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The Forum > Article Comments > Is heaven real? > Comments

Is heaven real? : Comments

By Peter Sellick, published 16/8/2006

The church is divided between those who know too much about heaven and those who are uncomfortable with it.

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The truth is that heaven is made up like the rest of the story.
Posted by Kenny, Wednesday, 16 August 2006 9:16:18 AM
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This is a sermon about heaven you have just delivered Peter
Posted by Vioetbou, Wednesday, 16 August 2006 9:27:42 AM
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It doesn't matter if heaven is real or not, does it? And we will never know about such things for sure.

But if umpteen million people feel so insecure as to create in their minds a nice safe place, then so be it. Maybe is has a useful sociological purpose. So long as they do no harm to others.

Problem is, so many religious devotees do do incredible harm. The most pertinent question ought to be "Is the invention of heaven a curse or a bain for society at large?"

Looking around me, I would argue the former, but I may be wrong.

Believers and unbelievers can live together in harmony. So let's let go of all that. The major danger to humankind comes not from belief but from fanatical belief - amongst hard core muslims and hard core christians.

That's where our fucus ought to be.
Posted by gecko, Wednesday, 16 August 2006 9:47:35 AM
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Heaven on Earth - Part 1

There will surely be a heaven on Earth when people learn to co-exist in a manner befitting sentient beings. We have plundered our brains just as we have plundered our other natural resources, and so denied ourselves the full measure of these blessings. We didn't have to deny ourselves anything - just take it easy, and not go at it like a bull at a gate - that's all.

We don't need no afterlife. There is time aplenty in a contented mind.

There seems to be two forces at play. Those that attract people together and those that repel. I sense that we live in some sort of equilibrium between the two.

If I were to make a ledger of attractive and repulsive influences, which column would politics, profit, love, power, go in to? Are some things neutral? Above all, which column would organised religious creeds go into?

I would have to say that on past and present performance, religion would go squarely into the repulsive column. What to do?

As they stand, religions reach a critical mass once they are filled with people with a common interest. Then they tend to become almost tribal and flip over into repulsion mode. Have we missed the point?

Take that hippie looking feller who turned up a couple of thou ago. He had a glimmer of an idea, saw something new out of the corner of his eye. But ever since his murder, the pious dance on his grave while reading from a piece of second-hand antiquarian tat, instead of using the common sense grace they were born with.

(watch this space - the robot might savage part 2)
Posted by Chris Shaw, Carisbrook 3464, Wednesday, 16 August 2006 11:22:11 AM
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Heaven on Earth - Part 2

Isn't about time we wrote some gospels of our own? MUST we have a messiah? Why should we be bounded by past performance? Can we do it collectively instead of waiting for some KING to come along?

Religions were the politics of their day, never forget that. We could write a constitution that would stand as a measure of our goodwill to each other, not only to serve this nation, but the world as a whole. It would have to do that, or fail as just another divisive piece of tat.

This is 2006. The sine qua non of religious reformation MUST be that religious leaders from all creeds must gather and stand together for all the world to see. They must embrace. They must check their "uniforms" at the door. They must leave their "handbooks" at home. A "clean break" (where have I heard that before?). A new day. A new start. A new gospel that includes everyone and everything.

It's doable. It really is.
Posted by Chris Shaw, Carisbrook 3464, Wednesday, 16 August 2006 11:23:24 AM
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I will be in Heaven, when I open the door and see all the good friends who have died before me, and we talk till eternity about our good times on this earth.
The path at the back door will open out to a ground where Melbourne Storm are beating a Sydney team and Carlton are thrashing Collingwood and in the distance Micheal Doohan and Alan Jones are both beating the field in a Live Grand Prix.
The Muslim,Christian,Jew style of God is a harsh father who will curse any wrong doing,by his children.
So all wrong doers are at the mercy of God,Allah,or whatever name we give HIM,for unlike the Christian Scientists who believe that GOD is a Mum,and she will put up with any wrong doing,and change the Bible to suit the day.
Posted by BROCK, Wednesday, 16 August 2006 2:20:06 PM
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Most surveys in the West seem to indicate that a large percentage of the population believe they go to heaven but few go to hell. Seems to be the opposite to what Scriptures teach. The non belief in heaven and hell invalidates Jesus dying on the cross.

The Scriptures don't say a lot about heaven (at least not as much than it does about hell). If no judgement existed God would need to apologise for many of the rotten people who lived lives of luxury and ease while a lot of the people serving the poor lived in poverty and distress.

It isnot very wise to take bits and pieces of Gods Word and determine if you are going to believe it or not. You either believe and receive the words of the Lord Jesus Christ or you reject them. He spoke clearly of a resurrection of the righteous and unrighteous
Posted by runner, Wednesday, 16 August 2006 2:49:41 PM
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The truth is that you have to be dead to know anything about heaven.
So Peter Sellick, just how did you write this piece from the grave?
Heaven is a mythical place. If it is not a mythical place, let's all go there.
OK, so we can't go there.
So it is only in some people's minds and not others like Wonderland in Alice's story.
Posted by GlenWriter, Wednesday, 16 August 2006 2:59:00 PM
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Peter, good article.
I suspect the reason we hear so few sermons on heaven is that most priests who share your views daren't serve grown-up theology to their congregations. Heaven as the happy home of dead believers is one of the most comforting but destructive myths of the modern church, but it's a brave preacher who takes it on.
Posted by Rhian, Wednesday, 16 August 2006 4:20:59 PM
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Heaven and Hell have been secularised by our materialist politicians ages ago. We get regular sermons on them every week.

The secular heaven are the blissfull golden years enjoyed by those with bountiful superannuation and private health insurance. But woe those with insufficient super they'll be regurgitated by the pension hounds, beaten up in random house invasions and kept waiting in medicare lines forever.

Perhaps Baz Luhrmann can make a modern secular version of Dante's trilogy to illustrate the point.
Posted by gusi, Wednesday, 16 August 2006 4:50:10 PM
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Of course heaven exists, just as much as god does. The article appears to be a thinking-out-loud exercise in self-conviction, and the author could just as easily fall one way or the other depending on already-held beliefs.

That's the thing about faith. Belief makes it true - but only for the believer. The only certainty, as the author points out, is that no-one else quite believes the same thing.
Posted by bennie, Wednesday, 16 August 2006 5:00:36 PM
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First of all, I would like to point out that I am not a Christian but of an earthly path. I like to prefer myself as a 'child of the earth'.

Why is it that atheists find it their duty to attack people who hold a faith? Isn't hypocritical to attack someone of faith, especially Christians for bible bashing(etc) yet attack them forthrightly without provacation? After all, nobody forced you to read it.

It is not of my faith to run around trying to convert anyone so I feel comfortable with living my own life and letting others come to me. This is how I believe it should be. Be the beacon of light in the dark tunnel, not the blood hound sniffing everyone out.

I was not actually going to post anything here. I have only done so because of those who decided to visciously attack someone just because they hold to a faith system.

If YOU feel the need to attack such people, YOU need to get yourself a life.
Posted by Spider, Wednesday, 16 August 2006 5:22:39 PM
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Three men arrive at the gates of heaven. St. Peter asks the first man,

"Religion?"The first man replies, "Episcopalian."

St. Peter looks down his list and says, "go to room 24. But be very

quiet as you pass room 8."To the second man St. Peter asks, "Religion."

The second man replies "Methodist."

St. Peter looks down his list and says, "Go to room 14. But be very

quiet as you pass room 8."To the third man St. Peter asks. "Religion."

The third man replies, "Baptist."

St. Peter looks down his list and says. "Go to room 21. But be very

quiet as you pass room 8."

The third man then says to St. Peter, "I can understand there being

different rooms for different religions, but why must we be

quiet when we pass room 8?"

St. Peter tells him, "Well the catholics are in room 8, and they

think they're the only ones here."
Posted by Rainier, Wednesday, 16 August 2006 8:11:21 PM
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Yes Rainier,
That is exactly what Chistianity is about, pompsity, sham and elitism and my version is better than your version.
The Bible translated into today's modern language loses all its mysticism.
Religion is all glass and mirrors.
Posted by GlenWriter, Wednesday, 16 August 2006 8:34:36 PM
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I was baptised as a baby, and confirmed into the anglican high church at eleven.

At age 12 it struck me that I had no knowledge of what would happen after I die, and despite the claims of religious people around me, none of them knew any more about this than than I did. So their threats of hell fire or promises of eternal bliss (or 70 virgins/raisins) were purely speculative, and possibly motivated by something other than reality.

I remember at that age that a decision not to accept this world view was somewhat scary, but also incredibly liberating. I haven't regretted it since.

I still believe that critically analysing our early indoctrination is a pretty central part of being a grown up.
Posted by Snout, Wednesday, 16 August 2006 9:00:32 PM
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Glenwriter, yes agree with that, and it seems that First God created us, and then we created religions to believe in God. kinda stupid really, building something that continually questions the original act of belief in something bigger than us all.
Posted by Rainier, Wednesday, 16 August 2006 9:05:13 PM
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Hi Sir,

Heaven is Real. If you say you are a Christian (one who knows Christ Jesus) and doubt the very Christ's words.., are you a christian/priest?

Remember Jesus words:

" I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one can come to my Father(Father's place/Heaven) except through me."

" In my Father's place, there are many mansions..."

Please pastor, don't mock Jesus with your words.

Michael.
Posted by Michael Reeve, Wednesday, 16 August 2006 9:19:07 PM
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Jesus was a good bloke,but I don't think he took himself as seriously as his avid followers.Remember "The Life of Brian"Always look on the bright side of life.

To be truly religious or spiritual,you have to have faith in yourself and expect no reward at the end of your consciousness.

Those who cling to religion or money as the source of their power, miss the point entirely.Enjoy this present moment,since your heaven or hell,is now.
Posted by Arjay, Wednesday, 16 August 2006 9:45:03 PM
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"Dear God", hope you got the letter, and ... I pray you can make it better down here. I don't mean a big reduction in the price of beer but all the people that you made in your image, see them starving on their feet 'cause they don't get enough to eat from God, ...

Dear God, sorry to disturb you, but ... I feel that I should be heard loud and clear. We all need a big reduction in amount of tears and all the people that you made in your image, see them fighting in the street 'cause they can't make opinions meet about God, ...

Did you make disease, and the diamond blue? Did you make mankind after we made you? And the devil too!

"Dear God", don't know if you noticed, but... your name is on a lot of quotes in this book, and us crazy humans wrote it, you should take a look, and all the people that you made in your image still believing that junk is true. Well I know it ain't, and so do you, dear God, I can't believe in - I don't believe in.

I won't believe in heaven and hell. No saints, no sinners, no devil as well. No pearly gates, no thorny crown. You're always letting us humans down. The wars you bring, the babes you drown. Those lost at sea and never found, and it's the same the whole world 'round. The hurt I see helps to compound that Father, Son and Holy Ghost is just somebody's unholy hoax, and if you're up there you'd perceive that my heart's here upon my sleeve. If there's one thing I don't believe in ... it's you ....

Words of wisdom from XTC's Andy Partridge.
Posted by Savage Pencil, Wednesday, 16 August 2006 10:25:35 PM
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Dear Savage Pencil,

My God, Jesus Christ is a Prince of Peace. He knew no sin. He did no sin. In him was no sin. He came to deliver humans from sin.

Please remember:

. He did not preach religion nor he told his disciples to preach so.
. He healed many sick people, cured their diseases..
. He asked his followers to forgive enemies; love neighbours.


Can you find any sort of evil/violent character in Him?.
Posted by Michael Reeve, Wednesday, 16 August 2006 10:52:35 PM
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It is a sad thing that, through the distortions of translation, literal interpretations, a prevailing lack of ability to see and interpret myths and the normal human desire to exert power, the bible and many other great old texts are so completely misunderstood.

To my reading, the author of this piece and each respondent has displayed one or ore of those weaknesses.

To understand 'heaven' I encourage all interested to study the works of Karen Horney. It is not easy, but you will find the answers in your own neuroses. And to understand christianity and other religions, I encourage any reading of Bishop(Ret) John Shelby Spong, who can teach us to read such texts in an informed and pensive manner.
Posted by Greenlight, Wednesday, 16 August 2006 11:14:10 PM
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Since Jesus taught us the prayer as prayed by the Essene community and John the baptizer, 'Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven". Obviously heaven is not some futuristic dream but a present reality not yet realised on Earth. Heaven is not a physical creation but a spiritual creation where the purity of God reigns. The prayer envisages a time when the spirit of God motivates us a humans to fully live in his character, actions, attitudes and wisdom.

The contrast exists of heaven with Earth [one is an eternal spiritual state the other a temporal natural state both co-existing] and the prayer invisages the purity of heaven be realised upon the earth. The use of the term "heaven" in the prayer does not refer to the created space, but the nature of the unseen a spiritual non dimentional state [to our minds created space best represents the idea]. By our praying we are from our deepest desire praying for a better world where right living is practised as normal. No more wars, tears, disease etc, but peace, healing, and fullness of life.

What remains eternal is purity of character, godlike actions, holy attitudes that enhance life, and wisdom in relationship with the divine and our neighbours, accepting responsibility for our character, attitudes, action and knowledge. Our bodies are borrowed from the substance of the earth; who we really are is expressed in our spirit. All those that have failed to acknowledge or respect [worship] the highest ideals as revealed by Jesus Christ of forgivness and blessing of ones enemies lives in denial of the will of God and is ultimately cast into Gehannah [God's garbage dump]. Those that live in God already realise they walk in the heavenlies, even if evil still persecutes or plagues them.
Posted by Philo, Thursday, 17 August 2006 1:11:12 AM
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Heaven is a clear conscience .
Hell is the torment of guilt .

To reside in heaven you must repent your sins .
How much clearer could it be ?

Now ,who ,what is god ?
God is the creator & controller of all things . In fact wherever you travel on the globe you will meet people who regardless of religion will universally identify what god is & that all that occurs everywhere is in effect gods will .
God is what we know as mother nature .
Every natural emotion we have is natures way of ensuring survival , This applies to all living things .
Ever wondered why those who identify as being of leftist political persuasion & believe that the state ought be supreme often display a degree contempt for religion ? This contempt is just an expression of fear of the natural competition that exists between all living things . We call it survival of the fittest . Natures way .

That’s how I see it anyway .
Posted by jamo, Thursday, 17 August 2006 1:51:37 AM
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If there is a heaven, which gods are in it? Jehovah? Yweh? Shiva? Zarathustra? Thor? Apollo? Zeus? How many others? Who amongst them gets to be boss? Is it a democracy? How do they resolve conflicts? If there are conflicts, does heaven then become not so heavenly, even hellish?

What do the people who make it to heaven do all the time? Do they have human needs & desires, a conscious mind and a capacity for right and wrongdoing? What if they do wrong? Do they get 'voted off the island'? What if the righteous cosnpire against the weak to expel them?

It would be hell to run heaven.
Posted by PK, Thursday, 17 August 2006 9:04:57 AM
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Heaven On Earth - Part 1

Philo, Jamo: Thank you for taking this thread down a spiritual-rooted-in-nature path. Much more productive than some socio-political direction espoused by “the church’, albeit more abstract. However I would take some alternate views to some aspects.

Philo, you suggested heaven is "a present reality not yet realised on Earth". I would contrast that with Jamo's "Heaven is a clear conscience. Hell is the torment of guilt." with which I would broadly agree, and would suggest is achievable for any normally wired person, given sufficient insight, reflection on self and personal growth, especially in relations with others. This is achievable on earth today and we have seen many people who appear to have achieved ‘heaven on earth’. The Bible indicates Jesus was a person who was one and I assume Paul, after the Damascus Road enlightenment appears to have been another. Nelson Mandela, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa and Aung Sung Suu Kyi each appear to be contemporary examples of people who have found that enlightened place of awareness, peace, equanimity, love and poise.

This is more than the absence of guilt, but that aspect resonates because the enlightened state of being ‘in heaven’ means that one better understands why things happen, can accept the reality of any situation and look on it without judgement. In this way, one can not only forgive others but can also “forgive us (ourselves) our trespasses”. The wonder of this state is that in heaven on earth one no longer needs to seek absolution from or through a priest. Rather, one is sufficiently mature and independent to accept and forgive oneself, no longer dwelling on self judgement or fearing the judgement of others. One recognises that God (whatever that higher power is) doesn’t really play games with humanity; rather that we are responsible for our own actions and how we choose to react to events and opportunities.

Continued in Part 2
Posted by Greenlight, Thursday, 17 August 2006 9:31:35 AM
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Further musings on what heaven might be like. (And, yes, pedants out there, I know that my list of potential gods in heaven contained a couple that are really just synonyms).

Eternity is a hell (whoops) of a long time. When we get to heaven, can we catch up with the sleep we missed out on while on earth? For those of us who didn't keep up in the fitness stakes, will we shed that cellulite and muscle up when we get there? If so, why bother while still here?

I don't want to get into the sport they play in heaven, but I'm interested in the music soundtrack. Nothing against harp music, but it could get monotonous. Gregorian chants? Gospel? God-bothering country music? They do say that the devil has the best music, so I guess there'll be no rock & roll. And I guess John Lennon's music wouldn't be top of the pops in heaven: 'no hell below us, above us only sky'.

A couple of people mentioned that heaven is merely the absence of guilt. But when you start to delve, that is a very unclear concept. I'm guilty because I don't visit my old mother enough, I don't spend enough time with my daughter, I don't do enought to help those less fortunate, I've watched 'Big Brother', I drink alcohol too much, I've had affairs, I've wished harm upon others, I once almost voted Liberal... do you see what a slippery slope that is?

So Jamo, I do repent my sins, no worries. That wipes the slate clean does it? I might commit murder before I die. Just repent, then I'll be right? If so, I'll just keep right on sinnin' and catch up with repentance later. I know I'm dicing with sudden death before I could repent, but hey, like is full of risks. Why should the hereafter be different?
Posted by PK, Thursday, 17 August 2006 9:59:30 AM
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If god is anything at all, it must surely be the simple uncritical love that one "being" instinctively feels for another. We feel it towards our children (unless something comes along to mess it up).

So read my words - I love you. I love you. I love you.

Just for a heartbeat, don't question my sincerity. Don't ask me my creed. Don't ask me my race. Don't fish around for my motive.

Don't reference the bible, the koran - whatever. Don't hang my words like a trophy in the footy club of your religion.

Don't try to fit me into Herod's time, nor Mohammed's. I am here and now, telling you this.

Don't look for my words in the Dead Sea Scrolls. They are not there.

They are here and now, and they are my testament to you -

I love you. I love you. I love you.

- but can you handle it?
Posted by Chris Shaw, Carisbrook 3464, Thursday, 17 August 2006 12:55:53 PM
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Someone tell me heaven is not real- how boring would it be to wander around there as a sinless soul millennium after millennium with other wandering sinless souls.

No drugs and sex and rock&roll; no knife, fork, bottle or cork in sight…

What would one do to kill unlimited time?!
Posted by Celivia, Thursday, 17 August 2006 3:08:47 PM
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Celvia. You could make those loverly "Philly Cream Cheese" things, for the sinless in heaven. Although I reckon a ripe blue cheese or vintage cheddar would be more appreciated. There again maybe not, as they dont have a good red wine to go with them in heaven, I hear!
Posted by Kipp, Thursday, 17 August 2006 4:37:19 PM
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I would have to agree on views with gecko a few posts ago that religion and heaven is something made up for people to have hope for in the next life. As much drama as religion causes in our society today, I would have to say that, if this belief can be practiced without being as harmful to us all as a culture, then there is no reason for it not to be there.

Epithemeos
“War on Religion”
http://hearingtheword.blogspot.com/
Posted by Epithemeos, Thursday, 17 August 2006 5:59:00 PM
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PK,

In answer to your question about the music in Heaven:

"The band in Heaven
They play my favorite song...
Play it once again....
Play it all night long"

Talking Heads: "Heaven"
Posted by Snout, Thursday, 17 August 2006 7:43:27 PM
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Celivia, if it is real I hope we can't hear the cries and screams of those who persist in using the idea of god to spread hate. That could get pretty tiring after a few thousand years.

Now for the days bible reading - from Matthew 25:35
"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thisty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me." - guess where they go

Then in v42
"For I was hungey and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me." - and for them something completely different.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Thursday, 17 August 2006 8:34:43 PM
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BOOK: Guest author on ABC Radio National Breakfast program this morning Thu, 17 Aug 2006.

Title We Are Their Heaven
Why the Dead Never Leave Us
By Allison DuBois

http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?tab=1&pid=515714&agid=2
Posted by Rainier, Thursday, 17 August 2006 9:18:30 PM
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PK I think you miss my point a bit .
Only you can know when you have paid for a wrong you’ve done .
Sometimes you cannot simply apologize in order to feel free , You may need to be forgiven .
Even then you may still feel guilt , To repent may take the rest of your life .

Good incentive to consider carefully the potential consequences of your actions before you act .
Posted by jamo, Thursday, 17 August 2006 9:45:10 PM
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Peter Sellick wrote "While we know that the lion will not lie down with the lamb such poetic expressions prick our longing and raise the spectre of the healing of all things."

You would be surprised...lions whom satisfied after a meal will lie with the 'lambs' without harming them...but addressing the metaphor... a little story told about Buddha. After he reached 'spiritual awakening' under the boa- tree, his favourite place to meditate, he would go into meditation and become one with everything around him and said to emanate an energy of 'blissful happiness' or some would call 'gods love' in response which could be felt for miles around him by all. The story goes that in the forrest people would see meditating buddha in the centre surrounded by all creatures of the forrest, birds to deers to tigers, all sitting around him in perfect peace and harmony. Not too hard to imagine, in presence of such powerful pure love that animals set aside their instinct and respond with peaceful love...the only thing I can imagine not comfortable here is people with evil as their innate nature whom would seek to suppress love, such of course does not exist in the world of animals and fish but humans...

To heaven and hell, as a christian to read the first few pages of genesis...will give you all the information you need on heaven, unless you choose to confuse yourself. To hell, well...all things are created by god with a purpose and meaning...including hell. Devil too, he has a purpose and a destiny to fulfill before he can become one with god again as he began...same to all of us.

Sam
Ps~to evil to good, everything has its opposite, like the chinese ying and yang. Perfectly balanced with evil and good, the person is neither. But one has to act in the process of living, each of those acts can be judged by god to be evil or good, our choice in our acts to the path we will take, heaven or to hell...and let evil act on evil, and good on good
Posted by Sam said, Thursday, 17 August 2006 10:41:24 PM
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Snout, I have to agree with you 100% on Talking Heads. I saw them play "Heaven" live in 1984, just David Byrne and Tina Weymouth on a huge stage. Sublime....

Actually, this forum could do with a bit more Talking Heads. "Life During Wartime" for the Israel/Lebanon conflict, "I Zimbra" for the endless debates on indigenous cultures, "The Jezebel Spirit" (from My Life in the Bush of Ghosts) for BOAZ_David's interminable ramblings.

Of course, one mustn't forget "Once in a Lifetime" for those existential moments when our vapid consumerist culture threatens to overwhelm anything decent in the world:

"And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile

And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife

And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?"
Posted by Johnj, Thursday, 17 August 2006 11:02:12 PM
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Heaven and hell are simply states of mind/awareness - two words to describe a plethora of emotions and perceptions summed up (or reduced)to single word expressions. If you're having a bad time of it, then you could be described as being in hell. On the other hand, if you are having a good time...

That's why many people consider themselves in heaven right here on earth. Lets face it, we have absolutely everything we need. Really, what more could we want. Personally, I couldn't imagine any one coming up with any thing better than good old planet earth - from which all life springs. Whoever did come up with it, good on 'em. When you open your eyes its just amazing. It really is... quite beautiful.

So come on everyone, lets not spoil it. Its ALL right here to be looked after and enjoyed by, yes, you guessed it.... ALL.
Posted by K£vin, Friday, 18 August 2006 5:01:37 AM
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.. another thing to remember, absolutely NO THING can fall out of the UNIVERSE. EVERY THING gets recycled. There really isn't a single thing to worry about, ever.
Posted by K£vin, Friday, 18 August 2006 5:57:17 AM
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Snout - good music reference - Talking Heads' 'Heaven'. As I recall it, the chorus goes "heaven, heaven is a place, a place where nothing, nothing ever happens". Exactly my fear. (fear of music, right?).

I agree with you, too johnj - more Talking Heads, less talking crap would be good.

Kevin - sorry, couldn't find the pound sign on the keyboard - what are you taking to be that happy & optimistic at 5AM?

jamo - friend, you are making this too hard, harder I'm sure than God intended. Had He presented the Bible in powerpoint format, I'm sure one of the slides would have been the KISS principle - you know, keep it simple, stupid. Lifelong penitence went out in the middle ages along with self-flagellation and hair shirts. This is the noughties - quick, simple and flexible is the go - fast takeaway repentance is available. Blessed be the sinner who repents - they'll be in the queue ahead of lifelong holy adherents with blameless lives. Unfair, I know, but this is like Liberal Party policy - not meant to be fair, just advantageous to the right people.

Chris Shaw: Q.- ' love you. I love you. I love you.- but can you handle it?' A.- no.
Posted by PK, Friday, 18 August 2006 9:27:05 AM
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PK said "Lifelong penitence went out with the dark ages"......

*Boaz puts on his 'counselling' hat* ... :)

Matey.. you seem to have some very serious scar tissue in that brain of yours, possibly a result of being traumatized by a Catholic education during your youth ? I'd suggest a hyper fundamentalist Independant Baptist youth except that you used the word 'Penitence' which is more Catholic.

The things which the Gospel calls us to 'repent from' are the things which in our hearts we ALL know are wrong wrong wrong... ( I hope)
Like...

Dishonoring our parents
Lust.. adultery, immorality
Theft.. deceit, lying.
Murder.

I fail to see why anyone has a problem with being urged to RUNNNNN from these things and embrace He who will provide motivation and strength to continue WANTing to avoid these things.

As soon as you mention 'Penitence' I kind of get it.... that immediately smacks of "Something you HAVE TO DO to satisfy some edict of 'The Church' due to some specific sin you have committed."

But that idea is quite foreign to the Bible, the Gospel, and Jesus.

Even in the old testament, where 'ritual' was a big part of the religious life of Israel, even then.. God, through his prophets would say things like:

Micah 6:7-8

7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? (a reference to Canaanite pagan child sacrifice)

8 He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

The only possible motive I can think of as to why any tradition of the 'Church' would stray from this SIMPLE concept is 'power'... as many of you often accuse (and rightly so)

But when in doubt... refer the user manual :)
Posted by BOAZ_David, Friday, 18 August 2006 9:54:40 AM
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Kipp, funnyyyy! In heaven we should be able to enjoy any foods we love- sugar, fat, name it! What’s the worst that could happen- we’re already dead, lol.

RObert, I hope so too- and I hope we can’t hear the screams coming from hell either.

K£vin, nice view! Live life to the fullest! This is from the lyrics by “Armor for Sleep”
THE TRUTH ABOUT HEAVEN
~Don't believe that it's better when you leave everything behind
Don't believe that the weather is perfect the day that you die~

But seriously, I think that heaven is just invented by people because they find themselves so important that they can’t possibly imagine that they will be gone one day and that life will just go on without them. So they invented a way to save their souls adn live on forever.

Another reason might be that it just feels safe to know that there will be something better, something perfect one day, and that there is a reward for people who have been through life’s sometimes rough experiences.

The author says “…those who know too much about heaven and those who are uncomfortable with it….”
I don’t really understand that because there’s NOBODY who knows too much about heaven. Perhaps they ‘think’ they do. Until astrophysicians come up with some evidence of the existence of heaven, nobody knows anything about it and can only guess. Whatever the bible says is either fantasy or hear-say.
Posted by Celivia, Friday, 18 August 2006 9:57:37 AM
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Celivia,

I note from your post you fail to realise the spiritual state of the eternal. Heaven is not spatial so cannot be evaluated by physics, though we use spatial images to define its nature. Heaven is the nature of the perfect and highest ideal. The idealism of perfect and pure love is eternal and unchanging. This love is not self gratification but the action demonstrated by self giving. As we live in focus of this it helps us realise what is going to last forever and what is impure and to be discarded. We do not enter heaven with impure thoughts and behaviour, but as Christans we believe our desire is that purity be our focus and repentance for our impurity be practised. Those that have this hope purify themselves, and the nature of that pure life lives forever.

"The author says “…those who know too much about heaven and those who are uncomfortable with it….” I don’t really understand that because there’s NOBODY who knows too much about heaven. Perhaps they ‘think’ they do. Until astrophysicians come up with some evidence of the existence of heaven, nobody knows anything about it and can only guess. Whatever the bible says is either fantasy or hear-say."
Posted by Celivia,
Posted by Philo, Friday, 18 August 2006 10:28:21 AM
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My old sparring partner, Boaz - was wondering where you were.

"I fail to see why anyone has a problem with being urged to RUNNNNN from these things and embrace He who will provide motivation and strength to continue WANTing to avoid these things."

Yes, Boaz, I know you fail to see things like that. That's why debating with you is messy, irritating and pretty pointless, like pushing soggy bread into a letterbox.

But for your edification, there are things in this life like humour, satire, irony etc and my contributions on this thread have been attempts at them. OK, maybe poor attempts. Does that spell it out clearly enough for you to see? You can get back to the prayer book now.

Thanks, but I don't want any more deliveries of mail, or bread, today. Give the caplock on your keyboard a rest.
Posted by PK, Friday, 18 August 2006 1:35:51 PM
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BOAZ_David “The only possible motive I can think of as to why any tradition of the 'Church' would stray from this SIMPLE concept is 'power'... as many of you often accuse (and rightly so)”
Very wise words!

BOAZ, may I also use this idea for my list of Motives/reasons for the invention of / belief in heaven?

So then we’ll have three possible reasons why people invented heaven:

* Power- the church has the power to either punish (hell) or reward (heaven) people for their behaviour/beliefs;

* Narcissistic Separation Anxiety. Well let’s call it that (for fun’s sake, I don’t know a proper word for it). It’s being scared of separation from the love for yourself- I am so important and wonderful that I will live on forever in a perfect environment;

* Safety- it’s a safe feeling knowing that you’ll be looked after in heaven after you die; the universe is so big and cold and scary without heaven.

What other motives/reasons could there be (apart from the love for philly cream cheese snacks)?

Philo,
when you say that heaven is not spatial and cannot be evaluated by physics, fair enough, you may be right about that. But then again, it cannot be evaluated by anything other than physics, either. So how do you know that heaven is real?

The heaven you describe souds like a very nice place, but there is no proof that it exists; the author can't say that some people know ‘too much’ about heaven because the truth of the fact is: we know nothing about it at all.

About the whole heaven and hell thing, I am likely to agree with K£vin when he said: “Heaven and hell are simply states of mind/awareness.”

What we do know for sure about the universe is just this: The universe is made of space, time and atoms. That’s it.
Posted by Celivia, Friday, 18 August 2006 3:28:03 PM
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When I look at a newborn rose in my garden I know there is a heaven and when I see slugs, slaters and snails ,I know there is that other place.
I loathe all religions, man made ,man driven, money making misanthropes.
God is in His heaven and may [or not ]show us one day.As He wishes.
Posted by mickijo, Friday, 18 August 2006 4:02:28 PM
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Dear Celivia

yes.. you certainly 'may' use the 'invention' of heaven as u did :)

But if I may offer a slightly different perspective ?

Your point about 'separation anxiety'.. might be valid if the type of heaven described in the Bible fitted more the 'idealized human experience'.. such as catering and pandering to our every desire.. like the Islamic version of paradise...

I don't really find 'heaven' to be a destination described in such terms as to attract anything but our 'heart' and deeper self.
There are no 'hot and cold running virgins' for we horny guys... but there is a lion which will lay down with a lamb :) There is 'no more crying' etc i.e. peace.

Heaven would be about power if access to it could be CONTROLLED by an earthly organization (RC Church ?) But the Bible does not support this. There is one verse which wrongly interpreted could suggest it.

The type of heaven arising in nature religions or the pagan Canaanite idolatrous religions must have been a pretty horrible place. The gods always fighting, the children needing to be burnt alive to appease them... wow...

Nope.. I think the idea of heaven was firstly not 'invented' and definitely not for 'power'. The concept of INDULGENCES where sin could be forgiven by the Church 'for a price' was inDEED about power and money...but such ideas are foreign to the Bible. They are the 'Traditions of men' as Jesus described such things.

It was Christ Himself who said "In my Fathers house are many rooms"
I pray you will inhabit one of them when you meet our Creator :)
It will cost you nothing, yet everything, at the same time.

'I have come, that they might have life, and have it abundantly' (Jesus)
Posted by BOAZ_David, Saturday, 19 August 2006 5:34:28 PM
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BOAZ, thanks for your interesting perspective!

OK let’s then imagine that heaven is real.
Let’s do a fun calculation but correct me if I ‘m wrong- maths is a weak point for me (so is religion).

Christianity is currently the biggest religion on earth; about 33% of people in the world are christians. So let’s take christianity for our example.

Say, for the sake of this discussion, that Christians got it right and they are the only ones that have the opportunity to go to heaven.

But…Christians are divided into different denominations: Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Evangelicans, Jehova’s witnesses for example.
Which one is the right one? Do all Christians have equal opportunity to go to heaven or do you have to belong to a specific denomination to make it in?

Let’s say that all Christians potentially can gain entry into heaven, that is 33%.

Of that 33%, some will have stuffed it up during their lifetime and don’t make it in.
Perhaps, being generous, 25% of that 33% will make it. Phew… for them.

That means that at least 75% of all people on earth will go to hell, according to these principles.

That percentage will be much higher if it’s only one domination that determines whether we go to hell or not.

If another religion would be the right one, the amount of people going to hell will even be bigger since the next biggest religion is Islam with only 22%!

So as almost all people will end up in hell anyway, why not have some fun in life instead of worrying about all those rigid bible rules all of your life!
Posted by Celivia, Saturday, 19 August 2006 11:19:49 PM
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Dear Celivia
those are important question and I'll post the cheque in the mail for asking them :) *smile*.....

But in this case, clearly the questions are from the heart...so I'll do my best to respond.

Which 'religion' is right ?

Well clearly 'MINE' :) don't u luv that one ? So, what is 'mine'.
it is that living faith which feels at home in most of the traditions you mentioned above, with the exception of Jehovah's witnesses and the Roman Cathlolics. I'm basically 'Conservative Evangelical Protestant' which means that the particular tradition and building I inhabit is not the critical issue, but whether I love the Lord or not.
Pesnally, I cannot see how anyone who does not believe Christ rose from the dead could or would ever call themselves 'Christian' and some Liberal traditions even withIN some mainstream denominations are characterized by this view.

I separate the RC only in the sense of the 'formal' organization, not the individual souls who are Catholics. I'm sure there are many Catholics who in their hearts do love the Lord and have the sense not to 'deify' Mary as the Church has come close to doing, and whether they are right on every point of doctrine will not matter as much as whether they actually do seek the (Biblical)Lord with all their hearts.

I never enter into calculations about 'How many will rejoice' and 'how many will burn'... its a grotesque representation of the reality of Gods dealings with humankind.

One thing is sure, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right" ?
Read Genesis 18 and see the dialogue there.

I know this much though, any person can be saved by turning their heart in repentance and faith to God. The question is.....will they?
Even you yourself, know the 'way' .. you have heard the gospel, that in Christ, we are made right before God, through repentance and faith.

So, you need to ask yourself ( as do we all) what is happening in your heart and mind in the light of that information.
Posted by BOAZ_David, Sunday, 20 August 2006 8:38:03 AM
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BD, God told me last night that you won't be going to heaven because you quote him/her too much down here on earth. Reckons that sending you down stairs would annoy the hell out of old nic. LOL
Posted by Rainier, Sunday, 20 August 2006 12:09:02 PM
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I can’t believe that the nature of heaven, a primitive fairy tale, is being “seriously” debated here as though it is something "real".

In 1844 it was written:

“Man (or in modern speak - humans)… has found only the reflection of himself in the fantastic reality of heaven, where he sought a superman” …

“Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is indeed the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man, state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an ‘inverted consciousness’ of the world, because they are an ‘inverted world’.…. It is the fantastic realisation of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is therefore indirectly the struggle against that world whose ‘spiritual aroma’ is religion.”

“Religious suffering is at one and the same time the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”

“The abolition of religion as the ‘illusory’ happiness of the people is the demand for their ‘real’ happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.”

I’m not really one for quoting tracts of text, however I don’t think anyone (including me) has yet said it better than Karl Marx.

In other words, once we create conditions on earth where we can express the full essence of ourselves as humans (i.e. happiness in 'reality'), the need for the fantasy of heaven where our idealized view of ourselves (or 'superman' - God, obviously) is, will disappear.

Not a lot more to be said really.
Posted by tao, Sunday, 20 August 2006 8:33:26 PM
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tao,
Why have the followers of Marx now abandoned the teachings and most now accept the reality of heaven as the only hope for man?
Posted by Philo, Sunday, 20 August 2006 9:52:46 PM
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Yes Philo,
Groucho died from pneumonia on August 19, 1977 at the age of 86 . . . and where do you think his spirit went?
Posted by GlenWriter, Sunday, 20 August 2006 10:33:13 PM
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Philo,

What "reality" of heaven? Whether someone believes it or not, it is still not "reality" - but as Marx said - fantasy.

That is the whole point - heaven is not reality. It is wishful thinking which arises because the conditions in which the majority live are so miserable and uncertain. The only hope they have is that it will be better in the afterlife.

I'm not sure what followers of Marx you believe have abandoned Marxism. Marxism is not like religion in that if you just believe it you will be rewarded with heaven, it is scientific socialism which analyses the history, economics and progress of mankind. People don't have to "follow it" to get to some mystical heaven, it merely predicts that humanity will either progress to a higher economic organisation of people through conscious intervention and struggle against oppression, or degenerate into barbarism - in the real world. At the moment it looks like we are heading down the second path, but the conditions are being created for the first. However religion obscures the truth, just as it always has. As Marx said "the struggle against religion is therefore the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion" and equally the struggle against the miserable and exploitive conditions of the majority of humanity (which gives rise to hope in the afterlife) is the struggle against religion.

Perhaps you ought to look at those who profess Christianity (particularly our leaders) who have abandoned the 10 Commandments - thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not bear false witness etc. Perhaps they have also abandoned heaven. Oh thats right - if they repent they will be forgiven - and still get into heaven. How convenient.
Posted by tao, Sunday, 20 August 2006 10:38:59 PM
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I struggled over this article more than most and the above comments show that I failed to get my point across. Heaven is not real in the sense that the tree in the quad is real. It is a mythology but not one made up out of our fear of death. Rather, it is the consequence of certain events in the history of Israel (the life of Jesus included) that point to as transformation of the world. Thus it is a dream but a dream with a firm basis in history. As I said in the article without such a dream we would settle down and accept the status quo. It is this dream that has propelled the culture of the West along its pathway in contrast to those societies whose dream is of an eternal return.

I tried, unsuccessfully, to jolt readers out of the idea of heaven being the reward for a good life after death. There is a strong emphasis on judgment in the NT, especially in the gospel of Matthew. None of this language points to the judgment of individuals after their deaths but to an end time judgment of the whole world. This is figurative speech that emphasizes the priority of the kingdom and is linked to works of compassion and faith. Thus kingdom of heaven language is quite different from the popular notion of the destiny of the souls of the dead. This arose out of the intermixing of Greek notions with those of Israel and in the church produced a whole system of payment and reward that amounted to social control. Secularists are quite right to protest about this system, it amounts to an imposed morality that does not affect the inner person.
Posted by Sells, Monday, 21 August 2006 9:50:14 AM
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Neither is heaven an ideal that we make up. Rather it is a reality that overturns all of our ideas of what the good is and who we are. Thus heaven is real in that with its intersection with earth in the man Jesus it transforms the earth. The ideas of Marx were just ideas and led to misery. Heaven is an idea in the mind of God and brings wellbeing. It is an idea with its feet in historical event and thus is not just made up as some of you have said. It is an outworking of history. Thus it is a given and not our own product. It is “other”.

We must remember that the idea of the immortal soul was alien to Israel from whence Jesus came. The dead were understood to go down into Sheol, a place of shadows in which God could not be praised. If we are going to think sensibly about heaven we must search beyond the sentimental and the fearful constructions of the day that effectively rob heaven of its nature as other.
Posted by Sells, Monday, 21 August 2006 9:58:55 AM
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Sell's how do you reconcile that approach with the section on the sheep and the goats I posted earlier?

Your views seem in sharp contrast to the passage where each individual is judged specifically on the basis of the things they did and did not do (also in contrast to the views of those who get carried away by faith alone).

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Monday, 21 August 2006 10:01:17 AM
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Sells, the difficulty you faced in getting your point across is the same one that those who think and write on Christianity often face: how do you make a 2,000 year old religion based on texts written in ancient languages and translated down the ages relevant for the modern era?

I have contemplated Michelangelo's "Last Judgement" painted on the wall of the Sistine Chapel. It seemed to me to distil the whole age-old notion of 'fear God's judgement' and did indeed present a terrifying vision, better probably than the words in the Bible and the words of a thousand sermons. As much as I appreciated the artistry, I did not and do not feel the fear. Ancient fears wear off over time, it seems.

Your attempt to examine the topic was reasonable and well written, though, and generated both some fun and some serious debate. Thanks for writing it.
Posted by PK, Monday, 21 August 2006 10:14:24 AM
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“Dear God”, I know you hear my prayer. I know you exist coz you left your mark absolutely everywhere. The whole world you created with a single word from the tallest mountain to the tiniest bird. The fish that can swim and all the hers and the hims and you didn’t just leave, I know you hear my prayer.

You’re there to comfort through all the wars that we create, You’ve given us a choice which is sometimes not so great. We constantly choose wrong, we don’t know what to do, but thank God, you’re there when we break in two.

You’ve not let us down, the same today and before; a friend and father, You’re constantly more than we can ask for. It’s us who disappoint, who make the world what it is. We’d like to blame you...
Guys, It’s our fault, NOT HIS.

The bible we read helps us to understand how to fix this mess that we made by our very own hands. It is the relevant and truthful, inspired word of God, give it a read sometime, it’s definitely not a fraud!

As for heaven, I know that I’ll get to go, I’ll party with the Saviour but before you ask, there’s stuff that I don’t yet know. I don’t know when and I don’t know how I will get there yet but here’s what I’ll bet. It’ll be fantastic and amazing, better than anything I’ve dreamed and He wants you to know that you can get there too! My God, if there’s one thing that I believe in at all, it’s You. Forever You.
Posted by Ajhriahna, Monday, 21 August 2006 11:59:56 AM
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Mickijo,

Religion isn't all bad. Historically, it has given the social framework for the establishment of early City States: e.g., Sumer. Also, the template for "design" adopted by Science has its tethers in religion. Our modern understanding of "Reality" has influenced by Abelard and Aquinas. Religion has also arrested progress. One needs to be pragmatic.

Is heaven real? ...It is a hypothetical construct.
Posted by Oliver, Monday, 21 August 2006 12:12:18 PM
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Oliver, I have people in my family who are deeply religious, some gain a great deal of comfort from their faith while others are fearful of upsetting their god and incurring his great wrath.
My view of mainline religions is that they are not much different to supermarts where profits and not prophets are the interest.
When an archbishop or pope or ayotollah can preach self denial etc then live in an opposite lifestyle I say "humbug"
I wonder what the simple carpenter would say?
Posted by mickijo, Monday, 21 August 2006 3:02:34 PM
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This matter does tend to draw out a lot of controversy. The same opinions seem to be constant throughout this forum that people do not believe in heaven and its existence is merely for people to live their life in hope.
Epithemeos
“War on Religion”
http://hearingtheword.blogspot.com/

Religion isn’t always used for the best though…
Posted by Epithemeos, Monday, 21 August 2006 6:19:54 PM
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Having been around and living with the "poorest"of the poor,and having lived with the elite the well to do,my verdict is,the theories of what is and what is not,are and still remain what they are,this includes science,but speaking about religeon and "GOD",it was in South Africa,living with very poor black human beings,that I FOUND,that their FAITH and HOPE,in GOD was real,and their humanity showed,IT ALL,that there is,in believing in GOD, not so living with the well to do and the ELITE,with them then GOD is for sure not there,now readers,you decide,but may it be said,that in todays world there is no place for A GOD,as SCIENCE has proclaimed that there is no GOD,and thereby have made SCIENCE the missing CREATOR?.Give me the GOD of the poor black human beings that I LIVED AMONST in South Africa,and I BELIEVE THAT THERE IS ONE,not the one of the world of SCIENCE,who is the CREATOR of the WORLD,according to their THEORIES,still not a complete and logical fact,but to me still found wanting in so many different ways.
Posted by KAROOSON, Monday, 21 August 2006 7:19:40 PM
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Having been around and living with the "poorest"of the poor,and having lived with the elite the well to do,my verdict is,the theories of what is and what is not,are and still remain what they are,this includes science,but speaking about religeon and "GOD",it was in South Africa,living with very poor black human beings,that I FOUND,that their FAITH and HOPE,in GOD was real,and their humanity showed,IT ALL,that there is,in believing in GOD, not so living with the well to do and the ELITE,with them then GOD is for sure not there,now readers,you decide,but may it be said,that in todays world there is no place for A GOD,as SCIENCE has proclaimed that there is no GOD,and thereby have made SCIENCE the missing CREATOR?.Give me the GOD of the poor black human beings that I lived "WITH" in South Africa,and I BELIEVE THAT THERE IS ONE,not the one of the world of SCIENCE,who is the CREATOR of the WORLD,according to their THEORIES,still not a complete and logical fact,but to me still found wanting in so many different ways.
Posted by KAROOSON, Monday, 21 August 2006 7:26:16 PM
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Aaah ……Excuse Me Sells,

“Thus heaven is real in that with its intersection with earth in the man Jesus it transforms the earth. The ideas of Marx were just ideas and led to misery. Heaven is an idea in the mind of God and brings wellbeing. It is an idea with its feet in historical event and thus is not just made up as some of you have said. It is an outworking of history. Thus it is a given and not our own product. It is “other”.”

You say heaven is an idea in the mind of God but what Marx is saying is that God is nothing but an idea of man. The material (i.e. real) world of man came before the “idea” of God. Thinking and ideas are a product of the material. Instead of God making man in his own image, men made God in their image. You put the cart before the horse before the cart.

You say that the ideas of Marx were “just ideas” and led to misery. Marx’s “ideas” arose from studying the historical material reality – which already contained REAL misery – and still does with or without Marx.

The reality is that what you call heaven’s “intersection with earth in the man Jesus” has not transformed the earth, and is just another “idea”. Yet you persist in BELIEVING the idea of heaven and then try to make it “real” by linking it to material phenomena and saying things like it has “its feet in historical event” and is “an outworking of history”, whatever that means. This demonstrates that you know it is not real, but desperately want it to be so, and must play games in your own mind.

Religion (including Christianity) does have its place in history but with progress its ideas can be seen for what they are – stories and myths that were an attempt by less advanced people to explain the world.

“Thus it is a dream with a firm basis in history.” No – it is a dream with an un-firm basis in your head.
Posted by tao, Monday, 21 August 2006 9:36:58 PM
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Tao makes a lot of sense.

I have always thought that God is just a fantasy. That’s my opinion, it’s not a fact.

The only thing that is real is the fact that we don’t know whether heaven, God, or our souls are real or a fantasy.

We can only express our beliefs; beliefs that were 'installed' in our brains by parents, schools, communities. We cannot present facts.

We have to rely on religions to tell us the meaning of heaven. Religions don't even agree.
It mostly depends on the religion what kind of heaven they present to you.

Quotes from the bible neither move me in any way nor explain anything to me as I don’t believe in the truth of the bible.

Over the centuries/millenia, people have dumped several Gods and Godesses and chose to believe in just one (male) God. This means that Gods are disposable. They can come and go just like fashion.

Conclusion: We can discuss this forever but at the end we will be none the wiser.

KAROOSON, what does God actually do for those poor people in South Africa? Is there a point to their prayers and faith? What does science do for them?
Posted by Celivia, Monday, 21 August 2006 11:31:25 PM
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Tao raises a question that is an essential challenge to us who profess to believe. He repeats the argument of Ludwig Feuerbach in the 19th century that religion is nothing but a human projection. It is no accident that Marx comes into the picture because he was a direct descendent of Feuerbach. The following quotes will give some of the flavor of this important negative theologian.

To turn.."the friends of God into friends of man, believers into thinkers, worshippers into workers, candidates for the other world into students of this world, Christians, who on their own confession are half-animal and half-angel, into men—whole men."7 To these proposed improvements he had earlier added: "theo¬logians into anthropologians . . . , religious and political footmen of a celestial and terrestrial monarchy and aris¬tocracy into free, self-reliant citizens of earth.”

“I deny only to affirm. I deny the fantastic projection of theology and religion in order to affirm the real essence of man.”

This is the foundation of Marxism. It seeks to destroy all of the religious hypostases and expose them as products of man. But instead it builds its own made of man himself with disastrous consequences. It is no accident that communist regimes all turned into secular religions that systematically slaughtered its citizens.

But Feuerbach is right. Most of the Christianity that I see in the churches would fall under his critique. Theology has been turned into anthropology. Whenever you hear talk of “spirituality” you know this is what has happened. But replacing these hypostases with the ones we create even if they look good to us, in fact especially if they look good, will only exchange one tyrant for another.

I recommend reading Barth’s introductory essay in Feuerbach The Essence of Christianity translated by our very own George Eliot and published by Torchbooks.
Posted by Sells, Tuesday, 22 August 2006 10:54:33 AM
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Mickijo,

Ageed. "The Shoes of a Fisherman" has never played well with the Cardinals of all Faiths, from the before the First Temple, to the Crystal Cathedral, and into the future. Plenty of sermons on tithes; nothing on usery.

Marx,

I have travelled through urban and regional Russia. The Russians seem maligned and emotionally defeated people. Not only have they been suppressed by the likes of Stalin, but also, probably to a greater extent by the Orthodox Church: Peasants praying in gildered cages. Its sad.
Posted by Oliver, Tuesday, 22 August 2006 11:27:26 AM
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If Sells can't believe in his own thinking power without referring to some forgotten quote of some forgotten person, what hope is there in the world?
Yes, there is no hope when people can't think but rely on some dead quoter.
Sells, believe in yourself and not some gossip that was put in a book a couple of centuries ago.
Heaven, you are standing in it right now.
There is no evidence that there is anything else but now because you have to be dead to collect that evidence.
Being dead does not mean your heart stops beating and then starts again. That is for some TV show for entertainment. Being dead means to not come back alive again. Death is permanent.
We are in Heaven, right now. It doesn't get any better.
Posted by GlenWriter, Tuesday, 22 August 2006 11:32:35 AM
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Yes Glenwriter, Those who are looking for comfort should realise that our departed lovred ones are happy, love us forever, and never leave us because they here with us now. And just think, millions and millions of Indigneous people surround us on a daily basis.
Posted by Rainier, Tuesday, 22 August 2006 11:53:57 AM
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There is no after-life

Belief in an afterlife is what anthropologists see as magical thinking. Primitive peoples believe that death as the end of immortal naturalistic progression caused by the intersession of evil. Perhaps, the magic of a malevolent shaman, an elipse or the sighting of a rare bird are bring the evil disrupts the natural order. Thus, reconciling the belief with everyday experiences; wherein, the magical and naturalistic orders can seem to co-exist, as truth to the believer: But this belief system also denies our rightful place in the natural order. We live, we die, stop.

In Judeo-Christian mythology many elements remain. The Immortals', Adam and Eve, paradise lost (Milton) is occasioned by evil and in this instance death becomes their leagacy and that of future generations. The newly "evil" now indwell "within" the fiction and need a way out to find immortality. Herein, redemption and the path to immortality is achieved by recognition of one's evil self: Salvation and an afterlife found are found belief in a redeemer.

(The Great Relionist Inversion, methinks: no good acts on bad: not bad acting on good.)

Otherwise put, the primitive concept is that individual people are good and immortal and evil intervenes. The ancient fiction (c. 4,000 BCE) transmutes this, all of humanity is indigneously evil and sinful (absolute good cannot be found without God) and heaven is found in belief in a divine conduit to the after-world.

...

Death exits. Heaven does not. Neither, primitivism nor religionism changes the inevitable. Be kind towards your fellows and enjoy your tentitive extistence. Soon it will be gone.
Posted by Oliver, Tuesday, 22 August 2006 1:46:37 PM
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Belief is different to reality.
Reality is different to belief.
Some believe that belief is reality.
That is their belief and has no connection to reality.
Belief is in the mind. Let them live there in their subjectivity
Reality is outside the mind in objectivity.
Posted by GlenWriter, Tuesday, 22 August 2006 2:14:00 PM
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Sells,

Again you proffer the simplistic and unsubstantiated implication that Marx’s ideas, in and of themselves, were the cause of slaughter and misery. No doubt, in an attempt to have people dismiss them.

Being a Senior Research Officer at the Department of Physiology in a University, surely you have learnt that it is not scientific or credible to make simplistic causal claims without examining and acknowledging other contributing factors.

A few questions for you to research:

How many men, women and children died before their time in the mines and factories of Europe due to working 16 hour days, or simply from starvation due to unemployment, in the 18th & 19th Centuries?

How many people were “slaughtered” in WWI ? (i.e. before the Russian Revolution).

What were the conditions of workers and peasants under the Czarist regime in Russia?

How many “non – Marxist, and one must say, predominantly Christian” countries contributed forces and resources to the counter-revolutionary effort of the Russian White Army during the civil war in Russia after the revolution? How many Russians – who had merely taken democratic control of their own resources - were killed by them?

How many people died as a result of WWII?

How many people have been slaughtered in the last few years in Iraq?

You should also examine your assumption that Stalinism (or Maoism etc) was Marxism. You fail to take into account that there was a not insubstantial Marxist opposition to Stalin – of course he exiled or executed them all. Stalin’s theory of “socialism in one country” had nothing in common with international socialism.

You ought also to consider the fact that the relatively good conditions that working people enjoy in industrialized countries (which are now being eroded), were capitalist concessions to the socialist struggles of the working class. Were it not for socialism and Marxism, you would still be working 16 hours a day in a factory – and you probably wouldn’t be a Senior Research Officer – oh sorry – you might be a preacher.

Things are not as simple as Marxism = slaughter = evil.
Posted by tao, Tuesday, 22 August 2006 8:00:58 PM
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Peter I feel for you, but take heart.

Your published works here on OLO on the face of it are pearls cast before swine. Take comfort in that there are, I am sure, the few that stroll through and feel the freshness of the breeze that your thoughts create.

As for the ignorant and the fool, in your posts we watch you confirm your human barrenness and aridity. What is your joy? Where is your peace?

Tao sounds like a bitter old commie - with his dreams smashed when the Pope's divisions ( Stalin - "how many divisions does the Pope have?" ), in the form of one man of his time, riding the decades of prayer for the "conversion of Russia", acted as the vanguard to create the collapse of this horrendous human folly. Karl Marx must wish he read another source for his social analysis.

And Boaz you too need a shake up. Your anti Catholic and anti Islam prejudices do you no merit as a supposed faithful man. They display an ignorance and a perverse sense of self satisfaction in your "saved state", with your God seemingly arranged in a nice little package. Life's messy mate. The Church, yesterday, today and tomorrow comprises fine humans and messy characters; especially in its aberrational days of worldly power. However, over 2000 years she has not done a bad job, still united under one leader linked back to Peter, and requiring nothing of the world other than the freedom to preach the Word.

Sells, is there not the "now but not yet" sense of the Kingdom of God? In that the awakening, awareness and personal response to the God relationship in Jesus' "come and follow me" does give a glimpse through heart and mind (joy&peace) of final union with God.

My experience of recent grief has a sense of personal missed opportunity within a long loving relationship. Humanly, what a loss, it would be to die having missed the opportunity on earth to experience the human reality of the "now but not yet" as an anticipation of the eternal now.
Posted by boxgum, Tuesday, 22 August 2006 11:02:55 PM
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boxgum,
We recognise your good Roman Catholic adherence to its dogma and to submitt yourself to one man as "must be obeyed", with the statement: "Boaz ... Your anti Catholic and anti Islam prejudices do you no merit as a supposed faithful man. They display an ignorance and a perverse sense of self satisfaction in your "saved state", with your God seemingly arranged in a nice little package. Life's messy mate.... However, over 2000 years she has not done a bad job, still united under one leader linked back to Peter, and requiring nothing of the world other than the freedom to preach the Word."

However within the Catholic Church there are those that oppose positions held by the Pope, and I find them honourable and deeply spiritual people. As Christians we are linked to the God of Christ Jesus, not to Peter or Paul.

Until recently we had purgatory and indulgences espoused by the RC Church, concepts from Zoroaster not Christ. Thank God for those that opposed dogma espoused by the RC Church to release us from being subject to the ideas of one man.
Posted by Philo, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 8:53:04 AM
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They is a varied range of responses and at times difficult to follow, at least for me, and perhaps a little clarification always helps...

Marxism and religion are on opposite ends of the spectrum...as in one says all we have is this life on earth then its nothing when we die, to how we choose to live here now will determine how our soul continues in the after-life...

Now this can also be reflected as levels of 'spiritual awareness' as in Karl Marx has almost none to rely on (a presumption from what he wrote) to Christ and Mohammed (eg a presumption again as Christ did not write a word...everything in the new testament is effectively hearsay, which is not to say it is any different to what christ said... but it is the human writers interpretation of what christ said...this caution should be applied when one reads the new testament and keep in mind, and that a number of texts that were controversial was not included by scholars in the new testament like 'Book of Tomas')

And so a less 'spiritually awoken' person is going to rely on facts that relate to them, and conversely a more spiritually awoken person on facts more to their understanding. We are all on the same road of spirituality, just at different distance travelled, and no one is better or worse for where they are on it... Just keep searching and keep a sense of your soul... and your acts for where the force of destruction stands strong creation cannot and vise versa and so eternal war between the two...

Sam
Posted by Sam said, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 9:14:43 AM
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Boxgum. I think the reason this article does not get across is that it is difficult to dislodge popular notions about heaven. Part of this comes from a mistranslation of the Greek word aiwnos into eternal meaning endless time. Rather, phrases like “eternal life” do not refer to endless life after death but a sharing in the life of God her and now, or in the “now but not yet” as you correctly observe. I think this is another way of referring to the kingdom of heaven/god, it is eschatological, it lives in the tension of present and future fulfillment. So as soon as we mention heaven a cluster of concepts is evoked: death, life after death, endless time, judgment, the alternative hell and speculation about what it would be like to live for eternity without the body. Much of this has been caused by the intrusion of neoPlatonic thought that tells us that our true lives are with God on the other side of death. This world becomes reduced to a place of trial that will determine our eternal home.

This makes it very difficult pastorally since many people still believe in the afterlife particularly the unchurched. Unfortunately the idea of the communion of saints has been turned into this kind of life after death with the faithful. Rather, this has to do with the life of the church and the memory of those who have gone before in the faith, the saints and martyrs. Thus we may still use the phrase “Gone to God” to describe those who have died in the faith, they have become part of the cloud of witnesses that have gone before us.

One of the most important realizations is the Jesus was a Jew and Jews had no concept of body soul dualism. Therefore they could not understand the concept of disembodied life. I Cor 15 needs proper exegesis.
Posted by Sells, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 11:00:14 AM
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Sells, "This makes it very difficult pastorally since many people still believe in the afterlife particularly the unchurched."

I found that an interesting comment, whilst many unchurched may have some kind of belief in an afterlife the "particularly" bit seems wrong. I'd guess that most get those ideas from the preaching of the churched.

I'm confident that most of the churched on these forums (BD, coach, and friends) believe very strongly in an afterlife and are getting that message regularly from their churches, home groups evangelistic rallies etc. One of the central platforms of the evangelical church is the idea of an eternal afterlife where those who "turn to Jesus" get their undeserved reward and those who don't get their Oh so deserved punishment.

During many years of being churched (Anglican and evangelical) I never heard any preacher seriously suggesting that there was no eternal life. If there is merit in your interpretation of the bible it is not a view which is widely shared by the churched.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 12:11:19 PM
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RObert.
Belief in the afterlife is an almost universal religious idea that occurs in most cultures and acts as an antidote to the finality of death. As such we are in the sphere of anthropology rather than Christian theology. The idea is in the culture, that is what I meant that it exists in the unchurched. In both the denominations that I have belonged to the afterlife is not a big issue but it would be a brave preacher to address the subject honestly.

My argument with Christian evangelicalism is that the faith is reduced to the dynamics you referred to. As such it is manipulative. But I do not see evidence for this view in the bible. Well…. There is evidence if you take a certain interpretative stance. The success of evangelicalism is that it reduces faith to the kind of transaction that most can understand.

If you read contemporary theology of the mainstream you will not find anything about the afterlife. Rather, the issues among biblical scholars is the different kind of eschatology found in the gospels. In John, for example we have a realised eschatology, the kingdom is established when Jesus is lifted up on the cross. In the others it is “now but not yet”.

I have the feeling that my interlocutors on this page work with a stereotypical understanding of what actually happens in church based on either an outdated Roman or fundamentalist versions. That is why we are at such cross purposes and not more than with this present article.
Posted by Sells, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 1:34:33 PM
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MARX

Stalin and Mao were not Marxists. They merely leveraged the notion of the peoples’ antithesis to those in power. Where Marx could be said to be in error is that he did not see industrial-capitalism transforming into market-capitalism, requiring a “purchasing” class, if you like. Similarly, trade unions and industrial laws have held capitalism in check. Lastly, Marx lived in a mechanical world, wherein, he tried to apply mecho-scientific principles to sociology. Regarding, the Labour Theory of Value, he would not have known the socio-biological construct of by-product mutualism: i.e., co-operation. In times of depression/recession the old animosities can be renewed, but, perhaps tensions between large societal sectors are best reviewed from the perspectives for Veblen – not Marx.

One could apply dialectics to early Judeo-Christian religion and Jesus’ situation. Marx would have fought in a flight-flee situation, as a thesis to resolve conflict between the classes. With Jesus, Herod is trying to have Rome persecute Jesus, but Jesus takes flight, metaphorically. The Dichotomy is between the temporal and the secular; between the metaphysical (relationship with God) and the physical ( the control of the relationship with the means of production). Christ was not a Marxist.

Both were ethical moralists: Only Marx was a liberal, democrat. Jesus was a big picture person, I think,and the better histographer than Marx. Jesus (derived from his biographers) seems more apt at linking First Century history to the Old Testiment than Marx did veloping the Labour Theory of Value (from: Adams, Riccardo) and Dialectic (from: Hegel, Plato, Socrates)towards a general theory of class history. Jesus had the benefit of hindsight; Marx has to forecast the future.

GOD AND HEAVEN

Justification by Faith seems a tall order for a loving God. We are given the power to reason and are supposedly punished for not believing in the unreasonable. Seems strange behaviour to me. Why would it be repulsive to a loving God to ask for evidence given the limitions of human cognition set in place by God in the first place?
Posted by Oliver, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 1:37:41 PM
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Boxgum,

This is Forum. People debate issues and posit various propositions. It is the nature of the venue. For instance, I could ask a good RC why is it necessary to give a deceased Pope nine Absolutions? Would not just one final penance, one absolution and one viaticum suffice?

Justification by Faith or Pride cometh before the Fall?
Posted by Oliver, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 1:57:11 PM
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I like to think of eternal life as the quality of righteousness that is very God. That is why Jesus is spoken of as being from eternity. The signs of the quality of his character, thought, motives etc demonstrate what we worship as the Holy God - the perfection of character. Jesus was never another being in a remote physical heaven: he was the very expression of the eternal quality of perfection that is the eternal God. That is why I reject the common concept of three persons in a Godhead. There is but one God and Jesus made claim that he and the Father are one [not two in union] but exactly the same.

When we die only the righteousness that reflects the righteousness of God remains eternal. All other aspects of character and behaviour that do not reflect God are destroyed eternally [to use the concept of Valley of Gehannah - the rubbish dump outside the old city of Jerusalem that continually burned]. That is why Christians uphold we are clothed in the righteousness as we see expressed in Christ. That is why Christ in us places us in God and God is in us. The very worship of that perfection of character and repentance of our failures of that perfection places our desires and wishes in God.

Essentiall we are not merely a body as our body is temporal and totally renewed in every cell each seven years. We are essentially our character, actions, our attitudes, motivations, wisdom and creativity etc. Those aspects that are pure reflect the very nature of the eternal God. This is the eternal. Matter is not eternally stable, but it is not evil either as it was a very good creation of the eternal God - Father of our spirit.
Posted by Philo, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 3:34:41 PM
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R0bert,

Sells’ views on afterlife (or lack of it) are more common among us churchgoers than you think, though I'll concede that we're a minority (especially in this forum). In my denomination (Anglican) you could go to church for years and hear no sermons on pie in the sky when you die, but lots on the kingdom of heaven here and now, or at least breaking into the here and now.

But the many clergy who don’t believe in an afterlife seldom dare to preach on this explicitly for fear of upsetting those in their congregations who cling to traditional belief. This is a shame and encourages an infantile and ultimately unbelievable religiosity stuck in arrested development that cannot grow or learn or respond to challenges.

This infantile Christianity gets mercilessly (and, in my view, rightly) lampooned in this forum. The silliness of literal belief in miracles and the myths of Eden (or tortuous rationalisations such as “creation science”), the desperation of wanting to go to heaven when we die, the conceit and smugness of believing that we’ll go to heaven (however bad we’ve been) while everyone else goes to hell (no matter how good they’ve been), or that only Christians can be moral.

This infantile Christianity is the one non-believers seem to want believers to believe in. This is partly because it’s so much easier to ridicule and to dismiss than more complex and nuanced theologies, but also because – as Sells points out – an awful lot of non-Christians believe in some form of afterlife too. My guess is that these non-believing afterlife believers would be pretty uncomfortable if the church repudiated the idea of heaven as a place where you go when you die - which admittedly is likely to happen rather later than hell freezes over with our current church leadership.

So here we have a columnist trying to explain (or at least discuss), important strands in contemporary mainstream theology, while in the forum we endlessly rehearse the arguments for and against views that he doesn’t hold and has never propounded.

Poor Sells.
Posted by Rhian, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 4:52:19 PM
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I was just reading today in Acts, how Paul went to Athens to talk to the Stoics and Epicureans, and they listened until he mentioned the Resurrection of the dead (Jesus). Then they mocked him and stopped listening.

It seems 2000 years later, even those who profess their faith in Christ, mock the idea of the resurrection of the dead (for Jesus' followers). The New Testament is littered with references to Christians anticipating resurrection from the dead. In Revelation, we see martyrs and other Christians, towards the end of time, in the throne room of God, praying and worshiping Him. I'd say this is a pretty big tenant of the Christian faith.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've heard that our English word "heaven" can mean one of three things in the Bible. 1) Outer space/atmosphere around Earth, 2)where the justified sinners go after they die (or as you put it, the righteous) and 3) God's throne room.

Revelation talks about a new heaven and a new Earth. I think "heaven" is a spiritual dimension, not limited by space, matter or time as this Earth is. However, I don't believe we were created for the place called heaven, but to live heaven on Earth. Sin has obviously created a huge separation but Christ's Restoration has enabled us to be Christ's body on Earth, doing His ministry. One day we will spend eternity with God in the new Earth (not the new heavens).

"The rebellion of man against God could only be a rebellion against his own nature and could only cause him misery, while restoration can only restore man to his original state of grace first experienced in the Garden of Eden."

I loved that sentence. Jesus did use the words Kingdom of God and Kingdom of Heaven interchangably. It is obvious that His plea to the Father "Thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven" was not just about bringing the cherubs and the angels onto Earth.
Posted by YngNLuvnIt, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 6:12:40 PM
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Rhian, thanks for the response. I am wondering what is left when the items you refer to are removed from the christain faith

"The silliness of literal belief in miracles and the myths of Eden (or tortuous rationalisations such as “creation science”), the desperation of wanting to go to heaven when we die, the conceit and smugness of believing that we’ll go to heaven (however bad we’ve been) while everyone else goes to hell (no matter how good they’ve been), or that only Christians can be moral."

I'm also interested to see how those who hold to a christainity without an afterlife deal with passages such as the one I refered to earlier (sheep and the goats). Any comments on that.

Sells does some interesting work with his articles and posts exposing a side of christainity which most of us never hear of.

I do think that the non-christain understanding of issues like the afterlife has more to do with what is presented repeatedly by christains rather than deep seated needs.

I must admit to some surprise at how muted the response to Sell's points has been from the usual christian posters. No sign of a rack and inquisitors robe with calls for him to recant his heresy. Strange.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 6:25:43 PM
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R0bert,

Thanks for your post.

The Bible gives us hundreds of stories written over about 1,000 years that tell of a people’s evolving and deepening relationship with God. They use myth, metaphor and story to explain these things, and their understanding was shaped and expressed by their cultures and ideas. Some may have literally believed that God parted the Red Sea and plagued the Egyptians to bring Israel out of slavery, but it was the sense of God as instrumental in Israel’s history, and his purposes of freedom and redemption, that has lived with Israel for 3,000 years - not the the particulars of how that was executed. We do not have to believe in a literal garden of Eden to believe in the power and truth of Genesis to describe human nature, our alienation and fear of death, our tendency to voilence and division, our peculiar place in creation as self aware and morally aware, the yearning nostalgia that recurs in the human psyche, a feeling that things should be better, and once were. Or read 1 Genesis as a poem on the orderly wonder and majesty of life the universe, rather than a scientific theory in competition with Darwin and the big bang.

To me the message of Matthew 25 is that anyone who fails to see Jesus in the people around them, and especially in society’s invisible - the hungry, the thirsty, the ill-clothed and the oppressed – doesn’t really see Him at all. It is not that charitable behaviour earns admission to the kingdom of God, but rather that acted love for the neighbour is the behaviour characteristic of someone who is already a citizen.

Christianity needs to grow out of its literalised symbols and risk itself in the quest for Christ.

Alan Watts put it this way:

"The common error of ordinary religious practice is to mistake the symbol for the reality, to look at the finger pointing the way and then to suck it for comfort rather than follow it."
Posted by Rhian, Wednesday, 23 August 2006 8:47:59 PM
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Heaven: a self-stimulatory emotional state of mind here on earth; a dream in which the end of life is not oblivion but a gateway to a realm of perfect peace and love.

All of the world’s trouble and strife gone; “the wolf lies down with the lamb”, no more war, no more bills or taxes and, for some, access to willing maidens. Endless loving contemplation.

This private dream can be left in private except when it is used as a reward for young people to strap explosives to their bodies and launch themselves and others to that promised land. At that point the whole of society has to pay attention to what the stay-on-earth leaders are peddling.
Posted by John Warren, Thursday, 24 August 2006 11:43:10 AM
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Rhian and R0bert

I would like to thank you both for the most interesting and thought provoking posts on this thread.

Well done, R0bert for eliciting thoughtful and polite responses from Sells.

As for the subject matter - as I am not religious and have no belief in any afterlife I have followed this thread more out of intellectual curiosity than from any particular POV on the topic.

Perhaps, R0bert, the usual holy rollers haven't responded to Sells claims about heaven, because they do not generally criticise other christians or maybe, they do not want their illusions about an afterlife challenged in any way.
Posted by Scout, Thursday, 24 August 2006 12:12:15 PM
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John Warren : such a bl**dy obvious narky response; to the point of being tedious.

Rhian re your: "Christianity needs to grow out of its literalised symbols and risk itself in the quest for Christ."

I do not think Christ is a quest. Isn't it that He finds you, and it is in your response, which can only be a losing of self, that the desire for him takes hold and the path to a fuller humanity begins? And that there is no barrier to this? It is not intellectual or emotional - simply human assent of the informed will.

Symbols are associated with ritual which as a practice meets a human need. Every sphere of human activity has ritual so it need not be excised from religious worship. Indeed ritual is found its fullest expression in the religious sphere; from human sacrifice to sharing bread and wine.

Much of the literalising by believers is of the written word; be it the Bible or Koran. It is too easy to grab hold of something as unimaginative as text and avoid its underlying purpose and call.

I choose to worship God through the Catholic Mass. Its balance of communal prayer, the reading of the Word with the responses, and the ritual in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, and importantly the short periods of quietness for reflection, satisfies my deeper yearnings to engage in communal worship fairly regularly. The sermon can invoke an inspired response or just a deadening.

I have no right to make judgement on those around me as to where why they are there. People at any point in time are at different part of the journey. It is just better that we are there, than not.

It just may spark that deep internal desire St Augustine speaks of
"Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O Lord"
Posted by boxgum, Thursday, 24 August 2006 1:50:27 PM
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Boxgum,

Your last post is well written and presents I sense an honest conviction. I respect this over your earlier one-by-one shots at other contributors, who are entitled to their opinions.

Just the same:

Cannot ritual be over the top? Surely, nine absolutions is obsessive or even manic? Or, self-flagellation or Russian peasants lining-up to work their way around the Church kissing the icons. Often blue churches dedicated to Mary (Isis).

Moreover, Catholicism, unlike Protestant faith, requires surrendering to that Church's interpretations/symbols, rather than taking a less intercessionist route to interpretation. In this regard, Catholicism deprives individuals of their individualism. In this frame, I have read (Armstrong) that the Pharisees, after the fall of the Second Temple, were not particular phased: The "stone" Temple was not required, so they took their ritual home... Highly, individualistic.

Jesus, was removed from overt symbolism, chiding ritualistic public observences.

An individual relationship with God, without a stone church? A belief in the Body. God without a Church? Why do we need a clergy? Why not just professors of thesism? This state would prove more forensic.

Churches and clergy have their roots in the administration of land (on behlf of God) in the Sumer (Quigley) as garden cultures became city-states, hundreds of years before Abraham and thousands of years before Christ. It was land grab, via a God grab. That is, control, money and power, not devotion. If God exists, the Chuches seem to have usurped His thunder
Posted by Oliver, Thursday, 24 August 2006 4:57:54 PM
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Boxgum, you make some good points.

Individually, I’d agree Christ finds us, although we’re also working our way towards Him, as your journey imagery suggests. My criticism was targeted not so much at individual Christians (you’re right, we’re at different stages of our journeys) but at some church leaders. These fail to nurture progress on those journeys when they shy away from addressing complex or confronting theological issues, and are content to present shallow or literalistic theology from the pulpit. Deepening faith requires that we test, criticise and sometimes abandon some of our beliefs (writers such as Fowler, Kohlberg and Dykstra make this point, although their models of faith development are too hierarchical for my taste – see for example http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/apr1982/v39-1-tabletalk1.htm). I think theology as it is taught in many churches actually inhibits spiritual development because it seldom makes its congregations aware of even the basic ideas being taught in modern theology and bible studies.

If I seemed to be attacking symbolism I apologise, this was not my intention. Symbols are powerful and moving and an indispensable part of faith, able to communicate things that words alone cannot. The problem is when we fail to treat these as symbols – things that point beyond themselves to something deeper – and treat them as the objects of faith and not windows on the subject of faith. So the bread and wine are not actually flesh and blood, Jesus was not remarkable because he walked on water and his mother was a virgin, we are not all biological descendents of Adam and Eve. The truths these images point to are far deeper than their literalistic use as miraculous proofs of supernatural activity. But in a culture that defines truth in terms of historical fact and scientific evidence, believers and non-believers alike struggle to recognise the real sense in which these things are ‘true’.

There is a spiritual yearning in our society that the church is not satisfying, and I worry that this is partly because of our unwillingness to rephrase our story in adult terms that make sense to the 21st century
Posted by Rhian, Thursday, 24 August 2006 6:30:04 PM
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Just a question, Rhian, are you a postmodernist?
Posted by YngNLuvnIt, Thursday, 24 August 2006 8:38:50 PM
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Boxgum, don’t get cross, Peter Sellick asked a straightforward question: Is heaven real? I gave a summary of my answer: it is real only in the minds of believers, it is not real in the normal meaning of the word.

It is interesting that among all the postings on this topic so few, or none, have tried to answer Peter’s question directly, including you. What has the satisfaction of your deeper yearnings got to do with the real existence of heaven?

Let us have your concise answer to the question “is heaven real?”, yes or no and why, but before you do, check, if you have not already done so, Google for The Catholic Encyclopedia and The Religion of Islam sites for their understanding of heaven or paradise. And if you eventually go there what more do you expect once your deepest yearnings shave been satisfied?

My hope is that through these repeated discussions people will understand that what goes on in the brain is only a, sometimes distorted, image of the real world, it is not reality itself.
Posted by John Warren, Friday, 25 August 2006 3:18:39 PM
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As a child if there was ever something that worried me my mother would always say "Keiran, it is just mind over matter". What a great thought this has played in my life. By refocusing my psychic energy i could develop a coping mechanism to control pain like at the dentist. i.e. sublimate this particular worry by imagining deep green ocean or imagine my own green elysian fields. For myself this would seem to be only a temporary measure until I could rechannel my thoughts back to the material problem. But who knows, we probably sublimate a great deal from our material existence where we are totally unaware and this can become part of the problem too. It is not inconceivable that the valhallas, elysians, heavens, paradises, nirvanas and their associated religious playpens are all part of the same picture ........ a coping, displacement, denial and in all cases a controlling mechanism.

I know that my ninety-year old mother-in-law who refers to me as a heathen, sees heaven as very real indeed because it mostly occupies her thoughts when I meet her on a regular basis. I have as a loving son-in-law been known to say that her concerns about heaven are just mind over matter.
Posted by Keiran, Friday, 25 August 2006 3:50:33 PM
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YngNLuvnI,
I don’t think of myself as a postmodernist, though like many people nowadays I’m influenced by postmodernism.

Postmodernism does a good job of challenging western culture’s assumption of its own superiority, questioning our assumed capacity for dispassionate objectivity, and disputing black-and-white distinctions between true and false, fact and fiction. These have been an important corrective of modernist hubris and excess.

But postmodernism has its own problems too. Extreme relativism is self-defeating. The understanding that our views, experiences, circumstances etc influence how we see the world can become a licence to manufacture our realities, and can leads to nihilism. Understanding people as self-interested products of their past and circumstances can lead to an obsession with identify markers which sees people only as defined by the categories they belong to –such as gender, class, race, or sexual orientation.

While a dilute form of postmodernism is now pervasive in mainstream modern culture, its more emphatic and extreme versions never really took hold and now seem to be waning in influence even in non-scientific academia.

The theologian Karl Barth, who Peter admires, was in some ways a precursor of postmodernism in his rejection of modernist definitions of reality and its verification (see Peter’s article http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4567).

I think the modernist-influenced intellectual toolkit of reason and evidence, historical and archaeological inquiry, techniques of biblical criticism such as form criticism etc (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_criticism) are very useful for both theological understanding and promoting faith development – I’m very comfortable in a “modernist” mindset. But I also believe that there will never be a satisfactory “scientific” proof of God, that what we know in faith will always be to some degree allusive or incomplete, mutable, and communicable only through symbol and story. And I suppose that’s a pretty pomo perspective.
Posted by Rhian, Friday, 25 August 2006 4:26:52 PM
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Rhian, if I mention that "postmodern" has mutated into a hyperlink to the 360 degrees of an infinite meta-narrative with its global network of moderators and always connected, then we now have a communications medium unlike others that were one to many forms. The internet is communications many to many which I find truly significant.

The Enlightenment we understand as a struggle in the name of reason, against tyranny, superstition and inequity, but at its core was the new communications medium with the printing press. Where once there was but the spoken word, and then the beautifully hand written word, now we had the printed word. Next we had the wire which then goes from the wire to the wireless. Wireless is a one to many dictatorship of the loud voice and hence the modernism of the early twentieth century is reflective of extremes of unreason ......i.e. dictators. It is not surprising that television gave us the lateral but superficial postmodern but the internet is interactive, democratic, many to many, with a deeper realism and our new enlightenment where the word is not with a teddy (god) anymore but with the people.

There is no teddy (god) but our new enlightenment perhaps explains why we are having teddy wars.
Posted by Keiran, Friday, 25 August 2006 6:37:21 PM
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Boxgum,

Nine absolutions for a dead Pope. Why so many?
Posted by Oliver, Friday, 25 August 2006 7:36:17 PM
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Well Sells,

I see you have made no attempt to justify your causal claim, nor to explain to your readers how you have transgressed all norms of academic rigour to make such a claim – no doubt acceptable in matters of faith, but not science. Hopefully you are doing some research into the questions I asked, and can now explain in an equally simplistic manner how such horrors have occurred which have nothing at all to do with Marx’s ideas.

You suggest that Marx was “a direct descendent” of Feuerbach and provide the following interpretation:

“To-turn.."the-friends-of-God-into-friends-of-man,-believers-into-thinkers,-worshippers-into-workers,-candidates-for-the-other-world-into-students-of-this-world,-Christians,-who-on-their-own-confession-are-half-animal-and-half-angel,-into-men—whole-men."7-To-these-proposed-improvements-he-had-earlier-added:-"theo¬logians-into-anthropologians-.-.-.-,-religious-and-political-footmen-of-a-celestial-and-terrestrial-monarchy-and-aris¬tocracy-into-free,-self-reliant-citizens-of-earth.”

“I-deny-only-to-affirm.-I-deny-the-fantastic-projection-of-theology-and-religion-in-order-to-affirm-the-real-essence-of-man.”

This-is-the-foundation-of-Marxism.-It-seeks-to-destroy-all-of-the-religious-hypostases-and-expose-them-as-products-of-man.-But-instead-it-builds-its-own-made-of-man-himself-with-disastrous-consequences.-It-is-no-accident-that-communist-regimes-all-turned-into-secular-religions-that-systematically-slaughtered-its-citizens.”

Marx and Engels did indeed take account of Feuerbach in their conceptions, however they did not just accept his tenets, and in fact quite comprehensively critiqued him. Interested readers can find Engels’ “Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosopy” here http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1886/ludwig-feuerbach/index.htm

A quote:

“The only religion which Feuerbach examines seriously is Christianity, the world religion of the Occident, based upon monotheism. He proves that the Christian god is only a fantastic religion, a mirror image, of man. Now, this god is, however, himself the product of a tedious process of abstraction, the concentrated quintessence of the numerous earlier tribal and national gods. And man, whose image this god is, is therefore also not a real man, but likewise the quintessence of the numerous real men, man in the abstract, therefore himself again a mental image…..

In the form he is realistic since he takes his start from man; but there is absolutely no mention of the world in which this man lives, hence, this man remains always the same abstract man who occupied the field in the philosophy of religion”

Is this not what you mean by “build its own [hypostases] made of man himself”? Despite their limited admiration for his work, Marx and Engels were critical of Feuerbach themselves.

It is a little disingenuous don’t you think, to claim that Marx was a “direct descendent” of Feuerbach and made gods of men which led directly to “secular religions” and then directly to slaughter. It is much more complex.
Posted by tao, Saturday, 26 August 2006 12:15:42 AM
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Tao.
Thank you for your considered post. You obviously know more about the relationship of Fauerbach and Marxism than I. My response to Fauerbach’s assertion that all Christian theology is subjective, a projection of our wishes dreams and desires, is to again say that theology is an objective science. I refer you to an article on my home page:

http://petersellick.nationalforum.com.au/articles45.html
Posted by Sells, Saturday, 26 August 2006 6:00:01 AM
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Sells,

Is this http://petersellick.nationalforum.com.au/articles45.html a serious example of the objective scientific method of theology?

Firstly, let us deal with your pejorative unfounded assertion that “Devotees” of science “would-have-profound-difficulties-relating-to-another-person-in-anything-but-a-superficial-and-utilitarian-fashion.--Intimacy-with-another-would-be-impossible-because-how-could-we-trust-thoughts-and-feelings-evoked-by-that-other-that-could-not-be-empirically-tested?”

Apart from the obvious fact that scientists themselves are quite capable of trusting thoughts and feelings and being intimate, the question arises – Why, if this were true, would you then want to subject your precious God and his “word” to an objective, trust and intimacy-destroying, scientific method, and characterize your precious theology as an “objective science”?

You say – “theological-science-investigates-the-reality-of-God-as-born-witness-to-in-the-scriptures” and “this-science-takes-as-its-modus-operandi-the-investigation-of-what-the-scriptures-say-about-God”.

What scientific evidence is there for “the reality of God”?

What does the term “born witness” mean scientifically?

From your description, the “modus operandi” of theology appears to consist of firstly ACCEPTING that there is a God, then ACCEPTING that the scriptures tell us the truth about God, and then interpreting the scriptures to claim credit for all sorts of things, and to fit historical events (which by any stretch of the imagination cannot be considered scientific).

You comment that, as opposed to science which can only accurately describe the world and ‘spawn’ reliable technology, “the PROOF of theological science is its power to accurately describe the human and to produce individuals and hence societies that nurture human life” and “Getting theology wrong is bad for your health!”. Really?

Did the bible accurately describe the genesis of humans 6000 years ago? What spin might theological “science” put on that little error to PROVE it was “accurate”?

And I suppose the kind of society that nurtures human life is one in which HUMAN LIFE was tortured and burnt at the stake in the name of God.

What was the life expectancy for a human being in Europe prior to the “scientific” development of medicine, compared to that now?

Do you really call this thesis, which does not hold up to even the most cursory objective scrutiny, science? .

Have you submitted your thesis to the Faculty of Science at your University for review?
Posted by tao, Saturday, 26 August 2006 3:24:50 PM
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Tao,

What the Bible describes 6,000 years ago is the transition from Garden Cultures to the Summerian city states. Before then there was a period of 12,000 to 20,000 years where people were not quite nomads. These folk settled for a few years in one place then moved on.

Around 4,000 BCE cities like Ur were founded. Organised priesthoods were established about then, where presumably shamanism divided into religion and medicine: This is way say, if we stretch the imagination, and say Jesus is God; the intercessionist Churches have usurped Him. We probably don't need a God: We definitely don't need Churches.

In the West no doubt the religionists stifled progress. But it is also true that in the last centuries of the Roman Empire many of the contributions of the best Greeks were lost. When this was rediscovered in the West via Byzantine Empire we have the foundations for the Enlightenment.
Posted by Oliver, Saturday, 26 August 2006 6:18:40 PM
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Sells,

The more I have thought about this, the more annoyed I have become. Here you are, peddling absolute twaddle about theology being “science” and using your taxpayer funded title from an educational institution to lend credence to your completely unscientific and unsubstantiated arguments.

I wonder what the University of WA Science Faculty thinks of your efforts. As far as I’m concerned you are using your position to befuddle people about the nature of the scientific method and science. Any serious educational institution ought to be extremely concerned about (a) the obfuscatory effect your actions have on unsuspecting and non-scientifically trained (and perhaps uneducated) members of the public, and (b) the effect your actions have on the credibility of the institution itself.

What do you have to say about this? Quite frankly, I am thinking about making a complaint to the University.

Oliver,

Considering creationists think Adam was only created 4,500 years ago (http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/1606), I don’t know where you get your information from – perhaps from believers who recognize a literal interpretation of the bible is not accurate, but then spin it into “symbolism” in order to fit the facts gained from historical and archeological research.

With regard to your earlier comments about Marx not taking into account a “purchasing class” - Marxism takes as its basis for class analysis, peoples’ relationship to the means of production. For as long as a person does not own the means to produce and sustain his/her own life and has to sell his/her labour for that sustenance, he/she is working class, or proletariat – whether in industrial capitalism or market capitalism.

With regard to your comment “trade unions and industrial laws have held capitalism in check”, it is becoming apparent for all to see that industrial laws holding capitalism in check are being eroded, and trade unions are completely impotent when it comes to defending the interests of the working class. In fact trade unions are now being exposed as the defenders and agents of the profit system that they always have been.
Posted by tao, Sunday, 27 August 2006 1:58:16 AM
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Oliver, what is with the nine absolutions? I am not aware of the story

I agree ritual can be over the top. It can also be trivialised and its expression diluted.

In ritual, two people can be present; one participating as a truly human expression of worshiping God, above and beyond and wondrous. The other participating as an act of worship of a sacred being that, no matter how dressed up, is a merely a component in the ritual. Who is doing what, and to what degree, I expect would be seen in the lives they live. One dynamic and enriched, the other static and staid blending in easily with the society around them.

The Catholic Church tradition welcomes all comers. Yes, there is validity in some criticism of the personal piety programmes, the extremes of which are always good for a video image to further impress some prejudice. But many of them are part of a journey and are moved on from where there is real open faith practised with Scripture prayer and reflection. This is part of the ongoing paring of the externalities that hide the essential beauty and awe of the God relationship. (Continued)
Posted by boxgum, Sunday, 27 August 2006 6:04:31 AM
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Further:

I am a South Sydney Rabbitoh supporter. I attend a few games a year, yes even when they are at the bottom of the NRL ladder. When present, I share a common goal and belief in my team with the bloke next to me. While I may have a small red and green rabbit emblem on my black jacket, my neighbour is fully dressed in beanie, scarf, footy jumper and flag, dripping red and green. We share the same joy in the scoring of a Rabbitoh try. When the opposition scores and it is a good piece of football, I applaud it, whilst my brother in colours boos and curses the ref. One team, one goal, same story, different eyes to see, different ways to respond.

Is heaven real? In as much as the Souths story will incorporate another premiership in 2008, hopefully yes.

Is heaven real? In as much my story can incorporate the attainment of a fuller loving humanity that would not have been gained but for my encounter in the Scriptures with the Risen Lord, certainly yes. But I do not know what happens beyond the grave. If not, then the God of Promises works only in the here and now of human evolution. Who am I to question? But I do like surprises.

BTW: Keiran/Tao. The Enlightenment came centuries after the printing press. Its more immediate effect was on the expanded literacy of the hoi poloi in reading the Bible with it being printed in the vernacular. And yes Tao the application of ClassicGreek thought to the Christian "sacred science" of theology through St Thomas Aquinas ( nominated as the first Whig by Hayek) did indeed lay the foundations of freedom from which the Enlightenment shone its once promising light. That's exactly the point Peter Sellick and others have endeavoured to hammer home. Christian thought and practice are our roots, and in cutting itself from them secular humanism has delivered a dried and withered outcome.

Now its time to hit the golf course which is usually a hell experience.
Posted by boxgum, Sunday, 27 August 2006 6:06:07 AM
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tao, I think you are way off the mark if you are seriously thinking about complaining to Sell's employer about his work in this area. The reference to his employment is in a footnote following the article, it's not used in the article anywhere to justify his position. It's my understanding that those kinds of footnotes are used fairly regularly on OLO. I can see a case for background info and a case against but I don't see that Sell's has tried to present his views as being the Universities view.

He is an individual with an interest in theology who happens to work at a University. No need for censure or compaint for that, argue the point with Sell's here and be glad that he is exposing aspects of christain theology that we will never hear from our resident fundies. Next time some unsavory type threatens you with eternal hellfire for not following their particular brand of belief you are better armed to fight them on their own turf.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Sunday, 27 August 2006 8:32:46 AM
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Sells, your surprise at the lack of sermons on heaven is unnecessary. As soon as the concept of heaven gets beyond the feeling that it is a nice place where what is left of self exists in eternal harmony with God and fellow wraiths, you and others on this thread are left speechless. All your sermonisers cannot describe, in ordinary English, any aspect of the reality of heaven. If they try, then the simple and vast contradictions in regarding it as having any reality, in the understandable meaning of the word, become obvious.

Look at the words of hymns and prayers, they are full of praise and thanks which stimulate the emotions but nothing else. I have invited Boxgum (one of the more articulate bloggers) to put his/her understanding of heaven
into words (his/her sermon if you like) and what do we get: “ the essential beauty and awe of the God relationship”. Is that enough to argue for the reality of heaven?

The ancients had a definite view of heaven. It was up there above the sky. They drew pretty illustrations of it with people disposed in it. The telescope destroyed that image so the possibility of seeing it in a place went. It is now in that vast nowhere so all that remains is a memory of stories from humanity's childhood.
Posted by John Warren, Sunday, 27 August 2006 12:22:35 PM
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John Warren,

”The ancients had a definite view of heaven. It was up there above the sky.”

First of all we need to define what is meant by “ancient”. I assume here the period between c. 4,000 BCE and 476 CE (The Fall of the Western Roman Empire).
As mentioned in an earlier post there exited a Garden Culture transition stage in the late Neolithic period. Also, as previously mentioned, the primitives before the foundation of the first civilization (Sumer) believed in immortality and that “evil” and omens intervened to truncate its “good” course. Heaven did no exist as we see it your description. The Sky tends to be related to creation myths.

The ancients (Quigley: 1961): “During the period 600-400 BC in the Greek speaking world, Ionian scientists applied the rules of hypothesis by assuming the heavens were made of the same substance and obeyed the laws and that man was a part of nature”. “The enemies of science” disagreed with the Ionians asserting that Earth and Heaven were of a different substance. Earth had four elements (earth, wind, air, fire) and was made of a different fifth substance, “quintessence”. Moreover, it was said, objects on Earth moved in straight lines and in heaven in “perfect” circles, which the planetary certainly does not… just representative of the same.

--contunued--
Posted by Oliver, Sunday, 27 August 2006 2:14:01 PM
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Tao.
All the great universities of the world have schools or faculties of theology, even some of our Australian universities do. Those who do not, like UWA are unfortunate because their students, especially those studying the humanities, remain ignorant of the great traditions of thought that have formed Western civilization. The theological sciences should be an integral part of everyone’s education. By the way, I submitted my Online Opinion articles, alongside my scientific publications to the university’s review of academic publications.

I was reminded about how interesting the subject of heaven was by this morning’s reading from the Ephesians:

(Eph 6:12 NRSV) For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

So heaven is not only the abode of God, but it is also where the forces of evil dwell. The forces and authorities referred to are many in our day. We could include nationalism, rampant capitalism, the foolishness of the radical biologists like Dennet and Dawkins, Marxism, religion, political correctness, managerialism. All of these obscure the face of humanity as being made in the image of God.

My detractors on this page may protest at the ancient language of theology and they refuse to look through that to the thing it indicates. The cosmic powers of this present darkness are all around us. We do not have to believe in spooks to see that they are real. The language of heaven is an ancient way of talking about them and a potent way.
Posted by Sells, Sunday, 27 August 2006 4:07:27 PM
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--continued--

Where did the Habiru God live? Yahveh was originally a minor deity of the Canaanite pantheon whom the Habiru worshiped. He lived on a mountain. El was the Creator of the World. El was said to have led a Council of the Gods, but, we, –to the best my knowledge are knowledge not told where the Council met; Earth, heaven, some realm of the gods? If memory server, Yahveh lived in a volcano. The Hebrews from the time of Moses started to worship Him exclusively.

Please notice the term “Him”. Around this time there was a shift from “fertility” to “vitality” in relation to spirituality.

In heaven, the elevation of Mary and the intercession of the saints became a compromise to the Roman pantheon.


Tao,

Thank you for your post.

My point about 4,000 BCE is that the ancient (not primitive) religionism with a priesthood seems to have started around the time of the beginning of the Sumerian civilization. Creationists in back tracking genealogies approximate this date. Good date, wrong event. There were garden cultures lasting 8,000 to 12,000 years before this time, preceded by earlier Neolithic peoples. Otherwise put, the Old Testament takes us back to roughly the time of the first city states, priesthoods and the invention of hand writing not the Creation (an evolutionary process). Humanity depending on the stage of development and in response to ecologies transforms its religious expressions.

“With regard to your earlier comments about Marx not taking into account a “purchasing class” - Marxism takes as its basis for class analysis, peoples’ relationship to the means of production.” I would not dispute these matters. Only the capitalism of Dickens is different to today’s. Moreover, capital is deplored to protect/build markets, e.g., the Marshall Plan and the response to 1997 Asia Cash. -- I am not near being a Marxist.

Boxgum,

Regarding the ritual of the nine absolutions, I confess my source is was David Jensen, as journalist in, “Shoes of a Fisherman” ! Point remains. Just the same, I have seen icon worship firsthand in Russia.

Thanks for your reply.
Posted by Oliver, Sunday, 27 August 2006 6:58:30 PM
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1 ...
Peter says ....... "I tried, unsuccessfully, to jolt readers out of the idea of heaven being the reward for a good life after death. There is a strong emphasis on judgment in the NT, especially in the gospel of Matthew. None of this language points to the judgment of individuals after their deaths but to an end time judgment of the whole world. "

Now my "mind over matter" issue is one concerning my lovely, dear mother-in-law, who at ninety years is quite frail now, but has alway in her life read the Bible and been a good Anglican. How do I or don't I tell this good Christian lady that she will not go to heaven? ............ Ouch!

This is not something to laugh off and ignore but indeed it becomes a serious ethical issue. There is no way I can say to her that she will not go to heaven because some contemporary theologian says so.

2 ...
Just seems all this fuss is down to the fact that religion is fashion and any teddy (god) is an artifact of fashion. Religious playpens change continually and can vary enormously depending on time and culture so can any really be grounded in absolute truth?

Peter makes these statements in his article which then represent the core of his own thoughts ...
"From this he (.... Barth) concludes that heaven, like earth, is a part of the creation and as such is creaturely and exists in time."
"Since heaven is part of the creation it may not be worshiped, it is not God."

My question is simple. If Barth "concludes that heaven, like earth, is a part of the creation" then is it not logical to assume that he means that his teddy is the creator? ............ Ouch!
Posted by Keiran, Monday, 28 August 2006 8:37:03 AM
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Keiran,
It is obvious you relish attention in your mystical representations of your immaginative world.

Thanks Sells for the Ephesians verse. I believe the conflict of heaven there represents the conflict for the allegiance of mind by ideas. It is a spiritual state where truth and right living will ultimately triumph, when all opposing powers are vanquished. This very thread is a representation of spiritual conflict that is happening in the ether, as powers [ideas] struggle for truth and righteousness to reign against hypocracy, taunting, torment and ignorance.

Heaven is the realm of the spirit, it is not physical, even as the torment of hell is not physical. Both joy and peace or torment and fear are states of mind and can be based upon the quality of its eternal endurance.
Posted by Philo, Monday, 28 August 2006 11:46:52 PM
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Then he called the crowd again and said to them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person." Mark 7.
Philo.
Next weeks reading from the gospel of Mark puts another spin on the origin of the principalities and powers. We must own them, they are ours. Of course the libertarians are scandalized by the list but do we know anyone who would be for them? They would no doubt see them as an imposition by and authoritarian religion that is bound to restrict their precious freedom.
Posted by Sells, Tuesday, 29 August 2006 9:43:36 AM
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ahh that's it!

When I last posted, I mentioned I had heard there are 3 ideas which are represented by the English word "heaven" in the Bible but I couldn't clearly remember which one was the second.

1) The sky/atmosphere.
2) Where spiritual battles are fought (see Eph. 6).
3) God's throne room.

Paul mentioned he had gone up into the third heaven- the third one above is what he was talking about (I think).
Posted by YngNLuvnIt, Tuesday, 29 August 2006 12:18:09 PM
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Philo,

1. What is your take on: Luke 23:43 - "And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee To day shalt thou be with me in paradise." ... Noting "with me in paradise"? The thief was corrected from paradise, in the future, to paradise, now. Where is paradise now? What is paradise now? I assume you mean a "state".

2. Is Gehannah a metaphor. That is, The fires representing Valley of Hinnon sacrifices is to Molech (Cannanite Baal)?

3. Does the Creed state that Jesus descended into Shoel (Hell?) -a "physical" place represented by Gehannah? Like Molech, YHWH (Yahweh Sabaoth?) was originally on the Cannanite Baal. Was Jesus in a state or a place for three days?

4. 1,2 & 3 above seem to have strong Jewish tethers?

5. Do you feel from second century onwards the Framers of Christianity, lost touch with the histographies, against which the OT is set? Ha something rabbinical has been lost?
Posted by Oliver, Tuesday, 29 August 2006 6:29:05 PM
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Oliver,
Paradise is that blessed and right relationship with God. That happened on that very day for the repentant theif. "And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee To day shalt thou be with me in paradise."

2. "Is Gehannah a metaphor. That is, The fires representing Valley of Hinnon sacrifices is to Molech (Cannanite Baal)?"
From what I've read, Gehannah was the valley outside Jerusalem where human waste was dumped. A fire continually burned to dispose of the waste.

3. "Does the Creed state that Jesus descended into Shoel (Hell?) -a "physical" place represented by Gehannah?

Was Jesus in a state or a place for three days?"

That Jesus descended into hell, first appeared in the sixth Century imitating pagan views of the trimphant gods. Sheol is a Hebrew word meaning the grave [burial] into which he certainly was placed. He never entered a place that the Romans viewed as Hell [the firey underworld].

5. Do you feel from second century onwards the Framers of Christianity, lost touch with the histographies, against which the OT is set? Ha something rabbinical has been lost?

Yes I believe so.
Posted by Philo, Wednesday, 30 August 2006 12:08:52 AM
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R0bert,

Do you seriously believe that a sensible debate can be had with this man?

When asked to define "born witness" he responds with "My detractors on this page may protest at the ancient language of theology and they refuse to look through that to the thing it indicates."

Hardly scientific. When faced with simple but essential questions about his "science of theology" he is forced to revert to the subjective, or faith, or the bible, or evil and darkness.

And then just look at the drivel that has followed.

Sells' attempt to conflate theology with science is an intellectual crime against humanity.
Posted by tao, Wednesday, 30 August 2006 8:44:05 AM
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tao, I've never done well at understanding what Sell's is on about when it comes to his religious beliefs. That may be that my own background was very much in the evangelical (borderline fundy) strain or it may be that Sell's has some issues - I don't assume that my failure to understand implies that the other party is talking nonsense.

Sell's does seem willing to adjust his understanding of his faith to fit in with observed reality - easier to work with than those who assume that reality is wrong if it does not fit with their beliefs even if I understand the latter.

I really would not like to see a situation where individuals suffer at work for expressing unconventional views not impacting on their work. If Sell's was editing test results at work to reflect his understanding of Gods nature then his employer would have reason to be involved but not for discussing theology. That way lies the tyrany of the middle ages.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Wednesday, 30 August 2006 9:15:08 AM
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Philo, you often need to fight inertia and if I ground my self-esteem in living consciously, responsibly, and with integrity, then I relish facing the challenges of life in a state of confidence. Before you can answer a question such as how ought one act you first have this question of why does one need to know? Why does an issue of ethics arise in the first place? Well to be free is not merely to cast off one's inertia, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others so that our presence automatically liberates others.

In my previous post I presented an ouch or two that raised ethical issues in response to Peter's article. All one can say about the systematic belief in morality derived from the commands of supernatural beings, with assumed supernatural realms, with associated rituals, with sacred objects and places is that it practices the vile art of self-deception. Just seems most teddy infected types do not live out in their actions whatever playpen faith they profess with their lips, words and projections because all we see is a self-indulgence, resentment, manipulation, and a general lack of honest communication.

Peter's articles are a mish mash of confusing contradictions but the poor fellow says it is a science. Scientists survive professionally by determining cause and effect and they must be determinists or else they cease to be scientists. If one believes, like Peter with his belief in supernatural beings, that a certain effect had no material cause, then would one NOT be motivated to look for a cause? Wouldn't one then cease being a scientist in that area of investigation?
Posted by Keiran, Wednesday, 30 August 2006 1:08:40 PM
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Tao and Kerian. You both need to take a pill and have a good lie down. You are sounding quite bitter.

Question: All material things are moved by something that precedes it. Nothing pops out of nowhere. What "moved" the big bang as the beginning of our universal existence?

And whilst on things Arisotle here is a neat insight for those who want to separate the sacred science from all other sciences as human endeavour -

http://www.abu.nb.ca/Courses/GrPhil/PhilRel/Aristotle.htm
* * * *
The Unmoved Mover in Metaphysics

3.1. Metaphysics 6.1

Aristotle asserts that if there is a type of substance that is unchangeable, then first philosophy would deal with this primarily, since the unchangeable substance would be prior to changeable substance, presumably because the former would be the cause of latter.

Theoretical science is more to be desired than practical science, and the theoretical science the most desired is the science occupying the highest genus (dealing with the highest type of substance), that which has the unchangeable as its subject matter, what Aristotle calls first philosophy (hê prôtê philosophia) or theology (theologikê), as opposed to physics, which has the changeable for its subject matter, and mathematics.

He writes, "The first science deals with things that both exist separately and are immovable" (hê de prôtê kai peri chôrista kai akinêta) (Metaphysics 6.1; 1026a 15).

Thus, the first science has for its subject matter not only that which is substance and for that reason exists "separately" or independently, as all substances do, but also that type of substance that is unchangeable and therefore has no matter, for whatever has matter has potentiality and is therefore changeable.

* * * *

And of course Aquinas built on Aristotle whose works were handed down via the Muslim scholars. Aquinas's work built the foundation for human knowledge, understanding and will to find expression as we know it now; notwithstanding the deficiencies of the Enlightenment project.
Posted by boxgum, Wednesday, 30 August 2006 2:38:17 PM
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Boxgum, I have no need to take a pill and have a good lie down. What are you a pill pusher? LOL

Speaking of pushers .......

Aristotle said many things including "That there never was a time when there was not motion, and never will be a time when there will not be motion". (252b 6-8) In other words an infinite regression of pushers or really what I have been saying for some time ..... an infinite material universe that has always existed and always will exist. It is my thoughts on this that society at the time wanted to be the pusher and later Aristotle is thought to have then adopted this idea that an infinite regress is impossible.

In Islamic philosophy we have Imam al-Ghazali born in 1058. Whilst several Muslim philosophers had the opinion that the universe was finite in space but infinite in time he argued that infinite time was related to infinite space. i.e. an infinite regression. I've always found this belief quite remarkable because it assumes an infinite universe rather than one created.

As a thirteen-year old some fifty years ago when I first heard of the big bang "theory" I can remember saying to the teacher that it didn't make any scientific sense. Like how can you have a bang in a vacuum if indeed a vacuum could exist? It is quite absurd but we now see the the Big Bang is an official religion. Like all official religions, it requests funding to spread its message. The modern person saw this as good because we can retain a sense of pride in this new cosmology.

The same mindset that gave us this Big Bang stooopidity now gives us teddy (god) wars but all the dumbos out there love it don't they?
Posted by Keiran, Wednesday, 30 August 2006 4:44:27 PM
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Philo,

Thank you for your reply. Appreciated.
Posted by Oliver, Wednesday, 30 August 2006 8:04:53 PM
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Boxgum,

What actually is it that has no matter? If it has no matter, how do you know that it exists?

Probably because someone told you often enough, and you choose, uncritically, to believe it.

With regard to your bitter pill comment, it is not I that needs to dull my senses against reality, but those who choose to believe fairy tales.

R0bert,

The point is that a scientist at a public educational institution, on a wage paid by taxpayers, ought not to be confusing the public about science (and relying on his scientific "credibility" from that position to do so), whether or not it is in his free time, or about his pet "interest".

Religion deludes people about their real, objective conditions, and promoting hope in afterlifes, heaven etc. diverts them from coming up with solutions to "really" end their suffering.

Science, and the scientific method, is how humans investigate their real, objective conditions, and enables them to find solutions to "really" end their suffering, or at least come closer to it.

People should not be mislead about these things. As I said, it is an intellectual crime against humanity.
Posted by tao, Wednesday, 30 August 2006 11:57:42 PM
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Keiran,

Science: The evidence of the Big Bang is the uniform background radiation (2.7 degrees K). Space and time are blurred in Plank Time. Background radiation and redshift represent a serious challenge to a Solid State universe. There was no vacuum before space-time.

Philosophy: Aristotle also states all matter tries to a achieve a perfect state (The Unmoved Mover). All matter undergoes endless change with the goal of achieving no potentiality. Aristotle saw circular orbits as an "attempt" to achieve perfection. That is, the final state is never achieved but it is pursued - forever.

Mathematics and observation support Science. The universe in 12 to 15 billion years old. Earth circulates around a middle aged third generation sun
Posted by Oliver, Thursday, 31 August 2006 12:16:29 AM
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Sells, I was surprised, from your 27th August posting, that evil was present in your heaven. I had thought that evil, in the form of Satan, had been ejected from heaven long ago. And to find you regarding Marx, your fellow decrier of capitalism, as evil also puzzles me.

I suppose we can all create our own heaven-on-earth if we are allowed to get rid of our pet hates. I would include poverty and aids and other afflictions and, with thought, many others like disturbing noises. But then, if heaven is a place without personal annoyances, it would be reduced to an eternally boring existence of mutual admiration.
Posted by John Warren, Thursday, 31 August 2006 11:53:39 AM
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Keiran,

This is a photograph when the universe was only 300,000 years old:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/images/content/96115main_Full_m.jpg

Note, stretching of the space-time continuum allows us to look back in time.
Posted by Oliver, Thursday, 31 August 2006 8:10:15 PM
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Oliver, can you please give me nasa's information on that image that looks very much like a simulation.
Don't you think this could be one of many visualizations to support the religion of the big bang? lol

Perhaps you can tell me how nothing could exist and then bang a universe appears.
Perhaps you could explain how this big bang universe could be expanding into itself.
Perhaps you could explain how we see galaxies colliding.

Let's be quite clear about this ......... there is not a skerrick of scientific evidence to support this big bang cosmology and nor will anyone in the future find anything because it is plainly illogical. i.e. Nothing cannot be the cause of something if there ever was such a thing as nothing which is impossible anyway.

Of course this will not stop the high priests from continuing to denigrate the work of Hubble and Humason. When they found out about the Hubble-Humason redshifts, they decided that those must be Doppler redshifts, to serve as the first and only proof of the big bang expansion. This is the barefaced lie because Hubble, in actual fact, was a life long doubter of velocity being the cause of cosmological redshifts.

So why do scientists publicly deny the implications of modern science and promulgate the compatibility of religion and science? Wishful thinking, religious training, and intellectual dishonesty are all important factors. Perhaps the most important motivation in the US of A is this very fear about federal funding for science.
Posted by Keiran, Thursday, 31 August 2006 11:20:02 PM
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Heaven is just a word - as i said above - it describes a state of well being - a oneness with ALL things one encounters... just as they are. This leads to contentment, serenity, bliss and even ecstacy (read the works of Teresa of Avila - delerious (even mad) bliss at her experience of oneness, or the Buddha's Sutras) - how can one describe the direct experience of everything, ALL at the same time, in one moment, through language? You can't - not possible. You can only describe the tiniest of details - one thing at a time. However, with a mind cultivated in stillness and silence you can truely see it all, simultaneously. In total surrender we are *given* it ALL.

I can't give you my experience and you can't give me yours - you can only attempt to describe it - as can I - and description is never complete - so many layers/levels. Put simply, you either get it or you don't.

Learn to meditate - this is both the key and the door. Buddhists know this, Christian mystics know this, Haisidic Jews know this and Suffi muslims know this. Jesus knew it (remember his 40 days in solitude?)

It's very difficult to let go of all preconceptions and the passed on ideas of others - but direct (in the moment) perception is very possible and available to every one. Just stop *thinking* and accept what is directly here and now and BE with it (this can take time to master - but worth the effort), experience it and realise *FOR YOURSELF* the perfection all around.

No one can show you heaven directly (remember *heaven* is only a word). Direct perception/experience can only be gained by the individual themselves. It really does involve a mind free of thought - the ability to see directly, presently. Its a state of acceptance rather than contrivance/striving. Perfection is all around - always - nothing needs to change other than how we as individuals relate to what we are experiencing.

Those who can see, see.... and those who can't think.
Posted by K£vin, Friday, 1 September 2006 7:14:20 AM
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... and for PK - meditate in the morning, the early morning. Its easier to 'quiten' the mind whilst everythihng is still and much of the world around you is still asleep.
Posted by K£vin, Friday, 1 September 2006 7:20:42 AM
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Hello Keiran,

Thanks for a prompt response. I am caught with my own research over the next few days but will come back to your comments. However, just quickly Astronomical observations tend to be cross-verified from multiple receiving stations. Some folks (not saying you)think that NASA faked the lunar landing but the CSIRO in Parkes was the main receiver.

The colliding galaxies is an interesting counter-remark. It could be we should not be examining the behaviour of galaxies but the delayed consequences of the behaviour of precusor gases that have been regionalised? That is, solid matter is "formed", within a once gaseous region, and later cross-interacts as galaxies.

Just so I undestand your perspective:

-- Do you believe the Universe is billions of years old?
-- Do believe in the Second Law of Thermodynamics?

Thanks
Posted by Oliver, Friday, 1 September 2006 7:01:14 PM
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Keiran,

Postscript to the above:

While redshift is a signature of recessional motional motion, it is not a Doppler effect. With redshift the electromagnetic spectrum is stretched as the spact-time contuum expands faster the c. (e.g., lightwaves crossing the universe.

Do you have any comment on the validty/invalidty of background radiation?
Posted by Oliver, Friday, 1 September 2006 8:25:56 PM
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--Kieran's assertions to Oliver:

1. “Perhaps you can tell me how nothing could exist and then bang a universe appears.”

2. “Perhaps you could explain how this big bang universe could be expanding into itself.”

3. “Perhaps you could explain how we see galaxies colliding.”

4. Hubble, in actual fact, was a life long doubter of velocity being the cause of cosmological redshifts. Just the same, Hubble’s work –though understandably limited by today’s standards-- leans towards the formulation of Big Bang theory.

-- Oliver's replies to Kiernan:

1. Quantum indeterminacy before reality had coalesced to space-
time.
2. The universe expands “with” itself. Entropy.
3. Gravity overcomes the expansion.
4. Hubble died in 1953. The Big Bang was confirmed [background
radiation] in 1965.

-- Questions for Kieran:

1. As previous asked.
2. Can God count to infinity using regular numbers? Please support reply.
3. Can God count backwards from infinity to 0 using regular numbers in His lifetime? Please support reply.
4. Where is God’s lifetime? Please support reply.
5. How is God’s lifetime bounded within reality?
Posted by Oliver, Saturday, 2 September 2006 7:14:24 PM
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Oliver, as is often the case, answers to complex questions lead not to closure but to more questions. .... so you or teddy (an invented god) cannot have an infinite, ... sorry .... because infinite is a process not a product. Infinite here refers to a process needing assumptions only to understand and this point explains why assumptions and not absolutes are necessary for thinking. If we ignore the imperfections produced by infinity, of course we can imagine some perfect objects, perfect motions and idealised states but we can never actually find them. In fact that mode of belief belongs to a now obsolete assumption of finite universal causality.

e.g.
Neither empty space nor solid matter can exist because they are human idealisations ..... i.e. absolutes. The reality in an infinite universe can only be the continuum between ..... never being an absolute solid nor an absolute space that we call a vacuum. If there can be no true vacuum then it is reasonable to conclude that the NON-existence of the universe is an impossibility.

Oliver, if the universe is an infinite process and has always existed then what role could there ever be for a teddy if you wanted one? Certainly, an infinite universe is a far more pleasant thought than an imaginary created one with a beginning and an end. But closed systems people like yourself prefer this finite mode of thought and erroneously apply it to everything.

e.g.
The 2nd law is a law of departure but it has a complement as a law of arrival. i.e. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that the overall entropy or disorder of a perfectly isolated system can only increase. Because an infinite universe is not a perfectly isolated system but an environment with infinite processes then all real things have a degree of isolation and a degree of nonisolation. In an infinite universe divergence and convergence are equal. Things come apart in one place to form other things in another place. The constituents of galaxies eventually diverge from one another only to form new galaxies in the intergalactic space.
Posted by Keiran, Saturday, 2 September 2006 10:10:44 PM
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--Part One--

Keiran, I am unsure if you have answered my questions. Definitely not as anticipated. Why I asked the above questions was because I am trying to know should I calibrate my response to a…

a. Religionist?
b. Philosopher?
c. Scientist supporting the Solid State universe?
d. Perhaps a combination?

To hold, as a temporary proposition, the Big Bang universe is the most valid competing explanation and is no a teddy. If the expansion of space-time is asymmetrical (admittedly not the most widely held view) then we have previous universe states existing before our/this generation universe. In which case there might not be a first universe. So there is no teddy.

If,(a) on average, the background radiation of this universe were absolute zero, (b) predicted transmutation from elementary particles to exotic energy and particle forms did not occur in accelerators, (c) and there was no recessionary redshift, then, there would be a good case to revisit the solid state universe. But the evidence does not support the Solid State universe. Mathematically and personally this stance has nothing to do with a fear of there being “no beginning” and need for a teddy.

One can look at infinity as a continuum. However, also, infinities can differ in magnitude: e.g., some infinite numerical sets are greater than other numerical sets. Moreover, infinities can delimiters. Relately, the space-time of this universe theoretically could have no end. No teddy. However, according to Roger Penrose, there is only one-thirteen the required matter now observed. So, unless there is more matter out there, or there exists physics, we don’t understand, this universe will collapse. This is not a teddy: It is science.

Actually, previously, I thought you were seeking idealised states. No me. Historically, Peter Abelard and, more recently, Michael Polanyi have argued against resting on final states, when it comes to understanding reality. Here, the best we can do is make a commitment. We temporary hold that incomplete understanding based on evidence. Today’s evidence supports the Big Bang. Neither, the Solid State theory, nor the creationist explanations hold-up as well to deep investigation.
Posted by Oliver, Sunday, 3 September 2006 3:08:08 PM
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--Part Two--

Vacuum states and solid matter have observed, quasi-observed quantum under-states, which science is just beginning to articulate, and, as yet, cannot understand or unified. Further, vacuum states and solid matter are post~priori events, which are posited contemporaneously to have been once unified. If one runs the Second Law of Thermodynamics backwards in space-time, even space-time, itself, breaks down into/towards unity.

Keiran, I feel you see teddy clutching people, when it comes to accepting infinity (no beginning), but would suggest this conclusion is not always the case, at least, for some, those with a fair understanding of the Big Bang. Maybe, likewise, some defenders of the Solid State theory might have a problem with time and the three spatial once not being in existence.

These elusive constructs do give our mere primate brains a thorough workout. :-)
Posted by Oliver, Sunday, 3 September 2006 7:36:31 PM
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Oliver, your responses are somewhat confusing. When you say " If the expansion of space-time is asymmetrical (admittedly not the most widely held view) then we have previous universe states existing before our/this generation universe. In which case there might not be a first universe. " i need to ask what you understand by universe. My understanding is that by definition there can only be one universe not multiples of them. The other distinction i would make is that the universe is not a closed system but an infinite environment.... a major distinction. It cannot expand because what does it expand into? ........... itself? Also why is the present universe so lumpy? There is no place for the universe to grow into because the required empty space is an idealization anyway, not a reality. The only expansion i can see is in the minds of people as we learn more and more, probe deeper and deeper into the universe's existence.

It is also significant that Hubble did not think the universe was expanding and many people believe now the cosmological red shift is due to the Compton effect rather than the Doppler effect. There is also the tired light issue. This relationship would arise if the light we receive from galaxies loses some of its energy to the intergalactic medium through which it must pass. In that case, the greater the depth of the intergalactic medium between a galaxy and the observer, the more its light is shifted toward the low-energy (red) end of the spectrum. There are also many other scientific papers indicating that non-velocity produced redshifts have been observed.

I note that you refer to the Solid State theory which is something to do with electricity, but i presume you mean the Steady State Universe. My thoughts are of an infinite material universe with three infinite spatial dimensions but i admit to the average joe, the notion of infinity is difficult to accept because it is so far at variance with the "perceived" finite world of everyday life.
Posted by Keiran, Monday, 4 September 2006 9:45:19 AM
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This thread seems to have drifted off into the cosmological never-never. Is there noone prepared to answer the original question posed by Sells: is heaven real?

Does anyone believe that heaven is real and where? Does anyone have a vision of what after-life would be like there? Don't forget, if you get there it is going to be for an eternally long time.

These are not trivial but basic questions which every christian must have contemplated at some time and be satisfied with their answers.
Posted by John Warren, Monday, 4 September 2006 10:49:45 AM
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Thank you John W

Thread had become verrrry borrrring.

Heaven is a state of mind.

I am in heaven when I watch the King Parrots and Rosellas feed outside my window - there are some other experiences I would describe as heavenly, but as this is a PUBLIC (as in female and male) forum, I will respect the sensitivities of others and refrain from explicit detail.

To the best of my ability I have no idea of any life after death and neither does anyone else - if they say they do they are liars.

Cheers

Dianne
Posted by Scout, Monday, 4 September 2006 11:25:15 AM
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John wants us to get back to heaven.... perhaps all this talk of expanding universes is a bit too much and i agree.

When i was quite young and playing in the bush i had many formative experiences. One such time i was alone and sitting in this bushy gulley surrounded by boxgums some old and hollow and many others just beautiful young gums with their fresh blue-grey leaves. I could hear finches peep peep peeping, other birds communicating and seemingly with an aesthetic tune of their own, there was a kookaburra on a branch to admire, the bush smells and a small lizard sunning itself a few metres away on a flat rock that I had purposely stepped around. As i sat there contemplating i focussed on the fact that everything surrounding me had to be in a state of continual flux ..... an infinite process of change. Was this heaven one may ask? But then the kookaburra i was admiring swooped down and picked up the little sun lizard and flew off to have him for a meal. Of course you then realise the consequences of your own actions and that heaven can only be an idealised state of mind but never real ......... even after your life.
Posted by Keiran, Monday, 4 September 2006 12:16:03 PM
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Keiran,

"John wants us to get back to heaven.... perhaps all this talk of expanding universes is a bit too much and I agree."

I am happy to tapper off on the physics but will make a reply to your earlier comments, soon. I will need read up on the Compton Effect, as I thought it had more to with x-rays. I do follow what you say about the sprecta downshift. Just the same, my preliminary expectation were photons to collide with, say dark matter, there would be two specta signatures (different to fatigue),not one diminished one. Just off the top of my head only.

What is a universe? I think talk of multiple universities (and dimensions)has arisen out of physics over the past few decades, because the four dimensional spacetime has been expanded-on. Penrose notes that if energy were borrowed in this universe from another universe, why not call the entire outsider/insider model, The Universe. I would be happy this, but the many universes option is the majority opinion; wherein, the four dimensional spacetime continuum is merely one universe arising from phase-space, which has infinite dimensions.

We (our lives longitudely) are made out of four dimensional spacetime. The configuration of atoms we have are borrowed and redistributed are it. These fundamental particles have an "afterlife" or should I say an "afterstate", when we die. Eventually, we will be "star stuff" again, as the Late Carl Sagan would say. We, at least the physical, We, do not pass-over, our components are redistributed. Heaven would not seem to exist within this continuum.

Philo's state of relation with a divinity would seem a more reasonable proposition for thesists than probing around the planets for heaven. Catch is, validating the proposition.

p.s. multiple universes? what about multiple heavens? Some religions believe in the latter.
Posted by Oliver, Monday, 4 September 2006 7:06:42 PM
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Keiren,

John? This week, I am busy with preps for some translators working on my research. Tight schedule. I still need to have closer look an the Compton Effect, which tend to relate to an eletromagnetic range way above visible light.

However, The earth receives and the distrubutes photon energy from the sun. My understanding there a few highly energized incomings and more less energized outgoings. The solar photos inteact with the each including biological processes (e.g., photosynthesis. Were collisions to occur involving gamma rays, would there no be a signature from the source and the interaction itself.

John Warren,

If we have lost our way, do you wish to give some comment to provide the tread some direction?
Posted by Oliver, Wednesday, 6 September 2006 12:50:14 PM
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Oliver,

Several of the bloggers, including me, you, Scout and Keiran, seem to understand that heaven is a phenomenon of the mind.

The idea influences the emotions but has no external existence. Even Sells’ original sermon made no claim for heaven in time or place. It is, in fact, the great carrot: if we all behave ourselves, don’t upset the social applecart, obey the ten commandments and, in particular, don’t listen to the arguments of such troublemakers as Karl Marx, Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, then we will all be rewarded by having a jolly spiritual after-life in eternity.

It has been said that in the beginning was the Word and now, after 2000 years, all we have is self-satisfying words.

Will this give the thread a new direction? Only to those who recognise that the mind is a product of the material universe. It can understand but not create that universe.
Posted by John Warren, Wednesday, 6 September 2006 5:03:47 PM
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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. -Will Rogers
Posted by Oliver, Wednesday, 6 September 2006 5:49:14 PM
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Scout,

You said “I am in heaven when I watch the King Parrots and Rosellas feed outside my window”.

Fifteen years ago I heard that rainbow lorikeets could be attracted to inner suburban Melbourne gardens and I dutifully planted dozens – no hundreds – of indigenous tubestock trees and shrubs in my backyard. Like most beginner native gardeners I overplanted, and within a few years I had a dense woody jungle – but no lorikeets. Finally I gave up, thought it was an urban myth, and started converting over to my current horticultural obsession: fruit trees.

Sure enough, just as I was cutting down the last eucalypt, a single brilliant green and orange and blue creature flapped over to check out my handiwork, and the next day brought all its mates. Ever since then I’ve been visited daily by scores of the little buggers who devastate my apples and stonefruit and persimmons and guavas and screech me awake on summer mornings. But God, they’re a beautiful bird, and I wouldn’t be without them for anything. Ain’t Heaven a funny place.

Oliver, I'm sure Heaven is chock a block with canines. Thing is, I'm a vegetarian, and my dogs tell me Heaven is full of bones. We're still arguing this one.
Posted by Snout, Wednesday, 6 September 2006 9:03:36 PM
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JW: So you "understand that heaven is a phenomenon of the mind". Understanding flows from knowledge and experience. Prove to me that there is no non-material existence. Full knowledge is informed by faith and is particular to the person, and as such cannot be measured and presented as evidence. It is the efficacy of a life: be it simple or elevated.

You are anchored to the idea that heaven is all about reward and an ongoing existence to overcome the fear of death. You have plenty of weight to the anchor from past and present sermons by people who have settled into that nice comfortable offering. But let us remember Christianity has ridden history and for most of its 2000 years life was tough for the many who drew comfort from it. And why not? Would you hold back any comfort to the distressed? A comfort that extends to joy and peace amidst turmoil.

You are ignorant of modern study of the Christian scriptures and the essence that now flows from such study. Such new understanding provides intellectual satisfaction for faithful people who seek the application of reason to their faith seeking understanding.

Thankfully you have ceased your esoteric dialogues involving matters far beyond most peoples' knowledge.

Yet I suppose you may be saying I am in the realm of the esoteric. Not so, as while I might find language to express an idea, its essence is shareable by the lowest of intellects to the highest.

Your intellectual arrogance is as old as time. It withers and blows away.

Now what if there is a God? One that willed the creation into being, and it has emanated with the human as the arrow of evolution to bring all things to completion at a final point in time? Alpha and Omega. And in the time of our individual material existence there is an opportunity to engage in relationship with that God. It can be missed through an absence of opportunity or through individual choice. The latter gives rise to the eternal anguish of missed opportunity to know love here and now.
Posted by boxgum, Wednesday, 6 September 2006 9:58:27 PM
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Boxgum,

“JW: So you "understand that heaven is a phenomenon of the mind". Understanding flows from knowledge and experience. Prove to me that there is no non-material existence. Full knowledge is informed by faith and is particular to the person, and as such cannot be measured and presented as evidence.”

Prove that there IS non-material existence. You can’t. So then you have to resort to “Full knowledge is informed by ‘faith’ and is particular to the person.” Faith is BELIEF, not knowledge.

And yes, BELIEF cannot be measured – what you describe as ‘knowledge’ and ‘experience’ leading to ‘understanding’ is the internal effects of particular physical (including mental) experiences on a particular person, and how they choose to understand it within their internal mental framework of BELIEF.

But it is actually all happening in the material world. You can’t “know God” or “heaven” without your physical existence. And when you no longer exist, your particular God will no longer exist. BELIEVE IT OR NOT!
Posted by tao, Thursday, 7 September 2006 8:10:56 AM
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Snout

Heaven is full of animals - I'm not sure if this includes humans or not, but my cat assures me there are lots of birds, although the parrots say there are no cats at all.

;-)
Posted by Scout, Thursday, 7 September 2006 9:36:09 AM
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Here is a little joke on the topic of heaven:

On their way to get married, a young Catholic couple is involved in a
fatal car accident.
The couple find themselves sitting outside the Pearly Gates waiting for
St. Peter to process them into Heaven.  
While waiting, they begin to wonder: Could they possibly get married in
Heaven?
When St. Peter showed up, they asked him. St. Peter says, "I don't know.
This is the first time anyone has asked. Let me go find out", and he
leaves.

The couple sat and waited, and waited. Two months passed and the couple
was still waiting. As they waited,
they discussed that IF they were allowed to get married in Heaven, what
was the eternal aspect of it all.
"What if it doesn't work?" they wondered, "Are we stuck together
FOREVER?"

After yet another month, St. Peter finally returns, looking somewhat
bedraggled.

"Yes," he informs the couple, "you CAN get married in Heaven."
"Great!" said the couple, "But we were just wondering, what if things
don't work out?
Could we also get a divorce in Heaven?"
St. Peter, red-faced with anger, slams his clipboard onto the ground.

"What's wrong?" asked the frightened couple.
"OH, COME ON!" St. Peter shouts, "It took me three months to find a
priest up here!
Do you have ANY idea how long it'll take me to find a LAWYER?
Posted by tao, Thursday, 7 September 2006 1:34:44 PM
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"Do you have ANY idea how long it'll take me to find a LAWYER [in heaven]?" It ain't gonna happen.
Posted by Oliver, Thursday, 7 September 2006 5:08:40 PM
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A few of us may like to believe we are in swan heaven for a few weeks after that brilliant game against the eagles. Micky pulling up close faces at a section of the crowd after scoring the winning goal was priceless........ this goal coming from their own goal line with half the team contributing and in the final minutes was sensational. Phew ... skill, speed, teamwork, ........ amazing game.
Posted by Keiran, Sunday, 10 September 2006 10:22:12 PM
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Rugby (Union) is the game played in heaven so they say... Rugby (League) is grounded on our earth as the weekly re-enactment of human behaviour across millenia (pitched battle : the good and the bad depending on who you support ) ... Aussie Rules is a scoreathon as a community event
Posted by boxgum, Tuesday, 12 September 2006 1:06:22 PM
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