Exactly what do you suppose Jesus in the Gospels meant by being born again?

    Response to the Jesus's baptism in fire and spirit is not very familiar to the various Christian sects post:

Elizabeth RoWrites Elizabeth’s Substack

Anyone here ever read the writings of St. Louis Marie de Montfort? He speaks of the second coming that will be experienced in the spirit-therefore Paul was part of the second coming. It is understood that this present day represents the second coming where some of humanity will have prepared themselves to be able to Experience the second coming of Christ. New worlds and all that. Religions can be preparatory as they feed the intellect but don't get too lost in knowledge and forget about the mystic heart.  

Sloan Bashinsky

I haven't read that. I don't think Christ ever left, and maybe there will be a second coming on this world. Jesus taught how anyone could move into the Christ energy. I never was attracted to the second coming prophesy. Each day pushes me plenty.  

Elizabeth Ro
So Jesus taught how to enter into the Christ experience?-DUDE! THAT IS THE SECOND COMING !! At which it is not a thought but an experience and cannot be argued but Self-Realized. The proof being in the pudding.

Sloan Bashinsky
In that sense, yes, although I would cast it more as being born again, in the becoming a very different person sense Mainstream Christendom views the 2nd Coming as Jesus coming back to take charge and run things on Earth for a while, and people being taken-up in the rapture, right out of their clothes, and other people being left behind or sent to hell, etc. The angels schooled me on many things, but they didn't say anything about Revelation in the New Testament, other than the fellow it came out of, John, didn't know what it meant, so how could anyone today know what it means? :-) The angels were and remian really focused on living each day as best as we can, that's the walk with God on this world. The future is irrelevant, in that sense? 

Elizabeth Ro
I would agree with you in using that "born again" term which is also a product of that mainstream group but it is not at all sense related.  

Sloan Bashinsky
In the Gospels, Jesus said a person must be born again to enter the Kingdom of God. Christendom acknowledges that, but mostly does not understand what actually is required. 

Elizabeth Ro
Actually "born from above" or spiritual birth-therefore representing an invisible non-earthly (descending) birth-Christ Awareness, which we agree Jesus leads the way.and Discipline (ascending) prepares us. The senses relate to mankind''s ascending efforts and the Christ Awareness represents the Descending handshake that is born within-when it happens there is no mistaking it for any of the six senses. 

Sloan Bashinsky

I have had countless experiences with what is beyond the human senses. I get up each day and deal with what the day brings, trying and hoping to be in sync with my training by angels and my dreams. I also try to have some fun each day, because there's plenty of no fun going around. That's the whole program. Because of the training, I feel like someone from another planet, who is stuck on this planet until the mother ship fetches me back, or something else causes me to adios.

 

    Posted in Reddit's r/spirituality group:

Jesus Christ
Is Jesus Christ real or is he a concept that was borrowed from somewhere to create a whole saving person? Is his whole story a myth from the Romans? I ask this because I have been hearing of how Christ and his behaviors are the very essence of how we were meant to live as humans. But that was picked up and was gone to form what we have as Jesus.

Puzzleheaded
Read the four Gospels and decide yourself? I know for a fact that Jesus existed and some of his story was told in the Gospels, and some of it there was not understood very well later in history, nor today. But I cannot prove that to you, nor to anyone, and I'd be nuts if I thought I could prove it. I'm not a Christian, but I was raised in that religion. I don't belong to any religion. I'm shanghaied, by God, and it's not imaginable to anyone who has not experienced it, but there are some stories in the Old and the New Testaments of people who were shanghaied. It happened to people not in those regions, too. 

 

    Posted in Reddit's r/spirituality group:

Opinion on Christianity?!

I was raised Christian and for the most part I agree with living a godly lifestyle. Honoring your temple(body), prayer, do good be good, selflessness, n etc. I just have a hard time understanding Jesus being God. I’ve also have had a very strong spiritual life as well. Just trying to decide what to do.

Puzzleheaded

Jesus in Gethsemane asks God to spare him what lies ahead, then he prays, not his will, but thy will, O Lord, be done. In the wilderness, Jesus declined to act as if he were God. In the Gospels, Jesus spoke of God as his father, and that’s in The Lord’s Prayer. To the extent you live as he taught in the Gospels, you are saved by him, even if you are an atheist.

BeastBossKittens

Love this, so tru amen 💕

    Posted in Reddit's r/spirituality group:

What makes earth beautiful? 

I just want to know your reasons for staying here?

Puzzleheaded

At 81, I wake up every morning, wondering why I'm still here? Then, I get out of bed and start dealing with what is in front of me. Some might call that chopping wood and carrying water. I think if religious people lived in my skin a while, they very well might wish there was no God. 

Looking back, I think I can count 12 entirely different lives I have lived in one lifetime, so far. I had very deep relationships with 8 women, one at a time, and when I was with them, something new opened up in me, of which I was not aware. They enriched my life, and it was not always easy for them to be with me.

It looks to me that humanity, in the main, is insane. because its femanine is fractured and it has lost it creativity and is cloning itself and devolving.

I think if what angels known in the Bible do to and for humanity, what they did to me and for me since early 1987, maybe 50, 000 people will survive it, and perhaps that will be enough for humanity to start over.

As for the planet, its is beautiful, even though humanity has made it less beautiful, and if left unchecked by the planet, ETs, God, humanity will destroy the planet, and thus itself.

I told a veterinarian friend the other day, since he declined to treat me like an old, ailing pet whose time had come to be put down, I went to an animal rescue shelter, which has vet. I told him I want donate my brain to one of his animals, if the animal wants it. He said he had several animal, who had expressed interest in having a human brain, and when did I want to come in and he would put me to sleep and take my brain and give it to one of them?

My veterinarian friend laughed. His girlfriend sort of laughed. He knows I would do it, if I could find a veterinarian who would go along with it.

Meanwhile, I've been telling the mother ship to come get me, and she doesn't seem inclined yet.

So, here I still am, wondering why I'm still here, and I see this Reddit post in my email account, and I take the bait, again.

    Posted yesterday on Substack by internationally-recognized war correspondent Chriss Hedges:

Children of Gaza - by Mr. Fish, October 8, 2023

Dear child. It is past midnight. I am flying at hundreds of miles an hour in the darkness, thousands of feet over the Atlantic Ocean. I am traveling to Egypt. I will go to the border of Gaza at Rafah. I go because of you.
You have never been in a plane. You have never left Gaza. You know only the densely packed streets and alleys. The concrete hovels.  You know only the security barriers and fences patrolled by soldiers that surround Gaza. Planes, for you, are terrifying. Fighter jets. Attack helicopters. Drones. They circle above you. They drop missiles and bombs. Deafening explosions. The ground shakes. Buildings fall. The dead. The screams. The muffled calls for help from beneath the rubble. It does not stop. Night and day. Trapped under the piles of smashed concrete. Your playmates. Your schoolmates. Your neighbors. Gone in seconds. You see the chalky faces and limp bodies when they are dug out. I am a reporter. It is my job to see this. You are a child. You should never see this.   
The stench of death. Rotting corpses under broken concrete. You hold your breath. You cover your mouth with cloth. You walk faster. Your neighborhood has become a graveyard. All that was familiar is gone. You stare in amazement. You wonder where you are.
You are afraid. Explosion after explosion. You cry. You cling to your mother or father. You cover your ears. You see the white light of the missile and wait for the blast. Why do they kill children? What did you do? Why can’t anyone protect you? Will you be wounded? Will you lose a leg or an arm? Will you go blind or be in a wheelchair? Why were you born?  Was it for something good? Or was it for this? Will you grow up?  Will you be happy? What will it be like without your friends? Who will die next? Your mother? Your father? Your brothers and sisters?  Someone you know will be injured. Soon. Someone you know will die. Soon.  
At night you lie in the dark on the cold cement floor. The phones are cut. The internet is off. You do not know what is happening. There are flashes of light. There are waves of blast concussions. There are screams. It does not stop.  
When your father or mother hunts for food or water you wait. That terrible feeling in your stomach. Will they come back? Will you see them again? Will your tiny home be next? Will the bombs find you? Are these your last moments on earth?  
You drink salty, dirty water. It makes you very sick. Your stomach hurts. You are hungry. The bakeries are destroyed. There is no bread. You eat one meal a day. Pasta. A cucumber. Soon this will seem like a feast. 
You do not play with your soccer ball made of rags. You do not fly your kite made from old newspapers.      
You have seen foreign reporters. We wear flak jackets with the word PRESS written on it. We have helmets. We have cameras. We drive jeeps. We appear after a bombing or a shooting. We sit over coffee for a long time and talk to the adults. Then we disappear. We do not usually interview children. But I have done interviews when groups of you crowded around us. Laughing. Pointing. Asking us to take your picture. 
I have been bombed by jets in Gaza. I have been bombed in other wars, wars that happened before you were born. I too was very, very scared. I still have dreams about it. When I see the pictures of Gaza these wars return to me with the force of thunder and lightning. I think of you. 
All of us who have been to war hate war most of all because of what it does to children.
I tried to tell your story. I tried to tell the world that when you are cruel to people, week after week, month after month, year after year, decade after decade, when you deny people freedom and dignity, when you humiliate and trap them in an open-air prison, when you kill them as if they were beasts, they become very angry. They do to others what was done to them. I told it over and over. I told it for seven years. Few listened. And now this. 
There are very brave Palestinian journalists. Thirty-nine of them have been killed since this bombing began. They are heroes. So are the doctors and nurses in your hospitals. So are the U.N. workers. Eighty-nine of whom have died. So are the ambulance drivers and the medics. So are the rescue parties that lift up the slabs of concrete with their hands. So are the mothers and fathers who shield you from the bombs. 
But we are not there. Not this time. We cannot get in. We are locked out. 
Reporters from all over the world are going to the border crossing at Rafah. We are going because we cannot watch this slaughter and do nothing. We are going because hundreds of people are dying a day, including 160 children. We are going because this genocide must stop. We are going because we have children. Like you. Precious. Innocent. Loved. We are going because we want you to live. 
I hope one day we will meet. You will be an adult. I will be an old man, although to you I am already very old. In my dream for you I will find you free and safe and happy.  No one will be trying to kill you. You will fly in airplanes filled with people, not bombs. You will not be trapped in a concentration camp. You will see the world. You will grow up and have children. You will become old. You will remember this suffering, but you will know it means you must help others who suffer. This is my hope. My prayer.
We have failed you. This is the awful guilt we carry. We tried. But we did not try hard enough. We will go to Rafah.  Many of us. Reporters. We will stand outside the border with Gaza in protest. We will write and film. This is what we do. It is not much. But it is something. We will tell your story again. 
Maybe it will be enough to earn the right to ask for your forgiveness. 

 

Sloan BashinskyWrites Sloan’s Newsletter

Horrific, Chris, what is going on in Gaza now. Alas, this round was started by Hamas, and I wager Hamas very much hoped Israel would respond in this way, meaning, Hamas doesn't care how many Gaza children and adults get killed by Israel, and it bothers me that you don't condemn Hamas, as well as Israel. and It bothers me that you don't address the cause of all of this, which is the Jewish Scriptures, the Christian Old Testament and New Testament, and the Koran. A friend of mine said that Hamas does not worry about how many Gaza people Israel kills, because they become martyrs and go to Paradise. Maybe if America had accepted the post-World War II Jewish refugees, there would be no Israel today, and the three Abrahamic religions would have nothing to fight over in Palestine. Maybe if Israel becomes so desperate that it unleashes its nukes, Palestine will be uninhabitable and in that way the three Abrahamic religions have nothing to fight over in Palestine. What if America offers today, what it did not offer after World War II - a home to every Jew living in Israel? Do you think the American Christians would go for that? Or would they say no, again. Would they want Israel to continue to defend where the Jew Jesus was crucified at the behest of Jewish leaders 2000 years ago? 

 

 sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com

Jesus's baptism in fire and spirit is not very familiar to Christendom

    16-year-old Noel's and my intricate theological discussion in the two previous posts took a surprising turn when he revealed that he very much wants to be a Catholic priest.

Noel

Ok ok ok, my grades would not reflect your claiming I have a high IQ and am a prodigy, although I am a little good at drums. I just watch a lot of Catholic apologists argue, some of my ideas are not my own but learned. I conclude abortion is immoral not because I know the mind of God, but that through the many graces and mercies He’s given me, a sinner, along with his divine revelation and pedagogy, I can know moral truths. If not then do I know it’s wrong to kill or rape or steal? If you think my ideas are cool, maybe you should read some of saints and theologians I read.

I don’t agree with the idea of karma, the quote you mentioned earlier where Jesus says you will reap what you will sow can’t be reduced to a teaching of karma provided that just this alone can be interpreted in different ways. It’s important to read scripture in proper context referring to prophesies in the Old Testament related to the verse and in its historical context. 

Jesus is God, Jesus is omnipotent and omniscient, he knows every problem that has happened, and will happened. He has not addressed every single problem ever, because they are all contingent upon rejecting God. There are probably many other vices that Jesus did not address, or at least we’re not written down, across the world. The reason why is because Jesus did not come to make peace, but for the sword, to set a father against one son and a mother against one’s daughter. He came to die on the cross to pay for our sins, as sin and death came into the world through disobedience, and Our Lord was obedient unto death as the Son of Man for our sins. God has established multiple times what is right and wrong through his 10 commandments, and has addressed vices constantly. The devil, who used to be the second to God in power, knew quite well what was wrong and right. The contingence of a moral person is not based on whether someone knows certain truths or not, rather if a person is willing to carry his or her cross and follow our Lord. 

Maybe I can be wrong about what God wants, but when Gods gifts of rational will and intellect is used correctly, we can conclude what God wants. This is why the application of the rigor of logic is extremely important and this is why the Church stresses theology. But I know the right answer the same way I know mathematical truths or historical truths, because it’s reasonable to conclude so. If I can’t make logical conclusions on what God wants, then I can’t make logical conclusions about anything, because the same faculties I’m using to conclude in what God wants in using to conclude many other truths as well. I wouldn’t know anything, which is problematic considering I’m exercising my knowledge right know. Certainly one’s bad circumstance does not justify one’s vice. A robber doesn’t rob a store because it’s his favorite hobby to do on the weekends, he robs money likely because he’s impoverished and he sees crime to be the only way out of that poverty. Despite the unfortunate situation, it would still be immoral for him to steal the money of others. Likewise, despite the unfortunate situation some women may be in, it is immoral to kill innocent children. 

It’s certainly not my intention to destress you or anything, I deeply respect I’m your spiritual process through the dark night and deeply lament over the death of your son. My mother went through something similar. When she was young she contracted an STD, and so every time she wanted a child she would have to go to the doctor(she didn’t get into the details why). They didn’t find this out about her until her second pregnancy, and two of her children died. For her third pregnancy, she talked to the doctor and went through the proper procedure, but she fell off stairs, crushing and killing her third baby. By the grace of God my parents tried again, this time they went to a cathedral and asked for the intercession of Our Lady at a cathedral in the Dominican Republic for the pregnancy. This time the procedure went well and she didn’t fall off anything, and she gave birth to a boy. That boy was born on Jan. 21, the day when the Church celebrates the presentation of Our Lady, and that boy is me...

I’ve tried. I haven’t always been this serious about my faith, and even at times I’ve become an agnostic like you. I’ve even had a close relationship with a demonic person. But every time I would come back to the Holy Church, because my Our Lady has loved me so much. When asked why he chooses to spend 3 hours for a mass, Padre Pío responds with that God knows I want to stop, to lead a regular mass, but he won’t let me. Leading a Catholic life is not easy, especially not in this day in age, but I do it not because it’s convenient, but because I morally have no other option.   

 

Sloan Bashinsky

After all I have told you about me, I can't imagine how you say I'm an agnostic. I know for a fact that God, angels known in the Bible, Jesus, Lucifer and demons exist. I have run into some Deists lately, and they are very big on using logic, or reason, to define God. If they lived in my skin for a while, they very well might wish there was no God. Same, if they lived in the skin of a good friend of mine for a week.

You told me a while back that you aren't a religious fundamentalist, but you sure come across as one, based on my many dealings with religious fundamentalists. Based on your latest, you are deeply connected to the Roman Catholic Church. I do not doubt you have experienced some of the workings of God, but Jesus is not God, and he did not claim in the Gospels to be God. He did not tell the Devil in the wilderness that he was God. Jesus taught people to pray to their father in heaven. When he was in Gethsemane, sweating blood over what he knew lay ahead, Jesus  asked God to spare him from it; then he surrendered, and said, not my will, but your will be done, O Lord.

Jesus came to show by his own example and words how to walk with God on this world, and he won over a few people, and he really upset the Jewish leaders, and they had him crucified for it. To the extent Catholics, or any followers of Jesus, live as he lived and taught, they are saved by him. The rest is just church propaganda to cause people to want to belong to that religion and give it money so it can keep going. You told me you like Francis of Assisi, so I recommend the movie, Brother Sun Sister Moon, which portrays very well how pompous the Catholic Church had become in Italy during Francis's time, and how God used Francis to try to fix that. 

I am not ridiculing your church. I simply am saying God is so much larger than any religion, and there is no need for anyone to attend church to walk with God, but if church helps people do that, then that’s good. But if they get to doing what you are doing, telling women what you, as a man, really know nothing about and never will, because you are not a woman, you cross a line that many religious people have crossed in all branches of Christendom. 

The Eastern and the Western Church got a divorce over the Western Church requiring its priests to be celibate. The disciples knew Magdalene and Jesus were a couple. If Magdalene washed his feet with her hair and tears before the disciples, what did she wash him with when they were in private? It was the solemn duty of every Jewish man to marry and propagate the race of God’s chosen people. Paul was a Pharisee, yet his letters never mention he was married and had children. Every woman around Paul knew his thorn in the flesh was he was gay, and he was celibate to atone for it. He wrote that he wished his followers all were celibate, like him. He wrote that women could only know Christ through their husbands. I hear Christians quote Paul far more than they quote Jesus, whom Paul never met in the flesh.

I can' help it if you don't care for some of what Jesus in the Gospels said. Such as, what I told you about John the Baptist. What Jesus said about sowing what we reap, both the good and the bad, that is how it is. I have heard many Christians say the only way to be saved by Jesus is to accept the formula that he was the son of God who died for their sins. But in one of the letters of Jesus' brother James, James says don't ask him about his faith, but look to his works and there see his faith. Jesus was about living life raw, up close and personal, in sync with God's ways, not man's ways. Jesus was always in church, and so is everyone, even if they don't realize it. 

We all stand before God, every moment of our lives, even if we don't know it. And when we reach the afterlife, we have a life review, to the extent it did not happen before we crossed over. After that, the next phase of our existence begins. Either back on this planet, like Elijah. On some other planet. In some other dimension. The soul is eternal, as it emanates from God, as does everything emanate from God, even Lucifer.

I know that I am not persuading you, but you are very young, and hopefully, you have much to experience, and by the time you are my age, maybe you will look back like I do now, and see just how little you really knew when you were 16. If that doesn't happen, you have made no progress since you were sixteen.

Some people follow what I write, because it is so very different from what is put forth by any sect of Christendom, it is so very different form what is put forth by any religion. In the Letter to the Hebrews, which most theologians do not attribute to Paul, as it is not his writing style, the author tells the audience that they should be eating meat, they should be teachers, but they are still drinking milk. In my experience, that pretty well  sums up the state of the various sects in Christendom. 

Feel free to share your and my back and forth with your priest. Ask him what he thinks? Ask him, also, if he has actually been celibate the entire time he has been a priest, and ask him if he is straight, or gay? I have no problem with either sexual orientation, because (a) God does not make mistakes, and (b) I have known a lot of gay men and women, and some bis, and some who had sex change surgery, and they simply were wired to be where they were, and there was nothing they could do about it. My bisexual brother killed himself because someone was going to out him and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

You have much to experience in life. I recommend that you get on with it. 

 

Noel

I’m very sorry for the loss of your brother, I will certainly keep him in my rosaries

As for your claims, I was going to write another response but I would agree with you that we are  not persuading each other. Certainly I never thought I would be debating with an actual writer and intellectual and someone with spiritual experiences like you, so I have to thank you for your time. 

The reason I try my best to study and defend the faith is because I want to be a priest myself, especially in light of the clerical mess today. You might not be too happy to hear that, but I don’t see myself leaving the faith anytime soon.

As for our back and forth, I might send it to my spiritual director who has a PhD in theology and maintains all the Hispanic spiritual activity in my diocese. Or my dad who’s also a theologian. Or maybe God is a sufficient spectator. 

And maybe you are convinced now that I don’t have an extremely high IQ, saying that your an agnostic was a pretty bad mistake.  

 

Sloan Bashinsky

You have to be very smart to have amassed so much knowledge and be able to write the way you do, and you don't react. You remain level, which is a sign of maturity far beyond your years. What you have done is bump into a person who has ongoing experiences with the supernatural, but he belongs to no religion, and he attends no church, because what he is experiencing obviously is incompatible with the religion in which he was raised, first the Baptist sect, then the Episcopal. 

I always believed God existed, and Jesus was the son of God. The only thing that changed was I came to understand that we all are children of God, and Jesus was very accelerated and knew what he was, and he tried to bring other people to where he was, He told his disciples in the Gospels that a student cannot become greater than the teacher, but the student can become like the teacher, and even do even greater works than he had done. He also told them that he taught the masses in parables, but he taught them in secret the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, for which wise men and kings would give all they had to possess. When Jesus left the men disciples, after the near-death experience, they were still quarreling children. After the Holy Spirit grabbed them at Pentecost, SHE, the female side of God, grew them into men God could use. Jesus had planted the seeds, but the Holy Spirit ignited the seeds in the disciples. 

In the Jewish scriptures, the Spirit of God is called Shekinah, gender feminine. In the Old Testament, wisdom is assigned the feminine gender. Christianity's Trinity is all male. How does it reproduce, except by cloning itself. A clone of a clone of a clone, is what has become of mainstream Christendom.

So, what did Jesus teach the disciples in secret? We only have bare glimpses of that in the Gospels. I gave you one glimpse, which was their discussion about John the Baptist. In another setting, Jesus gave sight to a man who had been born blind. Later, one of his disciples asked, Who had sinned, the man or his parents, that he was born blind? Now how could the man have sinned before was born, unless he had lived before? The Old Testament had said the sins of the fathers were visited on the sons for generations. Jesus said it was for neither reason, but the man was born blind, so that the glory of God could be seen on that day, when the man received his sight. Jesus did not say the disciple's question was wrong, but that the answer was something else.

Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea risked their lives to persuade Pilate to let them take Jesus's body down from the cross on the afternoon of the morning he was crucified. They wrapped his body in linen cloth, which is sterile, a bandage. They salved his body with 100-weight of aloes and myrrh. Aloe is a powerful wound healer. Myrrh dramatically raises white cell count to fight infection. 

I hope you will share our discussion with your spiritual director and your father. I wish them no ill or harm. That would be horrible karma to create for myself. I am an anomaly. I do not make up what I tell you has happened to me. That would be horrible karma, too. I have enough problems already. Who doesn't have enough problems already? It's part of being in this world, but not of it, hopefully.

What I hope for you is that God takes you from where you now are to where you are in direct communion with the Almighty, like the Prophets in the Old Testament; like Jesus, and like his disciples after Pentecost; like Paul after his dark night of the soul; like later saints in Christendom; and like people in C/hristendom, and in other religions, such as Rumi, of the Sufi part of Islam, and his irascible teacher, Shams, to whom two American followers of Rumi likened me, and they called me Shams. Go to Wikipedia and enter Rumi and Shams in that search space, and read what comes up. Also google Rumi’s poem, Chickpea to Cook, and read that account of what it’s like to be boiled alive by God many times. 

John the Baptist said in the Gospels that he baptized in water, but one greater than he would come, who would baptize in fire and spirit. Jesus in the Gospels did not baptize in water. He said his baptism was in fire and he was anxious to get on with it. He lived his baptism and he administered it to other people. I think Jesus very much would have enjoyed meeting Rumi and Shams, but they lived later.

Shalom, Noel, from the Melchizedek Priesthood, which is somewhat explained in the Letter to the Hebrews.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com

Although the Bible says fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, religious fundamentalists are certain they represent God and have nothing to fear in the afterlife, including how they viewed abortion

    After fellow named Noel starred in yesterday's Imagine an American president who survived St. John of the Cross's dark night and black nights of the soul and then he married the Hindu Goddess Kali, who does not like how men think post, this happened:

Noel 

If the contingence of religion is evolution, and the contingence of evolution is survival, than why are martyrs willing to die for it, especially people like the 12 apostles who didn’t die pretty deaths.

 

Sloan Bashinsky

I think if the angels take you under their wings, you will develop an entirely different way of thinking, perceiving and wondering. The Apostles and later saints in Christendom, and people who were not recognized as saints, but were shanghaied by God nonetheless, do not ask the kind of questions you ask. They are up to their eyeballs in trying to cope with and live what is on their plates every day, knowing they will face a reckonning for it in this life, or later.

Noel

You’re certainly a very interesting person I’m glad we’ve met.

Sloan Bashinsky

I think I probably am an experiment angels initiated. I have seen angels attempt similar for a few people I knew well and for a man I met briefly.

 

Noel Sanchez

I would be careful, it’s very easy for satan to seem like an angel of light.  

Sloan Bashinsky

You are correct. In fact, in the fall of 1995, I was told by Archangel Michael in my sleep, "It is very easy to mistake Lucifer for the Holy Spirit." I got to where when I went into churches, I felt the palpable presence of Evil. Not a day passes when I don' t fret about crossing God and coming under the sway of Lucifer. I have done that enough times, and been rescued from it enough times by angels, to know just how easy it is to duped by Lucifer. For a fact, the American left is infiltrated by a demon. For a fact, the American right is infiltrated by a demon. Neither side can be convinced of it, though.

    Then this happened on Substack, in which Noel also starred:

Ol’ Flawriduh Cracker
Writes My Two Senses
The problem it seems to me is that far too many people believe in the supernatural. Fundamentally I see it is little more than an evolutionary propensity aimed at filling the millions of gaps we experience that are inhabited with fear, anxiety, and trying to insure our visualizations of the future (hope).
The real tragedy is that too many people long ago discovered that exploitation of people is readily achieved in the universal grift of religion. Some prefer to remain largely passive, but Christianity and Muslim creeds are especially malignant and dangerous at almost any scale.
It can be a hick church of Snake handlers in Tennessee or hundreds of thousands circling the holy site in Mecca. The power to make people risk a toxic snake bite or to travel thousands of miles are but, small examples.
This propensity for mass self delusion to willing acceptance of murdering others will be our undoing.

Sloan Bashinsky
I know for a fact that the supernatural exists and am reminded of the Old Testament admonition that fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom, to which I add, fear of the Devil also is wise, yet religious fundamentalists are convinced they represent and speak for and are ordained by God, and nothing you or I say can sway them out of that.
There was a man in Acts of the Apostles, named Saul of Tarsus. He was a Jewish Pharisee. He was convinced hunting down Christians and ratting them out to the Roman authorities, who gave them the option of renouncing Jesus or being executed, was God's work and will. While Saul was about that mission on the road to Damascus, Jesus appeared to him out of nowhere and asked him, "Saul, why do you persecute me?" Saul was knocked off his horse and was blinded and spent a long time getting his thinking and behaving straightened out, and becoming Paul.
It can't be proven today that that actually happened, and I would be insane if I thought I, or anyone, could prove it happened. I simply use the road to Damascus report as a way of saying that what happened to Saul is the only way religious fundamentalists, or anybody for that matter, can be reached and changed. That is not speculation, because that is how I was reached and changed. Yet, I did not become anything like Paul in his letters in the New Testament. 
I do not preach that the only way to God is through believing Jesus was the son of God, who died on the cross for the sins of anyone who believes in him, even 2,000 years later. If Christians today took to heart what Jesust in the Gospels taught, they would not judge anyone but themselves. They would not point the finger at anyone but themselves. They would be terrified of crossing God, and even more terrified of being taken over unawares by the Devil.
That is the cross every Christian is invited to pick up and carry. That cross is not offered to the followers of Moses and Mohammed. Not in this life, anyway. Karma is very real. Jesus in the Gospels said, as you sow, so shall you reap. He knew very well of the reckoning each departing soul faces in the afterlife. Unfortunately, religious fundamentalists do not worry about that reckoning, because they are certain they represent God and have nothing to fear. 

Noel 
Especially the 60 million babies we’ve killed via abortion.

The resurrection is an event that would validate divine revelation. You say if we were to interpret the gospel correctly we would judge ourselves Akon, but how many times has Jesus judged others. He called the Pharisees fools and hypocrites, announced that one of the apostles were the devil. Surely if we are to be holy as God is holy we would follow this example.
Freemasons can be problematic for a few reasons: if there are multiple legitimate pathways to Hod outside of the Church, then to what extent are these claims valid. Clearly Islam doesn’t agree with Christianity or Buddhism, but Freemason logic would ignore these disagreements. Picking select claims from certain religions to conclude that all, or multiple, religions are true is problematic. 

Sloan Bashinsky
The resurrection was a near-death experience, which many people in the 20th Century and later reported having. Jesus was well aware that he would be judged for his accusations, and he made them anyway, because they were true. God is in every religion, and the task is to find God there, if you belong to a religion. The Devil is pleased to help you found something you think is God, but isn't. That's also true of Free Masons, and of any religious or spiritual system. God is beyond all of that. 

You seem knowledgeable about many areas of the religious landscape, but I do not sense that you have been harnessed and put to the plow by something much bigger and smarter than yourself. I do not see you sharing anything about how God deals with you, about you. You seem totally outward focused. I was shown, by it being done to me, that is necessary to stand before endless mirrors looking at myself, and there were and still are refresher courses. 
Regarding killing babies, in Genesis, Adam became a living being when God breathed into his nostrils. Since antiquity, women used herbs made by God, or by Mother Nature, if you prefer, to prevent getting pregnant and to end pregnancy. That was common practice in Colonial America, evidenced by Benjamin Franklin explaining it in his book, The American Instructor. What happened to change that common practice? Religious fundamentalists is what happened. They overruled God, and now they control the U.S. Supreme Court, which pleases the Devil very much. 

What people who don't like abortion should do is volunteer to adopt babies of mothers who do not want to have them, and to financially support women who forego abortion and have their babies.
Anti-abortionists will be asked in the afterlife, why they did not do that, and they then might then learn that their next adventure is to be a fetus in an unwilling mother who will abuse her baby she does not want, or who is an alcoholic or drug addict, and her fetus will be born dependent on her drug of choice and go straight into the DTs after taking the first breath of life.

Noel
I’m not a fundamentalist, I simply understand that abortion is murder. A fetus has human DNA, and so it has natural rights like the rest of us. Out of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, the most important one of these is life because we have no rights at all if we can’t live. The contingence of rights is one’s humanity, and one’s humanity is not contingent upon one’s effectiveness or ability to experience, rather that we are made in the image and likeness of God. Contingent upon the fact that we have a rational will and intellect and that is of utter high value.
Adoption is a clearly virtuous thing, anyone who has adopted children should be acknowledged for. There are situations however where adoption would not be the best thing to do, it might not be financially responsible at all to adopt a child. Regardless of what your circumstance is, the immorality of abortion still holds. We agree that crime is immoral, it would be morally expedient to become a police officer so that crime might become less prevalent. Regardless of whether you choose to become a police officer or not, crime is still immoral. So too is the killing of innocent babies for a convenience, despite people’s choice to be morally expedient or not.

Sloan Bashinsky
Do you, does anyone, know when a soul attaches to a fetus? For, yes, it is fetuses you are calling babies. And you presume to tell women, who bear fetuses to term, what is right for them. What about women's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Oh, that was only given to men in so-called Declaration of Independence. Women had no rights then, in America, according to the Declaration of Independence. Yet, the fact remains, since antiquity, women used herbs made by God, thus approved by God, to abort fetuses. They did it during Jesus's time in the Gospels. They did it in Colonial America -until religious fundamentalists gained control. No man, except the father of an unborn, has standing to speak for what a mother should do with her unwanted unborn. It's between her and God, what she does. 

I could think what drives you to be so sure about your "pro-life" stance is, in your youth you were abused, you felt threatened, unwanted, spiritually murdered; you had no choice in the matter, and now you identify with unwanted unborn children, and that has become a crusade for you. That might not be the case with you, but it is what drives most "pro-lifers".

Looks like even red states are passing abotion rights amendments to their state constitutions. https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/abortion-rights-supporters-rack-up-victories-putting-gop-in-bind-for-2024-4bec7b38 

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com 

Imagine an American president who survived St. John of the Cross's dark night and black nights of the soul and then he married the Hindu Goddess Kali, who does not like how men think

    Yesterday's A lot of religious people are going to be really surprised when they get to the afterlife and learn what God and Jesus are really about  post included:

Juliio
Since you keep communication with the angels and they know God, could you ask them this theological riddle: Can the Almighty God create a rock so heavy that not even himself can lift it? If you or any of your theologically inclined friends here know the answer I would appreciate it, if you could share it with me.
 
Sloan Bashinsky
Never heard that riddle, but it is said, With God, all things are possible.  

 

    Later yesterday

Noel
The riddle is created by a misunderstanding of what divinity entails. For God to be the creator of the universe he must transcendent over space, time, and matter. From newton’s laws we can conclude that everything in the universe has a cause and from cosmological truths we can conclude that before the universe there was nothing. Logical rigor would conclude that the Creator must be an unmoved mover. 
The riddle is made in context of God’s omnipotence: if He can do anything, then he should be able to make an indestructible object and an unstoppable energy. If the indestructible object stops the unstoppable energy then he fails, if the unstoppable energy destroys the indestructible object then he fails, so God cannot be omnipotent...
Just for the sake of argument, let’s say that a computer exists under hardware, software, and electricity. The only logical conclusion is that a rational, intelligent animal created the complex system provided things inferior in intellect, such as a rock, couldn’t. Now let’s say an NPC inside the computer claims that a intelligent human creator doesn’t exist because the human can’t both download and upload himself, but if he were a intelligent creature surely he has the full capacity over downloading and uploading. This is an illogical claim because the human is not subject to hardware, software, and electricity, but is the creator of it and transcends it: the paradox is only relevant to the NPC because of his situation. The NPC is making assertions toward the creator without knowing the creator exhaustively. How less logical is it that God would be subject to paradoxes inside space, time, and matter if He transcends it? 

 

Sloan Bashinsky
I dunno. I think God is unfathomable, thus no human being can explain God. Angels told a friend mine several years ago, that they don't fully understand God. They do what they are doing, until they understand they should do something else. My relationship with God is dealing with what life presents day to day, while trying to stay within the angels' training, which was INTENSE, and continues, and considering how my sleeping dreams might apply to what is before me. In the Gospels, Jesus dealt with the day to day in his own way. What he did in private, I suppose we will never know. Throughout the Gospels, he demonstrated and taught how to live in sync with God, being in, but not of, the world. The religion that adopted him has made it a lot easier, by offering salvation to people who simply believe certain things, instead of salvation by living as he lived and taught. I'm not promoting Jesus in the Gospels as the only way to God, but he was a way in the Gospels, God is in every religion, and so is the Devil. God is bigger than any religion, and so is the Devil. Where would the Devil hide where most people would never think to look? In a church 

 

Noel
What do you understand religion to be? 

 

Sloan Bashinsky
People's attempt to understand God, which isn't possible, and to control God, which is impossible, and to shrink God down to something manageable, which isn't possible, and to feel better about themselves, which isn't what they actually need, but there's much in religions that guides people to do better. 

 
Noel
If you read the life of St. Francis and other penitents like him, the idea that God wants happiness, healthiness, and holiness for his children is not true. St. Francis lived an extremely painful life along with all the other countless martyrs. If the reason people practice religion is similar to the reason people use chocolate, than why would so many rid themselves of chocolate, or any other pleasures , for their religion? 

 
Sloan Bashinsky
Jesus in the Gospels didn't offer chocolate. He said the road to life is difficult and few enter the gate; many are called, but few are chosen; the work is great and the laborers are few. And, giving is more blessed than receiving; turn the other cheek; resist not one who does evil; first take the bean out of your own eye; take no thought for the morrow, because each day has enough trouble of it's own; put your faith in God, and what you need will be provided to you; no person could be his disciple, who did not hate father and mother, and brother and sister, and spouse and even his/her own life. 
Francis of Assisi is my favorite saint In Christendom. He was the first to experience the Stigmata wounds of Christ on the cross. John of the Cross was the Navy Seal saint, who went straight to God, bypassing the church dogma, for which he was persecuted , imprisoned and eventually killed, after which his body did not rot - he had turned himself into spiritual gold. He lived and provided the template for surviving the dark night of the soul, and its far more severe sibling, the black night. The Vatican was forced to recognize the Inquisition had killed a saint,
Years ago, I had very deep, moving experiences with both of those saints, and during that time I experienced the dark night, and it was awful, and then I experienced the black light, which made the dark night seem like a vacation. After that, I was rescued and resuscitated and sent into the world to be ground up in various ways I had not envisioned. When I write about spiritual stuff, it is from from such experiences and what angels known in the Bible told me and a few people I have known. 

 

Noel
St. John of the cross is referenced to in the catechism of the Catholic Church which holds important dogmas of the Church, I’ve also read some of his works and I can’t see any contradictions to dogma, but maybe we’ll agree to disagree. It’s been a good discussion but it’s getting a little late for me, hope you sleep well my friend and God bless. 

Sloan Bashinsky
Juan de la Cruz's Carmelite brethren and the Spanish Inquisition viewed Juan as a heretic and I suggest you try to find a copy of ST. JOHN OFTHE CROSS: Alchemist of the Soul, by Antonio T. de Nicholas, a Spaniard, poet and college professor, who ended up living in America. That book was my "bible" for a while. Later, I had quite a few conversations online with de Nicholas. Juan was a contemporary of Teresa de Avila, also a Carmelite. de Nicholas went into some depth about their relationship, which did not paint Teresa well. 

 
Sloan Bashinsky the next morning (today)
From our discussion, I think you are very serious about these matters, and I wonder what is your existential, day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year experience in your journey to God? 
In 1990, a friend of my wife, both of whom were licensed clinical social workers, after hearing some of my stories, asked me if I'd ever heard of St. John of the Cross? I said I had not. He said he thought I should try to learn about that saint. I lived in Boulder, Colorado then. There were large New Age and Tibetan Buddhist communities there, and other spiritual communities. The Boulder bookstore on Pearl Street Mall had a large spiritual book section, and I headed there and found one copy of the de Nicholas book, which I bought and went home and read. 
ln early January, 1991, the voice I'd heard before said to me in my sleep, "With respect to St. John of the Cross, you haven't seen anything yet." I then was awash in pure, raw, black E/vil, which caused me to gag and I desperately tried to escape it. I woke up living for a few moments what I had experienced in my sleep. I was terrified.
In Nicholas' book, Juan was quoted as advising people to ignore all phenomena that came, for there was no way to really know what might be Lucifer in disguise. Juan recommended simply turning back into the darkness, and to keep doing that, until eventually a singularity was reached, and fusion with God was obtained. He said the dark night was difficult, but doable, and for some people, that was the end of it, and they emerged very different. For others, the 2nd dark night came, and it was far more difficult. There was no light, just pure blackness, and woe be to anyone to whom that happened, who was not in a protected environment, being helped by people who understood what was in play. 
A few months after that awful dream, the dark night descended on me. There was nothing I could do about it. My Gi.I. tract, which suddenly went awry when I was 26, simply stopped working. For 4 years, I only could shit via using enemas. My internal life was phenomenal. Much of it was mind blowing. Juan had said to ignore it, but it was so profuse that I had no choice but to embrace it. I came to think what I was witnessing was parts of myself I had lost, thrown away, forgotten, or never knew were there, returning to me. Incredible poetry and prose fell out of me during that time. 
After 3 spontaneous visions, which left me heaving and sobbing, the dark night lifted in about 2 weeks. I did not feel much different spirit, except my G.I. tract had started working much like it had worked since I was 26.
My life in Boulder collapsed, and I returned to my hometown, B/irmingham, Alabama. I felt adrift. I met a new woman. We traveled some. We returned to B/irmingham. We got married. I still felt adrift. Then, in about 3 days’ time, the black night descended. I felt like half my brain had died. I was still tuned in, I could discern what I saw and heard going on around me, but I had stopped dreaming and I felt totally cut off from God. I got to where I spent 4 hours each morning after waking, trying to figure out how I would kill myself the next day, and then it would be over. After figuring it out, I relaxed, knowing that was my last day. Each morning I figured out the same exact exit strategy. Cut my wrists with my Swiss Army knife. 
That went on for about 16 months, then I knew I had to leave that woman, and I left her, and went to live with a man I had met in my mother's church, who was fascinated by my stories, although he himself never had one mystical experience. The black night began to lift.
The lifting was not easy, but my dreams had returned and I knew I was coming out of it. I did not feel l had merged with God. I felt like I had been tortured, and was still being tortured. And that's when the training about Evil and discernment of spirits began in earnest. That's also when angels began healing stuff in me I had no clue was there needing to be healed. I had extensive experiential training in alternative body, mind and spirit healing. What I had learned was baby food compared to what the angels were doing inside of me. Yet, they did not address my G.I. tract (and so far, they haven’t addressed it).
After a couple of years, I was sent back into the world. I did not feel enlightened. I felt like I was from another planet, stationed on this planet, having to deal with everything it had to offer to me. A good bit of the time, I was broke and lived on the street. I was pushed into churches and spoke and was not well received. I was pushed into politics, and spoke, and that was more of a mixed bag. I'm still in politics. 
I screwed up many times, and was hauled out of my mess by angels and rehabilitated and put back to work. It was not pretty a lot of the time. It was nothing like what I had read about the saints in Christendom and in the Sufi tradition and in the various Buddhist and Hindu sects.
I wrote non-fiction, fiction and stranger than fiction books about my experiences and perspectives, which I credit to angels. Those books are now free reads at archive.org, an internet library. At YouTube are about 30 no-ad, free episodes of The Redneck Mystic Lawyer Podcast, and about 30 later no-ad, free episodes of the The Redneck Mystic Podcast, where a younger angel-captured and beleaguered friend and I, but mostly me, hold forth on various topics in ways i never saw anywhere else.
I tell you these things, because it occurred to me this morning that maybe you are headed into your own version of what happened to me and is happening to my younger friend, who recently received the Stigmata wounds of Christ on both of his palms, after assassins nearly killed him over his political resistance work where he lives in America. 

 

Stigmata and bad men in America & Armageddon trap or peace in Palestine? https://youtu.be/iQGplrrj7aU

Yesterday, on Substack:

Truth Being Stranger Than Fiction
ELIZABETH RO
OCT 27, 2023
When I returned from India in 1975 I got married. I had a child and found myself a single mother at 28 years old. I left the town where my husband and I lived. I left in shame and scorn to some degree. My association with my spiritual pursuits (Buddhist Meditation) being the topic of gossip and an embarrassment to my ex's family.
Life continued; as well as my Discipline, and I had many experiences that transformed my Being and contributed to my knowledge-base.
About 7 years ago (2016) I attended the Los Angeles Times Book Fair in Los Angeles, California. It was at the book fair that I was given a small booklet titled, “A Heart Released”. This booklet is the only compiled notes to be put into writing from talks given by Phra Ajaan Mun, a Theravada Buddhist Monk, of the Thai Forest Tradition. I went home and read it and to this day I continue to reread it. I found this very small writing to be the quintessential dialogue on Vipassana Meditation-not in the instructional phase but in the transformational information that is relayed via the Discipline. The Preface and Introduction are written by a monk from the Thai Forest Tradition. His writing greatly impressed me.
Several years later while rereading the booklet I thought to myself that I would like to meet this monk that wrote the preface so I did a Google search of him and found that the monastery where he resides as Abbot was in SD. My son is now living in SD and I made a commitment to try to get in touch with the monk and try to visit the monastery when I was in the area.
My ex-husband remarried and they had one child; a son who is now 39 years old. It was within the past year that we found out that this son had become a Buddhist Monk. Since there are several monasteries of different traditions scattered across the U.S., I told my son to find out what monastery his brother lived in. He told me he would find out when he and his family visited the family in Alaska this August.
I also did a little more research on the Abbot of the monastery in SD and was surprised to find that he and I share the exact same birthdate; month, day and year!  We both followed the discipline of the Theravada/Thai Forest tradition meditation. Although he is quite educated, I am a mystic/fool. So, between the two of us it can be said that Head and Heart were both represented in the quest for Truth!
We have also just found out that the other son is in this Abbot’s monastery. The only grandchildren that my ex will most likely ever have is through our son-beautiful little twin girls. 
As this little piece of the story of my mystical journey unfolded, I could not help but feel the tug of destiny. Karma, neither good nor bad, teaches us that something greater than ourselves is constantly balancing the scales of a justice that is way beyond me. You see, I expected my son; our son to someday be the monk in the monastery… 

 

Sloan Bashinsky
Writes Sloan’s Newsletter
Liked by Elizabeth Ro
My favorite film about the spiritual path in modern times is The Razor's Edge. The "hero", played by Bill Murray, spends much of his life trying to collect arcane spiritual books, which he carries with him everywhere he goes. He ends up in a Buddhist monastery in highlands and is doing janitorial and kitchen work. One day, the lama sends for him and tells him it's time for him to go up on the mountain. As Murray starts to leave, the lama points to his satchel of books. Murray takes the books with him. He then is sitting and meditating on the mountain, and he is cold, and he lights a fire, and one day he gets the books out of his satchel and he tears the pages out one at a time and he burns them in the fire. Then, he comes down off the mountain and goes back into civilization, Paris, actually, where he meets and falls in love with a woman who is a prostitute and drug addict, whom he undertakes to save, and the pimp kills her, and Murray is left wondering what's next?  

 

Elizabeth Ro
I saw that movie and was impressed with it. It was Bill Murray's attempt at serious acting and I liked it. That good ole Straight and Narrow path. 

 

Sloan Bashinsky
Writes Sloan’s Newsletter
He finally had to give up searching and start living. I went through that, and the living was a bit more intense than the searching, which mostly was a lot more interesting than the living :-).
My favorite film about olden times, is Brother Sun Sister Moon, Francis of Assisi and Sister Claire.
I also loved Man Facing Southeast, which was a South American film. 
Now, I mostly watch pop movies and serials on Netflix and Prime :-), maybe kind of like taking aspirin or ibuprofen to cope with what life keeps finding ways to stretch me, since I can't drink anymore, and feel good plant extracts and pharmacy goodies never appealed to me.
    
This morning, I posted under Elizabeth Ro's Stranger Than Fiction.

Last night, I took a woman neighbor friend out to dinner at an Indian restaurant, which serves very different food from Indian restaurants I have tried in the psst. I tend to engage servers in restaurants, and when the young man, perhaps 30 years old, came to our table, I said, "Namaste", and he said, "Namaste".

While he was taking our order, I said, some years ago, a woman i loved came to me in a dream and said, "Sloan, you married Kali!" I woke up, terrified. My life got very interesting for a while after that. Interesting, as in, taking a lot of long hard looks as myself in the mirror, again. Some years later, I got tangled up online with someone in India, who i'd let into my email account, and he was giving me a really hard time. Finally, I told him about the dream, and that my wife was going to deal with him, and all of a sudden he was an entirely different person, and he restored my email account to me and said good-bye. A few years later, something similar happened with my checking account, and when I told the person in India about the dream and him being visited by Kali, he did an about face and restored my checking account and said goodbye.

    Imagine an American president, who has such experiences and perspectives. I told our server that I wanted him to be my agent, to help me star in a Bollywood movie in India, entitled. "American Man Married Kali."

    Then Imagine

sloanbashinsky@yahoo