Good perspective, Spencer! It is the age old issue of people trying to become God instead of following God. If there is a God, we are accountable. These people do not want accountability. They want to be their own God.
I love how you bring it back to people believing they are the first to have these thoughts/problems or propose these solutions. Every day I feel the truth of this line from one of your more recent independent posts more and more “because we know exactly nothing and think we thought of everything ourselves”.
Call me old-fashioned. I cherish my humanity with all it's glorious and messy memories. If my Savior deemed humanity worthy to inhabit and willingly relinquish for me, call me old-fashioned and eternally grateful.
I've really enjoyed the letters thus far, particularly the part about memory and God, at least as I understand them. I'm a 12 Step guy and often get asked to lead at meetings. During a lead most of us discuss how in retrospect we can see God acting in our lives long before we got sober. Once we practice the Steps we attempt to develop conscious contact with a God of our understanding and that takes me back to the God of my childhood. All of this is done by way of memory of past events and feelings. Thank you for the letters.
“They want to shrug off their pitiful human limitations once and for all.” To paraphrase Inigo Montoya, “I do think that means what they think it means.”
Seems like Stoics/Hackers hate insignificance, fear death and conquer flesh by an overpowering self-discipline, some of which results in virtue and charity. Maybe Christians hope in life after life, discipline flesh by surrendering self, and embrace this incarnation, this spirit in a body, some of which results in treasures in heaven?
Yes, I saw an interview with this Bryan Johnson. He could be the poster child for our current culture which desperately seeks to deny the inevitability of death, of not of death but even of aging. However, Johnson is consumed by awareness of death rather than the attempt to avoid thinking of it at all.
Thank God for God and for the certain hope that trust in God will lead us to dwell with Him beyond this creation, time, and space.
If life eternal were to consist merely of life on earth in our fallen state, the n I must say , “Thanks but no thanks.”
There are 8 billion plus opinions about the creatures on earth who can speak, analyze abstracts, demonstrate emotion without violence,create abstract things like art, literature and music, create physical things like bridges and furniture, prattle extensively about good and evil. Such creatures began with these and many more native abilities and will end with them.
Such creatures are copies of the person, God, who created them as finite copies of himself.
The truth of this idea lies with the fact that we can share our personhood with all the other persons on earth and relate to all those persons who came before us and have since died and expect to share that personhood with our progeny.
It does not matter if one of these creatures lies about what he is. He is what God made whether he denies it or not.
Good perspective, Spencer! It is the age old issue of people trying to become God instead of following God. If there is a God, we are accountable. These people do not want accountability. They want to be their own God.
...but when I became a man, I put away childish things
1 Cor 13:11
Exactly.
I love how you bring it back to people believing they are the first to have these thoughts/problems or propose these solutions. Every day I feel the truth of this line from one of your more recent independent posts more and more “because we know exactly nothing and think we thought of everything ourselves”.
Call me old-fashioned. I cherish my humanity with all it's glorious and messy memories. If my Savior deemed humanity worthy to inhabit and willingly relinquish for me, call me old-fashioned and eternally grateful.
This is what Lewis foresaw in "Abolition of Man". Men with no chests.
Very prescient thought from CSL
I've really enjoyed the letters thus far, particularly the part about memory and God, at least as I understand them. I'm a 12 Step guy and often get asked to lead at meetings. During a lead most of us discuss how in retrospect we can see God acting in our lives long before we got sober. Once we practice the Steps we attempt to develop conscious contact with a God of our understanding and that takes me back to the God of my childhood. All of this is done by way of memory of past events and feelings. Thank you for the letters.
“They want to shrug off their pitiful human limitations once and for all.” To paraphrase Inigo Montoya, “I do think that means what they think it means.”
They think they can become like one of the disembodied gods from Star Trek. What they will find is that they have entered “The Twilight Zone.”
Mr Johnson just needs a pince-nez and we can call him Professor Frost.
Seems like Stoics/Hackers hate insignificance, fear death and conquer flesh by an overpowering self-discipline, some of which results in virtue and charity. Maybe Christians hope in life after life, discipline flesh by surrendering self, and embrace this incarnation, this spirit in a body, some of which results in treasures in heaven?
Yes, I saw an interview with this Bryan Johnson. He could be the poster child for our current culture which desperately seeks to deny the inevitability of death, of not of death but even of aging. However, Johnson is consumed by awareness of death rather than the attempt to avoid thinking of it at all.
Thank God for God and for the certain hope that trust in God will lead us to dwell with Him beyond this creation, time, and space.
If life eternal were to consist merely of life on earth in our fallen state, the n I must say , “Thanks but no thanks.”
There are 8 billion plus opinions about the creatures on earth who can speak, analyze abstracts, demonstrate emotion without violence,create abstract things like art, literature and music, create physical things like bridges and furniture, prattle extensively about good and evil. Such creatures began with these and many more native abilities and will end with them.
Such creatures are copies of the person, God, who created them as finite copies of himself.
The truth of this idea lies with the fact that we can share our personhood with all the other persons on earth and relate to all those persons who came before us and have since died and expect to share that personhood with our progeny.
It does not matter if one of these creatures lies about what he is. He is what God made whether he denies it or not.
https://tiogam.substack.com
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