Celebrating another year of blogging. Celebrating a year of hefty contributions from the regular readers here with a third blog post racking up more than 1000 replies. Celebrating free thinking, free will and being a work in progress. Celebrating X-Mas!
Time to pause, chill, read a book, chew on some food (for thought), embrace the family, the traditions and the slow motion of time. Time to go Nisse and put on a Santa costume and visit your customers and to give them a hug.
Brendan and Geir goes nissing
After X-Mas there are a couple blog posts lined up – one about goals and dreams, another about evaluation.
Take care and have a joyful X-Mas!
Geir Isene - uncut 
Merry Xmas, everyone!
Merry Christmas to all my friends here, and a very happy New Year to come.
We shall be spending our holidays visiting Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. I am not sure if I’ll have the opportunity to drop in on this blog during these holidays, but I am sure to be back in the New Year. Hope Geir will have some new, provocative and exciting posts by that time.
I am taking the book ALAN TURING THE ENIGMA by Andrew Hodges on this trip. The flight is long so this will be a pleasant diversion. There are so many wonderful minds out there to study… and here too. 🙂
See you soon!
.
A Merry Xmas and the very best in 2012 to all readers & posters!
Such interesting & lively discussions – I thoroughly enjoy them. I only wish I had time to contribute more.
Thank you Geir for continuing to create this blog … to me, an island of sanity.
This song is my namesake. 🙂
This blog is a blessing. Thank you Geir. Thank you very much!
And may we all be blessed with all the joy and happiness this season celebrates!
I loved it. I loved Pavarotti’s version too.
.
I have been listening to Ave Maria again and again. I have now added it to my blog under the section “Highlights.”
.
A wonderfully rigorous year for me has passed, and it’s a good moment to say thank you Geir for providing the radical blogging venue and thank you to my many new comrades for the opportunity share so many opinions. This is a special crew and I have grown very fond of you all. For me to feel so accepted and to be able to participate in these many enlightening discussions is very appreciated. I believe these rigorous exercises have helped hone my thinking and writing. The many different viewpoints that each of you shared informed every part of my life. I am edified. Thank you.
Merry Christmas and a Very Happy and Prosperous New Year to everyone on this list.
Remember the reason for the season.
Some of the most significant words, if not the most significant words Hubbard ever said was that:
Scientology will help a Christian become a better Christian.
Note that that he credited Jesus of Nazareth as one of his sources of knowledge in the introduction to 8-0-0-8.
The more I complete my cycle of learning and stand back, and evaluate Scientology, and see the bigger picture, the more I suspect that it is one of the biggest, most significant, and most complex allegories of all time.
I don’t think it could be said better than this:
http://larabell.org/ultimate.html
Diogenese
Merry Christmas to one and all of you wonderful people! xoxoxo
Love, Sindy and Dave Fagen
We were driving through the centre of Oslo and we went empty for petrol…. Totally hilarious as we pushed the car a few hundred metres through two sets of traffic lights! People were taking photos and filming the action while Geir and myself were ho-ho-ho-ing the car in full costume! Another deposit into the memory bank of unforgettable moments 🙂
Two lovers walked down the road. One asked the other, “What do you want for X-Mas?”
“I want the truth of everything that can and cannot be,” he said.
“That’s what you wanted last year,” she said.
“Yes, and you didn’t give it to me THEN either.” He smiled.
“True, but let me ask you, what if you HAD it? And what if you could read it, touch it anytime you wanted? Would it change life? Would it really be ALL that?”
“Probably not. But at least I knew I had it.”
“Here,” she said. Handing him a wooden coin with writing on it. “Merry X-Mas. Read the writing on the surface.”
“The Truth of Everything That Can and Cannot Be!”
He laughed.
“I’ve wanted this my entire life!”
“Well, there you go dear.”
He put the coin between his palms in a gassho gesture.
“Before the enlightenment nickel, empty dishwasher fill dishwasher. After the enlightenment nickel, empty dishwasher fill dishwasher.”
She rolled her eyes.
May you all find the enlightenment you seek this year.
Let’s make this New Year the year of introduction of poka-yoke to Scientology.
.
Dear Vinaire, this blog of Geir is the only poka-joke for scientology remaining on the web, imho.
Dear friends, may you have a very happy christmas celebration in the company of your family and friends. And is my wish in this day for you all that your best dreams come true.
I wanted to put a +100 under each of the comments!. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all the wonderful people here. 🙂 🙂 🙂
May the Spirit of the season live with you-all now and throughout the coming year. You are all the best of friends anyone could wish for. Thank you. And Thank you Geir for providing this meeting place.
I just recalled that Jesus said:
No one cometh on to the Father but through me.
That would be synonymous with: No one entereth into the Kingdom of Heaven but through me.
The Kingdom of Heaven is synonymous with the state of clear.
The question that arises is that:
Is the reason that the state of clear is unstable for Scientologists, because Jesus is missing in their equation?
Dio
From the King James Bible:
John 14:10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. (My realization: The Father is the source of all being, life itself, the God beyond all Gods and all lives or acts from the underlying power of this source, wellspring, or ground of being)
John 14:20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. (My realization: we are all sons and daughters of God, in spirit, in truth)
John 14:8 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (My realization: of course this would be true since we are one in source, and it follows that I and you and we are each and all of us the way, the truth and the life.)
Mark 12:30 – 34 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. (My realization: And in loving another, one loves oneself, one loves God and the reverse is true, judging or hating or limiting or diminishing another cannot be done without doing the same to self and to God, and yet, nothing can truly do this, so there really is only the ground of being, the state of unconditional)
I have come to love these magnificent messages, so often lost and forgotten in complexity, and striving. And yet always present, just a heartbeat away.
Rather than Clear the synonym for Kingdom of Heaven might be an OT Level that doesn’t yet exist but which would come about as a result of forwarding and advancing the tech of Scientology. And that would be done by people like the ones here! All the regulars and the “occasionals” and even the readers who participate in spirit and postulates of this kind.
But such a high OT Level would only be one of the “synonyms,” along with other great Spiritual Paths that would all have ultimately come together. I’m truly thankful to everybody here for inspiring such a picture of the future that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. Love you guys. 🙂
Thanks Maria and Miraldi for your comments and addition to my post. It is very much appreciated.
The bottom line is that our opinions, interpretations, rationalizations, viewpoints, beliefs, talk and postings are cheap.
We must remember any idea is only as good as it works.
Or the value of a datum is determined by the number of problems it solves.
So our opinions, interpretations, rationalizations, viewpoints, beliefs, talk and postings are only good if they work, if they will save us, if they will get us into the kingdom of God.
According to these passages, not everyone will be allowed into the kingdom of heaven.
I would like to hear your viewpoints on the following and about how they apply to entering into the kingdom of heaven, especially from those who have studied Scientology.
Because to me anyways, studying Scientology, even the relatively little I have studied, gives me a whole new viewpoint to the bible and Jesus teachings and his purpose.
So here is the other part of the story:
The issue of who is saved………….
I copied this from someone else’s blog…(I edited some to suit this thread) .
Luke 13.22-27 And He went through the cities and villages, teaching, and journeying toward Jerusalem. Then one said to Him, “Lord, are there few who are saved?”
And He said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the Master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, “Lord, Lord, open for us,’ and He will answer and say to you, “I do not know you, where do you come from? Then you will begin to say, “We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets.’ But He will say, “I tell you I do not know you, where do you come from. Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity.
There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrown out. Then people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God. Indeed, some are last, who will be first, and some are first, who will be last.’
Few Will Be Saved Jesus responded, the gate is narrow- few enter. Salvation is not a magic trick or saying words, it is coming to God in repentance with faith.
Many Will Not Be Known Many will think they are saved, but Jesus does not know them. Works do not save. Words do not save. Repentance and faith in Christ save.
Many Will Be Lost Many think they are saved and will end up surprised and in hell.
All are Sinners
Romans 3.10-11 As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God.
Romans 3.23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
There is a Price for Sin
Romans 6.23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Revelation 20.15 anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.
Isaiah 53.6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
Hebrews 9.22 according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.
Salvation is Only Found in Jesus
Romans 10.9-10 , 13 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.”
Acts 3.19 Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out
Acts 4.12 Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
Salvation Makes Us a Part of God’’s Family
John 1.12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.
Galatians 3.29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
I believe we are already in a “kingdom of God” in that we wanted a game, and we have a game. And plenty of it. Lots of problems to solve, riddles to be intrigued by (women), issues to handle an mysteries to give us awe. I’d say Heaven is on Earth.
The Kingdom of God is within 🙂
Yup!
I currently believe in Socrates and Plato, some of what Jesus and the Buddha taught, Physics, and the Myth of Er.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_Er
Alanzo
Geir, that’s a positive and appealing way to look at the Game – as already being a “kingdom of God.” I would just add that this Game could be a lot better one, while still remaining a Game. Games of skill and creativity are much better than war games, for example.
(And just imagine how it would be if some of the most troublesome issues were resolved – like men. :-D)
It could always be better. That is what makes this game perfect.
Diogenes: I suggest that the translations we have from the Bible are extremely misleading because of the initial translation difficulties from Hebrew to Greek, to Latin, to English, which are now compounded by the shift in the languages over time, not to mention the aspect of the blind leading the blind.
For example, the word sin used in the passages you have quoted is “hamartia.” It literally means “a missing of the mark.” It is a governing principle or power, an inward element producing acts, an act of disobedience to divine law.
In Ephesians 4:14 we have “wiles of error,” and, “they lie in wait to deceive;” in 1 Thessalonians 2:3, “Error,” “deceit;” in 2 Thessalonians 2:11, “a working of error,” “strong delusion.” And also, the adjective planos, “leading astray, deceiving, a deceiver.”
There are several more different words used in the Bible that were all translated as sin. They mean different things. Knowing those meanings makes a radical difference in understanding.
Take repent as an example: this verb [metanoew], with the cognate noun metanoia, is used of true repentance, a change of mind and purpose and life, to which remission of sin is promised.
Metanoia is a compound word of the preposition ‘meta’ (after, with), and the verb ‘noeo’ (to perceive, to think, the result of perceiving or observing.)
He also told them this parable: “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.”
— Luke 6:39-40
Note: this phrase is found in the Upanishads – Abiding in the midst of ignorance, thinking themselves wise and learned, fools go aimlessly hither and thither, like blind led by the blind.
I believe that this blind leading the blind idea means that one experiences revelation, illumination, epiphany, redemption as a result of turning aside from sin. And that cannot be seen or comprehended from within the state of sin and ignorance. Give written teachings of spirit to the ignorant of spirit and they still will not comprehend it even when they know what all the words mean. And if they try to teach them anyway, they will teach in a wrong direction, inevitably. They just can`t see!
I personally believe it comes down to this: fear, hate, death, suffering, separation – these are acts and wages of sin. Faith, love, life, peace, atonement (at-one-ment.) – these are the acts and wages of redemption.
And the fear-mongers are the blind leading the blind. No surprise they end up in a ditch.
Jesus himself taught that we are already holy sons of God. Nothing can change that. There is no judgment day but our own judgment day. And we do have free will and we can deny this and choose ignorance, deceit, sin and death. And if we choose to turn to God, which is our own spiritual nature and truly live as the magnificent spirit we are, then we are redeemed because we never were anything but the holy sons of God and can never be anything but that. Jesus said: I am the way, the truth and the life. And so are you. Good or bad, holy or sinful – that will be your way, your truth, your life. You are already making your choice, every moment of every day, you create your heaven or you create your hell.
But that`s just how I see it.
And I believe that the story of Jesus is cause for celebration, for it reminds us of these things.
Dio, I tend to agree with aotc that the Kingdom of God is within and also with Geir and in fact almost said “Kingdom of God on Earth.” But in the spirit of Christmas and with respect for it I didn’t want to narrow the metaphor down too much.
I had in mind that in the highest sense Truth is Truth and that the different Paths actually leading in that direction will eventually meet and merge together, here on Earth, in a very broad “highway to heaven.” If Christianity is Truth – and I have no reason to doubt that it is – then that will be the Path with which other Paths directed at truth will converge.
p.s. I just read Maria’s post and would say that it adds to aotc’s as a beautiful elaboration of the Kingdom of God is Within.
Thanks for your comments on my post, Geir.
But how do you know whether what you know / believe is true or not?
Does believing in something make it true?
Dio
I believe I hold the truth. And so do you.
My truth is truer than yours.
Of course, Al. That revelation hasn’t escaped me 🙂