Post-Mortem: A Discussion on the Afterlife

[Dante]

Oh my ideas come from all over the place. Kudos for getting that reference though. ;D

It's not that exact idea though. The idea of being static, unchanging, fills me with apprehension. Constant travel is my ideal, but constantly learning new things would serve as a close second. And it's not like there wouldn't be stops along the way. Stop a year in one place, ten years in another. What's time when you've got eternity? Pick up some friends along the way.

You can see why I chose Valhalla as a starting point rather than, say, Mictlan.

Whenever I hear reincarnation these days I hear a comedian doing an impression of god: HM, WHAT'S THIS? GOOD LIFE IN GENERAL, BUT AH, I SEE YOU KILLED A LOT OF PEOPLE IN MY NAME. NOT REALLY WHAT I HAD IN MIND, AH... TELL YOU WHAT, HAVE ANOTHER GO AS A WORM.

[chatfsh]

Debatable, and, again, try using your head for the love of God (that's a good one). This statement of yours is absurd because it necessarily implies that there is only "one" view that does not conflict with scripture. If there are two churches with different interpretations of scripture, only one of them can be "right"--the other would simply conflict. On the other hand, if multiple different interpretations of scripture can survive, then this statement is meaningless, and I'm free to live by my own understanding of God's word--and you're saying otherwise is... uh... unholy. Even better, what you're really saying here (but without knowing it, because you're an old dolt), is that all but one of the hundreds of different Christian theologies are wrong.

As I

[Wolf]

(1) I appreciate your calm and apparently good-faith response that is no doubt the product of my admonition of your previously wrathful and spiteful replies. If all of your posts were cast in this mold, we would probably be able to get at the root of our differences much more readily. I take this both as an apology for your previously undeserved wrongdoing and as a humble sign of your commitment to changing your harmful ways.

(2) I understand what you are trying to say, but believe you misrepresent the facts. When a ressions/Churchwide-Organization/Communication-Services/News/Releases.aspx?a=4253'>mainstream Christian church of 4.6 million adherents accepts homosexual ministers--an issue that I believe that you believe is "completely [in] contradict[ion] [of] clear scriptural mandates"--it cannot be said that the stance taken by the church "clearly contradict[s ] clear scriptural mandates." (Emphasis on "clearly." Think about what the word actually means--I recommend the OED.) Indeed, I believe you have misunderstood what Christ said of the "broad" and "narrow" paths. I believe the "broad" path refers to the wide range of immoral actions taken by some to justify their erroneous beliefs, while the narrow path represents discretion and judgment in realization of the fact that not all things are black and white, and often, we are required to question our assumptions about our world in order to do the right thing. Surely you understand history enough to know that change is sometimes required, and that not all traditions (say, like slavery) are ones worth upholding (indeed, slavery, too, was justified because of its "clear" consistency with Biblical doctrine). Here, I believe the right answer is to evaluate the issue and its circumstances in context, and to use our reason (a God-given gift) to divine (not a pun) the most just answer. That is the faith to which we confess: those are the only means by which we may do actual good in this world.

[stefanhendriks]

Let me try to answer the afterlife question. Or better said, let me state of what I believe that happens when we die. As there is no way to prove what I am saying it is true, it is utterly useless to say I am wrong or right :P

I believe, "afterlife" is a term/word, made up by humans who simply cannot accept the fact that there will be nothing when you die (just like before you where born)

The only thing that has changed, is the 'state' of the world. Every milisecond, the state of the world changes. When you die, your influences/thoughts/etc disappear. Leaving you unable to influence the state of the world directly with your own actions. Your last influential action is : dying... (with all consequences, like funeral, or being food for the worms, allowing other humans to grow in their lives.)

I believe there is no such thing as before/after death. Even when bringing in all theories of dreams, memories, etc. All are based on the fact that we live in this body. There is no such thing as a soul, or other 'entity' that resides within our body.

So, that is what I believe. Others believe in different things. Thats ok with me. In the end, we all have no say in the matter when we die ;)

In fact, asking yourself what will happen when you die, utterly leads to the question "why do we live". Which is also a meaningless question. We live, thats a fact. Why? Because our previous generation had sex and 'created' us. Why? Because they had certain impulses to do so ;) Why? Because as with all living beings, it is more important for the human-race to survive and these impulses come from there. And so on and so on...

[chatfsh]

I understand what you are trying to say, but believe you misrepresent the facts. When a mainstream Christian church of 4.6 million accepts homosexual ministers--an issue that I believe that you believe is "completely [in] contradict[ion] [of] clear scriptural mandates"--it cannot be said that the stance taken by the church "clearly contradict[s ] clear scriptural mandates."

And if this church council had decided that adultery was to be sanctioned by the church would that place the belief in conflict with scripture? The truth of the matter is that if an act is condemned in the scriptures as sin (and you know that particular one is), it doesn

[Wolf]

Uh, got any historical evidence to back that up? I mean, your anecdotal rendition of the history of Israel is extremely dramatic, but has many of the hallmarks of exaggerated detail and outright fiction. I'm not sure if either the historical or archaeological records indicates that Israel was at some points significantly more "sinful" than at others.

But it's all moot anyway since at no point in this entire debate have I ever encouraged sin. You're getting further off the mark by the day, Hwi--also, did you know that this thread was about the afterlife? The topic name isn't "Bold-faced and Italicized religiously-motivated hysterics." Besides, even if we assumed that everything you said is historic fact (quite a generous assumption in an argument, if you ask me), it still doesn't prove that God thought anything Israel did was a sin, because God didn't destroy them--they destroyed themselves. The touchstone of sin is destruction--waste, decay, delay, disintegration, disunity, obstruction--and it is this essential feature that matters, not the form. So, in this sense, murder is almost always a sin (because of its essentially destructive nature), thievery is often a sin (Robin Hood goes straight to hell?), and consensual sex between adults can often be good (as between lovers) as well as bad (as between lovers who are married to different people). You know, it's funny--you and Erasmus have brought up "adultery" a lot these days (note, not homosexual sex) because it's more "obviously" a sin that you can use to mischaracterize my position. Yeah, guess what, jerks? Until you post a quote of me condoning adultery, you're just outright liars. And that has the hallmark of destruction that is essential to sin as well as to your un-Christian delusions.

[athanasios]

your anecdotal rendition of the history of Israel is extremely dramatic, but has many of the hallmarks of exaggerated detail and outright fiction. I'm not sure if either the historical or archaeological records indicates that Israel

So either you haven't read your Bible recently or you consider it fiction.

[Wolf]

That's not what she was talking about, Anath. God, you people are like Fox News.

[chatfsh]

That's not what she was talking about, Anath.

Athanasios is correct.  The Biblical account is precisely what I was referring to.  Though secular historical accounts also attest to the fact that ancient Israel was destroyed.  It is God's Word that provides the reasons for the violent demise of the Holy Nation. 

[ErasOmnius]

That's not what she was talking about, Anath. God, you people are like Fox News.

I think you meant Athan. I hope you're not flustered.

I simply want to know what kind of parameters you hold anybody to. Any kind of guidance at all that you may glean from the The Book, associated writings from antiquity [the so-called Gnostic Gospels, the so-called psuedo-epigrapha, etc.]...anything.

Is there any kind of parameter that you can give male and female homosexuals?

Is there any kind of parameter that you can give unmarried heterosexuals?

Or is it just up to people like me to clean up after your philosophy?

You made a comment earlier that somehow we are taking advantage of people when they come in for help at a Center. We're not.

Many times it is people's addictions that get them to the place where we are the last stop in their lives.

People like you who claim to represent the teachings of Christ, have lied to them year after year, and either been silent, or told them to have sex freely, or take drugs freely, or to drink freely.

You certainly haven't given them any parameters from The Book.

So yeah, many people when they walk in are finally ready to listen to good, sound advice. Advice such as: Stop drinking and getting drunk. Stop having sex with almost anyone. Stop taking drugs, even though some of them are legal.

Some don't take the advice, and that's sad. Some do, and they are much ahppier.

[Wolf]

Hwi: Using the Biblical account to support the Biblical account is both circular and uncompelling. Also, you have merely assumed historical evidence without citations thereof.

Eras: You are just a straight-up goddamn liar. I've never said or implied any of those things, and if you had actually read, or actually had the wit to understand anything I've said in the last seven pages, you'd know that. Start quoting and support yourself, or burn, baby, burn, oh, bearer of false witness.

Furthermore, notice that my replies are shorter: it's not because I'm flustered, but because you're both off-topic. Again. One-track minds, huh? I don't want a serious discussion on the afterlife to be locked because of your senseless, selfish, stupid, self-righteous, sinister and slovenly self-promotion [EDIT] of flimsy religious rationalizations for what is nothing other than ugly prejudice. It's disgusting, and I feel that even acknowledging you constitutes both lowering myself and granting undue legitimacy to your criminal views.

[ErasOmnius]

Hwi: Using the Biblical account to support the Biblical account is both circular and uncompelling. Also, you have merely assumed historical evidence without citations thereof.

Eras: You are just a straight-up goddamn liar. I've never said or implied any of those things, and if you had actually read, or actually had the wit to understand anything I've said in the last seven pages, you'd know that. Start quoting and support yourself, or burn, baby, burn, oh, bearer of false witness.

Furthermore, notice that my replies are shorter: it's not because I'm flustered, but because you're both off-topic. Again. One-track minds, huh? I don't want a serious discussion on the afterlife to be locked because of your senseless, selfish, stupid, self-righteous, sinister and slovenly self-promotion [EDIT] of flimsy religious rationalizations for what is nothing other than ugly prejudice. It's disgusting, and I feel that even acknowledging you constitutes both lowering myself and granting undue legitimacy to your criminal views.

No one is going to lock anything -- unless YOU petition to have it locked.

[Dante]

Really. You can read the minds of the moderators, mm?

That's not how it works, Eras. The mods lock what they like, when they like.

[athanasios]

Well it seems that I am an Anathema for Wolf! (just kidding)  ;D

It seems that mods here are more tolerant for out of topic material. And there is big tendency to go off-topic.

Since the Bible speaks about spiritual bodies for those belonging to the Holy ones, I wonder how it is? Also the Bible says that after the resurrection we will be like angels so that we will not get married. Does this imply that there will be no gender or that we will have sex with anyone? What is your opinion Wolf?

[ErasOmnius]

Really. You can read the minds of the moderators, mm?

That's not how it works, Eras. The mods lock what they like, when they like.

Dante, don't tell me you're going to ask that this Thread be shut down, too?

[Dante]

That's not what I said, retard.

[Wolf]

Athan-not-Anath: Presumably, whatever transcendence/enlightenment that might occur during death would elevate us past a point where sexuality matters. Therefore, I can't imagine that God cares too much about the technicalities of sex--only the evils that might be expressed therein, as might be expressed in any kind of behavior. If you misunderstand that to mean that God doesn't care about what we do sexually at all, or that there are no limits, or that rape is okay, then you are a pathetic simpleton at best and a mendacious dirtbag bent on mischaracterizing the words of others at worst.

Dante: Don't listen to Eras, he's a little liar.

[ErasOmnius]

Athan-not-Anath: Presumably, whatever transcendence/enlightenment that might occur during death would elevate us past a point where sexuality matters. Therefore, I can't imagine that God cares too much about the technicalities of sex--only the evils that might be expressed therein, as might be expressed in any kind of behavior. If you misunderstand that to mean that God doesn't care about what we do sexually at all, or that there are no limits, or that rape is okay, then you are a pathetic simpleton at best and a mendacious dirtbag bent on mischaracterizing the words of others at worst.

Dante: Don't listen to Eras, he's a little liar.

You don't get it. You don't change after death. If you cannot control your sexual urges on this earth, you will not be able to control them in heaven.

Do you really think that God is going to allow some adulterous drunk into heaven? Do you really think that a 3-waying group of lesbians, or Female-Female-Male, can get in? No.

There is no magic wand when we die. As far as the insults go...it's very repetitious and boring. You know it's 10 o'clock eastern in North America, so it's time go and do some good in the world. Time to undo some of what Wolf has done in the USA. Like Wolf and his attorney friends suing a faith-based charity shelter, or not allowing a 17-year old to ask for a moment of silence at a graduation ceremony.

Oh, I forgot, you and you''re ACLU friends are doing that for God's sake. Keeping God away from teens and all.

[Wolf]

Eras, you missed Athan-not-Anath's point: there's not going to be sex in heaven, right? So, the issue of sexuality is moot regardless: the state of being we will occupy will not notice it, such as the harmonic movement of planets in a solar system ignore the sound of a violin being played on one of them.

Also, the insults come solely from you: I have not called you anything that you have not done to deserve, hence, they are not insults--merely observations. The reverse is not true. And, for the third time your post--which consists mainly of insults and the desperate self-reassurances of a man who, deep down, knows his cause is wrong and lost--is off topic. Stop.

[chatfsh]

Speaking of the afterlife

[Wolf]

You missed the point, Hwi: the sexually immoral are not going to have sexuality in the afterlife, be it heaven or hell. Even by you own view of the afterlife, this must be true of necessity: if the sexually immoral retained their sexuality and were free to act on them as Eras has insinuated, would that not make hell a somewhat less perfect punishment? Sexuality is a complicated thing that you and Eras have demonstrated a rather substantial level of confusion about, obviously, but the important thing to note is that a term like, "sexual morality" (or "sexual immorality," but let's not use the negative when defining the term) combines two items with essential features that are not the same. Sexuality (the modifying word) is natural, tangible and animal, that arises out of evolutionary instinct and psychology. On the other hand, morality (the modified word) is theoretical, spiritual, or cerebral, and arises out of reason and/or faith. There is no single, coherent concept of "sexual immorality," as if it were a tangible thing, rather, the term describes a type of immorality: the sexual. However, you, in a classic display of Western religious confusion, have conflated the distinct essential meanings of both terms: sexuality, itself, has become something inherently immoral to you--when this is not, and never has been the case. You will, of course, deny this: both out of spite (in that you simply want to disagree with me regardless of any argument I choose to make), and out of instinct: but your behavior has shown a clear and unflagging treatment of sexuality, itself as an "immoral object," and despite any claims you make to the contrary, your past comments in just this thread and the "no same-sex hugs" one will confirm this after even mild scrutiny. Enough of a worthy, but distracting digression. By sheer linguistics, therefore, we may understand that morality is the noun being modified by "sexual," and therefore, to understand sexual morality, we must first understand what it is to be moral. Morality is not, and cannot be defined by a series of hard-and-fast rules (indeed, any large set of hard and fast rules is doomed to self-contradiction, as the Bible beautifully illustrates--if this is difficult for you to understand, ask me for an example), but rather must be the subject of constant, contextualized introspection. What does it mean, "to be moral?" In general, it means to be good, and to act with beneficence. (The beginning of any Surah, incidentally, serves as an interesting, compact, and I think useful definition of "morality," especially in the context of what it means to be "godly.") Immorality, then, is the opposite: to be bad, or to do harm in the world. Sexual immorality, therefore, is the concept of being bad, or doing harm, via sexuality as the means. It refers to things like rape: to taking advantage of others, especially to their detriment, and it refers also to exercises of sexual control that rob others of their individuality, freedom, or capacity to enjoy their sexuality without harm (including even self-harm). To say that one has a "wrong" sexuality, to say nothing of how that sexuality is actually practiced, but to focus on the sexuality itself as if it were the unmodified noun (which, we have already discussed was "morality"), is actually to practice another form of sexual immorality: possessive control. Indeed, the stalker who uses fear, abuse and manipulation to control the proclivities of a spouse is no different--in moral terms--from the person who uses fear, abuse and manipulation to control the proclivities of a stranger because of a perceived difference in his sexuality. I have no desire to re-open the closed topic (closed, I might add, by the frantic, foaming and fanatical shriekings of not I), but it seems obvious, and logical to me that to say that one's sexuality alone is "sinful" is to misunderstand the fundamental workings of morality. And, indeed, it seems obvious and logical to me that to think that homosexuality is an inherent sin is itself an act of sexual immorality.

Man, these topics suck because of you two: but they're worth it for that kind of insight.

[athanasios]

Oh, I forgot, you and you''re ACLU friends are doing that for God's sake. Keeping God away from teens and all.

We may disagree with the position of ACLU  on certain cases (reproductive rights )but they are also fighting for the rights of people (religious freedom, immigrants...). Don't be a fanatic.

[chatfsh]

Wolf, if you put nearly as much effort into proselytizing for Christ as you do in rationalizing immoral behavior that God

[Dante]

Funny how god's word is the be all and end all yet you have to ignore or downgrade large swathes of the bible in order to believe what you do.

So it's threats now, is it? I'd call that an unwise tactic, especially for those with easily revealed skeletons in their own closets.

[ErasOmnius]

Man, these topics suck because of you two: but they're worth it for that kind of insight.

C'mon, the post count is way up for a topic that is only a few weeks old.

What do you want to do? Sit around and argue if Paul was really born on Kaitain, and not Caladan?

We may disagree with the position of ACLU  on certain cases (reproductive rights )but they are also fighting for the rights of people (religious freedom, immigrants...). Don't be a fanatic.

Religious freedom? You mean for the right so that NEVER have to hear about religion, and the only way to do that is to ban religious expression. If the ACLU had their way, ath, you wouldn't be posting on this Forum.

Your message from The Book would be considered too intolerant, too 'hurtful', too 'hate-filled'.

You called me a liar, Wolf, about what? About what?

That no ancient text condones homosexuality? Still waiting on you to produce any Christian-oriented text that says that male homosexuality is OK, or female, either.

That's the difference between you and me. I have the guts not to lie to people like Dante.