Oregon Here goes nothing, *hesitantly types* religion.

Very good Rickthetamer,

I am an Eastern Orthodox Christian (something like being a Catholic but no Pope - a bunch of other thinks also, but only if you're into theology) (the Catholic Church accepts Orthodox as communicants but not visa versa, go figure?). However, my father is a Catholic, and my wife came from the Protestant side (from a missionary family), so I am well rounded. I was also non-religion in my younger days (some call it being an atheist - not a good word for people who are just not religious), so I am VERY well rounded. Oh, did I mention that I am a Geologist by education and trade, so I also know a lot about science, the vastness of time, and evolution (paleontology is a subscience of geology).

I agree that religion and science do not have to be opposing. Being a scientist and a Christian (and fairly well read in the Bible), I have found no conflict between the biblical story of creation and the theory of evolution. In fact, the story of creation in the bible can be interpreted as a very basic story of evolution. The order of Gods creation matches the scientific view of the formation of the Universe and the evolution of man very well.

God created:
1. The heavens (i.e. the universe)
2. The earth
3. The land and seas
4. Vegetation
5. Fish
6. Land animals
7. Man
8. And finally, corporations (oops, sorry - the other guy must have created this one).

I don't know why so many Christians fear science. All science is is the observation of the earth and universe and the interpretation of those observations. Yes, sometimes the interpretations are wrong, or are in conflict with other interpretations. But, heck, that's science for you - it's not like Biblical Study where All biblical interpretations are correct (even opposing ones). (Ha, Ha, - A LITTLE SARCASM TO BREAK THE MOOD).

I see it this way:
1. God created the universe for us to live in.
2. God's creation is "GOOD".
3. God wants us to learn from His creation.
4. God does not LIE. I REPEAT: GOD DOES NOT LIE (this is very important to remember)
5. Since God does not lie, He would not deceive us through His creation.
6. Therefore, we can look upon His creation for understanding and knowledge.
7. Yes, the Bible should be used to help us understand our observation, but the Bible is not a Science Book, the concepts that it provides related to biology, the earth and the universe are very basic (make that very, very, very.....basic). God pretty much left us to interpret his creation for our selves.
8. And again, yes, our interpretations are sometimes wrong. But I will take the process of scientific debate over biblical debate any day of the week. At least scientific arguments tend to get resolved with time and collection of new data, whereas some (most) biblical debates never get resolved.

AND SOOOOOOOOO..........To Stay On Topic.

1. God created Lucas.
2. Lucas created Star Wars.
3. Therefore, God created Star Wars.
4. God's creation is "GOOD".
5. Therefore, Star War is GOOD...................I REST MY CASE !!!

(I Love Truth Function Logic !!)

 

Haha, I like your proof that Star Wars is good, that's awesome. I'll have to remember that one.

Science and religion do not have to be in conflict. I think that much is clear. But I also think that often the scientific mind is in conflict with the religious mind. Mainly because the scientific method exists to test hypotheses and to observe the natural world, and scientists demand a higher standard of proof than other people perhaps. I mean, take a psychologist even, he isn't just going to say, "Well I had a dream about my dead grandmother, so that means she really has a soul," he is going to be psycho-analyzing himself and thinking, "Well she passed away recently, and she has been in my mind because of a friend's grandma dying, and she was important to me so it's natural that I would have her in my subconscious and have that expressed in my dream." You get the idea. So for many scientists (more than most people, percentage-wise), the burden of proof rests with the religious followers to find some sort of tangible evidence of God, and since there is none, they choose not to subscribe to any theories without factual basis.

Now, there is another way to look at it, which is probably how all religious scientists do, and that is to say that science deals with the natural world, but doesn't explain the ultimate questions of reality, so you need God or a transcendent reality of some sort (Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, etc.) to explain those questions, which exist apart from scientific questions. I consider that a fair enough view, but one I can't subscribe to because of my complaints with the psychological necessity of religion. I believe that is, basically as Marx put it, the opiate of the people.

 

--

1. The heavens (i.e. the universe)
2. The earth
3. The land and seas
4. Vegetation
5. Fish
6. Land animals
7. Man

--

Actually, that makes a lot of sense to me, although I have always thought of it this way:

1. The universe is created
2. Earth forms from dust and God forms due to an unexplainable combination of stuff
3. God froms the land and seas
4. God makes life and stuff

But your list leads me to consider, why do we even have stuff? Why do we have God? Why do we even have... things?! Think really hard about the concept of nothing ever having been... and you'll be like... CRAP man.

The gi-normous amounts of supporting data for the Big Bang has always lead me to believe my list was close to right.... but it's interesting to wonder if stuff predates God, or God made stuff. Was God like, "Let there be stuff!" and then the Big Bang happened? Or when the Big Bang went off (out of nothing? mmkay), did a horrendously random event occur shortly after the boom when the atoms were colliding and physics was like "Whoa! Screw this!", bringing about the fourth-dimensional being who chose Earth for life?

Because seriously, it is HARD to find a planet just the right distance from a sun with enough gravity to let things stand without squishing them to the point of impossibility. Or was God like "oookay these rocks go over here and these rocks here and let's rip off a chunk for the moon mmkay."

Meh.

Forgive my juvenile tendencies.

 

I believe that God made the stuff. If you believe that God is outside of time, then the question of whether God predates stuff is answered. God neither predates or postdates "stuff", God just is.

"Stuff" needs time to exist. Without time, energy could not exist, and therefore Stuff could not exist, for Stuff is made out of energy.

But God is neither stuff or energy (again, God just is). We tend to talk as if God is energy, but since God exists outside of time, and since energy must exist in time, then God cannot be energy.

Because God is outside of time, we cannot "Prove" Gods existence. We can only prove those things that we can observe in some way, and we cannot observe something outside of time.

Again, I am an Eastern Orthodox Christian, so this idea of "proving" Gods existence is not really in my vocabulary. This idea of proving Gods existence became big in the West during the Renaissance (the age of rationalism and enlightenment). As an Orthodox Christian, I am taught to see God as a "Mystery", something not to be proved or analyzed.

Because I am a scientist, I think it would have been hard for me to believe in God if I required proof. Because I see God as a Mystery, I don't need to prove Him, and therefore I don't have to worry about the lack of evidence. I just need faith. You either have faith or you do not. You cannot be shown that God exists.....you must "feel" Gods presence, and then be able to ascribe that feeling to God.

As I said previously, in my younger days I was not religeous. I was not looking for God. However, I felt something in me and around me that I could not explain. For years I explained it away by saying these feelings were in my mind. But I found that it made more sence believing that it was something outside of myself. And because I came from a Christian background, I desided to give God a chance.

For those of you out there that do not believe in God, you may find my reasons for believing WEAK. However, they work for me. And because I don't come from a religeous background that has to find proofs for God, I don't have to worry about all the trivial arguments that tend to bog so many other people down.
Faith is faith, and that is all. It is not proof, or anything you get out of reading a book (i.e. the Bible). And EVERYONE has it (faith), whether they know it or not. They just have different kinds.

 

Of course it's also been one of my beliefs that time does not truly exist, and is only an illusion created by human consciousness.

I also find allure and satisfaction in the Mystery of it all. Knowing isn't believing.

For my fellow Hitchiker's Guide fans, in the book a fish exists that is so unexplainably useful that God must have created it, and because God cannot prove his own existence to substantiate belief, it is proof that he doesn't exist.

Sometimes philosophical logic is so fuzzy you could shoot it, skin it, and make a hat out of it.

 

It's all well and good to say, "Gee my religious faith doesn't require proof, so you can't argue with me, because I don't have to deal with that, so good for me," but that really is weak! You can't just say that your opinions are so special they are beyond rational argument or that they don't need to be justified. Now, if you personally don't have any desire to be able to justify your beliefs, and your "faith" is good enough for you, well, hey, I'm not going to tell you how to think or how to live your life. But I'll tell you one thing, I can't respect someone who can't even question their beliefs and who hasn't asked questions that matter about what they believe. Just believing in something for no reason other than faith is pure ignorance.

What if a group of people said that they believe Jewish people are a lesser race, and that they should all be exterminated? But you can't argue with their opinion because they just have faith that they're right, they don't need reasons, they don't get bogged down in trying to justify what they think. They just want to kill Jewish people. Then what? You can't even argue with these people rationally, they don't even think for themselves, they just have this horrible notion and are completely unwilling to examine it. They just FEEL it, something about Jewish people, when they are around Jews, makes them want to kill all Jewish people. So that feeling must come from somewhere, it must be right.

These types of unquestioned believes inevitably lead to violence, intolerance, and sheer ignorance. If you can't defend what you believe rationally, you shouldn't hold that believe. Otherwise you are just an unthinking sheep.

 

Hey guys this is really fun to oversee! Friendly chit chat on debate topics. (Yeah laugh at me, I am. LOL)

I have a random question. *hesitantly walks into the room*

Religion has been around since...forever, right? It's funny, no matter how many different kinds there are, there is always this centrally most known part about it. The name of God AND Jesus Christ has been around forever, most religions(not saying all) but most religions base all their little beliefs and stories around one name: Jesus Christ the son of God. Interesting, no matter their views on different topics of interest Jesus has kinda always been there. And, why is it that we base "time lines" on this Jesus? 438 B.C. (B.C. standing for "Before Christ") and 2004 A.D. (AD standing for "After Death")

With all these new scientific facts of creation why not just give up on some weak belief about a God of love? Humanity tends to do that. Truth becomes story, story becomes myth, myth becomes well..."if you WANT to believe it you can." Is it the fact that we are so unskilled at passing information on effectively through the years that people think ALL OF THE SUDDEN the people of then were LYING?

The Bible being a document of the past as well as maybe a document of a past president. But science is easier to believe, science has proof and facts. Humanity searches for answers, yes, but they look as hard as possible for answers that don't prove Jesus died for us once upon a time. They look as hard as they can for SOME OTHER answer, "there's gotta be one, right?" It takes more guts to believe everything came from NOTHING than to believe there is an actual God out there who loves you and cares about you.
Things die; religions, ideas, beliefs, ways of life. So why hasn't Jesus Christ died? (well actually he did and rose again, lol) God will always be there, but his exsistance will always be questioned. Because people don't just want proof(they think they do), they want to see lightening come down and hear God's voice saying "Yes I'm HERE!!!"
But didn't he already do that?
He created the massive universe. (I'M HERE!)
He created MAN! (I'M HERE!)
He created all the animals and plant life so complex. (I'M HERE!)
Scientifically A bee shouldn't even be able to fly. (I'M HERE!)
LOOK AT SCIENCE. (I'M HERE!)

The universe, the microscopic world, science, it's all so complex. (I'M HERE!)


Here is my question:

So, if evidence of God and Jesus Christ are looming all around us then why do people look elsewhere for the answers, why are they scared to put there faith in a God of love?

Seeing is believing? Well look around you.



The truth, It was passed through generations in a book, evidence is all around, it isn't going to go away anytime soon. why do you think that is...






Ever think of the words...what if?
What if it's true?
What if I live my life and die and find out...

You can't see through a shut door, you gotta open it. So no matter what I say, if your not going to open the door your not gunna get it. It's your choice, cuz Jesus cares about you enough to make it your choice.

 

hahaha, oh man.

Ok, you need to learn a bit about the scientific method. To look at the world around you and go, "Wow, it's amazing. God created it." That is certainly one hypothesis that you could test empirically, but when you do the tests you find other explanations for everything. For instance, the world as a whole, this can be entirely explained through science and natural processes. Religion would never admit this at one point. Now, most religious people DO realize this. The Big Bang created our universe. So now religious people have to say, "Well, yeah, but what created the Big Bang?" What if we find out later than the BoogaBooga DingDong created the Big Bang? I just made up those words, lol. Then religious freaks will say, "Yeah, ok fine, but what created THAT?!" You can play that game forever, but it just continues to lessen God's role when even if he did create the Big Bang, that would basically be a pretty inactive God.

"And, why is it that we base "time lines" on this Jesus? 438 B.C. (B.C. standing for "Before Christ") and 2004 A.D. (AD standing for "After Death")"

We don't. That's not used anymore -- BCE and ACE are used now, and BCE means "Before Common Era" and ACE is "After Common Era." Only religious people still use the BC and AD abbrevations as they're not politically correct anymore.

Our calendar should be centered around something actually important, not some lunatic wandering around tending to the weak of society and babling about having an imaginary father. The calendar should start right on May 25, 1977, so we'd be in 27 ASW right now, or After Star Wars.

Jesus Christ is not a common word in all religions, haha, you need to broaden your perspective and study other religions more. None of the Eastern religions care at all about your Jesus Christ figure, and for that matter the Jews and Muslims also do not find him to be a significant character. There are only 1 billion Christians out of 6 billion people, so followers of Jesus are still in the significant minority of religious worshippers on this earth.

Hinduism, one of the biggest faiths, couldn't care less, nor does Buddhism, nor does Shintoism, or Taoism, or Confucianism. In fact neither Confucianism or Taoism even care about the idea of a God.

Humans make up stories because they can't stand the truth -- that we are here on earth through chance occurences and nobody loves you except those people around you, perhaps, but that ultimately YOU have to love yourself and care about yourself. You can't count on some imaginary God to love you, that's ridiculous, he doesn't exist! He has no power to do anything in your life whatsoever. How could Casper the Friendly Ghost make a change in your life? It's up to you to do that for yourself.

Open your eyes, pull back the wool, come out of the cave, see the light and rise to your rightful place as creator, not servant.

 

Lol, I said Most(or lots) of religions are based around Jesus. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.


Ok, cool. So that's what you think? I have another question for ya, and I'm not trying to make a point or anything I'm just currious to you answer that's all, so please don't get me wrong.
So what do YOU believe will happen after death?
Not trying anything, just really want to know.




ofcourse I might be beating a dead sheep but oh well.

 

What happens after death? I'm not sure what you mean by that.

Do you mean what happens to the world, what happens to your family, or what happens to the person who dies?

The world goes on after you die, apparently, at least presuming there really is a world outside of your thoughts. I mean it's possible, however unlikely, that I'm the only real person in this reality and you're all just figments of my imagination, so when I die there is no more reality. It ceases to exist without me here.

But that's not very likely, and it's not my view, haha, it's just fun philosophy mind screwing

After the individual dies, life goes on, but not for him/her. There is nothing after death. I'm sorry that's hard for you to comprehend but when you die, that's all she wrote. There is no more you, thus the word "death." Of course, we don't know that for sure, maybe there is some consciousness that is transmitted somewhere else, maybe this is just a virtual reality game and when you die, it's just like you enter the real world and stop playing this game. And in the real world you live forever or something. But I wouldn't bet on that. You can't know what happens after death because it's simply not possible to know. It's not within the realm of knowledge that we can gain. Although some people would say that means we do know -- nothing happens. That's it.

Nietzsche liked the idea of the eternal recurrence of all things, which is basically that your exact life and everything that happens repeats for all of time, over and over again, and that time is essentially circular. He didn't really believe this metaphysical truth, though, and disdained metaphysics for the most part. He was merely emphasizing a point, which is that you should WANT your entire life, even the bad parts, to repeat over and over for all of eternity because you should live life in such a way that all of the trials, all of the hardships, are justified for one great moment -- the realization of a great goal. The seizing of great power.

Now with that in mind, that Nietzsche didn't really believe that is what happens, it is interesting to consider that most physicists think that the universe does not just expand forever, but rather turns back in on itself and comes back together again like an accordeon. In that case, maybe it wouldn't be impossible to imagine that in a long enough period of time (hundreds of billions of years?), your life would repeat again. I can't quite imagine this being the case, but the answers to the questions you seek are unfortunately not here.

That is our situation and most people don't like it. How did the universe come to be? What are we here for (this one is easier to answer)? What happens after our deaths? Who knows these questions? Nobody. People make up convenient fantasies about what happens, to make themselves feel better, but you can see that religions around the world all have different answers. There is no Truth with a capital "T," there are just mean truths that people have and that they use to live their lives.

There are even logical problems with the entire nature of reality essentially, as we can conceive it. I've heard the idea that time just begun, or was created, at some point way back, but that's completely stupid. I can't believe a scientist would offer up such a dumb explanation, because it explains nothing. If you had no time, then nothing could happen at all, and you wouldn't have the creation of time. So the point is, was there a beginning at all to the universe? If your answer is yes, this brings up a lot of problems. To say that God created the Universe is silly because that means God already was there, and why would God be there? Why would anything at all be there? Why would there be a universe in the first place? That doesn't make sense. Even the existence of a universe is a miracle. Second, if you say there is no God, the universe just came into being, this really is no less problematic to be fair. So I'm not arguing that one view in this case is more or less valid, except that adding God into the equati

 

I like that Christians are not quite so sardonic.

 

Haha, yeah right! Christians aren't very questioning of anything as a group, you're right, they aren't very skeptical. But as anyone knows, great intellects are skeptical -- anyone who doesn't question the world around them is a fool.

BUT fools can be happy, like Cypher in The Matrix.

I think it's very good, i.e. beneficial, for me, that so many people are religious. It keeps them doing "good deeds" and being happy in their mediocrity while I can set out to achieve great goals without their competition. Instead of trying to destroy me out of jealousy or rage, their religion teaches them to "love me" or to wait for God to pass judgment on me. So even if they despise my power or my accomplishments, or the way I got there, they still won't do anything about it. Religion is great! Haha, it's the best thing that anyone in power could have ever invented. Many people thought Alexander was the son of God, i.e. the Son of Zeus, and the Egyptians thought he was GOD himself! It's a lot easier to make people follow you and believe you if they think you are divine. Everyone powerful throughout the ages knows this, including Jesus. His message was made that much more potent by claiming to be the Son of God.

Unfortunately I think I'd have trouble claiming deity status even though compared to some people I do appear to be a God, haha, but that doesn't mean I can't use religion to my advantage. Plus, religion is fascinating to study really, I enjoy it.

 

What I mean is, they don't generally equate God with Casper the Friendly Ghost just to make a point.

 

wow.lol

 

Well it's fair enough to say that Casper isn't really God. I mean Casper is cool but he can't wipe out entire cities and flood the world like God can.

Let's face it, God in the Old Testament is a complete bad... I guess I can't even use that word on this forum. But he's an admirable character with great power, let's just put it that way. Then it's like in the New Testament he got neutered or something. He takes time out of his busy day to care about weakling little Christians who whine to him of their petty problems. In The Old Testament he never would deal with such pathetic people. He only dealt with great men and great events. In the New Testament he's a pretty wussy God. Certainly not one I'd want to follow.

You know what makes the Old Testament God great? He was capable of both good and evil, in the Christian sense or the societal sense, however you want to look at it. He could completely wipe out an entire city in vengeance, or he could help someone with his great powers. He truly was a value-creator, someone you can respect, a Great God. Then he became this cowering little pitiful God that took interest in the worst and weakest humans and refused to do anything that a weak human might consider "evil." Now I ask you, what kind of God is incapable of actions that mere humans deem as evil? Certainly not an all-powerful God! Because if he were all-powerful, then the judgments of "good" and "evil" that humans make would mean nothing to him. He is, after all, BEYOND good and evil, BEYOND the pitiful morality of a weak, mortal species like man. He should be able to do whatever he wants, and kill humans he doesn't like at will, because whatever we think of God doesn't matter. He is beyond our understanding and beyond our silly little morality. To call a God "evil" because he kills lesser beings seemingly for "bad reasons" or "no reason"? What kind of sense would this make? He is beyond needing to justify his actions to pitiful little humans.

 

What do I believe?

Action and reaction; cause and effect.

I believe that hitting my thumb with a hammer, instead of the nail, is going to cause pain. Or, when I stay up late posting on this forum and have to get up early the next morning for work, I'm going to feel tired.

No doubt about it; if I take a long walk off a short pier, and don't stop when it runs out, I'm going into the drink.

 

I applaud your courage, Melanie, et.al, for opening this discussion. When this subject comes up, it sometimes gets tense because people think and feel very strongly about what they believe, especially when we hear a view different from our own.

In regards to my previous post, I also believe I have a choice.

When I drove to work that morning, I was "pushing the clock" to get there by 8:00am. As I was cruising down Industrial Park Road (Harrison, AR), I noticed that at my current speed of 47 mph, I would be there right on time. When I saw his brake lights in my rearview mirror, and then those fancy blues and reds lighting up my life, I knew that it was going to be a good morning! The reason I was graciously awarded the $110.00 grand prize (thank you, officer--sir), was over the dispute of the velocity of my vehicle. Now I didn't say this, but I was thinking out loud, "really, I was going THAT fast?!? You should have caught up with me before I let off the burner at 55!" The policeman said if I had been 5-7 over the speed limit, he would not have stopped me. The problem with my momentum, at the time, was it clashed with the posted speed limit of 35 mph, and it was during the hustle and bustle of morning school traffic.

Now, I saw the speed limit sign several minutes before I saw the "poe-leece." I also knew beforehand what the limit was because I drove past that same sign for many years. So, it wasn't like I could plead ignorance, like, "really, there was a sign back there?!?" Now, I could have made a choice that morning to call my employer and tell him "I'm running late"; but, I didn't. I could have heeded the speed limit and only been a few minutes late for work. After getting pulled over, though, I was 20 minutes late for work and had a stiff fine to pay; not only for the ticket, but, my vehicle insurance went up $40.00 a month for the next year--it was my third incident within a certain time frame.

I sped over the limit for that road many times without getting stopped. However, the fact that I disregarded the traffic laws that morning did not make my choice of going 47 mph legal (I know, Palps, you will "...make it legal."). Had I heeded the posted speed limit that day, I would have saved myself a lot of undue stress and my hard-earned dough.

 

Lol, thanx. It's kinda interesting that no matter how much time passes by somehow this thread finds its way back up at the top of the board with different things to talk about.


Man, you seriously make music videos for Steven C. Chapman?! That rocks. His sons voice is SO good, I like it a lot. How old is he now?

 

Just checking to see if you got my PM.

I changed my bio to clear up the confusion. I could see how someone could take it to mean I personally make videos for those people. But, no, just doing it for me, right now.

BTW, did you mean SCC's son? If so, does he have a CD out? I didn't know he was also recording music.

PM me so the topic at hand stays on track.

 

Fate cannot be proven or disproven, because you announcing that "I am in control of my own choices" could have been predestined by fate. The Bible teaches that everything has already been set into place, that the second of the minute of the hour of the day of the year that the angels will burst forth from the Euphrates river has been chosen already.

Do you know how close the war in Iraq is to Old Testament times? I think these things are related to the coming Rapture. The civilian contractors who were burned and mutilated were hung from a bridge... over the Euphrates River. If the Garden of Eden was more than a parable and it truly existed, it was in Iraq. Babylon was in Iraq. The Tower of Babel was in Iraq. Daniel was in the lion's den in Iraq. Noah built the Ark in Iraq. The three wise men were from Iraq. The three hebrew children were in the fire in Iraq.

Coinkeedink? ?

 

Iraq is the armpit of the world. There's no way it is any Eden, let me tell you that.

I don't want to get into a fate versus not fate argument, because I've taken a class on Free Will and Determinism and you can't prove either one of them. There is some good evidence that everything is completely determined, but there is other good evidence I finally managed to find, scientific evidence, that it is not. Neither side of that argument will be resolved any time soon, if ever.

And, just because someone thinks they are free, does not make it so, as you well stated.

The Bible, though, is not deterministic. Most Christians who follow the Bible believe in free will, and at my high school, a Catholic school, we were always taught that God gave people free will, which is supposed to solve the "Problem of Evil."

Now if you believe that everything is determined, that God set everything in motion and controlled it all, then you have a serious problem on your hands. One I don't envy you for having to deal with. Because that means you need to explain why a "perfectly good God" would let so many horrible things happen, and since you can't appeal to free will, it looks like you'll be stuck saying that God actually WANTED, i.e. WILLED, such horrible things to happen to good people. That means that people who served him and followed him, but were brutally murdered, were meant to be murdered by God. Now if you really think that, it's pretty hilarious irony if you ask me! That you can worship God and yet still get the smackdown at his request.

That also means I'm forgiven for not believing in God, since God must have intended me to be an atheist for some reason, maybe to annoy Christians because he finds it amusing or something. In any case, you can't very well explain that God has created a purely deterministic world, otherwise you're left with solving the problem of evil, which can't be done very well if you're a determinist.

Now I don't face that problem. I could easily be a determinist, since I don't believe in God, and I could merely say that some people really are meant to have horrible deaths, but nobody means for them, it's just set by previous events and causal happenstances. In other words, it's not like there is some evil demon willing you to be brutally murdered, but you were just always going to be brutally murdered at age 27, without you being able to change it, and there's nobody you can blame, not even the murderer, because he had no choice either.

 

"Iraq is the armpit of the world. There's no way it is any Eden, let me tell you that."

Religious convictions aside, Babylon WAS in Iraq, and at one point in time it was the largest city in the world.

You can't judge the character of a man without trials and tribulations in his life. God realizes that forced love is not true love, he gives you the choice to live your life how you want. The point is made clear time after time after time, God didn't create all the horrible things we have, man did. Most of the terrible things we have on earth exist because they were created while defiling the commandments and God's will.

I won't pretend to know the specifics of God's plan.

 

Bowen, I agree with what you said earlier about "What happens after our death? Who knows these questions? Nobody."

I could tell all of you what I think happens after death (like when you die), but, what I think or believe is irrevelant. The questions, though, regarding death, can be answered through a study of the Holy Scriptures--it's all there for the reading (check out the post made on "spirits/ghosts" in the JCC census board).

 

You are right, the questions "can" be answered in the Bible, but that doesn't mean those are THE answers. That's just one viewpoint of what might happen.

Ultimately, I think it's a misguided fantasy of what would happen. I wish the Christians were right and there was a nice place called heaven you went to after life, but then again I'm not sure it's really worth it.

I mean, if you're a pathetic person on earth and all you ever do is follow God's commandments and act like a tool, what do you get out of that in heaven? You're still the same tool, now you're just living forever.

As Nietzsche said, "In heaven, all the interesting people are missing."

The price is too high for admission, what can I say.

 

Yes, the price to get to heaven is VERY high. But that's just it, Jesus has already paid for it on the cross. I'm not perfect(WAY NOT) and I know that I am a very rotten person sometimes, it's just who I am.
But I recognize this, and ask God to forgive me. As long as I have Jesus in my heart I'm going to heaven, no matter WHAT I do. The price was already paid for.
So all it takes is to say a few simple words to get into heaven, ask him into your heart. No biggy.

Ever heard the saying:
"Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven."
(that's my fav. bumper sticker!)






When you spend time with someone, quality time, you begin to grow closer, right? That's how many people "fall in love". The longer they're with each other the longer their love gets. Maybe that's the way it is with me and God.

It's ok that you think I'm a total nut because I say I love God. Just as if I were to say "I love Billy Bob over there!" you probably couldn't care less, right? Well if YOU spent time with Billy Bob maybe you would love him to, lol.


So don't get scared off because you think I have to be a "tool" all my life. Free will, it's my choice because I have a bond with Jesus and I have recognized what he did for me.

It's your choice. Just start from page 1:
"Please come into my heart." simple.

And maybe things will happen that wouldn't have happened before or you couldn't have seen before. It will all make sense, but not right now.