Thanks for the reply EH....what i hear when reading your post is the same unknown that we most all i think have...i was just curious if you had any takes outside the what we know we dont know issues...if you had any theorys ...

EH...i just reread your bottom piece of God talking to some and not to others...just a thought on this...are you sure he is not talking to you...and all others...we have this idea that talking looks like someone speaking or typeing to you as i am...well i often see things around me that i feel speak volumes ...i by no means can say it is God..or not just happening just because or what ever...but i think if we stop looking for the familiar and take note of the not so likely and pay attention to messages that come are way in all sorts of odd ways...we are conversed with in many ways..and it can be called by each something different...like you said..some claim to hear being talked to others have visuals others dreams...things do show up in odd ways often...we just most often i think are not paying attention...kinda like the flood and the boat story...we often are just not open enough to see hear...etc....

In terms of religion from the main denominations, I think it will be around so long as people put some sort of belief in their creator. I think that faith is interbed into people from a very young age, and will continue to do so as long as they aren't expected to change.

One side note, that goes along with this train of thought though, is when I was riding my bike past a church, something really struck me as odd. First off, there are no regular windows in a church. Also, the windows that they do have are the stained glass of old still. It doesn't matter how new the building is, I wonder why they design it so that you can't see the outside in regular context. Also, when they do have windows of the clear version, they are out of the way and so small so that you only get a small picture of the outside. For me, spirituality (which is different in my opinion than religion) glorifies in nature in all of it's glory. So, stemming from that, I wonder why a person sitting in church can't see anything or little of the outside because that is the most positive proof of any God's existence.

Also, I am going to go out on a limb here and ask why it isn't okay to question what the preacher states. Let me relate an experience that I had quite a long time ago so that you can understand what I am saying. I was attending a new church, mainly because my wife at the time wanted to. I agreed and despite my misgivings enjoyed the service. However, afterward, I was approached by the pastor to welcome me to his congregation. He asked me simply if I felt like I was going to heaven. I told him so long as I wasn't doing bad deeds, then yes, I would because I had changed what was destroying me (my active alcoholism and drug addictions) and was involved in a 12 step program to maintain that sobriety. Well, he didn't like my answer (I believe) and asked me if I smoke cigarettes. Since I do believe in being honest, I told him yes. He blatantly told me that I was going to hell for smoking. Needless to say, I left with a bitter taste in my mouth. My whole point behind this was that if I don't follow the pastor's morals, I will be going to hell. I don't feel that this is welcoming, forgiving, or accepting of who I am and there are further issues that I contest in views of a person's private life interfering with who ascends and who doesn't. I used to ask a LOT where does the golden rule fit in religion, and while it does show in individual's lives, unfortunately, for the majority, it is not evident in their day to day affairs. Thankfully, at least I am living one day at a time and I hope that someday people will embrace the principle's behind what a religion is saying instead of just doing whatever they want and expect to be forgiven as long as they attend church regularly.

Wow, didn't expect to go on so long about my view's on religion, but it has been a point of contention and in terms of it going on, I have no doubt that especially with organizations of such strength and power, they will continue to be a part of society for a long time. Hopefully, I feel that a person's spirituality is what defines their day to day activities and will allow a change (which I do see now with no prejudices towards sexual orientation) in churches around the world. Someday, it would be great where we are all just accepted as we are and not as the world would have us.

Very good topic and I am glad that I am still a part of this network because it helps me to keep looking at answers from all spiritual person's that may not know why, but aren't afraid to keep improving in spirituality.

Blessed Be,
Phoenix Rising

I think these are the properties of what Baha'u'llah calls the rational soul. They are talents in the same way that musical ability is a talent, or the ability to grasp mathematical abstractions.

My son has had thoughts about the universe since he was a child that have caused him to develop some mind boggling theories about dimensions. He posits the existence of a dimension he calls perspective. He also refers to it as the God dimension. In his mind, one of the things that God can do that we can't is see things from all perspectives simultaneously. But some of us are better than others at "walking in someone else's shoes" which is a type of knowledge or a talent that the world desperately needs right now.

I think some of us have a more developed sense of that and other things that we might perceive as "special knowledge." The Messengers of God possess that to such a degree that we perceive them to be a different order of creation, but we are all, I believe, capable of developing those qualities or talents of perception and perspective.

__________________
Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff
www.mysticfig.com

"Love is the light that guideth in darkness, the living link that uniteth God with man, that assureth the progress of every illumined soul." -- Abdu'l-Bahá

That, in a nutshell, is one of the main reasons I became a Baha'i. My pastors (and I had many) told me that "salvation" had to do with the details of how and what you believed. My reading of the Bible, however, revealed a different paradigm altogether. Christ says in many contexts -- most critically just before He's arrested -- that it is how we keep His word that is of greatest importance. His message in Gethsemane (repeated several times) is clear: To remain connected to Me, obey My commandment. The one commandment he gives is "Love one another."

Through a careful study of the scriptures -- not just Christianity but Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam and the Baha'i Faith, I've come to view religion as being about transformation. Transforming dark vices into bright virtues. Transforming selfishness into selflessness. Our ability to do this has massive implications for our society at all levels.

Alas, I think we tend to view religion as a thing apart, and its virtues to be practiced only between individuals, whereas bringing the tenets found in scripture (the real religion, not our watered down or selfishly manipulated revisions of it) to bear on societal problems, national and international issues is where the future of religion is its most important.

__________________
Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff
www.mysticfig.com

"Love is the light that guideth in darkness, the living link that uniteth God with man, that assureth the progress of every illumined soul." -- Abdu'l-Bahá

I agree, I think Religion will be around as long as humans are. It'll just change forms and dogma, I'm sure.

__________________
"If you take the Christian bible and put it out in the wind and the rain, soon the paper on which the words are printed will disintegrate and the words will be gone. Our bible IS the wind and the rain."

I agree with outlaw, I think that faith of one type or another will always be around although like any thing else it will change with time - I think it an inbuilt tendency to seek meaning in randomness.

__________________
Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. Marie Curie

Now that's an interesting notion, that "it will change with time..."

See, most people of faith describe the object of their faith as "the Truth," yet it seems odd that something which is frequently described as "eternal truth" is subject to change.

Will wonders never cease...?

__________________
evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.

There is basically one truth which everyone sees an aspect of. Religions are not the problem...the teachings are whats important and not the religon that it comes from. People see there religon as the important thing and not the teachings and thats the problem. ...religion is going to be around as long as we are..each individual religion will not. As we develop our religions develop also. There is an evolution of all things...Hence Interfaith!!!!! Just because people grow in a universal consciuosness or oneness, which I feel we are doing. doesn't mean we won't desire to meet together and feel that oneness ans mediatate together and so on.

__________________
RevKathyV

http://www.myspace.com/divinelightinterfaith



www.divinelightinterfaithministry.com

There is another thought that I had while re-reading the posts that I wanted to put down here as well.

When it came time for me to start developing my spirituality, one of my first ideas came from science. I don't know how many people have read the Dark Tower series by Stephen King, but at the end of the first book, the main character receives a vision and as it gradually grows in his minds eye of first the planet, then the galaxy, and finally the universe it all shrinks to a blade of grass. When I finally sat back and really meditated on that for myself, I suddenly became aware that in all likelihood, our universe just borders on something much more grand and life is connected to all of these. To take the metaphor for life even a step further, despite all of our progress in the last century in science, we are still no closer to understanding what "life" truly encompasses or how it started. With all of our technology, we still cannot recreate life in all of it's order and time. Throughout all of history, there have been many babies that have been created and they almost always come out perfect, blessed with the spark of life without anything other than procreation with what we do. Therefore, it has an order and spark of something that is indeed a miracle.

Also, one thing that truly inspires me, was that one of our most reknowned scientists, Albert Einstein, at the very end credited God with things he could never begin to understand. I feel that is a testament which asks all of us to remember that even in our lifetimes, something is indeed very powerful to keep the cycle of life continuously going in spite of our natural tendencies.

Maybe, as people grow to understand the underlying concept of life and science, they will start to credit it to a Creative Intelligence underlying all of creation. In addition to that, I don't feel that science and creation are mutually exclusive, they both stem from a desire to know how it all began and seeking our rightful place in the grand scheme of things.

Blessed Be,
Phoenix Rising