going to hell?

[PaulSacramento]

Quite the opposite! Self-love is far from being "ego centric", though many people take it as being selfish or self centered. To fully be able to love another I must fully love myself, and in loving myself I innately know what is right and wrong.

Below is a quote from the well know psychologist Eric Fromm on self-love.

The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm (1956)

Before we start the discussion of the psychological aspect of selfishness and self-love, the logical fallacy in the notion that love for others and love for oneself are mutually ex*clusive should be stressed. If it is a virtue to love my neigh*bor as a human being, it must be a virtue---and not a vice---to love myself since I am a human being too. There is no conccpt of man in which I myself am not included. A doctrine which proclaims such an exclusion provcs itself to be intrinsically contradictory. The idea expressed in the Biblical “Love thy neighbor as thyself!” implies that respect for one’s own integrity and uniqueness, love for and under*standing of one’s own self, can not be separated from re*spect for and love and understanding of another individual. The love for my own self is inseparably connected wfth the love for any other self.

-

Humans are relational creatures, hence the golden rule that you and other speak so much about, we tend to function best (understatement) when we are in a relational situation/environment. Isolation can even lead to madness for some ( some would argue for the majority).
Some would argue that love, TRUE love can only be if it is relational.
IMO, to view that one must love oneself before one can love another fails to understand that love is relational and without the understanding of "what love is", any proclamation of "self-love" is, IMO, delusional.
IMO, no human is born "loving itself" or even understanding "love" per say, but they learn it from the relationship between parent and child.

[B. W.]

Your blog is full of errors and misconceptions about the bible and God. If you actually left Christianity as you claim - you would not be on this forum at all. Your blog reveals a closed mind that is not at all opened to differing opinions so...

Why are you really here?

Are you attempting to be an agent of change?

I am an agent of my own change and I would be grateful to you if you could point out the errors on my blog. If you will remember my first post on this forum was my article on morality...I wanted feedback and man did I get a lot

It looks like Zionist pretty much covered this...pointing out the errors on on blog - see his quote below:

@butterfly
i read your blog and i will say that you are very hypocritical in your "transparency" approach. how can you be open to the notion or idea that the God of the bible can be true but then say in order to understand the bible you must kill the notion of it being the word of God and instead viewed as the word of man? you are not being transparent but instead you have already closed off your mind to the fact that the God of the bible is God. also by using the butterfly metaphor you are implying that somehow because of your metamorphosis you have attained some higher knowledge...but from the posts i read you have absolutely no idea how to interpret the bible and instead have an agenda to destroy it and other peoples faith. how can someone who is supposed to be transparent in the sense of seeking the truth completely shut off a whole avenue and say they are being transparent? you are not being transparent you already have made up your mind. if that is the case what is your agenda? you trying to convert people to your new age oneness collective nonsense? i think you have a problem with God because of whatever experience you have had or maybe you have a problem with the God of the bible because by accepting Him as your God would mean that you must admit that you are sinful....or maybe you have a problem with the God of the bible simply because He is referred to as a He and you dont want to accept that your creator is masculine whatever the case i dont know but nonetheless if you're going to be transparent and searching all angles than stick by your word otherwise just come out and say that nothing can convince you that God is real and be done with it.

As for being an agent of your own change - I think not - that is not what the butterfly effect is about...
-
-
-

[B. W.]

It seems you are hell bent on breaking your own GR by putting words in my mouth which I never even said.


Dan

Well said Dan - Butterfly always breaks her own GR - subject to change to wiggle out of a jam. Is it any wonder God said in Isaiah 26:10 NIV

"But when grace is shown to the wicked, they do not learn righteousness; even in a land of uprightness they go on doing evil and do not regard the majesty of the LORD."

Only land of uprightness is heaven and if all allowed into heaven with such changing GR's - why heaven would turn into mess.

It went against my internal sense of right and wrong, good and evil...and that my friend was the road that lead me out of Christianity.

What "internal sense" of "right and wrong" is that?

It is the innate intuitive sense that we all have, if we let our self love be reflected onto the actions of others. When I read something in the Bible that seems wrong, it is because I am measuring it against my own self love standard and how I would want to be treated. It's all quite simple if I allow my own self love to be reflected in the way I treat others. This principle holds true whether or not there is a god because it is based on self love.

-

So your sense of "right and wrong" is base don your perception of "self love"?
Don't you find that a bit "ego centric" ?

Quite the opposite! Self-love is far from being "ego centric", though many people take it as being selfish or self centered. To fully be able to love another I must fully love myself, and in loving myself I innately know what is right and wrong.

You love self more than God - no place in heaven for that kind of narcissism. You hate God and thus hate period. You continually break your own GR and expect bliss in the afterlife, yet can't see that such Gold Rules you have would ruin such a place. Like FL stated - and summed up by own words what he mentioned: you are not open minded at all and too sugary sickly sweet to be believed.

For those reading this: Recall that Butterfly came out of the Christian Science Cult, then moves into The Word of Faith aberrancy, then into a Liberal theological church, then left that all for a New Age mentality. Therefore her conclusions about the bible and God began offtrack and remains off track: For every tree is known by its own fruit...Luke 6:44 NKJV
-
-
-

[PaulSacramento]

As someone that has dealt with cults and continues to do so on an everyday basis ( typically the JW's), I know how hard it is to leave the mentality that keeps people in the cult to begin with.
Many people exchange their "religious zeal" for "atheist zeal" or some other zeal, never realizing that the issue IS the zeal.

[Butterfly]

Quite the opposite! Self-love is far from being "ego centric", though many people take it as being selfish or self centered. To fully be able to love another I must fully love myself, and in loving myself I innately know what is right and wrong.

Below is a quote from the well know psychologist Eric Fromm on self-love.

The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm (1956)

Before we start the discussion of the psychological aspect of selfishness and self-love, the logical fallacy in the notion that love for others and love for oneself are mutually ex*clusive should be stressed. If it is a virtue to love my neigh*bor as a human being, it must be a virtue---and not a vice---to love myself since I am a human being too. There is no conccpt of man in which I myself am not included. A doctrine which proclaims such an exclusion provcs itself to be intrinsically contradictory. The idea expressed in the Biblical “Love thy neighbor as thyself!” implies that respect for one’s own integrity and uniqueness, love for and under*standing of one’s own self, can not be separated from re*spect for and love and understanding of another individual. The love for my own self is inseparably connected wfth the love for any other self.

-

Humans are relational creatures, hence the golden rule that you and other speak so much about, we tend to function best (understatement) when we are in a relational situation/environment. Isolation can even lead to madness for some ( some would argue for the majority).
Some would argue that love, TRUE love can only be if it is relational.
IMO, to view that one must love oneself before one can love another fails to understand that love is relational and without the understanding of "what love is", any proclamation of "self-love" is, IMO, delusional.
IMO, no human is born "loving itself" or even understanding "love" per say, but they learn it from the relationship between parent and child.

You said no human is born "loving itself", but in reality every human is born "only" loving themselves, whether or not they understand what love is. The focus of every baby born is "itself" whether it is hungry, tired, hurting, or lonely, all a baby thinks about is itself, that is where self-love comes from...taking care of the needs of the self. No one can truly understand what love is without first loving themselves, it would even be impossible to love god as the Bible commands without first loving yourself.

If you're interested here is a link to my latest, short article on Self-love and the GR.

-

[Butterfly]

As someone that has dealt with cults and continues to do so on an everyday basis ( typically the JW's), I know how hard it is to leave the mentality that keeps people in the cult to begin with.
Many people exchange their "religious zeal" for "atheist zeal" or some other zeal, never realizing that the issue IS the zeal.

My involvement in Christian Science around thirty five years ago was relatively superficial and only lasted a couple years. I sort of just faded out of it a few years before I became a Christian...there never was much zeal.
-

[Zionist]

@ B.W.
yes as we all know butterfly has just walked all over her golden rule and contradicted herself which i easily as well as everyone else has pointed out to her but she refuses to see this. instead she continues dancing around picking and choosing responses to answer. notice how i quoted scripture to her that pretty much sums up her logic and way of thinking in God's eyes to which she never responded back. if she truly is being "transparent" shouldn't she have responded to and looked into what i posted? but she has yet to respond to it instead picking and choosing replies she wants to respond to. Her objective isn't to understand or learn about God, her objective is to shove down our throats her rhetoric. in the morality thread i think you pretty much summed up her way of approach.

[B. W.]

@ B.W.
yes as we all know butterfly has just walked all over her golden rule and contradicted herself which i easily as well as everyone else has pointed out to her but she refuses to see this. instead she continues dancing around picking and choosing responses to answer. notice how i quoted scripture to her that pretty much sums up her logic and way of thinking in God's eyes to which she never responded back. if she truly is being "transparent" shouldn't she have responded to and looked into what i posted? but she has yet to respond to it instead picking and choosing replies she wants to respond to. Her objective isn't to understand or learn about God, her objective is to shove down our throats her rhetoric. in the morality thread i think you pretty much summed up her way of approach.

Yes Zion,

Being a Social Worker, the Butterfly effect was studied in school. It began with being an agent of change, first for yourself, next spread that change to other selves by any means possible. This is a tactic used by those on the left. Sadly, the great field of Social Work has been hijacked by the left in the USA. It was difficult to endure the S. W. Prof's in college being one of the rare conservatives in that field of study. Much on her blog reflects the social justice change mindset concerning male dominance and the view that uncontrolled Christianity is the greatest moral evil of all time in the USA. In Social Work Studies in College, we read all kinds of stuff about the USA that may have been true in the 1950's but not in the 1990's when I was in School about racism, sexism, religion. I came away think that the Prof's were from the 1950's and stuck in that era of thinking, training others to mirror their prejudices and bias.

Don't get me wrong, Social Work by itself is a great field without all this garbage. My field was Social Work/Criminal Justice, which tosses out much of the leftist groupthink. Her blog is just mirrored groupthink of the Social Change mantra narrowed in scale to limited cause(s). There are bloggers out there, many hired and funded by the left, to write blogs and go on the opposition websites posing as nice people only to spread their leftist cause rhetoric. Not sure if if this is the case here but we are well aware of this tactic nevertheless.

Have a good day Zionist!

[B. W.]

As someone that has dealt with cults and continues to do so on an everyday basis ( typically the JW's), I know how hard it is to leave the mentality that keeps people in the cult to begin with.
Many people exchange their "religious zeal" for "atheist zeal" or some other zeal, never realizing that the issue IS the zeal.

My involvement in Christian Science around thirty five years ago was relatively superficial and only lasted a couple years. I sort of just faded out of it a few years before I became a Christian...there never was much zeal.

But...

...Then on to an aberrant cultic, Christian-metaphysical Science, Word of Faith, and then on too a Liberal Church Group.You have no true foundation to lay claim to the title of ever being a Christian. You were not ever Christian. How can we tell - The Holy Spirit within a Believer focus on Jesus Christ. The Spirit you claim to have focused on on making self feel good about self, and not on Jesus. These spirits mimic Jesus but the Jesus they mimic is one that is a Doctor Make me Feel Good - Me Me Me - Jesus. The Mysticism you're involved in, likewise produces the same sort of feelings and can't stand the real Jesus at at all. These are called Seducing Familiar Spirits in the bible which the bible warns about following and heeding. These will destroy you in the end.

Can you tell us about the cross of Christ? What does it mean to you?
-
-
-

[Butterfly]

As someone that has dealt with cults and continues to do so on an everyday basis ( typically the JW's), I know how hard it is to leave the mentality that keeps people in the cult to begin with.
Many people exchange their "religious zeal" for "atheist zeal" or some other zeal, never realizing that the issue IS the zeal.

My involvement in Christian Science around thirty five years ago was relatively superficial and only lasted a couple years. I sort of just faded out of it a few years before I became a Christian...there never was much zeal.

But...

...Then on to an aberrant cultic, Christian-metaphysical Science, Word of Faith, and then on too a Liberal Church Group.You have no true foundation to lay claim to the title of ever being a Christian. You were not ever Christian. How can we tell - The Holy Spirit within a Believer focus on Jesus Christ. The Spirit you claim to have focused on on making self feel good about self, and not on Jesus. These spirits mimic Jesus but the Jesus they mimic is one that is a Doctor Make me Feel Good - Me Me Me - Jesus. The Mysticism you're involved in, likewise produces the same sort of feelings and can't stand the real Jesus at at all. These are called Seducing Familiar Spirits in the bible which the bible warns about following and heeding. These will destroy you in the end.

Can you tell us about the cross of Christ? What does it mean to you?
-
-
-

I will let you answer that question...since you seem to think you know so much about me and what I think.
-

[Zionist]

@B.W.
thank you for the info brother. you definitely understand the mind set and tactics people like butterfly use to trap people in their rhetoric. you have a good and blessed day too!

@Butterfly
don't try to beat around the bush just be honest and answer paul's question. i would also like to add what do you think of Jesus and what is He to you?

[Furstentum Liechtenstein]

I'm surprised that you guys are still discussing with Satan's emissary and her husband. We know that hatred of God motivates them; what motivates your continued participation in a fruitless conversation?

FL