>>4461411(pb)
Good advice. We will definitely wait, but we are prepared to homeschool if the law isn't changed or the vaccine requirements aren't amended.
Will do, that's exactly the kind of thing we're looking for. Thank you.
Very helpful. We are going to petition for religious exemption, but I still want to figure out what (if any) are okay/useful.
>>4461422 (last bread)
>Omni-presence = Creator = Creation = ??
I may need you to clarify what you mean, but I see it this way: The Creator is not "made" of anything. Whatever He "is" is something we don't have a frame of reference to really grasp.
All that "is" (matter, energy, time, anything–even spirit, in my understanding) was Created by God. It is not made up of part of His literal substance. He is, in that way "independent" from reality. One of the things I love about the story of Jesus is that God coming into the flesh is a sort of merging of reality and it's Creator. It's also said that a believer receives the Holy Spirit into their person permanently. That is, whatever God "is" becomes somehow merged with the person. In this way, it's humanity that functions a zipper between God and reality.
Since I see the idea of God's relationship to His Creation as more abstract than we may usually hear it described, I view omni-presence as less like "being everywhere all at once constantly" as though God is physically in various places.
Instead, I see it like how a writer with a perfect memory is capable of being anywhere and everywhere in their story. They know all the details, all the people, the past/future of their story at once. All the information is present at once, and they can effortlessly shift their focus.
I do very much see this entire period of the physical separation from the divine, from all of "history" starting with creation until Paradise is finished, as most functionally similar to a story that's written by God with reality as His medium rather than simply language/paper/etc. And like any good writer, there is consistency, foreshadowing, motifs, patterns, etc. Everything exists for a reason and is from Him.
So I find immense value and truth in the beliefs and practices of all cultures and religions. Where I would split from you is which series of labels and metaphors I grant primary status as the lens to check the rest against. I see the revelation of Christ as the writer identifying Himself to His characters, telling them the ending and how to get there, and providing a route to joining the author in a world outside the story (once it's over). But someone like Horus can still reveal information about how the author thinks, where the story is going, etc. It's not less relevant or important to the story just because it isn't descriptive 1-to-1 with the author himself.
I've recently been trying to source more iodine in my diet, since it can be hard to get easily/naturally. Is it good for babies, as far as your know?
Yes. I'm not sure if you meant anything contrary to what I posted, but this is in line with what I was at least intending to convey:
God creates reality. God joins Himself to reality through Christ in tangible, literal way. God gives us His Holy Spirit and dwells within us when we are born again. His children are all defined by His spirit. Jesus stands in our place for judgement, after all.
He is in all of His children, in the end. He makes all things new, as well. There appears to be a "zippering up" of Creator and Creation that began with Christ and still continues.
But I dispute the idea that creation IS the creator. They are not "=" in Biblical views, at least.
I see what you mean now. I agree with you that God didn't create the universe like a wound up clock He watches passively. I may not have explained myself very well.
I suppose I mean to say that I see creation as sort of a thought in the mind of the Creator. The Creation is inseparable from the Creator, as the thought is from the thinker. But I would not say the thought IS the person.
I wouldn't use the "=" between them, because I see a distinction. I believe the Creator is eternal, while matter/energy has a beginning date. As a Creation, it has not existed forever. It had to be Created to exist.
The Creator is more intimately linked with reality than I think we have an example of. I'm trying with the thoughts and stories to illustrate but maybe it's falling flat.
I don't think matter itself is eternal, omni-present, or self-creating. So an eternal, uncreated, omni-present God is separate from such a Creation as far as I can see. And like a thought and a thinker, they're also different in substance, although the thought comes directly from the thinker and not outside materials.
I think we may internalize some of this the same way, but are finding conflict in how we categorize it in words/labels.
Also, I believe we are different and distinct from God in an important and significant enough manner to not call man and Creator one in the same. Our existence is a result of His action and we are dependent on Him. To me, God's will and action causing something to become "real" demonstrates an otherness and traits that are mutually exclusive from God.
God is uncreated, and there is nothing "more" than Him. God did not need something else to exist, whereas we did.
Plus, all the other attributes I believe the Prime Mover must have in order to exist that we don't have seems to disqualify us. God is unchanging, God does not depend on anything, God is Good, etc. Even just our interpersonal conflict, our self-imposed limitations, or ability to do evil, our need for food/sleep, our ability to be "bested," our ability to give our worship to someone else or obey someone else, etc. all points to this for me.
However, all that said, I believe that although that distinction is necessary and accurate and we are separate beings from one another and from God, that we are not wholly independent from God in the way I may have accidentally suggested.
I believe God gives us His spirit. Literally becoming a part of our being. I believe we can reflect God, speak His thoughts, and do His will cohesively. We do unify in that way. In Paradise, the "New Heavens and Earth" as the Bible entitles, that God will "complete" His creation and we will end up being something very much like Him. "Truthfully, I say to you, you are gods." Said by Jesus and The Father in the OT.
But we still will give Him our worship. We are not precisely identical. We remain Creator and Creation, but we are not separate. It's hard to describe what i mean, so I hope I'm making sense.