There is no life after death (and no hell)

[ProtractedSilence]

mhernan: See post #54 at this link: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=5198&page=4

Christianity is not about rules, and certainly not about making the government run by rules. The things you cite are hypocritical and deplorable, I agree completely. However, these situations are not where someone is truly sacrificing their life for someone else, they are situations where people try to bend the rules as much as possible to take from others. That is not what Christ talked about. That is not what Jehovah talked about.

I think it is loving of God to give us free will to choose, and design us to be the stewards of the world. I think it is loving that God is just, so he wants to punish things that are wrong. If he wasn't a parent that punished a bad behavior, he would raise spoiled children. I think it is loving that God had a plan from before he created us about how he would reconcile our choice to walk away from Him, and that it didn't involve anything we did, but what he was going to do on the cross. I could go on an on.

You are right though about moral standards. If you don't have God, there is no moral standard. Everything goes because everything is relative. When your neighbor comes and breaks into your house, knocks you unconscious with a bat and rapes your wife and children, its all okay because he is the stronger person. Too bad for you.

- Why do you get up in the morning? I tried living like that, but it is a terrible way to live. It doesn't seem right or fair in your soul. And when you examine the facts, you will see that it isn't the truth, and that’s why it doesn't sit right, and that God is trying to help out you and your life, but you have been pushing Him away all this time.

olde drunk: You are right about God being the kind of person who forgives us when we mess up. He provided a way for us to be completely forgiven for everything, we only have to ask for it. But until that step is made to ask forgiveness, we are living and will be judged completely by our own actions and choices. When you come to face God he will ask you if you are perfect, and the standard will not be your own definition of perfection, but God’s moral character. You fall short, we all fall short. We are all selfish, angry, bitter, and revengeful people. If not currently, at some time in the past – and this destroys perfection.

So the choice is clear; accept the method God has chosen for you to be forgiven and escape God’s punishment for unrighteousness, or face his judgment on your own actions. If you are really a betting man as you mentioned before, I can’t see how you like the odds on your current choice.

 

[mhernan]

why don't ja tell us how you REALLYREALLY feel.

i love it. have a drink on me. or a ho if you prefer. lol

peace & love,

mhernan Really, really, responds thus:

Life u
is a gas, but the devils breww will not pas my lips agains, well not anywhere near the volumes in the distant pass. I don't stress and I do what I please which is criticising everything that I abhor such as the attitudes of people who have the answer tucked nicely away in their psyches. I am only interested eniough to do smething if the attitude I see is wide spread and dangerous, from my perspective. There are two many 'attitudes' to hate, and besides who let's cockroaches piss them off? Not I. All the godly people can do their thing to their hearts content and so can I. The attitudes claim authority form god, I claim the same, but in my case I am god, so I don't have any reference problems to deal with. I have no interpretations of to analyze and explain and apply to my own interests. I am my own interest. I know I tick a lot of people off, but that's life, that's freedom of speech and that is god's way, just ask me. and I'll tell you.

Peace, love, harmony, riches and fulfilment and at least one wonderment per day until eternity, which, whatever eternity is, is a long, long, a very long way away.

I don't have any ego problems abiout my elevated status, as I haven't w
elevated myself, I am who I am. and you get what you see. I don't have to prove anything to anyone about my moral worth before feeling justified in laying it akk out there for all to see. If one wansts to argue, so be it. If opne wants to agree so be it. If one wants to ignore me as foolishness in corporate, so be it. As the one time leading town sot, though not on your esteenmed level I am sure, I have no reputation to protect.

Like the old drunk you are, so be it.

I do have a certian pleasure sticking it to the smug and proudly obediently religious, though they rarely catch the cynicism. If they do catch the wry digs I am sure they turn me into someone in Washnington D.C that monitors the disrespectful like you and I, though you seem much more restrained than but then I'm god. You're not from D.C are you? I don't usually go around looking for elevated spiritual entitiies to "hang with" as there is nothing more boring and sleep inducing that having a conversaion with an equal, an equal in outlook that is.

After a long lifetime of being the smartest guy in the room, more often than not, I find it necessary to emphacise and manifest that fact and lo and behold, when I do this, my relief invariably shows up, hel stands up and says, "Oh yeah?" and then I can relax and enjoy the pedestrian existence and life with the "common folk", while my mental superior, whom I cleverly (its childishly simple to goad someone into action by openly claiming superiority) get to stand up and challenge my apparent rude and snobbish egotism, and then take over the serious responsibility of being the "smartest one in the room." In this same vein it is easy to get nazis to stand up in a crowd and eagerly identify themselves. When you get a feeling that a junk yard dog is ragging on you, you got the clue, as in Gerald McCaffery, for an obvious if not lowly instance. So what to do? Take names, they're just targets, political targets, of course. Do what you can, when you can do it, or maybe, just a tad more than you're personally confortable with; exceed what is expected of you as a limitation. Hell, In hell, practice may not make perfect, but improvement is all one really needs, especially if its fun..

Sadly, I know hundreds, if not thoudsands of people who are skyscrapers ahead of me, but they don't know it, and would embarrssingly deny the fact out of a pure expected sense of modesty, which has no place in my book of life. The sadness is in the social culturation that repays restraint, obedience, robotic repetition, you know the drill, instead of expression, of letting it all hang out, know what I mean? Mediocrity is more comfortable and less threatening to the weak, which are the more numerous, and surprisingly they quench the fire that would enrich their pitiful lives beyong their wildest imagination, which they have little, if any, of.

So I put a brick on the the throttle, and as sung so energetically by the Black Crows:

"I took all I need, I don't need no more,
I take what I want till I want some more,
You can't stop or I will pass you,
when your down you won't find me laughin,
just one question I will ask you,
it might sound like a disaster,
but can you make this thing go faster?"

Or setting the poetry aside,philosophically: "would you please get the eff out of my way?, thank you."

or as the sage said not so many years ago, "being a Hippy is just a state of mind."

So day you is bro, aisle tak d ho f doan min me barren er f wil, jesa lilwil.

 

[mhernan]

mhernan: See post #54 at this link: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=5198&page=4

Christianity is not about rules, and certainly not about making the government run by rules. The things you cite are hypocritical and deplorable, I agree completely. However, these situations are not where someone is truly sacrificing their life for someone else, they are situations where people try to bend the rules as much as possible to take from others. That is not what Christ talked about. That is not what Jehovah talked about.



So the choice is clear; accept the method God has chosen for you to be forgiven and escape God’s punishment for unrighteousness, or face his judgment on your own actions. If you are really a betting man as you mentioned before, I can’t see how you like the odds on your current choice.

ProtractedSilence, you reek of sincerity, and a first hand knowledge of the ebig man. Check it out, Christian, god, jehovah loving that you are. Deuteronomy 2:34 Mopses speaking, "And we went capturing all his cities at that particlular time and devoting every city to destruction, men women and little children. We left no survivor.

I want god to punish me because then he will have to identify himself and then I will have him where I want him, in my clutches, squeezing the puke out of him.

Such wicked people, that your god has to sweep out of the way.

You don't read all the bible do you? You say god, Jehovah has chosen something for me? When I meet your god, your jehovah, I am going to strain the murdering brutal butcher through a wood chipper. Loving you say? Do what he says or he will slay you. This is love? That sir, or madam, is vile sinful and atrocious conduct that all the Hitlers in the world have enmulated since whenever your god started his entrenched madness. You talk about my "Odds" as if we were in some kind of sporting event. You lost me Protracted Silence. Your attitude has to be one of the most seriously distorted
undertsndings of love, beauty and goodnes I have ever seen. If you are so blind, and deaf, not to pass me by, but not to read all the bible, all the truth, all the horror and insanity that exceeds the worst of any human activity. LIke I say, your god Jehovah gets in my ay and I will squash him like a cochroach. Do you get the message?

Most of what you do say isn't biblical, it is something else, sopmething made up, a novel, a fairy tale.

I cannot believe or seriously consider for an instant that you think your naive slothful acceptance of vile murdeing poison will get me to come over to your side. Your writing is robotic. There is no originality, just fervent acceptance. You project laziness, ignorance and mental incompetence. Virtually everything you state has been stated by simeone else who got to you and essentially murdered your soul. Yoy are a memorizer., a capture and laimed sheep. You live with the devil, not the serpent of Genesis, but that which is truly evil, from your perspective, but you think you have got it and that god gave it to you. You are all too eager to pronounce your iobedience just in case he might be listening, yeah, right. The creator of th euniverse is listening to ProtractedSilence repeat, repeat, repeat . . .

. You are a frightened little boy that will never feel the love of a woman that truly warms to you, the man, the person. You aren't a man, a person. You fear to think for yourself, to experience love for yourself, to dig it when it rains and dig it even more when it pours. You and I can never be friends, We will never share intimate understandings, a joke, a sense of commarderie, a beer on quiet Sunday morning. Do you get the drill?. You aren't interesting ProtractedSilence, you are one pitiful boring dude.
This isn't made up. This is what I read from you, this is what you show me.

 

[olde drunk]

WHOA! slow down big hoss!

i do remember my epiphany back in the late 60's or so. it was great! PS is living in a state of grace. he found god and that is good!

within an laissez-faire attitude he must be allowed to follow through on his findings. meeting with other ideas on these forums is a way to temper and/or change what is found.

god does not judge, why or how can we? beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

peace & love,

 

[ProtractedSilence]

mhernan,

What has made you angry? Tell me more specifically what you are angry with in my posts certainly...but what has made you angry in the past? I know that the situations in life both the seemingly impromptu and the maliciously planned (often by Christians unfortunately) can be terrible.

As to the specific passage you cite, I will do some more reading on it and answer your concerns.

olde drunk,

I would prefer if you did want to convince me of being wrong than of accepting my words as coming from an experiential state. I do not act because I’m having this wonderful experience, I act because I am in the pursuit of truth. If Christianity was not the truth, I would want to know, so that I could stop doing it and find out what the real truth is.

 

[mhernan]

mhernan,

What has made you angry? Tell me more specifically what you are angry with in my posts certainly...but what has made you angry in the past? I know that the situations in life both the seemingly impromptu and the maliciously planned (often by Christians unfortunately) can be terrible.

As to the specific passage you cite, I will do some more reading on it and answer your concerns.

mhernan responds

And I have no concerns. I am reporting a fact quoted ion the bioble. You aren't the professor here and I the student. It is the other way around. But is interesting that you instinvtively take to defending your god. My god doesn't need defending, explaining, justifyiing or decribing.

I am not angry with your posts. I am merely pointing out your defects. You talk of god this and god that as if it applied to me and all the heathen New Zealand Maoris, and Soth American headhunters, and you are so far off the mark, it is pitiful. I am not angry with the past and bear no human being a grudge, which doesn't prevent me from telling it like I see it.

Life doesn't make me angry, PS, life makes me high, do you get it?

Take the crucifixion. Pontius Pilate declares Jesus innocent in all four gospels, MMLJ. Now Jesus, Joseph of Armtheus and Pilate are smart fellows all, to be sure. So irate is the crowd that should Pilate cut Jesus loose the crowd will eventually get him, unless . . . tunless hey think he is already dead!. So, the scam, probably sweetened by Jospeph's bribe to Pilate, went on and all believed Jesus croaked. The event was carried out in Joseph's garden, probably Gesthemane. The new tomb, remember? Therefore, Jesus' life was spared by Pilate. Jesus didn't die for us PS, he LIVED for us. I will let the olde drunk slur his own words.

What do you have to do more reading on? Read Deuteronomy all the way through. I just related one instance.

olde drunk,

I would prefer if you did want to convince me of being wrong than of accepting my words as coming from an experiential state. I do not act because I’m having this wonderful experience, I act because I am in the pursuit of truth. If Christianity was not the truth, I would want to know, so that I could stop doing it and find out what the real truth is.

 

[olde drunk]

olde drunk,

I would prefer if you did want to convince me of being wrong than of accepting my words as coming from an experiential state. I do not act because I’m having this wonderful experience, I act because I am in the pursuit of truth. If Christianity was not the truth, I would want to know, so that I could stop doing it and find out what the real truth is.

the whole point is that no one, not even christ, can convince you of what is true. only you can know your truth.

if you need miracles, just look at what you do everyday. without trying, you bring life and consciousness to a mass of atoms and molecules. that is creation! why does anyone need to walk on water before you will listen and accept his words over someone else.

i, personally, do not want to have you doubt yourself. i offer that you are using external authority to justify your beliefs. i ask that you examine your beliefs and find your truth, from or through your experience.

regarless of who said what, i believe that when you meditate and look within, not to an outside agency, you will find your truth. it is these personal truths that become beliefs that coalesce into an experienced reality. I've got 60+ years experiences to fall back on and refine my beliefs. they are correct only at this moment. i will change any of them as soon as i find that one is limiting or bringing undersired results.

a brief example. anti-war protesters so often fail because they are focusing on war and it's implications. this adds energy to war. if however, we focus on peace, we then direct our energy toward peace. this is a subtle shift, but that has been my experience.

being christian, moslem, whatever is a lable. it is what you believe that manipulates our day to day experience. it is nice to read words of great men. i am often amazed at how Ghandi was able to be so spiritual in a modern age. do you see how his 'belief' in himself and justice was made manifest. that is the energy of the universe being focused through him, because he believed so strongly.

i must stretch my understandings and beliefs or there is no progress. i offer this opinion for you to accept or reject. i say again, the offical bible and dead sea scrolls and koran and talmud are all hearsay. (amazing how close that word is to heresy.) they provide wonderful information, but life gives us our truth.

the longer i live the more i am convinced that the universal energy, while electro-magnetic in nature, is really LOVE! john lennon where are you?


peace & love,

 

[ProtractedSilence]

mhernan,

I find it hard to take your words at face value. I realize that online communication is tricky, but your earlier rants do not logically fit with life making you high, and that you aren't angry.

So I would ask again, why do Christians make you angry? Why do you lob epithets at both myself and olde drunk and really everyone...since you calim to be better and smarter than everyone else, and to be able to judge their rightness or wrongness. Why does a better and smarter person need to grind the "lesser" people into the dirt? How is that fair or right?

Read posts #105 and #106 on https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=188281#post188281

I do not think that Maori's or anyone else is necessarily going to hell. But if they get the opportunity to hear about Jesus and reject Him, then that is what is going to happen to them.

olde drunk: There are truths, they can be proven. You may deny the truth, but that does not make your denial reality. Does the mouse and keyboard in front of me exist? Yes, it does. I can feel it, weigh it, take it apart, burn it and count the molecules. I can photograph and see it. I can measure it. All things may not be that clear cut, but there are truths to be found. The keyboard and mouse do not cease to exist because I stop thinking they are there, nor do a matched set appear if I dream them up. Reality is not modified by me, I must conform to reality or suffer the consequences of being misguided.

 

[olde drunk]

mhernan,

olde drunk: There are truths, they can be proven. You may deny the truth, but that does not make your denial reality. Does the mouse and keyboard in front of me exist? Yes, it does. I can feel it, weigh it, take it apart, burn it and count the molecules. I can photograph and see it. I can measure it. All things may not be that clear cut, but there are truths to be found. The keyboard and mouse do not cease to exist because I stop thinking they are there, nor do a matched set appear if I dream them up. Reality is not modified by me, I must conform to reality or suffer the consequences of being misguided.

please grasshopper, look within. the physical world is valid and real, BUT it is a representation - projection of that which is within.

love and peace,

 

[Dayle Record]

There is no death, at the very least there is potential, or quiescence. Life, motion, connection, interaction don't cease. I know the big guns, sometimes glue some hapless atom to a surface somewhere near absolute zero, but nevertheless the potential always exists. There is always energy in the situation simply because the whole thing is moving along. I think that a form of death could come if an entity became tired of singularity, and released its bounds into the energies at large, but their gain is not a loss of life; and neither is the joining outward. We harbor common concepts, share some sort of common wavelength, it is an effect of nature, though we experience it personally. I think we are much more individually isolated than other animals that live here, and much less sophisticated in our abilities to share and communicate. Squid emote, changing their entire surface patterns to match the other in conversation, and then change again and again, in the course of an interaction. We may just be the most intelligent of species, but we rigidly insists on energetic isolation, so questions of life and death are poignant, in this twilight of doubt.

 

[ProtractedSilence]

death happens when your physical body dies. Does consciousness die as well? Christianity says no...that people are eternal beings, but that if they don't choose for God, they will face eternity without God and the attributes he brings to the world. It will be an eternity of isolation, desperation, bitterness and malice.

mhernan:

Why am I reading before I asnwer you? Because the context of statements matter a lot. Not just the sentences around the one you want, but the chapter, book, and other writings by the same person. So I want to review the context before I answer. I may go look up some of the key words in that passage in Hebrew to see what each of them means the other times they are translated in the OT.

Have a good weekend all

 

[olde drunk]

dearest PS

don't go looking up anything, think for yourself. now, you proved to yourself that a keyboard and mouse exist. no one told you they were there. (later we will discuss that they aren't really, truely).

FEEL your eternal soul. sense your creative power and determine if you want to be isolated, alone, bitter and desparate. i am alone but i am not bitter, desparate or driven to malice.

the dichotomy is that we are alone, together. god can not save you from being alone. only you can reach out and share your world with others. it is a matter of what you want to believe.

only fear of being alone, bitter, desparate has you believing in a devine, biblical god. do not focus on your fears other than to hold them up and realize that we are in a safe universe and we each have the power to undo our fears. fear of losing heaven is the trump card of religion.

like i said, i like to play poker. the odds of all those references that are approved for your use, being the true word of god are close to zero (infinity to 1). they have been passed down by humans, who you yourself say, are flawed. if they are flawed, how did they act 'perfectly'.

i say again. man is not flawed, he was not born with the original sin of his ancestors. we are all in the process of becoming. please experience truth, don't read it.

actually, you can not prove that i exist. i may be a figment of your subconscious, trying to push you toward another reality. if you're scared, then i might be your subconscious evil twin. i might even be a reincarnated apolstle.

what mhernan was trying to say is that we are all our own personal god. relax, accept and enjoy.

love & peace,

 

[Mudvaynelethaldosage]

"This is one of the first things, if not THE first thing, I questioned about religion when I was a child. It did not seem right (and still doesn't) that anything done within a mere 70 year lifetime could deserve such a horrible eternal punishment. The distance/closeness fate I mentioned above seems to make more sense." 1st reply to topic is quoted here.


"I certainly can't accept that there is a loving and just god that
would allow someone to suffer for eternity. Justice implies a
proportionality between crime and punishment, no finite crime
balances against an infinite punishment" someone quoted here from a different thread, possibly laser eyes.

My first doubt of the bible was when I was a child. I had the childrens edition of the bible. It was on the topic of Adam and Eve being created and nudism. It said that Adam and Eve were created nude. They weren't ashamed under the circumstances, they covered themselves with leaves though. It did also state that nudity is a sin in almost any case. This was all said in simpler terms, for children to understand.
What is wrong with nudism? I wear clothes, not because I'm ashamed by my body, but because of the cops, clothing provides protection, and clothing is useful when you're cold. I think the whole reason people started wearing clothing was for protection against their environment. They weren't ashamed of their body. I don't exactly understand why people try to cover their bodies up.

 

[EMANUELI]

It might happen that what you beleave and what you don't beleave is not an issue any more. The issue is Where we come from,Who we are, and where are we going to be.Do you want to judge the existence of the creater of the universe? Go back to the history! Well, The history is the BIBLE! It is the fact that there is no one remember how he or she was at the time of his creation! If that is the fact then the reality is No one know where he or she will be after his death. What happen hear is just beleave from what you have learn in your life time and no one can stop what a creater of the urniverse has decided of what to do. I myself beleave the creator of the urniverse is GOD who made me, you, and everything in this world/earth etc. JUDGE YOUR OWN SOUL.

 

[Mudvaynelethaldosage]

I had always understood that (according to christian beliefs) when a person died, he/she remained in the grave until judgement day. At this time, he was either cast into hell, or welcomed to heaven. I've heard countless storys of heaven being paved with gold (seems like bad traction surface to me).

It seems that everything you say negates the point in going to church, believing in a god. What purpose is it to spend your life worshipping a god that is just going to watch you fade away? People go to church because they are afraid to die, and this #1 fear that we must all face is what churches prey on. If churches preached what you claim, people would not come, as it does not remove one's fear of death anymore so then atheism.

So, according to your beliefs/claims we will never meet our loved ones in heaven, or get chased around hell by the devil and his pitchfork?

Why the hell would heaven be paved with gold? I bet if coal went for 300$ per ounce, heaven would be made of coal according to those same sources.

Do you actually believe you will meet deceased people in heaven or get chased by the devil with a pitchfork in hell? If you really do, I think you need to go ask your mother about the tooth fairy. She has something to tell you that will probably shatter your hope and introduce you to life.

 

[dschouten]

"This is one of the first things, if not THE first thing, I questioned about religion when I was a child. It did not seem right (and still doesn't) that anything done within a mere 70 year lifetime could deserve such a horrible eternal punishment. The distance/closeness fate I mentioned above seems to make more sense." 1st reply to topic is quoted here.

"I certainly can't accept that there is a loving and just god that
would allow someone to suffer for eternity. Justice implies a
proportionality between crime and punishment, no finite crime
balances against an infinite punishment" someone quoted here from a different thread, possibly laser eyes.

Fine, don't accept 'it'. Your acceptance (or lack thereof) doesn't change anything one jot or tittle.

Actually, I shouldn't be so quick to dismiss. Because yours is a (valid) question. Perhaps you should consult your Bible, specifically the New Testament Gospels for a reasonable response. You can take it from there (I'll leave the conclusions up to you).

My first doubt of the bible was when I was a child. I had the childrens edition of the bible. It was on the topic of Adam and Eve being created and nudism. It said that Adam and Eve were created nude. They weren't ashamed under the circumstances, they covered themselves with leaves though. It did also state that nudity is a sin in almost any case. This was all said in simpler terms, for children to understand.
What is wrong with nudism? I wear clothes, not because I'm ashamed by my body, but because of the cops, clothing provides protection, and clothing is useful when you're cold. I think the whole reason people started wearing clothing was for protection against their environment. They weren't ashamed of their body. I don't exactly understand why people try to cover their bodies up.

This is why watered-down versions of Christianity and its doctrines are so dangerous - any half-baked skeptic can tear them to bits (and I am not inferring that you are a half-baked skeptic).

By the way, Adam and Eve did not cover themselves with leaves until after the point they became ashamed. Prior to being corrupted by sin (that is, ignoring their Creator) they had no cause for shame because they had no knowledge of evil. Without evil, or for sake of a better word (nouns fail me) 'badness', shame doesn't really have any bearing. How can you be ashamed, unless you feel/think/act wrongly? Perhaps it is not nudity that is shameful, but the lusts it provokes?

 

[Gokul43201]

"I certainly can't accept that there is a loving and just god that
would allow someone to suffer for eternity. Justice implies a
proportionality between crime and punishment, no finite crime
balances against an infinite punishment"

This may be a little off-topic but according to Hinduism, you do time in Hell depending on the number and enormity of your sins. There's actually many different Gods, and two of them are responsible for keeping accounts of all your deeds.

Not trying to sell anything here...I'm agnostic, or something like that.

 

[olde drunk]

without bible quotes, please

this thread is about life after death and hell.

now, logically, explain why you do or don't believe in an after life (heaven or hell).

for me, when i looked at what an omni- everything would do, i was able to cut through the propaganda of religions. i am not saying that there is no value in the bible or other texts. i am saying, however, that they are no more the word of god than my comments here. we are all children of whaever god we follow and s/he/it is a part of us. someone may have an enlightened idea to pass on, but they are no more holy or special than the rest of us.

bottom line, heaven and hell are childish concepts. they defy logic on so many fronts that to believe in them is irrational. the only reason that i have found for belief in these ideas is - fear. fear that some of what was said might be true.

if you examine the issue without fear, logic, etc will lead you to a better understanding.

love&peace,
olde drunk

 

[dschouten]

this thread is about life after death and hell.

now, logically, explain why you do or don't believe in an after life (heaven or hell).

for me, when i looked at what an omni- everything would do, i was able to cut through the propaganda of religions.

Kudos to you, old chap, for you are most certainly approaching the level of this omni-everything. You have sidestepped the apologetics of a millinia of intellectuals so swiftly, so nimbly! Almost deity-like (almost).

i am not saying that there is no value in the bible or other texts. i am saying, however, that they are no more the word of god than my comments here. we are all children of whaever god we follow and s/he/it is a part of us. someone may have an enlightened idea to pass on, but they are no more holy or special than the rest of us.

If the Bible is indeed on the same plane as your comments in some obscure forum saved on some obscure web-server in the middle of some place in who-knows-where, then the Bible has no value. So what you are really saying is this: "i am very much saying that there is no value in the bible or other texts..."

bottom line, heaven and hell are childish concepts. they defy logic on so many fronts that to believe in them is irrational. the only reason that i have found for belief in these ideas is - fear. fear that some of what was said might be true.

No "omni-everything" should bend the knee to the logic He (or she/it in your overly politically-correct wording) created. If He created Hell, then He created Hell, and "there ain't much you can do about it". Argue it away. Go ahead. Have fun with that. Doesn't really matter.

I realize that forums such as these are meant to foster discussion on topics like the existence of heaven and hell and I apologize for throwing a wet blanket on the fire of these arguments by saying that the arguments are useless. But perhaps this interjection will spawn a whole new subset of discussions...

 

[Scott Sieger]

"When it comes to belief it is anyones game" all we have is one belief versus another, but at all times it is still just a belief. If one chooses to live a life of fear then believe as you wish. The same applies for those that wish to live without fear and yes you guessed it they also believe as they wish.

Life after death is essentially unknown, now if you want to believe in a certain type of God and his certain types of creations then go for it but please remember it is only a belief.

And as often said belief is not worth Jack sh*t when it comes down to the truth.

Ole drunk has at least identified a potential for delusion and this is admirable, better is it not to say "I don't know and await to find out" than to say "I don't know and then go into a frenzy of speculations designed to placate the fear of not knowing."

 

[olde drunk]

Scott:

thank you. i am not saying that my way, or your way, or anyone's way is the best way.

from what i have observed and seen, everyone's way is the best way for them. if you want to accept the myths of heaven or hell, so be it. as an intelligent adult, i would like to understand why. i can not find a legitimate reason, other than the propaganda of the ages.

when a wise man sez 'unless you believe in me...' it is taken and made into a foundation for a religion. i prefer to believe that he was saying, 'unless you believe in what i say...'. BIG difference.

most wise and learned men do not insist that you accept their teachings on faith. they know that you must listen, think and act in accordance with their guidance. AND, if you're lucky you will see what they have seen or know. truth can not be taught, learned or accepted. truth can only be experienced.

my truths are mine and yours, your's. they may coincide but they will never be the same. we are each seeking value fulfillment in our own unique, individual way. through communication and discussion we, just, might be able to help each other.

i still ask, why or how can you believe in heaven and hell?? yes, i do dismiss the scribes of yore. to me, they were misguided, well intentioned translators and/or transcribers. we do not have the real words of any acient, historical figure. plus, the written word lacks so much, as far as conveyong the full meaning of any quote.

seeing and listening to a politician we can fall into a charismatic trap or understand what he meant. the printed text of that speech, rarely conveys the full message.

oh, to hear jesus, buddha, mohamed, ghandi - live!

love&peace,
olde drunk

 

[Scott Sieger]

truth can not be taught, learned or accepted. truth can only be experienced.

'Ole Drunk, This I find a pearl of great wisdom. The truth can only be experienced. hmmmmmm...

 

[dave19903652]

I notice that the book of revelations has been forgotten about in this debate which basically is all about heaven and hell and life after death. Read it yourself before making judgement please.

 

[dave19903652]

"oh, to hear jesus, buddha, mohamed, ghandi - live!"

There's a thing called astral projection that you should try if you want a live reception from the masters. But with the attitude you have about them at the moment success rate maybe near to zero.

 

[olde drunk]

I notice that the book of revelations has been forgotten about in this debate which basically is all about heaven and hell and life after death. Read it yourself before making judgement please.

to me, this is but one man's anticipated probable future reality. i do not accept traditional beliefs in heaven, hell, god or salvation.

i expect a better future reality than armageddon. besides, that probable reality may not take place for billions of years. OR, it may have taken place millions of years ago.

love&peace,
olde drunk

 

[Scott Sieger]

It could be argued that the "revelations" refer to a "metaphysical" armageddon and not a "physical" armageddon. In other words, a state of insanity.

 

[dave19903652]

The revelations could not have happened millions of years ago as it was written in future tense after the death of Jesus. It could in fact be in play already only stretched out over a long time. Satan may have been let out now as people have only started to question religion a few hundred years ago. Just a thought.

I suppose it could quite easily be like that. After all the bible quite often speaks in 'code' - in a way only the people of the rime, the pure base christians would understand. Now some people, hard core protestants and jehovah witnesses for example take the bible completely literally.

 

[Guardian01]

There are many 'versions' of "the bible." Which one are you referring to and the 'author.'

 

[Scott Sieger]

"there is no life or Death but merely existence"
Some one once said.

If there is no life or death but mere existence then this opens the door to thinking along the lines of different states of being without a fixed criteria of life or death.

So rather than the question of life and death maybe it should just be a question of existence.

 

[THANOS]

Or perhaps not to question at all? If the existence of god is so questionable then why not realize that the "truths" of religion are just as questionable sense religion is based on god/gods.