Manna For Thought

Madame M:

Lewis’s quote about love between angels: Thank you. Well said and needed! Here’s another quote in the same vein, this one the friendship of the three types you mentioned: “By friendship you mean the greatest love, the greatest usefulness, the most open communication, the noblest sufferings, the severest truth, the heartiest counsel, and the greatest union of minds of which brave men and women are capable.” Jeremy Taylor

Expound even more if you would: Atone to who or what? Atoning also for the future sins that have not yet been committed? Or to the time-transcending deity have those already occurred too? Who (or what force) sends (or did send before the atonement?) the (condemned?) to hell? And what is hell, and what happens there? Is hell eternal? Is Purgatory a concept here? Is reincarnation ruled out as a possibility for even some? Upon shedding of the mortal coil, is spiritual consciousness dormant/suspended or is it immediate?

As for asking questions and putting forth comments on the succeeding paragraph, I will hold while I await your reply.

As you “know,” I DO have a problem with the word “know.” :) And yes, Lewis did say that, but then again, he could be considered a fairly biased source, along with the 80 billion other homo sapiens sapiens who’ve lived here. But I do feel he is correct that there is more to us than clinical and rather cold science has had us believe.

And if the complete mystery is revealed at “the end” (or “beginning,” in Lewis’s better turn), does that mean there is no Rosicrucian fun?

Well said about God welcoming questions. It seems to me that if God were offended by questions, He/She/They/It wouldn’t be God. In fact, if God were offended by much, it wouldn’t seem very God-like to me.

As for the survey of Christian men, without seeing the statistical sampling measures and parameters, it is hard to assess. From what you report, it would seem skewed in the first instance by Christian men and their definition of lust, which appears to be very much similar to Eldredge’s, of which I have already submitted my disagreement. This idea that one should somehow feel deviant for having sexual desire is itself an alien one to me, and I don’t think it does men or women a service. I would say that sexual desire often exists regardless, but that clothing (or the skimpiness thereof) can either prompt or intensify (or both) such desire. Interesting that these Christian men are expressing the same sort of both helplessness to address in themselves, and repressive tendencies toward women’s choices, that the more stringent cultures of another monotheistic faith also express. Sorority or Fraternity: we always seem too tilted toward one or the other. Balance is not the answer in everything, but it is in large measure, and yet we get so little of it!