I respect all beliefs, just because I do not believe doesn't give me the right to tell someone else they are wrong. Arrowman, I used to be a Christian. I was raised in the church, I was even called the little preacher boy in grade school. I will tell you of the day that all changed. I was 17. I went to a prayer meeting in the church I had belonged to. I had been recently diagnosed borderline diabetic. Didn't have to take shots yet but was getting there. During the meeting the pastor asked if anyone had any prayer request. Of course my mother and I brought up my recent health issues. I went forward and the deacons prayed over me. I felt a strange warm sensation come over my whole body. I had been tired and not feeling well, but I was suddenly revitalized. I didn't think I was healed, I KNEW I was. I went home believing and having more faith than I ever had. The following day I had to get a test to measure how my body reacted to sugar. It is a several hours long process where I had to drink this awful stuff and wait about 45 minutes for them to test my blood and see how it processed the sugar, then do it again several more times. The test came back normal everytime. Blew my doctors away, they couldn't figure it out. It was impossible. They concluded that I was ok, they couldn't explain it but the tests don't lie. So I went to church that weekend and got up and gave my testimony on how god had healed me. Any doubts I may have had about god and my faith were laid to rest. A week and a half goes by everything was fantastic. Then I came down with a cold. Within 24 hrs I was fighting for my life. After literally several times I lay in a coma for 2 weeks. Now I ask this; what kind of loving god has you believe he healed you only to take it right back? I have heard 2 arguments from christians on this. 1: I was not celebrating god's miracle but my own and therefore didn't give god his dues. I contend that that couldn't be farther from the truth. I gave all the glory to god for my healing, I wanted to share my story so that others could see the glory of god, not for myself but for him. 2: I died but was brought back, that was the miracle. To that I just say bullshit. If god wanted that then don't have me believe I was healed then do that. Just do that and leave it at that. Another one I hear is, "God works in mysterious ways." Well what a nice convenient band aid that is. If something nice and good happens it's a miracle but if it's bad then god works in mysterious ways.
I don't pretend to know all the answers. That's why I am agnostic. It is naive to say there is no god, nothing out there, period. Atheist like to call people of faith as closed minded. That ideal is every bit as closed minded. I cannot know if there is a god and neither can anyone else. If there is a higher power, I doubt anyone has it 100% right. So for anyone to put all their eggs in one basket is foolish to me. My belief is simple. If I am a good person and lead a good life and do the right things not to gain favor but because it is the right thing to do. No just god would condemn me to hell after I die. If he would, then I want no parts of a god that would do that.
 
I don't pretend to know all the answers.

:tongue for you:

Knowledge is power but there are limits.

Anyone who belives in God obviously wasn't paying attention during their physics lessons.

Sadly, people continue to buy religious shit because it's easy to accept "God made us & the whole universe"...and it's so difficult and challenging to study physics or chemistry for example and accept their complicated laws that sometimes contradict what our can see.

“The only certain barrier to truth is the presumption that you already have it.” - Chuck Missler
 
If one can pick and choose the good bits from the supposed good book, aren't you more inherently moral than what some bronze aged goatherders who wrote it to control their masses in a time of ignorance and superstition? I always say that being good for the sake of being kind to others without prerequisites is infinitely more moral than doing it because some invisible skydaddy will punish you if you don't or reward you if you do, only to curse you to an eternal life of stroking the ego of this figure that suffers from poor self-esteem issues :aha:
 
I'm just gonna leave this here, enjoy.

 
Bindiboi,

Very powerful has been your life experience and insights. I do not have any answers for you why you became so well and then became so ill. It sounds like an utterly terrifying experience.

The Book of Job in the Old Testament is an account of a man who despite an earnest faith, was hit by one horrendous event after another. He was a righteous man and certainly did not deserve any of what he got.

He nevertheless preservered and at the end of this account quite remarkably has an even stronger faith.

Some live very charmed lives, others quite the opposite. Yet no one has a "cake walk" in this earthly experience, no one at all.

At this time we remember one who lived a perfect life. He ministered to the poor, the forgotten, the sick and those in prison. He preached about love, forgivess and is said to have even performed life-restoring miracles.

IF anyone should have "had it made" ... it should have been Jesus. Yet on Good (Black) Friday he was NAILED to a CROSS and CRUCIFIED, rejected and despised of men.

So what was THAT all about? How could this BE? WHY did Jesus suffer so, how could a righteous God make one so devout and true SUFFER such an excrutiating and forsaken wretched death ON a Roman Cross???



HOW COULD THIS BE???????????????????

WELL, there is MORE.
The narrative continues. YES, there WAS a Good (Black) Friday marked by horrendous suffering on a bleak and foreboden cross. YET there is ALSO a Sunday Morning .. when the Sun arose and Light broke out. And The Light shone so powerfully forth that it BROKE the prison of Death and Despair.

For UP from the Grave HE arose!! There IS more than suffering and darkness here!!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oN77HjfAc8k

To me, striving to walk more in The Light does NOT mean that I will not experience darkness and despair. Rather it means that I know that this is MORE to all of this than JUST darkness and despair. There is HOPE..
there is RENEWAL, there is LIGHT ... there is NEW LIFE.

To believe in Jesus is to be an Easter person living in a Good (Black) Friday world. The Darkness is still all around ALL the time yet SO is LOVE and LIGHT which has proven itself ULTIMATELY VICTORIOUS over ALL darkness, brokenness and despair.

This is why this Easter Morn so many around this world including myself will be saying and singing ... HALLELUJAH.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76RrdwElnTU

All are invited, too. That means EVERYBODY.

Including YOU.



REVELATION 3:20
"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."



 
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The book of Job is like the ulyimate evidence of how God is petty and egocentric. He aloowed a person's life to be destroyed and also allowed the killing of a bunch of people just so he could win a bet with Satan. Dont take this the wrong way, but the universe could have been designed by such a horrid Being.
All the suffering and misery in all world is our fault. Humanity has become static and our leaders are inept. They can no longer guide us forward because they either cannot or do not want to tackle all the problems all world is going through right now. What we see now is the result of a collapsing system that should have been replaced decades ago.
 
I think each individual experiences death in their own way. We dont know what there is after life and I have a feeling the ultimate answer might be too much for most people to handle so we will experience death depending on our ability to make sense of what is happening.
I recomend a documentary called Afterlife (it is on Netflix). They give a very rational and sublime account of people who have gone through near death experiences observed in the moments they were dead...quit fascinating really.
 
The book of Job is like the ulyimate evidence of how God is petty and egocentric. He aloowed a person's life to be destroyed and also allowed the killing of a bunch of people just so he could win a bet with Satan. Dont take this the wrong way, but the universe could have been designed by such a horrid Being.
All the suffering and misery in all world is our fault. Humanity has become static and our leaders are inept. They can no longer guide us forward because they either cannot or do not want to tackle all the problems all world is going through right now. What we see now is the result of a collapsing system that should have been replaced decades ago.

I agree with you, New Yorker. For it is by Adam that man comes to know Death. It is through Jesus Christ that man comes to know LIFE.
"For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive."
1 Corinthians 15:22



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIU1MmaUcWY
From the Gospel of John ... The Miracle of Bringing Lazarus back from the dead
John 11:1-45
 
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There is only one fear and that fear is pain. Every human fear can be traced to a fear of pain. Hate snakes, fear of being bit. Pain. Spiders? Pain. Heights? Falling and pain. The unknown? Well that one goes a bit deeper. Most people could handle the thought of dying and there being simply nothing. It's when we ask ourselves, what if. What if there is an afterlife. What would it consist of. Hell perhaps? Eternal damnation in and endless pit of fire? Pain. A more cerebral hell, one that simply consists of eternity of never getting to god, the PAIN of not knowing his love. When we don't know what happens after we die our little human brains start to imagine. We want to live forever so we IMAGINED god, heaven, hell, all to place ourselves somewhere after death. The problem is we have become enslaved by our imaginings. Some of us however realize our folly, when we do, contrary to the christians belief, we become free. I am happier now then I ever was as a christian. That freedom has allowed me to truly see the world.
Is there something after death, perhaps. But I am not egotistical enough to say I know for sure. I just know that I won't serve any god that is so full of himself that he needs me to serve him and threatens me to eternal fire and pain if I don't, that to me sounds like a pretty self conscious being.
 
I'm just gonna leave this here, enjoy.


Pascal's Wager completely misses the point. It conveniently assumes that your chance is 50/50 - as in believing in one "right" god vs. no god. What if you choose the "wrong" god out of the thousands of different gods/religions that people believe? You are no better off.
 
If one can pick and choose the good bits from the supposed good book, aren't you more inherently moral than what some bronze aged goatherders who wrote it to control their masses in a time of ignorance and superstition? I always say that being good for the sake of being kind to others without prerequisites is infinitely more moral than doing it because some invisible skydaddy will punish you if you don't or reward you if you do, only to curse you to an eternal life of stroking the ego of this figure that suffers from poor self-esteem issues :aha:
:agreed::agreed::agreed:
 
MXBoots writes

"If one can pick and choose the good bits from the supposed good book, aren't you more inherently moral than what some bronze aged goatherders who wrote it to control their masses in a time of ignorance and superstition? I always say that being good for the sake of being kind to others without prerequisites is infinitely more moral than doing it because some invisible skydaddy will punish you if you don't or reward you if you do, only to curse you to an eternal life of stroking the ego of this figure that suffers from poor self-esteem issues :aha:"


***********************************

"If one can pick and choose the good bits from the supposed good book ..."

MxBoots, what I have presented above about the Good Friday and Easter narratives from "the Good Book" are not picking and choosing "good bits."

The presentation above in both verse and in photos are the core elements of the Passion narrative found in the synoptic Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke. Nothing has been selected above the other events, not at all.

Not everyone who refers to Scriptural events is "proof texting" which is a frequent assertion made to dennigrate anyone who relates Biblical chronologies and events as they are found to unfold.

The New Testament accounts of a phenomenal event occurring after the crucifixion of Jesus are not at all "proof texting" and cannot be so easily dismissed and discounted. Like it or not, multiple accounts occur in Matthew, Mark and Luke of the crucified and resurrected person of Jesus Christ. The Book of John also reports such phenomena.

Multiple accounts, multiple witnesses, it is like reading a story in a newspaper that FOUR different reporters from FOUR different media chains have written about a concerning a major event.

"Proof-texting" doesn't even begin to accurately describe what is going on here, and it is totally off the wall criticism that doesn't even come anywhere near the ball park.

Check these links out below for the many consistencies in the Books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to the events of both the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ along with historic evidence also documented:

http://www.spotlights.org/Crucifixion2.htm

http://www.spotlights.org/Crucifixion3.htm
 
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Dear Bindiboi,

I find many references in your above narrative to "hell" and "pain" which as I have stated above is not the full picture, not in any way.

The "god" you speak of sounds like no "god" I know. The "god" I know is a loving force, Creator of the entire vast universe.

A "god" that is NOT about death but rather about LIFE. A "god" that has filled this planet on which we find ourselves with tens of thousands of ALL kinds of LIFE. Various plants, trees, flowers, fruits, vegetables, animals, birds, fish, insects as well as human-beings.



How could such a creative force hallmarked by forming so many varieties of living species be a DeathForce? Defies the obvious and all logic (which has been given to us as well). The "god" I know is an affirmer of life and wants all Creation to prosper and live in harmony with each other.

This Creator God did not cause Death. No, it was a powerful negative force that did. Read the Biblical account of the serpent temtping Eve in Genesis 2-4 to eat of the forbidden fruit off the tree the knowlege of good and evil.

The Creator God said to Adam "do not eat of this tree." The serpent (a powerful negative force) urged Eve to eat the fruit anyway, to disobey the Creator God and put herself first ABOVE God. So Eve and then Adam ate of the fruit from the forebidden tree. Immediately they felt naked and knew they had disobeyed.

The Creative God could not reward such disobedience, just as a loving father cannot allow a child to wilfully flaunt reasonable guidelines established for the child's welfare. Hence correction is required, the correction here being no more in the Garden of Eden to further disobey God the Creator.

What other choice did the Creator God have? And it was NOT the Creator God who did the tempting, it was a sllithering "wise" tempting serpent ... who has been identified as a usurper, a deceiver, an accuser, a Fallen High Angel, LUCIFER (meaning "Being of Light").



IT was LUCIFER aka The Devil through an Act of Man who brought about Adam and Eve's downfall in the Garden of Eden. As a result, through MAN came DEATH for man gained knowledge and THEREBY became responsible for his OWN acts moral acts of GOOD and EVIL.

This situation over time became deplorable to the Creative God. As a result, as wanted to RECONCILE and AGAIN make as ONE mankind with Him once again.

Sooooo ... we have Jesus, God's only begotten Son, to pay the price of man's disobedience at Eden so that mankind and the Creative God could AGAIN be as one.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
John 3:16

HENCE the Miracle of Easter which began at CHRISTMAS is that God through Jesus Christ has acted ONCE AGAIN to show his utmost LOVE for mankind and to once again be at ONE together again.

The gift for all those who BELIEVE in JESUS CHRIST and that HE DIED for our SINS is ETERNAL LIFE in total peace and harmony in a RESURRECTED BODY with God the Creator once again.

GOD does NOT choose HELL for ANYONE. IT is LUCIFER aka The Devil/SATAN who CHOOSES Death for man. God chooses LIFE and has so done this in the birth, life, death and RESURRECTION of JESUS CHRIST.

All man is required to do is to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour to re-establish this blessed and exceptional relation with The Father again as seen in PARADISE which was the Garden of Eden.

"And Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me'."
(John 14:6)

Just accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour, that He paid the price for our sins by brutally dying for us at wicked Calvary. He paid our sin debt so that we can stand again purified and cleansed before the Life Force of ALL the Universe again!

THIS is the GOOD NEWS of Easter Sunday! That even though we live in a GOOD FRIDAY WORLD (full of sin, darkness and suffering) there IS more!! There is LIGHT and LOVE and WHOLENESS freely given to ALL mankind through the sacrificial blood on the cross of Jesus Christ!!

GOD is NOT a God of vengeance and death, not at all. THIS is Satan's Realm, a fallen, rebellious, wicked one time High Angel of the Creator God.

And as we see in the Book of Revelation, ultimately LUCIFER aka knon as SATAN will LOSE the battle against Jesus Christ, God's Son and the Creator God Himself .. and ALL CREATION will once again be reconciled with God the Good and Loving Creator Life Force of the ENTIRE HUGE VAST UNIVERSE !!!













!! HALLELUJAH !!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=iv&src_vid=xdRyNea19PE&v=-Fii0_ISUm4&annotation_id=annotation_764399



 
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Arrow, I think you are having an existential crisis again...RELAX DUDE, why not watch some movie, go out with friends? :noidea:

This religious shit is getting out of hand...
 
Simply stated, Pie ... there is a lot going on behind the scenes in the every day, "ho-hum" existence we often take for granted.

BIG issues raised by this thread which are being considered ("what happens after death?") occurring at a very reflective and major season to many upon the calendar of the progressing year.

Holy Week and Easter.

I am quite conversant on such topics so to be in dialogue on such BIG issues IMHO is most appropriate seeing them raised so repeatedly here.

After all, the phenemon of life and death is explored every day upon this website so to seek out a better understanding on such mega issues is truly an exceptional opportunity.

And I do thank you for such an exceptional opportunity. Real substantive
discussion is seldom seen upon the Internet.

So many thoughtful responses and earnest dialogue is extraordinary and I am most grateful to have such a stellar oppourtunity to participate.

Again, BRAVO and my many THANKS!!
:excellent::excellent::excellent::excellent::excellent:

 
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Please excuse my bluntness, but spare me the bible lesson. I know the bible very well, as I have said I was raised on all this nonesense. The "picking and choosing" that Boots was speaking of applies here. The bible is filled to the brim with death and destruction and it is all too easy to put all of the blame onto man. Look, let's for the sake of argument say that the whole Adam, Eve, Lucifer thing happened. God gave us free will, god gave us the ability to be tempted. God is all knowing and all seeing and KNEW that Satan would tempt and succeed and allowed him to do so. Who is the sadist? You don't give a kid a lighter and some gasoline, stand back, watch and allow him to get burned, then chastise him for it. That is what your god did. You talk about logic. That is NOT logical.
If you are going to try and use logic to defend your beliefs use a better fable then Adam and Eve.
Despite my tone I do not have hostility towards you Arrow. I just believe that if someone has a belief and chooses a public forum to discuss it, he better be able to defend them against anyone. Remember, you have the burden of proof. Yes, I know. You have FAITH, you don't need PROOF. But we do.
 
In all fairness for equal time, I went to a local Freethought Alliance conference last weekend, and it was a breath of fresh air from all the crazy religiosity in the US. It was completely invigorating to me in the milieu of like-minded folks who don't give a shit whether you are gay, str8, bi, trans, what have you. Face it, so much misery has befallen gay people for the sole reason of religious dogma. Of course that subject came up many times during the different lectures. The most interesting lecture was the genomic evidence of evolution, migrations of populations, etc. Here's the back view of the table I sat at during the dinner banquet on one of the evenings. 3 hot dudes sat with me, and I got contacts from all of them. One of them lives just across the street from me in fact, and I hung out with him and his roommate (an atheist as well) at the local microbrewery which is just within walking distance from where I live. Richard Dawkins was the keynote speaker which was the highlight. I got him to sign his books along with Sean Faircloth (ex-legislator in the Senate, who also lobbied for the Secular organization, and now moved on to Richard's foundation to foster grassroots efforts in the secular community to counter the religious nutters that have taken over one of the political parties in the US). Sean recently released a book called "Attack of the Theocrats".

CIMG0003corrected.jpg
 
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