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Oh, I wasn't going to post in this thread - but I keep seeing it!
My 2 cents ----if your eyes are open? Then everything you see is a concept.
This place is not what it seems, nothing is what it appears to be, so neither is Heaven or a hell or even an NDE.
Illusion is not just some Sanskrit/Gita/Hindu word...every single thing you see or hear is a part
of a dream-world projection of the mind.
Does that sound nuts - of course - to anyone that has not has this experience...which I had at 8 yrs old
and many more times since, and many others have, also.
A book around 1900 coined the word for it 'Cosmic Consciousness'.
Later Aldous Huxley coined - when 'the Doors of Perception' are opened.
If you don't think Heaven is real - look around you-- neither is anything you see.
I know what you are saying
I have had that experience, but for me it is not something I have the desire to seek for its own sake, it is something That is just there alongside of living.
I don’t think it is about being real or unreal, it is about perception and dimension
Heaven is that timeless non-space which a part of our mind (the minds eye) can conceive and perceive if we are open to it, it is the part of the mind that is not tied to interpreting the information from the physical senses and making sense of the physical reality, it is the part where we have intuition, dreams and imaginings and is creative, but to me it seems that because of our natural inclinations of survival, and wanting more than what we can use, we can get caught into conforming our minds to this realm of the lower, which is called “bad” or “flesh” (not that it is bad but can be bad if our imaginings, and dreams lead us to there) instead of conforming our mind to the higher, which is called “good” or “spirit” or “divine”
Hi Meerkat. I believe that both heaven and 'hell' are real places, though on a different plane of existence. I don't really want to get into a discussion on 'hell' because we all know how that ends up on this forum. But as for heaven, Paul was taken up in a vision to what he called the third heaven and heard things he wasn't permitted to speak. John was shown scenes in heaven when given his revelation. And he was told to write most of what he saw, which included a multitude of people in heaven. Jesus ascended into heaven in resurrection body.
I believe, I can't be sure of course, but it's possible that heaven could occupy the same space we do but as I said, on a different plane or dimension of existence. I further believe Paul's statement that to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord which means that the believer in Christ Jesus goes to heaven when he leaves his body behind at physical death. But heaven is only a temporary abode until Jesus returns (with reference to the pre-tribulational rapture of the church) and brings with him all church-age believers who have died during the church-age and gone to heaven. Old Testament saints and Tribulational martyrs will return when Jesus again returns at the end of the Tribulation. That is the pre-tribulational and pre-Millennial view to which I still hold.
I too believe heaven and hell are real places:
I find heaven is God's home address as per 1st Kings chapter 8.
Heaven in Scripture could also be the 'governmental heavens' in the sense of men governing lofty over others.
I find hell is mankind's temporary stone-cold grave for the sleeping dead as per Scripture.
( Psalms 6:5; 13:3; 115:17; Isaiah 38:18; Ecclesiastes 9:5 and John 11:11-14 )
I also find that 'third heaven ' is the heaven of 2nd Peter 3:13.
* First, we have the heaven of OLD meaning the heavens of Noah's day.( verse 5)
* Second, we have the heaven of NOW meaning from Noah's day to our day or time frame. (verse 7)
* Third, we have the NEW heavens governing over Earth for a thousand years under Christ as ruler. (Verse 13)
A heavenly home I find is permanent for those like those of Luke 22:28-30; Rev. 20:6; 5:9-10; 2:10.
Earthly home ( John 3:13 ) for those who died before Jesus died such as David - Acts 2:34.
Earthly home for those who will have a future earthly resurrection - Acts 24:15 ( there is going to be a resurrection.....)
Earthly home for the figurative humble sheep alive on Earth at the coming 'time of separation' as per Matthew 25:31-33,37.
They can remain alive and come through the great tribulation of Rev. 7:14,9 alive and living here on Earth starting with calendar Day One of Jesus' 1,000-year reign over Earth as earthly subjects or citizens as per Psalm 72:8, 12-14.
The things of God are spiritual which profound unseen spiritual , so to try to find heaven and hell in the physical plain is error , as Heaven and Hell are spiritual .... See the body of man would pass of from this world their body is buried in the ground , but their soul and spirit goes to heaven, and then there spirit without a soul goes to hell
The things of God are spiritual which profound unseen spiritual , so to try to find heaven and hell in the physical plain is error , as Heaven and Hell are spiritual .... See the body of man would pass of from this world their body is buried in the ground , but their soul and spirit goes to heaven, and then there spirit without a soul goes to hell
oh but if humanity will see it?
what if Tophet is real..and in this dimension?
Isa 30:33
For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the LORD, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it.
here is more scriptures about it ////
https://www.blueletterbible.org/sear...=s_primary_0_1
yes it ( the unquenchable fire, the pit ) seems it has a name.. now men have called place names after that which God made first I think... I don't know where the real one Gode made is.. though I will suspect it is near Mecca/Nuom or maybe Babylon.. or i maybe in turkey for a few other other reasons.. I could give a biblical guess for each of these.. for now it is just guess but it is real..
No wonder the pope has caused confusion. Heaven and hell are a state of mind... by Andrew Brown
If, and it’s a big if, Pope Francis did say that hell does not exist, what might he have meant? To say that hell does not exist is clearly not a statement about geography or cosmology. Neither Francis nor any other sane and educated person believes that a space probe will come back with a report of heaven, or that an overenthusiastic fracking company will tap into a source of heat much larger than any survey had estimated, shortly before all the management and shareholders are sucked down inside it by ravening demons.
<snip>
If we start thinking of hell as a concept that deals with the same sort of problems as the concepts of justice and mercy do, it’s easy to see that all our thoughts about it are in some sense figurative. This doesn’t mean they’re unreal. Hell is clearly something experienced, which can’t be escaped, if you’re there, by wanting to escape it, even with all your heart. The real difficulty for Christians is the idea that hell entails eternal conscious torment, which is the jargon for something almost unthinkable. That seems to have been what Francis was actually discussing.
<snip>
The real difficulty comes with the concept of eternity. The problem is not just that the universe has no place for hell: it has no time for it either. The universe, which had a beginning in the big bang, and will have an end, cannot contain eternity. Only our minds can experience eternity and I suspect that suffering, like bliss, can be eternal in that sense – while it lasts. But no one who has experienced real bliss, or real anguish, could doubt that they exist.
I do believe that heaven exists. However, since God is a spirit heaven is not the physical heaven that we see when we look up. It's a spirit realm. The hell that many people have come to know as eternal hell fire has actually little support in the Bible. It's a concept based on pagan ideas and gathered momentum during the middle ages. Death is something that cant be escaped. Nothing of ourselves survives. That isn't a bad thing because we have the resurrection hope.
The Jewish traditions of heaven and hell and the doctrine of devils as recorded in the Hebrew scriptures, while founded on the lingering traditions of Lucifer and Caligastia, were principally derived from the Zoroastrians during the times when the Jews were under the political and cultural dominance of the Persians. Zoroaster, like the Egyptians, taught the “day of judgment,” but he connected this event with the end of the world.
Early man entertained no ideas of hell or future punishment. The savage looked upon the future life as just like this one, minus all ill luck. Later on, a separate destiny for good ghosts and bad ghosts—heaven and hell—was conceived. But since many primitive races believed that man entered the next life just as he left this one, they did not relish the idea of becoming old and decrepit. The aged much preferred to be killed before becoming too infirm.
No wonder the pope has caused confusion. Heaven and hell are a state of mind... by Andrew Brown
If, and it’s a big if, Pope Francis did say that hell does not exist, what might he have meant? To say that hell does not exist is clearly not a statement about geography or cosmology. Neither Francis nor any other sane and educated person believes that a space probe will come back with a report of heaven, or that an overenthusiastic fracking company will tap into a source of heat much larger than any survey had estimated, shortly before all the management and shareholders are sucked down inside it by ravening demons.
<snip>
If we start thinking of hell as a concept that deals with the same sort of problems as the concepts of justice and mercy do, it’s easy to see that all our thoughts about it are in some sense figurative. This doesn’t mean they’re unreal. Hell is clearly something experienced, which can’t be escaped, if you’re there, by wanting to escape it, even with all your heart. The real difficulty for Christians is the idea that hell entails eternal conscious torment, which is the jargon for something almost unthinkable. That seems to have been what Francis was actually discussing.
<snip>
The real difficulty comes with the concept of eternity. The problem is not just that the universe has no place for hell: it has no time for it either. The universe, which had a beginning in the big bang, and will have an end, cannot contain eternity. Only our minds can experience eternity and I suspect that suffering, like bliss, can be eternal in that sense – while it lasts. But no one who has experienced real bliss, or real anguish, could doubt that they exist.
The point of definition is being missed and conclusions are mistaken as a result.
There is no hell.
The Bible nowhere affirms such a thing or condition or place at all. It's a pagan idea not a Biblical one.
Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; - Genesis 6:3a
Ancient Egyptians first conceived the idea that some part of the human condition survived natural death. They focused nearly all of their religious energy in support of that concept. Millenia later, the Greeks adopted the idea of human survival beyond the grave and formulated what is now called classic mythology. Stories of the underworld underlined the hope of mortal man in some sort of eternal survival. But it was all just a fantasy.
Romans copied much of Greek myth into their own religious tradition. Mostly they changed the names and kept the ideas going. Following the official legitimacy of Christianity, theologians like St. Augustine manipulated Roman myth into early church doctrine. During the middle ages writers like Dante Alighieri popularized the Christian myth of hell. The Greek and Roman underworld was adjusted to a Christian hell and even HADES, the Greek god of the underworld, was changed to name a place of everlasting torture. But none of it was Biblical.
The Bible says man is mortal - that man dies like a dog or last seasons' plantings.
“who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light” - 1 Tim 6:16
The Bible also states that ONLY GOD possesses immortal life. Man does not possess any natural capability to survive natural death - at all.
The glory and extreme good news of the gospel is that God has decided to give a portion of His eternal life to those who will accept it. Hence the often repeated call to "accept Christ". It is His life - His immortal nature - that all men are invited to accept.
BUT the gift is not automatic . Alas it is not accepted by everyone.
It is indeed offered to everyone, but not everyone will accept it as Jesus Himself admitted. (John 3:19 & Matthew 7:14)
Those who reject God's gift of immortal life are destined to absolute destruction, deletion, elimination and annihilation in what is described as the Lake of Fire or the Second Death. (Revelation 20:15)
Jesus isn't the owner/operator of a dungeon of torture in the bowels of the earth.
God kills.
God takes no pleasure in death. (Ezekiel 18:32)
Neither does He torture as men love to do.
Is heaven a front row seat upon spiritual bleachers that allow the saints to gaze down upon tortured souls in hell?
It is not - for hell is not.
The gift of God is eternal life. Few there be who accept it. A wise man will submit to God's authority and win immortal life.
Fools will continue to seek all sorts of reasons to turn their backs upon it and die the Second Death as a consequence.
So be it.
that's me, hollering from the choir loft...
Last edited by Choir Loft; 12-21-2019 at 08:06 AM..
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