Solving Biblical Mysteries #39 from William C. Kiefert

The Practical Side of Heaven

Copyright William C. Kiefert. All Rights Reserved.

Originally written on May 9, 2002.

Dear friends:

Homophobia is the product of a grave misinterpretation of Paul’s letter to the Romans (1:27). That mistake cannot be recognized from the Judaic-Christian worldview. To understand this mistake, Romans 1:27 must be understood in Paul’s worldview; i.e. that of a Gnostic Christian.

Please consider reading “Does the Bible Condemn Homosexuality?” below, which comes from the Solving 100 Biblical Mysteries section of my book, “The Practical Side of Heaven.” I believe reading this can open the door to the correct interpretation of Romans 1:27, which, in turn, eliminates the “cause” of homophobia.

Your thoughts on this will be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,
William C. Kiefert

Does the Bible condemn homosexuality?

The condemnation of homosexuality is not authentic to early Christianity for two reasons.

GC interpretation of Ephesians 2?

From “The Practical Side of Heaven” by William C. Kiefert
“Eph 2:10: Live the good life as from the beginning He [God] has meant us to live it.”

I was curious about Gnostic Christianity but when I looked on your web site you made the quote above and I was wondering how you managed to interpret that. Do you have a different bible?

From King James Bible via Blue Letter Bible)
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”

Would like to hear more. ~ Emmanuella Grace, London

Dear Emmanuella,

The passage (Eph. 2:10) says pretty much the same thing. My King James Bible says exactly what you quoted. But what it means is that we are to live to good life which God has laid out for us to live, which is how the website puts it. Another translation puts it thus: “For we are what he [God] made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” Pretty similar. The Greek more literally says: “For of him we are a producte, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God previously prepared in order that we might walk in them.” Again, I think that the idea is similar, and it is simply a matter of leaving out a few words: we are created by God to walk in the way of good works. Doesn’t that make sense?

Sincerely, Dr. John Miller for www.GnosticChristianity.com

Wisdom from Gina Lake for DailyOM

Every weekday, DailyOM will send you inspirational thoughts for a happy, healthy and fulfilling day. It’s completely free – register here.

On April 20, Gina Lake contributed “60 Meditations for Greater Happiness” from her “60 Meditations for Greater Happiness” On-line Course (follow the link for further information).

For your thoughts and further consideration today, I wanted to share two brief excerpts from Gina’s piece.

“Happiness is the natural outcome of being aligned with Essence, our true self, which is experienced when we are fully present in the moment.”

And…

“Whatever you are doing, enjoy it! You have another option, of course, which is to not enjoy it. Notice what keeps you from enjoying whatever you are doing. It’s your thoughts, isn’t it? Even if you are experiencing pain, for instance, or something unpleasant, like going to the dentist, if you don’t listen to any negative thoughts, fears, complaints, and desires related to that, you won’t suffer. You will just have the experience.”

To view and contribute to the discussion on this, please visit here – and feel free to share your thoughts here as well.

Featured Video: How to Connect with Essence

On the right track, or not?

To stimulate thoughts and conversations, it’s my pleasure to share this 2004 exchange from our message board between Ron Matrisch and Dave Stoverden.

From Ron Matrisch: My reason for joining this group was to find others that think like I do. All of the text that the “church” has banned or tried to hide from the world such as the Gnostic text sparks my interest. In my opinion the “church” has done its best to keep its power and control, and anything that takes that power away from them is considered (by them) not of God. Instead of teaching the truth they give us half truths and outright lies. It does say that in the end times that knowledge will be increased. I say it will be the truth that has been hidden from us all of these years.

From Dave Stoverden: Absolutely right Revron8. But when you speak of “truth” I get kinda uneasy.

Consciousness conversations

Dr. Ervin Laszlo is founder-director of the General Evolution Research Group and past president of the International Society for the Systems Sciences. He has been twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, is the editor of the international periodical World Futures and Chancellor of WorldShift University. He is the founder and president of international think tank the Club of Budapest and the author of 83 books translated into 21 languages. He lives in Italy.

Beginning tomorrow, March 12, 2013, and for the next six weeks, Dr. Laszlo will be part of “The Consciousness Conversations” to be hosted by The Intelligent Optimist’s Jurriaan Kamp.

The coming expansion of consciousness will change the world beyond anything we can imagine. That’s the premise and promise of our first Visionary Dialogue featuring some of the leading minds—and souls—in the field in conversation with each other and with you about topics like:
• Is a new era of consciousness really on its way? How do we know?
• What will it look like? What effect will it have?
• How can we be active participants in its emergence?

The Dead Sea Scrolls

Originally posted Jan 19, ’04 2:32 AM by zzzoutdoorgirl

This is a link to 25 facts about the Dead Sea Scrolls: http://www.centuryone.com/25dssfacts.html

I found it interesting. Just thought I would share it.

Featured Video: The Dead Sea Scrolls Online: The Dead Sea Scrolls are now online; a project of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, powered by Google technology. Explore them at http://dss.collections.imj.org.il.

You are here

Posted on YouTube by Patrick Mylund Nielsen with these comments.

This excerpt from A Pale Blue Dot was inspired by an image taken, at Carl Sagan’s suggestion, by Voyager 1 on February 14, 1990. As the spacecraft left our planetary neighborhood for the fringes of the solar system, engineers turned it around for one last look at its home planet. Voyager 1 was about 6.4 billion kilometers (4 billion miles) away, and approximately 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane, when it captured this portrait of our world. Caught in the center of scattered light rays (a result of taking the picture so close to the Sun), Earth appears as a tiny point of light, a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size.

Credits:

Music: Ludovico Einaudi with a track titled, very fittingly, “The Earth Prelude”
Initial clip collection: HottiesInc
Ending scene: The intro from “Contact”, the motion picture based on Carl Sagan’s novel by the same name

For audio download/more, visit www.sagantime.com

Consciousness

“Thomas Nagel is not crazy,” an Oct. 23, 2012, Prospect Magazine article written by Malcolm Thorndike Nicholson, raises many provocative questions.

…what if science is fundamentally incapable of explaining our own existence as thinking things? What if it proves impossible to fit human beings neatly into the world of subatomic particles and laws of motion that science describes? The philosopher Thomas Nagel thinks the materialist scientific worldview cannot explain consciousness. Is he right?

I invite you to read on here. Your feedback and additional ideas on consciousness are welcome here.

Featured Video: Antonio Damasio: The quest to understand consciousness from TEDtalksDirector on YouTube. “Every morning we wake up and regain consciousness — that is a marvelous fact — but what exactly is it that we regain? Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio uses this simple question to give us a glimpse into how our brains create our sense of self.”

What is life?

With many thanks to New York’s Edge Foundation and its editor and publisher John Brockman, I want to invite you to read this important article on the historic and fascinating lecture: 

“What Is Life? A 21st Century Perspective On the 70th Anniversary of Schrodinger’s Lecture at Trinity College, Dublin,” by J. Craig Venter

A brief excerpt:  All living cells that we know of on this planet are DNA software driven biological machines comprised of hundreds to thousands of protein robots coded for by the DNA software.  The protein robots carry out precise biochemical functions developed by billions of years of evolutionary software changes.

Imagination

Enjoy this thoughtful remix of Mister Rogers from Symphony of Science’s John D. Boswell for PBS Digital Studios. **If you like this video, please support your local PBS station.** http://www.pbs.org/donate