😀

Haha, sure. Toodlepip! ??

“And obviously intuition has value. I just wish people would be a little more sceptical in their thinking.”

And I just wish people would utilize their natural intuitive ability. 🙂

I’d say we lean in different directions, but I think we basically agree. Other than that, I’ll let you have the last word.

Cheers amd cheerio.

You’re welcome, Aqua. And I knew you had paraphrased those two ideas from Genesis. The word “from” expresses the ideas well – but I think it has different meanings in each. The way you had worded the two seemed to me to communicate the meaning that man was “created in the image of God out of dust” – or, said the other way around, man was “created out of dust in the image of God.” Maybe the word to clear is “image”?

I’m with you on religion being an interesting subject. One of my all-time favorite books is *The World’s Great Religions,* by a religious-studies scholar named Huston Smith. Actually, I read the original edition of his book, which was titled *The Religions of Man*, but I think the content of the two editions is the same except that the new edition includes a section at the end on indigenous religions. I’m sure you can find one or both of these editions at your local library, if you want to. Another really great book is one that Richard (who posts here) recommended, titled *Buddhism: A Way of Life and Thought*, which I got pretty cheap on amazon.com

Happy reading! 🙂

marildi: “I agree with you that scientific proof is valuable, but it would only be “absolutely” and “dogmatically” necessary in the view of someone whose (essentially religious) convictions, with respect to science, require it.”

Which is fine. Practitioners of magick attach all sorts of weird and wonderful interpretations to their results. But if objective claims are made for their processes I would still be having the same argument. As soon as you stray from mythos into logos, the rules of the game have changed and the burden of proof applies.

I would add, however, that we live in a world where psychologists can now induce “religious experience” through suggestion and manipulation, and with relative ease. Where a large number of pharmaceutical drugs and medical procedures are no more effective than a simple placebo. Where a nocebo can induce actual physical illness. With this in mind, I would argue the desire to assign other-worldly causes to therapeutic/magickal results is becoming increasingly quaint and out-moded. Hence my recommendation. Because we are so susceptible to self delusion, I believe it is incredibly important to search for answers beyond mere intuition and dogma. If that sounds like a blanket denial of the supernatural, it is not meant to. And obviously intuition has value. I just wish people would be a little more sceptical in their thinking.

Thanks, Richard. As I understand, the Gnostics proliferated in the early Christian period before Nicea. And there were other Christian sects as well before Constantine had the leaders converge to decide, once and for all, what “Christianity” REALLY was going to be. I find it fascinating that a group of human beings got together to compare notes, to cherry pick thru the various spiritual beliefs and pick what the majority of them thought would be best for the rest of the world to believe and practice! Hilarious, actually. This is just another reason why I’ve long considered organized religion a complete waste of time – for me. But of course, whatever floats your boat and to each his own, etc.

Marildi, thank you for your thoughtful and detailed reply to my questions. Interesting how you consider the two creation theories in Genesis as being non contradictory. Very interesting. My quotes were paraphrased as I believe the actual text just says “from”. But then, the Old Testament was first written in ancient Hebrew. In any event I will follow your suggestions including the Pagel’s book. Heathen that I am, I’ve still always been interested in religion as a study if not a practice. Thanks again 🙂

Lucky, Rip, not smart. Either I didn’t have the money, or I had the money but couldn’t leave work. Back in the day I thought it was very UNLucky. I wanted to go, believed I should, considered it a huge outpoint on my part that I was never able to ” make it go right” to arrive at Flag! That I never made it there was sheer luck, zero brains.

KTBug, it would definitely be very interesting to hear about such a recon. I don’t have much of an impression of the state of SB these days, but I think it was always one of the smaller and more marginal orgs, propped up by a few wealthy members, and now is one of the small and failing orgs that are among the last finally getting set up for “ideal” facilities, requiring lots of outside help. I believe they are still in their classic old downtown building, awaiting – perhaps not too happily – a move to an “ideal” facility to be made by renovating an awfully ugly older building bought in an office park far to the South closer to Ventura.

There was a piece about SB a while back, and starting about halfway down in the comments a number of people with personal experience of the org and its history chip in, including Terra:

http://www.mikerindersblog.org/the-sad-tale-of-santa-barbara-org/

It sounds like their ideal org campaign has been one of the drawn out and gruesome ones, with the first tranche of money raised lost in the the Reed Slatkin fraud. More recently renderings of an attractive modern deco-style office building were used in promo pieces, but they apparently could not raise funds to complete that purchase, and now have bought what is possibly the ugliest Scientology building to date, presumably because it was the cheapest option.

I drive past the so called boston ORG/office building in Brighton Massachusetts everyday on my to work. The street is a short cut when having to avoid the mass pike. The org is surrounded by colleges and universities harvard , boston university, Mit any many more. Its a straight up vertical plain old office building located on a not so busy street. I can picture Scientology tring to get their hands on some college kids only to be rejected. CoS had a small building in Quincy mass that They were renting and people wanted NOTHING to do with them. The cos looked like a fool in Quincy and Everyone I spoke to thought they were a cult. Then the Cos bought the Alexandria hotel that is ready to tip over. All boston needs is one more good blizzard and there she blows. The hotel has zero parking and is on a street loaded with crime and heroin addicts. Nexfix is filming as we speak in that area called methadone mile. But across the street is a middle to upper class with a large and strong lbtgq community. Scientology looks foolish in boston, they infiltrated our schools in the 80s/90s and have zero chances of tring again. I can picture our boy mayor marty walsh avoiding any of their lame ribbon cutting. Bostonians are very strong in giving back to the community and I fear scientogy will only use that to their advantage.