You tell me. Is life perfect? If not, why not top yourself?
Our current life is finite, we're mortal. Wouldn't we see things differently if it were not so, as others have suggested?
How do they do that in any significant, definitive, exclusive way? How does them doing whatever it is make everyone thrive? Or qualify for eternal life?
They do it in a significant way by loving, Martin: loving God, loving other people, as Jesus did and said.
Martin my suspicion is those who seek to love God and love their fellow humans as Christ did regardless of religion are not far from the Kingdom of Heaven. Not because accepting Jesus is optional but because we have misunderstood what it means.
What about those who love their fellow humans, as Christ did regardless of religion (I know, I know; the other implicit comma was three words further on), to whom the concept of God is meaningless? Are they further?
Oooh and no one is claiming here that Christians love their fellow humans in any demonstrable, quantifiable way more than non-Christians surely?
Indeed not. Know anyone who does this to any differentiating, quantifiable degree? You know, better than your average Muslim, secularist, Hindu, animist on the street?
God does, Martin. It's surely not for us to judge, but to serve. What the correlation is between service and eternal life is hinted at by Jesus, but subsequent theological thinking has it that we can't earn our way into heaven by works alone.
So where does that leave us, whether we are Christians or not?
I'm all for God judging those like me to whom much is given, more. Of course such a God does not judge the helplessly, innocently less privileged. And if it isn't our job to judge Gods, whose is it?
Of course such a God does not judge the helplessly, innocently less privileged.
What do you mean, of course? Why not? While I agree that God is firmly on the side of the poor, hungry and persecuted, the widow, the orphan and the powerless, I still think that God judges everyone. But I also think that God judges truly fairly, with mercy and understanding.
Martin my suspicion is those who seek to love God and love their fellow humans as Christ did regardless of religion are not far from the Kingdom of Heaven. Not because accepting Jesus is optional but because we have misunderstood what it means.
I should have said, yeah, I think. Accepting Jesus is meaningless to humanity as a vast whole. I mean 99.9% It's a Protestant formulary used by converts. And in practical terms means what? It's a symbol of someone acknowledging that they feel saved. It's got nowt ter do with whether they are or not. And they certainly aren't more or less than anyone else.
"Accepting Jesus" is a way of saying that one accepts our Creator's Laws which, in my opinion, are to love both Him and our fellow human beings.
It is not the only way of saying that.
Of course such a God does not judge the helplessly, innocently less privileged.
What do you mean, of course? Why not? While I agree that God is firmly on the side of the poor, hungry and persecuted, the widow, the orphan and the powerless, I still think that God judges everyone. But I also think that God judges truly fairly, with mercy and understanding.
He has to. That's why I left evangelicalism. Either God was merciful, fair and understanding, or billions of people whose beliefs don't come up to scratch suffer eternally.
Of course such a God does not judge the helplessly, innocently less privileged.
What do you mean, of course? Why not? While I agree that God is firmly on the side of the poor, hungry and persecuted, the widow, the orphan and the powerless, I still think that God judges everyone. But I also think that God judges truly fairly, with mercy and understanding.
So Nick, perhaps you - and many others here - can confirm therefore that your God damns? Absolutely. Irrevocably. Forever and ever. Amen. That damnation is His irreversible judgement of even some of the poor, hungry and persecuted, the widow, the orphan and the powerless? Truly fairly, with mercy and understanding of course. Whatever that could possibly mean of Love that damns.
Or you could deny it with no prevarication. No yeah buts.
No discussion is necessary or sought. That tells me everything I need to know. Again. Thanks Nick.
Exhibit A in why I refuse to discuss these things with you Martin. You can draw whatever assumption you want, but my refusal is based solely on the futility of trying to discuss things with with you. I’ve given it a try more than once. I’m done.
No discussion is necessary or sought. That tells me everything I need to know. Again. Thanks Nick.
Exhibit A in why I refuse to discuss these things with you Martin. You can draw whatever assumption you want, but my refusal is based solely on the futility of trying to discuss things with with you. I’ve given it a try more than once. I’m done.
There's nothing to discuss Nick, unless you want to justify your damning God.
There's nothing to discuss Nick, unless you want to justify your damning God.
Okay, here’s my 2 cents:
Luke 7:48-50 God has made the moment of Salvation the easiest thing in the world to accept. (Obviously there is the fruit of the Spirit, but even if we fail to exhibit any of that, we will still be saved.)
Compare the few in Matthew 7:14 with the many in Matthew 7:22-23. Many (which is a shocking word to use in the context of the day of judgment) are perfectly able and allowed to use the name of Jesus for miracles, yet they choose not to trust the same name for salvation. And as they can be Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Taoist, etc, Agnostic or even Atheist you can understand why they would prefer the one and not the other.
So should Jesus just be more proactive and simply declare forgiveness to more people, unilaterally without them needing to ask, as He does in the Luke reference above?
Unfortunately He has given that authority to people like you and me: John 20:23.
If we want God to be less damning and more forgiving then you and I have to understand that we have been given the means, the opportunity and the authority to go out and be less damning and more forgiving; both literally and unilaterally.
And I am ashamed to admit that I lack the motivation to do this. I hide behind the claim that it is someone else’s job, way above my pay grade etc etc.
There's nothing to discuss Nick, unless you want to justify your damning God.
Okay, here’s my 2 cents:
Luke 7:48-50 God has made the moment of Salvation the easiest thing in the world to accept. (Obviously there is the fruit of the Spirit, but even if we fail to exhibit any of that, we will still be saved.)
Compare the few in Matthew 7:14 with the many in Matthew 7:22-23. Many (which is a shocking word to use in the context of the day of judgment) are perfectly able and allowed to use the name of Jesus for miracles, yet they choose not to trust the same name for salvation. And as they can be Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Taoist, etc, Agnostic or even Atheist you can understand why they would prefer the one and not the other.
So should Jesus just be more proactive and simply declare forgiveness to more people, unilaterally without them needing to ask, as He does in the Luke reference above?
Unfortunately He has given that authority to people like you and me: John 20:23.
If we want God to be less damning and more forgiving then you and I have to understand that we have been given the means, the opportunity and the authority to go out and be less damning and more forgiving; both literally and unilaterally.
And I am ashamed to admit that I lack the motivation to do this. I hide behind the claim that it is someone else’s job, way above my pay grade etc etc.
Oh noble Bill. "Your sins are forgiven." is a corollary of the universal good news, yes, for those of us in need of a new start. Every day. Every hour.
The gate is narrow indeed for the vast majority of Christians, and only a few find it. Many of us will initially be rejected. Including the likes of you and me who are so inadequate in responding to the whited fields. Unlike everyone... anyone else... We'll need some de/re-construction in paradise I'm sure. But we will be in everyone else's company. Who is actually doing the job? Which few? Who is leading in this? They must be paid so high as to be stratospherically invisible. There is nothing to be ashamed about, but that doesn't stop us.
Meaning not that it's guarded, but that I can't pass through it with the baggage of all my identities, hurts and resentments.
We come here with nothing, if we want to pass into the next level of being, we can't take any of that with us.
It's simple.
Forgive yourself. Forgive others. Put it down and walk through.
AFF
I like that.
But I’m perfectly happy with death bringing oblivion, no heaven or any other afterlife. That would be fine by me.
Nothing I do in this life is looking to the hereafter. I care for neighbours because I care for them, not for my (maybe, who knows?, 100s of points of view, deep theological, vague ideas, many religions, merciful/judgmental God) chance of maybe heaven.
What’s the word for totally without any body, feeling or consciousness?
I assume it's the logical point that if you're totally without body, feeling, or consciousness, then you don't exist, and if something doesn't exist then there's no such thing (unless it's a gruffalo).
What’s the word for totally without any body, feeling or consciousness?
As per Dafyd, that's like asking for the impossible. Or the Cheshire cat, "I've often seen a cat without a grin, but never a grin without a cat".
How would it be impossible? If I’m dead and cremated, ashes scattered - and there is no afterlife - then I am no more. No body, no feeling, no consciousness.
(This is getting like the Monty Python parrot sketch!)
Words like nothing and oblivion don't correspond to things in the world since the whole point is that you use them when there isn't anything to correspond to.
Nothing cures a headache better than aspirin. So take nothing.
As I was going down the stair
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
I wish that man would go away.
Words like nothing and oblivion don't correspond to things in the world since the whole point is that you use them when there isn't anything to correspond to.
Which makes them ideal words to use when referring to something (or someone) that no longer exists.
Words like nothing and oblivion don't correspond to things in the world since the whole point is that you use them when there isn't anything to correspond to.
Which makes them ideal words to use when referring to something (or someone) that no longer exists.
This. I don't see what the problem is. "Nothingness" or "oblivion" is what we call it when something that used to exist, no longer does. We want a word for that, so we use one of those two words.
Words like nothing and oblivion don't correspond to things in the world since the whole point is that you use them when there isn't anything to correspond to.
Nothing cures a headache better than aspirin. So take nothing.
As I was going down the stair
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
I wish that man would go away.
At least you’re in good company; it took Ancient Greek mathematicians a while to realise that zero exists.
Words like nothing and oblivion don't correspond to things in the world since the whole point is that you use them when there isn't anything to correspond to.
Nothing cures a headache better than aspirin. So take nothing.
As I was going down the stair
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
I wish that man would go away.
At least you’re in good company; it took Ancient Greek mathematicians a while to realise that zero exists.
But I’m perfectly happy with death bringing oblivion, no heaven or any other afterlife. That would be fine by me.
Nothing I do in this life is looking to the hereafter. I care for neighbours because I care for them, not for my (maybe, who knows?, 100s of points of view, deep theological, vague ideas, many religions, merciful/judgmental God) chance of maybe heaven.
Well, technically speaking and according to my own highly strange experiences in this life, this is the afterlife. At least it is for me.
Christianity has always kind of choked on the issue of reincarnation, even though it was a widely held point of view in Mediterranean societies circa 2000 years ago. The Greeks and the Hebrews both put their own spin on it. Plato addressed it directly and the Hebrews have their tradition of the "wandering Jew" aka the "gilgul" or transmigratory soul.
Paul dismissed it all with a single sentence. Waved it all away with the stroke of a pen. Amazing. Great job Paul.
Well, technically speaking and according to my own highly strange experiences in this life, this is the afterlife. At least it is for me.
Christianity has always kind of choked on the issue of reincarnation, even though it was a widely held point of view in Mediterranean societies circa 2000 years ago. The Greeks and the Hebrews both put their own spin on it. Plato addressed it directly and the Hebrews have their tradition of the "wandering Jew" aka the "gilgul" or transmigratory soul.
Paul dismissed it all with a single sentence. Waved it all away with the stroke of a pen. Amazing. Great job Paul.
But that's a topic for another thread.
AFF
Oh I don’t know. If we’re going to discuss the afterlife it seems churlish not to consider a before-life, given the release of Pixar’s Soul.
Perhaps I’m reading too much into your username, but do you consider that the feminine has been the one constant for you through your highly strange experiences?
Oh I don’t know. If we’re going to discuss the afterlife it seems churlish not to consider a before-life, given the release of Pixar’s Soul.
Perhaps I’m reading too much into your username, but do you consider that the feminine has been the one constant for you through your highly strange experiences?
The name is a nod to my favorite text in the gnostic scriptures, "The Thunder, Perfect Intellect" which is written in a feminine voice.
It's a poem made up of a series of "I am" statements - it speaks to me of feminine divinity in a way all the new age "earth-mother, goddess" tropes never could.
In the world of Myers Briggs I test out consistently as INTJ and it's always been difficult for me to parse the characteristics of that preferred operating identity in feminine terms.
In the world of Myers Briggs I test out consistently as INTJ and it's always been difficult for me to parse the characteristics of that preferred operating identity in feminine terms.
In the world of Myers Briggs I test out consistently as INTJ and it's always been difficult for me to parse the characteristics of that preferred operating identity in feminine terms.
Golda Meir? Margaret Thatcher? Winnie Mandela?
They're all women but not exactly everyone's ideal of femininity,a "divine feminine" as it were.
I just figure, too bad for them, the poor fools who can’t cope with strong women. (Can’t imagine a wimpy divinity, even in archetype.)
I love the poem because there's a kind of totality about it - the paradox that encompasses the polarity of human experience from the POV of a woman.
The juxtaposition of opposites, the desirable and the rejected aspects of the feminine experience and the purity and untouchability of the Being that descends into it.
I find it infinitely consoling that I can see fragments of all my experiences in this life, and other past lives in it.
In the world of Myers Briggs I test out consistently as INTJ and it's always been difficult for me to parse the characteristics of that preferred operating identity in feminine terms.
I have a similar struggle with Romans 8 😔
This is probably another stupid question; unanswerable in finite terms, but what is it about this present life that leads you know it as an afterlife rather than one more step along the way?
This is probably another stupid question; unanswerable in finite terms, but what is it about this present life that leads you know it as an afterlife rather than one more step along the way?
It's just a silly little play on words. This life came after the one that went before it, so it's an afterlife.
Comments
Our current life is finite, we're mortal. Wouldn't we see things differently if it were not so, as others have suggested?
They do it in a significant way by loving, Martin: loving God, loving other people, as Jesus did and said.
Does that qualify them for eternal life?
Oooh and no one is claiming here that Christians love their fellow humans in any demonstrable, quantifiable way more than non-Christians surely?
So where does that leave us, whether we are Christians or not?
I should have said, yeah, I think. Accepting Jesus is meaningless to humanity as a vast whole. I mean 99.9% It's a Protestant formulary used by converts. And in practical terms means what? It's a symbol of someone acknowledging that they feel saved. It's got nowt ter do with whether they are or not. And they certainly aren't more or less than anyone else.
...
So, what does accepting Jesus mean?
It is not the only way of saying that.
He has to. That's why I left evangelicalism. Either God was merciful, fair and understanding, or billions of people whose beliefs don't come up to scratch suffer eternally.
Pick one.
Oooh, missed this Nick! Thanks to @undead_rat & @KarlLB for bumping up.
So Nick, perhaps you - and many others here - can confirm therefore that your God damns? Absolutely. Irrevocably. Forever and ever. Amen. That damnation is His irreversible judgement of even some of the poor, hungry and persecuted, the widow, the orphan and the powerless? Truly fairly, with mercy and understanding of course. Whatever that could possibly mean of Love that damns.
Or you could deny it with no prevarication. No yeah buts.
There's nothing to discuss Nick, unless you want to justify your damning God.
Okay, here’s my 2 cents:
Luke 7:48-50 God has made the moment of Salvation the easiest thing in the world to accept. (Obviously there is the fruit of the Spirit, but even if we fail to exhibit any of that, we will still be saved.)
Compare the few in Matthew 7:14 with the many in Matthew 7:22-23. Many (which is a shocking word to use in the context of the day of judgment) are perfectly able and allowed to use the name of Jesus for miracles, yet they choose not to trust the same name for salvation. And as they can be Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Taoist, etc, Agnostic or even Atheist you can understand why they would prefer the one and not the other.
So should Jesus just be more proactive and simply declare forgiveness to more people, unilaterally without them needing to ask, as He does in the Luke reference above?
Unfortunately He has given that authority to people like you and me: John 20:23.
If we want God to be less damning and more forgiving then you and I have to understand that we have been given the means, the opportunity and the authority to go out and be less damning and more forgiving; both literally and unilaterally.
And I am ashamed to admit that I lack the motivation to do this. I hide behind the claim that it is someone else’s job, way above my pay grade etc etc.
Oh noble Bill. "Your sins are forgiven." is a corollary of the universal good news, yes, for those of us in need of a new start. Every day. Every hour.
The gate is narrow indeed for the vast majority of Christians, and only a few find it. Many of us will initially be rejected. Including the likes of you and me who are so inadequate in responding to the whited fields. Unlike everyone... anyone else... We'll need some de/re-construction in paradise I'm sure. But we will be in everyone else's company. Who is actually doing the job? Which few? Who is leading in this? They must be paid so high as to be stratospherically invisible. There is nothing to be ashamed about, but that doesn't stop us.
Meaning not that it's guarded, but that I can't pass through it with the baggage of all my identities, hurts and resentments.
We come here with nothing, if we want to pass into the next level of being, we can't take any of that with us.
It's simple.
Forgive yourself. Forgive others. Put it down and walk through.
AFF
I like that.
But I’m perfectly happy with death bringing oblivion, no heaven or any other afterlife. That would be fine by me.
Nothing I do in this life is looking to the hereafter. I care for neighbours because I care for them, not for my (maybe, who knows?, 100s of points of view, deep theological, vague ideas, many religions, merciful/judgmental God) chance of maybe heaven.
Technically that would be the Second Death, otherwise, spot on.
OK
What’s the word for totally without any body, feeling or consciousness?
Monday.
As per Dafyd, that's like asking for the impossible. Or the Cheshire cat, "I've often seen a cat without a grin, but never a grin without a cat".
Ecclesiastes 9:10
YMMV
How would it be impossible? If I’m dead and cremated, ashes scattered - and there is no afterlife - then I am no more. No body, no feeling, no consciousness.
(This is getting like the Monty Python parrot sketch!)
Nothing cures a headache better than aspirin. So take nothing.
As I was going down the stair
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
I wish that man would go away.
Which makes them ideal words to use when referring to something (or someone) that no longer exists.
S/WOL!
This. I don't see what the problem is. "Nothingness" or "oblivion" is what we call it when something that used to exist, no longer does. We want a word for that, so we use one of those two words.
At least you’re in good company; it took Ancient Greek mathematicians a while to realise that zero exists.
So long that they had been dead for centuries.
Well indeed. But you know, baby steps, baby steps.
Well, technically speaking and according to my own highly strange experiences in this life, this is the afterlife. At least it is for me.
Christianity has always kind of choked on the issue of reincarnation, even though it was a widely held point of view in Mediterranean societies circa 2000 years ago. The Greeks and the Hebrews both put their own spin on it. Plato addressed it directly and the Hebrews have their tradition of the "wandering Jew" aka the "gilgul" or transmigratory soul.
Paul dismissed it all with a single sentence. Waved it all away with the stroke of a pen. Amazing. Great job Paul.
But that's a topic for another thread.
AFF
Oh I don’t know. If we’re going to discuss the afterlife it seems churlish not to consider a before-life, given the release of Pixar’s Soul.
Perhaps I’m reading too much into your username, but do you consider that the feminine has been the one constant for you through your highly strange experiences?
The name is a nod to my favorite text in the gnostic scriptures, "The Thunder, Perfect Intellect" which is written in a feminine voice.
It's a poem made up of a series of "I am" statements - it speaks to me of feminine divinity in a way all the new age "earth-mother, goddess" tropes never could.
In the world of Myers Briggs I test out consistently as INTJ and it's always been difficult for me to parse the characteristics of that preferred operating identity in feminine terms.
AFF
Golda Meir? Margaret Thatcher? Winnie Mandela?
They're all women but not exactly everyone's ideal of femininity,a "divine feminine" as it were.
AFF
I love the poem because there's a kind of totality about it - the paradox that encompasses the polarity of human experience from the POV of a woman.
The juxtaposition of opposites, the desirable and the rejected aspects of the feminine experience and the purity and untouchability of the Being that descends into it.
I find it infinitely consoling that I can see fragments of all my experiences in this life, and other past lives in it.
AFF
* another INTJ here
No wonder I like you.
I have a similar struggle with Romans 8 😔
This is probably another stupid question; unanswerable in finite terms, but what is it about this present life that leads you know it as an afterlife rather than one more step along the way?
It's just a silly little play on words. This life came after the one that went before it, so it's an afterlife.
AFF