Maddie

Yes wise, but what I was wondering are what are the various attitudes towards the scriptures themselves?

Taping them to the vampires hat?

I appreciate the responses so far. I think as a follow up question I am curious about the various attitudes towards various sacred texts. I would like to hear thoughts on the texts themselves. Do you consider them merely useful information, or do you consider the texts and/or the reciting of the texts efficacious or having power in their own right? Basically.... do you: 1. Hold the Bible up to ward off the vampire? 2. Read what it contains at the vampire? 3. Read the instructions and then proceed to put the stake through the vampires heart yourself?

Seeking out suffering as beneficial is what the Buddha was doing before he become awakened, it is also one of the extremes that he rejected as ineffective when he proclaimed the middle way.

Let's not get carried away :-P

I don't see how it could. The Buddha said the thing that brings about awakening is wisdom.

I understand the point you are making, that suffering is considered a virtue in Christianity, but I fail to understand the virtue in suffering intrinsically. As you say correctly about the four Noble truths there is no virtue in suffering. This makes sense to me. How is it then that suffering in and of it self has value for it's own sake? This does not make sense to me.

Objective 1. (of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts. because it can be measured with instruments that will give one the same measurements regardless of who does the measuring. This is the definition of objective.

I don't like the words "right" or "wrong" because who is to say? But I will put it this way. The purpose of enlightenment is to end suffering. If seeking powers takes one from that then it will lead one into more suffering. So "wrong" no, beneficial to happiness and peace? no.

I'm sure I'll have someone argue this but in my opinion seeking enlightenment and power are contradictory. Powers my come as a side effect of seeking enlightenment but are not at all the goal. Power is adding to. Enlightenment is letting go. Seeking power feeds the ego, letting go reduces the ego. So as can be seen these are very contradictory.

The sun is a medium sized star and is smaller than some stars and bigger than others and there is a LOT of objective evidence to support this, it is called astronomy.

So as you said there are healing methods and I think the definition of this is pretty obvious. Martial methods on the surface level are to help one perform their martial arts better in fighting and such. Enlightenment is a bit of a loaded term depending on which tradition you are referring to, but in general it is to free oneself from desires so that one is liberated from the cycle of rebirth within Samsara. Another common practice motive is to gain powers. (which I am not a big fan of to be honest)

I guess it's hard to take something seriously that has no actual objective verifiable evidence. :-/

which is still karma lol

So I think if I really pay attention to how I feel when I contemplate the topic of money, its lots of anger, more than I even realized I had. ** edit: that being said my mantra to remove negative energy has more effect than my mantra to bring me good things, which to me is weird and unexpected.

I don't need to travel, it finds me just fine on its own. lol

Oh I do, but I'm not going to order out when I don't have to lol

I can't say I'm enthusiastic with the idea of making suffering a virtue.

I just got offered a potentially higher paying job in TCM so that seems swell! Thank you to all that have been doing your magick for me.... you know who you are

Yes, I realize from an orthodox Advaita Vedanta perspective this is not truly non-dual, but to a first century Jew it would have very much seemed that way. God was God and man was man and these lines were very distinct and not to be blurred. To say "you are gods" to a first century CE Jew in Israel was as radical of a statement as one could make.

So why are you discussing it here?

Jesus told the people that they were gods, that seems pretty non-dual to me. (John 10:34)

One only need look at the thirty thousand plus denominations to realize that almost any and all perspectives and interpretations of Christianity imaginable exist.

I think I know what you are speaking about and have had similar experiences of my own (which is why I can't just write the whole thing off, baby, bath water and all). When I was in my very protestant, very anti-Catholic church cult I was taking a walk in the German country side and came upon a road side crucifix shrine and had a similar experience to what you shared. I couldn't stop staring at the crucifix and had this profound spiritual experience. At the same time I do not understand the adverse attitudes in much of Christianity against homosexuality. The same section of the bible that seems to say something about that also says not to mix various types of fabric, shave ones beard, or eat pork or shell fish. Why is it then when a natural disaster happens then is there almost always at least one TV preacher blaming it on the gays, not not on the heathen fabric industry or the pagan shrimp fishing industry? I think the inconsistency of rule emphasis and the arbitrary nature of the rules themselves seems to be very confusing and not make sense.