Our bodies regenerate all the time, we shed old cells and replace them with new ones all the time. So we are never the same when we go through the so called death, as we are at birth.
As far as what we call our consciousness is concerned, we invent ourselves each and every time, the ones who have it down pat, do so unconsciously, and the unfortunate ones who are condemned to do it consciously, are always oscillating between the old and the new, the kernel and the periphery, with heightened senses of consciousness, sometimes purposeful, sometimes not. So our psyche is by no means set in stone.
So how can one believe that when we pass, we can come about with the same physical and mental characteristics as before? Before what?
The triangle is reversed, the apex becomes the base.
Enjoyed your last two posts obe. Your assertion is perhaps paradoxically true. But, do you know anyone who lives in an egoless state of mind all the time? I know I don’t and I don’t think I know anyone who does unless it’s you.
Since it is for me illogical to think that any human being could merit an eternity of heaven or deserve an eternity of hell, I opt for universal salvation through grace. The ego sees life as unfinished business. Jesus claimed, “It is finished.” The only thing left for me to do is to accept this claim.
It's part of the movement; from conscious awareness to unconsciousness, the egoless state while we are so called alive, is best experienced in unconsciousness, for most. For some,it is doen in a conscious efffort to realize our true selves.
No, I am by no means there yet, but it depends on motivation, due to various things: fear of the unknown, curiosity, hope to experience a reunion with past loved ones.
Felix: True conscious egoless state is very difficult to achieve, and quote challenging.
Irrellus: there is a view, that there are various levels of both heaven and hell. If so, it is quite possible that unrepentant and sadistic serial child rapists/killers would be constrained to land in one of those lowly realms.
But it's equally possible, that Jesus' redemption paid an absolute price for even those, irrespective.
This has always caused a certain confusion.
Augustine opted for eternal damnation for “sinners”. IMHO, a god that loses one soul is a loser. A loving god would reclaim all that he created. We had a decent thread on universal salvation, until a troll brought it down. And you are right about the confusion. It remains unresolved. As for me I choose a loving god over a wrathful and vindictive god.
A loving god doesn’t lose. If Jesus is love the price of my sins has been paid. We pitiful mortals deserve no less. What happens after my death is of no concern. The here and now of living a decent, as possible, life is all I can do.
Or it is possible that there is no Afterlife, and Reality is continually wiping the slate clean as we go. Perpetrators and victims are all subject to Equalization. The fact of their existence remains a matter of Eternal Truth.
As we believe, so we are. So why not believe hope in a heaven of love and mercy? Even if there is no hereafter, what we believe affects how we live. The problem of a hereafter is what of awareness survives death? I don’t think that question can be answered. Personally, I accept the possibilty of oblivion. That would not exclude what I have done during this life that affects others, hopefully for the better. My hope for something more than oblivion affects people here and now.
I don’t know. It’s an open question. Is belief a byproduct of expereince or argument or can it be simply willed? If the former than beliefs are dependent variables that we cannot control. If the latter, than we can believe whatever we choose. If the latter, beliefs have no veridicality. If the former, at best we can expose ourselves to more information and by that method possibly change what we believe, but not necessarily in the direction of our choosing. We can hope for heaven, but hope doesn’t necessarily carry us over the threshold into belief. I agree the question cannot be answered as an item of certain knowledge. I have stripped heaven of its positive contents. It is for me a symbol for participation in God. And god I have stripped of literal contents including that of literal personhood. God for me is ultimate reality “who” is always inferrable from actual expereince but never the object of certain expereince. Oblivion if it is the inevitable will never be experienced. So the expereince is one of death in life, potential unconsciousness within actual consciousness, absence within presence, the intuition of nonbeing in being. But, right, hope affects people. Helplessly hopeless is no way to be. But, if we fall for a false hope, we lose the the truth. So, why not hold to a minimalist interpretation of the symbols of the Afterlife that can be affirmed realistically and naturally without supernatural knowledge or special revelation? Whatever is sacred is immanent in the real. It is part of our expereince and we are part of it. That way, we can have limited access to the symbols of transcendence without claiming epistemological certainty of Transcendence itself. Isn’t that enough?