u/DueFaithlessness4589

My background on this. Looking to get others. Let's go as deep as we want.

From my understanding. Sin is not tied to a physical action, if you look all the way, sin is a metaphysical action. A movement of the soul away from God (all encompassing divine love).

So technically, if we are all the body of Christ, the second we are baptized or accept God into our hearts. What is the affect of sin, not only on ourselves but on the collective of humanity in general?

When people say Jesus died for our sins. Could we say Jesus died for the collective broken relationship between humanity and God?

What does sin really mean, and what is its effect on other people outside of ourselves. Even people we havn't even met.

Does anyone have recommendations for:

Story telling groups
Long form discussion groups
Abstract philosophy or comedy groups
Comedy writing groups
Improv workshops
Indie art/film groups

This is something I'm going to be sharing with my Federal Representatives, County Reps and Mayors in my area. I'm looking for feedback and extra ideas so I can tighten it.

TLDR: 200 randomly selected people from 5 age brackets between 18 - 80 form an advisory assembly that acts as a moral compass and guiding light for political leaders. (5 reps per state)

Citizens Advisory Assembly - High Level Overview

Mission 

The Citizens Advisory Assembly is a nationally representative group of randomly selected U.S. citizens, ages 18 to 80, who serve voluntarily to provide structured insight, personal experience, and reflective feedback on the operations, challenges, and social conditions of the United States. Their role is advisory only, offering an independent civic perspective to help inform public understanding and support thoughtful decision-making across society.

Purpose

The assembly gives citizens the sense that ‘everyday Americans’ are contributing to high level national understanding.

The focus is not so much on what politicians are doing. The focus is more on answering the question “What is the human experience of X in the age range of Y in the United States?” and trying to address that in a collaborative way. 

Core Principles

• All members are randomly selected
• Participants may accept or decline upon being notified
• A small, strictly neutral team oversees the Assembly and its ongoing operations as well as selection process and administrative duties, website maintenance and document publishing, and fielding answers for the Assembly
• The Assembly has no legislative power; it serves as a reflective civic body
• Every US State contributes 5 Assembly members 
• Members receive a full time salary for their 1 year of service
• Members are encouraged to participate in end of service surveys for future process and Assembly member experience improvement
• Members are allowed to know each other, meet together, and communicate through dedicated Assembly channels (They will work remote) 
• Members will know the State the other members are from, members will not share personal address or personal information

Membership Structure

• 200 Members, 5 per state
• Age Range 18 - 80
  • 1 member between 18 and 25
  • 1 member between 26 and 33
  • 1 member between 34 and 42
  • 1 member between 43 and 60
  • 1 member between 61 and 80
• Term length - 1 year

A neutral support team provides onboarding, Assembly rules and regulations, guidelines, mission statements, goals, training, and ongoing assistance

Members may choose to remain anonymous or become public. If they choose to be anonymous only their age and respective state will be shared. 

Selection Process

• A national database of eligible US citizens is used to generate a randomized list of potential participants. 
• Selected individuals are contacted through secure, official channels and informed of their selection. 
• Individuals may accept or decline. 
• If declined, another individual in the same stage and age range will be randomly selected. 
• Once accepted, participants undergo onboarding, training and orientation.

 

Confidentiality and Protection

Member identity is known only to other members personally and the administrative team. 

Public anonymity is optional but not required

Security protocols and protective bodies will protect members from outside influencer and buyers. 

Compensation

Members receive a standardized full time salary designed to allow them to participate without financial hardship. 

Job protection ensures they can return to their previous employment after their term. 

Work and Responsibilities

During their time members respond to the following 3 questions at the beginning, middle and end of their term. 

1. What is life like for you in the United States?
2. What aspects of your life in the United States would you like to see improved?
3. What are the top 10 challenges you personally face in this stage of your life?

These will act as the guiding lights for future debates and discussions. Everything flows from these questions and the answers they receive. 

The focus is on qualitative data. 

Members do not: 
Debate policy
Engage in political advocacy
Create legislation
Vote on proposals

Their role is reflective not political

These outputs they produce and their work will be encouraged to be referenced and used for commentary by:

Elected Officials
Journalists
Researchers
Educators
Public Institutions
Civic Organizations
Influencers

The Assembly has an aim to become a trusted public reference point, offering grounded, human centered insight into United States lifestyles. 

Preventative Intro Exam: 

All members before entering the Assembly will take a test. This test will demonstrate that they have basic speaking and comprehension abilities. It will also ensure that they are willing to perform the duties properly. They will follow the code of ethics that will be created later in the process of Assembly creation. 

Anonymous Ethics Code: 

After 2 weeks of being together. The Assembly has the option to vote out members that are toxic, non productive, combative, or as they see, not suited for this Assembly. An anonymous vote is cast. Every member that has received a vote will be cross examined by a team and decided if they are fit for duty. If voted out, a new member will be chosen. 

69 Points, Reflections and Questions 

Catholics will say be submissive to the church but they won’t say be submissive to God. 

Catholics cannot see the difference between religion and God. 

Catholics think that God is contained only within the Catholic Faith. 

We can’t let religion become a ‘golden calf’. 

I’m asking for people to prioritize God's love and relationship for his people over structural institutional preservation. 

Continuity of structure doesn’t guarantee continuity of spirit. 

1 eternal human soul is worth more than the entire institutional Catholic Church. 

The spirit cannot be contained by religion and its worrying when structure is prioritized over spirit. 

Revelation 2:4 “Yet I hold this against you; you have forsaken the love you had at first” 

In Harry Potter, he enters Hogwarts and learns about the powers of magic and love. Sometimes there is much excitement around this ceremony. It seems that Christianity at large needs to return to a focus on the mystical. We need to return to an appreciation that God is more powerful than any rite, ritual or practice. God cannot be contained by religion. He cannot be placed in a box. Jesus was a radical rule breaker. He was not obsessed with using fear based tactics to follow rules. He was more focused on love, empathy, forgiveness, joy and mystical divinity. How could it be that a children's fiction book treats magic in a more joyful and mystical way than modern religion teaches about God and the spiritual side to life and all it encompasses? Where is the wonder? Where is the knowledge that love is a powerful tool? Where is the knowledge and teaching that someone can become a practitioner of divine all encompassing love? Is our mission in life to preserve our respective religion or to demonstrate who Jesus is and that divine love is a powerful instrument to be used for good?

God is not contained by sacrifice. 

God is not contained by sin. 

God is not only found through religion. 

God is not only found through discipline.

God is not found through fear and blind submission. 

Life is God and divine love, and spreading that to as many people as possible should be the number one priority. 

Sin is not a physical action but a metaphysical action. A movement of the soul away from total all encompassing divine love. 

When someone meets a modern day Christian are they greeted with love or with judgement and cruel council?

How many chances should you give another person?

How much forgiveness does one human deserve?

Did Jesus come to earth with a primary mission to establish a religion, or was it to fully experience the human condition or was it to mend the broken relationship with his creation and give future generations a story of his sacrificial love? Out of those which are primary? 

Two Christians can sit in a fox hole during a spiritual war. Demons may be across the way. The two Christians will decide to stab each other. While the demons get away. 

According to Catholic Answers “The Church does not encourage or approve of coercion, fear or pressure as a means of bringing persons to the faith or sacred rites” 

Christians can forget that ‘love’ must be the center of all we do. It is the very foundation for everything. Love must flow from all actions, thoughts and judgements. 

“If anyone says “I love God” and hates his brother, he is a liar.” (John 4:20) 

It feels that sometimes people are more interested in being “religious” than they are with following God. Someone might identify not as a child of God, but as their own respective religion. For example “I’m Catholic” or “I’m Protestant” or “I’m Baptist” or “I’m Lutheran” or “I’m Mormon”. What takes priority, your religion or God?

Ecclesiastical obligations (laws and constitutions issued by the Church) do not stand above God’s authority. 

If God does not force himself on rational creatures. If he does not force them to act contrary to their nature, how can the church force obligations through fear based tactics?

Why would God or the church force anyone to do anything?

Who knows more, modern day bishops and priests or God and the Apostles?

If the Catholic church is a military base in terms of spiritual warfare, does it make sense to use individuals proportionally to their respective strengths and personality types? Would you put a good berserker as a sniper? Would you place a medic as a truck driver? Would you place someone with a stutter in charge of radio comms?

Does modern church and religion take into account psychology and personality types?

It appears that modern religion is more interested in preserving truth than they are with communicating it. 

What should someone do if the Catholic Church is failing its core mission?

Is it possible for the human side of the church to fail? If its true that the church is both human and divine?

Where in the bible does it say that “there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church?”

Did Jesus come to establish a religion or to fully experience the human condition as a primary?

Where in God's divine law does it say that mass is the only way to fulfill God's divine law?

Where in God’s divine law does it say that you should hold a ‘spiritual gun’ to lay people's heads and inform them that not going to mass is a mortal sin. On what authority can someone do something that not even God would do?

Is going to mass more important than having a divine and personal relationship with God in your soul?

Is God contained by the sacraments?

If performing a ‘holy obligation’ would entail that someone would lose their soul, should someone perform that ‘holy obligation”?

Catholic moral teaching requires choosing the act that avoids the greater moral evil. 

Millions of Catholics are going to worship services out of ‘fear’ and ‘fulfilling an obligation’ rather than love, and that is a dangerous spiritual issue. 

The Catholic church and other religious institutions do not ‘police’ the dangerous language used by the lay in terms of fear based tactics. If someone says something against God's divine love, but the church never addresses it, that is another way of allowing it. 

The Eucharist is a privileged and gatekept encounter with the divine, but Christ is not confined by the Eucharist. 

God’s grace is not limited to the church or the sacraments. 

Would Protestants and Catholics ever come together to create a new “worship service"? Create a new “mass”? Do they enjoy division? Do they enjoy feeling spiritually superior, or do they value love, relationship and divine community within the Body of Christ? Which club is more important? If not mass, what would an alternative hybrid shared Sunday service look like? 

When does religion become an obstruction to the divine?

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that God can give the effect of the sacraments when the sacraments are inaccessible, spiritually, psychologically or physically. 

Seek the form of worship that brings you closest to God with the least spiritual danger. 

If a form of worship makes you hate God, is that a good form of worship?

If a form of worship drives people away from God, is that a good form of worship?

Should you force anyone to participate in a form of worship?

Should you penalize anyone for not loving God?

Does God force anyone to participate in worship, does he threaten people to perform acts of worship? Where in God's divine law does it say that?

You must avoid grave, psychological and spiritual harm. 

Technically “Catholic” is just a term that's used. The true church is Universal. Sometimes language is used to gatekeep or to allow for exclusive clubs, rather than unity within the body of Christ. Rome appears to be more important than God. Preservation of structure and continuity of the church appears to be more important than eternal divine souls. 

The Holy Spirit can act in anyone or anything. Conscience is the highest form of immediate moral authority.

Is canon law and dogma more important than God?

Is the Pope more important than God?

Is any rite, ritual or practice more important than God?

Are you more important than God? Is your religion more important than God?

When we get into heaven will there be sacraments or religion? Why or why not? What purpose do they serve? Do they serve God or does God serve them? 

The Church participates in and is ordered to Christ's life, not the other way around. 

If someone loves The Catholic Church more than God, what should you tell them?

If someone does things not for God, but for The Catholic Church, what should you tell them?

Church is meant to lead us to God, not replace him. 

Doing things for the Church is good, but doing things for God is what gives things spiritual meaning. 

Catholics will say be submissive to the church but they won’t say be submissive to God. 

Catholics cannot see the difference between religion and God. 

Catholics think that God is contained only within the Catholic Faith. 

We can’t let religion become a ‘golden calf’. 

I’m asking for people to prioritize God's love and relationship for his people over structural institutional preservation. 

Continuity of structure doesn’t guarantee continuity of spirit. 

1 eternal human soul is worth more than the entire institutional Catholic Church. 

The spirit cannot be contained by religion and its worrying when structure is prioritized over spirit. 

Revelation 2:4 “Yet I hold this against you; you have forsaken the love you had at first” 

In Harry Potter, he enters Hogwarts and learns about the powers of magic and love. Sometimes there is much excitement around this ceremony. It seems that Christianity at large needs to return to a focus on the mystical. We need to return to an appreciation that God is more powerful than any rite, ritual or practice. God cannot be contained by religion. He cannot be placed in a box. Jesus was a radical rule breaker. He was not obsessed with using fear based tactics to follow rules. He was more focused on love, empathy, forgiveness, joy and mystical divinity. How could it be that a children's fiction book treats magic in a more joyful and mystical way than modern religion teaches about God and the spiritual side to life and all it encompasses? Where is the wonder? Where is the knowledge that love is a powerful tool? Where is the knowledge and teaching that someone can become a practitioner of divine all encompassing love? Is our mission in life to preserve our respective religion or to demonstrate who Jesus is and that divine love is a powerful instrument to be used for good?

God is not contained by sacrifice. 

God is not contained by sin. 

God is not only found through religion. 

God is not only found through discipline.

God is not found through fear and blind submission. 

Life is God and divine love, and spreading that to as many people as possible should be the number one priority. 

Sin is not a physical action but a metaphysical action. A movement of the soul away from total all encompassing divine love. 

When someone meets a modern day Christian are they greeted with love or with judgement and cruel council?

How many chances should you give another person?

How much forgiveness does one human deserve?

Did Jesus come to earth with a primary mission to establish a religion, or was it to fully experience the human condition or was it to mend the broken relationship with his creation and give future generations a story of his sacrificial love? Out of those which are primary? 

Two Christians can sit in a fox hole during a spiritual war. Demons may be across the way. The two Christians will decide to stab each other. While the demons get away. 

According to Catholic Answers “The Church does not encourage or approve of coercion, fear or pressure as a means of bringing persons to the faith or sacred rites” 

Christians can forget that ‘love’ must be the center of all we do. It is the very foundation for everything. Love must flow from all actions, thoughts and judgements. 

“If anyone says “I love God” and hates his brother, he is a liar.” (John 4:20) 

It feels that sometimes people are more interested in being “religious” than they are with following God. Someone might identify not as a child of God, but as their own respective religion. For example “I’m Catholic” or “I’m Protestant” or “I’m Baptist” or “I’m Lutheran” or “I’m Mormon”. What takes priority, your religion or God?

Ecclesiastical obligations (laws and constitutions issued by the Church) do not stand above God’s authority. 

If God does not force himself on rational creatures. If he does not force them to act contrary to their nature, how can the church force obligations through fear based tactics?

Why would God or the church force anyone to do anything?

Who knows more, modern day bishops and priests or God and the Apostles?

If the Catholic church is a military base in terms of spiritual warfare, does it make sense to use individuals proportionally to their respective strengths and personality types? Would you put a good berserker as a sniper? Would you place a medic as a truck driver? Would you place someone with a stutter in charge of radio comms?

Does modern church and religion take into account psychology and personality types?

It appears that modern religion is more interested in preserving truth than they are with communicating it. 

What should someone do if the Catholic Church is failing its core mission?

Is it possible for the human side of the church to fail? If its true that the church is both human and divine?

Where in the bible does it say that “there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church?”

Did Jesus come to establish a religion or to fully experience the human condition as a primary?

Where in God's divine law does it say that mass is the only way to fulfill God's divine law?

Where in God’s divine law does it say that you should hold a ‘spiritual gun’ to lay people's heads and inform them that not going to mass is a mortal sin. On what authority can someone do something that not even God would do?

Is going to mass more important than having a divine and personal relationship with God in your soul?

Is God contained by the sacraments?

If performing a ‘holy obligation’ would entail that someone would lose their soul, should someone perform that ‘holy obligation”?

Catholic moral teaching requires choosing the act that avoids the greater moral evil. 

Millions of Catholics are going to worship services out of ‘fear’ and ‘fulfilling an obligation’ rather than love, and that is a dangerous spiritual issue. 

The Catholic church and other religious institutions do not ‘police’ the dangerous language used by the lay in terms of fear based tactics. If someone says something against God's divine love, but the church never addresses it, that is another way of allowing it. 

The Eucharist is a privileged and gatekept encounter with the divine, but Christ is not confined by the Eucharist. 

God’s grace is not limited to the church or the sacraments. 

Would Protestants and Catholics ever come together to create a new “worship service"? Create a new “mass”? Do they enjoy division? Do they enjoy feeling spiritually superior, or do they value love, relationship and divine community within the Body of Christ? Which club is more important? If not mass, what would an alternative hybrid shared Sunday service look like? 

When does religion become an obstruction to the divine?

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that God can give the effect of the sacraments when the sacraments are inaccessible, spiritually, psychologically or physically. 

Seek the form of worship that brings you closest to God with the least spiritual danger. 

If a form of worship makes you hate God, is that a good form of worship?

If a form of worship drives people away from God, is that a good form of worship?

Should you force anyone to participate in a form of worship?

Should you penalize anyone for not loving God?

Does God force anyone to participate in worship, does he threaten people to perform acts of worship? Where in God's divine law does it say that?

You must avoid grave, psychological and spiritual harm. 

Technically “Catholic” is just a term that's used. The true church is Universal. Sometimes language is used to gatekeep or to allow for exclusive clubs, rather than unity within the body of Christ. Rome appears to be more important than God. Preservation of structure and continuity of the church appears to be more important than eternal divine souls. 

The Holy Spirit can act in anyone or anything. Conscience is the highest form of immediate moral authority.

Is canon law and dogma more important than God?

Is the Pope more important than God?

Is any rite, ritual or practice more important than God?

Are you more important than God? Is your religion more important than God?

When we get into heaven will there be sacraments or religion? Why or why not? What purpose do they serve? Do they serve God or does God serve them? 

The Church participates in and is ordered to Christ's life, not the other way around. 

If someone loves The Catholic Church more than God, what should you tell them?

If someone does things not for God, but for The Catholic Church, what should you tell them?

Church is meant to lead us to God, not replace him. 

Doing things for the Church is good, but doing things for God is what gives things spiritual meaning. 

I wonder if people place religion above God?

I wonder if people do things not for God but for their own respective religion?

What was Jesus’s primary mission in coming to earth?

I wonder if people would rather see their own particular religion live on than someone else’s soul?

I’ve been struggling with this.

Someone told me God can’t bend to your will or do things for you just because you pray for it.

He said prayer is just a way to bring yourself closer to God but it doesn’t actually do anything when you pray for others.

Is this true? Or is there a deeper level to it? Surely we can’t command God or the Holy Spirit.

But why else would we pray for others? If we can’t change anything?

Feel free to go as deep as you want. Thanks.

My band started as a trio of instrumentalists

Then we found a lead singer who heard one of our songs. So it was me and the 3 guys and then our new lead singer.

I’d say personality wise. I’m more of a feel based musician and my bandmates are more engineer mindset and analytical. But it works.

However I’m at a point now where it seems almost everything I suggest is always being challenged by the lead singer. From creative decisions to planning ideas. At least that’s how it feels.

All of us are around the same age. But I don’t feel like I’m having fun anymore. It feels more like a chore. We have one more gig and part of me wants to take a break. We all have work outside the band and enjoy it. But the lead singer is super intense and she wants to go full time and make

It her career. But I feel sometimes she puts music above relationship of the band.

At a point I told her. Even if I wanted to go full time as well. Which right now I just wanna open for bigger bands to start. I said I’d put relationship and having fun as a priority. And the rest follows.

But it’s getting to. Point we have one gig left. I may just let the know I need a break. And then I’ll see if I need to move on.

It’s been a year so far. We’ve played 7 gigs so far. And released 2 EP.

Thanks. Any help or advice would be great.