our experiences are parallel. That's my main point, my bottom line. Here is a) where I am coming from (a world of stoners and lost souls and vampires) and b) how I make sense of things (my philosophy) and c) how it relates to what you're was saying.
"Sure, it is a lovely symbol", I would think in my arrogance, "but the Holy Spirit didn't need water to cleanse an earnest heart." You weren't being arrogant, in my opinion, you were being smart. It is just a ritual; a tradition that is a symbol for an inner conversion.
" The baptism is our first encounter with God, as the baptism of Christ was the first time all three persons are encountered together. Baptism is coming to God. "...?? I've encountered God without baptism. I've come to God without baptism. I agree that if you have the chance and the will, the formal ceremony of baptism would seem to be a lovely opportunity to make public your inner conversion. But God can always be "encountered". You don't need anything but faith. If you are open to God, who says you can't experiencing the Father, Son and Spirit simultaneously at certain moments in your life [other than Baptism]?
Not all of us righteous folk who are fighting against the darkside find such rituals necessary to wash away our original sin
Realistically, what is the only sin other than denying experience? God is inside all of us, I believe, so to hurt others is to commit crimes against God. But when we are young, we know not what we do. Morality is learned. We hit a certain age where most of us realize we must be accountable for our actions. Even less of us realize that humanity is divine, and God is within us all. Divinity is learned.
So in this case to sin would be to disrespect any human, whether it be yourself or others. Everybody sins. All of us are ignorant of how our actions affect their brethren when we should always keep in mind conscientiousness. So everybody sins in that sense. People don't do all they can to protect the Earth, which is sinning too, because we're disrespecting future generations. We must stop this ignorance. The ten commandments and the seven deadly sins are helpful reminders about which actions lead us to the darkside. If you think too much with your id and screw anything that moves, stuff your face with food, waste time with trivial games and be lazy, then you are hurting your body by over-indulging in extremes that, if done HABITUALLY, will lead you to become a selfish, self-destructive, self-absorbed person who hurts society because you hurt yourself by making the same mistakes over and over again. You will be in a living hell, as well as a burden who knows nothing of God.
If you work on punishing people, see yourself as holier or better than any other human so you feel as though you can use other people as means to an end, or arrogant enough to ignore others perspectives, their knowledge, their love and beauty, you become egoistical. People become objects or annoyances worthy of disrespect. Society itself becomes open to your wrath and manipulation to further goals of money and fame and vindication. So we ALL do things EVERY DAY to sin, because we chose to. Most of us love to get wrapped up in a meaningless video game, masturbation, a gossip magazine, American Idol, a dramatic argument (some of us even a physical fight), a bag of junk food, or to have arrogant thoughts. Most of us only do it in moderation, too. We don't care enough about working out to actually do it. We love our vices and addictions to earthly things. We chose to be ignorant to the consequences of our actions such as poor health, and to the fact we can't take our hobbies with us when we go. Every now and then we indulge on expensive gifts for ourselves or get really wasted or do something extreme. And then we try to balance it out with another extreme. We get caught up in vicious cycles of poor habits and extremes. What we need to do is get out of these vicious cycles as soon as we become aware of them. [Realize evils we’re doing, no matter how small, and CHANGE to stop]
We need to know, so far as our knowledge allows us, the consequences of our actions. RESPONSIBILITY. To forgive, love, respect and try to understand our selves-body, mind and spirit-and do the same for others. That is responsibility. That is washing away the sins of the day. The war of good and evil takes place within us all, every day, every moment. At the end of the day, we must take care to see how we can change to live up to the standards of good and evil. Original sin says that we are born into sin. That is when we are kids and we don't know any better. We must learn all the virtues, the golden rule: "do unto others what you would have done unto yourself"; respect, nonviolence, faith, honesty, trust, loyalty, positivity, patience, discipline. We learn that it is good for ourselves and for society to follow these virtues, because to not do so would be self-inflicted violence. That is the first of the two stages of leaving original sin.
Then you learn divinity. That is a life-long process. You realize that society enables and rewards violence, stupidity, unbridled competition, indulgence, crooks, and Machiavellian tactics. You realize the status quo has something to lose if poverty, violence, self-indulgence, low self-esteem, mistreating the planet, faithlessness, fear and hate R discontinued and no longer celebrated. Your whole life has been a lie. You need 2 save yourself, help others and help the world. No one else is going to for u Not everyone reaches the divine level. Some people will be honest, trustworthy, and kind to others, but those are only secondary virtues. The Divine is the Primary Virtue. I know some self-destructive drunks and stoners and low self-esteem and cocky people who will probably never change because they don't WANT to, and you have to WANT to change to change. Their intentions to others are good, but they know not what they do on the Divine level. They are caught in vicious cycles, with unnecessary addictions and suicidal tendencies. They live with fear and some lies of polarization, some dividing the world into black and white. They are negative, irresponsible, immature, selfish and aggressive. They know not forgiveness, self-respect or faith; their lack of positive contribution to society by way of ignorance makes them burdens on a strict sense of hurting their environment by continuing traditions of hate, fear and lies. But their intentions are good- they are mostly good people. They don't go out of their way to or consciously harm themselves and others. They aren't as whiskey-bent and hellbound as they seem. They are a flock who are afraid of change- the security of their substance and other behavioral addictions provides stability in a world of uncertainty. The solidarity of their clans make them feel a part of something bigger than them, and give them a sense of family, tradition and belonging. They know the golden rule and know injustice when they see it- except when it is their own. They don't know God is inside of them; or they do, but fail to act on it. Afraid of change, uncertainty and blind faith, they stick to what they know. This just may not be the lifetime in which they will understand divinity. We can't always blame these people. We can judge their words and actions to be false, but we can't judge the person- that's up to God.
But if they so chose to encounter God- then they go about it their own way. An ideal way would be to study the wisdom of Hinduism, Gnosticism, primitive religions, ancient Hellenic philosophy, Judaism, Christianity and its branches, Buddhism and its branches, Islam, Sikhism, existentialism, Baha'ism and new-age holistic spirituality. Don't forget all the masters- the Zen masters, the poets, the skeptics, the saints, the philosophers, and personal experience (which may be mystical). This is what I think you and I do. Taking the Life of Pi approach and studying multiple traditions at once is noble enough for me.The key is Participation in the Divine, which I believe we talked about before on Facebook- dancing, surfing, seeking knowledge, art, praying, meditating, doing yoga, doing a skill, contributing to society, viewing nature, being humble- they are all ways to encounter God, because God is Love, Truth and Beauty (not limited to those, though). People like us who have realized Divinity- and thus have entered the second stage- have already been baptized on the inside. Ceremonies are participation in the divine because it involves meeting God halfway- you take part in the ceremony and do what you have to do and the water the Source- God. Who's to say I can't baptize myself in the sense of participation, though?I've already converted, on the inside, to God. Not just the God of the Bible, but also the universe of the Buddhist, the life force of the ancient native, the first cause and prime mover of the Greeks, Allah, the God of my own existentialist creation, or as the Gnostics or spiritualists would put it, the Light within and without me.
Am I going to become a Christian priest, a Buddhist monk, a Muslim imam, a Rabbi, a Baha'ist leader, a philosopher, a poet, a Gnostic? No! Why limit myself to just one?? I wasn't meant to go in depth in EVERY religion- just to unite them all for the purpose of bringing about World Peace I've had my own private ceremonies, and should I chose to baptize myself one day, it will be a day when inclusivity is recognized, so people recognize the baptism ceremony for what is REALLY is- a public induction into Divinity Itself- not JUST Christianity. The conversion to God has already happened, just not, as YOU would say, "officially". But the trinity is in my soul- the baptism in my soul- I am the trinity, and so are you, and so is everyone who fights every day against the daily outpour and inpour of sin [vicious cycles of the ego, superego and the id] to be one step closer to God. Those who fight for the Divine in a daily Jihad (struggle to realize God) are all on our level, Brant. I don't know what God's purpose for you is, but for me, His/Her/It's purpose is to help others realize that the Divine is inside them and recruit them from Boy/Girl of God to Man/Woman of God: to live on that level of conscientiousness, respect, love, forgiveness, faith, patience, discipline & positivity. So they can C the error of their waysIn a sense, to Baptize. Some aren't ready for their outward display of Holy Devotion and Gratitude. They still are on their path toward Inner Light, the self-discovery of God. I know atheists and believers who are ignorant to this inner light. I am a preacher without a religion, because there is no One Name for God and His Holy Texts and his Institutions. I respect your traditions, and your beliefs; I even honor them, Brant. But please, don't think for a second that your way is the only way: that Baptism as you have experienced it will get you anywhere I can't get without it.
my whole philosophy is that God is in everyone, so I'm no holier than anyone else. I don't know what to say about people born with brain malfunctions where their frontal lobes don't work, though. I wouldn't mistreat them or anything. I can be on different levels than other people, though.
There's Machiavellian people, there's moral people, and then there's righteous people. Machiavellian people dropped out of the whole "golden rule" and divine thing. Moral people follow the golden rule but mistake for the forest for the trees. Righteous people strive to realize their divinity (jihad) and humble themselves before God- their morality is a secondary virtue to and therefore subjugated to God, whether it be the Architect, the Watchmaker, the Holy Trinity, the Life Force of the Universe, the First Cause and Prime Mover, the Unknown Ineffable Spirit, Allah, whatever...
I see Brant and I as righteous because we continually strive to realize God in our lives and in ourselves. ..
Righteous people live for an eternal principle that connects everything in the universe to themselves, they have faith in a future that cannot be seen, they transcend all their actions up to a grand design that structures all that is seen and unseen. They strive for balance, for conscientiousness, for elevation of the mind to its divine purposes. Faith gets them high- all worldly things are gifts, miracles, illuminated with the potential for the kind of beauty that comes when the divine mind and compassionate heart fuse and marry the worldly, temporary object and create a synthesis of man and object to reflect the divine inside the person and outside the person.
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