Quote:
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Originally Posted by theophilus
....The only totally reliable source of information about what happens after death is the Bible.
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Theophilus, I know that you sincerely believe that to be true, and I respect your believing that. Tell me, are you able to respect that others may not believe what you do?
What is much more important to me than what anyone believes, is what they choose to allow their beliefs make of them. Mostly people don't choose beliefs because of the reliability of those beliefs. They choose them because they are able to use a belief, or they see mirrored in that belief, something that makes them feel better.
Do your beliefs make you more respectful of people or more judging of them (if, for example, they don't believe in God or the Bible?)
I personally don't believe in a God that is in any sense a personal deity, or even a separate being from who we are as people, spiritual beings. And I don't believe in a lot of what is written in books, especially when they purport to tell us how to live - only if they support us in making those choices based upon our own experience. To me, the Bible does not do that, and I do not seek to be "educated" otherwise. I believe in finding my own truth.
To Discordia:
In answer to the main topic of this thread by Discordia, I do believe that there is life after death. I believe that very much. I am completely unafraid of death, but it seems to me necessary for the young especially to be afraid to help motivate them to live life to their fullest. An older person who has given it much thought may not need that motivation, but it is in the reality of our physicality that we eschew death, and fear it, because it means the end of the physical. I believe that there is absolutely a physical imperative to fear death. How could it be otherwise. But that is not to say that there is no life after death. It just happens not to be physical.
"does the raising number of skeptics and athiests including Stephan HAwkings, who said Heaven is impossible make it hard for you to continue believing"
No, it doesn't, not at all. Get in touch with what's in your own heart, speak to others who are not only intelligent but also in touch with their own heart and avoid anyone who starts to tell you what to believe. Anyone. I don't believe that Stephen Hawking does do that. He says what science shows him. He cannot conclude from what he knows that which science plays no part in. As well, just because more people say something is true doesn't make it more true. Your goal needs to be to find those teachers, from any walk of life, who you admire. Find those and you will find the words to mirror what's in your own heart.
I will speak for my own path.
I'm a Spiritualist by feeling and gut intuition. I am also strongly drawn to Atheism by intellectual leaning. No amount of physical proof has yet convinced me that spirits or the afterlife exits, but then nothing that I experience in a way that I regard as spiritual is able to be fathomed by the intellect. My decision goes to the balance of what feels right to me. Spirituality wins out over reason but only where - for *me* - the two do not collide. So far, they haven't. I keep them separate. I could never forgo my intellectual curiosity. Neither will I ever forgo my deeply felt experience of my spirit guides and other spiritual experiences. Those experiences don't require reasons by me. They contain the fulness of their own reason for being - which is different from a *reasoned* - intellectualized - reason for being. Meetings of the Atheist society were always much more interesting to me than the meetings of the Spiritualist church - and I'm Spiritualist! First of all, I totally believe in Darwinian theory. As well, the thing about the Spiritualist Church was that it *was* a church, still invested in dogma rather than spirituality. If these forums were so invested, I would not have stayed this long. Here, I have found an online forum in which I can feel empowered in my belief rather than disempowered for it.
To Theophilus:
I actually disagree with those who would speak to you of your belief in a derogatory way. The Bible is important to you, and that's to be respected. It is only, as I have found, those whose love for God or the Bible, for Allah *or* for spirits .. for anything .. causes them to feel that they have a right, even a duty to convert others to their belief that causes me to despair. Those people show disrespect for the right of others to hold different beliefs.
Again, to me the belief does't make the man or woman. Their heart does, their intention, and that starts foremost with a feeling.
For now,
emalie
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