this was pretty much my perspective also

and it begs the question about the prophecies... for sure, the little bit of reading i've done of Revelation since starting to get this new understanding changes my reading a lot

i probably should go poke at Mormon also, my uncle is one and i have read many interesting things about their system that hint at the idea that they are one of these branches of Christianity that have moved towards this view

really i'm just trying to establish a short list of denominations that i should consider in my search for a gathering place in the future, not cults, but closer to this view than i will find in the bigger, more established churches

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I kinda hate everything about Mormonism. They are not Christian, IMO. They are a cult. (To be fair, The Church was called a cult at its beginning, too, but the difference, IMO, is that Mormonism is based on a "further revelation" exactly like Islam, and both of those lead to bad things when followed, so, I do as proscribed and judge them by their fruit.)

Agreed. Accretions lead away from God.

yeah, i'm inclined to agree from my experience, they are probably pretty much Scientology-adjacent, in fact

but the point is more about the fact that several of their "revelations" assert the material nature of the angelic host... and they have some interesting points about synthetic fibres and such also, which are all pretty much being shown to be toxic waste we should not be wearing

but yes, pretty much a cult, i guess my point is more towards a more clear question of "which Christian churches are most friendly to the understanding of the angels being physical beings

i have not intensively studied doctrine much outside of catholic and seventh day adventist (i was raised in the latter, and it also gets labeled cult as well, for much the same reasons as mormon, and JW and they also appear around the same time, at the end of the gold rush)

those that are the most user friendly about angels I think are also the ones that get past over what angels are... I think secularism santería, for example...

interesting, just reading about it

one of the points in favor of such systems as i understand it is that it is permissible and mentioned the idea of praying to saints and angels, even opening up conversations with the fallen ones though obviously one is going to be highly skeptical about anything they say, and further, that the identity of those that answer may not be as intended

probably in general it's best to stick to the one, and disincarnate God as regards to prayer, whoever actually answers, is for a separate exercise.

it reminds me a lot, one of the most notable periods of my life in recent years related to adopting the constant prayer that I was engaging in, and because i was on the road and homeless and penniless i was alone a lot so it was easy to adopt

there is some kind of phobia about speaking out loud to oneself, hypothetical listener or not, i'm interested to hear opinions about how to break through that without being in such extreme conditions as i found myself at the times i have practiced it a lot

hmm... if I ever to hear "another voice" that is not the one I know all my life, which tone or accent it would have? I tried imagine any, I couldn't... to begin with, to "imagine it" it already grants that is self made, that the voice is still there alone; if ever having to hear another voice there could be no way obliged necessity to be in this language probably, in this frequency, etc...

The problematic as far as i know is there could not be a way to verify with flesh and bones about cases in other people where they claim they indeed can...

yeah, it's quite an interesting thing... the voice...

you kinda have to persist with it and expect a response and eventually sometimes you get something that you don't expect, and that surprise is the signal that it has possible external origin

anyone who sells you the idea that they have mastered it should be treated with suspicion, i think my personal theory on it is that you only listen to the voice of God first hand, which means you have to actually try to hear it

the Bible also makes reference to this in places as the "still small voice" and this ties together with the instruction to pray out loud, and where this is advised also in some places it talks about the importance of privacy, and hinting at the idea that public praying as theatre is not a good thing, per se

knocked me off guard the use of praying as voice... of the voice 😅 then yes ideally i could sign the idea that praying not necessarily hast to be alike the mendincants did only... but there i think neither at concert halls with acrobatics if not is clearly labeled as circus

yeah, it can't really be stated without undue emphasis that you have to engade your lungs and vocal chords, the instructions you can find in the bible are quite clear, and you can probably find similar stuff in other places as well, it was just Phillipians 4:6-7 that i became aware of it

too much nuance to note but welcome @ my campfire .1 thing, i never like sharing thru megaphones my really personal stuff

Interesting, I too was raised SDA. Don't meet too many people out and about with this background.

As an adult it has been interesting to see the history of America and some of cultural forces that were in play when these "newer" Christian churches (SDA, Mormon, JW, etc) were founded. I think that's why many of them share similar forms and doctrines.

There are definitely some good cultural parts of these churches that I really admire. But, some parts are just too 'out there' or elitist for me to deal with.

this is some related stuff that I found in the Intro to "City of God" yesterday from 300s A.D. The author is kinda giving a resume of what Augustine was writing about:

from G.R Evans' Introduction to "City of God" by Saint Augustine

Augustine needed to take the 'old gods' seriously if he was to win over their adherents. He catches himself up at one point (describing the absurd behaviour of the gods at the time of the birth of Aeneas, a story he and his educated readers would be familiar with from their school- boy reading of Virgil's Aeneid (Civ. 11L3)), and says, 'perhaps I may be thought to be laughing at those fables, and not treating so weighty a matter with proper seriousness'. Augustine has a difficult path to tread when it comes to the account he gives of the relations of human beings with the spirits both he and the pagans believed to be crowding invisibly about them and extremely interested in human doings. The gods exist. They are only too real. It mistaken by the pagans for gods. They are merely 'supposed gods', not in the sense that they do not exist but in the sense that they are full of trickery and deceit (Civ. 17.2). And they particularly wish to deceive human beings so as to tempt them away from the love of God and the fellowship of the true fellow-citizens of the City of God.

Augustine is reassuring that there is nothing to fear from the society of the good spirits, the angels. He calls the angels 'gods' (Civ. 1x.23; LE XL1), which seems to mean no more than that they are supernatural beings. The only matter for regret there is that 'they do not mix with us on the same familiar footing as do men', which is one of the respects in which our sinful condition in this life deprives us of a joy proper to the citizenship we share with them (Civ. x1x.9). Yet Satan is quite capable of pretending to be an angel. The faithful must be on their guard (Cιν. Χ1Χ.9).

Human beings are a distinct creation from the angels. They have bodies as well as souls. In Civ. X11.22 Augustine is anxious to show that the fall of the angels did not cause God to make a change in his pro- jected design for the universe. He suggests that God was following his eternal plan when he 'created man's nature as a kind of mean between angels and beasts', with the intention (a borrowed hermetic idea) that if he obeyed his Creator, man should 'pass over into the fellowship of the angels, but if he did not he should 'live like the beasts, under sentence of death', and 'the slave of his desires', and when he died suffer 'eternal punishment' (Civ. X11.22).

very interesting, but only confirming everything i have already learned about the subject

interesting to note that he was around in the early days of the formation of the Catholic Church