ReligionDiscuss General Theology, Religions and Denominations, God's Attributes, Predestination and Free Will, Dispensationalism, Eschatology, Philosophy, Origins, Archaeology, Science, World History and other such topics.
It appears that life's purpose is inherent within its own actual and potential condition, having creativity and motivation to experience, expand, grow, multiply....
mere beliefs, what value have they? -
April 11th, 2012, 02:04 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by John Mortimer
Are you making a distinction between God and Jesus? Jesus is God.
Hi John,...if you've been up on many of the Unitarian/Trinitarian debates here lately,...you know the drill. I've bowed out of some of the threads, because they often become petty if not tedious, the same ole hamster wheel.
There is a distinction between 'God' and Jesus, especially from a traditional Unitarian perspective.
Only in an orthodox Christian perspective was Jesus eventually made out to be a divine personality within the eternal Godhead as 'God the Son', making Jesus God Almighty. If you mean Jesus is God according to this perspective, thats the 'belief', of course.
From another perspective we can say 'Jesus is God', just like all other souls are a part of God, or an individual expression of God. Furthermore all souls can merge with God and become divinitized or immortal, as God is immortal,...sharing the divine nature as sons of God. So we have many angles and points of view involved.
I've taken a more a more critical approach to the usual pitch line that 'Jesus is God' because it comes with certain presuppositions and qualifications made by the professors. It would appear so much about Jesus is just a form of mental idolatry after awhile...since some pop-forms of Christainity have made 'Jesus' into an 'icon' of sorts, a poster-boy for their own school of theology.
I am of the opinion the purpose of life is to live it to the full and try to do some good as you go along. I think it sad that some spend so much time considering an afterlife for which there is absolutely no evidence!
I am of the opinion the purpose of life is to live it to the full and try to do some good as you go along. I think it sad that some spend so much time considering an afterlife for which there is absolutely no evidence!
Only tens of thousands of near-death-experiences plus over 40,000 years of human beings preparing their death for an afterlife. Oh no, there's "absolutely no evidence"..all those human beings reporting n.d.e.s are liars as atheists know for certain what happens after death of the body. Their imaginations have measured the beyond and found it wanting..
I love the title of this thread
and
the answer is in Daniel 12:10
Many shall be refined, purified, and tested, but the wicked shall prove wicked; the wicked shall have no understanding, but those with insight shall.
Who are the wicked? They are hypocrites who claim Jesus is God yet dishonor His teachings and commandments as legalism. And insist to attend the wicked churches.
I am of the opinion the purpose of life is to live it to the full and try to do some good as you go along. I think it sad that some spend so much time considering an afterlife for which there is absolutely no evidence!
Hi willow
There is alot of 'evidence' for continuation of consciousness after death,.....believe it or not, but at least honestly survey the evidence.
5:1.8 The Father desires all his creatures to be in personal communion with him. He has on Paradise a place to receive all those whose survival status and spiritual nature make possible such attainment. Therefore settle in your philosophy now and forever: To each of you and to all of us, God is approachable, the Father is attainable, the way is open; the forces of divine love and the ways and means of divine administration are all interlocked in an effort to facilitate the advancement of every worthy intelligence of every universe to the Paradise presence of the Universal Father.
5:5.3 The fact-seeking scientist conceives of God as the First Cause, a God of force. The emotional artist sees God as the ideal of beauty, a God of aesthetics. The reasoning philosopher is sometimes inclined to posit a God of universal unity, even a pantheistic Deity. The religionist of faith believes in a God who fosters survival , the Father in heaven, the God of love.
5:5.6 Religious experience, being essentially spiritual, can never be fully understood by the material mind; hence the function of theology, the psychology of religion. The essential doctrine of the human realization of God creates a paradox in finite comprehension. It is well-nigh impossible for human logic and finite reason to harmonize the concept of divine immanence, God within and a part of every individual, with the idea of God's transcendence, the divine domination of the universe of universes. These two essential concepts of Deity must be unified in the faith-grasp of the concept of the transcendence of a personal God and in the realization of the indwelling presence of a fragment of that God in order to justify intelligent worship and validate the hope of personality survival.
5:5.13 Eternal survival of personality is wholly dependent on the choosing of the mortal mind, whose decisions determine the survival potential of the immortal soul.
Slogan/motto:
Hands that help are holier than lips that pray.
Reputation:
April 11th, 2012, 03:17 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by willowjoy
I am of the opinion the purpose of life is to live it to the full and try to do some good as you go along.
I believe that the Universe is one being, all its parts are different expressions of the same energy,
and they are all in communication with each other, therefore parts of one organic whole.
This whole is in all its parts so beautiful, and is felt by me to be so intensely in earnest, that I am compelled to love it and to think of it as divine
- Robinson Jeffers
Slogan/motto:
Hands that help are holier than lips that pray.
Reputation:
April 11th, 2012, 03:18 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by biomystic
Only tens of thousands of near-death-experiences plus over 40,000 years of human beings preparing their death for an afterlife. Oh no, there's "absolutely no evidence"..all those human beings reporting n.d.e.s are liars as atheists know for certain what happens after death of the body. Their imaginations have measured the beyond and found it wanting..
I've yet to find near death experiences to be convincing. We had a thread on that very topic not too long ago.
I believe that the Universe is one being, all its parts are different expressions of the same energy,
and they are all in communication with each other, therefore parts of one organic whole.
This whole is in all its parts so beautiful, and is felt by me to be so intensely in earnest, that I am compelled to love it and to think of it as divine
- Robinson Jeffers
"5:1.8 The Father desires all his creatures to be in personal communion with him. He has on Paradise a place to receive all those whose survival status and spiritual nature make possible such attainment. Therefore settle in your philosophy now and forever: To each of you and to all of us, God is approachable, the Father is attainable, the way is open; the forces of divine love and the ways and means of divine administration are all interlocked in an effort to facilitate the advancement of every worthy intelligence of every universe to the Paradise presence of the Universal Father.
5:5.3 The fact-seeking scientist conceives of God as the First Cause, a God of force. The emotional artist sees God as the ideal of beauty, a God of aesthetics. The reasoning philosopher is sometimes inclined to posit a God of universal unity, even a pantheistic Deity. The religionist of faith believes in a God who fosters survival , the Father in heaven, the God of love.
5:5.6 Religious experience, being essentially spiritual, can never be fully understood by the material mind; hence the function of theology, the psychology of religion. The essential doctrine of the human realization of God creates a paradox in finite comprehension. It is well-nigh impossible for human logic and finite reason to harmonize the concept of divine immanence, God within and a part of every individual, with the idea of God's transcendence, the divine domination of the universe of universes. These two essential concepts of Deity must be unified in the faith-grasp of the concept of the transcendence of a personal God and in the realization of the indwelling presence of a fragment of that God in order to justify intelligent worship and validate the hope of personality survival.
5:5.13 Eternal survival of personality is wholly dependent on the choosing of the mortal mind, whose decisions determine the survival potential of the immortal soul."
Typical spiritual nebulous mumbo-jumbo covering up an essential lack of knowledge about the identity of God which when known gives us the purpose of Life.
Slogan/motto:
Hands that help are holier than lips that pray.
Reputation:
April 11th, 2012, 03:20 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by biomystic
Typical spiritual nebulous mumbo-jumbo covering up an essential lack of knowledge about the identity of God which when known gives us the purpose of Life.
Are you speaking to freelight?
I believe that the Universe is one being, all its parts are different expressions of the same energy,
and they are all in communication with each other, therefore parts of one organic whole.
This whole is in all its parts so beautiful, and is felt by me to be so intensely in earnest, that I am compelled to love it and to think of it as divine
- Robinson Jeffers
I've yet to find near death experiences to be convincing. We had a thread on that very topic not too long ago.
Well, following the Jewish religion which rebelled against Egyptian obsession with the afterlife, you are conditioned to be prejudiced against any meaningful afterlife of the soul. As a Christian, I am not so conditioned and as an observer of human behavior I think the fact that n.d.e's have been recorded in their thousands now and stretch all through history, that to dismiss them out of hand is quite foolish. Especially, when science cannot explain why the human mind would have any sort of dying function that takes the fear of death away--survival instinct rules against this in all species, so explain that, how we have evidence of death being not the end of existence but a doorway into another form of existence--why and how does evolution, survival of the species, favor such a brain mechanism that takes the fear of death away?
April 11th, 2012, 01:35 AM
mere beliefs, what value have they? -
April 11th, 2012, 02:04 AM
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