Fellowship

[Fasaga]

Gender manifests in everything on all planes, but it would be beneficial at this time to clearly define the context of Gender relevent to this discussion. The word "Gender" is derived from the Latin root meaning "to beget, to procreate, to generate, to create, to produce", it has a far broader and more general meaning than the word "sex" which refers to the physical distinctions between male and female living things, the latter, I think, being what Mikey refers to above, and agreed that in that context, there is no distinctions between sexes in the Afterlife.

Consider the workings of attraction and repulsion, positive and negative, gravitation, love and hate, all manifestations of Gender.

Moving onto Mental Gender, or the idea of Dual Mind, subjective or objective, active or passive, conscious or sub-conscious, voluntary or involuntary is also a manifestation of Gender

The "I" is the masculine, the will, the directive.
The "Me" is the feminine, the creative, the imaginative.

While independent, they are also dependent on each other to function, and one without the other become inert.

[sijachanges]

i was in an identical situation a few years back. its tough. there is no easy way to resolve this. if your fundamentalists are anything like the ones i was involved with, then their hobby is probably talking about jesus, God and the word. essentially there is nothing wrong with that. when john the baptist went to some place whos name i cant remember, he used the idol to the unknown god to tell the people about jesus. and jesus himself negated all that had been said and done previously and gave us all a new commandme

Hello everyone, I would appreciate some advice. Until pretty recently I was a member of a fundamentalist church that was heavily focused on the whole fire-and-brimstone, repent-or-burn idea. I decided to leave after I realized that the bible and other evidence don't actually support that perspective.
Once I left, I suddenly saw many of my friends who were members of that church go through a drastic change in attitude. Some of them basically turned their backs on me. A couple of others have been witnessing to me... it seems pathetic really, since they use all the same old rhetorical tricks as I used to rely on when I was witnessing. Never mind that I'm still a Christian, they seem convinced that I will burn in hell if I don't come back!
One especially heartbraking experience was having to turn away a close friend who seemed to think it was her personal duty to "save" me!
What should I do? I don't want everyone to keep harassing me about this, but I also don't wnat to drive them all away! Is there any way to convince them to leave me alone about this, but stil keep them as friends?

[vic smyth]

...I would still argue though that duality exists in All things, even God,...

I'm sorry I have to disagree, at least according to my worldview. Anything that smacks of duality is part of the illusion, it's the litmus test that I use to judge what is Real. Any God that has a dual nature is a god that we created. In the beginning there was only ONE. One day we had this crazy idea, What if there is something other than ONE? At that moment duality (good and not-good) was born.

But that's my worldview, your mileage may vary.

With Lovingkindness (metta),
vic

[vic smyth]

And I feel compelled to add that nowhere in the Gospels - where the idea of the Holy Spirit first appears - does Jesus refer to the HS as feminine. The whole notion of masculine vs. feminine is fundamentally human-based: in God there is no such duality. Based upon the afterlife evidence and its extraordinary consistency with the teachings of Jesus, I am pretty confident that the Holy Spirit concept was Jesus's gentle way of weaning His followers from the notion of God as a vengeful male to the fact that God is Spirit. He could not directly replace one version of God with another without being guilty of blasphemy, which at that time was punishable by death; so He did what He could, which was to introduce the notion that when He left, He would be leaving behind the Holy Spirit as a divine force to work in the world.

Jesus did not invent the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit or Spirit of God, ("Ruach Elohim" in Hebrew) was a common belief in Judaism in Jesus' time and before.

Jesus lived in a very partriarchal society where cattle had more rights than women. He would not have connected with his listeners had he referred to the Holy Spirit as feminine. However Gnostics in Jesus' day, both Greeks and Jews (and later Christians), revered Sophia the Greek word for Wisdom, which was considered the feminine aspect of Divinity. The Gospel of John, based on what Gospel scholars say, has very strong Gnostic undertones.

Okay, I'm lecturing...Sorry...I'll stop.

With Lovingkindness (metta),
vic

[Fasaga]

I'm sorry I have to disagree, at least according to my worldview. Anything that smacks of duality is part of the illusion, it's the litmus test that I use to judge what is Real. Any God that has a dual nature is a god that we created. In the beginning there was only ONE. One day we had this crazy idea, What if there is something other than ONE? At that moment duality (good and not-good) was born.

But that's my worldview, your mileage may vary.

With Lovingkindness (metta),
vic

Thanks Vic
That's interesting and you make a good point, I'm always keen to get others views on these things.

[mac]

It shouldn't astonish me yet it still does.


This topic thread started off with a discussion about 'speaking in tongues' and has side-tracked totally from that subject to one of statements of personal belief and/or mainstream religious teachings about the gender of the creator.


what

[Highlander]

mac,

With all due respect, surely you understand that this thread, like all other conversations, is not a doctoral thesis. We're just going wherever our disparate interests lead us. That's what makes it fun and keeps it interesting. It would be boring to strictly follow a narrow topic until it dies of its own accord. I say bring on the flavor and let the good times roll!

[mac]

mac,

With all due respect, surely you understand that this thread, like all other conversations, is not a doctoral thesis. We're just going wherever our disparate interests lead us. That's what makes it fun and keeps it interesting. It would be boring to strictly follow a narrow topic until it dies of its own accord. I say bring on the flavor and let the good times roll!

With all due respect, I disagree.

[vic smyth]

With all due respect, I disagree.

What makes this forum really beautiful is that we can disagree in a civil and respectful manner. Does this forum attract only the best members, or does this forum bring out the best in everyone?

With Lovingkindness (metta),
vic

[orangeysky]

What makes this forum really beautiful is that we can disagree in a civil and respectful manner. Does this forum attract only the best members, or does this forum bring out the best in everyone?

With Lovingkindness (metta),
vic

And that is what it's all about. Once again, Vic, thank you for your beautiful and wise words.