Joe, i bow deeply to your expression and example of pure enLightenment, may we all come to know and especially live such undistorted and pure truth as you. 

  What, doth i sense a hint of sarcasm and insincerity on my part?  Oops, guess i'm not always as sincere as i pointed myself out to be earlier.

Thank you Justin, I am not as deserving as you might feel I am. No, no, I sense no sarcasm nor insensearty from you that I haven't felt for the past few years. Why you haven't changed at all.
I believe strongly about the torture of animals. Of course I feel strongly about the torture of all living things, not just the beings. I wonder if Jesus was a vegetarian? Of course if he wasn't, perhaps another re-write could be in order. Of course I wonder why God put those animals here in the first place. Or why we, as in his image, have a necessity to eat. So many questions yet to be answered. Perhaps I am not as enlightened as you believe me to be. But thank you for all the sensearty that I have grown to expect from your posts.
(I wonder what my name implies? Joseph, hmm)

The word Joseph has a Hebrew origin, meaning "Jehovah or God increases." It is one of the most popular first names and surnames in the world with as many as 44 variants of which some of the popular one are Joe, Jose (Spanish version), Jodi, Josef, Giuseppe etc. In Arabic, the word Joseph is spelt as Yusuf.

The Old Testament shows Joseph as one of the 12 patriarchs of Israel and the son of Jacob. He was sold by his brothers into slavery because their father was partial in giving Joseph a coat of varied colours. The New Testament shows Joseph as a carpenter and the earthly father of the son of God Jesus Christ. Joseph also refers to an outer garment, worn as a long riding coat with a little cape, used by women in the 18th century.

I figure this conversation isn't accomplishing much, so I'm out of it.

It doesn't seem to matter how logical or non-logical our words are, in the end people believe what they want to believe.

In the future I'm considering the approach of stating what my experiences have been, and limiting the logical arguments.

My intentions are always good, but I don't want to make the mistake of being too pushy.

recoverer wrote on Feb 3^rd, 2009 at 3:39pm:


  I've been wondering the same thing.  Maybe it is a mistake to try to convince anyone through debate of such issues.  Yet, sometimes i sense it does plant subconscious seeds in some people here and there (rarely the ones you are directly debating with though). 

   I will try to follow your example in the future as well.  Thank you for your input. 

Robert,

You probably feel that no one has directly answered your question.  The answer is problematic because of the problem of distinguishing the real Jesus from spirit impersonators, projector thought forms, and sheer imagination.  An astral Jesus that basically quotes Gospel texts and confines his cmmunications to the parameters of Scripture might be suspect on the grounds that "He" is merely an imaginative expression of the projector's wishful thinking.  A Jesus who expresses New Age Ghetto rhetoric that contradicts the historical Jesus must be dismissed as either a spirit impersonator or a mere thought contruct from the projector's preconceptions.  In another thread, I have demonstrated in detail why the Jesus of ACIM is a spirit impersonator, indeed an impersonator that took Helen Schucman's life through the depression psychosis that resulted from her channeling "Jesus."  

So how can we discern "the real" Jesus?  Many atheists with no biblical training encounter Jesus during NDEs.  They are typically upset and tell Jesus something like "But I don't even believe in you!"  To this Jesus typically responds: "But I do believe in you!"  If Jesus proceeds to share teachings that are unknown to the atheist but consistent with biblical teaching, then the real Jesus is probably communicating to transform the atheist's life.    

Apparitions of Jesus often appear to Muslims who despise Christians.  In itself, such encounters lack unique evidential value because the Koran honors Jesus as a virgin-born prophet.  But apparitions of Jesus are a frequent way the Muslims are being converted to Christianity!  Recently a Ugandan children's choir sang in my church.  These children come from a part of Uganda with many Muslims.  A Muslim father of one of theses children  was converted to Christianity through a vision of Jesus.  A leader of this African choir said that Jesus routinely comverts Muslims there to Christianity through such visions.  I have previously posted the account of an Ethiopian Muslim mullah who wanted to kill Christians, but was converted and cured of AIDs through an apparitional encounter with Jesus.  

What is striking about these Muslim conversions is that Jesus never told them that Christianity was superior to Islam.  Rather, the apparition of Jesus itself somehow brought without words the certainty that the Jesus of the Gospels is the true Jesus who is reaching out to them to establish a personal relationship.  One of the best criteria for discerning the real "astral Jesus" are cases in which these astral encounters cannot be explained as either wishful thinking or projected thought forms from the projector's imagination.  

Another excellent criterion is the projector's ability to bring back paranormal verifications of the genuineness of his Jesus' enounter such as a miraculous healing or clairvoyant knowledge of the future.   The astral projector with the best verifications who encounters Christ is the 18th century Swedish mystic, Emanuel Swedenborg.

The most interesting case of an encounter with Jesus in an NDE is atheist Howard Storm's encounter narrated in his gripping book, "My Descent into Death."  Much of Jesus' teaching during this NDE would be dismissed as heretical by many conservative Christians.  But in my view, much of this extra-bibilical teaching can be verified by non-canonical books that we know Jesus admired, but which the projectors have not read.  I am comtemplating a new thread devoted to Storm's book. No one has ever devoted a thread here to Storm's NDE.

I will soon be meeting with a group of atheists and agnostics who are fascinated by such questions and want to meet with me in a church member's home for a bristling discussion.  I look forward to meeting and sharing with these strangers.  I have asked the host to ask them to provide me with a set of burning questions about Christianity and the paranormal so that they (and not I) can set the agenda for our dialogue.

Don

   

Beau,

In what sense do you feel qualifited to make this distinction?  Can it be that your project a bad experience with particular churches onto an entire movement you know little about?  For example, take my church which is quite typical.

5 days a week we host ministries to the needy--Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Habitat for Humanity. Scouts, and Cubs, and (regularly but not weekly) a Community Blood Drive for our local hospital.  We sponsor a generous Love Fund (free gas and food vouchers; motel rooms, etc.) for the needy poor and provide free lunches for them.  Our people run a youth center for the poor that feeds them regularly and clothes them when they need it.  We take turns preparing the meals.  Our people are helping build a Senior Center for the elderly of all faiths (or none) and currently provide them a weekly lunch at church.  We also bring elderly shut-ins Meals-on-Wheels.  And these are only some of the projects that our small church (125 on Sundays) performs in our town.  It does not include what we do abroad (building schools, etc.). 

OK, Beau, I have two questions for you: (1) How is all this "Christianity," but not Jesus' brand of discipleship?  (2) What are you and other denizens of this site doing that is comparable to our church in demonstrating PUL?   Until you give me some reason to believe otherwise, I will assume that your wedge between Jesus and Christianity is driven without little understanding of either.

Don