Don't forget folks.....

There is a God and she's black.

Also something you believe. You have no way of knowing one way or the other.

No, it is what you believe. Check Skybird's definition again. If you knew for sure, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Sailor Steve, with all respect to you sir... The line between belief and fact regularly blurs. what is a belief to one is fact to another, this is fact to me. The discussion is due to not everybody accepts that there is more to existence than dead and gone for good, because they require proof of some tangible sort, and to require such proof is not unreasonable in itself.

Lets take Aliens as an example... Some people believe that aliens have visited this earth, I believe they could well have... would be arrogant to assume we are the only civilisation in this galaxy, just one in an ever expanding universe but I can't be sure... some KNOW the earth has been visited by people not of this planet... and say they have met them even, sometimes nice, other times not nice... These people who say they have met aliens or seen a spaceship, are usually mocked, their stories discredited as the result of vivid hallucinations, or some sort of anomoly of some kind... Either that or they are deemed to be simply nuts. Because nobody else has seen what they seen.

But suppose what these people claim IS fact, is the truth. What then? Do we demand proof of some kind even though it cannot be given, or do we trust what they say is right? 9 times out of 10, people say if it can't be proved, then its not fact. Nobody can prove how they universe came to be, this big bang theory... load of crap... if there was nothing to start with as science boffs claim... where did the something that started the universe come from?

Sometimes faith, its all we have to explain the unexplainable, to see the otherwise invisible. To touch, the intangible. Its not a construct purely indiginous to religion.

I "know" that that dimension or aspect of existence Pen is talking about exists. But neither faith nor fever dreams will help you to realize it, see it, understand it, experience it, smell it, become aware of it, taste it, feel it. As long as you differ between object and subject, you will be blind, for he eye cannot watch itself. You need to step beyond that, become the very process of seeing, no longer being the one who sees - no more subject, no more object. And if you think these words capture it, you again are wrong, for you have already stepped into the trap of separarting subject and object just again.

But maybe this will help some people, who knows:
Roughly every six years, all atoms of your body have been phased in and out of your body, and physically you have been fully replaced. atoms are 99.9999etc percent empty space, so is the stellar space in which is earth floating. the universe is just space in space, like soap bubbles floating in one and the same air. But all bubbles embrace the same space that also is between them, so what are they indeed, what is their substance, their "core"? There is no matter in the meaning of "material, solid", only ever changing form that has disappeared the very same moment you think you have grabbed it, possessed it. You may consists of atoms then that before where parts of a sun, a distant gas cloud, a comet'S tail, and what have been part of you will travel the abyss and may be carried away with solar winds and particles. Suns and stars have died to make you living, and your death will mean you become part of star's birth somewhere else. You have grown in these six years, your body has changed, you may have been ill, suffered physical damage. You learned some things, forgot others, memories you lost, other experiences turned into memories. you are totally different from what you have been six years before. But still you consider yourself to be the same person, the same "me", you still think of yourself as "this is me, that is my life." - Who is it watching back on all these events, and reflecting over them? Who is it who is aware of what you consider to be your "self"? Where did it start, where does it end? "What is your face before you have been born?"

Who are you? Who is it looking through your eyes? Asking all these questions? and in some moments of grace rests without needing to do, no more self - just a contented heart?

verry well. consider spammed on EVERY topic then :shifty:
instead of the few i "spam" on

Welllll... I guess not as neither he nor anyone else has any provable memory of doing so, therefore there is no past life. Or do we, perhaps instead take some theory with no evidence and no reason to even postulate it except our refusal to take death as the end of all things?
Lets face the future like the heroes of old eh? and just die and know we made a difference, or like the majority just know we used up resources.

well
 

It's unfortunate you guys had to wreck this thread with religious debate. I posted only once and directly addressed geetrue's original post and replies, but I think you scared him away with all this. I would have very much liked to see his replies to my points.

Emergency plan B: PMs.

No, if he plays his cards right it makes him a profit.:sunny:

That's funny coming from you...

Well, you had to know it was going to happen, you know how insecure atheists are ;)

As far as I can tell, no atheists have posted here. :hmm:

yup, seems to be more agnostics than atheists

:D Chock

My God I don't believe it...

I died once. Well not completely... long story...


But I certainly remember hearing a comforting voice telling me it's not my time.

I don't belong to any relgion anymore, God is God.


I don't really tell people about my experiance due to the obious disbelief and 'your crazy' stares people would give me.