Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Jesus tells us to store up treasure in heaven, where thieves can't break in and steal, and where moth and rust can't destroy. For a believer, we are already living the next life.
^ That's just one of many possibilities. I used to get stuck on that too, until I broadened my horizons.
There may not be a "heaven", and certainly treasure. Luckily, matters that can hold importance now - such as material items and riches - would have no value there. So be wary of what you're so easily following. It might not be about A or B, but the C that's not being considered.
Ah, don't broaden your horizons! Small is the gate, and narrow is the way that lead to life. I would say lets not look to our left or to our right, but keep our eyes on Jesus who is the Way.
Ah, don't broaden your horizons! Small is the gate, and narrow is the way that lead to life. I would say lets not look to our left or to our right, but keep our eyes on Jesus who is the Way.
Jesus was raised by God back from death after the Romans lynched Him, an innocent man .... Buddha died at eighty years and never came back...... Muhammad died at 62 years preached the Christian ideas but missed that Jesus is the Son of God with God and His Spirit ..... Egypt pharaoh build great pyramids to help him in the afterlife but ignored the work of the living God ..... The Hindu deities of Trimurti were so not of the human existence...... The gods of Viking were lost in time along with the gods of The Greek as some of these are the fallen angels that God of Jesus had rejected like apollo is a fallen angel king of the abyss...... Still all in all Jesus was the only one that God raised from the dead and then gave His spirit to all people who surrendered to Jesus
Jesus was raised by God back from death after the Romans lynched Him, an innocent man .... Buddha died at eighty years and never came back...... Muhammad died at 62 years preached the Christian ideas but missed that Jesus is the Son of God with God and His Spirit ..... Egypt pharaoh build great pyramids to help him in the afterlife but ignored the work of the living God ..... The Hindu deities of Trimurti were so not of the human existence...... The gods of Viking were lost in time along with the gods of The Greek as some of these are the fallen angels that God of Jesus had rejected like apollo is a fallen angel king of the abyss...... Still all in all Jesus was the only one that God raised from the dead and then gave His spirit to all people who surrendered to Jesus
However for those who trust there is more to existence than this current life, it is what comes after this life that will remain forever. If that is the case, then the next life is in essence more important than this one. And the life we live today, we should live to prepare for the next one.
And that is exactly why living for another life than the only one you are certain to have, cheapens that one precious life.
I wonder.....is that what we will experience? We will either experience an enormous feeling of love and peace or complete nothingness.....for eternity. For some people, this topic isn't very important. Live your life to the fullest and don't worry about death. When you die, you die. That's it. But it does make me wonder.
Our death is probably the end of this whole sensation of our conscious experience. I can think of a million reasons why it would be really weird and ridiculous and just make no sense if it wasn't. Religion's whole suggestion that it isn't, has never made any sense to me, just at any level. Like, really? In 400 billion years of post-death eternity of my never-ending continued existence of this often ridiculous experience of conscious self, I'm still going to potentially remember awkward moments and bad memories from the 7th grade? But, I still of course wouldn't have any memory of the decade before I was born, or of my parents' childhood, or any idea of what it was to be a similar but different person who lived a few miles away and went to a different middle school? Also, how could I ever make the ride end? Eventually we'd want it to.
"I" (the ultimately illusory sense of being a persistent "self" that I possess every day, at least especially while in my normal/default state of consciousness), didn't exist before I was born, and likely won't exist after I die. IMO it's a near 100% likelihood that our death is the end. Not painful or anything, but just the end of it all.
That said, I think the self/consciousness, and of course the biological body we live in, are the only things that die at our death. Which the discovered laws of science confirm: that matter is not created or destroyed. I don't know what that might mean "spiritually" (such a very co-opted word and loaded term to the max). If the truth of all spirituality is that it was all just discovering a 5th dimension or something like that, and we're all part of some blissful one-ness total shared existence that's totally different than one person's individual conscious experience, I don't know, but, maybe. That would be cool.
Though in order to say this I realize I still have to cling on to this conscious experience that I have as "I", "I" would love to be able to know everything and see everything. I'd want to see the dinosaurs millions of years ago, and everything else that was unknown mystery while I was still a living participant in the game.
And all souls merging together in the ultimate expression of full love, understanding and forgiveness- that would be very cool, also. That's the only part of the Heaven concept that I like- the unity with everyone.
But, yes, we should all live our very mortal, physical, fragile, very temporal lives to the fullest, with the assumption that that's the only experience that there is. Hedge our bets that way, in Reverse-Pascal style.
If there's anything that continues after that point, it wouldn't be like any religion or mystic or anyone has ever claimed to known. Because no one actually knows, as there's no way of knowing.
I have a very strong belief though that *if* there's anything after we die, it wouldn't be anything about any "punishment" or "reward". If there is anything more than nothing to it, in my view there's no logical or rational reason to think that it could ever be anything painful or negative. (Especially if it never ends.)
The universe will eventually end, too, I think. Or in some capacity, and at least this universe. Whether that's the cold death/big freeze, or whatever. So even if we do feel that one-ness and great spiritual plane of unity of all electrons, or the 5th dimension that you have to consume psychedelic drugs to get to, or whatever you want to imagine, even that I think would eventually fade to black. And that's probably a good thing- experience, even the best version of it, doesn't make sense IMO to be infinite.
In fact we already know that experience is not infinite, because we did not exist before our parents met.
Well, the Christian Bible tells us that the dead will 'sleep' for an interim before being eventually raised to eternal life. Were humans pre-programed to expect more to come after this life? Were the Bible authors lying to us or, at least, were they resorting to wishful thinking since 'lights out forever' is 'unthinkable' for many of us?
And that is exactly why living for another life than the only one you are certain to have, cheapens that one precious life.
In what way? Even if we wanted to experience as much of this life as we wanted, that wish could never be granted. There's too much to know, and so little time.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Small is the gate, and narrow is the way that lead to life. I would say lets not look to our left or to our right, but keep our eyes on Jesus who is the Way.