Does Death End it All?

[Virus]

No, it's just the beginning, eternal bliss or the boiler

 

[BruceDLimber]

I would suspect that if this God of yours does exist, then he resides on a much higher plane, not the 'earthbound.'

No problem whatever!

We'll happily stipulate a much higher plane for Him.

But that said, the whole debate is truly pointless because there is ZERO objective proof for either the existence or the non-existence of God!

Precisely why religions are called "faiths."

Peace,

Bruce

 

[JayJayDee]

You could play that game endlessly...

How do you know Satan isn't Jehovah's trickster split personality since he conveniently lets him run the world?

If you know the reason why he is allowed to "run the world" you would know the answer to that question.

Or maybe Jehovah's and Satan's roles are reversed...and Jehovah wants people to rebel against the true God named Satan?

Did you know that only one of them has an actual name? The true God named himself in the Bible but the pretender is known only by his wicked characteristics...satan (resistor) and devil (slanderer). Whatever name the devil had before his rebellion has never been revealed.

How would we know it was Jehovah or a real God who tempted Abraham to kill sacrifice his child?

Jehovah had no intention of allowing Abraham to sacrifice his son. It was done to test the depth of his faith and to offer a pictorial example that humans could relate to...that of giving a beloved child in sacrifice. This is what God did in offering the life of his precious son for humankind.

Maybe the exterminations and baby smashing into rocks stuff was demonic inspiration?

I do not know what this is related to. Can you clarify?

Why should everybody have dead religion or spirituality based off the fear and control dictated by another's worshipped prophets or gurus?

I guess that depends upon who is the guru If the 'guru' is Jesus Christ, then that is good enough for me. You of course are free to choose your own path, though you seem a little lost at times.

What I have is called faith. And I would not ever swap my faith for your indecision at any time.

When you have a good grasp of the big picture, everything falls into place very nicely. Most people stare at a few pixels here and there and wonder why nothing makes sense.

Jesus said we would "know the truth" when we heard it. I'm glad I did.

 

[psychoslice]

Religion in most cases I feel is nothing more than a crutch, its a belief that you are going to be rewarded something, such as a new life in heaven. Many wast their whole life on believing in what they believe, just so they cah be with their families after death, they go through the life they already have missing out on its wholeness, they only see the bad and miss the good, because the bad keeps their belief strong. They can't wait to see something big on the news such as earthquakes for this also keeps their belief strong.

As a non believer I see beauty everywhere in my life, I have no time to wast on believing in an afterlife, because I am too busy enjoying this life, much of religion steals this beauty from those who are clinging to their beliefs, I should know I was once one of those. The beliefs of my religion kept me in the dark and all the time I was told that it was the light, thanks to the Cosmos I woke up, the nightmare is over.

 

[Runewolf1973]

Religion in most cases I feel is nothing more than a crutch, its a belief that you are going to be rewarded something, such as a new life in heaven. Many wast their whole life on believing in what they believe, just so they cah be with their families after death, they go through the life they already have missing out on its wholeness, they only see the bad and miss the good, because the bad keeps their belief strong. They can't wait to see something big on the news such as earthquakes for this also keeps their belief strong.

As a non believer I see beauty everywhere in my life, I have no time to wast on believing in an afterlife, because I am too busy enjoying this life, much of religion steals this beauty from those who are clinging to their beliefs, I should know I was once one of those. The beliefs of my religion kept me in the dark and all the time I was told that it was the light, thanks to the Cosmos I woke up, the nightmare is over.

This is why I am not religious. I am animistic and I also have some shamanistic tendencies. As a shaman would say the so called "spirit" world is just as real and ever-present as the physical world. To ignore one or the other can bring about an imbalance of sorts which may potentially lead to sickness. This is in fact one reason why animals must sleep to function normally. As we sleep a part of our consciousness enters that non-physical (spiritual) plane and helps to provide us with that balance. This is also another reason why (I believe) that when a person is extremely sleep deprived they may experience halucinations. This is because that "spirit world" will after a while force it's way through in order to try to regain that equilibrium with the physical. When we do sleep however, we see or recall only brief glimpses of that spiritual world because much of our dreams are affected or brought about by our memories in the physical. As someone who has dabbled in shamanism, I know that through trance or meditation one can also reach that equilibrium...that wholeness. Ultimately this "physical" world is not so physical as we think it is.


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[psychoslice]

This is why I am not religious. I am animistic and I also have some shamanistic tendencies. As a shaman would say the so called "spirit" world is just as real and ever-present as the physical world. To ignore one or the other can bring about an imbalance of sorts which may potentially lead to sickness. This is in fact one reason why animals must sleep to function normally. As we sleep a part of our consciousness enters that non-physical (spiritual) plane and helps to provide us with that balance. This is also another reason why (I believe) that when a person is extremely sleep deprived they may experience halucinations. This is because that "spirit world" will after a while force it's way through in order to try to regain that equilibrium with the physical. When we do sleep however, we see or recall only brief glimpses of that spiritual world because much of our dreams are affected or brought about by our memories in the physical. As someone who has dabbled in shamanism, I know that through trance or meditation one can also reach that equilibrium...that wholeness. Ultimately this "physical" world is not so physical as we think it is.


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Very interesting Runewolf1973 , sounds like a very nice philosophy to live by.

 

[Quintessence]

This is why I am not religious. I am animistic and I also have some shamanistic tendencies. As a shaman would say the so called "spirit" world is just as real and ever-present as the physical world. To ignore one or the other can bring about an imbalance of sorts which may potentially lead to sickness. This is in fact one reason why animals must sleep to function normally. As we sleep a part of our consciousness enters that non-physical (spiritual) plane and helps to provide us with that balance. This is also another reason why (I believe) that when a person is extremely sleep deprived they may experience halucinations. This is because that "spirit world" will after a while force it's way through in order to try to regain that equilibrium with the physical. When we do sleep however, we see or recall only brief glimpses of that spiritual world because much of our dreams are affected or brought about by our memories in the physical. As someone who has dabbled in shamanism, I know that through trance or meditation one can also reach that equilibrium...that wholeness. Ultimately this "physical" world is not so physical as we think it is.


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Sounds pretty solidly religious to me. Why do you choose to not use that word to describe yourself?

 

[Runewolf1973]

There is a reason why my beliefs so closely resemble Buddhism and that is because their is a common underlying truth that we both acknowledge and understand.


I actually just spoke with my girlfriend about the whole dream state thing. She said that is in fact one way the spirits do contact her is via that dream state. The one called Andrew has been known to contact her in such a way among other ways.

 

[Runewolf1973]

Sounds pretty solidly religious to me. Why do you choose to not use that word to describe yourself?

It has to do with the animistic side of my beliefs. That is a way or path that began long before the first organized religions ever came into existence. Man was spiritual first, religious second.

 

[Quintessence]

It has to do with the animistic side of my beliefs. That is a way or path that began long before the first organized religions ever came into existence. Man was spiritual first, religious second.

I suppose that's one way of looking at it, but to my mind and understanding of the world's religions, religions do not need to be organized and a person need not identify with a religion at all to be religious. This is probably neither here nor there with respect to the thread, it's just a personal bother of mine that people opt for this nebulous "spiritual" word instead of calling a spade a spade. :cover:

 

[ruffen]

When considering the evidence, it seems obvious that everything we consider "us" (consciousness, ability to think, ability to make choices, ability to sense and perceive the world around us, ability to remember past events and plan for future events, our personality, our mood, love, etc.), all these things are completely dependent on a functioning brain.

Get a brain tumor, or experiment with chemicals, or have brain trauma, or get drunk, or go into a coma or general anesthesia, and some or all of those abilities and traits go away. Different things go away depending on the part of the brain affected. Damage one part, and your personality is changed. Damage another, and your memory disappears. Damage another and you lose your eyesight even though your eyes are fine.

This tells me that every part of our existence, our essence and personality, and our way to perceive anything, are due to physical processes in our physical brains.

There is no evidence that there is any non-physical soul or entity nudging our actions and decisions in any direction, especially when we're drunk. It's strange that the immortal soul is always exactly as drunk as you are.

And if we are physical beings with all our properties arising from a physical brain, it follows that when the brain dies, all that is you is gone as well.

 

[ruffen]

This does not make life meaningless. It only makes death meaningless. And it would be a good thing if more people in the world considered death to be meaningless and life to be everything there is.

 

[Quintessence]

This does not make life meaningless. It only makes death meaningless. And it would be a good thing if more people in the world considered death to be meaningless and life to be everything there is.

I'm not quite following why you consider death to be meaningless in light of your materialist perspective on human existence, at least considering that you don't find existence meaningless on the whole. Why would life be meaningful but death somehow be meaningless? I don't quite understand how you're arriving at that.

 

[George-ananda]

When considering the evidence, it seems obvious that everything we consider "us" (consciousness, ability to think, ability to make choices, ability to sense and perceive the world around us, ability to remember past events and plan for future events, our personality, our mood, love, etc.), all these things are completely dependent on a functioning brain.

Get a brain tumor, or experiment with chemicals, or have brain trauma, or get drunk, or go into a coma or general anesthesia, and some or all of those abilities and traits go away. Different things go away depending on the part of the brain affected. Damage one part, and your personality is changed. Damage another, and your memory disappears. Damage another and you lose your eyesight even though your eyes are fine.

This tells me that every part of our existence, our essence and personality, and our way to perceive anything, are due to physical processes in our physical brains.

There is no evidence that there is any non-physical soul or entity nudging our actions and decisions in any direction, especially when we're drunk. It's strange that the immortal soul is always exactly as drunk as you are.

And if we are physical beings with all our properties arising from a physical brain, it follows that when the brain dies, all that is you is gone as well.

The way I think of it is the soul is the more real 'you' and the body/mind is the further removed 'you'. The soul is always limited by the abilities and health of the body; but this body/mind complex is not the real 'you'.

To go even a step further, 'you' are not even the soul; 'you' are God/Brahman experiencing through successively limiting forms.


[Edit: In more down-to-earth terms of 'Does Death End it All' of the OP, at death we will experience through our astral double body (places/reunions like described by NDE people, but this astral body even has a temporary existence and drops off and you will then be just your soul; and likely to spin a new incarnation).

 

[Knight of Albion]

That's it exactly. Man is spirit in a physical body.

The physical body is temporary and perishable. The spirit within - the real you - is eternal.

 

[Runewolf1973]

When considering the evidence, it seems obvious that everything we consider "us" (consciousness, ability to think, ability to make choices, ability to sense and perceive the world around us, ability to remember past events and plan for future events, our personality, our mood, love, etc.), all these things are completely dependent on a functioning brain.

Get a brain tumor, or experiment with chemicals, or have brain trauma, or get drunk, or go into a coma or general anesthesia, and some or all of those abilities and traits go away. Different things go away depending on the part of the brain affected. Damage one part, and your personality is changed. Damage another, and your memory disappears. Damage another and you lose your eyesight even though your eyes are fine.

This tells me that every part of our existence, our essence and personality, and our way to perceive anything, are due to physical processes in our physical brains.

There is no evidence that there is any non-physical soul or entity nudging our actions and decisions in any direction, especially when we're drunk. It's strange that the immortal soul is always exactly as drunk as you are.

And if we are physical beings with all our properties arising from a physical brain, it follows that when the brain dies, all that is you is gone as well.

The reason why you are not seeing this non-physical side is because you are not looking deep enough. You are only seeing those physical manifestations and the cause and effect thereof. Looking deeper you would see there are in fact those fundamental forces which underly all things and which are in fact both ceaseless and formless. This is the "spirit" or "non-physical" side of things and it is not something supernatural. All things composed of matter that we see or interact with on a daily basis are manifestations of those fundamental forces. It just so happens that sometimes those forces "manifest" into different forms which some people can see and other people can not....we call these "ghosts" or "spirits".

 

[ruffen]

I'm not quite following why you consider death to be meaningless in light of your materialist perspective on human existence, at least considering that you don't find existence meaningless on the whole. Why would life be meaningful but death somehow be meaningless? I don't quite understand how you're arriving at that.

Life can be given meaning by each one of us, but we need to be alive to add that meaning. Experiencing life is meaningful (in a subjective way - the Universe doesn't care). Death is the end of all experience, and so the nothingness of death is truly meaningless.

 

[Sees]

If you know the reason why he is allowed to "run the world" you would know the answer to that question.



Did you know that only one of them has an actual name? The true God named himself in the Bible but the pretender is known only by his wicked characteristics...satan (resistor) and devil (slanderer). Whatever name the devil had before his rebellion has never been revealed.



Jehovah had no intention of allowing Abraham to sacrifice his son. It was done to test the depth of his faith and to offer a pictorial example that humans could relate to...that of giving a beloved child in sacrifice. This is what God did in offering the life of his precious son for humankind.

I do not know what this is related to. Can you clarify?


I guess that depends upon who is the guru If the 'guru' is Jesus Christ, then that is good enough for me. You of course are free to choose your own path, though you seem a little lost at times.

What I have is called faith. And I would not ever swap my faith for your indecision at any time.

When you have a good grasp of the big picture, everything falls into place very nicely. Most people stare at a few pixels here and there and wonder why nothing makes sense.

Jesus said we would "know the truth" when we heard it. I'm glad I did.

I was talking about some of this stuff...

"Wail, for the day of the Lord is near;
****it will come like destruction from the Almighty.[a]
7*Because of this, all hands will go limp,
****every heart will melt with fear.
8*Terror will seize them,
****pain and anguish will grip them;
****they will writhe like a woman in labor.
They will look aghast at each other,
****their faces aflame.
9*See, the day of the Lord is coming
****—a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger—
to make the land desolate
****and destroy the sinners within it.
10*The stars of heaven and their constellations
****will not show their light.
The rising sun will be darkened
****and the moon will not give its light.
11*I will punish the world for its evil,
****the wicked for their sins.
I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty
****and will humble the pride of the ruthless.
12*I will make people scarcer than pure gold,
****more rare than the gold of Ophir.
13*Therefore I will make the heavens tremble;
****and the earth will shake from its place
at the wrath of the Lord Almighty,
****in the day of his burning anger.
14*Like a hunted gazelle,
****like sheep without a shepherd,
they will all return to their own people,
****they will flee to their native land.
15*Whoever is captured will be thrust through;
****all who are caught will fall by the sword.
16*Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes;
****their houses will be looted and their wives violated." - Isaiah 13

"Happy is the one who seizes your infants
****and dashes them against the rocks." Psalms 137:9

If something was whispering this stuff in my ear, or extermination/genocide of a neighboring people/tribe, or that I should sacrifice one of my little children....no way in hell I would take it as a God or some benevolent spirit, let alone show willingness to obey.

You don't see the irony when it is suggested that the spirits which non-christians experience or communicate with are demons?

Would you think it was God if something told you to kill your child, or any other children, as a show of faith?

Outside of indoctrination, extreme terror, or some type of possession - what could make a healthy person think this is divine or acceptable?

 

[Runewolf1973]

I was talking about some of this stuff...

"Wail, for the day of the Lord is near;
****it will come like destruction from the Almighty.[a]
7*Because of this, all hands will go limp,
****every heart will melt with fear.
8*Terror will seize them,
****pain and anguish will grip them;
****they will writhe like a woman in labor.
They will look aghast at each other,
****their faces aflame.
9*See, the day of the Lord is coming
****—a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger—
to make the land desolate
****and destroy the sinners within it.
10*The stars of heaven and their constellations
****will not show their light.
The rising sun will be darkened
****and the moon will not give its light.
11*I will punish the world for its evil,
****the wicked for their sins.
I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty
****and will humble the pride of the ruthless.
12*I will make people scarcer than pure gold,
****more rare than the gold of Ophir.
13*Therefore I will make the heavens tremble;
****and the earth will shake from its place
at the wrath of the Lord Almighty,
****in the day of his burning anger.
14*Like a hunted gazelle,
****like sheep without a shepherd,
they will all return to their own people,
****they will flee to their native land.
15*Whoever is captured will be thrust through;
****all who are caught will fall by the sword.
16*Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes;
****their houses will be looted and their wives violated." - Isaiah 13

"Happy is the one who seizes your infants
****and dashes them against the rocks." Psalms 137:9

If something was whispering this stuff in my ear, or extermination/genocide of a neighboring people/tribe, or that I should sacrifice one of my little children....no way in hell I would take it as a God or some benevolent spirit, let alone show willingness to obey.

You don't see the irony when it is suggested that the spirits which non-christians experience or communicate with are demons?

Would you think it was God if something told you to kill your child, or any other children, as a show of faith?

Outside of indoctrination, extreme terror, or some type of possession - what could make a healthy person think this is divine or acceptable?

Sounds like they worship the master of all death, destruction, pain and torment. Their "God" is evil incarnate yet they pass him off as some kind of savior of mankind. Can't believe how easily fooled people are...so blinded by faith and unable to see evil for what it truly is....but...but...but it says in the Bible that God loves His children. Yeah, right. He wants to command you and enslave you out of fear and when you do not obey His commands He will destroy you mercilessly and with great pleasure. Instead they should be listening to that serpent (Satan) who showed them knowledge and everlasting life. As one who practices shamanism, I know that trees and animals bear great wisdom and never harbor evil.

---

 

[Quintessence]

Life can be given meaning by each one of us, but we need to be alive to add that meaning. Experiencing life is meaningful (in a subjective way - the Universe doesn't care). Death is the end of all experience, and so the nothingness of death is truly meaningless.

But isn't death something that is experienced in life? As a species, we kill other beings to sustain ourselves. Additionally, we watch others of our kind die. We have meaningful responses to these events, don't we?

I suppose I understand where you're coming from in a fashion - if your sole focus of meaning is on the ego. I have a great deal of trouble anchoring the axis of all meaning on a single person's ego. I can't be that self-centered; my brain thinks too ecologically and holistically to see things that way.