Moderator: Dan~
Judith Lief wrote:Fear is a very tricky thing. Sometimes we put up a pretense of virtue, but really we're afraid of being bad. Are our good deeds true virtue or just fear?
anon wrote:Doesn't it say in the Bible that nobody has ever seen God's face?
alyoshka wrote:The point of all this? Standing naked before God is not enough. Fear of God is not enough. It is critical that we fear God and persist in our naked fear/trust but more than this we must take joy in our nudity. .
This is an odd thought. I am sure the ostrich 'complains' in its own way when it has something to complain about, and in those instances the ostrich does not flap its wings with joy.Unlike the ostrich that flaps its wings with joy Job complains about his condition.
Moreno wrote:REsponding as a no longer Christian, I don't see why we need to assume fear of God is a good thing.
I'm not secular or only secular.alyoshka wrote:]I'm sure you can if translated to secular terms
Humility in the sense of being willing to notice one's current limitations, sure. I don't think being humble, as this is generally conceived is positive.Think of it as humility even. Can you see why that might be a good thing?
Of course, but most powers I do not trust and for good reasons.Being mindful of powers out there that are greater than us?
No, I don't think fearing these is something that should be considered good, a goal or a permanent state.Spirits that are wiser and more loving?
Frankly, I'd appreciate awe, respect, admiration much more. There is no need to even compare myself as a whole being with the other being. I can be humbled by creatures that supposedly humans are superior too and not just around physical prowess. There is no need to have a humble concept of myself that I compare or create through comparison with some other being. Being stunned by the good or great qualities of another being of any kind, need not have this 'I am little' 'I am smaller' quality to it. 'Wow, that's amazing' is enough. And sure, an awareness on occasion that I cannot do this or that now.It's a posture that prepares us for what we ought to become, whether Christian or not.
Moreno wrote:I can be humbled by creatures that supposedly humans are superior to and not just around physical prowess.
Moreno wrote:Being stunned by the good or great qualities of another being of any kind, need not have this 'I am little' 'I am smaller' quality to it. 'Wow, that's amazing' is enough. And sure, an awareness on occasion that I cannot do this or that now.
No, not really. I was shifting the word, to show that it has nothing to do with relative greatness. Being humble is generally looked at as having a restrained self-image, if not something more reducing, like thinking oneself small. I have no need for that, really, in relation to animals, babies, oceans, deities. I can react to them without having an ongoing attitude about myself. I need not have a restrained self-evaluation.alyoshka wrote:Then you can see the importance of humility
There is no need to fear a loving parent., and of fearing God insofar as it is a humble posture.
But these do not need to be coupled. I can have the same reaction to an artist or musician who does something I love that I would not have done - perhaps I could, perhaps not, who knows. I don't need to compare myself to have a full appreciation for someone else.Part of it is being open to precisely what you describe, or to recognizing our insufficiencies and how others excel.
Moreno wrote:Being stunned by the good or great qualities of another being of any kind, need not have this 'I am little' 'I am smaller' quality to it. 'Wow, that's amazing' is enough. And sure, an awareness on occasion that I cannot do this or that now.
[/quote]But it seemed like, at the end of your OP, you were suggesting that we both fear and trust, that both are necessary.You're right, fearing God need not come with this feeling. My point in the OP in fact is that we should not feel this way, and that Job especially should not feel this way. Instead we should take pride and joy in ourselves.
Moreno wrote:alyoshka wrote:
Then you can see the importance of humility
No, not really. I was shifting the word, to show that it has nothing to do with relative greatness. Being humble is generally looked at as having a restrained self-image, if not something more reducing, like thinking oneself small. I have no need for that, really, in relation to animals, babies, oceans, deities. I can react to them without having an ongoing attitude about myself. I need not have a restrained self-evaluation.
I deliberately used humble in a situation where one does not, generally, consider oneself, as a whole less than the other. In the end, I think we are better off without the word humble, especially as a goal.
Moreno wrote:There is no need to fear a loving parent.
Moreno wrote:But it seemed like, at the end of your OP, you were suggesting that we both fear and trust, that both are necessary.
Dan~ wrote:I believe that "fear of god" has more sinister origins.
Some people can say how it's positive, but it's not positive.
Fear or derivatives of fear are not forms of true respect or humility, they are based in danger and suppression.
And that's just what I hope to draw from this scene and to apply to Job: Fearing God is the kind of fear that we can only feel in exposure, or when we are exposed. Fear of God is only achieved by standing naked before God because that's exactly what it is: fearing and trusting in God as our covering. It is putting all of our faith in God, putting ourselves out there fully, even though we are scared shitless.
quetzalcoatl wrote:Perhaps a more enlightened approach would be to say that, we fear how god would perceive our nakedness. The iniquities in our hearts and the recognition of self as compared to how we perceive god to be, or how we think he would view us. How can whatever we are be pure enough to transcend the world and enter heaven ~ when we see ourselves as the world [or of it].
Not sure how to take your last comment though. Are you suggesting that we should not see ourselves as being of the world?
In regards to this it is worth noting that Job arises as dust. He does not in any way deny his worldliness but rather he proudly reveals it and revels in it.
quetzalcoatl wrote:Is divinity/heaven the same as the world?
quetzalcoatl wrote:Is god the earth or something beyond the physical, as are our souls, no. this is where I get confused with Christian philosophy, what kind of spirituality does the earth yield? Can we after the resurrection live forever here, wont we over populate etc, etc.
quetzalcoatl wrote:For me the earth is evolution, it is cyclic and brings death to its children, it is the devil ~ in a kind of templar manner.
quetzalcoatl wrote:Arises as dust? that’s fascinating I wonder how that is meant.
I don't think these are separable if that's what you mean. Heaven is on earth. The Heavenly City descends to earth. We do not simply ascend to the Heavenly City.
With God all things are possible.
The earth is your home. It's what you're made of.
The passage is 42:6, typically rendered as Job repenting in dust and ashes. I think a better or fuller rendering is that Job is consoled about dust and ashes and that Job arises as and from dust and ashes.
quetzalcoatl wrote:There would need to be something near to a total transformation of earth to make it heaven; would that still be earth?
I mean if you get rid of death and disease etc, then you get rid of what life is about and hence what the world is about.
quetzalcoatl wrote:Lets assume that’s true, to prevent overcrowding he would need to grow the planet endlessly, and change the laws of physics so it doesn’t get to heavy and become a black hole etc. …I am using extremes in order to take the argument to potentials.
quetzalcoatl wrote:I’d say I am mind and that is not physical, hence earth is not what my soul is made of.
quetzalcoatl wrote:Perhaps job thought the opposite to that? In other words, the dust is the thinker
Why on earth would you think that life is about death and disease? That's not what life is.
Water into wine. The realm of possibility expands. That's what it means: with God all things are possible because with God new things are possible.
Stop confining yourself to what is possible right now.
I don't think that Job thought in the dualism that you do. Job's humanity is not defined as a mind that thinks but as an earthling (adam, or of the earth).
quetzalcoatl wrote:how do we define the earth as anything other than what it is now. If it is changed beyond recognition they it is no longer the earth. Same as if you were changed beyond recognition, you wouldn’t be you.
quetzalcoatl wrote:I am not, I am just making the philosophical point, that if you change something then it is no longer what it formerly was. ‘Water into wine’ here means that god would have to change things illogically;
quetzalcoatl wrote:Resurrection paradox; during a war an innocent farmer is killed, his body blown apart by cannon, a part of his arm flies off into a pigpen and get eaten by a pig. A priest later eats the pig.
When the priest and the farmer are later resurrected, who gets the former cells of their bodies? They were once the farmers arm, then become a constituent part of the priest, so rightly are part of both.
quetzalcoatl wrote:For me it is dust, the only thing about it that is human is mind and information.
With God, what is possible can change. The conditions of possibility can expand (with God) and contract (with sin and death).
From death to life (or life to death) there is a change in the essential being of something. But if we consider the life before it died, and the life after it is resurrected, there is not a change in essential being there. There is not even a change in recognizability (Jesus' apostles still recognized Jesus after the resurrection. He was more beautiful, yes, but not essentially different or beyond recognition).
So what, you're a computer? You know, for all the effort to find one there has still been no clear dividing line established between the physical and the mental. Maybe one day we'll be able to separate them and download your mind but even then it would still require some kind of machine platform to function. So would you, as such, be essentially different? Would that machine platform not be part of your essential being, playing the essential role that your body/brain currently plays?
Things can be made new. Impossible things can happen. Yet essential being can remain the same.
quetzalcoatl wrote:I think its possible to change what we ‘be’ or 'are' too. If say your DNA was changed massively.
quetzalcoatl wrote:Good point! Problem is that this idea is transcended when we consider the original being of the priest, his resurrection would necessarily include the farmers arm, as would the farmers. If however in the resurrection we all get new bodies in the form of the one we left this world with ~ a replica, then your position holds.
When you say Jesus was ‘more beautiful’ it seems to me that he was without body, but we could say he had a different kind of physicality, one that isn’t biological or at least not the way we are. …I think biology is very temporary in its design.
quetzalcoatl wrote:Change A into B and you no longer have A.
I guess the question is: why would we want to undertake such a change? Is our human nature so bad?
I understand wanting to accomplish the miracle from death to life (my hope is in the resurrection of the dead), but not so much the change to entirely new life forms...
I don't think it is essential that every original spec of dust be restored in the resurrection. What matters is that we are restored. (I'm constituted now by a completely different set of atoms than I was when I was born, yet I am the same person.)
I also think it would be wrong to say that Jesus no longer has a physical body. Thomas proves that Jesus is still flesh and blood after the resurrection, no? But I also see the the possibility of a new body. A machine body for instance. Ultimately, the body is more beautiful with resurrection, but this leaves a lot of room. Is the body still biological? Or is it mechanical or something else altogether?
Sure.. But what you're talking about here is a change in essential nature. From a leaf into a dog for instance. Or from water into wine. This kind of logic is at play in resurrection, but the resurrection formula is more A into B into A', where A' is still A, but simply more beautiful.
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