I think David associates bumping with LBMB.
Next he will be telling me not to pad my post count with pointless messages.
Jeffery
Lib hit the nail on the head.
And, yes, I was just giving you a hard time.
That is soooooo unlike me. :rolleyes:
nothing to post, I just wanted to follow David!heeee
If I might make a somewhat off-topic comment, I want to say that I find the idea that atheists are doing the work of a Christian god, or have received the gift of “discernment” from a Christian god, or whatever, to be a little… annoying. Specifically, it seems a little condescending, particularly (as sometimes happens) if one turns it into “all theists follow the same God, even if they each have their own incomplete understanding of it” on the one hand and “atheists are just missing out on this God thing” on the other hand. (I believe C.S. Lewis once stated that Christians can see good in all religions, whereas atheists have to condemn them all as foolishness. Thank you, Mr. Lewis, I’ll have to remember that- and to think I wasted all that time studying religions in the hope of learning something useful from them.)
It seems to me that atheists do believe in something. They just don’t believe that it’s a conscious entity that created the universe. A Christian says “God is love.” An atheist can say “love is.” If we’re going to use a blind-men-and-the-elephant analogy, there seems to be an assumption on the part of many theists that a whole class of interpretations of the elephant are invalid from the start and disqualify you from playing. It seems to me that an image has been presented of atheists unwittingly doing the work of a conscious God who loves them anyway. I just want to point out that it could be the other way around- atheists are doing work in the service of an ideal which transcends the individual and which some Christians have personified, perhaps mistakenly, as a conscious being.
-Ben
Since anybody who is interested could have easily decode the prayers by now, I see no harm in posting the decoded versions.
#1 - This is my promise to you on my honor. I will be perfect today.
#2 - I invoke the name of your son. Teach me how to forgive.
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#3 - This is my promise to you on my honor. I will try to be perfect today.
#4 - I invoke the name of your son. Teach me how to accept forgiveness.
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#5 - This is my promise to you on my honor. I cannot be perfect today.
#6 - I invoke the name of your son. Yeacj me how to be perfect.
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#7 - You are my advocate. You are my ally. You are my servent.
#8 - I am your knight. I am your samurai. I am your student.
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#9 - I invoke the name of your son. Teach me how to love.
#10 - I invoke the name of your son. Teach me how to be loved.
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#11 - I invoke the name of your son. Today I will love others as you love me.
#12 - This is my promise to you on my honor. Tomorrow I will give you my belief at least until evening.
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#13 - This is my promise to you on my honor. I will not leave you again. You are me.
#14 - I invoke the name of your son. Teach me how to see in new ways. Give me faith.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
General Notes:
-
Before doing each prayer I meditated to clear my mind. My usual meditation is to clear away everything “There is only me”, but I tried to put myself in the right frame of mind and meditated on “There is only me and God.”
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I reviewed Polycarp’s “Modest Proposal” thread. I also contacted 5 trusted Christian friends. I didn’t tell them what was going on, but asked them about their conversion experience. 4 out of 5 indicated some kind of personal warmth. 2 out of 5 indicated some kind of local environment change. I noticed this commonality in the “Modest Proposal” thread. So, I paid particular attention for any such changes.
2a) I also noted Libertarian experiences a kind of God-speaking-to-me-through-my-own-thoughts. I therefore paid attention to any special thoughts.
-
I made the attempt to avoid theist/atheist threads.
3a) I made the attempt to avoid thinking about where the prayers were going (it was clear after day 2 they were going somewhere). -
All the prayers were made in the solitude of my computer room (my hidey hole), except on day 6 morning. I went for a walk in the park since Libertarian had several experiences outside.
-
I didn’t experience anything that I could sense as a contact with/from/to God. Certainly, I didn’t get any feelings of warmth, or changes in the local environment. The closest thing would be my own thoughts on the prayers themselves, which I tried to minimize. This could be taken as a Libertarian type, God-speaking-to-me-through-my-own-thoughts, but since I speak to myself in my own head all the time (self-talk, vital skill for self understanding), it is difficult to say for sure.
Thoughts? Opinions? Questions?
I’ll post more as it comes to me.
Nominee for 2nd Annual SDMB Awards:
- Most rational in the face of a heated argument
- BBQ Pit’s Rookie of the Year
And now for some replies …
Oh, a wise guy, eh? Woo woo woo … boink slap bonk. 
Just fine thanks.
The first day demonstrates an interesting philosophical problem.
I honorably swore to do the prayers, of which the first asks me to make an swear an oath to God.
However, I am honor bound not to swear oaths which I know cannot be done. I was tempted to take a day off work and spend the day in meditation. However, I knew even this wouldn’t be perfection.
So, what to do?
The principle of creation can clearly be made to apply here with this saying I made up (I am sure similar sayings have been invented by others).
“When two principles are in conflict one of them must yield. To do otherwise is to stagnate, to stagnate is to die.”
In this case, it seems to me that the preceeding oath takes precedence, although were I a true bushi perhaps I should have commited suicide.
See above.
Nominee for 2nd Annual SDMB Awards:
- Most rational in the face of a heated argument
- BBQ Pit’s Rookie of the Year
So did you say it, or not? You said “preceeding oath” but I am not sure which that refers to, your commitment to not swear falsely or your promise to Lib. I do not think I could make a promise I knew I would fail (even to a being, that, to me, does not exist), and I would have had to beg Lib for release from my promise had I been in your situation. If he didn’t I would have been in quite a state, although given that the promise to Lib was given without knowing what he would ask there could perhaps be reason to wiggle out of it. Tough spot, though; it only reinforces my tendency to be very careful about what I swear to do. I can’t recall ever truly breaking an oath made to another, and I would be miserable if I ever did.
As a Christian, I should weigh, and evaluate what has taken place here. And since Lib says that the prayers came from the Holy Spirit, I should “weigh carefully” what has been said. (1 Corinthians 14:29)
To be blunt: I do not believe the prayers were from God. Here is why:
The first prayer makes a statement that defies humanity. We cannot be perfect. It also goes directly againt what Jesus said in Matthew. He says, …"Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by earth, for it is His footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. and do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ be ‘No;’ anything beyond this comes from the evil one. Matthew 5:34-37 (Bolding mine)
Prayer #7 says, “You are my servant.” What? God is our servant? I don’t have any Scripture to counter this right now, but it against everything that God is. HE is the Lord, the Master, the King. A prayer given by the Holy Spirit would never defy the character of God himself. Needless to say, this one set off alarms and sirens for me.
Prayer #13 says, “You are me.” More sirens, and alarms. Jesus lives in us, and works through us. We do not ever become God. We are never God. There must be thousands of Scriptures that tell us we are His children, His chosen, His servants, His bride, His passion, His love…etc…etc. God is always higher than us. We never become Him.
Right from the beginning I knew this was wrong, before I even decoded the prayers. (As seen in my post on 1-23-00) Please do not think that I have a prideful attitude about this, because of all people, I wanted to see Glitch come to know God. By the Spirit, I just know that this was wrong.
Sorry Glitch.
Adam
“Life is hard…but God is good”
I just saw this:
Ha. I wish. First I have some sort of a vague idea, like “you know, I’ve always had kind of an image in my head when I read ‘The Second Coming’, the bit about the rough beast.” So I think: “What emotions does it evoke? What do I want to say? What do I see?” Then I do a couple sketches, work out the composition, decide the rough proportions of the canvas. Then a couple studies of the head of the beast, and the body. Look up drawings/photos of bears and cats; do some more sketches. Do a light/dark study of my proposed work. Try to decide the color palette; look up Odilon Redon’s work and study several pieces that seem to have interesting palettes. Rough out color placement. Put together stretchers, stretch canvas, staple into place and gesso (twice). Gather together paints, brushes, palette, and six hours of working and reworking, modifying, discarding and adding and you have this. [standard artist disclaimer]It looks much better on my wall than in this photo. Glare, color shift, etc.[/disclaimer] I just had to harp on this, Lib; everybody seems to think inspiration lights upon an artist’s shoulders like a tame dove and then the piece is done, and it just ain’t so. This is even a piece that I would consider “inspired”, too, not one I really had to work at!
Jesus told us to “be perfect, even as your father in heaven is perfect.” He might have slipped on that one, but I doubt it. Never did Glitch swear, but simply gave his word on his honor. He made simple promises, like the one made by God Himself: “And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you.”
Jesus said about Himself, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” The evening before his walk to Calvary, Jesus spoke of the oneness with God and His faithful: “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”
Glitch, God go with you, my friend. You invoked His name and requested that He teach you to see in new ways. If you do not change your own mind, then He will.
In the spirit of postgame analysis, I am interested mainly in two things: (1) which prayer was your covenant on the day you were wrangling with NewtonsApple? and (2) what was your day of belief like?
Gaudere:
What pretty colors!
There’s all kinds of art, and all kinds of artists from painters to songwriters, from chess players to jewelers.
Aviva Gold takes sort of the opposite approach from yours. She says, “Imagine yourself painting with no hesitations, no conflicts. Your brush dips into pots of vibrantly colored paint; inner inspiration guides your hand into lines and shapes that find their perfect places on the paper… As children, all of us lived and painted intuitively. And as adults we can re-create the boundless joy of unselfconscious art by setting aside intellectual critique and self-doubt and reconnecting with the source. Remember standing at an easel as a child and painting in a trancelike state of wonder? Somewhere along the line this freedom gets trained out of us, and we are either categorized as artists or not.”
I can still imagine you painting from pure inspiration. I believe, for example, that you could paint your love.
Sorry for the confusion. The preceeding oath refers to the promise to Lib.
Italics mine.
Are you sure you haven’t read the Bushido? This is covered in great detail. The warrior should be very careful with the pledges they make. The problem, as the Bushido puts it, is that if you swear to everything without consideration you will be seen as unreliable, for there will things that you cannot possibly do.
In this case though I felt that breaking the second oath (to be perfect) was less serious than the first. Afterall, the master has an obligation to his servants as well, he musn’t abuse thier honor. If I were a real samurai and Lib were my daiymo, I probably would have commited suicide in defiance of the unfair demand, or gone ronin declaring Lib to be an unfit master. (Don’t worry Lib, this isn’t how I see it, just how a feudal Japanese samurai would).
In my view, it simply comes down to two oaths. Breaking the first, and refusing the second is more serious (from a creation/destruction standpoint) than keeping the first, and failing the second. Hence, my decision.
Fair enough, but do you believe they were to God? If so, why would God care if the original inspiration came from Lib, the Devil or God? Certainly, most of the evening prayers (teach me to fill_in_the_blank) would seem like a prime opportunity to fill me with the Holy Spirit. So, do you think God is punishing me because Lib’s prayers were not divinely inspired? If I had of come back a theist what would you have said?
Those passages in Matthew say do not swear BY Heaven or Earth.
I.e. do not say “I swear, by God, to be perfect.”
It does not say do not swear to (or make promises) to God. Afterall, is that what repentence is? Aren’t you telling God you are sorry, ask for forgiveness, and pledge to try not to be evil again?
No apologies necessary. As I understand, you’re next up to bat, so to speak. I know I said we would start immediately following Lib, but I need a break (I am missing out on all the theist/atheist threads ;)). If you haven’t started to gather your prayers start now and deliver them next week (a week break will be fine). If you have them then just give me to Wednesday. Because I want to spur discussion, if you want to keep the prayers private thats okay, but I would like to post them after they are all done.
That would be #5 and #6.
Rather blah actually. The promise of belief is very similar to the first promise. In fact, it goes right back to Adam’s OP. How does somebody simply will themselves to believe? I wasn’t exactly sure how to fulfill that. My attempt was to ignore or put out an atheistic thought, and rather to try to replace it with whatever I thought theistic thought would be.
Nominee for 2nd Annual SDMB Awards:
- Most rational in the face of a heated argument
- BBQ Pit’s Rookie of the Year
Glitch, I’m a little confused. Which, if any, of the promises in the prayers did you actually make, and which, if any, did you actually keep? Congrats, by the way, on your nominations. 
Ben commented:
I understand and respect precisely what you are saying here. Taken out of the context I am operating in, it could certainly be seen as condescending. (Resident atheists? Did you see it as such?)
It would be my understanding that each of us sees the world we live in in a somewhat different way, no “us vs. them” about it. Mine includes an active, (omni-)conscious loving Creator; theirs does not. In my interpretation of the world, I render their understanding of what is going on and their actions and reactions in the context of this Creator and His Will. In theirs, they do not. For me, mine is the better way to visualize and operate, but for them, obviously, it is not. Other than this subjective view, I do not see one as “better” and the other as “worse.” Both Lib. and I have been through a very powerful process (what a born-again Christian calls a “conviction” event) which had the specific purpose of making extraordinarly clear to us that “our way is not objectively better” – on the assumption of God, He is working His purpose out in His traditional mysterious way, and we are not to presume to knowledge of how He chooses to do so. Obviously, atheists would see this in a quite different framework, but that is what happened to me, and from what is implied in his posts, what happened to Lib.
Are we saying anything contradictory here? I have no problem with your assertion, except that some of us have had what seemed to be clear encounters with such a conscious being, and have shared accounts of such experiences with the understanding that they would be subject to analysis, over on the Modest Proposal thread.
Both Gaudere and Glitch have conducted “atheist experiments at encountering God.” Glitch’s is reported above. I believe the data from that are worth reporting in Modest Proposal, if for no other purpose than as a “control” in the scientific sense.
Adam, a couple of quotes and my interpretations and disagreements with them. I request the courtesy that you hear them not in a divisive but in an understanding spirit, with the intent that we each learn from each other and grow in the process. I welcome your responses.
Jesus was fond of stating moral ideals as absolutes. “Be ye perfect, as the Father in Heaven is perfect.” “Love one another, as I have loved you.” Great portions of the Sermon on the Mount are instructions impossible to carry out literally. It is a challenge to do one’s best and trust in God for the difference when one falls short of the ideal (as one inevitably will), not a direct command. And I trust Lib. and Glitch understood it in precisely that context.
Absolutely. And completely contradictorily, “Abide in me, as I abide in you” and all the material in John about Jesus being in the Father and we in Him. There is a very valid and ancient tradition about the true believer humbly identifying himself with God. (Without the humility, it becomes prideful equation of self with God and hence one of the greatest of all sins; with it, it becomes assuming one’s role in God’s plan for the world.) For Lib., that identification is a core piece of his spirituality; I suspect strongly that he (or the Holy Spirit) saw in Glitch’s spirit something that would resound to that element.
There is also the neat observation by Jesus that “you will do even greater things than I.”
For the record, I did all of the prayers exactly as written.
Sorry for any confusion.
How did you pronounce “Yeacj”?
As I said earlier I had decoded the prayers.
I saw and still see no problems with them, I agree with Lib and Poly as to they way they should be understood.
From my viewpoint, these prayers represent the process that one must/might go through to believe/receive Christ. A realization that we cannot be perfect and working toward a viewing of Christ as Master and then a belief in Christ.
Glitch and other non-Christians, did you see these prayers as just words? Did they mean something more?
As for my own experience, I have grown up going to church all my life. I do not remember a time I was not in church. While I was not a demon child when I was young, I was a mischievous (sp) young boy. I did things that I realized after my conversion experience (at age 8) were wrong. (Likely older non-christians would see them as wrong too) After, my conversion though, I totally changed, not because people told me too and not because the bible told me too, but because Christ living in me changed me into a better person.
As for the conversion itself. I was eight and had been going to a revival all week. My father became a Baptist minister when I was 7 and he was preaching in this revival. He had never presured me to make a decision for Christ. But all week long I had this nagging feeling that I needed to pray to accept Christ as my Savior. By Friday, I could stand it no longer, when they gave the opportunity to come down and pray, I went and prayed and accepted Christ and have never regretted it.
Have I doubted my conversion? Sure, but when I meditate and study, I always come back to a belief that Christ is indeed real and that my accepting him as Lord and Savior is also real.
Jeffery
David, check out my Onion story in MPSIMS. I think you’ll get a kick out of it. 
Hey, Glitch, though the prayers were inspired, the encription was not ;). I found only one error. Sorry if there were others.