---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <upfronter@...> wrote :
I don't think "judging" is the word. I see it as his willingness to move past what he sees as limited/narrow/ blinkered thinking and embracing something bigger and, for him, better. It reads positive to me, not negative. It reads as if this man, a pastor, is willing to dissect and understand where he is not comfortable and to do something about it. That is something many who are ensconced within a religious paradigm fail to do in an ongoing way. I sometimes think of this as a great chain of life where none is independent and all are of benefit to another in some way, even if not so obvious. Absolutely, upfronter. By living your life with this ability, you can hope to remain open and without ill will towards others in their effort to live their lives the best they know/can. I think it is a healthy viewpoint. In my opinion, any belief system will have to evolve or become outgrown by necessity because it must be alive to have effect - and anything alive cannot remain stagnant, whether conservative Christianity, so called, or even a more ancient system more pertinent to this forum – meaning, I think, that while certain aspects may come around in cycles upon themselves, they can never become what they once were, but something else is added because of what has taken place. It is changed, it must change, it becomes “new” to that group - although, as I see it, there is nothing new in complete and absolute Truth because, if it is Truth, then it has always existed. I have voiced this idea here before, about the inability of anything in life to remain static. Not only can you not force a thing to remain the same, it is not healthy to do so and "life" will wriggle away and keep changing anyway! My own understanding is that when a group in general becomes comfortable with their understanding of the certain aspect of Truth to which they have been drawn and which has brought to them a degree of self-realisation, awakening, enlightenment, revelation (or whichever appropriate word) - then that aspect of Truth is no longer enough for that group and is therefore losing its power by degree. Then comes the increase of another aspect of realisation or revelation of Truth among individuals aligned to that group, which meets with varying degrees of opposition from the larger body as interfering, groundless based on existing modes of proof, meddling, even threatening. The greater the opposition and denial to the increase in this or that aspect of Truth through the stamping and trampling of that aspect into the earth by the associated group, then the stronger and firmer the roots of that aspect of Truth are compacted underground - roots which eventually make a showing as a strong plant that cannot be eradicated once exposed to the growth-promoting conditions of the open atmosphere now ready to accommodate what cannot be removed. And so on… Sometimes the splinter groups that break off from a system are the more radical forms of growth and if they are too extreme they will not survive for long. Nature, and we are all bound by certain laws here, does not support aberrations. Now, you have to define aberration but for me anything that ignores the basic tenets of life is an aberration. When you place no value on the worth, feelings, right to exist of others then you are an aberration. When you basically function as a sociopath, or a psychopath for that matter, then you are an aberration and if nothing else, society will stamp you out, either as an individual or as a group. Just some thoughts… Thanks for the feedback.
