A tale of two purposes

People have within themselves two purposes: To give or produce life and to survive or avoid death. The former, is the primary purpose which was built into mankind at their onset and is witness’d by our society’s history and culture as well as through reproduction and a universal moral code found in civilizations all over he world, all throuout history, that most agree is altruistic in nature. These examples all further life in some form and it has been the hijacking of these process’ and the manipulating of them as well which has resulted in the lack of life being produced. This is evidenced by current comments on our generation being consumers and not producers. Hollywood glorifies hedonism which emphasizes capturing and relishing the life you have while neglecting to teach those that watch how to succeed at life and then pass it on. Another example is in the current trend of personalized salvation found in many churches.

The latter is the secondary purpose which I am convinced did not exist in the initial emergence of mankind. For christians, this is seen in the initial perfect or sinless phase found in the first chapter or two of Genesis. For the the more skeptical or less religious, this phase of mankinds evolution where only the primary existed must have been short, however, considering the development of consciousness and other variables, this period might have been for a thousand years or more. This purpose is the animal side of us in that animals share in possessing this purpose. We can clearly see evidence for this purpose in the more extreme scenarios of men and women killing in self-defence or nations going to war when they feel under threat as well as being seen in the more subtle examples like defense mechanisms in ones sub-conscious and tje concern for technology to keep us safer. Over all, this secondary drive, at least being a drive, is not questioned.

I argue that the need to survive is secondary because it has occured to me that an original need to continue ones life must have come from a need to protect the one thing capable of reproducing. If the original purpose to life was to give life, then it would seem appropriate to assign a secondary purpose to protect the first. The only bump I m trying to smooth out is that, if we do share the secondary purpose with animals why do they not have the primary purpose to produce life. Arguably their reproductive capabilities show evidence of the primary but I would then ask, “in light of our evoltion, why haven’t animals created culture, religion, language and so forth.

The existence of these dualistic purposes in mankind can only make sense in a Genesis scenario where a Sentient being chooses mankind to produce life in a distinctivly unique way and does not allow the animals this option.

In thinking about what this means or could mean, I realized that God might not have created sin or sin might not have existed in the time before creation. Now, I believe that what christians call sin is actually the secondary drive. All sinful actions arise from a person seeking to take power or control which directly usurps the control God naturally exerts over us. Sin prompts us to take power instead of asking or receiving power. I believe that this secondary nature became overwhelming after awhile and eventually eclipsed the primary purpose in importance.

This eclipsing resulted in mans survival becoming more important than producing life and in fact the production of life became a means to survive. So much so, that “sin covered the whole earth”.

Thus I can imagine Good God, holy, giving his beloved people life and purpose. Then, arising from this purpose, the secondary became all consuming which resulted in history.

So, our lives are a tale of two purposes and the way they carve out our personality and life.

Though like I said, there is a bump or two that needs smoothing out.

Its one thing to know your Choleric. Its another to realize that your Choleric

There is alot of information available about the Choleric temperment, of which my sub-conscious is most closely aligned with. I have run down, pushed, shot (metaphorically) and preached out countless number of people in my attempt to further truth in the lives of those around me. As is the nature of a choleric man, I am arrogant and cannot learn anything from anyone unless I teach myself.

This is not my will as much as a natural function of my operational system, my sub-conscious etc. Consciousness of this system and of its consequences/applications often comes too late and it has been only through the grace of God that I can be some what humble and actually change. My other strong bias is the meloncholy temperment which gives my Choleric tendencies a deep touch that usually leaves large amounts of spiritual or emotional damage when it erupts.

Well, I accepted and now I realize that a sympton of my predisposition is that I am a work-o-holic and a perfectionist. Consequently I tend to lose ability to have fun and relate emotionally.

This blog, and the thoughts expressed there-in, is an example of the work I have put myself to over the last while. Many Cholerics express their tendencies physically by working two or three jobs and gaining success. I came about to express my work ethos by thinking.

Now I now my top strenght was Intellection and Restorative and both are direct resultants and causitives of the predisposition.

Simply put, I am spending a good deal of time, now, reflecting on whether I should feel guilty that I do not have an extensive social life nor a particular affinity for prolonged social engagements or should I be satisified that God made me the way I am for purposes only someone with my type of package could accomplish.

This temperment does not define me yet it is something I do not think I can ever change. I thought long ago, before my knowledge of personality, that my intellect was a monster that i created to protect me from the lack of control I felt I was being given in my home. To tame this monster and use it for good was my sole option, I thought, and that that option was the only one. Now I realize that in some respects I was not far off.

The farmer and his field

I pride myself in being a reasonable man, an intelligent person who can understand things as they actually are as opposed to what they seem. Faith though, is unreasonable. It does not have nor can it give any reasons. By its definition, faith is a belief in things unseen or ideas and the like which cannot be measured with the five senses or expressed in natural, physical terms.

And so it behooves me to admit my reason, and much rationalizing, are pointless and vain. This of course, might seem obvious to some of you who have read any of my entries as my discussions therein have little to say concerning actual life per-say. Yet, it is true that knowledge, which is my chief aim in thinking deeply as I do, is effortless if I do not have something, or someone, with which to give it to or apply it for. Knowledge in and of itself is dead. Exciting as data is, and it is, when I think about my death I often wonder what I would say if I did end up before an almighty God who created the heavens and the earth.

I have entertained atheistic ideas and agnostic sentiments as well as different religious perspectives yet, in the end, I see the ego-centric nature of the soul pervasive in everything. Everything, that is, except in Christ. He epitome’d the exo-centric life; A life truly lived as it was lived for the people around him. The summation of his life resulted in our ability to rise above our ego and pride. It bridged our wickedness (that is, our inherent selfish nature) to God.

It is while I reflect on these things I realize that rationalizing and reasoning is akin to dismantling that bridge. Or, to use biblical imagery, akin to building a tower as a means of reaching God instead using the established method. My philosophy and understanding has brought me to the feet of Jesus many times and it has taken me away as well. By no means would I speak negative about philosophy or the pursuit of knowledge, but if my passions prohibit my ability to cross the bridge Jesus built for me, irregardless of the rationale and reasoning , I will only remain the ego-centric man I strive to not be.

Our physical world is like a box. Everything the five senses can measure and see, either with or without technology, is confined to our box. Sin, our ego-centic nature, is the life or air of that box. Attempts to re-create mans nature within the box is futile because the box itself is sinful. The whole thing is saturated and filled with sin, with pride and with the emphasis on the self and self preservation.

To truly leave sin, to leave the old nature, a solution must come from outside the box. In our understanding, only god is truly out of the box and thus He is the only answer and it is only through his means that we can be like him, that is, out of the box. While other religions describe God, their descriptions remain attached to the box. The teachings of christianity teach about a God that is outside our box and that Jesus, who chose to come here, provided a way out via himself.

So i can seek out understanding but only through Him will I be able rise above my ego-centric bias, my sinfulness, and in that respect, seek after and save the lost.

All of this is like a farmer who plants seeds in the ground, watches them grow, harvests the seeds, and then feeds his family and those close to him. If he begins to think to himself about all the variables that could thwart his seeds and damage or destroy the potential for crops, like storms, rocks, crows (etc), he might very well decide the effort isn’t worth it. If, he agrees with his reasoning he might abandon the enterprise all together and by that, leaving those that might benifit from his work wanting. The farmer, however, must work. He must sow his seed, he must take care of the ground and he must harvest his crops. Is there a point to the cycle. Ultamatly, it is for others the farmer must work and so, despite his reasons and rationale, he sets himself to labor and to work.

I too, must set myself to labor and to work. My striving though is to enter his rest so that in Him, I might have strength to help others. It is, in the end, about others.

Eventually

The four reactions

Have you ever felt like your life was like a movie? Or felt like no one else existed and every one was actors who eventually would reveal through some means that your life has been on film since you were a baby and is being watched by hundreds to millions who have gone through similar treatment?

No?

Well, I have. In fact I think in part it is actually true. We have what people have termed, a soul, and this is our actual self. In addition, we have our conscious or the part of us that is cognitive, that is, aware or carries awareness. This soul is our sub-conscious or the sentient inside of us. It is the one who reacts to the world around us both in the physical sense and in the spiritual. It would be truer to say that this soul is a spirit and that it dwells in and reacts to the spiritual realm.

This spiritual realm, is the realm that causes our physical realm to exist. This physical realm is the manifestation or representation of the spiritual much in the same way a simile, metaphor, story or even a film, portrays or represents an idea or several ideas and beliefs etc.

Now, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. THis is a true priniciple in the physical and in the spiritual. Our spirit has four reactions to any given action. These are the temperments that have been expounded and expanded upon throughout history and I use them here as they succinctly describe what occurs.

As a response to any given action, be it verbal, physical or emotional ( that is spiritual), and they are the following: Act or make an action, Pretend it didnt happen or deny its affects, Run away or avoid it, and make it bearable by relating and connecting it to themselve and/or with others. The Choleric acts or, more precisly, re-acts. The Phlegmatic delays his re-action by either denying its affects or de-valueing the effects. A Meloncholy takes the action personally and deeply feels an emotional response (they usually withdraw from the action as a result). Sanguines relate to the action and relate it others and so in effect shares the burden and off sets the actions influence by distributing the impact.

Each of us carries all four reactions within ourselves but we (our spirits) have picked favorites over the years or temperments that work for our situations and life etc.

Self awareness allows for the manipulation of our spirits natural method of reacting but as the the spirit is sub-conscious its reaction is often hardly noticable, that is, the act of reacting to any given action is sub-conscious and can never be conscious. We may, in hindsight, identify the type of temperment but it takes a tremendous will and mental energy to change.

Actually, one cannot ever change. One can choose a type of reaction as a way of over riding the spirit who is naturally behind the wheel. Often, however, what we choose as a type of reaction does not serve our interests and we subtly slip authority back to out spirit ( our nature as it were) and it uses the most comfortable and effective tool it knows to react to the action.

So we are, in a sense, watching a film, but through intro-spection and, most importantly, Gods wisdom, we can manipulate our story for good.

“Post-modern” oriented sub-conscious

One of the greatest challenges future generations of people living in the west will have to overcome -and eventually those peoples worldwide who sought to conform to the western ideal- is that the sub-conscious is ego-centric.

I define the sub-conscious as the superior reality or -for isntance- the coding in a software propgram. The current practice is to ditch the software program when it is faulty but if you dont change the codeing behind the propgram the same problems will persist.

We know as a community that the self plays an important part in the life of an everage western citizen be it in religion, politics, culture etc. Most, however, only see this as a problem when it negativly affects the self and do not subscribe to the belief that the emphasis on the self is an inherent problem.

My philosophical view, as it were, is that this ego-centric nature is perverted, unhealthy and needs to be removed immediatly before our society implodes.

The problem is that this ego-centric quality is the coding and it takes alot of work, and emotional conflict, to remake and reintegrate new codeing. Thus many prefer a change in software and as long as whatever bugs might exist in the program do not affect their work or what they are doing, they are ok with minor errors. Putting the metaphor aside though, these “errors” include an increased propensity for dysfunctional parenting, political manipulation and corruption, fiscal mis-managment, drug addiction and increasingly obese and depressed people. All of these problems exist vis -a an ego centric orientation.

One cannot just be exo-centric. See we now have come so far that the words and ideas carried in our phrases and the definitions attached to those ideas and words, are so imbued with ego-centic emphasis` that to simply consciously choose exo-centricism would only result in a new program as opposed to a new code.

To adequetly remove the ego-centricism from our western culture sub-conscious we must completley and violently remove things like tv, or hollywood or disband our government or some massive shift that results in a complete and total re-defining of our terms and beliefs.

This similar to a sudden death in the family. The shock allows for new coding to be placed in but unfortuanlty many are not strong enough to overcome the motional toll of such an event and cannot choose an exo-centric orientation but instead choose a self-defense mechanism.

Now, I also know that, philosphically, an exo-centric perspective is or can be another form of ego-centricism but this discussion was never meant to highlight extremes. One can never escape the ego-centric orientation because that is what the bible terms sin. It is our natural disability. What we should be aiming for, through the process of prayer and reading of the bible, is a gradual removal of the self via the in-filling of desires for God and all that reflects the character and nature of who God is.

Yet I will be the first to admit. Definine what that means or what it might look like will be difficult to distinguish admist the ego-centric values placed in exo-centric activities.

In the end, we must cling to the bibles solution . . . fear God as he is the furthest or most removed from the self.

Three thought trains

Quickly, here are three recent thoughts on some big ideas:

Emotions are reactions to changes in the spiritual realm, either in our spirit or in the spiritual place you happen to be in at the time of the emotion. These reactions parallel the five senses we use to interpret our physical world. In the same way that the senses send signals to the brain to notify the mind of changesto the physical atmosphere our emotions send signals to our spirit notifying it of changes in the spiritual realm within us or with out. We are not aware of the process senses take to acquire information, send it to the brain and then have the brain process it, classify it and adjust any schemas or world-view orientations accordingly. In the same way, our conscious is not aware of the process emotions take to gage changes to the spiritual atmosphere, send it to the subconscious, and have the feelings processed, catagorized and have the conscious temperment or so forth adjusted.

Concerning Salvation: Apparently God does allow some to recieve salvation while he does not allow others the same. Acts 16:14 tells the tale of the first women in Europe to recieve salvation. The greek says God opened her heart to recieve what Paul was saying. This word opened is the same as the greek word used when Jesus was walking on the road to Emmaus and he opened the two young mens hearts to the scriptures. Jesus himself said that none could come to the father unless he was called. Paul taught that there were the elect and those predestined for salvation. In a recent book called Holiness, R. C Sproul argues that man cannot choose salvation. It is a gift from a Holy and Just God. Personally, Ive always held that mans free will meant that, while salvation was a done deal on the cross and a gift from God, one must consciously choose to accept what Christ has done in order for the Holy Spirit to gain “legal acess” to their house so as to clean it up. What scripture says here is that God is the one who ordains for some to consciously make this choice while He makes others not make this choice. Although difficult to imagine given the man-glorifying nature of modern philosophy which is the framework for much of much of my musing albeit to glorify God through the unvieling of the self for more effective removal of the old man. So it seems true given the absolute reliablity scripture is given credit for yet i linger still with uncertainty. I know that it would be irrational to jump, from these statments, to the conclusion that the millions going to hell is Gods fault because I know the fault becomes our own for not at least trying to catch fish -so to speak. If we say that God brings in the harvest but we dont know when the harvest will occur and if we just give up saying the harvest is in gods hands, then well never reap a harvest.n We still need to go out and gather the wheat. If, when we go out, god doesnt allow for salvations to occur then we must trust his providence and we must leave any vain-self-guilt-tripping-introspection to the Holy Spirit who can do that job so much more objectively. Jesus said, those who love me wil obey me. Paul didnt lead this women to salvation he showed her salvation and she found herself willing to recieve it.

Concerning spiritual gifts: Simply: I think what Paul identified as spiritual gifts, modern pyschologists have identified as personality. More on this later.

Can opposites attract?

A book i read today argued that opposites should not get together because there is a tendency for them to be lazy and have the partner cover their weakness’ instead of dealing with the weakness’ themselves. They said opposites could be together but they would have to work on not rescue their partner when they are struggleing. Like if a non social person was dating a social person, if they were at a party, the un social person should work on being social and not let his or her social partner do all the socializing.

This principal is seen  in gods relationship with us. God is our complete opposite. Instead of just rescueing us fron our sinful nature he gave his son to die in our place and then asked us to believe in jesus. God provided for the solution to our problem without outright rescueing us. Its like we re stranded on an island. We cant swim an we have a negative personality while god, who is with us, not only can swim but he has a boat and he has a postive can do personality. God,however, wont force us into the boat but will encourage us to join him where he is.

In the same way, i feel that opposites can be attracted to one another just as much as similar people can. For both though, knowing who u are and encouraging the other to be who they naturally are not is essential. In the end, its about balance.