What Happens When You Die?

[Muffled]

Personally I don't believe in blame. Not saying it's wrong for you to do so. For me I just see people going about things the best they can. Also I have in my head that I can't be harmed unless I allow others to harm me. So my allowance of that harm I see as making me responsible. A lack of attachment prevents harm as well. I'm not saying I'm completely detached but enough so that causing me any harm is not an easy task.

I believe I know where you are coming from but I don't see it as beneficial. However there is an element of it in Christianity that although one suffers harm in the short run one is not harmed in the long run. The way I am harmed in the long run is committing sin myself.

Kind of too bad IMO. I venerate many of the teachings of Jesus. However protestant churches seem to push the theology of Paul.

I believe Paul is the only one who has a systematic theology. I have a problem with rote prayer because it can lead to mumbling the words without seeing the significance of them. However I think a reminder is good now and then.

When I was 17, I gave my life to God. Not Jesus, just God. Whatever in my life cause me to reach that point, I was sincere. However being raised a Christian, I had often gone to the front of the church with the obligatory acceptance of Jesus as my lord and savior. The acceptance of Jesus did nothing for me. Nothing happened, nothing changed in my life.

I believe it is due to the fact that you already went through the experience when you accepted God so accepting Jesus was redundant.

When I offered my life to God, all of my burden was lifted from me. It was quite an spiritual experience. I felt the presence of God and I was surrounded by light. I was unable to see anything around me because of the light.

I believe God visits people as He sees fit but it sounds a little like the Pauline experience. My light was diffuse and soft.

After that my worry left me because I felt that God was guiding me.

Much later I actually started reading the Bible mainly in order to dispute it. Because of my church upbringing, and my spiritual experience, I felt there was something terribly wrong with Christianity. However I was surprised to fine that much of what Jesus said fit with my experiences.

I assume speaking in tongues means to be able to speak in a known language that one has no knowledge of, not just glossolalia. I can let myself "speak" in what appears to be a language but I suspect it is just gibberish. It's a little freaky because I've no conscious control over it. It maybe something the mind is unconsciously capable of.

Real speaking in tongues I'd think as I said, one should be able to speak clearly in a foreign language.

The mind is very tricky. To me the mind is the adversary. It is the real "devil". It can fool a person into accepting itself as evidence of the Holy Spirit. People have a real spiritual experience and afterwards the mind steps in convincing a person that all manner of random thoughts were delivered by the Holy Spirit.

I wouldn't expect to convince you otherwise. You have to trust your best understanding on this. Not someone else's. I just try to be as honest as I can with my own experiences.

I suspect that Christianity, the intent of the original Church was to provide a fellowship for people afflicted with such spiritual experiences. Not to dictate the only correct and proper way to approach God. To support the honesty of the experience and not denounce what others experienced if it didn't fit with the proper theology.

I think there are some Christian groups this is still true of, like the Quakers for example. Some individual Christians. That appear incredibly spiritual to me.

However I find the same among other beliefs as well. Many individuals trying their best to understand these spiritual experiences.

I believe the language I receive is a real language but not one of earth. All foreign languages sound like gibberish to me. I believe the language is a gift from God so I don't attribute it to anything else. However I believe Satan can counterfeit it and someone not knowing God could also speak in tongues.

I believe this happens also but not yet to me because I have no need of it.

I believe being able to discern whether something is spiritual is also a gift.

I believe so but the nature of man is to make up his own rules as Jesus told the Pharisees "you make up your own rules that even you don't obey" (That is a paraphrase and not a direct quote).

The Quakers have their own rules that they have made up. I attended Friends Meeting for a while but I missed communion and an hour of silence didn't do much for me. We had a Pagan and a Buddhist attending so their is no doubt they welcome many people to their fellowship. However they were not as welcoming to Muslims who they perceived as breaking Quaker rules.

Finding a place to fellowship is always difficult but I go where Jesus sends me. I believe wherever I go now there will be a level of discomfort. It helps for me to remember that Jesus allows a church that is less than perfect while calling it to be better. The letters to the churches in Revelations gives some idea of how Jesus views the church.

 

[Muffled]

hey GNG,
I just thought of your entry about the ocean,
in reference to walking on the beach, as I am oft doing, when while walking and picking up a seashell,
listening closely to the sound that comes from the shell,
is the whole ocean, and that sound will be there long after I die.
I wonder if there are seashells in heaven, I'll have to ask Thief or Savage or someone,
I bet they'll know.
~
'mud

There is nothing material in Heaven. The spirit will bring about the image of seashells that seems real and walking on the beach also if one wishes.

 

[RichardParker]

@GodnotGod
So, I went through your new comments, and I still have to tell you that there are a lot of assertions there (actually, you didn't really provide any evidence for your assertions, you've just piled onto them).
You say at one point, that you can't provide evidence... In which case, I think we are done.
If you agree that you can't provide evidence, then you can't convince me... and I don't know why you are convinced either. We believe things for reasons, but unless you have any evidence, you clearly don't believe it for good reasons. You might believe it because there are emotional appeals to it, you might believe it, because it sounded deep, and you like deep sounding stuff...
But what I've read is, as I've said before, incoherent. It's a lot of spiritually-sounding, but essentially undefined and vague terms, that don't really add up to anything with content.
I'm not trying to be mean here, but I've gone through all of your comments now a number of times, and I've tried to ask my responding questions as clearly as possible, and yet you still have to answer pretty much all of them, so I don't know that we can come to a conclusion.

If you are still interessted, just pick one of these questions (which are the essential ones), and try to explain it, in not vague terms:

-What's the evidence that there is an underlying consciousness to the universe?
-How can you claim, that there are no parts to the universe, when you at the same time claim that everything in the universe is connected... which depends on the things being connected actually being seperate things (NOT to the universe, since they are all PART of the universe, but to each other)?

 

[Nakosis]

I believe the language I receive is a real language but not one of earth. All foreign languages sound like gibberish to me. I believe the language is a gift from God so I don't attribute it to anything else. However I believe Satan can counterfeit it and someone not knowing God could also speak in tongues.

I believe this happens also but not yet to me because I have no need of it.

I believe being able to discern whether something is spiritual is also a gift.

I believe one has to approach it as honestly as possible and make their best determination about it. I don't think any more can be asked.

I believe so but the nature of man is to make up his own rules as Jesus told the Pharisees "you make up your own rules that even you don't obey" (That is a paraphrase and not a direct quote).

Yes I agree, however I think it is between the individual and God. Certainly one can advise, to assist where it is felt correction is necessary. However ultimately I trust God to provide the correct understanding. The thing is, I could be as wrong in my understanding. Perhaps God is working through someone else to correct me.

The Quakers have their own rules that they have made up. I attended Friends Meeting for a while but I missed communion and an hour of silence didn't do much for me. We had a Pagan and a Buddhist attending so their is no doubt they welcome many people to their fellowship. However they were not as welcoming to Muslims who they perceived as breaking Quaker rules.

Surprises me, still my experience with them is limited. I would be disappointed if I saw that. it is individuals that are are involved. They represent themselves not really the entire group.

Finding a place to fellowship is always difficult but I go where Jesus sends me. I believe wherever I go now there will be a level of discomfort. It helps for me to remember that Jesus allows a church that is less than perfect while calling it to be better. The letters to the churches in Revelations gives some idea of how Jesus views the church.

I feel that God has sent individuals to me to teach me, provide some further understanding. However they are less then perfect. One can't accept any instruction blindly. Again I'm left to make my best judgment which is not perfect either but I believe I get shown the errors of my ways. Unfortunately I'm not the quickest learner so I often have to get shown a few times.

 

[Nakosis]

Originally Posted by Muffled
I believe I know where you are coming from but I don't see it as beneficial. However there is an element of it in Christianity that although one suffers harm in the short run one is not harmed in the long run. The way I am harmed in the long run is committing sin myself.

How do you define sin? It's pretty straight forward in the OT, but I don't see it defined well in the NT.

I believe Paul is the only one who has a systematic theology. I have a problem with rote prayer because it can lead to mumbling the words without seeing the significance of them. However I think a reminder is good now and then.

I have some disagreement with Paul. Not entirely, I kind of understand, I think, where he is coming from but I don't think he has the same authority as Jesus. That just my opinion.

I believe it is due to the fact that you already went through the experience when you accepted God so accepting Jesus was redundant.

I believe God visits people as He sees fit but it sounds a little like the Pauline experience. My light was diffuse and soft.

Maybe, however what I accept is the reality of what seems to be a common spiritual experience. It seems some Atheists think that it is nothing more then a blind faith. However there are real experiences involved that can't be easily dismissed.

 

[Nakosis]

I think I've already adressed that.
Yes, to figure out what experience actually matches reality is not always easy, sometimes it might be impossible. But this doesn't actually change reality. That's why saying that we have different realities is in my opinion false. Reality doesn't change, just because our perseption doesn't give us a reliable picture of that reality.

Can you provide evidence that a reality exists independent of our perception?

And here I disagree completly.
No, my ignorance on a subject doesn't in any way make it reasonable for me to just accept somebodies claims, just because they claim that they do have knowledge about that subject. Even if I have no knowledge on the subject at all, I'm still completly justified to reject any claim you (or a respective claimed authority on the subject) are making, if you do so without providing any evidence.

Didn't say it was reasonable to you accept any claim because of your own ignorance. What I'm saying is if you want to learn about something you have to trust someone claiming to have knowledge at least to the point of being willing to follow what they teach you so you can test and verify the truth of it for yourself.

This implies that you f.e. can distinguish between hallucination and enlightenment. And I wonder what mechanism you use for that. After all, if you were just hallucinating, you would obviously hallucinate something that seems real and convincing to you...

Actually it means I can distinguish between something that only appears to be real and something that is actually real. Can you distinguish the difference?

What mechanism do you use. I not just trying to put the question back to you. However I'm curious whether they are similar.

What do you mean "dissatisfied" with what others are claiming about existence?
I'm also not always satisfied with reality, but reality doesn't owe me satisfaction. Reality is reality, and I better learn to deal with it, instead of trying to convince myself into believing in a "reality" that might not be real, but just satisfies me...
Or do I misunderstand you?

I guess mostly that there are questions which intellect and science seem unable to answer. Just because I intellectually accept a "reality" doesn't make it reality.

I may never know the entire truth about reality but that doesn't me I'm going to stop trying to find out.

 

[godnotgod]

@GodnotGod
So, I went through your new comments, and I still have to tell you that there are a lot of assertions there (actually, you didn't really provide any evidence for your assertions, you've just piled onto them).
You say at one point, that you can't provide evidence... In which case, I think we are done.
If you agree that you can't provide evidence, then you can't convince me... and I don't know why you are convinced either. We believe things for reasons, but unless you have any evidence, you clearly don't believe it for good reasons. You might believe it because there are emotional appeals to it, you might believe it, because it sounded deep, and you like deep sounding stuff...
But what I've read is, as I've said before, incoherent. It's a lot of spiritually-sounding, but essentially undefined and vague terms, that don't really add up to anything with content.
I'm not trying to be mean here, but I've gone through all of your comments now a number of times, and I've tried to ask my responding questions as clearly as possible, and yet you still have to answer pretty much all of them, so I don't know that we can come to a conclusion.

If you are still interessted, just pick one of these questions (which are the essential ones), and try to explain it, in not vague terms:

-What's the evidence that there is an underlying consciousness to the universe?
-How can you claim, that there are no parts to the universe, when you at the same time claim that everything in the universe is connected... which depends on the things being connected actually being seperate things (NOT to the universe, since they are all PART of the universe, but to each other)?

I can see that we're getting nowhere fast, in spite of what I've told you. You simply refuse to see or understand anything outside your paradigm, to which you tenaciously cling. And that is understandable, since, from where I sit, you're simply in a hypnotic state. From your point of view, you think what I and Nakosis are describing are simply a set of beliefs. Beliefs rely on thought, but the spiritual experience is beyond all thought. I'm sure you can at least have a vague idea about what I am trying to tell you, even though you apparently never had such experiences. For you, only factual knowledge is genuine; you know of no other pathway to knowledge of a different kind. For me, this is like the escaped prisoner trying to tell the others in Plato's Cave what the Sun is like. So, you see, what we are saying is verifiable, but not on the terms provided by Logic, Reason, and Analysis. The experience is perfectly verifiable via your going to see for yourself. But in order for real seeing to occur, obstacles and other baggage must first be gotten out of the way, and that obstacle is the thinking mind itself, and all it contains, which puts concept between you and Reality. And so, until you can get enough of the thinking mind subdued to the point where even a glimpse of Reality is made available to you, you will continue to demand factual evidence when none exists. From here, all I see is that you are living in a box, but the box itself is a completely convincing illusion, and it is from the perspective of this box-like thinking that you make the decision that anything outside the box is twaddle, which is a decision based upon what the box dictates to you. But I can only say that, until you have had a genuine spiritual experience, you should not make assumptions about things you know nothing about. From the mystic's point of view, science is accepted and understood, along with the mystical view; but from yours, only science is acceptable. So what does that tell you about which is the wider view?

I have provided some factual evidence to support some of what I am saying to you, such as the experiment in brain non-locality, and the other info and video about emergentism, both of which you seem to have completely ignored. So at this point, I refuese to go to the trouble for you any longer. You are just in complete denial that other kinds of genuine knowledge have been in existence for thousands of years before modern Western science came on the scene, which is still wet behind the ears. What I think you fail to understand is that all of this new scientific knowledge only creates more paradox about the nature of Reality, and that is because nature is non-rational. You are trying to superimpose rationally-based concepts over something that does not conform to your system, and it does not because it is a conscious, living thing, which you approach as a dead, mechanistic one, composed of 'parts'. You are being misled.

 

[godnotgod]

This implies that you f.e. can distinguish between hallucination and enlightenment. And I wonder what mechanism you use for that. After all, if you were just hallucinating, you would obviously hallucinate something that seems real and convincing to you...

There is no 'mechanism' by which one makes the distinction other than via Enlightenment itself. That is why it can be called 'Enlightenment'. Enlightenment is not a trick of the senses; it is beyond the senses. You cannot hallucinate and be enlightened at the same time. It is enlightenment which shows you what the nature of a hallucination is.

"Where there is light, there is no nescience"

When you go topside to see the Sun, (a metaphor for true Reality) you will then know that the shadows cast upon the cave walls were only illusions.

 

[RichardParker]

I can see that we're getting nowhere fast, in spite of what I've told you. You simply refuse to see or understand anything outside your paradigm, to which you tenaciously cling.

I don't cling to anything.
Haven't I been listening to you very patiently? Haven't I tried everything to actually get at least some coherent explanation out of you?
I'm just not willing to take the many assertions you make on board without questioning them. This is not "clinging to a paradigm", this is simple, healthy sceptisism.

 

[RichardParker]

Can you provide evidence that a reality exists independent of our perception?

No. This is just an asumption.
But in contrary to many of the assumtions that get thown around here a lot, this is actually a necessary one. Because if we assume the oposite (that reality just exists in our minds), then we would stop interacting all together, since there is no point interacting with an illusion.

Didn't say it was reasonable to you accept any claim because of your own ignorance. What I'm saying is if you want to learn about something you have to trust someone claiming to have knowledge at least to the point of being willing to follow what they teach you so you can test and verify the truth of it for yourself.

I don't see why we need trust for that.
If a claim is true, then we can confirm it... regardless if we originally trusted the persons claim. That's the nature of things that are true: They don't depend on opinions or faith to be verifiable.

Actually it means I can distinguish between something that only appears to be real and something that is actually real. Can you distinguish the difference?

What mechanism do you use. I not just trying to put the question back to you. However I'm curious whether they are similar.

Well, having something that can be investigated and verified by other people certainly helps. If I just have an experience that can't be verified by others, it at least has to give me some information which I can verify and cross-check with other people.
Of course, as stated in the very beginning, if ALL my senses are desieving me, to the point where even the rest of the world I experience is fake, this mechanism will fail.
But leaving aside the problem of solopsism, we can test the reliability of an experience by having it tested and replicated by independent sources.

 

[godnotgod]

I don't cling to anything.
Haven't I been listening to you very patiently? Haven't I tried everything to actually get at least some coherent explanation out of you?
I'm just not willing to take the many assertions you make on board without questioning them. This is not "clinging to a paradigm", this is simple, healthy sceptisism.

Of course you are clinging. You use a system of thought as a tool to determine what factual knowledge is called science.

To see things as they are, on the other hand, is to let go of all systems of thought.

I don't know what is so incoherent about that. It seems incoherent because you are filtering through your conceptual mind, which is conditioned to only accept ideas which match those already hardwired into your brain.

 

[godnotgod]

No. . Because if we assume the oposite (that reality just exists in our minds), then we would stop interacting all together, since there is no point interacting with an illusion.

You interact with illusions all the time, but are simply unaware of that fact. If you want proof of this, please go watch the video I provided from the researcher in consciousness, Donald Hoffman, here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqDP34a-epI

 

[outhouse]

Still, this does not mean that the brain creates consciousness. The brain can simply be a local receiver/storage for non-local consciousness.

Sure it does, its the only place you have conscious thought from.


OR you would be able to explain why brain damage, effects consciousness.


Um that last part is fantasy and imagination

 

[godnotgod]

Sure it does, its the only place you have conscious thought from.

You don't know that, and neither do the researchers at this point. The TV set is not from where the signals originate.

OR you would be able to explain why brain damage, effects consciousness.


Um that last part is fantasy and imagination

....or even maybe why some people have lived for years with little brain tissue, or no brain at all, and yet some have even had high IQ's. But in answer to your question, the brain has been shown to be highly elastic and resilent. It may be reconstructing 'consciousness' from what is left after the damage. Or better, that non-local consciousness is 'fixing' the damaged brain. After all, we do have documented evidence that consciousness, via long term meditation, actually grows thicker cerebral cortexes.

Um that last part is fantasy and imagination

 

[Thief]

You don't know that, and neither do the researchers at this point. The TV set is not from where the signals originate.



....or even maybe why some people have lived for years with little brain tissue, or no brain at all, and yet some have even had high IQ's. But in answer to your question, the brain has been shown to be highly elastic and resilent. It may be reconstructing 'consciousness' from what is left after the damage. Or better, that non-local consciousness is 'fixing' the damaged brain. After all, we do have documented evidence that consciousness, via long term meditation, actually grows thicker cerebral cortexes.

Um that last part is fantasy and imagination

So now then confession begins!
Elastic brains and thick cortexes.

Sounds like kinky sex wear!

 

[outhouse]

....or even maybe why some people have lived for years with little brain tissue, or no brain at all,

boloney, provide sources.

live does not mean conscious

 

[Majikthise]

If there is a hell, you will have to take state conflict of intrest tests all day.
That's what I'm doing right now.
Kill me. Please.

 

[outhouse]

You don't know that,

yes I do.

thanks for playing.


Your bringing imagination as a source for your argument

 

[godnotgod]

boloney, provide sources.

live does not mean conscious

Yes, that's BA-loney, and not BO-loney. Actually, it's Bologna.

'Jur peppers, pliz'. Thus spraketh der Nazis.

'We dho-nna godda show you no e-stinking badges!'

High IQ is a pretty good indicator of the presence of consciousness, I think.

Anyway, here is just a random pick amongst other similar docs:

Do You Really Need To Have A Brain?

...and here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPGZSC8odIU

 

[godnotgod]

yes I do.

No, you don't. You just like to think so, just as the theist likes to think his beliefs represent Absolute Truth. The real situation, at least within science, is that the nature of consciousness and its relationship to the brain is called 'The Hard Problem'. Emergent 'Theory' is still just a weak hypothesis.

Here. Dr. Gary Schwartz explains why the findings that seem to support materialist's Emergent Theory may not actually do so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-6hosFAObI