How silly is salvation?

http://alcuinbramerton.blogspot.com/2004/10/how-silly-is-salvation.html

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Page update: 23.02.10

Alcuin: Flutterby?
Flutterby: Yes?
Alcuin: How silly is salvation?
Flutterby: Salvation is very silly.
Alcuin: How silly is salvation in miles per hour?
Flutterby: It is not the speed of the silliness which is the issue. It is the logarithmic relationship between the silliness and the sensibleness which is the spiritual determinant. But to answer your question, most salvation contains about one hundred and eighty three miles per hour of silliness within each quartile of an average culture plate during the rush hour.
Alcuin: That's a lot of silliness in one place.
Flutterby: Silliness does sometimes come in concentrated form.
Alcuin: Why is salvation so silly?
Flutterby: Salvation is silly because there is nothing to be saved from and nothing to be saved for.
Alcuin: I agree.
Flutterby: In every case, human beings are born in a state of original perfection. They are partakers of the divine nature.
Alcuin: I agree.
Flutterby: And in every case, human beings inexorably evolve into future states of even greater perfection. They become more and more aware of their personal participation in divinity.
Alcuin: I agree.
Flutterby: So there is no congenital imperfection to be corrected, and no future state of potential imperfection to be insured against.
Alcuin: I agree.
Flutterby: I agree, too.
Alcuin: Give me an example of the silliness of salvation.
Flutterby: A good example of the silliness of salvation is the theory of substitutionary atonement.
Alcuin: What silly things does the theory of substitutionary atonement suggest?
Flutterby: It suggests a four-point process of salvation:
(1) A chap gets killed a couple of thousand years before we are born and, therefore, a couple of thousand years before we have thought or done anything.
(2) This chap is deliberately killed by someone instead of that someone killing us.
(3) The murder wipes away our sins two thousand years before we have had the time or the opportunity to commit any sins.
(4) The murder buys us a lifetime ticket to heaven.
Alcuin: And on the basis of this theory, a bunch of fundamentalists tries to evangelise the world?
Flutterby: Yes.
Alcuin: That is extremely silly.
Flutterby: Yes. Salvation is silly.
Alcuin: Who invented the theory of substitutionary atonement?
Flutterby: A very sick mind invented it.
Alcuin: Which mind?
Flutterby: The mind of the Church.
Alcuin: How can the mind of the Church be so silly?
Flutterby: Because human beings are silly, and Churchianity is the invention of human beings.
Alcuin: Hold on. You said earlier that human beings are perfect.
Flutterby: No, I didn't.
Alcuin: Yes you did.
Flutterby: No, I didn't.
Alcuin: Yes you did.
Flutterby: No, I didn't. I said that human beings are born in a state of original perfection.
Alcuin: Ah.
Flutterby: Yes.
Alcuin: But human beings don't stay perfect?
Flutterby: No. Shortly after birth, some human beings get sick and catch religion. One symptom of religion - in its advanced stages - is silliness.
Alcuin: What can be done?
Flutterby: Young children could be protected from religion.
Alcuin: Yes.
Flutterby: Religion grooms children for silliness.
Alcuin: That is very silly.
Flutterby: Yes, it is.
Alcuin: A priest of the Church once said, "Give me a child at the age of seven, and I will ensure that he is silly for all eternity."
Flutterby: Something like that, yes.
Alcuin: Silly.
Flutterby: Very silly.


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Churchianity's take on Christianity
A promotional flyer

The substitutionary atonement
An image of salvific fantasy

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Perhaps love

The Ten or Eleven Commandments

The unwisdom of belief

What is the New Spirituality?

How is religion?

What is the function of religion?

Heretic unfrocked

Yoghurt shelves

The Share International revelations

Gospel for the New Age

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

What are angels made of?

Page update: 03.05.07

Alcuin: What are angels made of?
Flutterby: Angels are made of God.
Alcuin: How much God are angels made of?
Flutterby: The content of angels is 100% pure God.
Alcuin: What are human beings made of?
Flutterby: Human beings are made of God, too.
Alcuin: How much God are human beings made of?
Flutterby: The content of human beings is 100% pure God.
Alcuin: How can human beings be made of the same stuff as angels?
Flutterby: Human beings can be made of the same stuff as angels because there is nothing outside God.


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The angel paths are open

Pumpkin candlelight

Aquarian elf girl

The consciousness of the angels

Introducing an angel based in Europe

Our angels the aliens

Working with extraterrestrial healers

Extraterrestrial symbols of spiritual protection

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

Fundamentalism is a closed room

Page update: 13.06.07

Alcuin: There's a lot of fear around.
Flutterby: There's a lot of America around.
Alcuin: I like pumpkin pie.
Flutterby: Why force pumpkin pie on people?
Alcuin: Pumpkin pie is nice.
Flutterby: Pumpkin pie is voluntary.
Alcuin: There's a lot of fear around.
Flutterby: There's a lot of America around.
Alcuin: I like democracy.
Flutterby: Why force democracy on people?
Alcuin: Democracy is good for the soul.
Flutterby: Democracy is voluntary.
Alcuin: Is America the greatest exporter of state fundamentalism the world has ever seen?
Flutterby: Yes.
Alcuin: What is fundamentalism?
Flutterby: Fundamentalism is a closed room.
The door is shut and the curtains are pulled.
In the corner is a single book.
The book is out of date.
Alcuin: Is America out of date?
Flutterby: Yes.
Alcuin: What can be done?
Flutterby: That's what the fundamentalist asks.
Alcuin: There's a lot of fear around.
Flutterby: There's a lot of America around.
Alcuin: America is the biggest country in the world.
Flutterby: America is the smallest country in the world.
Alcuin: Pumpkin pie is taking over.
Flutterby: Pumpkin pie must be stopped.


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Fundamentalists' Fellowship

Estuary Hermeneutics

Lost nation

The unwisdom of belief

Yoghurt shelves

More Norfolk koans

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

Is Harry Potter true?

Page update: 21.07.07

Flutterby: You've got all the Harry Potter books out, I see.
Alcuin: Yes. I'm speaking to a parents' reading circle on Friday. They want me to talk about the spirituality of the Potter canon.
Flutterby: It's interesting that many adults are almost as keen on Harry Potter as their children are.
Alcuin: Yes. What do you think, Flutterby? Is Harry Potter true?
Flutterby: Certainly.
Alcuin: Yes, I've come to the same conclusion.
Flutterby: The Harry Potter canon metaphorates some very important spiritual truths.
Alcuin: I agree. And the refreshing thing is that it does that without being religious.
Flutterby: God is not religious.
Alcuin: No. He's not that silly.
Flutterby: Or that cruel.
Alcuin: No. Or that exclusive.
Flutterby: No.
Alcuin: In contradistinction, God is sensible, kind and inclusive.
Flutterby: Can you name a single extant religion on your planet which is sensible, kind and inclusive?
Alcuin: I'd have to look hard. Tibetan Buddhism, I suppose. And the more intelligent type of middle-of-the road Anglicanism.
Flutterby: And some of the progressive Mormon groups are getting there.
Alcuin: Yes. But you're right, Flutterby. Most major extant religions on this planet are front operations for spiritual fascism.
Flutterby: And control.
Alcuin: And spiritual disinformation.
Flutterby: And so are their official scriptures, unfortunately.
Alcuin: Is Harry Potter scripture?
Flutterby: Yes.
Alcuin: I didn't expect you to say that. I was being provocative.
Flutterby: You've heard the same thing said yourself at conferences.
Alcuin: That's true. It has sometimes been suggested that the Harry Potter books function as de facto scriptures for unchurched children.
Flutterby: Who says that?
Alcuin: Non-Christian education professionals mostly. They sometimes speak in these terms – particularly those who work in the literacy domain, teaching children to read or teaching teachers to teach children to read, or those active as librarians or training people in librarianship. They speak of children having a reverence for the Harry Potter texts that is biblical / scriptural in nature. Many children study and re-read the texts obsessively, learn and quote key passages, insist on fidelity to the text when challenged by grown-ups on matters of detail, and pray to the leading characters in the books for guidance and help at times of personal crisis – especially those which have to do with bullying or dysfunctional relationships with teachers or parents.
Flutterby: I can understand that. It's good.
Alcuin: I suppose that the Harry Potter books could not have been so extraordinarily successful without the active support of the Holy Spirit?
Flutterby: No. Or without the active support of those benign influences which, in your human religious culture, are often referred to as the Holy Spirit.
Alcuin: It seems to me, Flutterby, that if Harry Potter is scripture, it should be possible to identify a number of short texts from the books which substantiate this assessment.
Flutterby: Fair comment. How about looking at the very beginning of Book 1?
Alcuin: Right. OK, here we are. Book 1: “Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.” (HP1 – 1:7)
Flutterby: The exegesis is fairly straightforward there, isn't it?
Alcuin: Is it?
Flutterby: Well, let's have a think. These are the opening lines of the Harry Potter canon. The reader is introduced to the existence of a comfortable, complacent and self-congratulatory human mindset which regards the spiritual world as nonsense.
Alcuin: “Number four, Privet Drive” is comfortable.
Flutterby: Yes. And “proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much” is complacent and self-congratulatory.
Alcuin: OK. And “anything strange or mysterious” is a reference to the spiritual world.
Flutterby: That is a coherent reader-response, I would have thought.
Alcuin: Yes. And perhaps the Bible makes a similar point, though less elliptically, when it says: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ ” (Ps 14:1a – NIV)
Flutterby: Good point. The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no spiritual world.’ The Harry Potter canon controverts that idea strenuously. The Harry Potter canon says that there definitely is a spiritual world. And it's fun. And it's accessible. And it's non-religious.




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Is Harry Potter the Son of God?
A Mugglenet editorial by Abigail BeauSeigneur

Harry Potter's magical tale might be truer to life than you think
Some ideas from Jennifer Vineyard on MTV.com

Harry Potter's Magic and the Market: What are Youth Learning about Gender, Race, and Class?
Robin Truth Goodman writes in the University of Louisville Journal

Harry Potter and the recessive allele
Thoughts on the genetics of Wizards and Muggles

Harry Potter and the Bible
An essay by Lisa Cherrett

The Harry Potter books and movies - charming stories or a demonic plot?
A resource page compiled by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance

The Fundamentalist anti-reaction to Harry Potter
1 .. 2 .. 3 .. 4

The Harry Potter Lexicon
A complete encyclopedia of the Harry Potter Universe

Chapter by chapter synopses of the Harry Potter books
Summaries by William Sylvester, Maureen Knight and John Kearns at The Harry Potter Lexicon



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Kristianne Wych Christian Wicca

Understanding the New Age Children

Teen issues

No such thing

Why is church so serious?

A symbol for the New Age

Toenails

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

What is the population of the universe?

Alcuin: What is the total population of the universe, Flutterby?
Flutterby: Which universe?
Alcuin: This universe. Our universe.
Flutterby: Your local universe, you mean?
Alcuin: Yes. No. No. All the universes together. And all the parallel and alternative universes. The whole bangshoot. The multiverse. The cosmos. Whatever you want to call it. What is the total population of the cosmos?
Flutterby: The total population including all human beings of all ages and origins on all planets and star systems?
Alcuin: Yes.
Flutterby: Including all animal people on all planets and star systems?
Alcuin: Including all animals, yes.
Flutterby: Including all plants on all planets and star systems?
Alcuin: Yes, including all plants, fungi, protists and monerans everywhere. What is the total population of the cosmos?
Flutterby: Including all sentient life forms, Alcuin, whether physical or non-physical?
Alcuin: Yes, the lot. All sentient life forms, physical, non-physical, trans-dimensional, non-dimensional, angels, light-beings, spirits, the whole lot. How many of them are there altogether?
Flutterby: Including sentient life forms of any size, Alcuin?
Alcuin: Yes.
Flutterby: From intelligent beings who work at the sub-nuclear level right up to the supra-galactic creative energy forms?
Alcuin: Yes. All sub-nanotech quark beings, all creators and all major logoi and deities. What is the total population of the cosmos?
Flutterby: Including slime moulds?
Alcuin: Yes, including slime moulds and fundamentalists.
Flutterby: And liberals?
Alcuin: Yes, including all liberals, progressives, esotericists, gurus, bat-heads, fly-mos, fruitcakes, priests and churchbores. The lot. The whole caboodle. Come on, Flutterby, throw a hat at a peg. How many? What is the total population of the cosmos?
Flutterby: The total population of the cosmos is One.
Alcuin: Really?
Flutterby: Yes. The total population of the cosmos is One, because there is nothing outside God.



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The scale of the universe
Some analogies to aid understanding - from AstroSurf.com


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Our angels the aliens

Extraterrestrial symbols of spiritual protection

The central question of the universe

UFOs - ETs - Angels - The Higher Evolution

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

How important is Jesus?

http://alcuinbramerton.blogspot.com/2004/10/how-important-is-jesus.html

Alcuin Bramerton profile ..... Index of blog contents ..... Home

Page update: 01.02.10

Alcuin: How important is Jesus of Nazareth, Flutterby? Now that the age of religion is past, is it fair to assume that Jesus is superfluous to cultural needs?
Flutterby: The human individual you refer to as Jesus of Nazareth is known here, on the spiritual planes, as Sananda.
Alcuin: Yes, I know. You've told me that before. But the exact name doesn't matter much, does it? How important is Jesus / Sananda to us in the modern, post-religious world?
Flutterby: Even in his Palestinian incarnation with you, Jesus was never particularly religious. He was more of an itinerant shaman, a teacher-healer, a widely-travelled Essene mystic.
Alcuin: Not the figure we would immediately recognise from church mythology, then?
Flutterby: No, certainly not. Not a pantomime saviour constructed for religious convenience. But Jesus was highly attuned, spiritually, by the human standards of that age. So was Siddhartha Gautama before him, and so were Apollonius of Tyana and Origen after him. I would say that Jesus is very important indeed, if you want him to be. For many modern people, Jesus is much more important and much more contemporary than Churchianity pretends.



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Notes:
The Ascended Master commonly known in the West as Jesus is also known on the spiritual planes (the inner planes) as Sananda. In his Palestinian incarnation (24BC – 9AD) Jesus was known locally as Joshua Ben Pandira. He was an active Essene mystic in a progressive Jewish tradition of the time. Modern Western culture refers to him as Jesus of Nazareth. In 16AD he took another physical incarnation known to history as Apollonius of Tyana. A few centuries later, working from the spiritual planes, Jesus gave the Prophet Muhammad the original text of The Holy Qur'an and taught the Prophet during his night journeys to the Holy Land.

On the 13th April 1952, speaking to a meditation group in Santa Fe, New Mexico (USA), Jesus said: "And soon will come the time when the light which I pour forth to individuals in response to their calls to me can be easily photographed, even by that mechanical perfection to which you have attained thus far." Some of those photographs have been compiled on a separate page here.

In 1975, "A Course in Miracles" was published by Helen Schucman and William Thetford. Jesus headed a team of writers on the spiritual planes who are said to have compiled this. The text was transmitted to Schucman and Thetford by a process of mental impression, inner dictation and inspiration. The text is written as though Jesus is the author speaking in the first person.

Jesus is still alive and active on the physical plane, organising miraculous healings through many human channels, for example through Torbi el Mekki in Morocco (details here). Jesus also energises healings in certain specific churches, such as in Den Bosch in The Netherlands, and in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia (details here).

Like many Ascended Masters, Jesus often appears to individuals in the guise of ordinary people. For example, on the morning of Sunday 12th February 2006, Dick Larson and Jackie Cochrane were running a booth at the Whole Life Expo in Los Angeles (USA). Jesus turned up in the form of an African American man of average height and slim build (more details here). A month later, on the afternoon of the 20th March 2006, Jesus took the form of a hitchhiker and was given a lift in the car of a person living in Ljubljana, Slovenia, who was driving from Tolmin to Ljubljana. On this occasion, Jesus had brown hair, a beard, shining pale blue eyes, and emanated a pleasant smell of burnt wood (more details here).

According to Jesus, the biblical text of what Western culture refers to as The Lord's Prayer is not accurate. He says a better rendering is as follows:


My spirit, you are omnipotent.

Your name is holy.

May your realm be incarnate in me.

May your power reveal itself within me, on Earth and in the heaven.

Give me today my daily bread, and thus let me recognize my transgressions and errors, and I shall recognize the truth.

And do not lead me into temptation and confusion, but deliver me from error.

For yours is the realm within me and the power and the knowledge forever.

Amen.

(Source here - 31.01.10)

The Christmas story, too, as related in the church cultures of the West, is not quite accurate. In particular, the executive role of the Bethlehem Starship is underwritten. A fuller and unredacted version of the Christmas story can be found here.

As Western churchianity has slowly lost editorial control of the Jesus story, other pertinent facts have emerged from high-status spiritual sources outside organised religion. One is that Jesus and Christ are two separate and different people, with separate and different chronologies and personal histories. They just happen to have been working together closely for millennia. Christ is senior to Jesus in the spiritual order of things, but Christ is not a religious figure and does not want followers or worshippers. More background here.




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Jesus is not an icon

Jesus said: "I am Evolution"

Jesus said: "You must be reincarnated"

Jesus is performing healing miracles through Torbi el Mekki in Morocco

Photographed light blessings from Jesus

The Share International revelations

Miracles are waiting to happen in Den Bosch

The unwisdom of belief

The Gospel of Judas

Da Vinci's Magdalene

A New Age prospectus

Gospel for the New Age

Disappointed at Greenbelt

The resurrection of the shaman

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

What about ascension?

Page update: 21.12.07

Alcuin: Where are we at the moment in our ascension process, Flutterby?
Flutterby: At about 3.47 to 3.48, I would say.
Alcuin: So the Earth and its inhabitants are nearly half-way between the third dimension and the fourth dimension now?
Flutterby: The majority are, yes.
Alcuin: When will we pass through 3.50 in our upward evolution through the dimensions?
Flutterby: It is difficult to read, with any degree of accuracy, an individual civilisation's possible time line forwards. But I am told that around CE 2012 most of you are likely to be nearer the fourth dimension than the third in your normal waking consciousness.
Alcuin: 2012? About five years to go, then. The end of the Mayan calendar?
Flutterby: Yes.

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Planetary Ascension Year 2012
Some resources for exploration

Channie Centara speaking about The New Earth
Channie introduces some information about planetary ascension and the higher dimension we are moving into now, in the New Age.

The Aura of Earth and the Aura of The New Earth Touched
A key event in the process of our planetary ascension happened on the 21st September 2003. Channie Centara talks about the new spiritual frequency which has been experienced since that moment.

New Earth by an Archangel
A colleague of Channie Centara describes the new musical frequency of Earth's planetary ascension.

Information about Channie Centara

A Message from a friend
A poem by an unnamed lightworker who is assisting the ascension process of Planet Earth.


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Seven signs of ascension

2012 AD – A spiritual terminus or a change of trains?

Tell me a little about yourself

A symbol for the New Age

Toenails

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching

Are aliens and angels similar?

Alcuin: What do you think, Flutterby? Are aliens and angels similar in their essential nature?

Flutterby: You ask a pertinent question, Alcuin. There are a lot of them about.

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Our angels the aliens

What are angels made of?

The consciousness of the angels

Dr Adrian Dvir's work with extraterrestrial healers

Index of blog contents

Spirituality websites worth watching