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If there is a life after death.....

If there will be a life after Death....which one of the choices makes more sense:

  • Our soul continues to live on, but we never get a physical body again

    Votes: 7 18.4%
  • Our soul comes back in another body, as in incarnation

    Votes: 10 26.3%
  • There will be a physical Resurrection at the End, and we will come back to life

    Votes: 5 13.2%
  • Other, please explain

    Votes: 16 42.1%

  • Total voters
    38

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Reality is the collection of objects and processes that affect one another in space through time. That includes all of those other solar systems you referred to, which affect one another gravitationally and which deliver photons, neutrinos, and gravitational waves to this planet and all others announcing their existence (reality) by affecting one another.

Regarding the reality of gods, if a god affected a Messenger, then the god is real. If one answers prayers, manifests in flesh, or performs miracles, it is causally connected to us and we call it real or actual, and it is a part of nature.
I do not believe that God is 'part of nature.' If God was 'part of nature' that would be pantheism. I believe that God can affect nature because God is present in all creation by virtue of his omnipresence and omnipotence, sustaining every creature in being without being identified with any creature. That is called panentheism.

In panentheism, the universal spirit is present everywhere, which at the same time "transcends" all things created. While pantheism asserts that "all is God", panentheism claims that God is greater than the universe.
If we imagine a deity that cannot modify our reality, we can say that it is causally disconnected from our collection of real objects and processes, is indistinguishable from the nonexistent, and its possibility can be disregarded.
I believe that God can modify our reality, if He chooses to do do.
Don't you believe that the words of the messenger are the result of an action of a god and are visible?
The words of the messenger are the result of an action of God. God speaking to the Messenger is the action.
The words of the Messenger have an affect on people and that effect is visible in human actions.
 

Bthoth

Well-Known Member
I don't know what you mean by 'come in.'
How does claiming a god did it make any sense.

People use the idea that a god fixed them but that is just using the term. For example: a doctor saving a persons life or an AA person quitting drinking. People did the deed, not that a god did any of it.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
How does claiming a god did it make any sense.

People use the idea that a god fixed them but that is just using the term. For example: a doctor saving a persons life or an AA person quitting drinking. People did the deed, not that a god did any of it.
I am not claiming that God did any deeds. I do not believe God did any of those deeds.
God might be guiding people but that doesn't mean that God did any of those deeds.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
There is more to life than your "critical thinking materialism".
Yes, I know.
Well that's daft .. how do you know for sure it can't be found, if you do not seek?
I wrote, "There is no virtue in continuing to seek for what cannot be found." I didn't say don't seek. What I said was don't keep seeking for what cannot be found. I have concluded that if I haven't found a god yet, searching further would be pointless, as I'd have to search where I already found nothing again. Of course, we may mean different things by searching.
Clearly, you have no interest in finding anything other than the material.
That's incorrect. Empiricism (experience) is how I discover how the world works and what makes me happy, which is the goal freedom form dysphorias like anxiety, privation, shame, etc. and the attainment of peace of mind (ataraxia, equanimity). I use the former as a means to obtain the latter.
I do not believe that God is 'part of nature.'
Nor do I, but if one exists and is causally connected to our reality, it is a part of it. It's incoherent to claim that something can affect reality without being real itself and causally connected to the rest of reality, which is what nature is - the collection of things that actually exist and can modify one another. Nature and reality are synonyms for what actually exists. We can say that there are other realities causally disconnected from this one, but that's an unfalsifiable claim and irrelevant to us even if such a thing could exist.
I believe that God can modify our reality, if He chooses to do so.
That's what I call an interventionist god, like the Abrahamic god. Those are the kind that can be tested for. If you say that prayer changes more than the supplicant's mental state, that can be studied empirically and either confirmed or disconfirmed. The other kind of god suggested - the deist god being an example of a noninterventionist deity - doesn't modify our experience with miracles or revelation, and so, unlike the interventionist god that allegedly does, it becomes irrelevant whether such a thing set this all of or mindless mature did it itself (apatheism, or apathy for the question).
The words of the messenger are the result of an action of God. God speaking to the Messenger is the action.
That's a causal connection - cause and material effect. A brain and mind have been changed by the downloading of a divine message into it. And this is followed by another example of a material, causal connection as the message is spoke or written. If that happened, both players are real and part of the same reality even if the laws of that reality change under various circumstances or at different scales.

Quantum reality is counterintuitive and has its own laws, but it isn't separate from nature or outside nature, nor causally disconnected from nature, which is why it can be studied empirically and we can use words like real, actual, fact, truth, and knowledge about it. We see it manifesting at our scale and modifying the result of experiments. Wave-particle duality isn't normally a feature of normoscopic existence (the scale of existence the unaided senses reveal, where waves and particles are distinct) but can be made to manifest at that scale with slit lamp experiments, for example.
 
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muhammad_isa

Veteran Member
That's incorrect. Empiricism (experience) is how I discover how the world works and what makes me happy..
..but that is not the subject "how the world works and what makes me happy"..
We all have different experiences .. but it is not really about "physical happenings" .. more
to do with what is in the depths of our minds (soul).
 

Bthoth

Well-Known Member
I am not claiming that God did any deeds. I do not believe God did any of those deeds.
God might be guiding people but that doesn't mean that God did any of those deeds.
SO the religion is guiding people. That I understand. Especially when comprehending that mankind created the religions.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
SO the religion is guiding people. That I understand. Especially when comprehending that mankind created the religions.
The religion is guiding people but God is also guiding people.

Religions were revealed by God to Messengers of God. After that, mankind created the religions.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
That's what I call an interventionist god, like the Abrahamic god. Those are the kind that can be tested for. If you say that prayer changes more than the supplicant's mental state, that can be studied empirically and either confirmed or disconfirmed.
I do not believe that is possible.
One reason it is not possible is because God might answer a prayer even if one does not get what they asked for.
God might not answer a prayer if what the person asked for is not beneficial to the person.

God is not a short order cook.
 

Little Dragon

Well-Known Member
The religion is guiding people but God is also guiding people.

Religions were revealed by God to Messengers of God. After that, mankind created the religions.
That is more logical, by far. Than the idea that 'My religion is the one true religion".
If God(s) does/do exist, then I would think you are most probably correct.
 
Reality is the collection of objects and processes that affect one another in space through time. That includes all of those other solar systems you referred to, which affect one another gravitationally and which deliver photons, neutrinos, and gravitational waves to this planet and all others announcing their existence (reality) by affecting one another.

Regarding the reality of gods, if a god affected a Messenger, then the god is real. If one answers prayers, manifests in flesh, or performs miracles, it is causally connected to us and we call it real or actual, and it is a part of nature.

If we imagine a deity that cannot modify our reality, we can say that it is causally disconnected from our collection of real objects and processes, is indistinguishable from the nonexistent, and its possibility can be disregarded.

Don't you believe that the words of the messenger are the result of an action of a god and are visible?

Agreed. I've learned a formal method for evaluating evidence that reliably generates sound conclusions that can be tested and confirmed. You use a different method and have different beliefs.

Or, miracles never occurred, so naturally, nobody was convinced of any god. That's not a possibility the believer can seriously consider, so he instead must come up with an explanation for why people can witness something that should convince them of a transhuman presence yet still not be moved by it, and also why a god would choose to manifest in a way that doesn't clearly indicate the presence of a god. All of that disappears with the addition of skepticism, or the unwillingness to believe that miracles occurred simply because somebody said they did.

I'm sure you are certain, but that's not the same as being correct.

None of my beliefs are faith-based. One can develop a habit of thought as automatic and effortless as saying please and thank you to not believe before having sufficient evidence to justify that belief. It's called critical thinking. I alluded to it above.
 
You say none of your beliefs are faith based, so you have no belief of how we (mankind) came to be, why we are here on this earth and if there is life after death on this earth?
 
I am not arguing for or against you. I am just stating what I believe, which is the same as what you believe although there are some differences.
Christians believe that Jesus was God incarnated in the flesh and I believe that Jesus was God manifested in the flesh. The difference is that incarnated means Jesus literally became God, and manifested means that Jesus perfectly manifested all of Gods attributes, so Jesus was a mirror image of God.

Jesus Christ is God who was manifested in the flesh but the essence of God did not become flesh.

1 Timothy 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

Being manifested in the flesh is not the same as being incarnated in the flesh. The excerpt below from a longer article explains the difference between a Manifestation of God and an incarnation of God.

“The Christian equivalent to the Bahá'í concept of Manifestation is the concept of incarnation. The word to incarnate means 'to embody in flesh or 'to assume, or exist in, a bodily (esp. a human) form (Oxford English Dictionary). From a Bahá'í point of view, the important question regarding the subject of incarnation is, what does Jesus incarnate? Bahá'ís can certainly say that Jesus incarnated Gods attributes, in the sense that in Jesus, Gods attributes were perfectly reflected and expressed.[4] The Bahá'í scriptures, however, reject the belief that the ineffable essence of the Divinity was ever perfectly and completely contained in a single human body, because the Bahá'í scriptures emphasize the omnipresence and transcendence of the essence of God…..

One can argue that Bahá'u'lláh is asserting that epistemologically the Manifestations are God, for they are the perfect embodiment of all we can know about God; but ontologically they are not God, for they are not identical with God's essence. Perhaps this is the meaning of the words attributed to Jesus in the gospel of John: 'If you had known me, you would have known my Father also' (John 14:7) and 'he who has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:9)…..

The New Testament, similarly, contains statements where Jesus describes Himself as God, and others where He makes a distinction between Himself and God. For example, 'I and the Father are One (John 10:30); and 'the Father is in me, and I am in the Father (John 1038); but on the other hand, 'the Father is greater than I (John 14:28); and 'Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone (Mark 10:18; Luke 18:19). These statements do not contradict, but are complementary if one assumes they assert an epistemological oneness with God, but an ontological separateness from the Unknowable Essence.”

Jesus Christ in the Bahá'í Writings

You can use scriptures to try to prove whatever you want to prove by picking and choosing what supports your views.
Then I can find other scriptures that support my views, and this can go on endlessly. I prefer to share my views and you can share yours and then we can see what our views have in common.

The Son, who is in eternal relation to the Father and Spirit, did not have to humble himself and choose to assume a human nature because the Son of God had BOTH a human nature and a divine nature. That means that God conferred upon Jesus a spiritual nature that ordinary humans do not possess. God assigned a twofold nature upon Jesus, the physical, pertaining to the world of matter, and the spiritual nature, which is born of the substance of God Himself. You can call that His divine nature.

I will leave you with this passage that explains the twofold nature of Jesus.

“Unto this subtle, this mysterious and ethereal Being He hath assigned a twofold nature; the physical, pertaining to the world of matter, and the spiritual, which is born of the substance of God Himself. He hath, moreover, conferred upon Him a double station. The first station, which is related to His innermost reality, representeth Him as One Whose voice is the voice of God Himself. To this testifieth the tradition: “Manifold and mysterious is My relationship with God. I am He, Himself, and He is I, Myself, except that I am that I am, and He is that He is.” …. The second station is the human station, exemplified by the following verses: “I am but a man like you.” “Say, praise be to my Lord! Am I more than a man, an apostle?”​
 
I see you have a lot of extra biblical beliefs specifically about Christ Jesus. I have come to know Jesus exclusively thru Scripture. Your assumptions of Jesus beyond scripture are just that. Assumptions. And so would mine. So please know that I did not say that to offend you. But It is vital that we understand God correctly, and even more important, WHY JESUS WAS MANIFESTED, lest we be deceived and believe a lie. The bible is very clear why he came and what his purpose (Big Picture) when he appeared on earth. I am curious why do you believe Jesus, as per 1 Timothy 3:16 does infact say " was manifested in the Flesh "? What was his purpose for coming to earth?
 
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