I am my highest authority, judge and guide. Who is yours?

[Greatest I am]

I am my highest authority, judge and guide. Who is yours?

As a Gnostic Christian, I follow the esoteric teachings of Jesus.

Matthew 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

This fits perfectly with the bibles teachings that we are to judge all things and hold to the good.

1 Thessalonians 5:21 Test all things; hold fast what is good.

This is a compulsion to be our own masters instead of just kowtowing to someone else’s opinions.

This is also why Christians used their inquisitions on us. Freedom of thought was not allowed by Christianity.

A concept and freedom that Christians now seem to promote.

Many Christians follow the teachings of, to us, a genocidal and infanticidal demiurge, Yahweh.

How Christians can see him as a good god is beyond me and Christians shy away from any apologetics as to why they think such a satanic god is good.

I see my judgements as more moral than that immoral demiurge and that is why I have rejected him for Jesus.

Do you follow 1 Thessalonians 5:21, or do you let someone else do your judging for you?

Regards
DL

[Tab]

I'll tell you a funny story. Funny and sad anyway.

I teach English as a foreign language in a Muslim country. Towards the end of last term the lessons in the classroom next door to mine were cancelled, and two of the students from that class asked if they could sit in on my lesson, I said sure, the more the merrier, knowing that they'd never had a native speaker teacher before.

Anyway, the conversation part of the lesson came around and I thought I'd go have a chat with the two newcomers, while the rest of my usual students got on with it.

One of the two girls, both could speak reasonable english, asked the inevitable question "where are you from" - I said England. Her eyes lit up and she asked if I was a christian. Improv. (and conversational) rules demand a yes, so I fluffed a bit and said "I was brought up a christian." She asked "have you read the bible" so again I (truthfully because I did in my early teens) replied "yes".

Very quickly she told me how she'd been brought up muslim, but converted to christianity. I asked her why, and she explained how she'd read the koran, and the bible, and chosen christianity "because the bible seemed more logical." It was pretty obvious I was the first "natural born christian" she'd met.

I tried my best not to laugh and asked her where exactly in the bible she'd found any logic. Anyway, then she asked me where I went to church. (There are a few here btw.) At that point I had to tell her I had left the church at the age of 14, and was firmly agnostic.

I felt like a bit of a bastard, as the light went straight out of her eyes. I thought she was very courageous tbh. for a Turkish girl to change religions is not an easy thing over here, but at the same time I felt she'd kinda blown it, all that effort to just change one kind of fairy tale for another.

Anyway, sorry, off-topic.

[Ecmandu]

Here’s the deal.

This reminds me of Star Wars ...

Jedi is an aristocratic thing.

Same with god and Jesus ...

Just another fucking “pure breed” (nazism)

I hate the Bible to the core of my being. And. I can refute every Jesus quote and every prophet quote.

The Bible is good toilet paper though.

One who is wise, should always accept a free bible, it makes decent toilet paper (and it’s free)

[Greatest I am]

Anyway, sorry, off-topic.

No problem.

You show how, when one is used to a supernatural and imaginary security blanket, it is easier to find another one than to throw the original away without a replacement.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

Here’s the deal.

This reminds me of Star Wars ...

Jedi is an aristocratic thing.

Same with god and Jesus ...

Just another fucking “pure breed” (nazism)

I hate the Bible to the core of my being. And. I can refute every Jesus quote and every prophet quote.

The Bible is good toilet paper though.

One who is wise, should always accept a free bible, it makes decent toilet paper (and it’s free)

Sure, but the really wise will read it and come away with the same hate you have.

Hate is born from love and scriptures help us know what to love, and to hate that which jeopardizes what is loved. if you read it the right way.

I dislike the Roman created Jesus but do not mind, and even use, the more esoteric or mystical teachings of Jesus. They are intended to free us while the Roman Jesus is more to have us kowtow to Rome.

Regards
DL

[MagsJ]

I am my highest authority, judge and guide. Who is yours?

Do you follow 1 Thessalonians 5:21, or do you let someone else do your judging for you?

Regards
DL

Likewise.. the only person allowed to tell me about myself is, and always has been, my mother.. for she only has my best interests at heart, but that doesn’t mean I act on them, but merely listen respectfully.

Too much judging, and not enough perceiving or thinking, makes for a dull and dreary world.. reflective of the intellects exhibiting those, perhaps?

Western teachings, in a more Eastern mind, has seemed to constantly cancel-out all that has tried to take hold of the mind and rule it.. the only thing being adhered to, being the innate.

[Greatest I am]

I am my highest authority, judge and guide. Who is yours?

Do you follow 1 Thessalonians 5:21, or do you let someone else do your judging for you?

Regards
DL

Likewise.. the only person allowed to tell me about myself is, and always has been, my mother.. for she only has my best interests at heart, but that doesn’t mean I act on them, but merely listen respectfully.

Too much judging, and not enough perceiving or thinking, makes for a dull and dreary world.. reflective of the intellects exhibiting those, perhaps?

Western teachings, in a more Eastern mind, has seemed to constantly cancel-out all that has tried to take hold of the mind and rule it.. the only thing being adhered to, being the innate.

Close to perfect.

Regards
DL

[Karpel Tunnel]

I am my highest authority, judge and guide. Who is yours?

My response will oversimplify the issue but....

if someone says they are not their own highest authority, how do they know they chose the right authority?

They have to trust their own ability to recognize that higher authority, and in that way they are, in an important sense, the highest authority.

I have tried to explain this to, for example, fundamentalists, but then also scientists. Neither group was especially open to this idea - in general.

[phyllo]

If you say "I'm ignorant in this area and I'm going to trust that other guy in this area", then you are making a decision and exercising some judgment about the other guy.

You can do it whether choosing a dentist or ethical system or religion.

But you're not micromanaging the dentist. You're not telling him how to work on your teeth. You're letting him make decisions in his field of expertise.

So what is the question "I am my highest authority, judge and guide. Who is yours?" asking or suggesting?

If you don't allow someone to guide you, then you don't get the benefit of his/her guidance.

[iambiguous]

I am my highest authority, judge and guide. Who is yours?

We'll need a context of course. Someone claims to be his or her own highest authority in regard to a particular set of circumstances.

In regard to a particular thing or in regard to a particular relationship between two or more things.

Then it comes down to demonstrating that his or her own authority is in fact the highest. And, with respect to any number of things in the world of objective reality, anyone who correctly describes with is in fact true for all of us are among those with the highest authority.

And that holds true for Gnostic Christians in turn.

Well, until we come to those things and relationships that most interest me instead...

[Greatest I am]

I am my highest authority, judge and guide. Who is yours?

My response will oversimplify the issue but....

if someone says they are not their own highest authority, how do they know they chose the right authority?

They have to trust their own ability to recognize that higher authority, and in that way they are, in an important sense, the highest authority.

I have tried to explain this to, for example, fundamentalists, but then also scientists. Neither group was especially open to this idea - in general.

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that both science and religion both have a God of the Gaps.

Most religious and scientific minded are saying, we don't know what was before the Big Bang.

Sounds rather like an agnostic world, for seekers, while the literalists just continue to idol worship the garbage gods that the mainstream religions try to sell.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

If you say "I'm ignorant in this area and I'm going to trust that other guy in this area", then you are making a decision and exercising some judgment about the other guy.

You can do it whether choosing a dentist or ethical system or religion.

But you're not micromanaging the dentist. You're not telling him how to work on your teeth. You're letting him make decisions in his field of expertise.

So what is the question "I am my highest authority, judge and guide. Who is yours?" asking or suggesting?

If you don't allow someone to guide you, then you don't get the benefit of his/her guidance.

True.

We, if intelligent, initially recognize our best thinking on any issue and then determine, by hopefully judging ourselves and who we trust the most and adopt his expertise and make it our view.

In cases of religious morals in choosing a religion, that judgement is mostly subjective.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

I am my highest authority, judge and guide. Who is yours?

We'll need a context of course. Someone claims to be his or her own highest authority in regard to a particular set of circumstances.

In regard to a particular thing or in regard to a particular relationship between two or more things.

Then it comes down to demonstrating that his or her own authority is in fact the highest. And, with respect to any number of things in the world of objective reality, anyone who correctly describes with is in fact true for all of us are among those with the highest authority.

And that holds true for Gnostic Christians in turn.

Well, until we come to those things and relationships that most interest me instead...

It indeed does apply to Gnostic Christians, in, to me, the best way.

We accept and apply/embrace whatever it is, but as perpetual seekers of better ways, we mentally raise our bar of excellence and seek any.

That way we always keep an open mind and do not end in the idol worship of any idea or character like god. We, unlike the mainstream, are this free to reject their rather vile genocidal god.

Regards
DL

[Fixed Cross]

I'll tell you a funny story. Funny and sad anyway.

I teach English as a foreign language in a Muslim country. Towards the end of last term the lessons in the classroom next door to mine were cancelled, and two of the students from that class asked if they could sit in on my lesson, I said sure, the more the merrier, knowing that they'd never had a native speaker teacher before.

Anyway, the conversation part of the lesson came around and I thought I'd go have a chat with the two newcomers, while the rest of my usual students got on with it.

One of the two girls, both could speak reasonable english, asked the inevitable question "where are you from" - I said England. Her eyes lit up and she asked if I was a christian. Improv. (and conversational) rules demand a yes, so I fluffed a bit and said "I was brought up a christian." She asked "have you read the bible" so again I (truthfully because I did in my early teens) replied "yes".

Very quickly she told me how she'd been brought up muslim, but converted to christianity. I asked her why, and she explained how she'd read the koran, and the bible, and chosen christianity "because the bible seemed more logical." It was pretty obvious I was the first "natural born christian" she'd met.

I tried my best not to laugh and asked her where exactly in the bible she'd found any logic. Anyway, then she asked me where I went to church. (There are a few here btw.) At that point I had to tell her I had left the church at the age of 14, and was firmly agnostic.

I felt like a bit of a bastard, as the light went straight out of her eyes. I thought she was very courageous tbh. for a Turkish girl to change religions is not an easy thing over here, but at the same time I felt she'd kinda blown it, all that effort to just change one kind of fairy tale for another.

Anyway, sorry, off-topic.

The two are different ethical systems. Different value sets.

You missed the point of her bravery. The supernatural stuff is entirely beside the point.

The point is the ethics she wishes to live by. These ethics are what seemed more logical.
Ethics include aesthetics.

Your ethics, Tab, are remnants of Christian ethics. Invented by a sect of radically brave Jews. Eroded values, like all atheist values, confused, not definitive.

No atheist was ever not confused.
This is not a judgment of their character.
Nor are they to blame for finding organized religions and their texts, stupid.

It is not an easy matter.

"Ancestral Gods - the thing is not how well you know them, its how well they know you".

[Tab]

Not an atheist fixed, just think the question of there is/there isn't doesn't merit thought. My values are realistic, and by that I mean red in tooth and claw. My ethics are like anyone elses, social niceties, and like anyone elses', including yours, run only as deep as gnat's ass.

[Fixed Cross]

The question isn't one of thought, I agree.

I dont see realism in your idea that this girl missed any points.

And I don't think realism is included in "tooth and claw" alone. Though it certainly isn't possible without tooth and claw.

Still. Your response brightens my image of you which I got from the post I responded to.
(and I don't expect youd be so sad as to care either way)

[Fixed Cross]

There's good reason Egyptians revered cats.

A cat includes tooth and claw, but is not defined by them. It masters them.

[Fixed Cross]

In as far as there is an authority and judge of me, I defer to that judge and authority regarding definition of itself.
I don't care to judge myself. I already am myself. Id be a bit on the partial side and this kind of makes moot of judgment.

I take as much responsibility for myself as is humanly possible.

But I don't imagine "I" am all there is to me.

[Tab]

Eh, I just think people in general spend far too much time trying to convince themselves they are 'ethical'. When the truth is most of time any morality or system of ethics they may have assumed they subscribe or hold to has never been put to the test.

I'm an animal, so are you, of course we are. We may aspire to be more, which perhaps is noble, but ultimately delusionary.

[Fixed Cross]

Some humans are actually quite ethical. Most of them aren't. It is, in any case, extremely tough to accomplish.

Cats, on the other hand, have great ethics. Like so many animals. So don't flatter yourself. Or me.

"Humans have yet to become animal." - Striking Thunder

[Greatest I am]

Thanks all.

Seems that many no longer strive to be the fittest.

Not too surprising given the likely age group.

Regards
DL

[MagsJ]

Western teachings, in a more Eastern mind, has seemed to constantly cancel-out all that has tried to take hold of the mind and rule it.. the only thing being adhered to, being the innate.

Close to perfect.

Regards
DL

I don’t feel it though, DL.. I often feel that my methodology grates with that of others, but I’m working on that aspect.. in not getting deterred.

Now I think I know what the bible alluded to, about being born with original sin, but it sure ain’t all of us as I’ve always taken umbrage to that.. better to follow a non-religious individual-creating guidance than a religious dogma that breeds negativity into its adherents, but there’s no money in that.. is there?

The planet could indeed be brought up to a better level, but are populations up to the job?

[Greatest I am]

Western teachings, in a more Eastern mind, has seemed to constantly cancel-out all that has tried to take hold of the mind and rule it.. the only thing being adhered to, being the innate.

Close to perfect.

Regards
DL

I don’t feel it though, DL.. I often feel that my methodology grates with that of others, but I’m working on that aspect.. in not getting deterred.

Now I think I know what the bible alluded to, about being born with original sin, but it sure ain’t all of us as I’ve always taken umbrage to that.. better to follow a non-religious individual-creating guidance than a religious dogma that breeds negativity into its adherents, but there’s no money in that.. is there?

The planet could indeed be brought up to a better level, but are populations up to the job?

Humans tend to be lazy until backed up to a wall. We are poor at planning ahead and we might have to wait till we are fighting all over the place with a bunch of displaced starving people. When the poor start to kill the well off, that is when our rich oligarch owners will pay to have the political will generated by their political lackeys.

That or the children, who are getting brighter over time, rebel against their uncaring or just plan lazy and stupid parents.

That is when we will elect an environmental Czar with the power to push his weight around, even in China.

This will likely usher in a new global system of governance.

Interesting time are a coming.

We will either collectively live, die or fight a WWIII, and like the last war, no country will go untouched by it.

Regards
DL

[Fixed Cross]

Thanks all.

Seems that many no longer strive to be the fittest.

Not too surprising given the likely age group.

Regards
DL

Thanks for that.

I assume this was aimed at me, if it was it was just. Not true, but very just in response to my post here and my general behaviour yesterday.

February 4th always makes a kind of weak mush of me. On this day my best friend decided to kill himself in my garden a few feet from my bed and caused my whole family to be completely ruined, fall apart.
The day is always a pure nightmare. And I grow weak. Because all weakness in the world becomes manifest. I stay in a family place and... try to ....help. But... it never works. Nothing ever works on that day.

Of course I am my own judge and guide. It is I who value my Gods. For reasons that rest in me.

And of course humans are superior in power to other animals. Its their superior power which makes it so hard to be ethical for them.

Not me, though - I am deeply ethical and Im master of my domain, which is philosophy. No one has come close to my power here. And no one ever will. I am the center of time.

[surreptitious75]

Eroded values like all atheist values confused not definitive

No atheist was ever not confused

Nor are they to blame for finding organized religions and their texts stupid

No such thing as atheist values - maybe you mean liberal values - but confusion about the human condition is not something exclusive to non believers
No one possesses a monopoly on wisdom either collectively or individually although many think that their particular belief system and only theirs does

Now while I might not agree with organised religion it is a bit of a non sequitur to simply assume that I must think it is all stupid
The actual truth of the matter is that I try not to dismiss it merely because I disagree with it but prefer to learn about it instead