Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Kira on November 24, 2014 at 5:01pm

Zell, how don't you understand Jesus Christ doesn't have attention for every one of us! Nor does Krishna, or Buddha or whoever else! Jesus Christ is a CONCEPTION, not a real person.

The real truth is that people (or their consciousness) sometimes get ATTRACTED by different conceptions that are CREATED by other people. When you die, you leave the physical realm, and if your consciousness is under a certain strong conception (for example any religion) then your soul/consciousness takes off the spiritual growth/evolution and spends a long time in a place with other people like you in CREATED BY THEM religious heaven. And that means WASTING OF TIME.
BECAUSE the ideal way for your soul/consciousness is to join NOT these other religious people that are thinking in similar way that you (that there's almighty Jesus Christ, saints, paradise etc) but to join YOUR ANGELS. And continue your path WITH THEM.

If you follow them then you're on the right way, if you don't follow them but you choose other way then I'm sorry this is a wrong way. It means that it will take you LONGER, MUCH LONGER to return to our Creator.

You think that your belief system will get you to God, but it WILL NOT. Untill you open your mind and get OUT of any powerful dogma.

Sorry for the caps lock...

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Kira on November 24, 2014 at 5:36pm

By your angels I mean your previous reincarnations.

Really dislike religious vocabulary. Btw the only reason why they draw angels with the wings, is because our previous reincarnations do indeed fly/float. All dead ppl do that.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by bluebird on November 24, 2014 at 5:09pm

Kira, what you view as the "right" way is no more or less likely to be closer to "right" or "correct" than Zell's way is. Maybe there are just different paths for different people. To assume that your way is the only right one or the "most" right one is nothing more than hubris, no matter what that path is.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Kira on November 24, 2014 at 5:24pm

Reading your recent reply about primates it made me assume that you're educated bluebird?

Well let's see... Have you heard of the theory of probabilities? Let me explain.

There's one simple difference between the probablity of my 'right' and probability of Zell's 'right'. Testimonies. There're hundreds or maybe thousands of testimonies of the currently living people who experienced an OBE or NDE.

There're no any testimonies of people who have met Jesus Christ, but thousands of an unconfirmed data about that.

It's clear to see who sounds more objective in this case. You've heard about an objectivity, right?..

Anyway, I'm not going to convince you in anything. After all you prefer to think that you're a primate's child. But then again...isn't there an evolution... If there is then you probably should already divide yourself from the primates and start thinking instead of sinking in 'I'm not sure, I don't know, you people don't know anything, we don't know anything and never will'. It's kinda primate's way of thinking. Time to evolve, bluebird!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by bluebird on November 24, 2014 at 8:12pm

I am fairly well educated, yes, but I think most people who have at least graduated high school understand, at the most basic level, how evolution works, and could have easily phrased it as I did (I do not have an advanced scientific education; I think my last science course was sophomore year of college).

I understand probabilities, yes -- and while I agree that there are many more anecdotes in the afterlife literature of people who have experienced OBEs and/or NDEs who did not "meet Jesus Christ" than those who have recounted anecdotes in which they have, both types do exist, and I have read of both kinds of experiences. (Also, anecdotes recounted aren't necessarily all of the experiences that people have had -- not everyone chooses to share those sorts of experiences, so there's really no way to tell how many people believe they've met Jesus during an OBE or NDE, or how many people believe they've met Krishna, etc., and just didn't feel comfortable sharing those experiences).  Actually, there aren't just two kinds of experiences anyway, "met Jesus" or "didn't meet Jesus" -- often, people encounter what they expect to encounter, according to the stories they recount afterwards. There's no way to know if there is a god which is presenting itself to them in the way that they best understand, or if there truly are many gods, or if what they experience is coming solely from their own brains, or something else altogether.

I don't think either your view or Zell's is more objective -- you seem as married to your view as she is to hers, and as long as her view works for her and your view works for you, there's no harm done. The harm only comes when people try to prove to others that their view is the only correct one.

It's not that I "prefer to think I'm a primate's child", lol.  We are ALL the children of primates, because human beings are classified as primates.  I think what you mean is that I prefer to think I am a monkey's child, and again, that is vastly oversimplifying the way evolution works.

I've never said that "you people don't know anything"; what I have said is that in my opinion, no human can know or understand for sure, during her/his earthly life, the nature of god or the universe, or at least not in any way that is provable to any other human, though perhaps it's proof enough for her/himself. Also, I've never said that we "never will" know anything -- if there is an afterlife, I think it's quite possible, even probable, that we will understand much more about the nature of god (if there is one), the universe, life, etc., once we are in that afterlife.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Dennis C. on November 24, 2014 at 9:18pm

Zell

There are many people who disagree with the idea that the Bible has any authority at all.
If a person rejects the idea that the Bible has any authority then quoting scripture doesn't really help.

I believe that the Bible has complete authority. But I realize that many people...even Christians don't see it that way. Yes that's right. I have had many Christians tell me that when their religious dogma disagrees with the Bible...they believe their religious dogma.

You will find that is the case with many people.

With that said...what do we do? Well...we can try to show people why the Bible has the authority that we acknowledge. If we find a listening ear, then we can present overwhelming evidence of the Bibles accuracy, consistency, reliability, and power. At least from our viewpoint.

If Jesus is our example then we need to be loving, kind, empathetic and patient with all of our fellow humans. Instead, to many Christians are hard, critical, judgemental, etc. (not that you have been that way)

I do have a question for you...you said that there are no conditions but acceptance to gain everlasting life. What about obedience? Jesus Himself said:

Matthew 7:21 (ASV) — Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven.

Clearly the doing of the Fathers will (obedience) is also essential.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by dream moon JO B on November 24, 2014 at 3:53pm

all cry iv dun non stop iv had a flood

i wish i cud get a train bus air/bus 2 bring evry 1 bk hear

i wish i cud get on 1 but i no i wud end up on a wong 1

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jesse's Mom on November 24, 2014 at 8:58pm

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by morgan on November 24, 2014 at 10:12pm

When my husband died 22 months ago, I was devastated.  Still am, a shadow of my former self. I’ve always had a thirst for more knowledge and I am a voracious consumer of non fictional areas of study.   Having lived with an artist and being one myself, when my husband died I needed more than the arts.  I needed substance. I wanted answers and reasons.  I ended up spending a lot of time learning and studying physics.  Hard stuff.  Theoretical and experimental analysis of how the world works.  A long list of bookmarked videos from the science world, names I never knew before besides Einstein, Newton and Hawking.  I learned of Brian Greene, John Hagelin, Lawrence Krauss, Alan Guth, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Max Tegmark, David Chalmers, Stuart Hammeroff, Robert Penrose and many others who lead in the field of physics. What I found was a treasure trove of discovery that is essentially block by block building the framework for the reason we exist.  It’s powerful and they admit they do not have all the answers but the story of the universe is not fantasy built on belief but careful painstaking work.  Thanks to a series of algorithmic mathematic calculations, observations from telescopes on Earth and probes in space the same advances in technology that we use daily to communicate via the internet are being used to measure and verify hypothesis about the origin of all……all of us, all of the universe.

In a brief “story”…..around 13.8 billion years ago, all the matter in the Universe emerged from a single, minute point, or singularity, in a violent burst. This expanded at an astonishingly high rate and temperature, doubling in size every 10-34 seconds, creating space as it rapidly inflated. Within a tiny fraction of a second gravity and all the other forces were formed. Energy changed into particles of matter and antimatter, which largely destroyed each other. But luckily for us some matter survived. Protons and neutrons started to form within the first second; within minutes these protons and neutrons fused and formed hydrogen and helium nuclei. After 300,000 years, nuclei could finally capture electrons to form atoms, filling the Universe with clouds of hydrogen and helium gas. After around 380,000 years it left behind a bath of photons – the Cosmic Microwave Background that Penzias and Wilson accidentally detected. Within this were tiny ripples of matter that were stretched to enormous sizes during inflation, and in turn these became the seeds for the galaxies and galactic clusters we see today.  By our best estimates there are around 100 billion stars in the Milky Way and at least 140 billion galaxies across the Universe.  Amazingly, to give perspective, if the Earth formed at midnight and the present moment is the next midnight, 24 hours later, modern humans have been around since 11:59:59pm—1 second.  

 

Now, knowing this “story”, taking it a step further,  to use ancient text written during a period of time when people “believed” the earth was flat, stories based on what they were writing about their history at the  time must be judged by the limits of knowledge that were evident then.  We now “know” based on current technology many irrefutable laws of nature. We are writing a different history of earth as well as increasing our understanding of the universe. 

 

Thus, the door to universal understanding of our place in the cosmos has been flung wide open.  The facts of chemistry, biology, physics, geometry, astronomy, archeology, paleotology and the sciences of life have been revealed through study, research, dating, coding, testing and the like.  Based on scientific scrutiny we are able to piece together a much better picture of who we are, how did we get here and where we are going, much more than a time when crude and primitive living revolved around ad hoc storytelling so as to allow small tribal communities to have a community of mind.  Todays mind is global and well on its way to being universal.  Limitations on universal truths based on “beliefs” should be accorded their place as great folklore.  Ancient texts need to be archived for moral support but not used as incontrovertible argument for our destiny without regard for what our present day comprehension of the universe is. Science based on “knowledge” needs to be more widely accepted or we dismiss it at our own peril for many reasons, the explanation for why/how we grieve being one of them. 

 

Belief can be an adjunct to science but is not a justifiable equivalence for knowledge based science.  Science is not storytelling.  The contributions of science since the days of when ancient texts were written are numerous and everyone reading this can count the millions of ways science has solved the riddle of what was considered impossible before.  Yet today you enjoy the fruits of the sciences.  Inconceivable in the past, real in the present. 

 

Science has yet to define us but it is light years ahead of folklore.  There is a place for both belief and science but confusing the basis of verifiability of one for the other is fallacy.  Our way forward is through more clarity based on scientific principle.  There is a fundamental consciousness that pervades space and time and science is on the cusp of determining the agent that is responsible for that power.  The power of why we feel the way we do and how it is perceived by this vessel we call self and our place now and in the afterlife.  The power that drives our very nucleic atoms to respond in the way each of us experience reality lies in the vastness of the not yet ascertained canon of physics.  By reason, very simply, divine diety is not the answer for that discovery.  Reason guided by diety is faulty when I see children mowed down by a deranged gunman and then somehow embraced by the belief “god” is operating the controls. Sorry but there is no way to have it both ways.  The suffering I am now enduring due to my husbands death would not and could not be the gesture of a loving “god”.  Thus there is something else that I am responding to as a result of his death because no one can tell me that what has happened is reasonable, loving or planned to be so by a “god”.

None of this is meant to be written as a declaration of how my way of looking at how to deal with grief is better or right but I really needed to open up about how “energy” in the forms it takes in our universe is being studied to explain life and death beyond the metaphor of God as the cliched answer.  If I had reams of pages to describe how I am dealing with all of this since my husband died  I would have to give myself over not to a “god” but to the laws of nature and for me, nature governs.  My only and best hope is that nature takes its course quickly and ends what has become a most crushing and incomprehensible burden that I can barely carry.  Anything I can do to hasten it, short of doing it myself, I am doing.  Simple biology is my best hope.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Dennis C. on November 25, 2014 at 5:20am

m Morgan

I am so sorry for your loss and pain.

I just wanted to respond briefly to a couple of things. You say that the Bible is folklore (implied it at the very least). Your reasoning included the statement of belief in a flat earth at the time it was written.

The Bible cannot be included in that line of reasoning because the Bible taught that the earth was Round...

The Bible is scientifically accurate. It even contains information that was far ahead of its time. For example, the book of Leviticus contained laws for ancient Israel on quarantine and hygiene when surrounding nations knew nothing about such matters.

At a time when there were wrong ideas about the shape of the earth, the Bible referred to it as a circle, or sphere. (Isaiah 40:22)

Isaiah 40:22 — There is One who dwells above the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers. He is stretching out the heavens like a fine gauze, And he spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.

The Bible accurately said that the earth ‘hangs on nothing.’ (Job 26:7)

Job 26:7 — He stretches out the northern sky over empty space, Suspending the earth upon nothing;

Of course, the Bible is not a science textbook. But when it touches on scientific matters, it is accurate.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Dennis C. on November 25, 2014 at 7:08am

Also, the earth could be billions of years old, and the Bible does not disagree with this scientific estimate.

The "creationists" misrepresent what the Bible says. They are wrong when they say that the earth was created in 6 days. The Bible's account in Genesis is not about the creation of the planet earth, it is about the earth (already having been in existence for perhaps billions of years) being transformed into a planet that can sustain life.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Dennis C. on November 25, 2014 at 7:26am

I have a question

You said :

"around 13.8 billion years ago, all the matter in the Universe emerged from a single, minute point, or singularity..."

The science of CAUSE and EFFECT raises a question.
Newton deduced for example that every action has a reaction...we then deduce that every action is a reaction in itself.
What is the cause of the "single, minute point, singularity"?

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 22
• 23
• 24
• 25
• 26
• …
• 92
• Next ›
• Page