https://open.substack.com/pub/atmidnightalltheagents/p/utopia-as-a-predicament?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=23h2fr Would love to hear feedback/thoughts on it, check it out if you want to!

Free will is knowing you have options, and having the power of choosing at your own discretion. Correct?

I've always been told the biggest difference between human and angel is that we have free will and they do not. I've always been told god gave us humans free will. Is that what you've always understood as well?

Angel's have no free will, yet Lucifer somehow rebelled and convinced half of the angels to also do so? Lucifer nor the others should have never been capable of even the thought.

When Adam and Eve were in the garden, did they always have free will? Did they really know their options, or were they ignorantly bound to do, think, say whatever god wanted?

I don't think they even knew they could disobey god until Lucifer told them they could - just like he did with the angels. The act of disobedience is what gave them knowledge of free will, not god. Lucifer taught us free will and god decided to take the credit.

What do y'all think?

I was sleeping in a room and I saw in my dream a shadow a silhouette it’s dark and I got scared on the silhouette background there’s some light and all I can perceive is that silhouette looks like a person wearing a robe and a light that looks like a crown. I am scared but something told me this person is the Virgin Mary. Some kind of powerful intrusive thought came to me telling me this thing that I see is Mary. All of a sudden I stood up and rush out of the room scared.

I don’t normally go to Church, even though I was baptized in the Catholic Church and I barely pray, but I do believed the Church to be true as a matter of faith even though I am a lazy member of the church.

After around 4 years I was reunited with a person that later became my wife. We lived together as she moved here in US and I was living here before her. We are not married at the time. One day she was sleeping and I woke up early morning to brush my teeth and all of a sudden I smell flowers, a strong smell of roses while I was brushing my teeth.

I got scared and a powerful intrusive thought told me this is the Virgin Mary although I did not see anything. A powerful smell of roses and what I can describe as a powerful intrusive thought telling me this is Mary! I got scared and I cried, I am overwhelmed. I think I am going crazy! I don’t know what to do such thought about The virgin Mary at that moment struck me it is very strong! I feel like i am losing it.

I went on to my life and even forgot about it. I got an offer to move to a different state and City. I got a job offer that relocated me to a City called Spokane. In Washington. Then my gf and I got married there and we are blessed with a beautiful daughter. During her pregnancy one night I have a dream I saw my GF at the time because we are not married yet, She is in the hospital on the bed and Her tummy which is my daughter and I also see a person right next to her and guess what it was the Virgin Mary in the hospital right next with my GF and daughter still in the tummy while my gf is on the bed. She is probably around 6-7 months pregnant when I had this dream.

My wife is about ti deliver the baby, she had a hard time. We came to the hospital because she felt the baby is about to come out. The delivery was prolonged we are waiting the baby do not want to come out yet but we were admitted already.

One night I while waiting while my wife is asleep. I wondered around the hospital at the hallways and corridors I am walking and all of a sudden as I wondered a far from our room, I saw a life size statue if virgin Mary in the hallway wearing the same exact robe when I saw her in my dream with my wife and bay at the hospital. I was shocked and really I don’t know what to think of it. The name of the hospital is providence in Spokane. We did not choose this hospital it just so happen this is the closest hospital where we live in the city of Spokane.

Our baby have to be suctioned out because she got stuck her head was sticking out but the rest of the body was still inside and this is normal delivery but my wife could not push no more. Doctors used a technique called vacuum they attached an instrument to pull out our baby. It was successful! Our baby also have a shoulder dislocated temporarily due to the process. She was healthy after that! I came with her in NICU for more monitoring and we reunited with her mom the next day!

I also learned that Spokane City up in Washington is where Fathers Day was originated, the very same City I became a Father! I believed that the Virgin Mary I saw in my dream in the beginning wearing dark was the Virgin Mary of Dolor which is called the Mother Of Sorrow. Coincidentally the Providence hospital in Spokane Washington where my daughter ther was born was built by Sisters or nun that have deep devotion to our Lady of Sorrow. Sister Emilie Gamelin and Mother Joseph Pariseau.

Until to this day I dont know If this is coincidence or this is what you can call a Miracle. Thanks for reading! These are true life events. What you think? What are your experience similar to this?

How is the idea of God being the One, or a similar concept in that he is "beyond being", and is the transcendent, immanent, and "unparticipatedly participated" interact with the belief that man was created in God's image? Is the terminology used here just to denote the importance of a being that is able to acknowledge the different aspects of how being came to be? And how does Jesus as the son of God play into this? I am very new to this and it is quite possible I am misunderstanding some of the language used in Neoplatonic Christian schools of thought.

So here’s what I’ve had troubles grasping for almost a decade.

The Bible states that God is all-powerful, omniscient, and all-benevolent. However, the events of humankind as the Bible have told them, say that God simply cannot be all three of these things from a logical standpoint. Let’s look at the All-benevolent side first. Naturally, total benevolence means that God has the desire to rid the world of evil. Then, when adding power to the mix, God must be able to rid all evil from the known creation. Then, finally, omniscience, in which God knows of all evil. The conflict lies when you try to combine more than two of these together, knowing that there is evil in the world. When God is all three, there is no evil. However, when there are only two, Evil can still exist. If god is omniscient and omnipotent, he knows of all evil and can rid the world of all evil, but has no desire to do so. When he is omnibenevolent and omnipotent, he can and desires to remove evil, but is unaware to some of the evil that exists. When he is omniscient and omnibenevolent, he knows of all evil and desires to remove it, but does not have the power to do so. So, why does evil exist? If the Bible states he is of all three qualities, how could evil possibly exist? Was the Bible unaware of faults?

As Coronavirus hits the world and religious sites are closed & churches, mosques etc are closing down congregations what is the point of God?

It dosnt matter who you pray to its always the same entity but a different proxy be it jesus allah krishna or the great dao prayer is connecting yourself with yourself control what you want to happen control your feelings and your ego and attract what you need and project outside its already proven we project waves and every thought and feeling has its own frequency that frequency creates the butterfly affect that attracts it back to you tur more focused you are the more clean and real it dosnt really matter if its considered "evil" or "good" the universe dosnt have feelings..

https://www.nobedad.com/article/world-view/c=30d1ec34af&nc=1

God and devil - one wants power, the other relates emotionally. demands and communicates.

god basically says "community" while devil basically says "listen to me!"

why would anyone want to be listened to and why would anyone say community?

aren't communities made of and from understanding people or people who understand each other?

ritualistic animal sacrifice is disassociated pain which causes a feeling of sorrow for causing the pain which is done in order to relieve pain from tension caused from not wanting to feel sorry for whatever which is the reason for the compulsive action. illogically and without a good reason feeling worthless seems to cause sacrificial ideals.

rebellious people tend to be more selfishly biased because selfishness is a vicious cycle of people not caring about each other with causes selfishness and rebellious thinking.

societal golden ages need socioeconomic changes for the benefit of the people and people will start having standards which will make them appreciate and value life of all kinds or they will shun life of all kinds because of prompt selfishness without coexisting with nature and other people. selfishness is caused by not relating adequately with other people which makes those kinds of people miserable from feeling inadequate and bitter. if people grow up with each other in a utopia that is not destructive to nature and the ecosystems then chances are that they will live socially happy lives.

I've been serving as a pastor part time, full time, and volunteer for over 16 years. I was raised a pastors kid, pastors nephew, and pastors grandson. I've seen this whole Consumer Christianity thing first hand my entire life, and I'm only now starting to get my hands around it. And frankly, I think it's killing the American Church, and is a cancer that needs to be rooted out if we expect to have any level of real impact in America.

I wrote an article about this today with this in mind here:

r/https://eagerfortruth.com/2018/08/16/we-need-more-community-at-our-church-so-im-leaving/

Check it out! Leave me some feedback! I would love a discussion to be birthed on this!

Hi all,

I've come across a fascinating book that talks about high level spiritual things from a scientific perspective. This book is intriguing as it talks about many similar things to what people in mystical states mention such as seeing into parallel dimensions and interacting with beings from other worlds etc.

This book is called Zhuan Falun and it is from the Buddha Law School of Cultivation however it is not Buddhism the religion or Daoism the religion, it's something more profound. It seems to me to be more of a spiritual science as many of the terms and concepts in the book are talked about in a scientific down to earth manner instead of flowery mystical prose which I found very refreshing.

Now here is where it gets interesting, this book talks about the following things:

● Other Dimensions - Levels Of Dimensions spanning into the microcosm and also outwards into the macrocosm

● The Soul - It talks about people having a Master soul and a subordinate soul which is hidden from you but is at a more advanced level then you, it states some people have more then one Subordinate soul and some are of not of the same sex as you i.e males having a female subordinate soul etc.

● Microcosmic worlds - This concept was very far out but it talks about there being worlds within you, countless worlds. Similar to our world with life , water, animals etc. An analogy is zooming an an atom within one of your cells and realizing at that level of magnification it is just like our solar system. Then zooming into a single particle in that world and finding out it too is a vast world, apparently the level it can go onwards like this is beyond imagination.

● Supernatural Abilities - In the book they mention that everyone has them it is just that they have atrophied. It goes into depth about this topic. Some abilities that are mentioned are precognition, retrocognition and remote vision.

● The 3rd Eye - Talks about how at the front part of our pineal gland there is a complete structure of an eye there. Modern science calls it a vestigial eye but in the cultivation world they say this eye just naturally exists like that and it can be activated allowing one to pierce through this dimension and see other dimensions. It talks about how there are many levels to this 3rd eye and it goes into great depth about it.

● Thoughts - This part was amazing. It talks about how a human brain is just a processing plant. How the real you is actually your soul, it's like your whole body and brain is just a vehicle and that the true commands are issued by your master soul, but this master soul is very tiny and it can switch positions while inside you and it can also expand and shrink. It can move from your brain to your heart and to other parts of your body and it is 'he' who calls the shots. Your brain is just the factory which your master soul sends his cosmic commands to which then create the forms of expression and communication we use such as speech, gestures, etc.

These are just a few things that are covered but there are many many other things which blew my mind when I read it because of how it resonated with some of the mystical experiences people sometimes have, especially the multidimensional nature of reality and how all of them are hidden in our day to day perceptions of the world.

If this sounds interesting to anyone you can grab a copy of the book here:

http://en.falundafa.org/eng/pdf/ZFL2014.pdf