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Post by ~Sephity~ on Apr 15, 2010 22:09:48 GMT -5
reluctant-messenger.com/main.htmThis is a pretty cool site a friend showed me. I can really appreciate what it has on there, i think you guys should check it out.
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Post by KG on Apr 17, 2010 17:52:00 GMT -5
It looks like they read a lot of stuff I have read... which would lead me to think that I should read the texts they list that I haven't read. Sounds like they are into a lot of the same things I am. Cool!!!! Thanks for this... a lot of good reading I am sure!
Thanks!!!!
Kim
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Post by ~Sephity~ on Apr 18, 2010 8:27:06 GMT -5
Very good reading. I explained the story(from r-m POV) about the creation of us and such to a bunch of friends and they found it rather interesting.
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Post by Xavrael on Apr 19, 2010 15:20:26 GMT -5
An interesting read to be sure. Not entirely sure how I feel about the whole, 6000 year thing mentioned, as far as human development goes and how old the world is and such, but It had little morsels for thought =).
I liked it.
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Post by KG on Apr 19, 2010 17:21:50 GMT -5
Hi Xav,
Great to hear from you! How have you been?
I haven't gotten to read as much of that yet as I would like. I've had a lot of distractions this week, but I plan to read it soon.
In general though, I've come to believe that most of the numbers in the bible, especially as it refers to time, as being symbolic and having a deeper meaning than just how many of something. I've noticed that in general when angelics speak of how many they often use a number that speaks of the character of a thing, rather than number it's members or the number of years it's been around.
For example, many of the Gnostic texts and bible passages use the number seven, for anything having to do with the holy spirit. The bible says the gifts of the spirit are seven, and the Holy Spirit is seven fold, but the gifts of the spirit are more than seven. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are limitless, there are so many gifts we get from that daily... but seven is the number of completion, and the holy spirit completes us. It's not that it gives us seven specific things, it gives us everything we need. Similarly we re to forgive our brother seventy times seven times, and that doesn't mean that the 491st time our brother sins against us we are allowed to not forgive him... it means we forgive him as many times as is necessary. That's what seven means completely, enough, as needed... among other things.
The six thousand years is symbolic too... and also leads up to seven eventually... 7 will be enough, and what the true value of seven is will be determined by God, God says when enough is enough, not some external and literal system of counting. 6 is just the number of man. Therefore 6000 is saying something about mankind. 7 is saying something about the holy spirit.
That's just how I have come to think of it, after figuring on it for a long time. There's more to it, but I really don't think the numbers are literal. Also the word day is often used to describe any period of time, as in era or epoch.... and never based on the number of actual days or years, more on the symbolic meaning of the digets.
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Post by Xavrael on Apr 19, 2010 17:40:19 GMT -5
I've been...alive! ;D and also kinda dead o.O but the living part is easier to explain Yeah, when you read it, he means a literal 6000 years, though the days of creation, he describes as what you mentioned, a day being possibly billions of years to an unlimited, immortal creator (God). Still though, I thought it was a good read. Funny that I had recently started looking up the Gospel of St. Thomas and it kinda popped up here too.
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Post by KG on Apr 20, 2010 3:09:56 GMT -5
Well glad you are basically among the living, and I might be able to understand about being partly dead too. I went through a period which was like being dead, and alive, walking both sides heaven and earth, and then neither one, and coming around in heaven, feeling kind of dazed here, and not here all that much. As for the Gospel of Thomas and other Gnostic Gospels the best site I have found is the Gnostic Society Library. www.gnosis.org/library.htmlThey have everything, so you can go through it one at the time. It's all good reading, but you have to decide the merit of each book seperately because it is a sort of random collection... just books that have been hidden, banned and persecuted for the most part. The Gospel of Thomas is probably older than most if not all of the books in the NT. I am fairly sure that one is authentic, and authored by Thomas the disciple, as opposed to Matt. Mark Luke and John which were written later by the students of the disciples.. probably from either notes, or oral teachings of the disciples. There is one by Mary Magdaline too, and it is very interesting. Some of the stuff in the collection is pre-christian philosophy which was just happened to be found in the same collection.
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