human, but “principalities and powers”.

 

We are existing for a brief time “a little less than the angels”, but still important participants of a greater reality that our senses cannot experience.

 

Any thoughts we have or actions we take are not simply our own, but are a part of this greater unseen reality.

 

And our thoughts and actions are sometimes influenced by willful evil forces hell bent on our destruction for the true purpose of diminishing the Glory of God

 

In a word, Satan and his angels are really pissed at Michael and his angels. And we are stuck in the middle.

 

And I’m not being allegorical.

 

Of course you still have presented no evidence that this particular mythology is factually true. Why do you believe this particular brand of bullshit? Why not the story of Xenu, for example?

[sdelsolray]

This one hinted that he would be leaving soon.  Perhaps he could do so sooner than later, of course he first must parade his martyr complex and issue his theistic threats.

 

Gnostic theists are quite boring.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

1 hour ago, Brothermario said:

The forces we are fighting against and for are not simply human, but “principalities and powers”.

 

We are existing for a brief time “a little less than the angels”, but still important participants of a greater reality that our senses cannot experience.

 

Any thoughts we have or actions we take are not simply our own, but are a part of this greater unseen reality.

 

And our thoughts and actions are sometimes influenced by willful evil forces hell bent on our destruction for the true purpose of diminishing the Glory of God

 

In a word, Satan and his angels are really pissed at Michael and his angels. And we are stuck in the middle.

 

And I’m not being allegorical.

Evidence, please.

[sdelsolray]

Just now, TheRedneckProfessor said:

Evidence, please.

 

This one doesn't do evidence.

[Brothermario]

Because Xenu was not given to humanity at the Fullness of Time, Jesus was.

 

And the Revelation of God revealed in the New Testament is unsurpassed, by a long shot.

 

God is everything we could ever hope or need him to be.

[Myrkhoos]

7 minutes ago, sdelsolray said:

This one hinted that he would be leaving soon.  Perhaps he could do so sooner than later, of course he first must parade his martyr complex and issue his theistic threats.

 

Gnostic theists are quite boring.

I don t agree with the generalisation, but this can be true. I mean I find some christian mystical texts actually very interesting, poetically and philosophically. It all depends on the specific discourse. 

[Brothermario]

And now I’m boring.

 

Do you guys ever tell the truth?

[Myrkhoos]

Already gone, maybe you would like to start a new topic on the original post? This one got derailed. And in that kindly ask people not to get in fiery debates, but just express opinions and obs. Just a shield against further derailment.   

       BrotherMario I kindly ask you to start your own topics in the Lion Den and anyone who wants to go there is welcome, but do not derail other topics. Ok?

 Myrkhoos,  out.

[Astreja]

38 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

God is everything we could ever hope or need him to be.

 

In my case, that "everything" = zero.  I have no interest whatsoever in worshipping your imaginary friend, can perceive no actual need for it, and don't have any particular use for "hope," either.

 

You present as someone who started out with narcissism and entitlement and then painted it over with faux humility after immersing yourself deliberately in an environment related to beliefs you already sought to reinforce.  You are broken in such a way as to be a warning to others.

 

You have nothing that I want or value.  Nothing at all.

[Astreja]

42 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

Do you guys ever tell the truth?

 

What do you believe happens to you if you die with your false witness against us unconfessed and unforgiven?

[florduh]

55 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

Do you guys ever tell the truth?

You mean, "Do you agree with me?"

 

No, nobody of sound mind agrees with you and your delusions.

[sdelsolray]

1 hour ago, Myrkhoos said:

I don t agree with the generalisation, but this can be true. I mean I find some christian mystical texts actually very interesting, poetically and philosophically. It all depends on the specific discourse. 

 

I am using the term "gnostic" in its generic sense, as one who claims knowledge, and not as it is used to refer to certain Christian sects, i.e., the "Gnostics".

 

The former use applies to poster Brothermario, who is addicted to pretense, presuppositionalism and pretending.  Your use is towards the latter use of the word "gnostic".

[Brothermario]

Now ... there are only two choices you have, because none of you has the type of “proof” you demand from me for what I’m telling you, for the accusations against me that you are making. So, you either “believe” that I am simply lying to you about spending seven years in sacrifice receiving direct revelations from God, or you “believe” that I am not lying to you and God is a living God that you yourself can give everything to and receive everything back from.

 

You cannot choose that you “know” I am lying to you. You don’t have your level of proof for that. And because you are not people who have experienced God yourselves, you cannot choose that you know I am telling the truth.

 

I am the only one here that knows whether I’m lying or telling the truth, or whether God exists or not.

 

Furthermore, what did I tell you was the way I received the knowledge of God I claim to have? From people on a .net? From reading? Going to church? Getting two college degrees? Praying?

 

No, none of these ways.

 

 I told you that God himself did everything because I had always thought about him with respect, and obeyed him when the opportunity arose.

 

Your ignorance of God is from your disrespect and disobedience towards God.

[Astreja]

18 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

Now ... there are only two choices you have, because none of you has the type of “proof” you demand from me for what I’m telling you, for the accusations against me that you are making. So, you either “believe” that I am simply lying to you about spending seven years in sacrifice receiving direct revelations from God, or you “believe” that I am not lying to you and God is a living God that you yourself can give everything to and receive everything back from.

 

False dichotomy.  I believe that you had some sort of experience, and that you did indeed sacrifice seven years of your life to it.  I don't think that you're lying about that.

 

However, I also believe that your experience was totally unconnected to the real world, just a phantasm in your brain, and that you had a psychological experience rather than an encounter with an actual god.

 

Perhaps you should be discussing this with a mental health professional rather than with us.