There is only one right answer. Just be who you are. Be honest.

(Okay, on a side note, I would think a lesbian lover who was attracted to you, might find your physical anatomy a bonus. After all, you are sporting the best of both worlds. (Beauty, Femininity and a penis.) Also, technically if you were born "a male," then the question of the legality of gay marriage would not a problem be, just show your birth certificate.

I hope that was not rude, it was just my thoughts on the subject, and I believe in being completely honest.)

Really? I missed it. Please direct me to the smut and dirty comments.

At he very least, if a man you meet at church professes he is looking for a "good Christian woman" he can't very well start pressuring you for sex right away.

I would never get involved with a fundamentalist Christian though, I don't like sermons. LOL

Who ever has the list of mingle whores fork it over. There may be a market for it. LOL

I think he is too young for mingle.

If you are a Christian you should go to a church that is close to what you believe so that you might find a partner with closer to the same beliefs.

There are those who will pretend to be Christians and are wolves in sheep's clothing.

So you might find a compatible mate at your local church, you may also find a lot of pretenders. Pay close attention to them, and you will be able to pick out the pretenders.

Some pretenders don't even know they are pretenders.

I don't think that is a sure thing. I have seen quite a few drop dead gorgeous older men. Also, a man's character and personal grooming, and how well he takes care of himself says a lot.

Someone once said "you can't fix ugly" but today, you can with plastic surgery.

But no matter how handsome or sexy you are if you don't treat people nice, or if you are a psychopathic killer, you are not attractive.

This makes sense to me:

"One has to understand that the search for reality, or God, or Guru and the search for the self are the same; when one is found, all are found. When 'I am' and 'God is' become in your mind indistinguishable, then something will happen and you will know without a trace of doubt that God is because you are, you are because God is. The two are one. "

~Nisargadatta Maharaj

I don't believe that the universe just happened, or that it happened "on accident" and the "big bang" is something that happens all the time at the quantum levels.

I do believe that all is one, and somehow it is creative and intelligent and I am connected to that and at the core of my own existence I AM THAT. (As we all are)

Well this is true, especially in most religions.
People tend to think of "God" as something or someone greater than themselves.

I don't think that there being a God explains anything. They still don't know quite HOW this God actually created everything. So the unknown is still unknown even if there is a God creating everything.

I think the meaning of being "God realized" is the realization that you are God.

To be "self realized" is to realize that "Self" is the same as "God."

Of course some atheists claim that "self" is an illusion, and so is "free will."

I wrote a thread on Sam Harris and his claims about "free will" in the science forum.

http://mingle2.com/topic/377043

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I find it enough of a challenge to practice the presence and live in the moment. There is nothing to fear. The act of faith is to accept what is and live in serenity.

I did a face reading on him.

Toks88,

If you "see" that, then you are either delusional or you have a wild imagination.

Some say that evidence is only for this physical reality where science can actually study it, but some things are beyond evidence. Some things require faith to understand.

On the contrary when I use the term "faith"�� in regards to things I don'��t understand it is closer to a feeling of serenity in accepting things as they are.

When I speak of faith it comes from accepting what is, no matter what. (Even if I don'��t understand it.) I experience faith, not with doubt or with the absence of doubt (arrogant certainty) but with a feeling of Serenity. Mine is faith in the laws of physics and in the unknown laws of the universe, for surely we don'��t know everything.


How does faith feel to you?

Yes indeed, it has been said. In fact there have been books written about the hoax of the Bible.

But in this thread no one has said it.

Was it a hoax. Maybe. It does not matter to me.

freaking psychopaths

Sam Harris.and his view on “Free Will”

~by Jeanniebean

I can understand how a person who is technically identified as an atheist (although he doesn’t like the term) would eventually wander onto the topic of "free will" and come to the wrong conclusion.

By his own explanation of causal influences, and how they determine all of our decisions, actions and beliefs, if he believes in his own conclusions, then he unveils his own personal journey to that conclusion, of which he appears to be fairly certain. He feels that the scientific community should (or must) eventually declare the illusion of "free will." He states that "The illusion of free will is as certain as evolution." Free will does not exist. It is an illusion, according to him.

(Wow from here I could write a 300 page book pondering on what is and is not an "illusion" but alas, that is not the topic.)

In his video on youtube about "free will" he was asked a question by a member of the audience of how he personally came to these conclusions about free will and his response was not very clear. I don’t think he even knows how he arrived at his conclusion, but then of course that fits right into his conclusion because he claims that we have no idea why we think and do the things we think and do.

I can't help but feel that he likes this idea because he can always claim he is not responsible for any of his thoughts, words, or actions at any time. This even supports his belief that he has no "free will" and he himself is a product of his genes and life influences. So if he changes his mind or is proven wrong in the future, he will take no responsibility for his past conclusions.

In other words, he is of the opinion that we don’t understand ourselves in the slightest and we are not to blame if we are unlucky enough to have been born with the soul of a psychopathic killer, if indeed there are such things as souls.

I was recently told by a friend on facebook that something I had stated was a "false certainty" and I learned that a" false certainty" is a statement that, (whether true or false,) could not be proven by evidence or a conclusion or statement that a person claims is true but cannot possibly know the answer to, at least by scientific or logical standards.

I suspect the term "false certainty" is a popular one to use on blindly religious people who have been known to insist they know God exists or some other "outlandish" statement. I wonder though, how often these scientists recognize their own false certainties and statements.

Sam Harris is full of false certainties, but the most prominent one, which was the topic of the video, is that the idea of "free will" is an illusion. But what else could he do? What other conclusion could he have possibly come up with given his previous influences and professed beliefs? Once you build your model of reality on a false premise, you are bound to keep building in that same direction even if part of your model is somewhat accurate and impressive.

Here are some of the things he believes, according to his video:

He believes in luck. (or in this case, bad luck)
He said, "One has to be very unlucky to have the mind and the brain of a psychopath."

I doubt if he believes in people having souls, but he adopts that premise temporarily for those who do believe in souls and states: "Anyone born with the soul of a psychopath is inherently unlucky."

So this implies that his hypothetical "soul" inherented its psychopathic state. I don't think he understands what a "soul" is or how heredity works in the spirit world. (it doesn't) (Of course he does not believe in the spirit world anyway so I'm not surprized he didn't give this much thought.)

He absolves people of any responsibility when he states:
"You are no more responsible for the next thing you think any more than you are for the fact that you were born into this world. You have not built your mind."

He suggests that (if we have souls) and if a person is gay, that their soul just happens to be gay. (That is utterly absurd) He said: (for effect I suppose) "Souls just happen to be gay."
(By the way, being gay or strait, is a physical or mental condition.)

He said: "You can’t honestly take credit for your unconscious mental life." (or be blamed for it either according to him.) (Has he ever heard of self hypnosis?)

Oh by the way, he claims that "self" is an illusion.

His model creates victims out of even psychopathic serial killers. (Its not their fault they have no "free will".)

He said: "You can’t step out of this stream of choices and efforts. We can’t choose what we choose in life."

Of course he covers himself by saying that he does not mean that our decisions are not very important, but he fails to elaborate on how that makes any difference if we are not to blame (or are not responsible) for them.

Other false certainties based on his premise..

"Nobody picks their parents or the society in which they were born.
Nobody picks their life influences,
Nobody can pick their genes. "

(All arguable if spirit exists and incarnation and reincarnation is true.)

By making these claims, (which are false certainties in my book,) he is claiming to KNOW that there is nothing more to a human being than the physical body and the brain and this implies that a human being is nothing more than some biological computer programed by genes and influences, and running on a bunch of micro processing neurons.

I don’t blame him for his conclusions or his ignorance, and he certainly isn’t ready to take any responsibility for that anyway at this moment, or apparently ever, for anything he says or does according to his conclusions. After all, he has no free will. He has no control of what he chooses to choose.

According to him, we are all victims of our genes and our life influences. Responsibility is meaningless. Oh but our choices are important.. even though we have no control over them.

And this is one of the guys who has been elevated to the top of the atheist’s movement as a best selling author and was introduced as one of the four horsemen of the "non-apocalypse" right up there with Dan Dennett.

What is most unbelievable is, the first time I watched Sam speak in a video I was very ammused. But this time, I just shook my head in disbelief about how far off from truth he has wandered. Especially when he states that "Self" is an illusion. I am sure his is talking about the ego or something, I don't really care to know what he thinks "self" is other than an illusion. A guru of logic and reason he is not.

From the Power of Will:

The Will is sometimes defined as the "faculty of conscious, and especially of deliberative action." Whether the word "conscious" is essential to the definition may be questioned. Some actions which are unconscious are, nevertheless, probably expressions of the Will; and some involuntary acts, are certainly conscious. All voluntary acts are deliberative, for deliberation may proceed "with the swiftness of lightning," as the saying goes, but both deliberation and its attendant actions are not always conscious. A better definition of the Will, therefore, is "THE POWER OF SELF DIRECTION.”


From Power of Will
By FRANK CHANNING HADDOCK, M.S., PH.D
1919 The Pelton Publishing Company
Meriden, Conn.

"I AM" speaks to everyone.