The force

Something to consider...

In the Bible it is written that God prefers Hot or Cold people, not luke-warm.

In other words, be good or bad. Pick one.

I used to think in terms of shades of grey, but I realized eventually that it wasn't getting me anywhere. I was conflicted, sometimes doing good, sometimes doing bad. When I chose light, things started to make sense.

It's your choice, of course.

Streen wrote: Something to consider...

In the Bible it is written that God prefers Hot or Cold people, not luke-warm.

In other words, be good or bad. Pick one.

I used to think in terms of shades of grey, but I realized eventually that it wasn't getting me anywhere. I was conflicted, sometimes doing good, sometimes doing bad. When I chose light, things started to make sense.

It's your choice, of course.

That's interesting Streen - can you point me to where it says that (or rather, words to that effect) in the Bible? I've not thought of it that way before . . .

Streen wrote: Something to consider...

In the Bible it is written that God prefers Hot or Cold people, not luke-warm.

In other words, be good or bad. Pick one.

I used to think in terms of shades of grey, but I realized eventually that it wasn't getting me anywhere. I was conflicted, sometimes doing good, sometimes doing bad. When I chose light, things started to make sense.

It's your choice, of course.

What makes the Bible any sort of authority? It is a collection of mythologies just like any other collection. That aside though, that passage does not even talk about behaviour, it speaks of being passionate or not towards God. In fact you can never be all good or all bad. According to the bible even one bad act allows your judgment by god as being worthy of eternal punishment. And we all fall short, right? You can say you chose the light but don't you still do bad things? So how can you call yourself good? In fact it is impossible to choose light or dark exclusively. We all exist in the Grey whether you like it or not. Its a consequence of existing in this reality of contrasts.

Loudzoo wrote:

Streen wrote: Something to consider...

In the Bible it is written that God prefers Hot or Cold people, not luke-warm.

In other words, be good or bad. Pick one.

I used to think in terms of shades of grey, but I realized eventually that it wasn't getting me anywhere. I was conflicted, sometimes doing good, sometimes doing bad. When I chose light, things started to make sense.

It's your choice, of course.

That's interesting Streen - can you point me to where it says that (or rather, words to that effect) in the Bible? I've not thought of it that way before . . .

Revelations 3:16.

The Bible also states women should submit to their husbands (Ephiseans 5:22-33). Something to think about as well?

Can we say if the Force is a "thing" (as in a noun)?

probably not (and 'is' may be one of the most dangerous words in the English language)

Proteus wrote: Can we say if the Force is a "thing" (as in a noun)?

Some people define it as a thing.. a noun and others do not. If you could get them all on the same page then you would have something. Unfortunately I do not think this is possible, so your question sort of becomes irrelevant.

Kyrin Wyldstar wrote:

Proteus wrote: Can we say if the Force is a "thing" (as in a noun)?

Some people define it as a thing.. a noun and others do not. If you could get them all on the same page then you would have something. Unfortunately I do not think this is possible, so your question sort of becomes irrelevant.

The question is not expecting agreement. It is offering something for anybody to think about. With that in mind, no, I don't believe it is irrelevant.

I don't think the force is a substance; a thing. Rather, 'force' is the word/symbol for the principle of order that we perceive.
Hunter/gatherer brains projecting a structure upon perception.

I view the Force as a conversation starter. It is a word that has so many partly or wholly incompatible usages that it is borderline impossible to know right out of the box what any person using it means by it. So when someone throws it out there, unless they are defining it at the time, they are saying something one has to pry deeper into to understand. "What do you mean by that?" is an almost automatic response for me and it is frankly amusing to me how many misunderstandings get discovered later down the line when ever any responder pretends like they understood what the person was talking about. It is only then that we actually begin to clear up what has been obscured and blurred by the Force label, only then that we begin to learn something about each other or indeed even ourselves - unless we skip the time waste thitherto and ask right away.

What I do not view the Force as is anything practically useful. As mentioned above, the idea of it mostly muddies otherwise clear waters. It impedes our understanding of each other when we use it to bring us together; it prevents our understanding of the world around us when ever we add it to any explanation of it. It seldom makes things better or easier for us, it makes them worse, most of the time and while I appreciate that there are ways to force (pun intended) it into an otherwise mostly coherent world view, I am yet to learn why one would have any need to. Even as I go through the doctrine, I can cut the Force out without anything else suffering for it. At worst the wording would be altered, but the substance retained. Even as I view the Force within Jediism, it doesn't seem like an intrinsic, necessary part of it, but rather like a vestige from the fiction that sparked the movement and that we keep for the sake of tradition, not for its usefulness.