Steve a loose recollection of your last post to me,..you're a smart boy but you need more to go on from me. What I've given you is (1) what to look for (2) where to look for it (3) how to look for it. Being a smart fella what more could you want for crying out loud. I would say we're done until you investigate thoroughly what I'm saying which is going to take you a fair while. Here's a refresher on what I'm saying..At the heart of all religions and spiritual practices and mind body disciplines is a physical process that delivers 'a state of being' labelled enlightenment,Awakened/natural state/ Nirvana etc.. Nothing more to be said between us until you catch up and acknowledge this ridiculously evident reality. A post you made in response to McG shows the closed minded disingenuous way you approach this and related matters so I'm not holding my breath.
          Now back to my real reason for posting. @Joe-- Hi, 8) Imo Christianity needs to get back to its roots and start talking about and facilitating Gnosis (ooh what an old and scary loaded word) All Gnosis is, is experience of our true base nature with all baggage removed, a higher state of consciousness. Anymore detail than that gets in the way because we can't be trusted with anything. Look at the giants down through the ages who tried to explain but have obviously failed to properly convey it. That's because it's impossible to convey isn't it, words can never do it justice unless between people who have been there, and even then they are very limiting. Imo, and others probably yours too, most of the problems we have globally emanate from the state of our psyche. Consensus
is never going to be reached on anything until we solve the human psyche. Now there is a consensus silently lovingly waiting in the background for us to realise and it's called enlightenment. Never going to happen anytime soon though..ah well.
          Here is a chap (link) half hour down the road from me, never met him but Imo he is rightly trying to reclaim Christianity and restore it to it's true purpose, and delivering the same message as Christ, whether Christ be fiction or not, the message is truth it's just been obscured, messed with and abused.
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   http://www.networknorwich.co.uk/Articles/260552/Network_Norwich_and_Norfolk/Resources/Culture/Norwich_vicar_tells_of_road_to_enlightenment.aspx
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          "The pitch is 'If you are seeking 'enlightenment', then why not find it in the Christian Tradition, people have been finding it there for centuries.' The idea is to start where people are, with their own experience of consciousness, and then build from there."
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Here is Schopenhauer an athiest, talking about the same thing I'm talking about. I don't mind what it's called either.

    " " The better consciousness in me lifts me into a world where there is no longer personality and causality or subject or object. My hope and my belief is that this better (supersensible and extra-temporal) consciousness will become my only one, and for that reason I hope that it is not God. But if anyone wants to use the expression God symbolically for the better consciousness itself or for much that we are able to separate or name, so let it be, yet not among philosophers I would have thought " "
            Right that really is me finished on this topic as life is too short and it's a serious thread hijack and I acknowledge that. If Steve you ever feel like responding if you get interested I'll give you my email. Neither of us is stupid and hopefully we can recognise that you assuming your well honed stance here and the group dynamic is going to make it difficult for us to honestly discuss anything. Btw any difference of opinion we have here I won't carry over to other threads if I post on them,which I seriously doubt as none of the other contentious topics interest me that much. Plus most of my spare energy goes on transcribing box players n chunes which can send you daft btw so don't take anything I say to heart and fester on it. I'm here to liberate you ! (ok bad joke)
             You can now go back to getting Joe to defend the indefensible and explaining the unexplainable (Jeez Joe tough crowd 8)