Let it go tentative.
A
And the angel of the Lord said, “Let it go tentative. (The truth is mine).”
I was referring to tentative’s old habit of silencing anyone who wishes to talk about anything that he has already deemed is undiscussible. I mean surely we can’t talk about spirituality. Surely?
Yes when minds have already been made up, there is nothing to discuss.
Sir tentative will play innocent of course. It doesn’t matter, he know exactly what I mean.
A
Spirit I will discuss. In my view (paragraphs 3, 4 ,6) I define spirit as the biological emotional indicator that tells us how much of our ‘contained’ activity is the natural, reaching out to the limits of our capacities, to others and to God; and thus how much is the complementary amount of our effort to fill the void. I suggest if we were to monitor our spirit we would see that generally our “light of life” begins to dim at birth and continues to diminish as we become absorbed by our dominant, collective, unnatural effort to fill the void.
Spirituality I won’t discuss. It is a nebulous, theoretical concept that is as impossible to grasp as a cloud. Spirituality is a complicating concept like “ego” and “the trinity” which, as I said in another post, have no place in what I consider to be the simple explanation of what’s happening.
LA,
You have a unique capacity to see that anything said that might disagree with you own considered opinion is an attempt to silence you. On the contrary, say anything you like. That I, or anyone else might disagree is just part of a discussion board environment. As Doug points out,
To the extent that you disagree, you’re welcome to speculate.
As I read the poem, it addressed religious exclusivism and the attendant us-them perspective. It was simply an observation of a known fact that religion divides.
If there was any effort to silence a question, it seems:
I hope the irony isn’t lost…
DEB,
Your poem illuminates an on-going collection of discussions in the religion forum. Not only about christianity, but all religions. I agree that we have something called spirit. Spirtituality is our private experiencing of what spirit might be. But religion is how we act out on the world, and that is worthy of anyone’s comment.
Religion does not divide. It is the possessivness that divides. All religions are possessive. This is mine not yours. Mine is better than yours. yea you can have some of mine but, you are only a convert.
Ego, possesive, sales and just sheer kindergarten attitude.
My dog is better than your dog, my dog is better than yours, my dog is better because he eats Kennel Ration , my dog is better than yours. Remember that Jingle from about twenty years ago?
Its not the religion itself dividing. The religious texts try to include all humans but, the humans that possess the texts are picky, choosy and prefer to only include the right kind. So they interpret texts to allow for that. Don’t blame the theories, blame the application of the theories.
Your reasoning here defies logic.
LOL Doug,
Show me anything about religion that is logical. LOL
At any rate, people possess their religion, religions do not possess people.
People treat religion as a possession, not like it is a part of them.
Religions do not divide people, it is the possession of it, that divides.
How many branches of religion are their for any belief system? Then sub branches, then sub again all the way to an individual possession of belief.
Religion is treated; Think on that phrase It is used commonly enough when speaking of religion.
To get rid of those 7 ways would take generations. Habits are hard to break. Humans love the illogical as much as they love the logical. Salt and Pepper do go together.
Comparing religion to guns? Well LOL its a novel aproach but, in some ways both are similar. Oh heck in many ways they are very similar. Thank you It is an interesting and tantalizing aspect of rationale that I had not thought of. I can see how they are the same, the differences are merely degrees. I can see how it supports what I have said about religion being a possesion.
Example: A person stands up to claim they belong to a religion. I am a Baptist is what they say more often then not. “I am” is a declarative possessive phrase. Belonging to the baptist religion is a possesive phrase.
I have a belief, my beliefs, my religion, my church.
Religion is treated with a possesvie attitude towards others: you have beliefs, you are a…, your beliefs… These phrases declare ownership, possession.
You treat posssesions and Religions are treated as… (fill in the blank.) In your case guns. Many display their religion, some keep it locked up and hidden. Some few actually think they know it as an extension of what they are. Some use it to harm others, some use it to protect others. Some just like the looks of it because it makes them belong.
We posses religion it is not a solid object but if we possess our thoughts then it follows logically the we possess our religion since Religion is thought.
If we do not possess our thoughts then Ok maybe we can’t possess religion. If we do not possess thoughts then what or who does?
Kris,
We don’t possess anything. We just borrow things from time to time. 
Trying desparately to get back to Doug’s poem, it is how we use our ‘borrowed’ things, whether they be guns or ideology or religion. It is the issue of intent, is it not?
To get back to my poem, “it is the issue of intent”; and whether “things” are borrowed or possessed appears to me to be one of those semantic sidebars that ‘philosophers’ love because arguing about it takes them further and further from the issue about which they really don’t want to talk.
It is my contention that our common dominant “intent” is to fill the void with a structure of meaning that we defend with our lives. I used Christianity as an example because I have first hand experience. My sister is a loving, committed Christian who loves other loving committed Christians but hates her brother. The problem is that once in awhile I say things to her like “If God is, God wouldn’t believe in Christianity”, a statement that threatens her existence.
She consequently hates me to the extent she will not even read the tribute to to our 91 year old mother that I plan on using to announce the event of her death. I called it MOTHER’S BENCHand I think it is worth a read. Part of the reason she refuses to read my tribute is that my brother-in-law read it first but at the same time he read a couple other short items I wrote titled SIN and LIFE AFTER DEATH both of which fueled the fires of hate. I was concerned enough about our relationship that I suggested, for the sake of our mother who lives with me, that we try to get along better. I will remember the response of my highly educated sister as long as I live. She said, “Your unbelief is the impediment to our getting along.”
My sister is not unique. With one exception of course, everyone has their “structure of meaning” that they defend because their life depends on it. Three days ago I left in a post to Kriswest a link to what I said was a one minute long piece that further described HUMANITY DIVIDED, the consequences of our “intent”. Over 100 people have since visited this thread and not one person opened the link. I could conclude they all missed it or having read my poem they could have concluded reading more was not worth their time. Or, I could believe that no one wants to read anything further that advocates it is only by unbelieving that we will prevent our self-destruction. Indeed, we can defend our efforts to fill the void in one or two ways before we get to the point of shooting a gun.
Doug I apologize I missed that link. I have been in some pain and not really able to sit comfortably I have noticed and been told this affects my reading. I apologize.
The last why is Pandora’s box. Once it was opened and the horrors let loose it can never ever be reclosed or put back in order. But, remember there was one thing left in that box to combat the evil from within.
Division can be turned into a good thing if we let that last little thing out of the box.
If memory serves the one thing left in Pandora’s box was hope or faith.
If we have and use faith and hope to bring peace to warring factions it will make the divisions peaceful. Seperate and different brings new perspectives , thoughts , ideas and difference. If we all tread down the same path we would all see only the same thing and possibly miss some pretty important things to assist our evolving.
I for one would become deathly bored with life if you all thought and believed the same as me. Wouldn’t you?
gads I can’t imagine having to talk to a duplicate of me all day every day. I would have to shoot one of me. 
Oh and we are up to 37 cats and 14 dogs. The single biggest problem we have are the pyschological ones. Cats think they are cat, dog and human and dogs think they are dog, cat and human It gets pretty bizarre around here. One of the oddest things is a you neuterd male has taken over nurturing 4 abandoned kittens. He allows them nurse on his nipples. Pretty strange.
your puss was beatiful It sounds like you got her the way we got our Rain.
Having more then one is twice the fun Right? LOL They do gives us lessons if we stop to learn them.
Kris,
If sitting is affecting your reading, you obviously are wearing your glasses on the wrong end… Oops. not funny. Keep the anti-inflams going, it will only take about six months.
Doug,
There is just a small possibilty that there is no void, that we construct a void in order to fill it. Life is self-evident if we allow it.
JT, my guess is you haven’t read my short essay the void. If you have then I can only conclude I’ve done a poor job of explaining the void; if I only knew…
Now, you explain “life is self-evident…” We might agree. We seem to agree that we don’t “allow it”. Indeed, it appears that we can override the self-evidence and ignore what should be common sense.
By the way, my two cats, Lord Nelson and Lady Zola, appreciated your visit. They are individuals. Thankfully they do not pretend to comprehend religious/philosophy.
I said or not and, Hope or faith not hope and faith. I can’t recall which.
Well by spreading hopes of peace you bring the first steps of peace. If you do not falter and create a faith that peace will begin then people will begin to spread peace with the hopes and faith of their thoughts of peace.
You could use just hope of faith or hope or faith. Either way would work if perseveriance was used.
Don’t we need to accept that the individual is by ingrained habit Social? To deny any conformity is to deny our need for society. Which we desperateley need because this is a violent world. Filling the need for society is not neccesarily a large part of trying to fill the void. Perhaps a smal part. what we want makes up, part of what we are. we can seperate the individual from the social but, only if one has a strong enough self esteem. I have more but, I must get up and get pressure off my lower back.
Give my regards to your esteemed mother and those two darlings, the Lord and Lady, long may they reign . Your Mother has done well with you. 