The inner self

March 13, 2007Posted inDesign, Motivations, Philosophy11 Comments

I finally got around to doing some diagrams about how I see my inner self (the spiritual person) and its different parts. I have written extensively about this in previous posts, but since I am a designer more than I am a philosopher or psychologist (I studied all three in college), I wanted to draw it out in a diagram. So the inner self, in its most basic form, seems to be composed of 3 elements – my heart (the real me) and my two influences, my self-destructive nature (selfish nature) and my conscience (my self-preserving nature). Below shows a diagram of each.This is a study that is very important to me, and is one of the main reasons why I started the weblog (among others). For my working theory is if I can understand the inner self (starting with me as the primary subject), its components and their makeup and interactions, I will better understand the reality of further circles of influences (personal relationships -> community -> society -> time period -> existence) But it all starts with how a single person works, on the inside. Below is the diagram that represents basically the entirety of all the philosophy, psychology, and spiritual reading and thinking I’ve done on the spiritual human being in the past 20 years.

inner_self_1

At first glance, you might see this and immediately think of the iconic demon and angel sitting on a person’s shoulder whispering in their ear, but bear with me! There’s a lot more to this diagram and the thinking that goes behind it.

Atonement

February 9, 2007Posted inDivine Revelation, Dreams, God, Love6 Comments

A long time ago, I had a dream. It was one of the most amazing dreams I’ve ever had, and I felt tonight that I should write about it.

I can’t remember what I was going through at the time in my life, but usually dreams like this come when I am really discouraged. But I don’t even remember what exactly it was I was discouraged with. This is probably because my dream was so powerful it overshadowed all my memories in the year it happened. It will definitely sound weird to most, and if it isn’t helpful, just stop reading it. I just don’t have the talent for writing about things in my life that are so wild.

In my dream, I remember being in a place of fog – I could not see further than a few yards in any direction, but I believe I was standing on a smooth hard surface. Even though I could not see, there was an ambient light that made my entire surroundings glow, so I was not in darkness. What happened next is very hard for me to describe.

Motivations behind the switch…

February 5, 2007Posted inConfusion, God, Motivations, Worldviews4 Comments

Bored in Vernal posted a great question in response to the Risk and Proof post: Is a person who has had a religious experience with a God in one tradition justified in looking into other religions… here’s my best crack at an answer that is more exploring the issue than actually answering it 🙂

What was the motivation for pursing another? If a person had real communication with a God from one faith tradition, why leave (or wander)? First of all, it might be easy to leave or look around because the God of one seems to be a similar God in another (such as is the case with Catholicism, Protestant Christianity, Mormonism, and Islam) – Every one of those faiths seem to believe in the same God of the Bible, but differ radically in the details. But even if the leaving is easy and would not be considered “adultery” in the OT sense, why leave or look elsewhere?

I guess there is a sense of studying other religions just to understand them while still believing in your current one, and this can’t be wrong, but what if one were actually trying to find truth in them. Even in this sense, it seems to me that there are certain truths found in most religions – such as certain virtues of martial fidelity, the view of life as sacred, not to steal or testify falsely in trial, etc. So in other religious that have a different God-like entity entirely – such as Buddhism or Hinduism in contrast to Judeo-Christian religions, some things are still the same.

The optimism of atheism

February 5, 2007Posted inAtheism, Confusion, Religion, Worldviews4 Comments

Miko over at MoF opened up a discussion on optimism and religion. Both sides of it (theist vs. atheist) have perspectives on this about themselves and their counterpart. Here is my take on the subject.

As a theist? Christian, I have come to understand atheism as a (mostly) healthy and optimistic shift in belief away from a very unhealthy and very ugly view of God put forth by very misguided religious groups. As a Christian, I have seen first hand and experienced how bad evangelical churches and movements can be (which I never thought possible before), and I have heard second hand (via John and Miko and others) how bad other religious groups and their dark and dismal views of God are and how that manifests itself in a religious culture and society. Miko and John’s atheistic world-view and accompanying beliefs/values to me could only be described as optimistic.

No joke – if I went though the experiences of most folks from bad religious backgrounds, I would probably be an atheist now, and I think that the true God would be pretty happy with that arrangement – it is a good way to sever ties with a belief system with so much crap that runs so deep it must be (in some cases) summarily rejected like a cancer for any healthy growth to take its place.

After the risk

February 3, 2007Posted inBelief, Desire, GodNo Comments

Asara asked some great questions about finding God from a risk-taking perspective. If a person takes the risk of believing in God, what would be the next steps towards a deeper faith? This was in response to my previous post, (Risk and Proof.) My answer got too long, so I thought I would write another post instead. Note: this is not how I came to know God of the Bible – it was more of an overwhelming invitation. However, if my life were different, I would probably venture down a similar road to the one I describe.

Risk and Proof

January 22, 2007Posted inBelief, Reason, Worldviews4 Comments

I’ve been reading though the Old testament law for the last couple of weeks, and reading and listening to experts in the area. I’ve seen some exciting stuff that I think I want to write about, but before I do, I just felt like I had to throw something out there.

Over at MindOnFire, the community there has chosen an book to read on an excellent and very interesting topic: textual criticism. I haven’t yet had a chance to order the book and read it myself because I’m trying to read like 3 other books right now that I’m really enjoying: A Users Guide to Bible Translations, Passage to Dawn, R.A. Salvatore, and Christianity and Philosophy, by Colin Brown. All three books are worthy of discussion from a philosophical/religious perspective, but the one leaving me with the most questions and thoughts is the last book.

Christianity and Philosophy have always had a estranged relationship, but the subject and debate of a lot of philosophy over the ages that has caught my attention tonight can be summed up in one word: Proof.

The hero

December 20, 2006Posted inDesire, Philosophy4 Comments

Note: I originally posted this on John Remy’s website as a comment on a post with a similar subject at mindonfire.com by another great author – Miko, but decided to post it here as well because I’ve been too sick lately to write much. So I’m being lazy (or just practical since I’m recovering from surgery) and consolidating. When it comes to my priorities, it’s more important to me to post comments on other people’s sites then it is for me to write posts on this one. If you’ve read my comment there, don’t bother to read it here. The text is exactly the same with no extra goodies 🙂

Anyway, the about the hero…

This has always been a phenomena that has fascinated and inspired me. Within literature, motion picture, gaming, and song, there has always existed the hero – the person who fights for the cause of good in the titanic and ever-present battle between good and evil. It seems to me that within each man or woman, their exists a dark, broken nature which powerfully influences them. If given too much free reign, its influence can become so great that even a person’s conscience and the warnings of friends can be ignored and cut off. This same struggle is found in the macrocosm of the mind – human society (hat tip to Socrates.) And so the hero fights on two fronts – against his own broken nature, and against the people and movements in their society that have come under the near complete control of the same brokenness and have become twisted at a spiritual level into something inhuman.