Eddy,

Judging by how well you write and how thoughtful and intelligent many of your posts are, I would have guessed that you had some graduate or professional degree. However you received your education it was obviously a good one, and I mean that. I’m sorry we keep butting heads.

Eddy,

Your bitterness is showing – and I’m not sure how great it is that you speak through other people and use other people’s issues to voice problems of your own.

Eddy,

Or that you seem to be trying to couch your issues in other people’s issues and then try to pass it off as some sort of empathizing.

Please forgive me if I’m wrong about all this, but you seem to be directing some of your words at me. I am sorry if I’m wrong and just being overly sensitive, but trying to discuss things with you and being criticized at every single turn for nearly a year has sort of made me that way. For being someone who doesn’t enjoy having their words spun and who doesn’t like people telling them what they are thinking, you SURE seem to be alright with doing that to other people.

Sure is hard keeping up with who and what I am and what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. I’m sure Jayhuck will have more clear insights later.

If I’m correct, the last two argumentative charges are in response to my responding to Mary’s frustration…a frustration I share. It’s one of a very few places where I said much other than ‘thank you’ to someone who shares my views and suddenly “I seem to be using other peoples issues to advance mine”. What happened to my right to communicate a shared feeling with one of the bloggers? When I do, am I always just advancing my own cause…using the situation…how do I learn the difference.

The funniest one though was attacking me for acknowledging that Ann, Mary and I are in agreement a few things. So Ken goes after Concerned while skipping right by Jayhuck who’s used some of the same terminology. And, in his attack on me, and my ‘teaming up’, Jayhuck doesn’t just mention Ken but he brings up David Roberts…one of ‘his team’ who isn’t even in the conversation. Perhaps you’re hypersensitive to people ‘teaming up’ because you always thought it was exclusively your territory.

I don’t think the writer of that passage would disagree that the spiritual heart can’t affect the body in a physical way – in fact, that is what he was saying when he called the brain an organ that expresses and elaborate the “thoughts” of the spiritual heart – but, this concept is covered in an entire book and I definitely don’t think that everyone is going to agree with it, and I really don’t trust my own ability to explain it since I’m still grappling with aspects of it myself. Anyway – its out there

Warren,

I hope you got my message about the show Taboo on the NatGeo channel!

I am of the thought that spirituality really does exist in the mind. For myself, I have to set my mind on something, then focus, meditate on it , let it dwell in me and as more experiences during the course of my hours and days come to pass, they comingle. New thoughts and different understandings and meanings come to “mind”. Thus changing my feelings. It is all in my mind as in brain.

What I was talking about is something of a spiritual heart – I’ll just give you a quote out of one of my favorite books – if you want to take this offline that’s fine

“Every man has two hearts. One is the body’s heart. The other is the soul’s heart. The good or bad condition of both of our hearts is very important. If something happens to either one, then we have heart problems and our life is in danger, whether it is the life of our body or the life of our soul. Unfortunately, many Christians, both clergy and laity still don’t understand this. And although they take great care to appear externally good, decent, honest, consistent, religious and loyal people, unfortunately they care very little, if at all, or almost at all, about having a clean, good and holy heart.

Someone might object saying that the mind can’t be the heart (spiritual). When we say mind we usually mean our brain. However, according to our Holy Fathers, our mind is found in the heart and uses the brain as an organ to express itself….thoughts therefore which we would justifiably say are born in our mind are truly born in our mind. This mind however is located in our heart and not in our brain. The thoughts then come out and go to our brain for screening and elaboration ”

There’s more to it and I’ve probably already shared more than I needed to, but this is the basis for my comment

My mistake – I was talking about Faith.

Mary,

I will stop that – I actually didn’t even realize I was doing that, and I darn sure never meant to. I still believe that for most people, their concerns over their sexuality are mostly spiritual, and I think if we look at the numbers of people seeking such help over their sexuality the numbers of people would bear that out – However, I will work to make sure my words never suggest such a thing for you again. I hesitate to say I’m sorry because others have called my apologies insincere – but, I am!!!!! I won’t promise I’ll be perfect, I am only a, forgive the cliche, “work in progress”, but I’ll hope that you call me out on it when I start doing something like this again.

This sounds like a kind of dualism of mind and spirit that I am unfamiliar with. In my view belief is built into our brains. We believe things all the time that have nothing to do with religion. I believe blogging helps create tolerance (wow, what faith I have!) but I really do think that belief is involving neural pathways involving the frontal cortex and the amygdala. Science is a way of finding out and religion is a way of gaining a sense of order and predictability. But I do not see the evidence for segmenting a kind of thought out of the brain and into a something ethereal.

Help me understand if I am reading you right.