Originally Posted By: Revlgking
Now I would like to ask Ellis, or anyone: When so-called Bible-believing Christians, whatever, try to convert you, to save your soul, talk to you, or write to you about God, what image of God do you think they are trying to get across to you?

I'll answer as an anyone:
It would vary from person to person.
The ego imagines based on collected information relative to the personal belief and the catalogue of memory and association.

You are a good example Rev.
As long as I have known you, you have changed your description about as often as you post to keep the conversation going as long as you can.

So would one who will want to save the soul of another but maybe for their own personal reasons that are not the exact same as yours. No two personalities will think and experience exactly alike all of the time.

Really what we are speaking of is a personality which believes in an obligation to ones self and humanity.
Obviously if one believes in some God in heaven as a personality it wouldn't really be that God that has demanded them to live in fear and try and save the world of lost humans if that type of God isn't real.
It would be man himself who has imagined such an idea because of what he believes, what he has been told, and what he has read based on what others believe and have read and have been told ad infinitum...

Unless one has the direct experience of God, humans imagine and engage others in conversation to try and find enough people who might imagine the same thing so they won't be afraid their imagination is false.
Unfortunately God is not democratic and no matter how many believe in the same thing majority does not make something real. It only feeds the ego and a level of comfort.

So conversations that dwell in the imagination only prolong the illusion and distract the mind from the real.
Beliefs that aren't anchored in anything substantial and are constantly changing are beliefs that are derived from imagination. Spirituality lived from imagination has no ability to move another or will it resonate with all of humanity.
It might find commonality in a like minded thought which is why there are so many groups that congregate with their own ideas about religion and God.

I was living in North Carolina for a while and wondered about the Baptist Churches that were spaced about every two blocks within the small town I was visiting.
As it turned out when someone decided they didn't like what was going on within the church, they started another one down the block until the town had one for every ideal and every imagination.
Everyone was happy as long as they were within the walls of their own church, but as soon as they stepped outside they were under the threat of their own imaginative fears of personality that their religion and church might be missing something. Maybe just maybe one of those other churches might have something going on that theirs didn't, and those guys might know something they didn't, and maybe God might find more favor in the beliefs and practices of one of those other churches.

So we are talking about superstition and ego, it is what seeks to find commonality in conversation and belief so that it might not fear being alone.



I was addicted to the Hokey Pokey, but then I turned myself around!!