Beliefaith

[Aupmanyav]

... or to explain. God is real. That is why my life is in God. I don't need to argue or justify or explain. If someone likes to believe different, that's fine ...

That means you do not care for others. Otherwise, you would try to convince them to believe in your God. See, Teresa of Calcutta tried to convince a person of that even if he/she had a few breaths remaining. That is faith, belief.

 

[Aussie Thoughts]

Quite the opposite, mate. Just that, you only cast your seeds where there's fertile soil. Otherwise, they may not grow at all or become lost amongst the tares. Matthew 7:6, 13:24-30 and 13:58 come to mind.

Then too we must recognize that there are those who approach God from an entirely different perspective. What use insisting they adapt another's belief system? Like me dad use to say, "No point forcing your neighbor to eat wheat when his family gets their nourishment from corn."

 

[RJM]

That means you do not care for others. Otherwise, you would try to convince them to believe in your God.

Nope. It means I don't want to be a nuisance trying to force my own ideas on them, lol. That would be the way to turn people away from me. Christ didn't go around forcing his ideas on people.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Yes .. there is a fine balance between sharing your views and arguing forcibly.
It can be frustrating when conversing with some people.
We are only human

 

[Aupmanyav]

Christ didn't go around forcing his ideas on people.

But he did curse cities/villages who did not respond to him as he thought they should with a fate worse than Sodom and Gomorrah.

 

[RJM]

But he did curse cities/villages who did not respond to him as he thought they should with a fate worse than Sodom and Gomorrah.

Not a curse but a warning of the karmic fate of rejecting good in favour of evil, imo

 

[RJM]

"Then Jesus began to criticize openly the cities in which he had done many of his miracles, because they did not repent.

"Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

ButI tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you! And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven?

No, you will be thrown down to Hades! For if the miracles done among you had been done in Sodom, it would have continued to this day. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for the region of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you!"

Matthew 11:20–24

"... In essence, then, Jesus is contrasting three Jewish towns where he has performed many signs, with three Gentile cities known for such extraordinary wickedness as to deserve God's destruction, saying that on the Day of Judgment the former will be judged more harshly, because of their greater unwillingness to repent.

These cities are associated with the Antichrist in medieval sources. The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, commenting on the above Gospel passage, states that the Antichrist "will be conceived in Chorazin, be born in Bethsaida, and begin to rule in Capernaum."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woes_to_the_unrepentant_cities

 

[RJM]

The greater light is always there. It cannot be defiled

 

[Aupmanyav]

The greater light is always there. It cannot be defiled

Well, in that case, the matter is settled.

 

[RJM]

Well, in that case, the matter is settled.

Darkness is not the opposite of light, it is the lack of light. Total darkness is the total lack of light. But there is no total light. In a cave in the depths of the earth where no light can enter, that is total darkness.

But a candle takes away the darkness. And 10 million suns do not come close to totality of light.

So it's just a sort of Einstein thought experiment?

Darkness cannot 'stain' the light?

EDIT
Perhaps we are constructed to draw spiritual lessons from natural phenomena?

 

[Cino]

Darkness cannot 'stain' the light?

EDIT
Perhaps we are constructed to draw spiritual lessons from natural phenomena?

I think so, too!

I'd like to extend your analogy a little, maybe it will still work for you:

Darkness cannot stain the light, but we throw shadows just by looking into the light.

 

[Namaste Jesus]

Perhaps, but the shadow we cast is most visible to us when we turn our back to the light.

 

[Cino]

Perhaps, but the shadow we cast is most visible to us when we turn our back to the light.

And then we only see the reflected light around the shadow.

Once it interacts with objects of perception, the light is scattered, absorbed, diminished in a way, maybe not tarnished, but also not direct.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Mystics.

 

[Namaste Jesus]

Mystics.

Only on alternate, Tuesdays!

 

[RJM]

Darkness cannot stain the light, but we throw shadows just by looking into the light.

And we do so by the simple fact of being born into the material world. Nothing we can do to change it. Original sin?

In the same way we must take the life of others in order to sustain our own -- every time we breath or drink we must kill tiny living creatures in the water and the air?

 

[Cino]

Only on alternate, Tuesdays!

Look, if you throw around mystical cue words... Anyway. The exit of the Cave is that way, in case you want to do a bit of light-gazing.

 

[Thomas]

Perhaps, but the shadow we cast is most visible to us when we turn our back to the light.

There's something in that ... how much we focus on the shadow, and not the light?

 

[Thomas]

The exit of the Cave is that way, in case you want to do a bit of light-gazing.

Aha! Trouble is, too often we're led to 'exit the cave through the giftshop', so to speak.

 

[RJM]

Perhaps, but the shadow we cast is most visible to us when we turn our back to the light.

Turn we must. The briefest glimpse is all the sun allows us. Our human eyes are much too weak?