The more I evolve or grow, the more spiritually blind and dead I become??

Question

This was what a christian just told me, i was just hoping somebody could back this up for me with some bible-quotes.

Thanks.

(He also called me a grasshopper, but in my own bible i could not find any reference to that, so don't bother looking into that one, i'll save you all the trouble, but thanks anyway)

Answer 1

Grasshopper is what Mr. Miyagi called Ralph Macchio in the Karate Kid. That's the only thing I can think of.

Answer 2

I'm not sure about the grasshopper reference. And I can't tell you for sure what he meant about how the "more I evolve or grow, the more spiritually blind and dead I become." But I think what he meant was that the more you grow in the way the world calls growth, the more spiritually dead you become. God's wisdom is called foolishness by the world. So if you're pursuing worldly things, like wealth, power, sex, happiness based on yourself, friends for the sake of having more friends, then that may be what he's talking about. He might also be saying that you may become prideful as you do the things that are "churchy" or "good," so you stop looking at how far you fall short.

Answer 3

If you believe in a spirit you will answer this question one way and if you don't you will answer another way.
Life is like a circle it you believe in a spirit. One point on the circle is at the moment of birth. The spirit joins the body at that point and is carried away into this reality by the body. The farther around the circle the body goes, the farther away from the spirit's source it is and the easier it is to disbelieve in that source.

But with increasing experience in this reality, the intelligent mind learns more and more. At some point the wisdom reaches a point where it dawns on the mind that the more one knows, the larger the awareness of what one does not know. The small, inexplicable details, the mathematical impossibility of certain events, and the personal experience with philosophy, physics, astronomy, logic, and the awareness of personal death, brings the mind to the point where the source of the spirit is once again perceived to be real, and not simply a myth.

The blindness brought about by this world fades away and the personal enlightenment begins. But probably most people live most of their lives in the middle ground, where they only follow what they are taught to believe. The don't know. They only have faith that what they are told is true. During this time many experiences in this world lead many people to reject the idea of the spirit in the first place. They become blind to both faith and spirituality. So, during the middle phase, it is true that many become blind. But they are not dead until they die, except that they may do things that a spiritual person might not do. Their actions spring only from the mind. In that aspect of behavior, their spirit might as well be dead, since it is not affecting their behavior.
But life proceeds around the circle.
At the end of life the spirit leaves the body and returns to the source, carrying away whatever lessons it learned from the experience...

For those who lived life as if there were no spirit within them, they will go back with the wisdom that such a person gains from those kinds of experiences.

For those who lived life as if there were a spirit within them, they will go back with the wisdom that such a person gains from those kinds of experiences.

Probably you are in the middle of life. You can try to attain more wisdom by hard study and contemplation.

Science can explain a lot of the mysteries of the universe. It can not explain the origin of life, the origin of miracles, the reality of love, prophesy, healing, visions, or any of the events we ascribe to the spiritual realm. In many cases science can only describe, without knowing what something is. There are so many things beyond our comprehension. The most intelligent first believe that they can understand it all. But in the end, the most intelligent know, that they can not.

Grasshopper is a reference to a student of Oriental Philosophy who one day surpasses his master. May it be true in your case.

Answer 4

Maybe he was trying (badly) to express the contradiction between spirituality and worldly knowledge? But you never can really tell what anyone means when they say things like that. Honestly it sounds like this person isn't really sure what they mean themselves, I'd ask him to elaborate. Could be that the grasshopper reference was not biblical at all, (Unless he was likening you to one of the plagues of Egypt?) but instead, it is possibly from and old television show called Kung-Fu. In it, they used a 'grasshopper' reference to show an immature student of the marshal arts who hadn't quite learned enough yet. His teacher often referred to him as "grasshopper."

Answer 5

LOL, I think I get it.

(But if I don't... well, I'll give you something similar to chew on.)

I've said it myself -- "The more I grow and learn about God, the less I feel like I know and the more uncertain things become."

The "riding a bike" example is cliche, but it gets the point across. With the training wheels, you feel very safe and stable. The bike will stay up. You can depend on the structure of the bike. All you need to do is pedal/coast. You can even sit there and not move at all, and not fall over.

When the training wheels come off, the bike gets very unstable. You have to commit to moving forward, without assurance the bike will stay up. It wobbles, you feel like you will spill any moment and get hurt.

But you can't be free to fly until you take off the wheels.

Soren Kirkegaard talked a great deal about not knowing things for sure, about the anxiety of what faith really is. You finally have to make a dreadful leap through darkness, in order to have faith and continue the search for God.

As a final idea, God doesn't want us to be rigid little clones who do the right things because we are following rules, he wants us to be like him and love him.

When you first "find God," you often have the security of the "rules" of the faith. You feel zeal, everything is black and white and clear to you, everything seems simple. Just follow the rules and all will be well. God's presence feels as if it is always there beside you; you feel as if you experience him.

Then comes the dark nights of the soul, where nothing makes sense. Tragedy strikes, and it no longer feels like God is there. You have been abandoned, seemingly, and just hearing "You have to believe and all will be well," is not good enough. Your faith is challenged and you seriously have to question God.

See, he lets himself feel present when you're spiritually young, to give you encouragement and foundation; but there is no way to grow further until he backs off. So God seems to disappear, and things become unclear... because you now have to make choices about whether you will pursue him or abandon him. Do you want him or not?

So the older you get spiritually, I think the more common it is to have experiences where nothing seems to make sense and where God seems absent in many ways. You no longer have "all the answers" and in many ways feel blind.

All you have left to give is yourself: Love.

Oh, there are also moments of clarity, where God "touches" base after you've sought for him anyway, but in order to shape us into an active, loving force like himself, he "weans" us off mountaintop experiences and often lets us walk seemingly by ourselves, without apparent help, so that our legs will get stronger.

So the impersonal rules grow more vague and meaningless, whereas what changes is your attitude towards others and life: how you treat other people and care for them in love.

Answer 6

First, Bible translations can vary from book to book. I know of one reference to a grasshopper in my bible and it's saying eating them is not kosher. (Maybe eating you isn't kosher either?)

We all grow in different ways spiritually as we grow older. Whatever path you take is your business and if this Christian is your friend, he needs to respect your beliefs. That IS being Christian. If he's not your friend... why are you talking to him? Ignore him, that's what they fear the most.

Answer 7

In a way, yes. it's been well established that the higher the IQ and the higher the level of education, the less likely that someone will be gullible enough to fall for the lie that is religion.
So don't think of it as being "spiritually blind" think of it as opening your eyes to reality.

Answer 8

LOL, that's good. If it's not in the bible, it ain't true, right?

But it's a common thing for the educated to be less religious. Sure worked for me!!

Answer 9

I can't find precedent in the Bible for turning on a computer, why did he do that?

Answer 10

Crutches are for cripples. A person who becomes strong ("evolves") does not need a crutch.