Thanks Rei-
A little epiphany seems to have occurred here - See how this sounds to you.

I have a waking life and a sleeping life. I wake, eat, work, and then very tired to bed. I sleep, dream, act out my dream world activities until very tired of dreaming, I wake. The question is where we place validity.

If everything is a "dream", which I've long agreed on a logical basis, then that does not liberate me from dreaming it.  If I dream of a painful pinprick, it still hurts. So we go through the motions of whatever it is we're doing. That neither makes it real, nor unreal. It's simply what we have to do because of the way we encounter the moment.

Beyond this we have choices - most of which we do not see. It is in the ability to choose that we discover a way out of this activity sequence, and into some other. MBE didn't stop eating, walking around, and so on because those activities are innate to the way we're presented to the world - whether or not we can go beyond them later. What she did was discover that all she needed to do was to focus her intention and understanding, in her case gained through bible study and discussions, and she could exercise choices that are invisible to others because they lack the required belief system and flexibility to observe them.

Thus, as I interpret it, MBE effectively found a way to interact with the decisions that were made to bring her into the world, and to keep on changing her circumstances by further decisions.

If this is, in fact, the interpretation that you find valid, then what is presented here is the next step beyond Buddhism's remark that all is the product of Mind. The next step is to think of a better world, with intention. It's not going to take us to Nirvana, or Heaven, but it makes this life accessible to us so that we can more easily find our way.

How am I doing?

dave

That's interesting, Alan, because sometimes I have felt that you are doing something similar at times by talking about your own personal beliefs about God. This thread doesn't seem so different to me.

My grandmother who is in her nineties is a Christian Scientist and has hardly been sick a day in her life, so I tend to think that there can be some truth there. However, no one should suffer as your cousin did, and I understand why you would be angry about it.

Anyway, I like bright colors and everything, but it just seemed a little strong to me, so nothing personal meant by it, of course. 

Love on 'ya.

blink

its just a place to share Alan. I don't think its wise to blame an entire established religion, for one person's death.
if you were to do that, first you'd have to research all the people who had success with healing through this particular dogma, as you called it, and then you'd have to find all the cases which did not meet success. then you'd have to compare the two figures before declaring it a worthless dogma.

to support what I say, Rei explains the silent prayer may not always heal the particular ailment being asked for...but the prayer will yield SOME positive result as no prayer I believe is ever a wasted prayer.
all the more reason, we go around here, and you want to make sure you don't put all your eggs in one basket...
it is a world where we have accepted murphys law; anything that can go wrong most certainly could..its how we deal with it that counts, whether we can learn from the sufferings of others, and who knows really all the facts in any given moment about anything at all?

nice to be able to observe and even change one's mind occassionally about something due to more facts. I feel you are correct, your relative does not suffer any more, and that there were reasons for this tragic thing to occur, but they have been lifted off her.

but not lifted off of yourself. she wishes you not to suffer for her. she is fine.

my opinion. and the yellow is irritating I agree. calm down.

reading your next post I see we are getting graphic. I will say this about any physical condition, that god also will work through many fine medical science as well, and this sounds like a case of blind faith when her life may have spared just to untilize a little technology instead..when it comes to survival around here, we must not let ourselves there is only one way to get things done, we close the door to help that is readily available, because it simply is not working in some instances.

still these cases are not the norm, otherwise the religion would have folded up and gone bye bye a long time ago. it is still a useful thing to be looking at and studying to extract any useful ideas from and not be so stubborn, not to recognize we do have medical answers to prayers also.

and if they end up following something as ACIM? what would happen then R? 

some airy fairy like me might happen? I really like what ACIM did for me.

the more you oppose the concepts therein, I will talk about what ACIM has done for me, out of loyalty for him I follow.

but it is just beliefs and I allow you your expression totally, as I assume you grant me the same request. thank you, continue if u wish. I'm ready.

Alysia:

Perhaps you might be more willing to see that there are misleading sources of information. The extent to which you want to defend "everything," no matter what kind of evidence a person provides, is hard to understand. You often do so with ACIM based apologetics.

I find it odd that Christ would share as many words as he supposedly does in ACIM, and make no mention about the unfriendly spirits that exist.

Consider what Robert Monroe wrote in his book Ultimate Journey. He was concerned about unfriendly influences. The INSPEC told him that they do exist. Some evolved differently than us and don't think much of us. Some have experience being human. They can influence people. They aren't smarter than us, but they have a lot of experience (I don't remember Robert's exact words). Perhaps one of the ways they use their experience is to influence people who won't seriously consider the validity of the sources they read, and instead come up with a everything is hip approach.

Isn't it possible that some of the sources you so staunchly defend, might be the negative influences Robert wrote about, or somebody who is influenced by negative influences? If a person notices that a source is passing out misleading information, should this person just keep his or her mouth shut and say nothing, so he or she will appear loving to others? If such a person does keep his or her mouth shut, doesn't this make it easier for the deceptive sources that exist to mislead others? Shouldn't somebody stand up to them?

P.S. to my last post. Perhaps God's help sometimes shows up in the form of a Medical doctor.



LaffingRain wrote on Jan 18^th, 2008 at 4:13pm:

Dave:

Can't a person question questionable sources without being a scardy cat? Is ignoring what's out there and doing nothing, the same thing as being brave?

dave_a_mbs wrote on Jan 18^th, 2008 at 5:00pm:

Hi  ,
Faith trust and belief in something can bring about positive outcome as Dave so rightly said. But it is the placebo affect not religious dogma that brings this about. Remember the old days when the doctor still did house visits?. With his air of wisdom knowledge, white clothing and stethoscope, he listened to ones heart said a few comforting words wrote out a possibly useless script reassuring one that the “wonder” medicine would have immediate and positive effect. The moment he left one nearly always began to feel better. This is all that Christian Science does and it is nothing new mysterious and this approach to healing is as old as humans have existed as higher beings on planet Earth. Have you noticed that one makes an appointment with the doctor, and while waiting in his surgery the symptoms often vanish?

LaffingRain Dear, we are all entitled to our own private approach to the divine, I have my own but have never propagated it such as saying, we should follow Sai Babba or Mohammed or Jesus or and guru. I try to take what I feel is good and true out of all belief systems, be it from whichever mystical teacher and try to apply these truths to my life as best as possible. If I did not have this mindset I would not be a member of the afterlife knowledge forum, would I?

If we want to discuss Christian Science as a truth then why not move over to other belief systems such as Jehovah Witnesses, etc adinfintum (god forbid) who do not believe in the spiritual but maintain we have no soul and cease to exist when we die. Where do we then stop, the forum could degenerate into an endless argument about which sect, cult, church etc holds the truth. An impossible task.

Now if I state that Jesus said, this or that, I am not hinting that one should become a Christian or follow his teaching. (Jesus was not a Christian he was an enlightened being).
MBE was as far removed from being an enlightened being, such as Jesus was/is, as one is to infinity
alan
     

Dave,

You are in line with CS metaphysical practice when you practice redefinition of the situation.

However, there is more to it than that.  For years I practiced a meditation technique that was very effective.  It involved positive visualization and redefninition of bad situations.  

When I developed the situation that led me to accept the offer of help from a CS employee, I had worked endlessly with my old meditation method and had looked for another technique and tried several with no success.  I had always been very healthy.  I was an Army Sergeant in my youth and believed strongly in mind over matter.

I still consider myself a beginner in applying CS.  I know a number of Practitioners and have studied their lives and beliefs and methods, but I can't approach their results working for others at this point.  I have had some notable successes, but they are successful dozens of times per day.

I was amazed to see so many total duplicates in Moen's and Monroe's books with CS.  The idea of allowing others total free will, the idea of PUL, the expectation of total forgiveness, the refusal to render evil for evil, the idea of having nothing to fear and refusing to give in to fear, are just a few.

CS'ers often refer to it as Practical Christianity.   It is very non-charismatic and its Sunday Service consists of three hymns, a solo, a Bible selection selected by the First Reader, and the reading of the weekly lesson with selections from the Bible followed by correlative material from the Textbook.  

Christian Scientists refer to the main church room as the auditorium, not the sanctuary.  There is no alter, but an elevated platform and a podium for the First and Second Readers.

There is the Lords prayer repeated by the congregation, but CS specifically prohibits other public prayers.  "When thou pray enter into thy closet and thy father which sees in secret will reward you openly".  All prayer except the Lords Prayer in CS is silent and personal.

I have learned to handle physical situations very well by myself, but am still working on bringing harmony to discordant situations.  Those situations are where I usually call a Practitioner for help.  I recently called a practitioner about a situation with a customer where the user refused to accept that a problem was of their own making and was solved, was over.  There was a continuing series of personal attacks on an employee of mine and attempts to blame others.  After I discussed the situation with the Practitioner and she began to work on it, the negative feeling was replaced with expressions of gratitude by the user, which were totally appropriate under the circumstances.

CS is a body of knowledge that everyone can benefit by studying.  Jesus said he had to leave before the Comforter could come.  Invoking the Comforter, the Christ, the Holy Spirit, or however you refer to it, changes the apparrent situation to an expression of perfect harmony and elevated thought, the expression of PUL.

In that situation, problems vanish.  The trick is to be able to invoke it consistently.  MBE specifically prohibited a checklist or formula, saying it would become a ritual.  Avoiding ritual is one of the big things in CS.  Everyone must learn to invoke the Comforter by themselves.  Numerous examples of how this is done are provided in the Textbook, although they may not look like that to first time readers.

I have increased my understanding of things in my life experience by reading Moen and Monroe and expect to learn more as I apply Moen's techniques.

I see no conflict with CS and Moen's discoveries.  It is part of learning all we can in this wonderful life experience and maximizing our time here.