Fear

The slaves are motivated by fear. The free are motivated by love. If you are afraid it can only mean one thing: You are worshiping the wrong god.

2/25/11 Fear comes from guilt. While it is true that love dispels fear, fear is not the opposite of love apathy is. Love dispels fear because it dispels guilt. Love dispels guilt because when there is love there is forgiveness. Fear causes two responses fight and flight. All violence is due to fear.Those who seek power seek security. Those who seek security seek release from fear. Bravery is a response to fear that leads to fight. it is not mentioned much in the Bible because a better response

to fear is to dispel the fear through love rather than to resist the fear through bravery.

6/10/11: Those driven by fear primarily seek safety and security. Those driven by love primarily seek freedom.

6/10/11: Fear is what the "absence of love" (i.e. evil) sees when it looks to the future. Guilt is what the "absence of love" sees when it it looks to the past. boredom is what the absence of love experiences in the present. Hope and trust are what love sees when it looks to the future. Forgiveness is what love sees when it looks to the past and joy is what love experiences in the present.

Literal vs Metaphorical

The metaphorical does not negate the literal but transcends the literal.

3/12/11: A god that can be spoken of in literal terms is too small.

The Trinity

There have been many attempts at metaphors to explain the Trinity. I epically like C.S. Lewis's explanation, how in two dimensions all objects have only one surface but in higher dimensions an object can have more than one surface. But, I think the best explanation is given by Jesus when he speaks of marriage as the two become one. What makes the two one is love. Whatever happens to one happens to both through love. If one gets good news they are both happy. and if one gets bad news they are both sad. I think what makes the three into one in the Trinity is also love. While it remains difficult to understand it seems logically necessity if God is a god of love. If there is no Trinity than what did God love? If God loved humans even before they where created than God would need humans to be loving. If Good needs humans to bee loving than God is incomplete and therefor imperfect alone.

(7/24/11) "God in His deepest mystery is not a solitude, but a family, since he has in Himself fatherhood, sonship, and the essence of the family, which is love."-John Paul II

Authenticity

The key to authenticity is mindfulness. We be come unauthentic because we are not in the moment. We are to busy thinking about the past or the future.

2/27/11; No. The key to authenticity is knowing that we are loved despite our many flaws. When we know this we are free to be who we really are. If we do not know this than we think that we will not be loved if others really knew us, so we tri to be something we are not so others will love us.

3/31/11: Confession is admitting who we are.

Religion

1. The word religion has many meanings but in the broadest sense it means a a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe. A word with similar meaning but with less politically charged connotations is worldview. If you have any philosophy about the universe's cause, nature and purpose than you have a religion. If you are an atheists and believe the universe came into being by chance, its nature is purely physical and it has no ultimate purpose than you have a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose ofthe universe and therefor by definition you have a religion. If you are an agnostic and believe that you can not know if there is a God who caused the universe, and can not know if there is anything other than the physical universe and what is its purpose, that set of beleifs is by defination a religion. (1/1/11)
2. “Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt.”. -Paul Tilich (7/31/13)
3. The problem with all religions is religion is not enough. Simply beleving something by it self eill not change you. (1/1/11)
4. Advantages (12/19/11)
1. The more religious a person was the less post traumatic symptoms they suffered after exposure to terror. (12/19/11)