the meaning of (after)life (...Philosophy?)

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mennonite

yeah it's a tricky thing

Post by mennonite »

hmm. i think the only person that really Got It was rattrapmax6... he seemed to have it on his mind...

but that's just what i saw, how i saw it.

also everyone that believes in god in that post believes god is a male or female... whereas i believe if there is a god that s/he contains both male and female, somehow. hermaphrodite? sure, why not... but i wasn't being Quite that literal. i think adam and eve were equals, both images of god...

which brings me to the "fairy tales" post that i forget who made... i think that's just about right... bible = fairy tales... but not the way he meant. i see it as stories that describe things that actually happened... but not the way a history book does. more like the way a poem does, or a picasso.

i don't think there was a flood, for one. i think the flood is a fairy tale with a moral and a meaning that ultimately isn't about water or god deciding to kill off humans. whatever it was, it was important enough to preserve the way it was preserved... but no one in this milennium LIKES poetry. it's certainly nothing to kill for. i still think the point is to get people to stop killing.

i don't think the point of the greek tragedies was to encourage people to get posessed by demons and kill and die horrible ways... i think there were symbols and meaning and stories about life... but if you take it all literally... well. pity. anyways, before i go...

sometimes computer metaphors are so useful...

even though you still run the risk of being flamed by someone who sees the same terms more (or less) accurately.

but this might be the best way i can put it... in theory, it's all uniform, machine to machine... backwards compatible... to a point, for certain, it's all x86 (human dna? theology?) instruction... on intel's (humans?) anyway.

in practice, you install this, it works, on other machine, not so much. sometimes it's obvious why, sometimes there's no telling. but none of it is constant. we try to make it all work. we get something done, but not everything. *this* installation (pay no attention which) works best on *this* machine. (also not important.)

so be it. microsoft tries to make everything the Same, hackers (non pejorative) try to make everything Unique, everyone else (to be inaccurate) just hopes it Works... as if we even all agreed what that means.

bye bye thread. it's been fun.
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Levi
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Post by Levi »

According to the Bible, all people are sinners. So by this logic, all people will go to Hell.
Ummmm...It does say that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. However, it does not say that God made man sinnful. In fact sin didn't actually enter the world until Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate the fruit of the tree. Adam being the symbol of man-kind therefore cursed man to be sinful. Thus all people are sinners and destined for Hell unless their sins are forgiven.
Also according to the Bible, Jesus didn't really even die...what value is death when you are resurrected afterwards? Zero. So his "death" meant nothing.
Well according to the bible, his heart stopped, he no longer bled, life signs were zero. For Three days. By what sense of the word Dead do you gain this idea that he didn't "really even die"? Hmm...I would like to know. I'm not saying this in a sarcasitc or mean way. I know the wording can appear as such. I never hold any ill feelings or will towards someone, so please consider that when reading further.

Let me ask you this, what value is paying for someone's legal fines if you're just going to get it back anyway? Does that person suddenly go back to jail just because you were paid back? Or do they remain free? I think the value came in the dying and death, and the ressurection has no effect on that what so ever.
These are but only two of the massive flaws that make the Bible untrustworthy...common sense knows better than your dogma.
Well, first common sense is not actually common. It's more of an understanding thing. If it was common then children wouldn't have to learn that a hot pot should not be touched, I mean that's only common sense. So common sense does not know better than my dogma, rather how one uses it to convince themselves defeats my beliefs in their mind. And I still see no flaws in presented, simply you not understanding where I'm coming from. Somethign you couldn't do because you've never been in my head or lived my life. So misunderstanding of my words is by no means your fault, incase you got that impression from what I've written.

assuming the existence of a creator-god does not also need to assume that he owns us as slaves.


Master and Servant I believe are the terms used. Not slave. A Butler is a servant, and the boss the Master. You've sort of taken it out of context there.
by the way... "you cannot serve two masters" if i'm not mistaken, is not referring to god and not god, or one idea and the other... but God and Material Wealth. If, on the other hand, we are going to take it out of context, i would prefer to see it as saying you cannot serve materialism and spirituality, but i disagree... you Have to serve both to Balance them. i would say it is the focus on wealth that prevents spiritual progress, not the wealth or the serving of it. it's all about balance.
Material Wealth was an example, some do serve Satan, others serve something else in their lives. It doesn't have to be Material wealth. However you can't serve God and something else. You must serve one or the other, your choice. The difference however is that God is free-will boss. The other is Slave owner. And there is no balance. That's like saying there's a balance between good and evil. That assumes evil to be something grasped, taken hold of. Rather than a lack of something. I mean a negative charge in a battery isn't actually negative, it's more like less of a positive charge. 2 = positive, 1 = neutral, 0= negative. So evil is not a balance with Good. Rather simply not good. You don't server material wealth, that means you don't care about it. If someone were to blow up your car, you wouldn't worry about how much it cost or the fact that you worked hard to get it, you worry about how you're going to get to work. You care about God not the stuff you have. You can't balance the two.


the semantic rearrangement of god burning us for not believing into us Choosing to be burned (by not believing) is silly (if you ask me) and dishonest (although i wouldn't say intentionally dishonest, i'm not accusing anyone of lying...) and i dismiss it entirely. it's another way of seeing it to be sure... sort of like seeing my ass as a thing designed to keep
chairs firmly on the ground... is another way of seeing things.
Well I think it's silly to assume the otherway around. That seems to me like the constant amongst non-believers as the easy way out of believing in a God whom we say is caring and merciful. They always come back with "Why would God burn us in Hell? Why Does God allow bad things to happen?" People want to believe he's burning us and therefore as you say we're seeing it differently. However God makes it clear, Hell was not meant for us. He didn't want us to burn.
2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should PERISH but that all should come to repentance.
i find torah/talmud much more interesting,
Yeah, I find the book of Mormon interesting as well that doesn't mean I find it to hold more stock than the Bible.
when someone "proves" a point by quoting the bible, what i'm thinking is "so what? it's just the bible."
Well when I prove your understanding incorrect I think that means a little more than the fact that it came from the bible. It means you're operating on misconceptions of the Bible.

And your so what statement comes from what you believe the Bible to be. For me, the Bible is the word of God. It's what God wants us to know. He'll teach us more in other ways yes, but it's all in there. For you, it's just an anthology of books. Nothing more.
i usually see the bible as metaphors, and i think the bible at least makes SOME sense that way. occasionally it even makes sense when taken, er, "literally..." but not too much.
That doesn't mean it doesn't make more sense when taken literally. It simply means you find it easier to assume it's metaphors.
also, i would continue to argue that if jesus claims to be the messiah, and there is (ample) evidence that he is certainly not... then the claim that he is actually GOD can be ignored as well... or at least discounted. i mean they said the same thing about Eric Clapton... so what?
I've seen such evidence, it's blarny. A huge bunch of blarny. Half of it doesn't even read the prophesies of Jesus. Which is what one basis the idea of Messiah on. And Jesus fullfilled these prophesies.

I've heard it said that maybe they just filled in the prophesies. But we know the first Greek transaltion happend hundreds of years before Jesus was born. So how could they have predicted Jesus would come unless parts of the Bible were true. Does that make it the word of God? No, but it's getting close.

There are also no contridictions in the bible, C.S. Lewis read it from cover to cover and couldn't find a single one. As have thousands before him. And this Bible was written by multiple authors over thousands of years. Many having no contact with each other. Does this make it the word of God? No, but it's looking more important than all the others. In my mind, agree disagree. Up to you. But you're not the only one who's done their research. I wasn't brought up in a christian home, this is my belief based upon all I've learned. Just in case you think I'm simply arguing what I was told to argue.
well, that certainly dispenses of every hypothetical argument and nearly every hypothesis that ever existed. i guess they count for nothing. no, i contend that you and anyone else can argue theory without ever committing to anything. in fact, the process of science is one of dispensing the ideas you obviously weren't committed to... or you couldn't change them, right? without this change, we would still be trying to let the Fire out of Earth and rocks... the old view of elements. but we kind of left that by the wayside with the periodic table.
Nope. You have a base belief of balance. I never said that a belief that one must have 100% of has to be long and eloquent. It could be one word. Mine, God. And just the defintion of elements has changed, not the base idea. That they are what the world is made out of. They are the forces of creation and nature. We are carbon based, an element that is a base.

And today most people don't understand that science isn't about answers, rather probablities. The closest ideas we have to answering our current questions. Not the answers to them. Science is willing to remove theories because of the base belief, that as we learn the answers come closer. I believe our world, everything we have philisophically, spritituall, scientifically, and ethically, is built on Dogma. What you disreguard.

Oh, and unlike Eric Clapton, there was proof with Jesus. It's whether or not you choose to disreguard that evidence that makes the difference.
i must respectfully suggest that you are wrong about what we can argue and believe in. the limits you're imposing are superficial... arbitrary.
And respectfully I must suggest, that I might be. Not are, might. Are refers to facts. And well facts aren't facts because they don't consider everything. Therefor it is ridiculous to say are, and should rather say might. But isn't that what science and belief are all about? Being wrong to fix what you believe to come closer to being right? But might isn't. Everyone I've ever talked to who had a scientific view asked me if they should disreguard everything becasue it might be wrong. I've never said that, I've always said they aren't even trying to consider the possibiltiy that they might be. I always consider that a possibility, but my faith is unwaivering. No one has ever shown me evidence that I'm wrong, just as I have never been able to show anything but the Biblical verses to prove I'm right. In this we are at standstill, except in our own minds and ideas.

In that way, I respectfully suggest, you might also be wrong.
Later days,
Matthew

May those who love us love us
And those who don't
May the good Lord turn their hearts
And if he doesn't
May he turn their ankles
So we'll know them by their limping
-Irish prayer
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