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What function of Christianity does the Holy Ghost fulfill? If it fulfills the aspect of feelings of energy running through our human body, then how can it be Holy - any more than other religions report as Kundalini or normal energy rushes.
Maybe we can have a discussion about the Holy Ghost which I believe is a natural energy which we ALL feel at some time or another and is very difficult to religiously separate from a normal energy feelings of happiness, elation, love, and even anger, frustration, etc. I mean, everyone gets times when they feel hightened emotions so what's the difference and what makes the Holy Ghost - Holy?
I think "Holy Spirit" is a better label since "ghost" is an antiquated word for spirit and has different modern connotations, mostly negative.
I don't think that even Charismatics or Pentecostals think or teach that the spirit is primarily a source of pleasant experiences in one's body. They don't even emphasize physical sensation over emotional responses in my experience. They would regard those as evidence of him acting on or inspiring a person, perhaps. But they really don't fundamentally see the purpose of the Holy Sprit any differently from most Christians -- as the Comforter, etc.
To your question though, it is a fair one ... how would one distinguish the "still, small voice" of the Holy Spirit from their own thoughts? How would one distinguish feeling peaceful or confident or whatever, from the hand of god on their shoulder so to speak? I confess that I could never tell the difference myself. It wasn't much of a practical problem for me when I was in the faith, because my sect taught that the Holy Spirit didn't do miracles and they didn't particularly try to equate intuition or insight or any other human feeling with the hand of god. Indeed, we were repeatedly warned that such subjective experiences can be deceptive and misleading. We mostly just had the general idea that god saw everything we did, had plans and a will for how we should live and would "prompt" us at times but we just had to have faith that god could influence us as needed without looking for specific "signs".
In Lutheran Sunday School we learned it this way...
God the Father: God in Heaven.
Jesus Christ: God on Earth
Holy Spirit: God dwelling within us.
Later on it got a bit confusing because my parents quit Lutheran and we went to different Fundamentalist, Evangelical, and Pentecostal churches ...... they mostly had "Jesus in our hearts" and "being filled with the holy spirit" as being manifestations of "God dwelling in us". Seemed to me that in some churches that we went to... these two things were basically the same thing... while in others the "gifts of the spirit" had the Holy Spirit doing things that were distinct from the things Jesus was doing in our hearts.
Anyway, it sounds like you have your own idea in deciphering the role of the old Holy Ghost. So I'd just roll with what you got.
What function of Christianity does the Holy Ghost fulfill? If it fulfills the aspect of feelings of energy running through our human body, then how can it be Holy - any more than other religions report as Kundalini or normal energy rushes.
Maybe we can have a discussion about the Holy Ghost which I believe is a natural energy which we ALL feel at some time or another and is very difficult to religiously separate from a normal energy feelings of happiness, elation, love, and even anger, frustration, etc. I mean, everyone gets times when they feel hightened emotions so what's the difference and what makes the Holy Ghost - Holy?
The Holy Spirit is not just any emotion or state of mind.It is very specific and Jesus went to great pains to reveal and demonstrate it to us so we would not confuse it with any other states of mind.
Philippians 2:5-30 King James Version
5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
The Holy Spirit IS the True Nature of God revealed, described, and demonstrated unambiguously by Jesus. He IS agape love, kindness, mercy, compassion, gentleness, unconditional acceptance, empathy, sympathy, tolerance, long-suffering, decency, friendliness, peacefulness, joyfulness, understanding, care, concern, solicitude, solicitousness, sensitivity, tender-heartedness, soft-heartedness, warm-heartedness, warmth, love, brotherly love, tenderness, gentleness, mercifulness, leniency, lenience, consideration, kindness, humanity, humaneness, kind-heartedness, charity, benevolence, and He is non-judgmental.
Any other state of mind is NOT the Holy Spirit, period!
The Holy Spirit regenerates and renews the believer.
The Holy Spirit indwells believers and seals them until the day of redemption.
The Spirit sets Himself against the desires of the flesh and leads the believer into righteousness.
The Holy Spirit is also a gift-giver. “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes themâ€.
The Holy Spirit has one other important role, and that is to give believers wisdom by which we can understand God.
The Holy Spirit also does work among unbelievers. Jesus promised that He would send the Holy Spirit to “convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgmentâ€.
phetaroi
It might not be a good idea to move this to the Christian forum, simply because of what I might say and the opinions I have. But, I agree, it would certainly get a tricky subject out of the way where everyone can waffle on to each other, and agree with each other without actually saying anything.
MysticPhD:
Unfortunately all of these states in your above paragraph are user-interpretable and circumstance specific.
The point I think I am trying to make is that like most other things in Christianity, it is all up-in-the-air and interpreted by the hierarchy according to how they feel. Now, whether these are learned folk who have studied the Bible or some other religious authorities, it is very difficult to pin down a ghost or human feeling enough to describe it so that others can identify it.
From my own perspective, people trying to describe religious concepts or even giving a sermon, they use terminology and phrases which dont actually mean anything and although may sound real and sound like good religious stuff, when you REALLY listen to it, it is like a politician in an interview. They make all the right noises but the substance is sorely lacking. Everyone comes out of church feeling good but when quizzed on what it all meant, they cannot tell you.
If we are going to pick apart your paragraph above,
Quote:
The Holy Spirit IS the True Nature of God revealed, described, and demonstrated unambiguously by Jesus. He IS agape love,
No-one knows the true nature of God, and certainly no-one can describe it or demonstrate it since there is no actual proof that God exists so anything based on assuming that, is meaningless.
In an ideal world we would all be lovey-dovey and have the qualities and personality we all think we would like everyone to have, but in reality everyone is a mixture of emotions, behaviours, beliefs, and personality. We place human emotions and behaviours on our idealised God and then we try to live up to this image and fail miserably.
Quote:
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus
The passage from Phillipians again does not mean anything but sounds religious. And.. I bet you cannot explain it without a derogatory remark about me.
What function of Christianity does the Holy Ghost fulfill? If it fulfills the aspect of feelings of energy running through our human body, then how can it be Holy - any more than other religions report as Kundalini or normal energy rushes.
Maybe we can have a discussion about the Holy Ghost which I believe is a natural energy which we ALL feel at some time or another and is very difficult to religiously separate from a normal energy feelings of happiness, elation, love, and even anger, frustration, etc. I mean, everyone gets times when they feel hightened emotions so what's the difference and what makes the Holy Ghost - Holy?
Speaking as an Advaitist/non-dualist the Holy Ghost is the Atman, the Self within that is the pure, unlimited, ever-present knowing essence of all experience and thoughts, but does not itself experience or think thoughts. It is the witness, not in the literal sense of giving testimony, but as an observer, but which itself cannot be observed as it is the subject, not the object.
In the Christian trinity of God, Jesus, Holy Ghost, I see, again as an Advaitist, The Cosmic Knowing Essence, the World, and the Knowing essence within all beings. When deeply analyzed the three collapse into the only one, Cosmic Knowing Essence. God is the only Truth, the rest are all false. Until we realize this as the truth, we suffer the world.
Sorry about all the caps.
So, do we think the Holy Ghost is a 'personality' or do we think it is an aspect of God?
If it is an aspect or personality, then how is it separated from the whole that some people call God?
If it is not separate then how can it be identified by Christians as a separate part of the Trinity?
How can you separate a nebulous amorphous energy from the energy which is God?
What function of Christianity does the Holy Ghost fulfill? If it fulfills the aspect of feelings of energy running through our human body, then how can it be Holy - any more than other religions report as Kundalini or normal energy rushes.
Maybe we can have a discussion about the Holy Ghost which I believe is a natural energy which we ALL feel at some time or another and is very difficult to religiously separate from a normal energy feelings of happiness, elation, love, and even anger, frustration, etc. I mean, everyone gets times when they feel hightened emotions so what's the difference and what makes the Holy Ghost - Holy?
The difference for me is simply this...
When I have feelings "of energy running through my human body," I call them happiness, elation, love, anger, frustration, etc. I have never associated any of these emotions with anything like a Holy Ghost. Seems to me the very first question is whether such a thing exists in the first place...
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