If you have no faith, Let me ask you one question?

What if your wrong?

Think about it...

Do you want to risk eternity on your arrogance?
___________________________________________

I cannot be wrong because I do not know. I do not have any certainty. I have experiences that lead me to believe there is a power greater than all I know that understands the ultimate truths that may one day be revealed to me, too; but they are far from being revealed now. I fear dying; yet, I accept its inevitability and certainly wish no prolonging of life if I am terminal, only a peaceful transition into...sleep? eternity? union with God? I don't know. I only know that being born was likely not a choice after nine months of comfort, but I still forced my way from the womb into this world. Dying a physical death may transition me to another world or it may be a sleep without dreams. No one seems to really have it locked down, though some claim they do. I am glad for their certainty. It must comfort them.

What's it like to be dead? Remember 1900? No? That's what it's like. Just guessing, of course.

But, you ask, what if I'm wrong? What am I really risking?

If his eye is on the sparrow, how come he let my Mom suffer terribly for a year, puking her guts up every day and shooting up morphine and then, down to 70 pounds, kack at 43? He could have taken his eye off that sparrow long enough to look out for my Mom. She was one of the good people.

If that's the kind of eternity I'm offered, hanging out with and sucking up to an empty robe like that, I'll pass.

Imagine an eternity of nothing going wrong. No wonder we all try to delay it as long as possible. People just standing around, eating chocolate cake and saying, "I'm having a good time. Are you having a good time?"

Believe in our religion - just in case. That is fear, not faith.
As DK said, "no one knows."

My belief: Since the body is made up of energy, and energy never dies, when the body finally crumbles, the energy goes back to the source from where it came. What happens after that is the mystery.

On another note: According to what we witness on TV, God is busy helping people win ball games.

A stupid question...if one has not proven if there is, or is not a God; why do they post on Religion and Spirituality?

Al,

I don't know why, but your Mom sounds like Job. I am sorry she suffered so. There is no explanation, except that life is not fair.

I exercised, walked four miles per day, watched what I ate drank zero alcohol, didn't take drugs or smoke and am a mess.

I believe in God and don't think He is in organized religion.

I used to be heavily involved in church politics--no more.
I believe in the resurrection. It makes going to funerals easier.

If I am wrong, I won't know it. I will die with hope.

I also think religion is a personal matter between God and myself.

God reveals Himself to us differently and we respond differently.
Forcing somene to share my view is not beneficial to anyone.

Sometimes I have a problem using the term, "God." Somewhere at the back of my mind, in spite of all my study and changes in perspective, I still see that bearded grandfather up in the sky. I still use the term, because it is simpler, but I wonder if people misunderstand what I'm saying because of the same over-simplification. There are other names and expressions: Universal Intelligence, Absolute Reality, Source, The Is, to mention a few.

None of them help to explain the needless suffering some of us go through. There is so very much that we don't know.

You can put it in polarities, God and religion at one extreme, science at the other, and insist on an either/or explanation, or you can attempt to find a center, a middle ground where each becomes a little more understandable in their relationship to each other.

We live in an evolving universe that is under the direction of a single source - not a being but an essence that imagines beings into existence. Brahman dreaming? "Let there be light." There are so many metaphors from so many religious sources. The problem comes when we try to make the symbols concrete - when we attempt to literalize the myth.

Suffering is the polar opposite of joy. We cannot know one without the other. In the center of the two extremes, we find compassion. Love is the driving force behind evolution.

Just a few thoughts.

Ann

Ann,

Good thoughts!

Good thoughts, Ann. Reading your comments and those of DK, I think my thoughts/beliefs are closely related.

I made a comment that the operation I went through changed me. It did. I no longer fear death. At one point I wished it. I sensed lots of love and peace.

Abe,

You have a pm.

In His own image? Why does God have nostrils?

alj said:

"You can put it in polarities, God and religion at one extreme, science at the other, and insist on an either/or explanation, or you can attempt to find a center, a middle ground where each becomes a little more understandable in their relationship to each other."

I see it as God at one extreme...religion at the other...the two don't mix.

Domenic,

I see it your way.

Just ran across this one:

“Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world.
We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but
we can choose
to live in joy.” - Joseph Campbell

Ann

helma wrote:

What if your wrong?

Think about it...

Do you want to risk eternity on your arrogance?
___________________________________________

Many folks don't know. They are not arrogant. Early childhood training
might be part of the situation.

I went to church and parochial schools. All my life I have had the belief that God was the Creator and that He would come again.

Others who have not been reared that way might not find it easy to believe.

God reveals Himself to people in different times and ways. We are all His children and chosen people.

I found out my church didn't know everything.

Coffee was evil, jewelry was terrible, dancing was sinful, movies were outlawed, we were the only ones going to heaven, etc. It was therefore necessary for us to compell everyone we met to adher to our religion.

Speaking again of science and religion, I was just rereading a bit about how quantum physics can show us the relationship between the two, and give us answers for the 21st century. We now know that matter is a form of energy, and energy cannot be destroyed, only changed.

The essence of who we are, the energy of us, the part that is not material, may change its form, but it never ceases to exist.

The subatomic particles that make up the material "reality" of who and what we are, and what the world we "see" around us consists of, are directed, and can be changed, by our observation. We see what we believe to be real. When we change what we believe, we change our "reality."

This is the power of faith.

Just a few "observations" from the world as I "see" it at the moment.

Ann

Ann,

So true!

Ann,
That is also my belief.

alice wrote:

...dancing was sinful...

I heard about a fundamentalist church that forbade its members from having sex standing up. They were afraid it would lead to dancing.

alj wrote:

The essence of who we are, the energy of us, the part that is not material, may change its form, but it never ceases to exist.

If, however, upon departure we return to rejoin the energy that is an integration of our collective sentient beings, then the self that we know now is redistributed among all the others and loses its identity.

Shirley McLain didn't used to be somebody else. She used to be everybody else, and will be again.

Proof of God is everywhere. Witness the rose that joe grew. We just don't all agree on what form God takes and the extent to which such a diety cares a whit about our existence.

The notion of an omnipotent power that "wants" something from us in our beliefs and behaviours is a contradiction.

(somehow I got an empty reply to myself posted.)

Dear Al,
Joe has a way with flowers. He has a way with nature.

What I know to be true, not my religion, not anything to do with faith in the afterstuff, is that life and death are a circle. Ann has it right in the energy that flows on in and out of each of us. I take that to be true. We are born. Life is the great gift. We live and finally we die. Humans believe that they are set apart and specially selected from the rest of the animal kingdom by some diety and given the cognition of a spirit and a soul. That is the first lie.

Such small, small stiches we are in the web of life.

p. 23 Ghost Orchid "She floated in the ninety degree sea, almost like floating in air with each the same temperature so close to body heat...Maybe death is like this, the absence of body or thought, just floating in warmth and simplicity, back to the womb from which we originated..."

p. 30 Ghost Orchid "...she looked at the controlled burn area; the charred remains of trees and shrubs were now overgrown with spreading, purple morning glories. This was where she wanted her ashes scattered so her spirit could mix with the earth and blend her life force with the cycle of life that existed in this marvelous place for over 600 years...here, her spirit would be free. Her ashes in this place would be protected as they worked their way through the cycle of living flora and fauna."

helma wrote:

What if your wrong?

Think about it...

Do you want to risk eternity on your arrogance?
___________________________________________

Maybe it isn't arrogance.

Maybe some people don't want eternity.

Maybe we need to define eternity. Is it an infinite stretch of linear time? How boring.

I have experienced something like timelessness when I get so involved in a project that I realize, after a while, that several hours have passed, and I was not aware of the passing, I was so totally engrossed in the joy and bliss of what I was doing. It was like the present moment had expanded, and linear time did not exist.

Ann