help me resist

Help guys I'm actively reading propaganda and now I'm believing it??

now you should the Gospel of Mark and Helen Waddell's Desert Fathers, then Augustine's Confessions

then Blake

don't let doctrinaire christfags take the joy out of thinking in new ways by turning it into an us vs. them thing for you, and don't feel obligated to "sign on" to any doctrine or subordinate your feeling that there's something more to the world

it's the feeling that counts, even (actually, especially) if you can't quite put your finger on it

>>9446978
thanks for the reply. have read the desert fathers and augustine already, but they didn't have the effect on me that Athanasius and Symeon the New Theologian have recently.

I think the problem I have is that I _do_ feel obligated to follow the scent of truth, even if it leads (yuck) to organized religion (probably Eastern Orthodoxy)... but I appreciate your warning against partisan thinking, I totally agree. The last time I had this feeling was reading Shankara and the Upanishads, so I doubt I'll ever be able to shut out 'outside' influences -- truth is everywhere, even if we humans are notoriously bad at recognizing it

>>9447038
that's awesome

are you following the perennialists by any chance? be careful not to get sucked into the opposite trap that they represent, namely, being ultra-ecumenical as a way of being an all-encompassing big tent and drawing followers in. in the end, if you've talked to the kind of people who read the vedas and schuon all day long, you realize that they're just as limited as the doctrinal types.

i'm in a similar boat but i've known too many people who read these things and then go insane and lose all the creativity and independence that excited them in the first place

never do zikr or LSD

>>9447071
also if you like shankara+christ you might consider reading steiner's christology

I was born into a Catholic family but lapsed upon the temptation of worldly degeneracy in youth. Spent many years a militant atheist. Only now gaining perspective. I think we are often emotionally motivated to believe something and justify it after. I am totally agnostic about Christ. Same with Buddha or Socrates. As should we all be if we are honest. But I have no problem with looking for the truths within a holy text, or techniques to apply to my own attempt to live a just, holy, and philosophical life. I think there's a certain romance in the idea of Greek Orthodoxy but my commitment to truth makes me permanently agnostic. Have you read the gnostic gospels and anti-gnostic polemics? Fun stuff. I think I lean toward a heretical view of things. Does denying Christ's divinity diminish his teachings? In my view, it elevates them. But ya. I am heavily hermetic and neoplatonic in beliefs. I am Christian only in the most syncretic sense. What's wrong with LSD?

>>9446974
All input from men is propaganda. Your own, God's or someone else's.

Why are you so bent on resisting? There's nothing inherently wrong with Christianity's basic principles ie worship God and don't be a dick to your fellow man. If you find it appealing or comforting you shouldn't let your own prejudices or the fear of what other people will think of you stop you from pursuing it