Of course ppl of different faiths will be in "heaven"! Why not? The
bible only implies that if you KNOW about your faith, and choose to go
against it, then you might be in trouble.

Think about it - you are only held responsible for the sins you commit
knowingly. Is a person who never knew about your faith liable for
violating your faith? No way. Look at the old testament - the laws in
Exodus, Leviticus etc are very explicit and deliniate between those "of
the faith", and everyone-else. The laws of moses dont apply to Gentiles.
The Gentiles didnt commit the sin of worshipping the golden calf. The
lesson is clear - individual responsibility.

How else could a "loving god" damn 'innocent pagans' to 'hell' ? C'mon
thats just absurd.

...but that assumes you beleive in a 'hell' in the first place, which I
as a beleiver reject firmly.

Morena, you wouldnt come back as an animal. You'd be leaving the world
cashing out with a significant withdrawl from the Bank of Karma.

Those who are running a negative-account balance wind up coming back as
animals.

I'm an Aquarius. Never had any complaints from the ladies in the "Love
Department", but, Aquarians are known for being distant, hard to make
sense with etc - and I get enough of those complaints . Must be
something to the horoscopes!

i ate lots of chinese food when i was in china, and its nothing like the
stuff we have here. I kinda like the stuff we have here to be honest.
Leave off the rat-turds and cat-tails though, they give you foul burp
flavors for a couple days.

A year ago, I found myself unexpectedly looking for a new place to live,
and wound up in a "less than ideal" location. No cable TV, and I didnt
have a TV set either.

Oddly, I didnt think to buy a TV. Friends offered me their old sets, and
I said 'nah, no thanks...'. A year's gone by with no TV and I'm thinking
I havn't missed anything.

If I want to watch a movie, I usually watch it on the laptop.
Occasionally I'll put it on the digital projector for me & the roomates
to watch.

Anybody else gone cold-turkey? or am I just a nut?

How can you go into Calvinism, in a serious and direct manner without
mentioning Hobbs! Thats sacrilige!

We've all had lots of really bad bosses. I've had two bosses that I'm
still in awe of. I work in the software biz, and I've worked with some
pretty smart ppl, (lots of idiots too) but two bosses just astound me
with their ability to think so abstractly and broadly.

One day John and I were called to a meeting w/ the boss. The boss wanted
us to write a program, and he laid out the concepts and what it should
do. He put it very plainly, but, I didnt get it. John nodded his head
understandingly during the whole meeting. So, I followed along too.
Walking back to our cubes afterwards, John stops me and asks "Ok, do you
feel as stupid as I do? Did you understand a thing he meant?"

Both these bosses are also good-guys, fair, and usually consistent. How
about you - any "good boss" stories?

That should get your mouse-finger twitching already. Me and a guy at
work had a long debate over this one.

I'll try to keep it short: Choose some set of prophecies. Old Testament,
New Testament, Mayan Prophecies, Nostradamous - whatever particular set
you feel is legitimate. Now, the value of those prophecies is that some
are clearly "fullfilled", and some are "yet to be fullfilled".

if you look at the "fullfilled" ones, you quickly see that there were
generations of preceeding events that lead to the particular
circumstances that occured. Quick example: Jesus birth foretold
generations before, the angel visited Elizabeth to tell her things were
coming along (a 'generation' before Mary/Joesph). Joseph's wife died, he
remarried to Mary ... and the rest is history. All the events, distant,
and near, directly effected the history.

So, there was clearly alot of pre-determined "cause & effect" that
occured, most of it senseless to the people (like Joseph's wife). The
future also points to alot of pre-determined "cause & effects" that will
be fullfilled.

I say we all play a part in the role of pre-destiny. Since we're human,
we cant do anything about it (example: Wasnt Judas pre-destined to
betray Jesus - otherwise, there would be no Christianity!)

I say that we have "free will" only in the sense of how our hearts
respond to the circumstances around us. We can accept bad situations
with a joyful, or hurtful heart.

I DO NOT say we lack responsibilty for our actions. That may seem
paradoxical, but, in the end we can't really influence the cosmic scheme
of things, but we can do our best. We are responsible.

Add a little bit of extra sauce to your St. Patty post:

St Patrick was kidnapped by fellow-countrymen and sold into slavery
under the Roman occupation. When he returned to preach christianity to
Ireland, he was so effective that the entire country converted to
christianity without any bloodshed. No force, no capitulation, no
revolts, no counter-insurgencies.

-Mike

I am the church. You are the church. Its never the building. Its never
the community. Its the individual with one or more other individuals.

Emotions are human traits that we use to cope with the fact that we are
"seperated" from Oneness (call it 'God'). God has no needs for
'emotions', 'memories', and so on.

All our 'bad' actions stem from fear. That fear is natural, its by
design (part of our being seperate from God). Some of us can rise above
it, but most of us struggle to stay afloat of our fears which will lead
us into trouble.

We can make the world a hugely better place simply by engaging the fears
of someone else. If we can reach out and soothe a fear, you have made
the world a better place. You're making real the declartion that 'the
kingdom of heaven is at hand'

ah i get it ... i'm alot slow

um, so andrea...i was wondering...

"You can put your boots beside my sofa any time".
-- you may come to regret those words. Despite my cowboy sounding name
'Montana', i dont have any boots. But, if you got sofa space, I could
certainly go buy a pair. Ever hear the Zappa song "..Going to Montana &
raise me up some dental floss.."? Seemed related, well, maybe distantly.

"Time to relax, meditate and visualize that little apartment ..."
--Oooh someone's on the ball tonite! I got the 'little' apartment vision
as cold reality here. I will visualize the 'little bit bigger' apartment
instead. Something that doesnt have any racoons.

Seriously, I dont understand the "above you" part. I originally thought
it implied a 'boss' or something like that - but, there's too many
seperate threads going on this topic. What do we mean by 'above you' ?

Maybe I'm too ego-centric, but, I dont see anyone as 'above me'. Nor do
I see anyone as 'below me' either. As my dad explained "he puts his
pants on the same way you do - dont be intimidated".

I'd further add that if anyone see's an intimate-relationship as a
combination of "above/below", then there's a power-play in the making.
Better to focus on the "between the sheets" aspect.

Hey thanks everyone - I might be knockin on your door for sofa space.

Sushi suggested "Get a little apartment. One room with a sofa bed, lot
of fake tiger fur, a frig and hot plate." I looked around my 9x12 room
and thought - wow it would be great to have room for a little fridge!
Maybe even a proper sized bed!

Yeah, its time to find a proper place. I'll have to make a posting soon
about some of the "un-invited" roomates that we have.

Hope you're not paying for the CD/Book! I can summarize it all this way:
find something to meditate on, relax and meditate on it. Now, if that
worked then hurry up and make a cheezy DVD with spooky sound effects,
make vague references to "Wisdom of the Ancients", and "Secrets of the
Gods". Package it, and sell it for $19.95 + 4.99 shipping and handling.

Either way, let us know (or just email me) what experiences you get out
of it.

@Autumn: Head-butt for a first kiss with a nosebleed? Ah it was sign of
things to come... bust your head, your nose, then your heart. Shoulda
stopped on the first try.

No love is purer than a rejected-love.

Forgot to add: She LIVES in india.

My friend Ern has been hammering me with this "Power of Positive-thought
Projection" bullsh1t. For weeks he's been telling me about it, and some
of the "success" he's had with it. "Try it Mike - go ahead, here's the
CD, and you never know, just TRY it, cuz I'm curious if its just
circumstance or if there's something to it." So, as part of a 'fair
trial' I agreed and said I'd give it an honest effort.

I listened to the lecture-CD. new-agey, evasive, 'buy more of my series'
kind of schlop. Whatever. And I decided to focus on something that would
be un-realistic, un-expected, just to disprove my buddy. After all, what
are friends for?

I focused on a lady I met some years ago. I talked with her once for 5
minutes on her wedding day - she is the sister of my friend in India.
Sweet lady, very impressive with the way she presents herself, expresses
ideas and so-on (pretty too). Other than that conversation, that was my
only interaction with her. So this was my focal point.

And damn it! I am not kidding when I tell you that 3 days later, out of
the blue, came an email from her. "hi mike, remember me? we havnt heard
from you in a long time, how's life?" I never had her email - or
anything like that. I really thought Ern was playing a joke on me, or
somebody (I never told anyone my 'focal point')

For a few weeks I jerked my buddy around by not telling him. Make him
wait and sweat it out. What are friends for anyway? I told him and he
was stunned.

A couple day