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Challenging Inherited Religious Assumptions - Jim Palmer

  Many people inherit religious ideas so early and so repeatedly that they stop appearing as interpretations and begin feeling indistinguishable from reality itself.   Entire systems of meaning become psychologically fused with identity, morality, belonging, fear, and even survival. But spiritual maturity often begins the moment a person becomes willing to examine inherited assumptions honestly rather than merely defend them reflexively.  Some ideas deepen human beings into greater aliveness, integrity, compassion, and reality-contact. Others produce shame, dependency, fear, fragmentation, and chronic self-betrayal.  Questioning those ideas is not rebellion for its own sake. It is part of becoming fully human.  What follows is a challenge to inherited religious assumptions that distort human flourishing, psychological wholeness, existential honesty, and becoming fully alive. God is not a belief-system. No concept, doctrine, theology, or institution can fully con...
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Growing Zion - a perspective - Gordon & McKay Platt

  Growing Zion - a perspective In the Growing Zion podcast Denver said, “And the challenge for Zion is always the first one: The seed. “ Some gardeners begin every garden by planting seed in the ground. That has several disadvantages:  1 – you can’t begin until after the last frost.  2 – you have a shorter growing season. 3—not all seeds are viable,  4—the soil may be poor Here’s our calculations on the growing Zion method from seed described in DS’s 2017 podcasts.  Start with 25 families, add one every six months (now that’s Polyannish optimism), and then once you hit 100 split the number into two groups of 50 and add one to each group of 50 every six months etc. until the total number is 800. How long would that take?  ———————————- Phase 1: From 25 to 100– 37.5 years Phase 2: From 100 to 200- 25 years Phase 3: From 200 to 400 - 25 years Phase 4: From 400 to 800 - 25 years Answer: 112.5 years to get to 800 families  But what if you plant the seed...
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  The Name  Written as a memorial 20 years after the publication of The Second Comforter-April 6, 2006 McKay Platt Introduction: The title, “the Name” is intentional. This paper is about “the Name”, not “naming” or “names”, although we will touch on those topics as well. It is about a somewhat mysterious religious concept, scattered throughout the revelations. I understand enough to introduce this mystery. Not enough to elucidate it. With that caveat let’s look at names and naming. Naming:  Of the estimated 7.77 million species of animals, and countless plants, fungi, protozoa and bacteria naming is unique to men.  Adam named the animals and subsequent men have named every other known animal, plant, fungus, protozoan and bacterium. To identify a previously unknown species and name it is considered a great privilege in the scientific community.  Of the 8.3 billion humans on earth today and the estimated 117 billion since the dawn of human existence, presum...
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