(Message edited by sdan49 On 05/04/2009 14:02:08)

Hi there!

  First of all - here's a link to Marlenewinell.net  http://www.marlenewinell.net/page/leaving-fold-guide-former - you can order an e-book of Leaving the Fold for $12, OR there is a  link to Amazon and a couple of other places there as well - apparently it's back in print - $18.95. 

  For me - Many Lives, Many Masters wasn't about finding a "different" religion per se, it was more about the idea that there IS another way to look at God/religion, etc.  And that educated, normal, positive citizens of the USA believe it!  I don't know - for some reason that knowledge allowed me to just ...walk away.  It was almost like a "transition" belief on my way to agnosticism/atheism.

  I think, I never believed I had a choice.  You know the fundies just shove their shit so far down your throat you can't even breathe.  They never present it as if you actually have a CHOICE.  It's their way or eternity in hell.  THAT - to me - is a major issue.  That God gave us free will to choose BS ......I dont' see it as much of a choice if the other alternative is eternal suffering.


PLUS - *if* I believed in a God, or choose to again someday, it will definitely be one more like the one in Many Lives, etc...than the Bible.  That God at least seems to have healthy personal boundaries and a *respect* for our free will/choice.

But for now, I'm happy with agnosticism/atheism.

I'm glad you liked the first book.

OH - forgot to tell you - I have lived in two houses with ghosts and my husband lived in an apartment with a ghost.  :O)

Hey there!

  Sorry it took so long - I didn't get an e-mail that there was a reply...

  Anyway...ghosts.....

  The first one I saw was in my husband's apartment.  I was visiting him and we were asleep.  He was under a lot of pressure at school and would sleep walk frequently - I would just get up, reassure him that I had taken care of whatever it was he was talking about and put him back to bed.

  One night, He was up and standing at the foot of the bed (I could just see his shadow) when I sat up to ask what was wrong I put my hand down next to me to support myself - and my hand landed right on his chest - he was still in bed and there was *still* someone standing at the foot of the bed.

  I leaned down and whispered, "Do you see that person at the foot of the bed?"  When I looked back it was gone.

  We heard this ghost frequently in the apartment - even before I saw it - he had a path he would follow - walk out of DH's room, rock the chair in the living room on the way by and then the footsteps went into the pantry.

  It was a regular occurence that we just ignored - it became commonplace.

Second time:

 We moved into my Dh's grandmother's house when we moved to the city where we live now - we were renting from her.  DH came up on weekends to paint, etc and get the house ready for us, so he was often alone in the house. When we moved in I was very pregnant.  One day - I was *positive* I was losing my mind - I kept seeing this man in the house - at the bottom of the stairs, around the corner - I'd get a glimpse and then he would be gone.  He was dressed like a construction worker.

  When DH came home from work that night I told him I was fairly sure I was going insane.  When he asked why I told him that I had been seeing someone in the house with me ALL DAY.  He asked what they looked like.  When I described the man I was seeing, his clothing etc., the color started to drain from my husband's face.  I asked him what was wrong and he said he had seen the same man several times when he was up working on the house by himself - and was sure he was going crazy!

  So - I continued to see him when I was in the house alone until one day when he scared the ever living shit out of me by popping up at the bottom of the basement stairs.  I yelled at him.  I said, "STOP THAT!  You are going to scare me and make me fall or something and hurt my baby!  I dont' mind if you stay here, but I never want to see you again!"  I never saw him again, but would know when he was around as the hair would stand up on the back of my neck.  He would also throw ornaments off the Christmas tree - as in flying across the room - and there was this one freaking door that he closed all the time - we open it, it's closed, we open it - it's closed.  Drove me nuts.

When my daughter turned 2, she started seeing him.  She would be screaming in her room at night because there was a man in her room.  THAT pissed me off.  So - I still believed in God at that point and began praying earnestly for protection for my house from this spirit.  He did eventually go away and for about the last year we were there, we had no activity at all.

  When we built our new house - we stipulated with the builder that if there were *any* deaths during the building of our home, that the contract would be null and void.  He thought we were nuts - but we weren't taking any chances.

And now....most recently was two Christmases ago - my mother came for a visit, we think.  She was pushing and pushing and PUSHING the button on one the Christmas ornaments to make it do it's little music thing.  ( she LOVED Christmas!)  We were trying to watch TV - finally dh paused it and I said, "OK Mom - we get it!  Can you please stop now?". It stopped - after carrying on for almost 20 minutes solid.

  Well - I shouldn't say that's the most recent.  We currently have two spirits in our home - earthbound spirits.  We have been in contact with a woman who deals with earthbound spirits.  I think we may have to have her out to the house as she says the one spirit is that of a teenaged boy and he is quite the bully - we think he is bothering our middle child - I have a feeling she's got some level of psychic ability, but doesn't want to tell us because she doesn't know what it is.  She has hinted around - but I think mostly she's afraid of it.  She's got a lot of issues with anxiety/depression/conflict and the woman we contacted said he is probably helping to maintain that as they need that type of energy from us.

So yeah - there it is.  If we have her out I'll let you know what happens.

LM

knock knock...
Ghosts?
Nah...I "thought" I saw the 'ghost' of my dad when I woke in the middle of the night for a drink of water ...I looked up and briefly glanced at his image in the dark window. .....I put it down to a trick of the mind - grief and lack of sleep.

I don't believe in the super natural full stop.

Consider the amount of 'deaths' in the history of the world...yad think we'd be walking through pea soup of ghosties.

but...I love a good ghost story.

There is an interesting saying....just because a million/trillion people agree, doesn't make it true.

I just today finished a really good book -- Transcendental Temptation, by Kurtz.  He wonders in his text why people always see ghosts dressed -- and rarely naked -- since one would think that clothing is unnecessary once you are no longer a corporeal body.

 Make no mistake: this is a college textbook. Having said that, it is one of the most well-written texts I have read in quite a while. The author is a writer of the highest caliber. Yet while the subject matter is profound, the style and syntax of this book are easily handled by the average reader. One would not need to read the entire text to gain insight from it, and it is well organized, footnoted, and in no way dense or ponderous. The only criticism I would make is that the author protests too much -- often repetitiously -- that he is giving any opposing points of view full open-minded consideration, even as he is systematically exposing them as frauds.

This text was written in order to carefully examine the fundamental instinct in human beings to discern the ineffable -- the transcendent. Hence the title. Kurtz states up front that he is a secular humanist. He bemoans the fact that "religionists" miss out on much of temporal existence because they are too focused on a mythical hereafter, while humanists busy themselves with building a "better world" in an ultimately and admittedly meaningless Universe. He examines in detail the origins of all religions, but concentrates a majority of chapters on the three major monotheistic religions -- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Later he also covers more modern movements such as Mormonism, Seventh Day Adventism, 19th and 20th century spiritualism, and the secular religions of Marxism and UFOlogy. He also devotes a chapter to the various forms of Astrology. I found especially useful his keen knowledge of context, history, and sacred writings, and he shows how many of the precepts and Laws of the great religions are pre-dated by earlier belief systems.

Like many thoughtful and inquisitive scientists, Kurtz wonders how it is that superstition (read: religion) has continued to hold such a tight grip on a majority of human beings into the post-modern world. He does this from his perspective as an atheist, even as he elsewhere (in this text) admits that agnosticism is probably the most intellectually honest position to take, since by definition people of faith cannot empirically prove the existence of a God, and by the same criteria neither can the atheist prove not. Like most atheists he trashes the "argument from ignorance", i.e. -- since one person believes -- because another does not is not proof for the divine or supernatural. He states that the burden of proof is on the one making extraordinary claims, and I agree with him here.

This is an excellent book for anyone who has considered the genesis of their own belief system, for anyone who has contemplated their own mortality and morality, and for those, like myself, who are forever wondering about an alternative view.


(Message edited by sdan49 On 06/03/2009 14:13:41)