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**............** · **............** INFP User ID: 27152 05-06-2012 10:08 PM **Posts: 15,734**

Quote:Rational Spirituality has its roots firmly planted in the fertile soil of modern evidence from fields of research such as near-death and out-of-body experiences, spontaneous past-life memories in both children and adults, and past-life and interlife regression. By contrast traditional religions tend to rely heavily on faith in ancient scripture and modern interpretations of it. It is also dynamic, changing as new evidence is placed on the table or if previous evidence is discredited.

The motto 'evidence not faith' is intended to convey this fundamental difference in approach. But that is not to say that faith, or perhaps better trust, does not have its place. Total trust in the behind-the-scenes dynamics of the universe is fundamental to a Rational Spiritual worldview. Nor does it underestimate the power and majesty of transformative spiritual experiences, or underplay the ultimate spiritual message of universal, unconditional love.

Quote:TEN THEORETICAL PROPOSITIONS

- the soul survives independent of the physical body
- souls have many lives, not just one
- our many lives are not linked by a karmic law of action and reaction
- we reincarnate to gather experience so we can grow
- the only judgment after death comes from ourselves
- we are responsible for all aspects of our lives because we plan and choose them
- we always have free will to deviate from our life plan
- we are all One and all God
- soul consciousness is holographic, and represents the part and the whole all at the same time
- the aim of Source is to experience all that is and can be

http://www.ianlawton.com/rsindex.htm

**Gibbie** · **Gibbie** ^D ^D ^D whoa User ID: 49076 05-06-2012 10:14 PM **Posts: 7,187**

absurdious Wrote:

Quote:Rational Spirituality has its roots firmly planted in the fertile soil of modern evidence from fields of research such as near-death and out-of-body experiences, spontaneous past-life memories in both children and adults, and past-life and interlife regression. By contrast traditional religions tend to rely heavily on faith in ancient scripture and modern interpretations of it. It is also dynamic, changing as new evidence is placed on the table or if previous evidence is discredited.

The motto 'evidence not faith' is intended to convey this fundamental difference in approach. But that is not to say that faith, or perhaps better trust, does not have its place. Total trust in the behind-the-scenes dynamics of the universe is fundamental to a Rational Spiritual worldview. Nor does it underestimate the power and majesty of transformative spiritual experiences, or underplay the ultimate spiritual message of universal, unconditional love.

Quote:TEN THEORETICAL PROPOSITIONS

- the soul survives independent of the physical body
- souls have many lives, not just one
- our many lives are not linked by a karmic law of action and reaction
- we reincarnate to gather experience so we can grow
- the only judgment after death comes from ourselves
- we are responsible for all aspects of our lives because we plan and choose them
- we always have free will to deviate from our life plan
- we are all One and all God
- soul consciousness is holographic, and represents the part and the whole all at the same time
- the aim of Source is to experience all that is and can be

http://www.ianlawton.com/rsindex.htm

I find a lot of that agreeable to my current thinking. I don't know about the God part as being all of us. I don't think God's personality is perfect good (or malevolent either). I believe God makes mistakes. I figure he will use the results of this universe to make improvements in the next one after the great quark death.

**............** · **............** INFP User ID: 27152 05-06-2012 10:20 PM **Posts: 15,734**

I'm currently reading Genesis Unveiled and have to say it is quite a fantastic read. Really gets the mental wheels spinning.

Quote:Brief Old Testament references to a former civilisation that was destroyed by the Flood have fascinated scholars for centuries, giving rise to exotic speculations ranging from the advanced technology of Atlantis through to extraterrestrial visitors. But it is only now that one British researcher’s ten-year quest has brought together the entire body of accounts of an antediluvian race from across the globe - from the ancient texts of Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, China, Greece and Scandinavia, to the sacred traditions of indigenous peoples from the Americas, Africa, Indonesia and Australasia – with stunning results.

GENESIS UNVEILED: The Lost Wisdom of our Forgotten Ancestors is the result of that painstaking quest, and its conclusions are unlike anything you have read before. Like other notable revisionist historians, Ian Lawton argues that our forebears were far more culturally advanced than has been previously believed - to the extent that they built sizeable settlements and navigated the oceans to trade. He backs up this belief with tantalising evidence from archaeology. Yet the most significant common theme uniting the ancient traditions is that our ‘forgotten race’ was originally highly spiritual but became increasingly obsessed with the material world before it perished in a global catastrophe – which geological and other evidence suggests occurred around 11,500 years ago.

Throughout Genesis Unveiled the author’s reinterpretations of ancient sacred texts are underpinned by a spiritual ethos based on the principles of karma and reincarnation. So the catastrophe is seen as a karmic event brought about by our forgotten race’s fall from grace. As to how a spiritual worldview was first brought into human consciousness, he argues that underlying the various accounts of the creation of man and of mankind’s ‘civilisation’ by various ‘sages’ is the genuine reality that the genus Homo had at some point evolved sufficiently in physical, psychological and physiological terms that it was ready to play host to the first advanced souls to incarnate in human form. He argues that this would have represented the most significant cultural impetus ever to the evolution of humanity, and that it can be practically tied into the first signs of ritual burial in the archaeological record, which date back 100,000 years to a site in Israel. This surely represents the point at which our ancestors first appreciated that the soul lives on after death, and that there are ethereal realms in addition to the physical world around us – a view that would lead tens of thousands of years later to the wonderful shamanic cave paintings of Western Europe.

http://www.amazon.com/Genesis-Unveiled-W...1852270284

**ASA**

You'd get no argument against rational scrutiny from practioners of Bhuddism, Taoism or Zen. But they aren't really religions as we use that word in the West. They might take exception to no karma, but only in that everything is connected and every action has a consequence.

But on to childhood's end.

**Louie1257**

But reason seems to be the enemy faith. It is almost self evident that you cannot walk on water and reason will tell you you can't but if you had the faith of a grain of mustard seed you could move mountains in spite of all your reasoning and everyone else's to boot.

Wherever that "bunch of stuff" takes you it cannot be to faith.

So I guess it needs to be trashed as another control mechanism trapping you in the "Matrix" It certainly defies Christ (and loses)

Tissue

**Gibbie** · **Gibbie** ^D ^D ^D whoa User ID: 49076 05-06-2012 10:36 PM **Posts: 7,187**

Louie1257 Wrote:

But reason seems to be the enemy faith. It is almost self evident that you cannot walk on water and reason will tell you you can't but if you had the faith of a grain of mustard seed you could move mountains in spite of all your reasoning and everyone else's to boot.

Wherever that "bunch of stuff" takes you it cannot be to faith.

So I guess it needs to be trashed as another control mechanism trapping you in the "Matrix" It certainly defies Christ (and loses)

I walked on water as a kid all the time on lake erie

[Image: 9E41_4FA6E0AD.jpg]

**Full Circle**

absurdious Wrote:

Quote:Rational Spirituality has its roots firmly planted in the fertile soil of modern evidence from fields of research such as near-death and out-of-body experiences, spontaneous past-life memories in both children and adults, and past-life and interlife regression. By contrast traditional religions tend to rely heavily on faith in ancient scripture and modern interpretations of it. It is also dynamic, changing as new evidence is placed on the table or if previous evidence is discredited.

The motto 'evidence not faith' is intended to convey this fundamental difference in approach. But that is not to say that faith, or perhaps better trust, does not have its place. Total trust in the behind-the-scenes dynamics of the universe is fundamental to a Rational Spiritual worldview. Nor does it underestimate the power and majesty of transformative spiritual experiences, or underplay the ultimate spiritual message of universal, unconditional love.

Quote:TEN THEORETICAL PROPOSITIONS

- the soul survives independent of the physical body
- souls have many lives, not just one
- our many lives are not linked by a karmic law of action and reaction
- we reincarnate to gather experience so we can grow
- the only judgment after death comes from ourselves
- we are responsible for all aspects of our lives because we plan and choose them
- we always have free will to deviate from our life plan
- we are all One and all God
- soul consciousness is holographic, and represents the part and the whole all at the same time
- the aim of Source is to experience all that is and can be

http://www.ianlawton.com/rsindex.htm

It's a good synopsis, but I tend to put it together the way that suits me. (I bolded the ones I agree with, but think a little differently on the other points)

Although I have thought those other things at times in my seeking. BUt seeking is a never-ending thing. For me anyways.

**Astrochik**

I like it

Makes more sense than any "religion"

I do believe in reincarnation

I don't believe we're punished

we are learning

An Allegory: The Lessons of Life and Love

Quote:I leaned from the low-hung crescent moon and grasping the west pointing horn of it, looked down. Against the other horn reclined, motionless, a Shining One and looked at me, but I was unafraid. Below me the hills and valleys were thick with humans, and the moon swung low that I might see what they did.

"Who are they?" I asked the Shining One. For I was unafraid. And the Shining One made answer: "They are the Sons of God and the Daughters of God."

I looked again, and saw that they beat and trampled each other. Some times they seemed not to know that the fellow-creature they pushed from their path fell under their feet. But sometimes they looked as he fell and kicked him brutally.

And I said to the Shining One: "Are they ALL the Sons and Daughters of God?"

And the Shining One said: "All"

As I leaned and watched them, it grew clear to me that each was frantically seeking something, and that it was because they sought what they sought with such singleness of purpose that they were so inhuman to all who hindered them.

And I said to the Shining One: "What do they seek?"

And the Shining One made answer: "Happiness".

"Are they all seeking Happiness?"

"All."

"Have any of them found it?"

"None of those have found it."

"Do they ever think they have found it?"

"Sometimes they think they have found it."

My eyes filled, for at that moment I caught a glimpse of a woman with a babe at her breast, and I saw the babe torn from her and the woman cast into a deep pit by a man with his eyes fixed on a shining lump that he believed to be (or perchance to contain, I know not) Happiness.

And I turned to the Shining One, my eyes blinded.

"Will they ever find it?"

And He said: "They will find it."

"All of them?"

"All of them."

"Those who are trampled?"

"Those who are trampled."

"And those who trample?"

"And those who trample."

I looked again, a long time, at what they were doing on the hills and in the valleys, and again my eyes went blind with tears, and I sobbed out to the Shining One:

"Is it God's will, or the work of the Devil, that men seek Happiness?"

"It is God's will."

"And it looks so like the work of the Devil!"

The Shining One smiled inscrutably. "It does look like the work of the Devil."

When I had looked a little longer, I cried out, protesting: "Why has he put them down there to seek Happiness and to cause each other such immeasurable misery?"

Again the Shining One smiled inscrutably: "They are learning."

"What are they learning?"

"They are learning Life. And they are learning Love."

I said nothing. One man in the herd below held me breathless, fascinated. He walked proudly, and others ran and laid the bound, struggling bodies of living men before him that he might tread upon them and never touch foot to earth. But suddenly a whirlwind seized him and tore his purple from him and set him down, naked among strangers. And they fell upon him and maltreated him sorely.

I clapped my hands.

"Good ! Good !" I cried, exultantly. "He got what he deserved."

Then I looked up suddenly, and saw again the inscrutable smile of the Shining One.

And the Shining One spoke quietly. "They all get what they deserve."

"And no worse?"

"And no worse."

"And no better?"

"How can there be any better? They each deserve whatever shall teach them the true way to Happiness."

I was silenced.

And still the people went on seeking, and trampling each other in their eagerness to find. And I perceived what I had not fully grasped before, that the whirlwind caught them up from time to time and set them down elsewhere to continue the Search.

And I said to the Shining One: "Does the whirlwind always set them down again on these hills and in these valleys?"

And the Shining One made answer: "Not always on these hills or in these valleys."

"Where then?"

"Look above you."

And I looked up. Above me stretched the Milky Way and gleamed the stars.

And I breathed "Oh" and fell silent, awed by what was given to me to comprehend.

Below me, they still trampled each other.

And I asked the Shining One. "But no matter where the Whirlwind sets them down, they go on seeking Happiness?"

"They go on seeking happiness."

"And the Whirlwind makes no mistakes?"

"The Whirlwind makes no mistakes."

"It puts them sooner or later, where they will get what they deserve?"

"It puts them sooner or later where they will get what they deserve."

Then the load crushing my heart lightened, and I found I could look at the brutal cruelties that went on below me with pity for the cruel. And the longer I looked the stronger the compassion grew.

And I said to the Shining One: "They act like men goaded."

"They are goaded."

"What goads them ?"

"The name of the goad is Desire."

Then, when I had looked a little longer, I cried out passionately: "Desire is an evil thing."

But the face of the Shining One grew stern and his voice rang out, dismaying me. "Desire is not an evil thing."

I trembled and thought withdrew herself into the innermost chamber of my heart. Till at last I said: "It is Desire that nerves men on to learn the lessons God has set."

"It is Desire that nerves them."

"The lessons of Life and Love?"

"The lessons of Life and Love!"

Then I could no longer see that they were cruel. I could only see that they were learning. I watched them with deep love and compassion, as one by one the whirlwind carried them out of sight.

**Gracie**

for later.

Looks good.

**Full Circle**

I like that allegory Astrochik.
Hugs

**Astrochik**

Full Circle Wrote:

I like that allegory Astrochik.

**Astrochik**

http://billyblob.com/cartoons/bumble-beeing-part2.html

**............** · (This post was last modified: 05-10-2012 09:03 PM by .............)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH18jGbLiN8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAdhlbJX66g

**isness**

Interesting thank you 5*

**Moco** lop guest User ID: 49195 05-10-2012 08:54 PM

I wish Jesus would come back and straighten this shit out. Good theory, but as usual is imagined.

Whether your soul is strong or weak. The real answer might be that all of us have the capability to FULLY understand what we are supposed to do. But, use and abuse freewill and God can not intervene and take it away for it is what makes us special and corrupt at the same time.