Desmond Ford's New Book Recalls Conflict Over Sanctuary Doctrine, Dismissal from Adventist Employment

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Following along with the narrative as if it were literal: I think it is because our natural, innocent state is primary process and preconceptual.

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Dennis and I have been talking about the “flow” state. That is the playful state, the Sabbath state, if you will.

I imagine the Garden as a Flow State.

Milhaly Csikszentmihali:

Activity and reflection should ideally complement and support each other. Action by itself is blind, reflection impotent.
It is relatively easy to bring order to the mind for short stretches of time; any realistic goal can accomplish this.

But it is much more difficult to extend this state of being through the entirety of life.

For this, it is necessary to invest energy in goals that are so persuasive that they justify effort even when our resources are exhausted, and when fate is merciless in refusing us a chance to have a comfortable life.

If goals are well chosen, and if we have the courage to abide by them despite opposition, we shall be so focused on the actions and events around us that we won’t have the time to be unhappy.

And then we shall directly feel a sense of order in the warp and woof of life that fits every thought and emotion into a harmonious whole.

—Flow. p. 226, 227

Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes.
Is the deed ever truly done.
For Heaven and the future’s sakes.
—Robert Frost

My sense is that languages have something to do with landscapes and our physical bodies, so the “original language” would have been an organic expression of our physical bodies in situ.

Stan Tenan is an interesting guy:

That reminds me of what my friend, Pauli, told me about the Finnish language.

It’s late…I’d like to continue responding to your interesting post…tomorrow maybe.

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And let me just add that Genesis didn’t say “the evening and the morning were the seventh day.”

We’re meant to live in this playful Sabbath Flow State.

Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Children live in primary process.

Adventism is a Restorationist religion.

It is very complicated to become simple.

Geoffrey Paxton suggested that Adventism is recapitulating Christian history.

So it seems.

The Tabernacle of David involves a kind of backwards/forwards time warp.

Just some vagrant thoughts…amateur theologizing is a great Adventist indoor sport…

Joseph Chilton Pearce: Leslie White spoke of culture as an "organism" with life and death cycles of its own. But the cultural effect, by which we are conditioned, blinds us to a primary process that is our true source of communion and social being.

Each of us is born with a “life scheme” that is masked, inhibited, and finally dominated by the process of acculturation. For all intents and purposes, this primary program, which is our birthright, becomes nonexistent through acculturation.

Once our primary program is masked into noncognizance, culture emerges as the dominant meta program in our organism. Once this meta program of culture becomes dominant, it shapes our experience into an arbitrary and parallel counterfeit of that which is real.

Once this meta program takes over our perceptual apparatus, it is the only mode we have for interacting with reality. Once that happens we can’t question our culturally conditioned state, since that is our only reality experience.

We hunger for a wholeness and express it on every hand.

The scientist longs for a “field theory” to unify the fragments of his thought. Ultimate prediction and control are his dream.

The theological equivalent expressed long ago as monotheism.

The scientific form expresses as an insatiable appetite, an intellectual concupiscence desiring more than the very stars could ever assuage.

Here’s my Boulder friend, Duncan Campbell, interviewing Joseph Chilton Pearce on Living Dialogues:

http://podcasts.personallifemedia.com/podcasts/212-living-dialogues/episodes/2721-joseph-chilton-pearce-biology

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No time for protracted response atm, but have often felt, once we lose our awe, we lose it all.
The admonishment of God to “fear” may well be closer to “revere” (also a baggage laden concept). I prefer “awe”, especially to “know it all” (although self-confessedly, I also love to learn)

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That is an interesting question, Timo. In other words, is speech an effect of the Fall?

The word “communion” comes to mind. The sense I get from this is: resonant nonverbal communication:

Ellen White: The Saviour's life on earth was a life of communion with nature and with God.

In this communion He revealed for us the secret of a life of power.

In a life wholly devoted to the good of others, the Saviour found it necessary to turn aside from ceaseless activity and contact with human needs, to seek retirement and unbroken communion with His Father.

All who are under the training of God need the quiet hour for communion with their own hearts, with nature, and with God.

http://www.whiteestate.org/books/mh/mh3.html

Communion with:

  1. God
  2. Nature
  3. Our own hearts

Surely this communion involves a free exchange of nonverbal information in resonance with the Other?

Dennis and I are talking about mirror neurons, the brain insula, and shared pain, empathy. I think this goes along with the idea of communion.

I firmly believe in the “Innernet” of communion between humankind, nature and God.

I’ve heard Noam Chomsky lecture several times in Boulder:

I would lean toward the thought that the physiological basis of language is innate (fundamental, God-given), and that language is an organic expression of human beings in situ. And certainly our anatomy seems designed for language, and not incidentally, song.

But, surely, language is corrupted when divorced from communion with God, nature, our own hearts and each other.

As Ellen White said, Communion is the secret of a life of power.

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Very interesting musings, Timo! It would seem that Ellen White agrees with you, and I certainly agree with you!

Ellen White: While they remained true to God, Adam and his companion were to bear rule over the earth. Unlimited control was given them over every living thing. The lion and the lamb sported peacefully around them or lay down together at their feet.

The happy birds flitted about them without fear; and as their glad songs ascended to the praise of their Creator, Adam and Eve united with them in thanksgiving to the Father and the Son.

The holy pair were not only children under the fatherly care of God but students receiving instruction from the all-wise Creator. They were visited by angels, and were granted communion with their Maker, with no obscuring veil between.

They were full of the vigor imparted by the tree of life, and their intellectual power was but little less than that of the angels. The mysteries of the visible universe–“the wondrous works of Him which is perfect in knowledge” (Job 37:16)–afforded them an exhaustless source of instruction and delight.

The laws and operations of nature, which have engaged men’s study for six thousand years, were opened to their minds by the infinite Framer and Upholder of all.

They held converse with leaf and flower and tree, gathering from each the secrets of its life. With every living creature, from the mighty leviathan that playeth among the waters to the insect mote that floats in the sunbeam, Adam was familiar. He had given to each its name, and he was acquainted with the nature and habits of all. God’s glory in the heavens, the innumerable worlds in their orderly revolutions, “the balancings of the clouds,” the mysteries of light and sound, of day and night–all were open to the study of our first parents.

On every leaf of the forest or stone of the mountains, in every shining star, in earth and air and sky, God’s name was written. The order and harmony of creation spoke to them of infinite wisdom and power. They were ever discovering some attraction that filled their hearts with deeper love and called forth fresh expressions of gratitude.

So long as they remained loyal to the divine law, their capacity to know, to enjoy, and to love would continually increase. They would be constantly gaining new treasures of knowledge, discovering fresh springs of happiness, and obtaining clearer and yet clearer conceptions of the immeasurable, unfailing love of God.

http://www.whiteestate.org/books/pp/pp2.html

So perhaps Joseph Chilton Pearce is correct that we live in a “word-built world” and need to recover our primary process.

Perhaps we don’t need alphabets to take in resonant knowledge of Creation and our Creator?

I wonder too…I’ll have to reflect more on that…

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Hanz Gutierrez: Gullibility has a double face: that of the easily deceived, exploitable, unwary and unguarded, but also of the trusting, innocent, enthusiastic, spontaneous and cheerful believer.

Religious gullibility is certainly not adequate alone. It cannot be the sole ingredient of a real and balanced faith experience, but it represents and expresses at best the essence of faith, which is not a rational or pragmatic equation, but an attitude of the whole being in pre-rationally affirming trust in God.

In this sense Friedrich Schleiermacher, the founder of modern theology, was perceptive when he defined religion as the feeling of absolute dependence, or as the consciousness of being in relation to God. In his “Addresses on Religion” (1979) he wrote:

“Religion is the outcome neither of the fear of death, nor of the fear of God. It answers a deep need in man. It is neither a metaphysic, nor a morality, but above all and essentially an intuition and a feeling. … Dogmas are not, properly speaking, part of religion: rather it is that they are derived from it.

Religion is the miracle of direct relationship with the infinite; and dogmas are the reflection of this miracle…”

This immediacy of believing is not alien to the Bible. And Jesus himself describes it as the essence of a true faith (Matthew 6:25-34). We can’t generate God in our lives with a correct idea or a coherent practice. “Religious gullibility” reminds us of God’s ontological precedence, of his ontological abundance that only an immediate gratitude can perceive and make our own.

This is the task of a needed “Enchanted dialectical Theology” which, while affirming God immediately, doesn’t stop being critical.

And, in this, Latin-American Adventism can give a partial, but certainly positive, contribution.

Hanz Gutierrez is a Peruvian theologian, philosopher, and physician. Currently, he is Chair of the Systematic Theology Department at the Italian Adventist Theological Faculty of “Villa Aurora” and director of the CECSUR (Cultural Center for Human and Religious Sciences) in Florence, Italy.

Toward a Latin-American Theology: The Praise of Gullibility

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Enchanted Dialectical Theology.

What a delightful phrase. Makes your mind feel all bubbly.

So I’m thinking that Genesis is not linguistic. It’s not speaking to that part of our brains.

Later…

Philosopher, David Abrams:

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George, you are defending error but that’s your prerogative - the fact REMAINS; Ford largely relied on the LXX and Alexandrian for his “Word” inspiration - the crux of the topic you have stayed away from. You should have discerned this if you read the documents as you claimed and Ford’s own words attest to this. This is not a lie or an abasement of Ford in any way as you have falsely stated. In Ford’s own papers you will find his commentary about the Masoretic where he used terms like “outmoded” and provided ample commentary about his preference for the LXX and Alexandrian.

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because there is no historical mention of it until much, much later. The dating is based on the letter itself (how do you date a fraudulent letter? By supporting it’s stated date?) but it comes down to WHAT the translation states. First off, it is NOT the oldest, the Masoretic is - and when compared to the DSS (specifically the Isaiah scroll) it’s the most spot on. Second, just compare the LXX with the MS on this passage: Lev 16:16-17. The difference is VERY obvious.

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Frank - the Gospel writers did not use the LXX, this is a fraud perpetuated by those who support the Septuagint.

Luke 4:18-19 in the KJV says,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”

Compare the above with Isaiah 61:1-2 in the LXX as well as in the Hebrew scriptures:

LXX (Lancelot C. L. Brenton English translation of the LXX):

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me; he has sent me to preach glad tidings to the poor, to heal the broken in heart, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind; to declare the acceptable year of the Lord”

Hebrew (as translated in the KJV):

“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD”

See:http://www.kjvtoday.com/home/reliable-hebrew-text/did-jesus-quote-luke-418-19-in-the-septuagint

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I already told you in another post that the best for you would be to skip my posts. And please, do not reply, I am not interested in your arrogant writing.

And, after all, who are you to tell others, “you are defending error?” Are you actually determined to be annoying to others who have a different view than you? It looks like.

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Oh George, just be meek, he has been anointed to be arrogant in order to teach!
“Word inspiration” (even if it is camouflaged artfully) is horrible violence to truth-to demand it be in the Kinges Olde Englishe, and not, say, Aramaic (or Greek), apparently is not a problem.

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Oh Timo, how did I miss that? (Actually, I didn’t even read it! No time for that…)

One of the saddest conditions is when someone deludes about being anointed for a certain “mission” then becomes annoying to others by being arrogant. We saw this here a few times before, so this one just another case of someone coming here as a “teacher and savior” of those poor naked souls that do not understand the (their) truth.

Sad indeed.

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I remain convinced that the lowest form of hell is to be brought back for another tour,
but this time with the delusion that, god-like, you know everything.
Pray for such folks, for they need it more than ever will they know.

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George, you have made it clear that you defend Ford - you also stated that my post was a lie in which you tried to roll out a defense yet touched none of the actual topic; and those were your words. So, if you care not to discuss in a civil way the facts at hand but rather deflect, so be it. Peace to you.

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Timo, when you call me arrogant in a back-handed way you are bearing false witness. Please refrain from such, it’s unchristian and uncalled for.

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That’s rather ripe coming from you. You’ve repeatedly insulted anyone here that makes a statement that disagrees with your beliefs, and even people not here that disagree with you. You’ve created entire classes of people in order to insult them and their beliefs.

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They all say the same thing. What’s your point?

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These are your words, "peace to you."
But your acts, unfortunately, do not match your words. You have been disturbing the peace here for a few weeks now I believe, creating friction with everyone.
Unless you start matching your words with your acts, your “words of peace” will continue being what they have been so far, mere hypocrisy.

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my point was Leviticus 16:16-17