This story got me thinking about life after death [Archive]

Castout

07-07-10, 03:50 AM

Several years back there was a fatal accident in the company where my mother work at. A man was killed when large section of factory cut marble slab came down on him. He didn't die instantly but he died on the spot later.

The site where the office's located has since been sold to another company and the building is undergoing renovation.

Several days ago I heard from my mother that one of the construction worker who slept in the building had a dream in which the person who died in that fatal accident approached him and told he was still there and even told that he died in the site due to an accident. It was the same guy who died by being crushed under the marble slab.

I've had an experience that led me to know death and let's just call it an experience and the death that I know is one which made people as if they were sleeping(unable to remember their identity, God and unable to register time at all but what they were(not physical) remains it's like being in stasis state). That death is the end of living. And the truth is I found to my amazement that the bible supports this view to the point of Catholic priest having to admit that that is theologically or biblically correct though it was against the official Catholic or mainstream Christian teaching of immediate reward or punishment and the Muslim Quran mentioned about it too.

Now the thing is the guy who died I don't think he qualified as an evil person so I wonder what could be keeping him from resting in peace and I wonder what kind of existence does he have to go through there day by day. Seems awfully like a torment than life.

Anyway I thought of sharing this who knows somebody could give something out of it or could benefit from it.

Dowly

07-07-10, 04:57 AM

Maybe it was a subconscious thing, he was aware of what had happened and he had a dream about it. Just an ordinary dream.

I bet most of us have had dreams that felt like more than a dream at first. :hmmm:

Platapus

07-07-10, 05:19 AM

Several days ago I heard from my mother that one of the construction worker who slept in the building had a dream in which the person who died in that fatal accident approached him and told he was still there and even told that he died in the site due to an accident. It was the same guy who died by being crushed under the marble slab.

This brings up some questions.

How would your mother know what some construction worker dreamed, unless the construction worker knew about the accident and your mother?

How would the construction worker know that the person in the dream was the same person who died in the factory unless the construction worker knew about the accident?

This sounds like a bunch of nice sensitive people talking with each other about an emotional issue (the accident) and making inferences linking what one person remembered about a dream and what people remembered about the accident.

kiwi_2005

07-07-10, 05:26 AM

Now the thing is the guy who died I don't think he qualified as an evil person so I wonder what could be keeping him from resting in peace and I wonder what kind of existence does he have to go through there day by day. Seems awfully like a torment than life.

There is no 'time' after death i know this cause ive seen the Constantine movie 3 times :DL Existence day by day? Doesn't happen so theres no torment its more a deep slumber into the nothing-ness, no existence, no thought, no awareness they wouldn't know anything better - till they are resurrected.

Skybird

07-07-10, 05:39 AM

As long as in a "spooky" or "prophetic" dream something is not being learned that the dreamer afterwards checks and finds to be or to come true although he could not have known it by "normal" means, I do not read things into dreams. I know that not only own direct experiences, but also just day fantasies and thoughts and things we have been told could find the strangest ways of getting entrance into and being reflected in our dreams.

On the other hand, I was involved a bit in NDE and dealing with dying people myself. I do not rule out such things existing in general, but I am very hesitent in taking something for real and just believe something. There is interesting empirical material being collected on NDEs over the past 40 years or so, some truly monumental, culture-comparing studies with thousands of cases compared.

but in the end, knowing about these things for sure instead of just concluding, assuming or believing, we only will once the time has come for us to leave the stage. we cannot avoid that day, and once i understood that I cannot evade or delay or cheat, i found some signficant ammount of peace - why should I worry about something I cannot change anyway?

I am not an especially courageous man by nature, but most of my courage developed from this acceptance. when during my Sturm und Drang years I was dealing with Tibetan buddhism in a phase of mine, the Lama was so stunned by what he believed he saw in me, and he was also stunned by the pattern of dreams I used to have during those years (always killing some kind of evil beasts and terrible monsters and living happily in some magical forest...) that he declared me an incarnation of the guardian of the lineage and gave me a Buddhist name that translated into something like "powerful, fearless life". :) Well, that didn't save him from seeing me turning my back on it all some time later, so much for "protecting the lineage". :lol: Rituals and religions just are not my thing, and my loyalty I give on rare occasions only since it is precious (but unshakable when I gave it). And why not? This is my life, and I only have this one. I would be a fool to spend it on things that are not worth it for me.

The art of living means to learn how to die, and the art of dying lies in learning to live. both are mutually depending on each other. If there is one thing you could and should learn from the so-called books of the dead, then this: you can only die in a good way when you have mastered the art of living in a good way. And "good" means not material qualities, but means insight and wisdom, and peacefulness. In the end, the only thing we really have by the end of the day, is our own breathing: but no fame, no money, no friends, no wealth, no memorised things and events, all this can - and will be - taken away rom us one day. And finally, by the end of the last of all our days, even breath itself.

I do not pray, never, for I know no authority at which to direct a prayer and also do not believe in magic or witchcraft, but I like this famous one:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

I tend to remind myself of it sometimes, although i fromulate it slightly different, and maybe even not in words anyway. It could almost be from Vulcan philosophy. :DL There is peacefulness to be found in it, and by that: strength.

Castout

07-08-10, 02:45 AM

In the end, the only thing we really have by the end of the day, is our own breathing: but no fame, no money, no friends, no wealth, no memorised things and events, all this can - and will be - taken away rom us one day. And finally, by the end of the last of all our days, even breath itself.

I do not pray, never, for I know no authority at which to direct a prayer and also do not believe in magic or witchcraft, but I like this famous one:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

I tend to remind myself of it sometimes, although i fromulate it slightly different, and maybe even not in words anyway. It could almost be from Vulcan philosophy. :DL There is peacefulness to be found in it, and by that: strength.

Yea my experience taught me that we only take our deeds into death. Wife, children, home, wealth, positions, social standing, friends all of those things are only lent to us. WHAT LIFE GIVES US IS TIME and only TIME.

I do not know about the time of resurrection or judgment but I do know what death brings(at least I believe that I know and that the bible confirms it) and I also know that God exists(with overwhelming light coming from His face) and in couple times have saved my life and ease my burden and in some rare cases actually answering(giving) what I prayed for or simply gave me gifts and it has helped a lot simply by knowing that He exists and I realize I'm lucky to know this for a fact though I know it's not a public fact. I also know about resurrected life or to be more accurate about the resurrected body which is perfect and non flesh and I know about eternal power that can only be given and that comes from above. I still worry about my salvation as I realize that I'm not a holy man.

On rare cases too I see surrounding non physical beings as a mental picture though it's usually not long and pretty quick(such as when they walked pzst the wall, ran past the door or opening their eyes through an accessory object sculpted as a face) or feel the ripple of energy that's created when these walk or flew across the room.

So I know things that can't be seen by the physical eyes do exist.:hmmm:

This brings up some questions.

How would your mother know what some construction worker dreamed, unless the construction worker knew about the accident and your mother?

How would the construction worker know that the person in the dream was the same person who died in the factory unless the construction worker knew about the accident?

This sounds like a bunch of nice sensitive people talking with each other about an emotional issue (the accident) and making inferences linking what one person remembered about a dream and what people remembered about the accident.

Easy to explain. That construction worker asked one of the site security asking whether some person died in an accident there and there the story began. The worker had never knew about the accident and has only worked on the site for the past few months

The construction worker didn't know who the person was before he asked and there has been only one fatal accident in site. He also described the person attire and footwear rather specific and they match the description of the man who died under the marble slab some years back.

Hitman

07-08-10, 03:16 AM

Life after death poses lots of questions that have no answers, or better, whose probable answers we do not like, and as such we systematically try to ignore. So that we can still keep hope in there being something after life.

For example: If I die now, as a 38 year old man, and there is another life beyond this one where I keep my current consciousness of who I am and the experiences I have lived ... what happens if my 3 years old son dies? Is he a 3 years old being for the rest of ethernity? What if he had Down's Syndrom? Will he have his reasoning altered for ethernity?

Let us asume now that, if there is another life, it is a life where you aquire universal knowledge or consciousness, and as such a 3 years old matures abruptly, and a guy with Down's Syndrom suddenly gets full intelligence. In that case, how can I really say that they are still the same they were when in this life? We are the result of hugely complex interactuations with others, physical and intellectual limitations, and experiences in life. If we lose that, we are no longer ourselves, so in that sense there is no possible other life. It might be one, but since we -as we are now- will actually extinguish ourselves with our body, then whatever remains is not really "us".

In that sense, there is much more logic in reincarnation than in the classical religions, IMHO, as you get a new life (aka a new chance) that will also be determined by how good/bad you did in the previous one. You refine yourself and pay your debts, getting to be a better being. But there is a problem also with that: How many good beings do you know around you? I mean, pure good beings that you would consider worth the heaven? The percentage is so low, that you can hardly think that there is a refinement process going on among us through succesive reincarnations. If it does, then it certainly is not working very well :88) and has still a long way to go.

Skybird

07-08-10, 04:37 AM

Castout

07-08-10, 06:31 AM

Without wanting to slam into you, Castout - all the things you claim to know in the above - in the end you just described what you believe that you know. Believed knowledge is no knowledge, but belief.

However, if you think it eases your life, and the volume of your music does not bring the neighbourhood into arms - it's your party. :)

It;s okay Skybird,
I'm very liberal in writing that and I knew I took considerable risk.
There's a big difference between just believing and knowing what you believe in and believed knowledge.

You see I know what death is but the thing is even if I told anyone I know what death is they would not accept it readily since there is no way for them to verify that at least not by themselves. Actually there's a way but heck if people couldn't accept what is written by holy men some hundreds years ago that's bound into a book called the bible why would they listen to me but I would still tell them NOT because I want to convince anyone but because I know that that is the truth.

The same thing with me knowing that God exists. I would still tell anyone literally anyone that I know God exists and took considerable risk in saying that NOT because I want people to believe anything but because that is the truth. And that I don't need people to believe me I just need people to read what I share liberally.

Of course it goes without saying I don't reveal everything that I know of. Those things that verified for me that what I know is right and correct. Because I don't think people are even more willing to hear that or could accept that but mostly because those are for me to know primarily and not for anyone else to believe. I'm even liberal enough to actually write this.

In the end it's not my wish to offend or to argue with anyone but I'm hoping that it could serve at least as a memory of that perspective that couldn't fit in into the concept of the reader lives and perhaps that would be enough a reminder somewhat somewhere sometime in the future when something big enough oddities came or a crisis came into their life and knock the balance of their current belief system. Even if these words are forgotten in the next 5 minutes because I know it would be somewhere in the subconsciousness, forgotten but not entirely lost and I do this not because I'm convicted by my beliefs but because I'm convicted by my knowing(ledge) :hmmm:

onelifecrisis

07-08-10, 07:30 AM

Life after death is an oxymoron.

TarJak

07-08-10, 07:33 AM

Dreams are dreams, life is life, death is death.

Castout

07-08-10, 04:19 PM

Life after death is an oxymoron.

Ummm that's what the bible teaches actually :DL

What I found surprising is that the mainstream Christian not knowing the teaching of the bible and what Jesus promised about raising them up from death: on THE last day and not on your each last day. He repeated this several times in his speeches which now gets ignored. The current concept of life after death and immediate punishment and reward is actually more alike to a Greek version of Utopia and Hades.

The Catholic teaching came up with a weird over complicated thing of particular judgment(immediate judgment) and because they can't ignore the bible completely the last judgment too. I've searched the bible looking for clues and found many references to the latter including numerous made by St. Paul and ONLY one which seem to talk about the possibility of immediate judgment(I don't count inconclusive texts to prevent from speculating and guessing) which I admit it made me doubt the authenticity of the origin of that particular text that is the story of the beggar called Lazarus who lived in front of the rich man's house. It's the only and really only one single text that seems to support immediate judgment while many many many others(in fact ALL OTHERS) from both the old and new testament seem to only teach about the last judgment. Anyway if you're interested in my little finding which is nothing new I guess, feel free to PM me with your email and I'll email the doc to you. I found the scriptures to be fascinating ever since I looked it up in search of death to verify what was revealed.

Castout

07-08-10, 04:21 PM

Dreams are dreams, life is life, death is death.

and God is God :03:

Skybird

07-08-10, 04:59 PM

It;s okay Skybird,
I'm very liberal in writing that and I knew I took considerable risk.
There's a big difference between just believing and knowing what you believe in and believed knowledge.

You see I know what death is but the thing is even if I told anyone I know what death is they would not accept it readily since there is no way for them to verify that at least not by themselves. Actually there's a way but heck if people couldn't accept what is written by holy men some hundreds years ago that's bound into a book called the bible why would they listen to me but I would still tell them NOT because I want to convince anyone but because I know that that is the truth.

The same thing with me knowing that God exists. I would still tell anyone literally anyone that I know God exists and took considerable risk in saying that NOT because I want people to believe anything but because that is the truth. And that I don't need people to believe me I just need people to read what I share liberally.

Of course it goes without saying I don't reveal everything that I know of. Those things that verified for me that what I know is right and correct. Because I don't think people are even more willing to hear that or could accept that but mostly because those are for me to know primarily and not for anyone else to believe. I'm even liberal enough to actually write this.

In the end it's not my wish to offend or to argue with anyone but I'm hoping that it could serve at least as a memory of that perspective that couldn't fit in into the concept of the reader lives and perhaps that would be enough a reminder somewhat somewhere sometime in the future when something big enough oddities came or a crisis came into their life and knock the balance of their current belief system. Even if these words are forgotten in the next 5 minutes because I know it would be somewhere in the subconsciousness, forgotten but not entirely lost and I do this not because I'm convicted by my beliefs but because I'm convicted by my knowing(ledge) :hmmm:

Your claims of what you know - are beliefs, not knowledge. Knowledge can be shown to others, it can be taken, checked and analysed, verified or falsified, proven right or wrong. None of that you can do with your claims on death and gods and religious statements.

Don't try to raise support by claiming rational thinking for religious beliefs like some people try to claim that science actually supports religious superstition or nonsense, like for example some fundis claim that "science is supporting creationism" - trying that onyl shows a very huge lack of understanding of scientific methodology and rationals.

Or in other wordS: evidence, please. Prove it. Just saying that you know, is not good enough. Prove it, or keep it your private thing. Because even your assurance that what you believe is the truth, in the end is just this: your strong belief. that's where religion and belief belong anyway- in the private, because your relation to the object of your belief is your own most private and intimate thing. where you think you must favour others by going public with it all, or worse: wanting to make others believe the same, you turn from being spiritual in your understanding, towards being powerpolitical.

Platapus

07-08-10, 05:06 PM

Life after death is an oxymoron.

Ummm that's what the bible teaches actually :DL

And your point is? :D

kiwi_2005

07-08-10, 05:08 PM

God is real, Jesus Christ is real. Better for a man to believe than one that don't only to die and find out He is real, but if believers are wrong then die what punishment will they face? :).

The good ole big bang theory proves their is a God. The big bang theory is more an illusion than believing that there is a God. Well ya see it all happened with a Bang! And the universe was created out of nothing? :shifty: God is a Mathematician he put up the riddle of the universe so he can sit back and chuckle to himself when the scientist scratches his head trying to figure out something that only God knows the answer. Yet the straight forward answer to the riddle is in the bible on the first page! In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Created man equal, created woman for man, and man for woman as in Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve.

Yeah its very hard for non believers to believe that their is someone far more intelligent/powerful than any man / woman could imagine. And theres no shame in that its not their fault they find it difficult to believe. What a man doesn't believe he will usually knock down. Like i have just done with the big bang theory :03:

No offense intended.

Skybird

07-08-10, 05:22 PM

And more unproven hear-say.

The one ting I learned, slowly, is that trying to rationally discuss with believers about the object of their belief, is absolutely useless, pointless, fruitless, because every rational argument, ever logical conclusion, even every solid undeniable evidence in the end gets rejected by saying: "Well, but I believe it all is different. That's my belief. evidence, logic, a process of falsification or varification does not interest me, because I know that what I believe is the truth anyway. and I know it is true because my holy book tells me that it is true."

This is strange becaseu everybody understanding the basic methdology of science knows that serious science never makes absolute statements about "truths", but only developes hypothesis, theories, at best: paradigms of mostly limited ruabiliuty, on the absis of what has been observed and put tgether in empirical evidence. Nevertheless it gets often accused of stating something as if it is engraved in stone. I admit soemtimes academics give the appearance as if they are doing right this, but that is no good habit in science, for science only says: "this is our best possible current conclusion on the absis of ehat we have been able to find out so far." - On the other hand, religion is all about unchecked, unverifiable, dogmatic statements whose original authors cannot be asked anymore, issued in absolute terms that claim eternal truth and validity as if this claim would be the most natural thing. Religion and science could not be more different, the absurdity of the religious attack on science over accusation to practice what religion with great fanatism practicses itself, is most absurd.

Morts

07-08-10, 05:28 PM

Yet the straight forward answer to the riddle is in the bible on the first page! In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Created man equal, created woman for man, and man for woman as in Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve.

oh god :rotfl2::rotfl2::rotfl2:
i really hope this post is a joke

August

07-08-10, 05:41 PM

"There can be only one" ooops wrong movie, erm uh...

"Death is but the beginning" :D

onelifecrisis

07-08-10, 05:50 PM

God is real, Jesus Christ is real. Better for a man to believe than one that don't only to die and find out He is real, but if believers are wrong then die what punishment will they face? :).

I prophecise that when people die, anyone who didn't give me £100 GBP will go to hell for eternity.

Now, I don't know about you, but I reckon that £100 is a small price to pay just to be sure. You know, just in case I'm right. So when you've thought about it and decided you agree, PM me and I'll let you know the account number.

onelifecrisis

07-08-10, 06:34 PM

@Platapus

No point :)

Ummm that's what the bible teaches actually :DL

Heh, I didn't know that. Though little surprises me when it comes to religion.

A Muslim (actually a secular daughter of a Muslim immigrant) told me that the part of the Qur'an that says a man can have several wives was added after some war that cut the male population down to almost nothing. I dunno if that's true, but it certainly sounds more plausible than God (Allah) telling a blind man to write it down! :rotfl2:

Personally I reckon most religious texts have been altered and re-interpreted dozens of times over the millennia.

Sailor Steve

07-08-10, 06:46 PM

God is real, Jesus Christ is real. Better for a man to believe than one that don't only to die and find out He is real, but if believers are wrong then die what punishment will they face? :).
And how do you "know" this? I used to be a devout believer. The reason that I no longer am is the simple acknowledgement that the things I thought I "knew" were actually things I only believed. I see no evidence at all.

The Big Bang is theory, but it's theory based on observation, as are all scientific theories. Saying that it's sillier to believe the Big Bang than it is to believe in God is, to me, pretty much useless. At least people who talk about the Big Bang can show the evidence that leads them to think that way.

As for being better off believing and being wrong than disbelieving and being wrong, I used to feel that way as well. But the other problem is, believing what? What if the Jews are right? What if the Hindus are right? What if the Mormons are right? What if (perish the thought) the Muslims are right? there is no way of knowing the answer to that, just as there is no way of "knowing" there's a God at all.

I'm not a believer, but neither am I a disbeliever. I simply don't know, and I can't argue further than that. But I haven't met anyone else yet who can prove he actually knows something.

Platapus

07-08-10, 06:48 PM

I prophecise that when people die, anyone who didn't give me £100 GBP will go to hell for eternity.

Now, I don't know about you, but I reckon that £100 is a small price to pay just to be sure. You know, just in case I'm right. So when you've thought about it and decided you agree, PM me and I'll let you know the account number.

Not until you put this scheme in a book! If it is not in a book, it don't count.

frau kaleun

07-08-10, 06:48 PM

I once met someone online who fervently believed that only a select few would survive the end of the world (as we know it) and be granted some kind of superlative existence (what this amounted to I was never quite clear on) by an omnipotent superhuman power.

Of course in this case the "superhuman power" was held by the survivors of Atlantis (or their descendants, again, never quite got clarification on that) and being one of the "select few" involved being included on some "list" that was being kept somewhere. And if you weren't on it, well, when the long-gone Atlanteans returned and the world ended, you were SOL.

While I had no problem with her believing that this would all go down as she claimed, and taking some comfort in believing that she was on the list and therefore safe from whatever horrors awaited those who weren't, I drew the line at being expected to take her word for it and "get [my] act together" or else be counted among the damned. :O:

Whether I will retain or regain some kind of individual existence or consciousness or "soul" after this body ceases to function is something over which I have no control and can claim no certitude by any standard that is, to me, acceptable. Whatever happens or doesn't will be a function of how the universe works, and my belief or lack thereof with regard to any theory about how it functions will have absolutely no effect on what actually takes place.

However, from what I can tell based on personal experience and study, the spiritual traditions that do posit some kind of individual existence after the one I'm now enmeshed in all seem to agree that my "status" in the presumed afterlife or next life will hinge on how I conduct myself in this one.

So, from a purely practical perspective, it seems pretty obvious to me that my primary concern should be with how I'm living this life, which is something I actually do have some control over - whether or not the choices I make here and now have "afterlife" ramifications is irrelevant. If they do, so be it. If they don't, then I still did the best I could with the life I had.

Moeceefus

07-08-10, 06:52 PM

I find it hard to believe all the wonders that is the universe and life itself, is but a random occurance that came to be soley on chance. At the same time I can not believe any man made book/religion, as its made up... by man. I believe there is something, but something which hasn't and never can be explained or comprehended by mankind. Standard religious texts, I believe were written by goverments in an attempt to control the masses. Thier very wording implies this. Other religions have been crafted soley for easing our anxiety about death. Humans seem to be the only animals who have an understanding of, and there for a fear of death. Science can not prove the existance of a creator or origin of life, but it also can not disprove it. I find this fact, very interesting.

07-08-10, 06:54 PM

Yeah its very hard for non believers to believe that their is someone far more intelligent/powerful than any man / woman could imagine. And theres no shame in that its not their fault they find it difficult to believe. What a man doesn't believe he will usually knock down. Like i have just done with the big bang theory :03:

.

I can somehow believe that there is a god or some super being.
But do you really believe that if god existed he would expect of humanity do do all this pointless crap just to honor himself.
This would mean that we have some kind of ashole boss i think.
I would expect a little bit more from GOD.
No offense intended

AngusJS

07-08-10, 07:33 PM

I prophecise that when people die, anyone who didn't give me £100 GBP will go to hell for eternity.:hmmm:

Do you accept Paypal?

God is real, Jesus Christ is real. Better for a man to believe than one that don't only to die and find out He is real, but if believers are wrong then die what punishment will they face? :).Sure glad you know you've devoted yourself to the right god. Otherwise, what punishment will you face?

Well ya see it all happened with a Bang! And the universe was created out of nothing? :shifty:As opposed to god, which you will say has always existed. If that's the case, why can't the universe have always existed?

But that's not what the Big Bang theory says, anyway.

Yet the straight forward answer to the riddle is in the bible on the first page!Where you'll find two contradictory answers, which is hardly straightforward, and which doesn't inspire confidence in the veracity of either one.

Regarding an afterlife: If it's the Christian one with a heaven and a hell, what will your existence for the rest of eternity be like if you know that some people you loved in this life are now suffering endlessly (as infinite punishment for their finite "crimes")? Wouldn't that be a rather imperfect heaven?

Geno_Mariner

07-08-10, 07:35 PM

Personally I reckon most religious texts have been altered and re-interpreted dozens of times over the millennia.

I reckon that too. My parents are Christians, so I used to get stuck with reading these Bibles and saw different versions. I used to be 100% into this faith til several years ago. I just don't know what's true and what's not, lol. (Oh and the bible contains contradictions too... :hmmm: ) Too many religions in this world and too many different ideas. (I liked the story of how Arabian Horses came to be... :D and I own a Pure Arabian).

And about all of this afterlife stuff... there is an afterlife. And I believe it depends on how much you believe in it. The more you believe in it, the higher in the spirit plane you will go and the better it will be. If you're a negative/evil person, you'll end up in the negative/lower plane. No fire or anything, just miserable existence on the other side. Though that can change, if I can try and get my hands on a few books from people who claim to have "Near-Death experiences" such as that man who "was in Heaven for 90 minutes" (I believe the video I viewed in church years ago is a fabrication...).
However, this kind of topic requires you to have an open mind and just... think about it. Everyone's views are different, you can take ideas and assimilate it as your own belief or just leave it as is. As far as knowledge goes on this topic, there's not much definite information (that's what I believe anyway...). I'm always happy to see what people think, because I'm just like that :up: I have no interest in clashing with beliefs or such.

As for the presence of a greater celestial being, I believe there is one but it has no definite name and no definite gender (seriously, how can you Christians tell "God" is a man? O_o I have my ideas on how this came to be, but like I said, I don't wanna clash/step on toes). It's just the Alpha and the Omega, with other beings doing their specific job such as bringing life, moderating life, and taking life when it is time.

Just my ideas, it does change over time but there are some that remains :)

longam

07-08-10, 07:40 PM

Free will, its the hardest thing to control.

Faith, its the hardest thing to believe.

UnderseaLcpl

07-08-10, 08:29 PM

Some interesting views here, and even a story about people who believe atlanteans will destroy the world. Imagine that.

Personally, I believe there is a God an He sent His only Son to redeem mankind and that one day it will be on Earth as it is in heaven and I don't care if anyone thinks that's silly or not. When the day comes that their souls are judged, they will be granted entry into Paradise if I have anything to say about it, because ours is a God of mercy. Or, if that day doesn't come, at least I tried to live my life like a good person.

For the most part, I'm not afraid of dying. It seems silly to worry over the inevitable, especially when it lasts forever (or until judgement day, at least) I just hope it's not too painful. What does scare me is that, if there is no afterlife, what happens when you die? The brain continues electrical activity for a while, right? Is it possible that you could still be aware? What if you were trapped in a nightmare world generated by randomly firing neurons while your brain slowly fades away?

Someone please tell me that's not possible. And if it is, I want to be vaporized upon death.

Sailor Steve

07-08-10, 08:48 PM

Personally, I believe there is a God an He sent His only Son to redeem mankind and that one day it will be on Earth as it is in heaven and I don't care if anyone thinks that's silly or not. When the day comes that their souls are judged, they will be granted entry into Paradise if I have anything to say about it, because ours is a God of mercy. Or, if that day doesn't come, at least I tried to live my life like a good person.
I may be one of the few who won't fault you for saying that. I don't know that you're wrong. I just no longer believe without some evidence.

What does scare me is that, if there is no afterlife, what happens when you die? The brain continues electrical activity for a while, right? Is it possible that you could still be aware? What if you were trapped in a nightmare world generated by randomly firing neurons while your brain slowly fades away?
I've long believed that the reason people who are dying slowly accept death is that as the brain shuts down the awareness itself begins to dim. Have you ever been so sick that you didn't care if you lived or died? Or recieved a blow to the head that left you nearly senseless, aware but not caring? I thing a few synapses going off after the main shutdown isn't enough to leave us aware.

Of course there's that old Tales From The Crypt episode in which a dead doctor is still aware and feeling as his brother starts to cut his head open...

August

07-08-10, 08:50 PM

Personally I believe there is a God. Beyond that is pure speculation.

UnderseaLcpl

07-08-10, 08:59 PM

@Steve

I've taken lots of blows to the head and had a lot of concussions. Roughstock riding will do that to you, but it's odd you should mention that because it was an incident where I had a concussion that started me wondering about what I mentioned.

I fell off this horse and got a concussion from hitting the fence on the way down. I don't remember anything for hour after that, but everyone said I thought I was still on the horse, or just about to ride. It wasn't until I started feeling better and bent down to take off my spurs that everything suddenly came rushing back and for a brief moment, I was falling off that horse again. In reality, I was just falling on my face. Weird, huh?

thorn69

07-08-10, 09:13 PM

And how do you "know" this? I used to be a devout believer. The reason that I no longer am is the simple acknowledgement that the things I thought I "knew" were actually things I only believed. I see no evidence at all.

The Big Bang is theory, but it's theory based on observation, as are all scientific theories. Saying that it's sillier to believe the Big Bang than it is to believe in God is, to me, pretty much useless. At least people who talk about the Big Bang can show the evidence that leads them to think that way.

As for being better off believing and being wrong than disbelieving and being wrong, I used to feel that way as well. But the other problem is, believing what? What if the Jews are right? What if the Hindus are right? What if the Mormons are right? What if (perish the thought) the Muslims are right? there is no way of knowing the answer to that, just as there is no way of "knowing" there's a God at all.

I'm not a believer, but neither am I a disbeliever. I simply don't know, and I can't argue further than that. But I haven't met anyone else yet who can prove he actually knows something.

I'm not sure I can agree with evolutionist/big bang types either. Kent Hovind has pretty much discredited them in my opinion. He brings up many good points - especially about how inaccurate carbon dating is.

I'm sticking with God and my faith that men and women didn't evolve from monkeys! I have to believe in an afterlife because it's too depressing to not do so. I mean really, who wants to die and just see nothing, hear nothing, be nothing? I guess you really wouldn't be able to say it's bad or good to be like that since you'd really be nothing at all. You just wouldn't exist anymore.

But while I'm here and able to think scary thoughts about things like this - it just depresses the hell out of me so I usually don't. Just have to have faith that there's going to be more after life ends. Plus, it's always nice to think about being reunited with lost family and friends.

Sailor Steve

07-08-10, 10:54 PM

I'm not sure I can agree with evolutionist/big bang types either. Kent Hovind has pretty much discredited them in my opinion. He brings up many good points - especially about how inaccurate carbon dating is.
I don't get involved with the arguments one way or the other. Any good scientist knows that today's pet theory may be tomorrow's joke. That said, I've never seen a conflict between the Bible and evolution, only with the people who insist that Bishop Ussher's timeline has to be taken literally. People who "prove" evolution wrong accept the 'Young Earth' idea without question, even though it has no scientific basis at all. Evolution scientists look a the facts and try to form a theory that best fits them. Intelligent Design believers start with an account they hold sacred and only accept facts that fit. Evolution may or may not be wrong, but I see no reason to put my faith in science that only looks at some of the evidence.

I'm sticking with God and my faith that men and women didn't evolve from monkeys! I have to believe in an afterlife because it's too depressing to not do so. I mean really, who wants to die and just see nothing, hear nothing, be nothing? I guess you really wouldn't be able to say it's bad or good to be like that since you'd really be nothing at all. You just wouldn't exist anymore.
I don't fault you for that a bit. It's good to believe in something, and sometimes I wish I still did. My problem is that no matter how much I may want to, I see no evidence that would lead an impartial observer to conclude that there's a god, much less an after life. I'm not an atheist, as that would require me to actively believe there was no God, and I don't know that either.

But while I'm here and able to think scary thoughts about things like this - it just depresses the hell out of me so I usually don't. Just have to have faith that there's going to be more after life ends. Plus, it's always nice to think about being reunited with lost family and friends.
I would love to have discussions with the great men of history, and see what they think now. Unfortunately I also believe that if the Christians are right, and putting your faith in Jesus is the only salvation, then two of the men I admire most - Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin - are quite likely burning in hell as we speak.

That's what depresses me.

krashkart

07-08-10, 11:41 PM

Life after death? I will be perfectly honest... I am more terrified of people than I am of an empty nothingness after I die. I don't think there will be an empty nothingness, but if there is an afterlife I hope that I am strong enough to stick around and stand watch over the weak. I owe my angels that much.

Skybird

07-09-10, 04:48 AM

What does scare me is that, if there is no afterlife, what happens when you die? The brain continues electrical activity for a while, right? Is it possible that you could still be aware? What if you were trapped in a nightmare world generated by randomly firing neurons while your brain slowly fades away?

In principle this is what our life is about for several decades, once we have ended our growth :O:

The clinical death criterion depends on what they call "brain death", that is a person is declared dead when there is no more brain activity that coluld be measured. While there are rare diseases/syndroms when people will give an appearance of being dead, only to find that in Edgar Allan Poe style they wake up inside a coffin, this is extremely rare. You may want to change your last will regarding being buried with a cellphone, always. :D

onelifecrisis

07-09-10, 04:51 AM

TarJak

07-09-10, 05:16 AM

I fail to see why if I did not exist before I was born, why I would continue to exist after death. I am more than comfortable with the notion that there is nothing after death as, (unless you subscribe to reincarnation), there was nothing before birth.

Looking at the world and universe around me the fact that entropy can be physically proven is enough evidence for me to believe that my existence is subject to the law of entropy. Creation does not guarantee long or even endless existence, in fact endless existance would be abhorrent to me in the same way a Groundhog Day scenario would be.

As to heaven, I believe i am already there, I have a great life, great wife, great children and the ability to experience life's richness. In fact I think the traditionally held christian concept of heaven would also be abhorrent as the thing that makes life so interesting and worth living is the risks you must take in living it. Without that risk is existence worthwhile? Not in my opinion.

Does God exist? Yes. In as much as there is a belief that actually forms that existence. Is there a physical being that is god? Well that is yet to be proven.

Skybird

07-09-10, 05:30 AM

The early Christians knew the idea of reincarnation, but I do not know how they understood the concept: as a superior essence lasting on, or an individual soul moving on from body to body. There are religion-scientists and historians who imply that maybe Jesus, before he reached the age at which the bible starts to tell tories of him, maybe was travelling to India and came into contact with Buddhist concepts. That may very well be possible, since it would explain why there are so many parallels between Buddhist and Jesus' ideas (and I mean Jesus, not what the church made of him, between the church and buddhist view of the world obviously there is no parallel at all).

Buddha denied the idea of an individual "soul" that survives the body and begins a new cycle once the former body has been destroyed. Man is not a host and soul is not a Goa'uld worm. :) However, buddha hinted at the existence of an existence that must be understood in a higher context, a true self that in basic is a One-ness, doesn't get born and thus cannot die, and of whose existence all forms are just a temporary reflections interacting with each other and giving birth to a dance of colours and shadows, each such "reflection" of the higher Oneness not so much being just a part of it but being "it" in completeness, though no reflection has any substance and existence in itself. These reflections, that we call the world, the living beings, the things, are empty in themselves, they show us a world that the way we perceive it is just a delusion - that delusion exist, we see it and we fall for it, but what it shows us in content, is not real, and has no substance. It's like a fata morgana.

In the end, if it is something like this, we all must not find any spiritual fullfillment or justification for our existence, for since we are already "there" (since we, the reflections that we are, are the One-ness anyway), we must not and cannot go anywhere anyway. We can just trouble the water by shaking the waves without need, believing in the false idea that we must "reach" something and must try to get into a "heaven" because we want to avoid a "hell". Heaven and hell are two states of human mind that man forms up - all by himself, and there is nobody and nothing promising him reward or threatening him penalty for doing so. We can trouble the water and add to the dance of reflections we call "the world", if we want. But we could as well let it be.

This is my understanding of "sin": to lose or to reject this knowledge about our already present, always existent "higher" origin, and to start making things comolicated and worse by trying to acchieve a solvation that we already are embedded in, and never had left: the salvation of understanding who, or better: what we are, and what we are not. Sin is - lacking insight, lacking knowledge, lacking own experience. We mess up things by your egos' narcissim, and our intellect running amok since we do not keep it under control. Our clever ideas and fantastic conceptions run an eons-long olympic competetion of who can run the fastest, jumps the widest, reaches the highest. Our egos claim medals for out acchievements in this championship, and it makes us believe that once we have enough medals, we will be saved and will be given access to a paradise, "paradise" understood materialistically or religiously. Not only relgions are prone to falling for this trap - scientists and social reformers can be that prone, too. The result can be unjutsified, uncritical optimism into materialistic ideas and concepts, from the hedonism of the capitalistic world to the uncritical implementation of possibly dangerous technologies that do not get crticially questioned because they are new, and "new" makes them attractive. Where all this happens at the cost of our exploration of whom and what we really are, then nothing good usually comes from it, that way we mess up the world we live in and harm ourselves in the best of intentions. It's just that these our intentions maybe are reaching too short.

Spirituality in my understanding is trying to understand the nature and reason of our existence by introspection, by observing how our minds call the world that we believe to perceive into existence, and how "mind" manifestates itself. This is the path of experiencing ourselves. Science tries to make conclusions on the nature of reality and things existing by describing them empirically, checking for patterns that may reveal to us why and how things are, where they come from, and where they go. Spirituality is about going into the thing itself, science is about describing the thing from the outside as best as is possible, and from the outer appearance make conclusions on the inner reason. Objectivity and a lack of sentimentalities are virtues in both approaches.

Religion is neither the one, nor the other, it is hallucinating and fantasy. It obstructs the path of introspection and own experience by raising a dogma that should neither be examined nor questioned, but simply should be believed and taken for granted although there is no objective justification for doing so, it just promises to be a shortcut of greater comfort and easiness, to bypass the more difficult path of spirituality and/or science. You are spiritual for your own well-being and by changing yourself becoming of benefit for others as well. But you are being talked into being religious not for your own well-being, but the interest of others for gaining control and power over people, inclduing yourself. Spirituality and (institutional) religion (dogmas) are antagonists, seen that way.

We all are dreams within one dream. Dust and shadows, winds in the leaves, the waves on the ocean's surface. Stick to the things in life as if they are substantial and real, and you will become a prisoner and miss the meaning of it all, being blind and fall to despair over the existential questions of life. Let it all go (even your desire to let things go ;) ), and become free. We shall deal with the things of life as if we do not own them, not craving for either poverty nor wealth, neither desiring them nor refusing them, but taking things for what they are: having no substance in themselves, being mere reflections of what lies behind, sometimes, rarely, shining through between the lines of reality, although it is always there.

A later teacher of mine, running a taoistic-buddhist centre in Germany, once wrote in a book this (tranlsated from the German):

The letting go of all ideas of God and all religious thoughts one is fond of, is an absolute prerequisite for true mystical experience. […] But experience has shown that the letting go of personal idols and religious symbols is espe-cially difficult for those, whose personality structure shows the strongest egocentricity and focussing on themselves. They are afraid to lose everything, and therefore they cling to their small, mortal self with all their might. When one is looking closer to it, one will recognize that most people are not about a living experience of the divine essence, but are more about a maintaining of their personal ideas of the god they are fond of, and about wallowing religious feelings. But true mystic has nothing to do with emotional rapture and inappropriate holiness, these belong to the realm of mysticism, which only is a distortion of true and pure mystic. […] Man in general tends to fooling himself and looking for a short-cut, a religion of superficial consolation, an ideal world without problems and challenges, where everything falls into its’ correct place… […] The clinging to superficial forms and religious practices is one of the greatest dangers on the spiritual way. They are shackles which bind us to signs and symbols which actually should only show us the way inwards. Therefore every symbol shows towards something that is beyond itself and that cannot be named or displayed. To go beyond religious signs and symbols therefore does not mean to refuse these symbols, but to strive for what they are pointing at.

TarJak

07-09-10, 05:43 AM

Interesting, however what if there really is no meaning to existence? A first question, (to which I d not pretend to have an inkling of an answer), is why does there have to be a meaning to existence?

Why cannot it just be?

Does the entire universe exist for a reason other than the fact that something happened to create it? That something may have simply been an explosion, caused by what and to what purpose?

These are the questions that man has puzzled over to millenia and yet noone is any closer to have a clue about it than when these questions were first asked.

I cannot pretend to have any of the answers, however I am also comfortable in knowing that I may never know the answers and that when I die I will cease to exist. Just as everything else in the universe does.

Skybird

07-09-10, 06:17 AM

Interesting, however what if there really is no meaning to existence? A first question, (to which I d not pretend to have an inkling of an answer), is why does there have to be a meaning to existence?

Why cannot it just be?

Indeed. You will find in Taoism, Buddhism and christian mysticism the idea that "it" simply is, and that this "being there" already is sufficient meaning in itself. the one spirit/mind/God/ultimate-ground always was, is and will be, it is no object of space and time, it simply "is", and thus it cannot die since it never got born.

Of course this paragraph is just a deformation of the reality behind it again, a product of my intellect distorting the "real-ness" behind it by trying to press it into words in an attempt to express it. But words are just a finger pointing at the moon, not the moon itself.

Does the entire universe exist for a reason other than the fact that something happened to create it? That something may have simply been an explosion, caused by what and to what purpose?

Something...? ;)

I personally never liked the big Bang theory, it opens more questions than it answers. To me it just is the best idea science currently can show up with on the basis of what it has collected in info so far. But in principle it just is a mental and intellectual trap, leading us into a dead-end of our old conceptual thinking we are so fond of.

These are the questions that man has puzzled over to millenia and yet noone is any closer to have a clue about it than when these questions were first asked.

there were some about whom we tend to say that they got closer to the reasons - by own experience of it. Buddha's enlightenment. Jesus being understood to be the son of a god, a description that links him to a higher reason again. Maybe these are just symbols. however, other states of mind can be experienced, sometimes they struck a person out of the blue, sometimes they seem to come as the causal result of a long, disciplined meditation practice. However, such experiences have the potential to impress and influence persons significantly, and change all their life afterwards, and their state of mind and mental attitude and the way they approach things.

I cannot pretend to have any of the answers, however I am also comfortable in knowing that I may never know the answers and that when I die I will cease to exist. Just as everything else in the universe does.

Yes. Maybe you just ask too many questions. Isn't it enough that you just can sit and feel your body taking in the next breathing? Let your ego be, for a while, and tame your intellect a bit like you just tone down the volume of the radio. Realise how it feels to simply be. If you realise that, you embrace all universe in that very moment when you do. Space is just a conception like clay is a tool for the child to play with and form figures from it which then become it's whole playing universe and only reality for a while. Linear time - is a delusion human mind creates all by itself. We calculate the path of the balls in billiard, because that helps to win the match. But when the match is over, we stop calculating billiard balls, for the world and our life is no billard table. So it is with concepts of time and space as well. They are crooks used by our intellect.

frau kaleun

07-09-10, 08:40 AM

Interesting, however what if there really is no meaning to existence? A first question, (to which I d not pretend to have an inkling of an answer), is why does there have to be a meaning to existence?

Why cannot it just be?

Joseph Campbell used to say that people often talk about searching for "the meaning of life" when what they are really looking for is the experience of being fully alive.

Only humans (as far as we know) seem inclined to ascribe a pre-ordained meaning to their existence, as if there needed to be some grand eternal supernatural point to it all. Life just is: there is no point, beyond being alive, other than the aims and purposes that we adopt or create for ourselves. Which ideally should arise from and add to that experience of being alive as the unique individual that each one of us is.

In one of the gospels that didn't make it into the church-approved canon - the gospel of Thomas - when Jesus is asked about when the Kingdom of Heaven will come, he is reported to have given a much different answer than the one the Powers That Be allowed into the official version.

He said, "It will not come by watching for it. It will not be said, 'Look, here!' or 'Look, there!' Rather, the Father's kingdom is spread out upon the earth, and people don't see it."

When is eternity? Where is "heaven"? It's here, it's now, if you can see it already immanent in the world as well as transcendent of it. So is hell - if that's what you see, if that's the world that you make for yourself.

There is a Zen saying that when one person becomes enlightened, the entirety of existence becomes enlightened. What has changed about the entirety of existence? Nothing, except that the entirety of existence for that individual is what s/he perceives it to be, nothing more and nothing less. When that perception is enlightened, so is the world - for that individual. The kingdom of heaven is spread out upon the earth - and s/he can see it.

Morts

07-09-10, 09:29 AM

I'm not sure I can agree with evolutionist/big bang types either. Kent Hovind has pretty much discredited them in my opinion. He brings up many good points - especially about how inaccurate carbon dating is.

I'm sticking with God and my faith that men and women didn't evolve from monkeys! I have to believe in an afterlife because it's too depressing to not do so. I mean really, who wants to die and just see nothing, hear nothing, be nothing? I guess you really wouldn't be able to say it's bad or good to be like that since you'd really be nothing at all. You just wouldn't exist anymore.

But while I'm here and able to think scary thoughts about things like this - it just depresses the hell out of me so I usually don't. Just have to have faith that there's going to be more after life ends. Plus, it's always nice to think about being reunited with lost family and friends.
Kent Hovind has had all of his stuff debunked, check out Thunderf00t on YT.

Skybird

07-09-10, 10:19 AM

Joseph Campbell used to say that people often talk about searching for "the meaning of life" when what they are really looking for is the experience of being fully alive.

Only humans (as far as we know) seem inclined to ascribe a pre-ordained meaning to their existence, as if there needed to be some grand eternal supernatural point to it all. Life just is: there is no point, beyond being alive, other than the aims and purposes that we adopt or create for ourselves. Which ideally should arise from and add to that experience of being alive as the unique individual that each one of us is.

In one of the gospels that didn't make it into the church-approved canon - the gospel of Thomas - when Jesus is asked about when the Kingdom of Heaven will come, he is reported to have given a much different answer than the one the Powers That Be allowed into the official version.

He said, "It will not come by watching for it. It will not be said, 'Look, here!' or 'Look, there!' Rather, the Father's kingdom is spread out upon the earth, and people don't see it."

When is eternity? Where is "heaven"? It's here, it's now, if you can see it already immanent in the world as well as transcendent of it. So is hell - if that's what you see, if that's the world that you make for yourself.

There is a Zen saying that when one person becomes enlightened, the entirety of existence becomes enlightened. What has changed about the entirety of existence? Nothing, except that the entirety of existence for that individual is what s/he perceives it to be, nothing more and nothing less. When that perception is enlightened, so is the world - for that individual. The kingdom of heaven is spread out upon the earth - and s/he can see it.
:salute: Couldn't have said it any better. And Campbell, he was a really great mind, really.

Here are two more quotes that I like very much. the first is by Eugen Drewermann, a former theologican and psychotherapeut who came into massive conflicts with the church and was kind of banned therefore. In one book he wrotes this sentence that I never forgot again since I stumbled over it:

"Denn dieses vermögen wir Menschen gerade im Angesicht des Todes: uns auszuspannen bis zum Horizont, weit zu werden bis an die Enden der Welt, und also den Tod zu besiegen indem wir begreifen wer wir selber eigentlich sind." - "Because this we humans are able to achieve right in the face of death: to expand ourselves up to the horizon, to become wide until the edge of the world, and so to defeat death by realising who we really are." - E. Drewermann: "Mut zu Leben. in: Seelsorge im 20 Jahrhundert"

the other is from one of my absolute most favourite movise of all times, Terence Malick's "A thin red line". There, the narration voice from the off says this:

"One man looks at a dying bird, and thinks there is nothing but unanswered pain. But death's got the final word. It's laughing at him. Another man sees the same bird, feels the glory. Feels something smiling through him."

And in the same movie, the final scene at the end of the film ends like this, after all the horror and all the beauty that just had been seen:

"Oh my soul, let me be in you now. Look out through my eyes! Look out at all the things you made! All things shining!"

A fantastic, brutal, fragile, horryfying, beautiful, humane, spiritual movie. If you don't know it, go watching it. Stuff like this you see in the movies only every ten or twenty years or so.

frau kaleun

07-09-10, 10:41 AM

:salute: Couldn't have said it any better. And Campbell, he was a really great mind, really.

Oh, agreed, ten times over. Discovering Campbell changed everything for me. I was always reading mythology growing up, always fascinated and moved by it in ways I couldn't quite understand. But it seemed like there was more to it than just old stories in a book from the library. When I first saw "The Power Of Myth" - then I understood.

"Denn dieses vermögen wir Menschen gerade im Angesicht des Todes: uns auszuspannen bis zum Horizont, weit zu werden bis an die Enden der Welt, und also den Tod zu besiegen indem wir begreifen wer wir selber eigentlich sind." - "Because this we humans are able to achieve right in the face of death: to expand ourselves up to the horizon, to become wide until the edge of the world, and so to defeat death by realising who we really are." - E. Drewermann: "Mut zu Leben. in: Seelsorge im 20 Jahrhundert"

the other is from one of my absolute most favourite movise of all times, Terence Malick's "A thin red line". There, the narration voice from the off says this:

"One man looks at a dying bird, and thinks there is nothing but unanswered pain. But death's got the final word. It's laughing at him. Another man sees the same bird, feels the glory. Feels something smiling through him."

One of my very favorite Campbell quotes:

But the goal of your quest for knowledge of yourself is to be found at that burning point in yourself, that becoming thing in yourself, which is innocent of the goods and evils of the world as already become, and therefore desireless and fearless. That is the condition of a warrior going into battle with perfect courage. That is life in movement. That is the essence of the mysticism of war as well as of a plant growing. I think of grass — you know, every two weeks a chap comes out with a lawnmower and cuts it down. Suppose the grass were to say, “Well, for Pete’s sake, what’s the use if you keep getting cut down this way?” Instead, it keeps on growing. That’s the sense of the energy of the center. That’s the meaning of the image of the Grail, of the inexhaustible fountain, of the source. The source doesn’t care what happens once it gives into being. It’s the giving and coming into being that counts, and that’s the becoming life point in you.

And in the same movie, the final scene at the end of the film ends like this, after all the horror and all the beauty that just had been seen:

"Oh my soul, let me be in you now. Look out through my eyes! Look out at all the things you made! All things shining!"

A fantastic, brutal, fragile, horryfying, beautiful, humane, spiritual movie. If you don't know it, go watching it. Stuff like this you see in the movies only every ten or twenty years or so.

I have not seen this one, I'll add it to the queue. Thanks for reminding me of it!

Sailor Steve

07-09-10, 02:13 PM

frau kaleun

07-09-10, 03:22 PM

"It just is". That's the possibility that seems most likely to me whenever the question of the universe is asked. Are people with this philosopy less moral than those who put their faith in God? I don't think believers are more moral, they simply attribute that morality to a higher source.

There is great freedom but, for me at least, also great responsibility in having no "holy scripture" or writ in stone, handed-down set of rules to refer to for a final authority in making whatever moral/ethical choices I make.

Yes, there is no one threatening me with eternal punishment for ignoring their "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots," but there is also no scapegoat to point to if I'm called to account for any questionable or hurtful behavior I engage in. The "I was just following orders" defense is impossible... there were no orders, just the dictates of my own conscience and the workings of my own heart and mind. And for those, I am fully responsible.

To say there is no higher source involved - well, that depends on what you mean by "higher source." A sense of one-ness with everything, of the interdependence of everything that is, the realization of "Tat tvam asi" - meaning, Thou Art That: that "other" who is affected by your deeds and choices is not really "other" but is you. The one you are doing good or evil to is you, no matter how far you would like to distance yourself from them. This is the basis of the Golden Rule which is at the heart of every worthwhile moral system; not because "doing unto others" the way you'd prefer to be done unto gets you points on some divine scoreboard, but because when you do unto others you ARE doing unto yourself.

It is a different kind of consciousness, and one that can be sought and gained within an established religious tradition (altho many make the going difficult). Sadly when this happens, the person who has the metaphysical breakthrough is often driven out of the fold because they now have a "truth" that is based on personal experience of something greater than a set of rules and rituals. When the entire religious establishment is set on the idea that only the handed-down report of someone else's experience in some distant past has any validity, someone claiming to have experience of their own that threatens to supercede it becomes a dire threat. Such has been the fate of many mystics within the big three monotheoistic traditions.

It occurs to me that people who truly believe that death is indeed the end have more cause to make the most out of life.

Well, like any pair of opposites, life and death go hand in hand. The only reason you die is because you were born. Birth = death. Get born, and death is inevitable. Your parents willed your death by bringing you into the world. Psychologically speaking those that dread death as something unnatural and unthinkable and somehow unfair will, IMO, have the same attitude towards life (albeit usually unconsciously) because the primary and most basic cause of death is life. There is just no getting around that.

A quote from a much more modern philosopher:
"Oh, when you were young, did you question all the answers?
Did you envy all the dancers who had all the nerve?
Look around you now. You must go for what you wanted.
Look at all my friends who did and got what they deserve."
-Graham Nash, Wasted On The Way

You can walk on the water, drown in the sand
You can fly off a mountaintop if anybody can
Run away, run away--it's the restless age
Look away, look away--you can turn the page
Hey, buddy, would you like to buy a watch real cheap
Here on the street
I got six on each arm and two more round my feet
Life is a carnival--believe it or not
Life is a carnival--two bits a shot

Saw a man with the jinx in the third degree
From trying to deal with people--people you can't see
Take away, take away, this house of mirrors
Give away, give away, all the souvenirs
We're all in the same boat
Ready to float off the edge of the world
The flat old world
The street is a sideshow from the peddler to the corner girl
Life is a carnival--it's in the book
Life is a carnival--take another look

--The Band

thorn69

07-09-10, 03:24 PM

Perhaps we're all given a heaven or hell of our own making? Would be kinda cool to be able to enter your own world as a living being that
nobody else in that world knew was their divine God. Imagine all the fun you could have with them - especially the ones that didn't believe in you!

I mean, you could be like Chuck Norris to them! :|\\

Skybird

07-09-10, 03:39 PM

My biggest regret is that I didn't discover these concepts forty years ago. I might have achieved much more if I had actually considered these things.

Or not. ;)

By feeling that regret, you show that maybe you have acchieved more than many others who try to collect acchievments and merits - but never felt any doubt.

The way you see it now is what counts. What could have been, ist just dust and shadows, as substantial as are fantasy pictures you see in those clouds travelling in the sky.

Quite many heroes boast with how much sacrifice they are willing to make if only the others witness how great their heroism, their sacrificing, their fall will be. Question is if they still would make sacrifices and earn for example a heroic death if nobody would take note of it, and nobody would remember.

TarJak

07-09-10, 07:22 PM

Joseph Campbell used to say that people often talk about searching for "the meaning of life" when what they are really looking for is the experience of being fully alive.

Only humans (as far as we know) seem inclined to ascribe a pre-ordained meaning to their existence, as if there needed to be some grand eternal supernatural point to it all. Life just is: there is no point, beyond being alive, other than the aims and purposes that we adopt or create for ourselves. Which ideally should arise from and add to that experience of being alive as the unique individual that each one of us is.

In one of the gospels that didn't make it into the church-approved canon - the gospel of Thomas - when Jesus is asked about when the Kingdom of Heaven will come, he is reported to have given a much different answer than the one the Powers That Be allowed into the official version.

He said, "It will not come by watching for it. It will not be said, 'Look, here!' or 'Look, there!' Rather, the Father's kingdom is spread out upon the earth, and people don't see it."

When is eternity? Where is "heaven"? It's here, it's now, if you can see it already immanent in the world as well as transcendent of it. So is hell - if that's what you see, if that's the world that you make for yourself.

There is a Zen saying that when one person becomes enlightened, the entirety of existence becomes enlightened. What has changed about the entirety of existence? Nothing, except that the entirety of existence for that individual is what s/he perceives it to be, nothing more and nothing less. When that perception is enlightened, so is the world - for that individual. The kingdom of heaven is spread out upon the earth - and s/he can see it.

Well said.

:salute: Couldn't have said it any better. And Campbell, he was a really great mind, really.

Here are two more quotes that I like very much. the first is by Eugen Drewermann, a former theologican and psychotherapeut who came into massive conflicts with the church and was kind of banned therefore. In one book he wrotes this sentence that I never forgot again since I stumbled over it:

"Denn dieses vermögen wir Menschen gerade im Angesicht des Todes: uns auszuspannen bis zum Horizont, weit zu werden bis an die Enden der Welt, und also den Tod zu besiegen indem wir begreifen wer wir selber eigentlich sind." - "Because this we humans are able to achieve right in the face of death: to expand ourselves up to the horizon, to become wide until the edge of the world, and so to defeat death by realising who we really are." - E. Drewermann: "Mut zu Leben. in: Seelsorge im 20 Jahrhundert"

the other is from one of my absolute most favourite movise of all times, Terence Malick's "A thin red line". There, the narration voice from the off says this:

"One man looks at a dying bird, and thinks there is nothing but unanswered pain. But death's got the final word. It's laughing at him. Another man sees the same bird, feels the glory. Feels something smiling through him."

And in the same movie, the final scene at the end of the film ends like this, after all the horror and all the beauty that just had been seen:

"Oh my soul, let me be in you now. Look out through my eyes! Look out at all the things you made! All things shining!"

A fantastic, brutal, fragile, horryfying, beautiful, humane, spiritual movie. If you don't know it, go watching it. Stuff like this you see in the movies only every ten or twenty years or so.
Campbell; Respect! :salute: I loved the Thin Red Line for the humanity it portrayed. Another; All Quiet on the Western Front for mine., one of the greatest stories of human suffering and transendence over that suffering.

Or not. ;)

By feeling that regret, you show that maybe you have acchieved more than many others who try to collect acchievments and merits - but never felt any doubt.

The way you see it now is what counts. What could have been, ist just dust and shadows, as substantial as are fantasy pictures you see in those clouds travelling in the sky.

Quite many heroes boast with how much sacrifice they are willing to make if only the others witness how great their heroism, their sacrificing, their fall will be. Question is if they still would make sacrifices and earn for example a heroic death if nobody would take note of it, and nobody would remember.
You life, heaven, hell or purgatory, here now within your own existence is of your own making. Realising this and taking responsibility for how you percieve the world and yourself within it, is the moment when you can let go of the burden of history and create a future of your own creation.

onelifecrisis

07-09-10, 07:34 PM

krashkart

07-09-10, 07:41 PM

(he was saying that without fear of God one has no reason to behave morally... which I found rather disturbing)

Yikes. As far as morals go, I live by the Golden Rule.

Sailor Steve

07-09-10, 07:58 PM

Yikes. As far as morals go, I live by the Golden Rule.
You could do worse.
http://www.teachingvalues.com/goldenrule.html

TarJak

07-09-10, 08:36 PM

frau kaleun

07-09-10, 08:49 PM

Reminds me of a discussion I had with a Canadian man. In a nutshell: who is truly the "moral" person - the man who does good because he fears God's wrath, or the man who does good because he desires God's love, or the atheist who does good simply because it is good?

In the Eastern traditions, fear of punishment and/or desire for reward would be considered "lower" forms of motivation, based in attachment to one's own individual ego. It's the "I" of the ego that desires the reward and fears the punishment, and the status accorded oneself either here or in some presumed afterlife or next life that is primarily at stake.

It's only when the next stage of awareness is achieved - the opening of the heart, and the "second birth" into a truly compassionate existence - that those motivations become secondary or nonexistent. To do what is right and just and kind without thought of reward or punishment - that is where selflessness begins.

I'm not saying those so-called "lower" motivations are necessarily bad - for instance, if a particular person is unable or unwilling to refrain from stealing, raping and killing without them, then I'm thankful they exist at all. The question is, what happens when "the rules" that must be followed in order to insure the reward or avoid the punishment actually come into conflict with what should be one's compassion for the wellbeing of others? When the rules say you'll go to heaven if you burn the heretic at the stake, stone the "fallen woman" to death, force the unbeliever to repent or else - if there is no higher motivation to act out of compassion for another instead, no sense of "there but for the grace of God go I," no identification of oneself with the supposed "other" and no empathy whatsoever for the suffering that will be caused by acting only out of attachment to one's own status in this life or the next?

Well, I think we all know what happens. The history books are full of it.

The interesting thing here is that the "selflessness" of the compassionate motivation is, in a way, no less selfish. You do right by another person because doing them wrong means you have also wronged yourself. You don't cause them to suffer, because their suffering is yours as well. You understand that to do harm to another is NOT beneficial to oneself. The difference is that the "self" at stake is no longer the "I" of the personal ego, but the bigger Self that includes the other and can identify with it.

frau kaleun

07-09-10, 09:01 PM

Yikes. As far as morals go, I live by the Golden Rule.

One interesting thing about the Golden Rule is that, in saying "do unto others what you would have done unto you," it raises the question of what, exactly, you would have done unto you.

And there's the rub. For it always seems to be the people who, deep down, do not believe they themselves are worthy of compassion or love who cannot offer it to others. We tend to believe of others exactly what we believe of ourselves. The miser thinks everyone else is a greedy SOB who wants to take his precious money. The liar and the cheat trusts no one and suspects everyone. The "true believer" who thinks himself deserving of damnation in the next life for breaking some commandment will usually have no qualms about subjecting someone else to misery in this life for doing the same. And so it goes.

frau kaleun

07-09-10, 09:02 PM

The Golden Rule is really are about making you feel good as much as making the world a better place, because the better you feel the better your world becomes.

:yeah:

krashkart

07-09-10, 09:19 PM

One interesting thing about the Golden Rule is that, in saying "do unto others what you would have done unto you," it raises the question of what, exactly, you would have done unto you.

And there's the rub. For it always seems to be the people who, deep down, do not believe they themselves are worthy of compassion or love who cannot offer it to others. We tend to believe of others exactly what we believe of ourselves. The miser thinks everyone else is a greedy SOB who wants to take his precious money. The liar and the cheat trusts no one and suspects everyone. The "true believer" who thinks himself deserving of damnation in the next life for breaking some commandment will usually have no qualms about subjecting someone else to misery in this life for doing the same. And so it goes.

I must be in it for the right reasons, then. :smug:

thorn69

07-09-10, 09:39 PM

I think the more we stop and think about death the more life we're missing out on. And what a shame it would be if all you can do in death is beg for more life - a life you will never get the chance of ever having again! So why waste your one and only opportunity while you've currently got it wondering about what happens when you die? It's going to happen when it happens! There's no stopping it! Your only real choice in life is to get busy living or get busy dying!

This country song says it best.... I hope you dance!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV-Z1YwaOiw

sidslotm

07-10-10, 02:35 PM

Check out Ian McCormack, I heard him speak about this here in the UK. You can find plenty on him on you tube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgF_iwUNqFU

krashkart

07-10-10, 02:54 PM

My mind has been set into motion on the Golden Rule and what it means to me. What it did for me was to help ease my transition into good social practices and, among other things, helped shape me into a very kind and (mostly) honest person. It has been one of my main guiding principles in life.

Of course, when I really start to think about it my concept of "Do unto others..." has been mixed together with everything else that keeps me stable. It's difficult to distinguish. But, it helped grow up a proper guy nonetheless.

Now if I can just get through this self-destructive phase in time to really grab life and enjoy it... *scream* It's a scary thought. Life can be enjoyed?? I never knew that. :o

Castout

07-10-10, 04:57 PM

This is a bit OT, but anyway, my idea of heaven is: being God. Not in terms of having any power, or the ability to do anything in (or to) the world, but rather just being able to understand it and everything in it, including my former self! It would be awesome if after I died I became all-seeing (omniscient?) and understood everything.

Being God well there's only one God at least that's how I have known it

but picture a being with perfectly built body shape (clothed at least clothed while roaming the earth), able to be anywhere anytime in an instant, able to stop people from moving literally and stop them from speaking seemingly at will without much effort from the distance, able to know the future of each men, able to know the thoughts and hearts of people and holds the greatest power(authority) that any man could ever felt and known(greater than every head of state, king and tyrant that's ever lived and the power of men is actually more like an influence but not about this being it was the highest authority, IMMENSE RAW ABSOLUTE POWER and who passed(skipped) on death(how very lucky)

The only thing he could not do is going against God because he's become the true servant of God but which is more like a king himself than a servant and since God is holy(and kind and merciful and powerful though strict and un-predictable) that's not actually a bad thing and considering what becomes of him and the life that he's enjoying NOTHING absolutely NOTHING would and could BUY or made people worth or deserving to be given that kind of existence. I would consider him the luckiest %^$#@$! in the entire existence.

Why couldn't that being that he has become of understand the lot of things that we ordinary people couldn't? I don't know what goes on in that man mind but what was clear that he knew my mind and heart and I knew he knew everything about me.
And if he knew everything about me the nobody(and an 8th grade kid then) from some third world why wouldn't he know other more interesting things?! He could very well do!:D

August

07-10-10, 05:27 PM

Being God well there's only one God at least that's how I have known it

but picture a being with perfectly built body shape (clothed at least clothed while roaming the earth), able to be anywhere anytime in an instant, able to stop people from moving literally and stop them from speaking seemingly at will without much effort from the distance, able to know the future of each men, able to know the thoughts and hearts of people and holds the greatest power(authority) that any man could ever felt and known(greater than every head of state, king and tyrant that's ever lived and the power of men is actually more like an influence but not about this being it was the highest authority, IMMENSE RAW ABSOLUTE POWER and who passed(skipped) on death(how very lucky)

The only thing he could not do is going against God because he's become the true servant of God but which is more like a king himself than a servant and since God is holy(and kind and merciful and powerful though strict and un-predictable) that's not actually a bad thing and considering what becomes of him and the life that he's enjoying NOTHING absolutely NOTHING would and could BUY or made people worth or deserving to be given that kind of existence. I would consider him the luckiest %^$#@$! in the entire existence.

Why couldn't that being that he has become of understand the lot of things that we ordinary people couldn't? I don't know what goes on in that man mind but what was clear that he knew my mind and heart and I knew he knew everything about me.
And if he knew everything about me the nobody(and an 8th grade kid then) from some third world why wouldn't he know other more interesting things?! He could very well do!:D

Sounds complicated. Do you really think man understands God to that degree?

Platapus

07-10-10, 05:31 PM

TheSatyr

07-11-10, 09:00 AM

Skybird

07-11-10, 10:08 AM

Having watched programs like "Ghost Hunter" I'm kind of on the fence on this issue. When you see photos (or film) of apparitions,Heat signature hits with infared cameras on humanoid shapes that can't be seen with the naked eye,Electronic Voice Phenomenons where you hear voices from "beings"...It does make you think
Not to mention pulp magazines like "John Sinclair" und Tv series olike "The X files".

Good old Fox Mulder has that poster in his office, an UFO and a short text on it, "I want to believe."

One question, Fox: "Why...?"

TarJak

07-11-10, 11:27 PM

Having watched programs like "Ghost Hunter" I'm kind of on the fence on this issue. When you see photos (or film) of apparitions,Heat signature hits with infared cameras on humanoid shapes that can't be seen with the naked eye,Electronic Voice Phenomenons where you hear voices from "beings"...It does make you think
It makes me think someone is messing with someone else's head. DiD.

Castout

07-11-10, 11:33 PM

Sounds complicated. Do you really think man understands God to that degree?

What I described is not God but the condition of a man that's raised from death and that condition is Godly instead of becoming God, the best thing that could befall a living person(people).

The book, A torn veil a story of sister Gulshan Esther ,describes the same man though it only described his physical appearance but also revealed the identity. Sister Gulshan Ester was a Moslem from Pakistan born into a rich influential family but who suffered from being a bed ridden cripple until she prayed to Christ for three years and healed. She has moved to UK and been residing there to my knowledge and is now an evangelist. The book is rather old so I think it's going to be hard to find. You could find her clip on youtube though she made no mention of the man in the robe in her speech. For that you need to read the book.

It's the only book which could relate to the man who visited me while I was a kid. As for God you can't even see God His face shines beyond anything that the whole figure is covered with the most powerful light that's coming from His face...

Like I said I'm very liberal in sharing these. I don't care being ridiculed, mocked or worst insulted. I have no desire to convince anyone and if I wanted approval sharing a story such as this would be the dumbest thing. Like I said I just want to share this as that thing that wouldn't fit into the concept of most people and as a reminder sometime somewhere that life isn't just all about what what most people know. I'm the one that sticks out with a voice telling I know God is real. I can't show the evidence but I've seen the evidence and I'm that witness bearing the testimony that God is real even when the world was turned upside down I could not deny what I've come to know.

frau kaleun

07-12-10, 10:48 AM

It's the only book which could relate to the man who visited me while I was a kid. As for God you can't even see God His face shines beyond anything that the whole figure is covered with the most powerful light that's coming from His face...

I was also visited by God/Jesus in this form, when I was about 8 years old. Or perhaps I should say I visited him, since he was waiting at the top of the stairway I climbed to where he was.

I have also been visited, in the same or similar fashion, by: the Great Earth Mother, the Queen of Heaven, the Golden Child, Hermes, Hades, and Vishnu. Those are the ones I remember or at least can identify to my own satisfaction.

Also: Wolverine, the Incredible Hulk, and Russell Crowe.

I can only conclude that none of them is any more "real" than any other, since my only confirmed evidence of them in any form is my own experience of them and subsequent interpretation of that experience.

Except for Russell, of course. I'll grant you he's as (literally) real as it gets, but only because metaphors don't usually throw phones at people. :O:

thorn69

07-12-10, 02:10 PM

I was also visited by God/Jesus in this form, when I was about 8 years old. Or perhaps I should say I visited him, since he was waiting at the top of the stairway I climbed to where he was.

I have also been visited, in the same or similar fashion, by: the Great Earth Mother, the Queen of Heaven, the Golden Child, Hermes, Hades, and Vishnu. Those are the ones I remember or at least can identify to my own satisfaction.

Also: Wolverine, the Incredible Hulk, and Russell Crowe.

I can only conclude that none of them is any more "real" than any other, since my only confirmed evidence of them in any form is my own experience of them and subsequent interpretation of that experience.

Except for Russell, of course. I'll grant you he's as (literally) real as it gets, but only because metaphors don't usually throw phones at people. :O:

Well, that was quite rude! :stare:

Why are you mocking the guy?

frau kaleun

07-12-10, 02:31 PM

Well, that was quite rude! :stare:

Why are you mocking the guy?

If you see mockery in my post, then you missed the point entirely.

OTOH, if Castout indicates to me that he feels he was being mocked, or that I was rude, I will apologize to him directly. However my intent was to do neither, merely to recount my own experiences with archetypal manifestations, much as he has done in previous posts. In fact I find it interesting that his description of God's appearance from his own experience matches one experience of my own so closely.

That I do not consider those experiences to be evidence of the literal existence of the figures mentioned should not be a surprise given the views expressed in my previous posts. That I would treat the subject with some attempt at humor should be expected by anyone who is familiar with me from previous interactions throughout these forums.

thorn69

07-12-10, 02:45 PM

If you see mockery in my post, then you missed the point entirely.

OTOH, if Castout indicates to me that he feels he was being mocked, or that I was rude, I will apologize to him directly. However my intent was to do neither, merely to recount my own experiences with archetypal manifestations, much as he has done in previous posts. In fact I find it interesting that his description of God's appearance from his own experience matches one experience of my own so closely.

That I do not consider those experiences to be evidence of the literal existence of the figures mentioned should not be a surprise given the views expressed in my previous posts. That I would treat the subject with some attempt at humor should be expected by anyone who is familiar with me from previous interactions throughout these forums.

Well if the intent wasn't there then it wasn't there. I'll take your word for it!

For a minute there, I was thinking you were some horrible lady that goes around shopping malls crushing the dreams of small children at Christmas time by telling them Santa Claus is a myth! :rotfl2:

tater

07-12-10, 02:52 PM

frau kaleun

07-12-10, 03:03 PM

Well if the intent wasn't there then it wasn't there. I'll take your word for it!

For a minute there, I was thinking you were some horrible lady that goes around shopping malls crushing the dreams of small children at Christmas time by telling them Santa was a myth! :rotfl2:

Not lately, but I was, in fact, once thrown out of a neighbor's house by the mother of two children who (according to her) only found out there was no Santa Claus because of something I said when we were playing together on the day after Christmas. I can't remember what it was exactly, but they pitched a fit and went crying to their mama who then threw me out. I was six at the time, they were both older than me, and while obviously I knew about the "Santa Claus" tradition and still received gifts marked "From Santa" on them, I was pretty baffled when they reacted that way over the possibility that maybe some fat jolly man didn't really climb down every chimney in the world once a year and leave presents for people. I honestly couldn't believe that kids that age still believed that kind of thing was even remotely possible, I mean the logistics of such an operation alone, not to mention the laws of physics...

Anyway their mother told them I was a liar and sent me home for (quite innocently) dropping the "There Is No Santa" Bomb in front of her pwecious snowfwakes. And I will say this for my mother, for whom I can not say much, she went over to the lady's house afterwards and asked her if SHE believed that Santa Claus actually brought presents to her kids, and when the lady said "of course not," demanded that she apologize to me for calling me a liar. Which she did and IIRC that was the last of it.

Thank heavens we only lived there 10 months, I can't imagine what the fallout would've been if I'd burst the Tooth Fairy bubble as well. :O:

thorn69

07-12-10, 03:10 PM

Not lately, but I was, in fact, once thrown out of a neighbor's house by the mother of two children who (according to her) only found out there was no Santa Claus because of something I said when we were playing together on the day after Christmas. I can't remember what it was exactly, but they pitched a fit and went crying to their mama who then threw me out. I was six at the time, they were both older than me, and while obviously I knew about the "Santa Claus" tradition and still received gifts marked "From Santa" on them, I was pretty baffled when they reacted that way over the possibility that maybe some fat jolly man didn't really climb down every chimney in the world once a year and leave presents for people. I honestly couldn't believe that kids that age still believed that kind of thing was even remotely possible, I mean the logistics of such an operation alone, not to mention the laws of physics...

Anyway their mother told them I was a liar and sent me home for (quite innocently) dropping the "There Is No Santa" Bomb in front of her pwecious snowfwakes. And I will say this for my mother, for whom I can not say much, she went over to the lady's house afterwards and asked her if SHE believed that Santa Claus actually brought presents to her kids, and when the lady said "of course not," demanded that she apologize to me for calling me a liar. Which she did and IIRC that was the last of it.

Thank heavens we only lived there 10 months, I can't imagine what the fallout would've been if I'd burst the Tooth Fairy bubble as well. :O:

That's AWFUL!! You ARE an evil evil woman! Now get down and give me 25 and not the girly push-ups either! There's only room for 1 a-hole on these forums and it's NOT going to be YOU! That's MY job!

I'll be watching you!!

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WzrDBWcU85s/SjcfEXq3rVI/AAAAAAAACH0/nK86Wm2JttA/s400/full%2Bmetal%2Bjacket.jpg