Thomas Daniel Nehrer Quotes - Page 2

Moving man’s view of himself and life past common thinking, the true visionary faces great difficulty: exactly that deluded mindset the sage would have listeners outgrow is the very filter through which any new perspective must pass.
Thomas Daniel Nehrer
Most people, solidly frozen into long-held, common notions, are unable to grasp clearer views.
Thomas Daniel Nehrer
Visionaries have two principal means to immediately communicate insights beyond people’s mundane, common mindset. They can liken awareness to equivalent situations in life to which the listener can relate – using metaphor, analogy and other grammatical tools to picture points. Or they can illustrate how listeners can gain such awareness – a path to proceed on, techniques to engage, what to look for within.
Thomas Daniel Nehrer
As to “facts” as a basis of understanding things in this investigative age: if there is anything greatly preferred to valid, reliable information in our culture, it is the appearance of facts – nice, tidy story lines that seem complete and perfunctory, stories that can be widely circulated in mutual agreement, despite lacking validity. And, as there are absolutely no historical facts concerning the life of Jesus of Nazareth – not a single word about him recorded during his lifetime – Christianity provides such a wonderful substitute appearance.
Thomas Daniel Nehrer
It is vital to see not only what Christianity asserts, but where its precepts came from – how they evolved from primitive, superstitious metaphysical claims into “Gospel Truth”.
Thomas Daniel Nehrer
While scholarly research provides extensive information, the real Jesus, the man who voiced various timeless insights on life, can only be revealed when life is understood better than the common mindset of our time allows.
Thomas Daniel Nehrer
Religions take hold and dominate a culture, not because they accurately portray reality, but because they appear to, once having been accepted – such that succeeding generations are heavily indoctrinated into the shared cultural mindset from birth.
Thomas Daniel Nehrer
Yet, reality operates in a consistent way – the same physical, interactive functions are in play for every conscious human in existence. If religion reflected reality as it actually works, all religions would be the same: accurate rendering in words depicting life’s real flow
Thomas Daniel Nehrer
Reality’s functional flow can never be debated: reality manifests as it does regardless of individual recognition of its value-based inter-active function. Only simulated notions about reality – creeds, definitions, assumptions, paradigms – can be argued over. And that debate knows neither end nor resolution, as each arguing party hosts a personally customized fantasy – with each appearing unwaveringly valid to the holder.
Thomas Daniel Nehrer
Understanding points Jesus presented to his peers requires exploring how Jews, local Greeks, Romans and other ethnic mixes inhabiting the region perceived reality. Without a clear recognition of the common ancient mindset, regard for precepts presented in the Gospels and Christian tradition becomes distorted by a default – yet highly flawed – impression that people back then thought and acted like people today
Thomas Daniel Nehrer
Had the common man in (first century) Palestine thought about it at all, he would have considered the world flat, with land riding on and surrounded by water below and above. Keeping water up there was the “firmament” – a great, canopy-like dome not too far beyond where birds could fly. Indeed, the firmament had gates for the sun and moon to go through, and through which water fell as rain from the waters above.
Thomas Daniel Nehrer
Clouding the exact evolution of El and Yahweh as concepts (and any other aspect of belief, for neither El nor Yahweh ever existed as anything except mind images of fervent believers) is the invariable propensity of associated religions to revise their history along the way according to subsequently popular interests.
Thomas Daniel Nehrer
Judaism, for example, presents itself as monotheistic and retrofits that claim on its history by revising its lore. But in ancient times, Judaism was much more accurately Henotheism, wherein people (particularly common folk) worshipped a principal god while accepting the existence of other deities, or Monolatrism, where many gods were acknowledged, but only one worshipped.
Thomas Daniel Nehrer
But for centuries, since the capitulation of Judah, the Jewish peoples had been almost continuously under foreign control. So, where was Yahweh all this time while his people suffered...? Far from ever questioning the very being of such an inept deity, the conclusion was invariably reached – likely promoted by religious authorities living privileged lifestyles – that the people had sinned, had worshipped other gods, had somehow failed their side of the bargain.
Thomas Daniel Nehrer
The only difference between holding one god as exclusive or supreme and believing in many gods specialized in function is the number.
Thomas Daniel Nehrer
New Testament gospels are traditionally accorded a cultural sanctity and lofty regard completely out of line with their literary worth.
Thomas Daniel Nehrer