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Have you ever had a vision, outside of that book that so many worship. I don't believe it was meant to hold people in bondage to that of a belief-system, rather to help us grow and reach our full potential. One that exhibits love and compassion, not damnation - if you don't believe exactly what some Christian fundamentalist says you should believe, or else? Neither, do I believe it was meant to separate and divide humanity, but to bring about unity. Although, as long as people use it as a weapon of mass destruction that's never going to happen.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Way
You are now going off field. Either Jesus and the apostles told the truth about life after death, or they didn't. It's that simple.
You either know for certain, or you don't. Believing is another matter.
You either know for certain, or you don't. Believing is another matter.
You obviously don't think you can trust that the Bible truthfully records what Jesus and the disciples said about life after death. Fine . . .that's on you. If you can't believe that Jesus and the apostles taught life after death, and before resurrection . . .that's on you. If you have trust issues . . .that's on you. I'm tired of arguing about it.
You are now going off field. Either Jesus and the apostles told the truth about life after death, or they didn't. It's that simple.
"10Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” 11And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. 12For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 13This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand".
You either know for certain, or you don't. Believing is another matter.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Way
You obviously don't think you can trust that the Bible truthfully records what Jesus and the disciples said about life after death. Fine . . .that's on you. If you can't believe that Jesus and the apostles taught life after death, and before resurrection . . .that's on you. If you have trust issues . . .that's on you. I'm tired of arguing about it.
Do I have trust issues? Not really, neither am I codependent.
But If you believe your soul is immortal, that's fine with me.
The Bible says other things showing that believers go to be with the Lord when they die. But the Jehovah's Witnesses ignore those passages. The Bible does not teach that the soul ceases to exist when you die. Far from it. In Matthew 10:28 Jesus said that man can kill the body, but not the soul, meaning that the soul survives physical death. The last part of the verse about destroying both soul and body in hell does not mean that either the soul or body ceases to exist. The word which is translated as 'destroy' is the Greek word ἀπόλλυμι-apollumi, and can refer to something that is lost, or to something that is in a ruined condition, but is very much in existence. You're talking Jehovah's Witnesses teaching, not what the Bible teaches.
If the Bible taught that the dead are non-existent then the Mosaic law wouldn't have had a prohibition against trying to contact the dead, and the ancient Hebrews wouldn't have had a 'cult of the dead' in which the relatives of those who died placed personal items of the deceased in their tombs for use in the after life.
If what you say about the Mosaic law were accurate then how cruel to prevent family and friends from contacting their dead loved ones.
However, the prohibition is in place because we have two realms. The spirit realm and the physical. The only proper way to contact the spirit realm is through prayer directed to the Father. No other way is appropriate. If we choose to go outside that pathway we are exposing ourselves to other players who are spirit creatures. They think of humans as simply play things.
It's not about ignoring those passages. I can certainly agree that SOME "believers go to be with the Lord." But the Bible does not teach that all believers go to heaven. We are not apostles. We weren't directly anointed by holy spirit and part of the first Christian congregations. Maybe we think we are part of it because we read passages in the Bible and say "well I'm a believer just like them." Yeah but READ IN CONTEXT. There are specific groups that the various letters that are part of the Christian Greek Scriptures (NT) were directed to.
Jesus was the "first fruit" of such a resurrection. Followed by the apostles followed by some (not all) but some who die thereafter. If that wasn't the case there would be no reason for John to have written under inspiration that some go to heaven but a greater number don't. The one's that don't have a hope of resurrection on earth-Revelation 4:4-9 and Revelation 20:6. You aren't alone in thinking that just because you are a "believer" when you die you get to heaven. But, that's NOT what the Bible teaches.
"The oft-cliched Christian notion of heaven — a blissful realm of harp-strumming angels — has remained a fixture of the faith for centuries. Even as arguments will go on as to who will or won’t be “saved,” surveys show that a vast majority Americans believe that after death their souls will ascend to some kind of celestial resting place.
But scholars on the right and left increasingly say that comforting belief in an afterlife has no basis in the Bible and would have sounded bizarre to Jesus and his early followers."
In classic Judaism and first-century Christianity, believers expected this world would be transformed into God’s Kingdom — a restored Eden where redeemed human beings would be liberated from death, illness, sin and other corruptions.
Once the Kingdom is complete, he said, the bodily resurrection will follow with a fully restored creation here on earth. “What we are doing at the moment is building for the Kingdom,”
“This represents an instance of two top scholars who have apparently grown tired of talk of heaven on the part of Christians that is neither consistent with the New Testament nor theologically coherent,”
“The majority of Christian theologians today would recognize that Wright and Morse’s views on heaven represent, for the most part, the basic New Testament perspective on heaven.”
“An awful lot of ordinary church-going Christians are simply millions of miles away from understanding any of this,”-https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/nt-wright-asks-have-we-gotten-heaven-all-wrong/2012/05/16/gIQAD4lTUU_story.html
You present what I write as if Jehovah's Witnesses don't have a legitimate basis for believing what we believe. Yet the above article dealt with two top Bible scholars who represent the views of the majority of Christian theologians today. Yes, you are part of the awful lot of ordinary Christians that don't understand this.
But, it doesn't have to be that way if you can overcome entrenched doctrines. Read the Bible with a view that seemingly contradictory scriptures can be harmonized if we let holy spirit guide us.
You obviously don't think you can trust that the Bible truthfully records what Jesus and the disciples said about life after death. Fine . . .that's on you. If you can't believe that Jesus and the apostles taught life after death, and before resurrection . . .that's on you. If you have trust issues . . .that's on you. I'm tired of arguing about it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jerwade
Do I have trust issues? Not really, neither am I codependent.
But If you believe your soul is immortal, that's fine with me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katzpur
Jerwade, for some reason, I thought you believed in a life after death. I'm not sure where I got that idea, but could you please clarify that for me.
What many religions, including Christianity have done is create in their own minds the thought of remaining who they are presently; and that only the body is resurrected to life, while the soul is held in some kind of waiting or holding tank, pending the resurrection of the body. Which is coupled with the ideology of judgment (i.e., heaven or hell as a destiny based on the human perception of duality). I don’t believe in the judgments and damnation theologies of (extreme) fundamentalists or religion, nor that of when a person dies - they go to a hell of sorts – where souls are kept alive. What I believe is that everything is energy, which can neither be created nor destroyed, rather it merely transforms and upon our death the energy is released, returning back from whence it came.
What that exactly entails is unknown and subject to speculation or a set of beliefs. However, it may be like a water drop that returns to the ocean or the consciousness of that which brought all thing into existence. Perhaps, releasing all of our experiences within this conscious field, including that of experiencing the state of dying, itself. I do not believe it is something to fear. If it consists of seeing loved one’s great – if not, perhaps there is another connection, where nothing has ever truly been separated from all that exists. There is so much more to life then we know or can fathom at this moment in time, and death itself may be nothing more than an illusion; something objectively existing in such a way as to cause misinterpretation of its actual nature.
If what you say about the Mosaic law were accurate then how cruel to prevent family and friends from contacting their dead loved ones.
There's no 'IF' about it. The Mosaic law does prohibit attempts to contact the dead as stated in Deuteronomy 18:10-11.
Quote:
However, the prohibition is in place because we have two realms. The spirit realm and the physical. The only proper way to contact the spirit realm is through prayer directed to the Father. No other way is appropriate. If we choose to go outside that pathway we are exposing ourselves to other players who are spirit creatures. They think of humans as simply play things.
It's not about ignoring those passages. I can certainly agree that SOME "believers go to be with the Lord." But the Bible does not teach that all believers go to heaven. We are not apostles. We weren't directly anointed by holy spirit and part of the first Christian congregations. Maybe we think we are part of it because we read passages in the Bible and say "well I'm a believer just like them." Yeah but READ IN CONTEXT. There are specific groups that the various letters that are part of the Christian Greek Scriptures (NT) were directed to.
Jesus was the "first fruit" of such a resurrection. Followed by the apostles followed by some (not all) but some who die thereafter. If that wasn't the case there would be no reason for John to have written under inspiration that some go to heaven but a greater number don't. The one's that don't have a hope of resurrection on earth-Revelation 4:4-9 and Revelation 20:6. You aren't alone in thinking that just because you are a "believer" when you die you get to heaven. But, that's NOT what the Bible teaches.
"The oft-cliched Christian notion of heaven — a blissful realm of harp-strumming angels — has remained a fixture of the faith for centuries. Even as arguments will go on as to who will or won’t be “saved,” surveys show that a vast majority Americans believe that after death their souls will ascend to some kind of celestial resting place.
But scholars on the right and left increasingly say that comforting belief in an afterlife has no basis in the Bible and would have sounded bizarre to Jesus and his early followers."
In classic Judaism and first-century Christianity, believers expected this world would be transformed into God’s Kingdom — a restored Eden where redeemed human beings would be liberated from death, illness, sin and other corruptions.
Once the Kingdom is complete, he said, the bodily resurrection will follow with a fully restored creation here on earth. “What we are doing at the moment is building for the Kingdom,”
“This represents an instance of two top scholars who have apparently grown tired of talk of heaven on the part of Christians that is neither consistent with the New Testament nor theologically coherent,”
“The majority of Christian theologians today would recognize that Wright and Morse’s views on heaven represent, for the most part, the basic New Testament perspective on heaven.”
“An awful lot of ordinary church-going Christians are simply millions of miles away from understanding any of this,”-https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/nt-wright-asks-have-we-gotten-heaven-all-wrong/2012/05/16/gIQAD4lTUU_story.html
You present what I write as if Jehovah's Witnesses don't have a legitimate basis for believing what we believe. Yet the above article dealt with two top Bible scholars who represent the views of the majority of Christian theologians today. Yes, you are part of the awful lot of ordinary Christians that don't understand this.
But, it doesn't have to be that way if you can overcome entrenched doctrines. Read the Bible with a view that seemingly contradictory scriptures can be harmonized if we let holy spirit guide us.
All believers go to heaven when they die. Paul stated that to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord. So any scholar who says that there is no basis in the Bible for an afterlife is wrong. It really is just that simple.
And don't try to tell me about context. I know about context.
Originally Posted by Jerwade What many religions, including Christianity have done is create in their own minds the thought of remaining who they are presently; and that only the body is resurrected to life, while the soul is held in some kind of waiting or holding tank, pending the resurrection of the body. Which is coupled with the ideology of judgment (i.e., heaven or hell as a destiny based on the human perception of duality). I don’t believe in the judgments and damnation theologies of (extreme) fundamentalists or religion, nor that of when a person dies - they go to a hell of sorts – where souls are kept alive. What I believe is that everything is energy, which can neither be created nor destroyed, rather it merely transforms and upon our death the energy is released, returning back from whence it came.
Not all those who identify as Christians or Christian denominations believe in the carrot and stick approach.
Without the belief that something of ourselves survives death the theology/doctrines of damnation and hell would crumble.
Quote:
What that exactly entails is unknown and subject to speculation or a set of beliefs. However, it may be like a water drop that returns to the ocean or the consciousness of that which brought all thing into existence. Perhaps, releasing all of our experiences within this conscious field, including that of experiencing the state of dying, itself. I do not believe it is something to fear. If it consists of seeing loved one’s great – if not, perhaps there is another connection, where nothing has ever truly been separated from all that exists. There is so much more to life then we know or can fathom at this moment in time, and death itself may be nothing more than an illusion; something objectively existing in such a way as to cause misinterpretation of its actual nature.
In the Bible we read
God knows the number and names of each star
He knows the number of hairs on our head
He knows even when a sparrow falls to the ground so how much more he thinks about us and cares for us.
Even if nothing of us survives from our limited unidimensional view is it impossible for God to safeguard our being in his heart and his mind so when the time comes he can bring us back?(that's a rhetorical question, for me anyway).
Death need not be feared. God bringing us back from the dead to everlasting life is not only possible but promised.
Not all those who identify as Christians or Christian denominations believe in the carrot and stick approach.
Without the belief that something of ourselves survives death the theology/doctrines of damnation and hell would crumble.
In the Bible we read
God knows the number and names of each star
He knows the number of hairs on our head
He knows even when a sparrow falls to the ground so how much more he thinks about us and cares for us.
Even if nothing of us survives from our limited unidimensional view is it impossible for God to safeguard our being in his heart and his mind so when the time comes he can bring us back?(that's a rhetorical question, for me anyway).
Death need not be feared. God bringing us back from the dead to everlasting life is not only possible but promised.
The issue, the only issue is whether the Bible teaches an intermediate state of life after death and before resurrection. It does. The book of Revelation clearly shows people in heaven. Paul clearly says that to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord.
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