I have put off Craig's questions long enough.   I have grouped his comments and questions in eight categories designed to make my answers more relevant to this site and hopefully of greater interest to other posters.  Dots indicate where I've spliced together Craig's comments from different posts.   I encourage others to chime in but don't want to detour very far from Craig's issues.  

(1) The Plausibility of the Biblical Heaven and Hell:
“God has to be evil as well as good, as he punishes man for not living by his rules, therefore nullifying free will....Our bodies have a huge impact on our actions.  People with brain damage would feel no remorse for murdering you.  Does this mean they should spend eternity in hell?”  [Note: Craig does not mention Heaven here, but the issue of evolutionary soul progression really requires a focus on both.]

(2) The Problem of God’s “Need” for Worship:
"Why would an omnipotent being need worship and require worship in exchange for a pleasant afterlife?...Why would a god need worship to heal you?"

(3) The Problem of Natural Evil and the Seemingly
Unfair Distribution of Pain:
“Earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, famines, disease, random accidents, the suffering of children and babies, the suffering of innocent people as a result of things that are beyond their control.  These are natural evils,. ...Therefore, God must want us to suffer.  These things are not punishment for poor judgment.  Therefore, god is immoral.”  

(4) Can We Make Sense of Jesus’ Atoning Death?:
"He [Jesus] could heal people...Yet he couldn’t get away from a few Romans?  This leads to the assumption that he wanted to get caught.  Why Jesus’dying washes away my sins, I have no idea... He sends Jesus who “died” for my sins, but I  wasn’t even born.  So I had no sins for him to die for.  Ultimately it was god’s fault for their sins."

(5) Why Faith without Conclusive Proof?:
“Why would god demand you have blind faith in him/it?...Evidence that god exists cannot be reproduced. . .God does not exist.  So how in the hell do you ask it/ him a question?”

(6) Other Problems with God’s Alleged Goodness
    and Impartiality:
“God can’t love all his children equally as it says in the Bible, for he killed the Egyptian kids because they wouldn’t let the Israelites go.. . .Why would god heal one person and not everyone?...  It does say that God loves all his children equally.  Why would god allow you to be injured in the first place and then heal you?"

(7) The Problem of the Timing of Jesus’ Incarnation:
"God sends Jesus at a time in our history, when there was no equipment to test his abilities?" 

(8) The Problem of Biblical Authority:
"The Bible contains 100s of contradictions   Some of the Bible stories, we know cannot be fact--such as Adam and Eve, creating the earth in 6 days, etc." {Craig cites 10 alleged contradictions.  Those I haven't already addressed in earlier replies will be addressed here.]

Don

bloody hell don, you must have broken you keyboard.

Im off out this morning, but i'll reply later today.

Sounds all right to me, really. I'd say I agree with about 95% of that, heh. Not so sure about the soul destruction or anything, but really, good points.

Craig,

1a.  Did God put the child into the violent situation?  This almost assumes no free will, which we here is present all the time.  I think the notion that God has a determined path and that we human beings are tossed around is a bit outdated.
You would need more info.  Is there such a thing as a past life or karma?  If that child goes to a hellish realm, by all rights so far that we know it is his/her mind that puts them there, not God.

1b.  God did not make us to be unconditional beacons of light without experience, knowledge and understanding coming in first. 

1c.  We intuitively know right from wrong as we get older.  The golden rule is a universal one, found across many cultures.  If we don't behave according to scripture, that doesn't mean we are "not behaving as God likes,"  it does mean that we are moving in a direction away from love.

Sorry, not trying to take up Don's cause in particular - my two cents worth.


Matthew

The only thing is, David: 

How to account for NDE, mediums and other accounts that affirm the judeo-christian notion of God, separate from us each being God in disguise?

If it is just a result of belief (you believe in God or Jesus and he appears to you at the end), that may be one answer.  But how to account for Swedenborg, and other's critical detailing of the afterlife and the divine?


M

Quote:


In your oppinion, maybe. But im just judging my response to what don wrote. If you truely believe we choose our own lives, then feel free to prove it to me.

Actually,  Craig, you've begun exploring to prove things to yourself.  If you get any verifications using meditation or any other methods, that will be some proof.  If you try Bruce's book/CD or the Monroe's that might be a way to get verification...

Or, my favorite would be (if I had time), take a trip out to sunny California and have Dave do a meditation/hypnosis session with past life regression (not sure about that one - whether it would be my life or someone I'm connecting with in the vast shared Jungian subconsciousness).

Or, of course there is George Anderson, or the medium you have tickets to.  Problem with a medium is, you are being told things, that if accurate may be astounding, but you are not entering into any new state of consciousness to get the information.  So, it wil likely leave one craving for more info.


But Marilyn is correct in that the verification is unique to the individual.
Matthew

Quote:


The problem is matt, if it only happens to you, you cant tell wether your being duped.

im sure every crazy person in the world believes 100% whats happening to them, but it does'nt make it true.

Gulable people, will see a ufo. Someone who steps back and smells the daisy's will see a light house.

Evidence is tainted by our knowledge.

If someone else gives you evidence, to which they could have no previous knowledge, it adds huge weight to the evidence.

hi spitfire Its the devil what causes all the misery on this earth not god and one day god shall throw him into the abyss for eternity JESUS WILL COME ON THIS EARTH AGAIN  and jesus died to save us all even though you were not born at the time spitfire to save all fitiure mankind as well GOD LOVES ALL HIS CHILDREN and he sent his beloved son to show us just that There is a lower plane in the afterlifewhere murderers and evil people go after they die and even then they have a chance to be saved THE VERY HIGHLY EVOLVED SPIRITS COME DOWN TO THE LOWEST PLANE AND OPEN THERE ARMS AND ASKED WHO WANT TO BE SAVEDAND TAKE THEM UP IF THEY DO but some of them are so evil that they refuse to move up SO GOD GIVES EVEN THOSE A CHANCE TO REMORSE FOR BEING EVIL    God is our salvation  GOD BLESS EVERYONE JUDITHA

Doc, you wrote:
*****************
Craig,

1a.  Did God put the child into the violent situation?  This almost assumes no free will, which we here is present all the time.  I think the notion that God has a determined path and that we human beings are tossed around is a bit outdated.
You would need more info.  Is there such a thing as a past life or karma?  If that child goes to a hellish realm, by all rights so far that we know it is his/her mind that puts them there, not God.
*****************
Don denies reincarnation, Doc... he is of the traditional Western "you only go 'round once, then Heaven-or-Hell" school of Christian thought.
Therefore, "karma" or past lives could have no bearing on Yahwist theodicy, or a person's postmortem destiny in a Yahwist universe (outside
of Gnostic Christianity perhaps. But I don't think Don is a Gnostic...)
So your statement to Spit, has no bearing on this
particular debate.
And as for the person who grows up in a violent environment, and finds themselves in a hellish afterlife environment... if reincarnation is untrue (as Don maintains) then outside of (grossly unfair!) "divine fiat" we can only assume the child CHOSE the violent environment prior to birth, as a freshly-created spirit. But who would deliberately choose a Hell-bound life before they'd even lived? (All this is assuming Yahwism as Ultimate Truth.)
Which brings us right back to Spit and his earnest - but unanswerable - inquiry.

B-man

2 points for ya to ponder...
*****************
The only thing is, David:

How to account for NDE, mediums and other accounts that affirm the judeo-christian notion of God, separate from us each being God in disguise?
*****************
1.) If there is a "universal God", Doc... all of us being "God" in disguise would be the ONLY good reason for us being here, no..? As "God's" way of experiencing physicality... BRAVO, Doc!!!
The alternative explanation (as fundie churches teach) being that "God was lonely and wanted company, so he created man" is perhaps the SILLIEST notion in all of metaphysics... "God" can be lonely? (e.g. he has a WEAKNESS??? So much for Divine Perfection.) This anthropomorphizing of a universal "God" holds NO water, Doc. We should necessarily discard the notion of an objective, "out there" "God" (at least so far as humans have conceived of one) if we are to assume "His" existence - unless we want to settle for Deism or something like it.)
_________________

If it is just a result of belief (you believe in God or Jesus and he appears to you at the end), that may be one answer.  But how to account for Swedenborg, and other's critical detailing of the afterlife and the divine?
*****************
2.) If the universe is "mental" and experience cannot be defined objectively (as not only the ancient Egyptian and Greek philosophers believed, but many modern quantum physicists are coming to suspect) then the BELIEFS of an "adept" (such as Swedenborg) might indeed have a strong effect on what they experienced. In the case of Swedenborg, as a product of a Christian civilization, his experiences would naturally be Christian-flavored (just as Tibetan Buddhist's explorations tend to be Buddhist-flavored.) But did/does it reflect "Objective Truth?" Is there an "Objective Truth", anyway..? Does there even HAVE to be?
Maybe "Reality" (whatever it is!) is WAY more plastic than "common-sense", linear, evolved-from-ape-brains human thought tends to conceive it as? Could very well be...

B-man

[Craig:] "If God makes us to be unconditional beacons of light, and we are not, does that mean god is not omnipotent?"
____________________

Craig, I notice that you seem to have a Greek philosophical (i.e. non-biblical) notion of omnipotence.   The ancient Hebrew mindset is not as precise in its word usage and never implies that God can even violate the law of noncontradiction, e.g. by lifting an unliftable object.  On the contrary, the Bible teaches that God limits His power and micro-management in His creation of the universe and intelligent life.  This point will be developed at length when I address your comments about physical evil and natural disasters.  

God is love and love desires freely offered love in return.   Robotic love would be an exercise in unsatisfying narcissism.  So God's purpose cannot be realized unless we are free to ignore God's will and accept the consequences.  Because these consequences are unconsciously self-chosen, they are ultimately an educational experience designed to inspire loftier priorities.   Perhaps, this will become clear when I address your next point:    

(Craig:] "If a person has never known love/ kindness, etc, they can't have a chance to get into the higher plane/ heaven."
______________________  

Craig, the quoted text (Luke 12:47-48) teaches that God judges us fairly according to the limitations of our role models and environment.  Thus, Jesus already implies the future "ascent" of such deprived souls to higher planes.  To make this point clear, It seems advisable to document the biblical and early Christian case for soul retrievals.  Christian texts provide the earliest LITERARY documentation of retrievals, though it is possible that shamanism was already engaging in retrievals.

We find this affirmation in the Apostles' Creed:
"He (Jesus] descended into Hell."  This affirmation is based in part on Peter's ciaim that, after His resurrection, Christ sought to gain the release of sinful human spirits who had been dead for thousands of years:

"He [Christ] was put to death in the body, but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, who disobeyed long ago...(1 Peter 3:18-19)."

"Prison" is a common Jewish image for Hell.  The implication is that the unrighteous dead receive a new chance to repent and be "retrieved" to Heaven.  Peter then extends the potential for soul retrievals to include all the dead in Hell.  1n 1 Peter 4:5-6 it is no longer Christ who proclaims the Gospel to the dead;  rather He Himself is proclaimed to them, probably by deceased saints:

"They [pagans] will have to give account to Him [Christ] who is ready to judge the living and the dead.  For this reason HE WAS PREACHED EVEN TO THOSE WHO ARE NOW DEAD, so that they might be judged according to men in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit."

Thus, the tragic verdict on our bodily existence can be reversed in the realm of spirit by Gospel proclamation and soul retrievals.  The souls selected for retrieval have presumably evolved to the point where they are ready to move on to a higher spirit plane, a Heaven.

Jews begin praying for the dead prior to Christ (e.g. in the Catholic Bible see 2 Maccabees 12:41-45).  In  the early church this practice evolves into proxy baptism for the unredeemed dead.  We encounter this mysteriously lost rite in 1 Corinthians 15:28-29.   Here Paul hints at his belief (expressed more clearly elsewhere) in the possibility that all humanity will eventually be saved.  He insists that God will ultimately "be everything to everyone" and implies that proxy baptism for the unredeemed dead is part of that process.  Paul's invocation of this practice in support of Christian doctrine means that we cannot dismiss it on the grounds that it is an obscure and soon to be ignored aspect of early Christian ritual.

In the early 2nd century, this practice is reinforced by a belief in postmortem baptism in the Acherusia lake near the Elysian field.  The early church borrowed these locales from Greek mythology and incorporated them into its vision of Heaven.  Consider these two quotes from orthodox Christian apocalyptic from the first half of the 2nd century:

"[Christ:] Then I will grant God to them (the damned), if they call to me (in their torment) and I will give them a precious baptism for salvation in the Acherusia lake, which...is located in the Elysian field, the portion of the righteous with the saints (Apocalypse of Peter 14--from 135 AD)."

"To the devout, when they ask eternal God, HE WILL GRANT THEM TO SAVE PEOPLE OUT OF THE DEVOURING FIRE AND FROM EVERLASTING TORMENTS.  For having gathered them again from the unwearying flame and set them elsewhere, He will send them FOR HIS PEOPLE'S SAKE into another life, indeed an eternal one, with the immortals, in the Elysian plain, where are the long waves of the ever-flowing, deep-bosomed Acherusia lake (Christian Sibylline Oracles II:331-38
from 150 AD)."

Now baptism in Greek means "immersion." Perhaps these poetic images of postmortem baptism are symbols for purification processes such as that experienced by Guenter Wagner during his NDE.  The Being of Light performed the "baptism":

"I received the impression that I would have to take a bath, but by dipping the whole body.  It was made plain to me that the process was going to be unpleasant, but I could stop it if it became too painful...I was willing to do what the Being of Light wanted me to do.  I was lifted up and put into a red light...After some time,  I realized that I was being tossed about rather vigorously.  It was like being in a washing machine.  I cried, `I think that is enough!'  Immediately, I was lowered down and the love and the warmth were switched off (Guenter Wagner--quoted from "near-death.com")."

Consider the contrast between these ancient apocalyptic visions of Heaven and another early patristic vision, which  imagines the righteous sitting in Heaven's Colosseum and enjoying the role reversal of damned Romans in the arena below.  The texts just quoted hint at a much nobler Christian perspective that is at times implied, but is never made explicit, namely that none of us ultimately make it unless we all make it.  Your success is my success; your failure is my failure.  I like the way a  missionary to China, C. T, Studd, expresses this attitude in a charming little ditty:

"Some wish to live within the sound of church and chapel bell.
I wish to run a rescue mission within a yard of Hell."

As a realm of pure unconditional love, Heaven cannot truly remain Heaven for the righteous unless they dedicate themselves to facilitating the growth and liberation of denizens of Hell and the lower Heavens.  Fire is an early Christian symbol of this purification process.

The seeds of this teaching appear in John's Apocalypse.  To see this, it helps to realize that John the seer does not comprehend every aspect of his otherworldly journeys and that, if he did, he might well grimace at the teachings being disclosed to him.  He and his beloved churches are being persecuted by both the Romans and local synagogues.  John is shown Heaven through the image of a hovering New Jerusalem and learns that Heaven's gates can never be shut (Revelation 21:25).  This image implies eternal traffic coming and going.  But going out on what missions?  Why would anyone leave Heaven?  We are told that "outside" are the evil souls residing in Hell (22:15).  So the image allows for soul retrievals from Hell.

This interpretation finds reinforcement from two other texts in Revelation: (1) John's vision of everyone in Hell (i.e. "those under the earth") joining all humanity in the worship of God and Christ (5:13); (2) the intriguing mystery of the unidentified "2nd resurrection."  That is, his visions assume a pattern of first death, followed by "first resurrection" and "second death" followed by 2nd resurrection (20:6).  But John never identifies the 2nd resurrection.  His anger at his persecutors probably makes him reluctant to do so.  It is usually assumed that the 2nd resurrection precedes the Great White Throne judgment (20:11ff.).  But that assumption places the 2nd resurrection before the 2nd death.  Besides, resurrection ("anastasis")implies the concept of being raised up and there is no implication that the dead are "raised up" to Heaven for the Great White Throne judgment.  The 2nd death is the lake of fire.  So to maintain the pattern first death, then first resurrection and 2nd death, then 2nd resurrection, the 2nd resurrection must surely be retrieval from the lake of fire.  Only Heaven's eternally open gates make sense as the vehicle for the 2nd resurrection.  

The prospect of universal salvation through soul retrievals also seems implicit in the hymn in Philippians 2:6-11:

"therefore, God has highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every other name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven, on earth, AND UNDER THE EARTH, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father (2:9-11)."

In this hymn everyone in the universe makes this saving confession.  "Every knee...under the earth" refers to everyone in Hell.  For Paul, the confession, "Jesus Christ is Lord", cannot be uttered apart from the Holy Spirit's inspiration, if it is sincerely uttered (1 Corinthians 12:3), and this confession automatically makes one a Christian (Romans 10:9-10).  The Philippian hymn must have in mind the salvation of the hellbound confessors because it is based on the invitation to universal salvation in Isaiah 45:22-23: "Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth...Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear."  The hymn's glorious image resembles John's vision of everyone in Hell worshiping God and Christ in Revelation 5:13.

Some might object to this perspective by invoking texts like Hebrews 9:27: "It is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment."  But one must ask, "What happens after the judgment?"  Or for similar texts, one must ask, "What happens after the wrath, the exclusion from God's kingdom, and the consignment to Hell?"  In this respect, it is important to realize that neither in Hebrew nor in Greek do the words translated "eternal" mean that.  Rather, they mean "for an indefinitely long period of time."  Thus, in Judaeo-Christian literature from late antiquity, "eternal sleep" can be followed by a new and positive status.

So what about sayings like John 14:6: "I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me?"   In the afterlife Christ can redeem those who never believed in Him during their earthly lives.  Christ Himself performs soul retrievals (1 Peter 3:18-20) and other retrievals from Hell are performed through opportunities to respond to the Gospel (see e.g. 1 Peter 4:6).  In short, God's desire to save everyone never changes and God's love never permanently abandons anyone after death.  Perhaps, God's omnipotence even allows Him to reclaim those who have opted for soul annihilation.  That prospect must remain an open question for now.

Don

FROM A BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVE, IS IT POSSIBLE FOR "SPIRITUAL" NON-CHRISTIANS TO GO DIRECTLY TO HEAVEN AFTER DEATH?

The biblical teaching on evolutionary soul progression is related to the question of the fate of righteous non-Christians.  Consider this absurd argument.  "Let's not send food and medicine to starving children in Ethiopia and the Sudan.  If we save their lives, almost all of them will reach age 12, the age of accountability.  But then most of them will go to Hell because they haven't accepted Christ as their Savior.  Better to let them starve in the age of childlike innocence.  That way, they'll get to Heaven.  So letting them starve is actually the loving thing to do."  I hope you find this argument as offensive as I do.  So what is the answer to question (5)?

Many would dismiss this question on the grounds of several 'exclusivist" New Testament texts: e.g. "All who sin apart from the Law will also perish from the Law, and all who sin under the Law will be judged by the Law (Romans 2:12)."  But Paul celebrates God as "the Savior of all humanity, ESPECIALLY of those who believe (1 Timothy 4:10)."  The word "especially" stops us dead in our tracks when we deny that He is ultimately the Savior of unbelievers as well.  How can unbelievers be saved apart from formal profession of faith in Christ?  Paul answers this question in his discussion of the fate of non-Christian Jews and Gentiles in Romans 2:7, 10: "To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, He will give eternal life...glory, honor and peace to everyone who does good--first to the Jew, then to the Gentile."  

But these people have failed to gain forgiveness by trusting in Christ's atoning death.  Paul would reply that in pre-Christian times God "overlooked" sins committed in ignorance (Acts 17:30)."  Surely God takes the same position with respect to modern people who are ignorant of the sinful nature of their actions.  Again Paul would agree: "Before the Law was given, sin was in the world, but SIN IS NOT TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT WHEN THERE IS NO LAW (Romans 5:13)."  Note the present tense 'is not."  

But even on this basis many pagans cannot qualify because conscience can be equivalent to the revealed written Law of Scripture: "Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the Law, do BY NATURE the things required by the Law, they are a law for themselves...SINCE THEY SHOW THAT THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE LAW ARE WRITTEN ON THEIR HEARTS, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them (Romans 2:14-15)."  Only God knows how many pagans find their way to Heaven on this basis.  

But doesn't Jesus always insist during His public ministry that all godly non-Christians be properly taught His message and His ministry of redemption?  Actually, no!  In Mark 9:38-41, John informs Jesus that a non-Christian Jew is successfully performing exorcisms. John adds: "We told him to stop because he was not one of us."  Notice how Jesus handles the situation.  He says, "Bring the man here and we'll explain the Gospel to him and offer him some basic instruction in discipleship.  Then we'll send him on his way to continue his ministry."  Oh, many evangelicals wish Jesus had responded that way!  But no, notice how He really does respond: "Do not stop him.  No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us."  In other words, if you don't actively oppose Jesus by your values and actions, he considers you to be on His side.  On the basis of Jesus' actions here, would you still insist that this exoricist was unsaved?  Apparently, this man's successful ministry demonstrates to Jesus' satisifaction that his spirituality is the functional equivalent of what God requires.  

And how can Jesus say that "the poor" are "divinely favored" because "theirs is the kingdom of God (Luke 6:20)?"  How can He say elsewhere that "the poor in spirit" will "inherit the kingdom of heaven," that "the pure in heart...will see God," and "that "the peacemakers" will "be called sons of God (Matthew 5:3, 8-9)?"  Why doesn't Jesus insist in this context that all these classes must first be "born again" (John 3:3)?

I think Christians need to preach the Gospel and send out missionaries to convert the masses.  But I also think we'd better let God decide which non-Christians are bound for Hell and which are not.  Perhaps, righteous unbelievers spend time in one of the two Heavens below Paradise (2 Corinthians 12:2-3).  Perhaps, those who have received very limited spiritual light are purified or (in Jesus' poetic image) "are beaten with few lashes" in Hell (Luke 12:47-49) before being reclaimed for Christ.  As my future posts will argue, the Bible teaches that God's love never permanently abandons anyone after death.

Don

[Note: Sorry to lay all this on you.  But to complete my initial focus, I wanted Craig to have a coherent picture of the rationality of the biblical Heavens.]

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF HEAVEN?

Finally, the biblical teaching on soul progression raises the question of Heaven's ultimate purpose.  We find a hint of Heaven's purpose in Romans 11:36: "For  from Him and through Him and back to Him are all things."  This cyclical vision of creation already hints that damnation need not be the final state of those in Hell who have not opted for the annihilation option.  [More on that in my treatment of questions (5)-(7).]  The most fascinating biblical expression of Heaven's purpose can be found in 2 Peter 1:4: "He [God] has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through Him YOU MAY PARTICIPATE IN THE DIVINE NATURE."  Here Peter expresses the Bible's most glorious prospect for humanity.  Heaven is not an end in itself; it is merely a vehicle to help us achieve a profound union with God, a union which expands God's horizons in ways we cannot fathom.  Our mission is to help an already perfect God enrich and upgrade His experienc e and essence in ways that please Him {Her/ It). 

Peter's claim expresses much more than the traditional doctrine that we are created in God's image.  It expresses an idea very similar to the claim of certain astral adepts that we are all part of God.  When skeptics take offense at Jesus' claim to be God's Son, He responds that in a profound sense all humans are gods (John 10:33-36; citing Psalm 82:6).  But the narcissistic ego must be gradually suppressed and humble submission to God's will is required.  That submission should include love, adoration, and worship.  Our full realization of union with God must (from our time-bound perspective) await the completion of our long postmortem journey. 

In His human manifestation, Jesus has "emptied" Himself of His divine prerogatives (Philippians 2:6), and so, even He can temporarily distinguish Himself from God (Mark 10:18).  The Bible assumes the preexistence of the soul, but not reincarnation (e.g. John 9:1-2; Jeremiah 1:5; Wisdom of Solomon 8:19-20).  Unlike us, Christ has no human preexistent state; rather, He preexists as God or rather "the Word" {Greek: "Logos"), i. e. the rational self-expression of God as opposed to God in His unknowability.  After His resurrection, Christ is restored to His full divine nature and prerogatives (Philippians 2:9-11), but now His humanity becomes absorbed into His divinity.  His atoning death and resurrection make possible our ultimate participation in the divine nature as well.  In that state, we ultimately share  jurisdiction over the cosmos (1 Corinthians 6:2) and just may be included in the heavenly throng poetically addressed at creation:  "LET US make humanity in OUR image (Genesis 1:27)."

These truths are poetically expressed by "Jesus and the angels" during Howard Storm's NDE:

"The universe exists because it is the activity of God and the heavenly multitude.  It was explained to me that it is like a vast orchestra and God is the conductor.  Each individual is an instrument with unique qualities.  Each soul contributes in their unique way to the symphony of creation.  There is no past or future in the symphony, only present.  The universe and all that is in it is the music.  We are the songs sung by heaven.  Outside of the symphony of life there is no time, space, matter, or energy. . .OUR ULTIMATE DESTINY IS TO PARTICIPATE WITH GOD IN CREATION.  The instrument we play is our being perfectly connected to God by the bond of love.  We know our part in the symphony because we have understood who we are and contribute our experience, our whole being, our spirit into the process (57)."

Don

Craig

Craig’s first two recent questions raise question (2) of this thread’s stated agenda.
2a. [Craig:]  “An all-powerful god should not require worship, unless he had an ego.”

God is the ultimate universal Self or Ego who created all other egos and God experiences reality both through those egos and independently of them.  No insecurity or loneliness is implicit in the claim that God requires or desires worship and the Bible never makes such a claim.

2b. [Craig:] “Why does God need worship?”

`Need’ means “a lack of something useful, required, or desired.”  To claim that God needs love (= PUL) or worship implies that there was a time when there was no intelligent creature to love or worship `Him’.  But there is no justification for the claim that God ever lacked a created universe or intelligent companions.  The Genesis creation story implies the existence of intelligent life prior to the creation of our universe (1:26).  God is love and love is relational; i e. love expresses a relationship between A and B, C, D, etc.  So love cannot be real without both lover and beloved. Some New Agers imagine that PUL floats in etheric realms like a mist that can be exhaled or an energy that can be projected.  They act as if this PUL energy is independent of its creator-lover rather than an intimate expression of `His’ essence.  The inextricable lover-beloved  connection naturally prompts the assumption that God whose essence is PUL desires love to be expressed to `Him’ or rather to manifest in an intimate bonding with `Him’. Worship is just another term for loving God.  But in an intimate encounter with God’s Spirit, one typically experiences fear in the sense of reverential awe and inadequacy due to a humbling awesome distinction between Creator and creature.

2c. [Craig:]  “Why would God need worship to heal you?”
Nowhere in the Gospels is worship a prerequisite for Jesus’ healing.  In fact, Jesus rarely even urges those He heals to become His disciples after their healing, though some do for obvious reasons. Kathryn Kuhlman was a gifted Christian faith healer whom I’ve observed a few times in person, It was commonly recognized that non-Christians were just as likely to be healed as Christians in her spectacular services.          

I now turn to Craig's other recent questions.
[Craig:] “How can god judge...the things which he could not have experienced?  For He has never been mortal.”  

God is both omniscient and the very ground of our being.  Of course, He can experience what we experience from our limited point of view.  In the person of Christ He has “been mortal” and has experienced all our temptations and human limitations as a human too (Hebrews 3:15)..  

[Craig:]  “But it was god’s fault for not giving them...the opportunities in life, to give and receive the good things which earn us brownie points?”  

According to the New Testament, we can’t “earn brownie points” with God (Ephesians 2:8-9).  From the perspective of our vast universe, it is absurd to imagine that relatively insignificant creatures like us earn or merit divine favor. Salvation is by grace, not an earned reward for worship.  Therefore, your  question "Why would an omnipotent being... require worship in exchange for a pleasant afterlife?" misses the New Testament's point.

[:Craig:] “Does God punish so easily?”

We punish ourselves by unconsciously choosing postmortem company which is just like us. According to Jesus, God is in effect saying: “OK Craig, I have no absolute standard of justice.  So you will be judged by the standard you apply to others (Matthew 7:2).  For example, if you deem it satisfying to seek revenge, you’ll find yourself in a plane where the inhabitants find satisfaction in taking revenge against you.  

[Craig:] “Really sounds like a dictatorship, and what kind of all loving, all powerful god would act in such a manner?"

You aeem to think that your Creator should feel really fortunate to cater to your every whim. God can create any creature He wants for any purpose He wants.   But He is no dictator.  You can choose to ignore Him, in which case, He’ll respect your wishes and ignore you until you learn your lesson. God is love.  So if you choose a permanent lifestyle of separation from God, you will learn what it's like to live apart from divine love.  .  You can create your own essence, but. just remember, the essence you create will destine you to a heaven or a hell with other souls with the same core personality.  In the spiritual realm  communication is telepathic; so you cannot keep your thoughts or essence private (Luke 12:2).  

[Craig:] “Magic arts?...What kind of arts?”
In the ancient Mediterranean world magic arts would include magic curses and spells intended to harm others.  From the perspective of Revelation 22:15, it is irrelevant how effective these black arts are.  What affects one’s postmortem fact is the intention to hurt others.

Don

(3) THE PROBLEM OF NATURAL EVIL AND THE
     SEEMINGLY UNFAIR DISTRIBUTION OF PAIN

3a. [Craig:] "God must want us to suffer...Why would God allow you to be injured in the first place, and then heal you?"
______________________

God doesn't want robots.  To God the value of our free will is a function of the strength of our inclination to make choices that alienate us from Him.  This insight is the basis of the mystery of spiritual warfare.  Only God knows how strong this contrary inclination needs to be to maximize the value of our freely offered love.

Why didn't God create a world without pain, suffering, and hardship?  Because without these, there would be no pain-dependent virtues.   Courage requires danger and risk.  Compassion requires suffering.  Generosity requires want.  Patience requires frustration and nerve-wracking delays.  And who are we to say that a moral order would be better off without courage, compassion, generosity, and patience in God's eyes?

3b. [Craig:] "Earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, famines, disease, random accidents, the suffering of children and babies, the suffering of innocent people as a result of things that are beyond their control.  These are natural evils...These things are not punishment for poor judgment.  Therefore, God is immoral."  
________________________________________

John celebrates Christ as God's Logos (John 1:1, 14).  This Greek term is usually translated "word", but it really means the rational self-expression of God as opposed to God in His unknowability.  God makes it clear that His ways and thoughts are very different than our ways and thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9).  God is in effect saying, “Beware of excessive anthropomorphism.  Realize that the father/child analogy has a very limited application to my relationship with people."  Practically speaking, we should limit our claim that God loves us to what God has done for us in history (e. g. sending Jesus) and what God promises to do for us in both this life and the next.  Still, if God willed Hurricane Katrina or the recent Asian tsunami, then any claim to His loving character is open to serious challenge.

But I don’t believe God willed these natural disasters.  It is well known that the Bible teaches that at creation God brought order out of primordial chaos.  What is less known is this:  the Bible also teaches that God has never gained complete control over the forces of chaos.  The Bible is not a scientific book.  Its teaching about chaos is a poetic way of saying that God set the laws of nature in motion at creation, but does not micro-manage the operation of those laws.  Chaos has nothing to do with the demonic. Apparently the Creator’s penchant for free creatures beyond His control requires a universe that He does not completely control.  Ecclesiastes 9:11 is a good example of this biblical teaching about chaos: “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor favor to the skilful; but all are victims of time and chance (Ecclesiastes 9:11).”  At the same time, God reserves the right to empower us to fulfill aspects of our destiny and to mitigate the destructive power of chaos (blind chance) through prayer, faith, and love.  Thus Paul can insist: “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28).”  Notice the implication that “all things” might be working against us, but that God is “plugging away” for the good, trying to salvage a wonderful purpose from often horrid disasters that He never intended.  

This role of chaos in Nature dovetails neatly with a philosophical rationale for the seemingly unfair distribution of pain.  Suppose pain were fairly distributed on the basis of merit.  No one would have any incentive to make selfish or evil choices because they would then pay the penalty.  Suppose instead that pain was evenly distributed.  Then no one would have a strong incentive to choose evil since it would make no difference in terms of pain avoidance.  In our world, choosing the good often involves great sacrifice (e. g. our troops in Iraq) and hence unfairly high amounts of risk and pain.  When pain is unfairly distributed, the inclination to make self-serving choices is greater and so the value of freely offered sacrificial love greatly increases.  Besides, if pain were fairly or evenly distributed, then God's existence would be most strongly confirmed.  We would worship and serve God more out of a sense fear and self-serving duty than out of love groping after God in the darkness of spiritual ambiguity.  

A Russian parable eloquently illustates this point.
An eccentric king wanted to get married.  So he disguised himself as a peasant and wandered the countryside searching for the right girl.  His troubles began when he thought he'd found her.  Her father wanted his daughter to live a good life with a financially secure husband.  He saw little in this peasant to command his respect.  But the peasant king was determined.  He worked as a farm hand for minimal wages and continued to woo both father and daughter.  Finally, his charms won both over and Dad agreed to the marriage.  

In making the marriage arrangements, the king was then forced to disclose his true identity.   Dad was incensed: "Why didn't you make your true majesty immediately apparent?  I would have deemed it a privilege to grant you my daughter's hand."  The king replied, "Yes, and you would have been too intimidated to make a free decision.  You would have approved out of being overwhelmed by my rank and resources.  I wanted a family to love me for my character masked by poverty to make its core stand out in sharp relief.  So it is with the hiddenness of the courting God in this world.  

[Craig:] "God can't love all His children equally, as it says in the Bible...Why would god heal one person and not everyone?"
___________________

The Bible teaches that God "does not show favoritism (Acts 10:34)."  But this means neither that God loves all His children equally nor that God loves some people more than others.  Divine love is not quantified in this way.  It is better to say that we are all unique and God expresses His love for each of us uniquely.  Though the Bible does not teach reincarnation, it does imply that our souls exist prior to birth (e.g. John 9:1-2; Jeremiah 1:5; and especially Wisdom of Solomon 8:19-20).  None of us know how this brief life fits into the big picture of our preincarnational and postmortem lives.  

Craig asks, "Why would god heal one person and not everyone?"  In an sense, (3b) above already answers his question.   Clearly, people seem to be assigned different exit strategies and that means that each us reaches a point when we cannot be healed.  Beyond this, Paul in effect poses Craig's question in 2 Corinthians 12:7-9.

If ever there is a man you'd imagine is God's special darling, it's Paul.  He does more to put Christianity on the map than the 12 apostles combined.  And yet, his missionary work is merely a hobby practiced while he supports himself as a tent maker.  Paul is puzzled by an unidentified physical affliction--his "thorn in the flesh"-- which plagues much of his ministry.  Most scholars think Paul had serious eye problems in addition to an acute vulnerability to malaria.  In 3 prolonged prayer sessions, he pleads for divine healing.  After a long delay, his petition is denied with this answer: "My grace is sufficient for you; for my strength is made perfect in weakness."  It dawns on Paul that his infirmities help check his potential for conceit over his "surpassingly great revelations."  He recalls that his illness became the instrument of blessing for the pagan Galatians who were kind enough to nurse him back to health and, in the process, formed a church as a result of his testimony (Galatians 4:13-14).  In God's eyes, then, physical infirmities can be the catalyst for extraordinary humility and inner beauty.

Finally, I'll address 3 of Craig's other issues posed in  his last post.

a. [Craig:] "When I say ego, I'm using the definition an exaggerated sense of self-importance."
____________________________________

Ego in your sense properly applies to peers.  God has no peer.  How could the Ground of Being who is infinitely great, powerful, and knowledgable ever exaggerate His sense of self-importance?

b. [Craig:] I don't see how 1:26 ["Let US make man in OUR image."] implies any creatures before us."
_____________________________________

"The plural "us" is neither a literary "we" (another way of saying "I") nor an allusion to the Trinity.  The doctrine of the Trinity is unknown in the Old Testament.  In any case, the Trinity refers to 3 images of the one God, not to "3 guys" who might engage each other in conversation.  So most commentaries speak of a pre-creation heavenly council.  This case is analogous to the poetic Job 38:4, 6: "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation...and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"   Are these "sons of God" angels or creatures like us from prior universes?  

c. [Craig:] "When god was mortal, did he know what it's like to have no legs?"
______________________

Good point!  God's identification with our human estate (= Jesus) allows Him to assume our limitations; but it is not entirely comprehensive.  Still, there is no reason why an omniscient God could not experience our limitations through our egos and gain total empathy that way.

Don

Morning Don,






If a car engineer, built his own car - and it broke down should he not be able to fix it? Should'nt god be able to fix his own planet?

Praying to god, does'nt seemingly do nothing for anyone. 15,000 people prayed for 1 woman with cancer, and she still died.
If god made the earth, then it's his fault for natural disasters, and therefore god is the direct cause of many peoples pain.
If there's a fault with an aeroplane and it ends up killing half it's passengers - it's the companys responsibility to make compensation. If god did exist, he would have massed quite a debt. To which i never seem him pay anything back.

If god, gives to those whose worship him, and also gives to those who dont, why go to church? why read the bible? follow his rules? you are just wasting time, doing these things for god - does'nt give you peanuts. Would you give a stranger 1000000 million pounds/buck, in exchange for a promise written down on a peice of paper?











I believe it could be possible, for a god - to sap our memory's of an event, but the interpriters overlay affect always occurs. God would judge based upon infinite wisdom, is it possible to understand the limitations of a lower species? could you understand the pain a cockroach feels by being stepped on? even though you are greatly smarter, then it, you cannot understand - what was occuring from the confines of it's brain.

Have a good day
Craig

Ive gotta go to bed, im shattered - i'll reply tommorow don.

Toodaloo

[Nje:] "With true omnipotence, why must pain be required for his conscious creations to exist a certain way?"

Nje, I'm confident I'm speaking for Craig when I say that your contributions are welcome.  But please follow Craig's combative example and address my arguments point by point.  I've already answered your question in detail in reply #32 (3a and 3b).

By the way, how did you get the A-word past the censor gods?  Even my slightest vulgarities are often censored in a manner compelling an overly sensitive Berserk to do penance.

Don

Courage and compassion is worth all that suffering?

You haven't experienced real pain if that's what you think.. otherwise, you've got a pretty disturbed point of view as far as my opinion's concerned.  This is how flamming here always starts, someone's point of view is so alien to another's, when they give their opinion of it, it's seen as an insult.

I think we're just not going to see eye-to-eye on this, so I'm going to go my separate way here, much like Jews, Islams, Hindus, Christians.. have all realized the same of each other and go their separate ways.

in my judgment, people who love themselves less - do more to help others. thus the statement of 
Quote:

is not greatly based upon fact, a recent program about overweight woman was on tv the other day, a woman had a stomach band fitted, and she lost alot of weight, when she was fat she was a super mother, great wife - after she lost the weight, she was a bad mother, bad wife, cared only for herself.




while i agree, virtue's require pain- we should have free will over how much pain one is allowed to suffer - a life of nothing but pain - is a waste.

we would have morals without god, we did so for thousands of years before he decided to show his face, we will do long after the idea has left our minds. morals, are based upon 30% instinct 70 percent education, we are but mearly programmable machines, and the basic software[instinct] is slow changing, while education is fast.

if i saw an animal injured on the street, i would take it to the vets, the way you describe god, he would walk by the animal just so the animal could know what prolonged suffering is, and he would repeat this situation with the same animal time ang again, this to me - is not a lesson it is a punishment, and if a god allowed this to occur - he/it is not worthy of any worship, this is what my instinct/education tell me, that my morality is far higher then gods, if he/it existed.



proper moral order, whos morals? gods? if god cannot fully control the planet, why would he risk his children by sticking them here, and offer them not 1 bit of help, thats what i would call a very bad parent.

you make god sound arrogant, why should he not create an existance, like ours? because it's wrong, lifes not fair - we dont all have equal oppertunitys. if you look at it from that view point, why dont they stick micheal shumacker 1 metre from the end of the race, while everyone else has to start at the begging?

i could create different existances, for say rats - is it not wrong that i chop of one set of rats hands and feet, just so i can see what happens when there forced to squirm about?



when i said peer, i ment it as a judge - like a hamster judges it's owner by how much food it is given etc, if i thought god existed - i would judge him purely based upon what he's done for me/what he has'nt done for me, based upon his power of influence.



point 1 can be dismissed for as you said yourself - the christian god is not omnipotent in the meaning of all power, all knowing etc. thus he can be exagerated.
point 2, god wants worship, yet he shows no love in return, if i do something for god, should he not give me something back, which currently he does not, such a relationship in my oppinion is bogus and not worth entering.



you see im not sure about this, god as his christianic omnipotent self - would have our views tainted by his power, even if he could split sections off from himself, eventually the knowledge would have to go back to the whole god, and based on all that knowledge/power you would be judged.

Don, you wrote:
*****************    
I now turn to Craig's other recent questions.
[Craig:] “How can god judge...the things which he could not have experienced?  For He has never been mortal.” 

God is both omniscient and the very ground of our being.  Of course, He can experience what we experience from our limited point of view...
*****************
Don, you've "stepped in it" again. You remind me of some guy wearing a blindfold, walking barefoot through a poorly-maintained dog pound...
You once told me that "God" CAN be surprised by our behavior - that is, "he" didn't KNOW that Joe Blow would be a hellbound sinner before "he" created Joe Blow. Therefore, "God" is not to blame for the sins of Joe Blow.
But if "God" is omniscient (there YOU go with the "Greek" concept, what's up here???) then he KNEW Joe Blow would be a sinner and was destined for "Hell". By any stretch of logic then, "God" is responsible for Joe Blow's sins and/or crimes. An OMNISCIENT God is therefore AT FAULT for our "sins", Don!
Once again, you got tangled up in your own arguments and lost your CONSISTENCY. Why? It's tough to be consistent when you're trying to CANDY-COAT your true beliefs... which you've been doing, face it.
So let's see you weasel out of this one. OR at least admit what you TRULY believe, which is THIS...
Here we go -
"God" is so infinitely superior to us, because he CREATED us. Thusly, we are his possessions, to do with as he pleases.
Since we are his possessions, he has a right to TRASH us if he pleases, just as we have a right to smash up our own cars if we want to. (It makes no difference that we are fully capable of suffering (uinlike a car!), God is ALL-POWERFUL which places him above our moral judgement. POWER IS THE FOUNDATION OF "RIGHTEOUSNESS." The better a stomper you are, the more righteous you are.)
And we mere humans have no right to complain, because MIGHT MAKES RIGHT. All other arguments are trivial and frivolous.
We can't kill "God."
But "God" CAN kill us.
That's the foundation of Desert Monotheist/Yahwist morality... the BETTER KILLER IS ALWAYS RIGHT. Whether in Christianity, Islam, or Orthodox Judaism. Thus, we must grovel and cower and offer to lick "God's" boots (i.e., "worship") because he can squish us like little worms if we don't.
And THAT is the foundation of "morality" - SLAVISH, GROVELING OBEDIENCE. Deal with it."
Why don't you just come out and ADMIT it, Don? I could at least respect that. But no, you insist upon beating around the bush. Why?

B-man

Donald, I read the above with my mouth hanging open. You were defending me. Thank you.

Nje, I don't want to quarrel with you. I respect your posts. Yes, I know what omnipotence means and God is an omnipitent God. I'm not a scholar like Donald and I don't express myself with explanations. Perhaps I should, however I have KNOWNS which to me are all that I need. When I post to anyone, I should say IMHO or I feel, however I guess I assume that everyone knows that I'm just expressing my opinion on what I've experienced.  I hope you don't give up. We are all ONE and this I feel more and more everyday. I am you and you are me. I am Donald and Donald is me. AND yes, we were all granted free will so that we can choose what to learn from life and what to disregard. But disregard isn't the right word either.

We are all souls/spirits having a physical life to learn lessons the hard way, so that we will 'get it.' And I've 'gotten it' with so much and I imagine there's more for me 'to get.'  If life were easy, what would be the point?

I don't have much money. I live on my social security check from month to month. But I am happy because I have come so far in such a short time (since I first read Bruce's books). I'm 66 years old. I don't know how many years I have left in the physical. But one thing that I know is that I have no fear of death because there is no death.  I lived so many years in such fear and it is such a relief to have no fear anymore.

In Spirit of ONE,
Mairlyn

Terms like "the damned," yield vivid pictures of burning hot fires roasting people for all eternity.  If one has insight and knowledge to know that free will has taken one to a hellish existence, then the spirit/person, must change there beliefs and intention in order to leave that hell.  You may say "how can a benevolent God allow this?"  And the answer is; he condemns no one; they condemn themselves.  However as soon as their false beliefs change, as soon as they are able to see with clarity, they may advance spiritually.

Thus, the "heavenly," beings, are continuously shining love down on those in the lower planes, and retrieval type activities are frequent and constant.  Free will may place some in the lower planes, yes.  But don't condemn the creator for this. 

Many things are assumed with the words omniscience and omnipotent.  One wonders "think of anything, and God can do it, because that is his/her definition."  Yet this is overly simplified, and I hate to say it but a bit child-like in logic.

I do respect NJE's views. 

Matthew

Quote:


[moves ellen back to were she was]

You are judging her, based upon you believing - that she believed there was more then this mortal coil, she hated herself - because shey could'nt stop eating - which affected her appearance and health, and ultimately this lesson made her humble, until she lost the weight, to which she went on an ego trip.




ive never heard this, - god can heal people he choose's from the description of your own miracles. so he must still have control. which takes us back to god not loving all his children equally, for he would bend the rules for some, and leave the others.


is there any evidence to support that god is not in control anymore?, and faith,pray, and service dont seem to do anything - as i said with the man's dieing wife, 15,000 people prayed for her, and she still died.



god, could have changed those events - he extended hezekiah life, he could have just warned him that his son was going to grow up crooked, and that he should do a b and c to stop it happening. childs play, compared with healing a terminally ill man.



that could be interpreted as, god went past free will, and made joseph's brother's commit the act. if god interfered with joesph, to change human events - does'nt that mean he's interfearing with the free will of many humans ?



Right action is, action based upon rules which the rest of society lives by. it's the typical athiests, will go around raping and pillaging, without god argument. but society/community determine which course of action is right, and to your question of what stop's you from raping and pillaging, society does, peer pressure - simple advantage of numbers. it worked before god came into our minds. human survival is based upon our intelligence and our ability to work in groups - it always has been, therefore most of us are programmed to do whats best for the group, this creates order, and civilisation. it's like many pack animals, dolphins dont go around saying im gonna kill another dolphin does that mean that god has given them morals, or is it a mear bi-product of evolution programming instructions, saying to survive we must unite ?.



evolution has programmed us, with accountability, as it has done with many species.



if i ask god to materialise me a sports car, and he does'nt, does'nt that mean, he cant do something - because, if he does'nt choose to materialise me a sports car, he makes me unhappy - so it would be beyond his ability's to make me happy.god is all loving, yet he shows me no love - to which i can directly benefit from now. which would lead me to, god cannot make me happy, so dont exagerate the claims that he loves all his children, because if he did - he would have materialised me a new sports car.



you see, you say i should pray to god, but in my heart i know i would'nt believe he was there - and that i would just be talking with myself. should god not prove to me, that he has value ?, and as such is worth of me putting my beliefs into him. in the bible it says, if you pray god can move mountains - has anyone you have ever known had a mountain moved for them? theres been times in my life, as with probley most people - to which i could have used a little divine intervention, and yet like most people god left me to rot. if my child was in pain, i would do everything in my power to make it better, not just stand by and say - i'll help you only when you pray to me!.

Craig

afternoon matt,

the problem is, that a person dieing does not just affect them, it echo's pain through to many many people.

you also, assume these people believe in the afterlife - unfortunatley god never makes himself known to hardly anyone, if he does at all.

so, if you look at it another way,

a cancer paitent is lying in a bed screaming to death, while there family is forced to watch powerless.

the person dieing has no belief in the afterlife, and only thing they believe is that there going to fade away - after being put though torture.

so basically all you have is some poor sod, lying in a bed in agony, with the feeling of guilt for having to leave there family while juggling the amassing fear that when they cork it- they will spend eternity in a black void.

craig

Quote:


if the afterlife was proved without doubt, many of these situations - would be greatly decreased in stress and pain, for both the person dieing, and there relatives.

im currently doing the leaf experiment, and it's quite suprising, that my leaf im sending support to is looking abit healthier then the one i have left in my desk.

you see the man who lost his wife, had 15,000 people praying for her, and she still popped off - so i dont see how 1 person praying does much at all. your version of praying though, does'nt strike me as the type which, is the asking of god to do you a favour, just seems to me - your putting your thoughts into out into the cosmos and hoping it will change the probability of an outcome.

you know, it's funny matt, because if i had met you in real life - i would have already judged you simply by your profession. i have a very intense hatred of all doctors. well yourself not included, but most doctors take the fighting spirit from the paitents with 2 or 3 sentence's.

The leaf, got me thinking about my body's bio electrical field, since i took the leaf with me while i was having breakfast - and i stuck it next to my bed at night,it was always close to me - while i left the other leaf on my desk, which means it could be somehow possible for me to transfer energy to the leaf, just by having it in close proximity, once my non supported leaf dies off abit more, im going to try leaving them both some distance away from me [different room], and maybe just have a photo of the one im trying to keep alive and kicking - so i can rule out or verify that.

it's very true, that the afterlife will not be proven to almost everyone for a long long time, i would'nt mind going to the monroe institute once, i like the way they use hemi sync. but monroes books really started putting me off oobe's, due to the claims which he started coming out with.

well, i dont know about you matt - but i plan to live forever.

good to hear, you have some pride in your work - my doctor cant even speak english.

have a good evening
craig

B-man, why are you to spamming up my thread with your irrelevant personal issues.  Can you say "Private Message"?
*****************
I helped you keep it at the top of the page, didn't I?
I'm such a nice guy...

THE PREXISTENCE OF THE SOUL IN SCRIPTURE(?)
*****************
O.K., I'll humor you, there's no reincarnation, yadda
yadda.
Reality is LINEAR. Not cyclical. I'm with ya so far. O.K.
We're here in the physical, right? O.K.-
We go to the non-physical (i.e., a permanent
"bardo" state) after we die. O.K.-
What were we BEFORE, then? Presumably something LESS evolved than humans. An
"animal" perhaps? (NOT human though, or even
an intelligent alien - we've got reincarnation then,
and that's a big no-no.)
So... the people who get screwed in this life,
are paying for something they did as a MONKEY?
(or the equivalent thereof in "another dimension")
I don't think you can hold an animal responsible
for its actions, any more than you can hold a
florid schizo or retard responsible for THEIR actions. At best, they have the moral status of CHILDREN - who in turn, are equivalent to (smart!) ANIMALS, prior to a certain point. To be "less evolved" than a full human adult, implies a lack of free will.
So there goes the "paying for past mistakes" argument. Which leaves us with Calvinism I suppose, and "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated" (for WHAT though? If "God" hated Esau so much, WHY did he create him???)
And so, we're in another "cycle", aren't we? (But maybe that's the best way to view reality - as a cycle, NOT A LINE. If there is an afterlife, logic would seem to dictate it is cyclical, not linear... Hence my viewpoint.)
Raving mindlessly again,

B-man

[Listen up, Brendan and Craig!  8)]

THE PREEXISTENCE OF THE SOUL IN SCRIPTURE

[B-man:] "What were we BEFORE [birth] then?  Presumably something LESS EVOLVED than humans.  An `animal' perhaps...So people who get screwed in this life are paying for something they did as a MONKEY (or the equivalent thereof in `another dimension?'"
___________________

Brendan, you continually create false caricatures of Christianity in a desperate effort to duck the real issues.  Your assumption of moral accountability to a prior monkey-like existence is unbiblical and just plain silly.  It is refuted by Jeffrey Wands' paranormal encounter with his unborn son.  

Jeff Wands, author of "The Psychic in You," was George Noory's guest on "Coast to Coast" a few nights ago.  He shared this fascinating incident involving his son.   During his wife's pregnancy, she and Jeff were watching the movie, "The Right Stuff."  Jeff remarked that it would be wonderful if their newborn son would grow up to be an astronaut.   One day Jeff's son announced that while he was in his mother's womb, he observed his parents watching that movie and recalled his Dad's wish that he grow up to be an astronaut!  Jeff had never expressed this wish since.  Obviously the son's preincarnate self expressed an intelligence that is more human than animal.

Is Jeff Wands' experience incompatible with biblical teaching?  Not at all!  Most Christian pastors are unaware that the Bible implies the preexistence of the soul.  This doctrine may supply another key to our grasp of seemingly unfair suffering.  This point can be illustrated by Betty Eade's NDE:

"I saw how desirous these [mature] spirits were of coming to earth.  They looked on life here as a school where they could learn many things and develop the attributes they lacked.  I was told that  ...we had actually chosen many of our weaknesses and difficult situations in our lives so that we could grow ("Embraced by the Light", 89-90)."

But like Swedenborg, Betty is warned against a reincarnational spin on these revelations.  She is told in her NDE: "I also learned that we do not have repeated lives on this earth (93)."  Since the Bible does not teach reincarnation, her revelation brings her NDE into line with biblical revelation:  

"As Jesus went along, He saw a man blind from birth.  His disciples asked Him, `Rabbi, Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?'  `Neither this man nor his parents sinned,' replied Jesus, `but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life (John 9:1-2).'"

Notice that it is Jesus' disciples--not His opponents--who pose this question.  Their question assumes that the blind man might have sinned during his prebirth existence and implies that our pain in this life may be a function of preincarnational mistakes.  Conversely, our special purpose in this life may be a function of our preincarnational service: e. g.

"The word of the Lord came to me, saying, `Before I formed you in the womb, I KNEW YOU, before you were born, I set you apart; I appointed you a prophet to the nations (Jeremiah 1:5)."

The wording here seems to imply not just divine foreknowledge, but the soul's preexistence.  The demonstration of moral goodness prior to birth can lead to a "happy disposition" in this life:

"I was a boy of happy disposition.  I had  received a good soul as my lot; or rather, being good, I had entered an undefiled body (Wisdom of Solomon 8:19-20)."

The Catholic Old Testament contains the Wisdom of Solomon.  Its teaching about the preexistence of the soul makes me wonder about the contrary traditional Catholic teaching that the soul is instead created at conception.  

None of these texts specify when human souls are created.  But one ancient Jewish text claims that all souls were created prior to the earth's creation:  

"All souls are prepared for eternity before the formation of the earth (2 Enoch 23:5)."

Similarly, Origen (c. 225 AD) taught that we all preexisted and inhabited countless worlds clothed in bodies appropriate to each world.  This church father also rejects reincarnation, but lends some  credibility to the potential relevance of prior lives in helping solve the mystery of suffering.

[B-man:] "I want to keep rejecting what I got wrong or what went wrong.  If `you only go around once,' then you have to accept leaving certain `unfinished business.'"
________________________

Duh, uou criticize me without closely reading anything I say!   So I must repeat myself.  NDEs indicate that we will all be subjected to an comprehensive past life review in which we will not only be forced to relive our past sins, but also to experience the devastating emotional impact of our misdeeds from the perspeptive of those we vcitimized.  So in the afterlife, your "business" will not be left "unfinished.".  Also, you will find yourself in a spirit plane based on the principle like attracts like, probably with no chance of concealing your thoughts from others.  If that predicament results is a Hell, that Hell is self-chosen as a way of teaching you your current level of spiritual development.  But according to Scripture, God's love never permanently abandons anyone after death.  So you can always choose a more godly and loving path.  Or you can choose annihilation!

[B-man:] "Are `spiritual things' really more enjoyable than arranging the sock drawer or mowing the lawn?"
________________

You remind me of a sexually insecure guy who has never had good sex with a gorgeous woman.  So he rationalizes this sad fact by claiming that sex can never be an enjoyable experience.  You have repeatedly been exposed to astral reports about the bliss of astral sex and the earthlike delights of the heavens.  Yet you prefer to put your head in the sand and seek the cocoon of annihilation.  You refuse to read any books on spirituality that might transform your life and you refuse to meet the minimal conditions for an experience of God's love and grace.  No wonder you loathe the Christian fundamentalists in your extended family.   You have a fundamentalist mentality in agnostic clothing.  You are a poster boy for psychological projection--the tendency to project what we unconsciously dislike about ourselves on to others who unconsciously remind of us our ourselves.  

I challenge you to actually try to have a spiritual experience.  You've been posting on this site for a long time now.  Why not buy Bruce's latest how-to book and practice with it?   I intend to do that myself if my Gateway CDs and my current practice with Robert Bruce's detailed astral technology continually fail to produce results.

[Craig:] "If god interfered with Joseph to change human events, doesn't that mean he's interfering with the free will of many humans?"
____________________________

No, Joseph's brothers imprisoned him in a well and planned to kill him later.   But God arranged for an alternative: Midianite slave traders who could take him for a handsome fee.   Also God blessed Joseph with the gift of precognitve dream interpretation. which allowed him to anticipate the devastating famine that would soon ravage the Middle East..  Joseph's gift ingratiated him with the Pharoah and led to his rise to power so that he could store up food and grain for the coming crisis.

Still, your question has merit, Craig.  Sin can enslave people to certain obsessions or addictions (e. g. heroine).  According to the Bible, God can occasionally use our obsessions and addictions to accomplish His purpose.  But such divine interventions do not interfere with our freedom in the grand scheme of thiings.

[Craig:] "Right action is...based on rules which the rest of society oges by...What stops you from raping and pillaging?  Society does--peer pressure--simple advantage of numbers...Evolution has programed us with accountability."
_________________________

You keep overlooking the basic issue of ethics:  How do you get an "ought" out of an "is"?  Put differently, why "ought" I to care about the demands of social rules, peer pressure, or a conscience shaped by evolution?  You might reply, "Because society will punish your violations."  That reply is pragmatic, not moral.   What if I enjoy raping and pillaging and am smart enough to get away with it?   You might urge me to listen to my conscience.  But a conscience can be seared and reprogramed once the arbitrary nature of evolution is recognized.   You might respond: "But suppose everyone reaped and pillaged?  That would make human life a living Hell!"   True, but most people will not follow my outrageous example; that hypothetical is irrelevant to my real life experience.

But suppose that there is an afterlife.  Suppose further that advancement from unpleasant planes to joyful planes depends on mastery of certain moral principles and spiritual truths.   Then those principles and truths automatically serve as a basis for morality and allow us to derive an "ought" out of an "is."  Iris Murdoch, an Oxford atheistic philosopher, wisely confessed: "If there is no God, it will be necessary to invent Him."  Otherwise, morality lacks objective grounding and is meaningless.

Don

Now you're cooking, Craig!  We need an Ultimate Power to justify morality, but how do we know the nature of that Ultimate Power and what it wants?  From a Christian perspective, this means that the principles governing advancement towards the heavens must be clarified together with Christ's role.   So we must first ask, "Can we make rational sense of Jesus' atoning death?"  Paul concedes that if the Gospel of Christ's atonement and resurrection is false, then Christianity is a waste of time (1 Corinthians 15:17-19).  Even if it can be made rational, we must then confront your question [my agenda question #5], "Why would God demand that you have a blind faith in him/it?"

Taking my cue from all your questions, I deem it advisable to break the first basic question ("Can we make rational sense of Jesus’ atoning death?") down into these 4 separate questions:

1. Isn’t  the doctrine of Christ’s atoning death just as implausible as the related obsolete Old Testament doctrine that God requires sacrifices to mediate divine forgiveness?

2. How can anyone’s death--even the death of God incarnate--possibly atone for our sin?  This question is formulated in response to Craig’s confession: “Why Jesus’ dying washes away my sins, I have no idea... He sends Jesus who “died” for my sins, but I  wasn’t even born.  So I had no sins for him to die for.”  

3. Doesn’t the Gospel overlook God’s responsibility (= fault) for creating us with our sinful nature?  This question is formulated to reflect Craig’s charge that “ultimately it was god’s fault for their sins."

4. Why should anyone’s salvation depend on embracing an abstract theological system like the Christian Gospel?

I will post my replies to each of these 4 questions every other day next week so as to allow a full day's discussion before posting the next question.

Don

B-man,

thanks for your response.  But I think you miss the point that Craig now grasps very well.   Some people live only for self-gratification no matter whom they hurt and could care less about your social contract, which is an arbitrary means of creating a functional society.  Since most people respect our social values, our egotist can rob and rape, as long as he can get away with it, and live a pleasurable life.  In this scenario, he can only be made morally accountable if he is answerable to a Higher Power and if his postmortem condition is adversely affected (like attracts like) by his selfish brutality in this life.  But Craig rightly points out the crucial issue that determines whether morality can ever be utimately meaningful.  Can this Higher Power and its principles be equated with the Christian God? 

Don

(4) CAN WE MAKE SENSE OF JESUS' ATONING
     DEATH?:

Q1. Isn’t the doctrine of Jesus’ atoning death just as implausible as the Old Testament doctrine that God requires sacrifices to mediate divine pardon?

In themselves, sacrifices have no appeal for God whatsoever.  God’s stunning confession in Jeremiah 7:22-23 makes this clear:
“When I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, ...I gave them no orders about burnt offerings or sacrifices.  My one command to them was this: Listen to my voice; then I will be our God and you shall be my people.”

God’s confession contradicts the impression created by the Pentateuch that Moses’ lawgiving efforts were entirely authorized by God.  In antiquity sacrifices were so universal that one can speak of a Jungian sacrifice archetype embedded in the human unconscious.  God simply used an already existing priestly practice as the framework for imparting insights that were more important to Him.  When the Jews forget this truth about their rituals, God confesses, “To me they [the rituals] are a burden I am tired of bearing (Isaiah 1:14),” and even waxes sarcastic: “Shall I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of male goats?  Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving (Psalm 50:13-14)."   Jesus makes it clear that God offers revelation within an outmoded Jewish legalism with the expectation that this legalism will manifest 3 love principles:

(a) “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and foremost commandment.  (b) And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets (Matthew 22:37-40).”  (c)  “However you want people to treat you, so treat them, for this sums up the law and the Prophets (Matthew 7:12).

Similarly, Jesus’ stresses the underlying principles that give spiritual value to the many Sabbath and purity laws.  So He reduces the countless Jewish Sabbath laws to just one principle: “The Sabbath [rest] was made for man and not man for the Sabbath (Mark 1:27).”  Thus, Jesus reminds the Pharisees that morality is revealed to serve the best interests of people, not vice versa.  Similarly, he reduces Jewish purity laws to just one principle: "Nothing that goes into someone from outside can make that person unclean; it is the things that come out of someone that make that person unclean (Mark 7:15)."  For Jesus, life is too complex to be governed by a rigid set of moral rules.  So when our best interest clashes with moral precepts, the precepts can be set aside.

The Hebrew prophets make it clear that religious doctrines are only valuable insofar as they promote a loving spiritual consciousness.  When doctrines fail to serve this purpose, they are temporarily nullified by God!  For example, Israel relied on ritual sacrifices in the Temple as their means of securing divine pardon.  But when their rituals no longer promote loving justice, God suspends them and the doctrines that support them: e.g.  

“[God:] I reject your festivals, nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies.   Even though you offer up burnt offerings..., I will not accept them;... Take away from me the noise of your songs;...But let justice roll down like rivers and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream (Amos 5:21-24).”

Given God’s indifference to sacrifices which don’t express love, how can Jesus’ crucifxion be portrayed as a sacrifice?  It is the sacrifice to fulfill and end the whole Jewish system of Temple sacrifices (Hebrews 10:18; Romans 10:4).  It is timely in the sense that it precedes the imminent Roman destruction (in 70 AD) of the very Jerusalem Temple that served as the center for Jewish sacrifices.  The Spirit of the Risen Christ is now the spiritual temple that replaces and fulfills the role of the Jerusalem Temple (John 2:19).  In this respect, Jesus’ prediction of the Temple’s destruction (Mark 13:1-4) clarifies His mission of an atoning death (Mark 10:45).  So when Craig observes: "He [Jesus] could heal people ...Yet he couldn’t get away from a few Romans?  This leads to the assumption that he eanted to get caught," he is exactly right.  

So when we think of biblical truth we need to think in terms of the kernel of truth within the cultural husk.  But we must be careful not to prematurely limit either the number of kernels or the number of cultural husks (biblical and nonbiblical) that might contain them.  One implication of Christ's crucifxion is that it nullifies the sacrificial system that held no interest for God in the first place!

Don

Q2: How can anyone’s death--even the death of God incarnate--possibly atone for my sin?

Astral adept Emanuel Swedenborg reveres Jesus as divine, but rejects the view of many of his Protestant contemporaries that Christ had to suffer as our substitute to appease God's wrath and satisfy God's need for justice.  To ES, this negative and vindictive picture of God splits up God's unity.  Most modern biblical scholarship would agree with ES's rationale.   But he goes too far by throwing out the baby with the bath water.  ES rejects the redemptive significance of Christ's atoning death.

On the cross, Christ represents us; He does not substitute for us.  The Bible views Jesus’ death as the point at which Jesus joins humanity at its point of death and lostness (Col 1:22).”  Prior to His incarnation, Christ is not human but “the Word” in the sense that He is the rational self-expression of God as opposed to God in His unknowability.  Christ becomes human only through His incarnation and now has mysteriously incorporated His humanity into His divinity.  By His incarnation, He "empties" Himself of all His divine prerogatives and assumes all our human limitations (Philippians 2:6-7).   Only by being "put to the test in exactly the same way as ourselves" can He represent us both on the cross and now as our heavenly "high priest" (Hebrews 4:15).  By His resurrection, Christ is restored to His divine nature (Phil 2:9-11)..  Because He has now absorbed humanity into His divinity,  we too are destined to “share in the divine nature (2  Peter 1:4).”  Irenaeus (180 AD) succinctly sums up this teaching: “God became what we are so that we might become what He is.”  Christ makes this possible through His role as our “advocate” (1 John 2:1) and “intercessor” (Heb 7:25) and this role underlies His loving presence as the Being of Light during NDEs.  

There is another way of expressing Christ's representative role on the cross that seems compatible with Matthew's provisional view of God.   In his book, "The Sacred and the Psychic," John Heaney surveys the major theories invoked by parapsychologists to account for telepathy and clairvoyance.   He identifies one theory as the most popular because it is the most consistent with the research and anecdotal data.  He summarizes this theory thus: Telepathy and clairvoyance are "an unknown form of energy which does not cross space but which reaches inward to the essential psychic center of a person.  At this center a transpersonal mode is reached where all humans and perhaps all reality are united (p. 20).  At this center, Christ and humanity are one.  So in his NDE, Howard Storm is taught: “The angels refer to God in many ways, but the term most often used is The One (p. 68).”  BY VIRTUE OF THIS ONENESS AND HIS ABSORPTION OF HUMANITY INTO HIS DIVINE NATURE, CHRIST’S ATONING DEATH CAN REPRESENT ALL HUMANITY.  

Of course, all this leavens open the question of divine responsibility for humanity's sinful nature.  I will address this question in my next planned post.

Don

I like Q2 from a jigsaw point of view.

It could explain why, a god would take no active role in humanity, or no where near as much after the death of christ. from your view point, god would have to evolve,and still be capable of new experiences.

But jesus as more of a symbol/learning tool for god, somehow does'nt have the same ring to it as, we were gonna be spanked, but jesus took the punishment for us.

But why would god need jesus to understand this, when people would die all the time, could he not just probe there mind/experience's, or are you classing jesus as a peice of god beyond that of the general human make up?. If it were, would'nt that mean that god would'nt have had the full experience, of never speaking with god, not being able to communicate with god, and not knowing there was going to be a reward after death. Not to mention, that whatever they did to him, he would be alive and kicking within a short amount of time.

Ellen,

Excellent questions!  Yes, religious jargon can be confusing.  What concerns you here will be more practically addressed in my reply to Q4: "Why should anyone's salvation depend on embracing an abstract theological system like the Christian Gospel?"  But for now let's just clarify some terms.

In ancient Hebrew practice, offerings and sacrifices can serve as a means of gaining divine support or as tributes to God.   But sacrifices can also serve as a means of expiation (= atonement) and communion with God, and it is in this sense that Christ’s crucifixion can be labelled a "sacrifice.”  
     
The English word “atone” is derived from the phrase “at one.” in the sense of a harmonious personal relationship.   So “atonement” originally meant “at/one/ment” or “reconcilation.  In the more restricted modern usage,  “atonement” refers to the process by which the hindrances to reconciliation with God are removed.  

What paves the way for viewing Christ’s crucifixion as representative rather than substitutionary is the true meaning of the biblical Greek word  “hilasterion.”  In Swedenborg’s day, many Protestants translated this word “propitiation” in the disagreeable sense of the substitutionary appeasement of God’s wrath.   But when used with “sin,” this Greek word means “expiate” (= “atone for”) rather than “propitiate.”  Thus in the Greek Old Testament translation, “hilasterion” commonly translates the Hebrew “kipper” which means “to wipe off, cover over, cleanse.”   What is “wiped off” by Christ’s atonement are the hindrances to reconciliation with God.  

Very astute comments, Craig!

You are bringing up one of the greatest mysteries inherent in the concept of God.   Why would God want to create anything?   How could an omniscient, omnipotent God benefit from anything?  That would seem to imply divine "need" and need would negate God's self-sufficiency.  As already noted, "omniscience" in Hebrew thought means "the ability to know whatever is actually possible."  The limits of what is actually possible--as opposed to logically possible--are unknown.  

This brings me to your question about the benefits of God's assumption of human limitations through Christ's incarnation.  We can speak meaningfully of the redemptive benefits for us.   Beyond this, can we speak of benefits for God?   God is love and love is relational.  So by making it possible for us to achieve union (at--one--ment) with God, God is fulfilling "His" loving nature.   But is there even more to it than that?   Given our ignorance of what is actually possible, might there be a level of intimate experiential knowledge that God can only gain by completely assuming our limitations?   Possibly, but now I'm getting way over my head!

Matt,
When I get to Q4, I'll explain the sense in which Jesus' atoning death embraces people of all faiths and why it precludes the cynical attitude that  "we can sin all we want but not follow his example."  Paul anticipates this attitude with his sarcastic question: "Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more grace (Romans 6:1)?"

[Matthew:] "The problem with this whole discussion is the notion of God the father being somehow separate and individualized as a superman from man."
__________________

How can you say this?  I've just offered you a model from John Heaney that implies just the opposite.   Jesus draws an analogy between His status as "the Son of God" and the status of every human as "god" (John 10:34-36).  None of Jesus' miracles spring from His unique divine nature.  Jesus needed the anointing of the Holy Spirit at His baptism.   Before that, he performed no recorded miracles.  Why would a man with a full-blown divine nature also need the Holy Spirit to begin His ministry?   As Paul explains, the preincarnate Word "emptied" Himself of all His divine prerogatives to become fully human.  

Don  
 

Don,

You ask how can I say that?  If you read my post, I say that God is not an individualized superman apart from us, and that simplistic characterization is responsible for much confusion about events in the real world.  If we each have a spark of the essence of God in us, and each are to come unto our own understanding of love and life, then we are not separate from the father, in reality.

If an individualized entity, a discrete super-being, allowed a five year old child to be crushed by a school bus, and we were left to wonder why....or meted out each individual's suffering, many of Craig's criticisms would be quite valid.  That is
what I am against - that concept, which I've heard you yourself argue against.


Matthew

Don,

For an enlightened man, you do let your angry side show.  First off, its true you post extensively, but no one says that in order to comment on an issue, one must read a past post first on any thread.  Had I seen it easily, I would have.

I did not dismiss your chanelling posts completely.  Read mine, please where I agreed with you on Juditha's poetry reading - I urged caustion and agreed with you.  I have posted numerous times reports by Robert Bruce and others that entities on the other side might try to say they were who they were not.  However, overall, I think your medium posts were important, but left many with a flavor that most mediums may be channeling evil entities.  Hence, my response.

I do not have a "ghetto" mentality, a phrase you use which I loath.  As you have received positive feedback on your posts here, so have I.  I believe that I present a coherent, well reasoned view and am open minded in my discussions.  One need only look at my interactions with Kyo, and Kathy to see that. 

Don, your scholarly writings are well done and noteworthy.  If you and I have a misunderstanding, that is all it is - it shouldn't be cause for comments about staying or leaving this site, or how skeptical everyone is.

Best to you,

Matthew

Matthew,

Debates spark frank exchanges that need not be caricatured as angry.   Craig and I have had some blunt exchanges.  But their impact on me is a growing respect for his rugged authenticity.   You are responsible for your words: "The problem with this ENTIRE discussion is the notion of god." This language clearly includes me, since I'm leading the discussion.   After rechecking the whole thread, I notice that you post throughout, but never challenge my solution to the problem of unfair pain.  That's fine, but don't sneak in a dismissal unless you are prepared to defend it like Craig.   This site is peppered with skeptics who ridicule sacred writings they have never read or rationally considered.   I spared you my detailed refutation of the Hilarion entity out of respect for Kyo's nonpolemical orientation.

You also duck my point on mediumship.  Of course, you've expressed agreement with me on many points.  But you did prematurely dismiss as bizarre Raphael's conversion story, and in so doing,  you ignore an important experience-based argument for the unique power of Christ.   His name invoked in exorcism has uniquely devastating power which contrasts sharply with Robert Bruce's pathetic Christless battle with his possessing entity.   Channeled entities like Seth, Elias, Ramtha, and the bogus Christ of ACiM have an irrationally venemous reaction to Christ's atoning death, which I have discussed in detail elsewhere.   And mediums who try to abandon their practice in favor of a relationship with Christ mediated through a conventional church can experience  homicidal threats from their spirit guides.   Raphael's chilling experience is one such example; Johanna Miichaelsen's exoerience (which I shall shortly summarize) is another.  In both cases, the mediums fully expected that their spirit guides would approve of their conversion and allow them  to continue their channeling roles.

My adoption of Boris's "ghetto" label is strikingly appropriate for many (not all) posters here.  My use of it has forced some posters to reassess the question of why they confine their reading to in-house New Age propaganda.  As a result, some have broadened their literary horizons.  So my use of the term has served its purpose.

Don

Q3: Doesn’t the Gospel overlook God’s responsibility (= fault) for creating us with our sinful nature?

Craig is entitled to press questions like these: “If our Creator in effect imprisoned us in our sinful for our nature, then is He not in some sense responsible for our frailties?  If Christ is divine and died for our sins, is He not in effect dying for moral failings that He essentially guaranteed?"  Paul directly confronts these questions in Romans:  “God has imprisoned all people in their own disobedience so He could have mercy on everyone (Romans11:32).”  Paul concedes that our Creator has made our sinfulness inevitable and has incorporated this fact into His redemptive plan.   Here God actually does take responsibility for our inevitable shortcomings!  Paul anticipates our next question: “Well then, you might say, `Why does God blame people for not listening?   Haven’t they simply done what He made them do (9:19)?’”  Paul replies that God’s mercy compensates us for our innate weaknesses by offering us all grace through Christ's atoning death (11:32).  

But what if we die as sinful unbelievers?  There is no reason to believe God’s intenton to “have mercy on everyone” (11:32) ends at death.  Paul assures us: “God’s gifts and His call can never be withdrawn (11:29)” and elaborates God's ultimate purpose of universal restoration: “For from Him and through Him and back to Him are all things (11:36).”  It is precisely because God is love and takes responsibility for creating us the way we are that God's love pursues even the hellbound after death *e.g. through retrievals).   For more on this, readers are referred to my replies #1 and #22-25.

By immersing us in a test caldron designed for high-grade soul-shaping, God has created us with frail human natures that are inevitably prone to sin and fail our high ideals.    By any standard, Job experiences as much unfair suffering as most people.   God permits Job and his family to be horribly victimized by various types of natural disaster and human cruelty. So when Job himself is afflicted with painful boils from head to toe, his wife urges him to curse God and die (Job 2:9).  Job’s faithfulness, despite his many ordeals, derives spiritual value precisely because he has every incentive to reject God, and yet, he still remains faithful.   The value of our free will is a function of the strength of our contrary inclinations.  The more intense our trials the greater the moral value of our courage.  The more incentive we have to hate the more noble our unexpected resolve to instead love our enemies.  

Don

Q4: Why should anyone’s salvation depend on embracing an abstract doctrine like the Gospel?

The theological meaning of Christ’s atonement is less important than its practical application for daily living.  The best way to grasp this is to solve the tension between James 2:14-15, 18 and Ephesians 2:8-10.  Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant Reformation, dismissed James as “an epistle of straw” for its line of reasoning:  

“What’s the use of saying you have faith if you don’t prove it by your actions?   That kind of faith can't save anyone.  Suppose you see a brother or sister who needs food or clothing, and you say, "Well, good-bye and God bless you; stay warm and eat well’--but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing.  What good does that do?. ..Now someone may argue, `Some people have faith; others have good deeds.’  I say, `I can’t see your faith, but I will show you my faith through my good deeds (James 2:14-15, 18).'”

Luther insists that good works cannot earn salvation and cites texts like Ephesians 2:8-10 to support this claim:

‘You are saved by grace through faith.  So you can’t take any credit for this.  It is a gift from God.  Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done; so none of us can boast about it.  We are God’s masterpiece.”

Craig muses: “I’m not sure how this (Ephesians 2:8-10) states we cannot earn brownie points with God."  Luther would reply that “grace” means "unmerited favor.” and does not depend on good works. But Luther overlooks 2 key points: (1) In both Hebrew and Greek, “faith” means "faithfulness", not “mental assent to a body of doctrine.”   Faithfulness means obedience to God’s principles and therefore involves good works.   (2) The words of Jesus’ brother James cannot be so easily dismissed.  Luther is right that the Gospel excludes any attempt to earn salvation through good works.  What he overlooks is that works are essential for another reason.  

Christ’s atoning death expresses the grace of God.  Since grace is unmerited favor, the only meaningful response to grace is a life motivated by gratitude, a life that constantly expresses gratitude (e.g. 1 Thess 5:18; Phil 4:5). Good works are the only way I can make my gratitude real for God’s grace.   A grace-based life is based on 4 principles.    

(1) I must love you out of a sense of privilege rather than a sense of duty.  Jesus considered it a privilege to redeem me; so I must consider it a privilege to love and serve you.  Duty can imply a burden and a sense of reluctance, or an implicit demand that you return my kindness or at least express appreciation for it.  A grace-based life considers it a joy and a privilege to serve you to make my gratitude real to God.  

(2) Christ’s atoning death means I cannot collect applause in my mind for my meritless good deeds or for putting up with others.  The cross expresses God’s willingness to accept me just the way I am if I in turn accept others just the way they are.  This has these staggering implications:

“But if you’re willing to listen, I say, love your enemies.  Do good to those who hate you.  Pray for the happiness of those who curse you.  Pray for those who hurt you (Luke 6:27-28).”
\
“We bless those who curse us.  We are patient with those who abuse us.   We respond gently when evil things are said about us.  Yet we are treated like the world’s garbage, like everybody’s trash--right up to the present moment (1 Corinthians 4:12-13).”

(3) I must not compare my spirituality favorably with the spirituality of others (Matthew 20:1-15). If I do, I am unwittingly relapsing into a “brownie point” scheme and am perverting the Gospel of grace.  A true story from the life of Frederick II, an 18th century King of Prussia, nicely illustrates this.

Frederick once visited a Berlin prison.   One by one the inmates tried to convince him that they didn’t deserve to be locked up with these other guys.  To hear them tell it, they were all unjustly accused of crimes they never committed--all except one man who sat quietly in the corner while all the rest unfolded their long and complicated stories.  Curious, Frederick approached the man in the corner and asked him why he was in jail.  “Armed robbery, your honor.”  “Are you  guilty?”  “Yes sir, I’m afraid I deserve my sentence.”  Frederick sighed and then issued this order to the guard: “Release this guilty man.  I don’t want him corrupting all these innocent people!”  Frederick's merciful wit echoes Jesus' sarcastic reply to Pharisaic disgust over the company He keeps:

"When some...Pharisees saw Jesus eating with people like that [i. e. tax collectors and notorious sinners), they said to His disciples: `Why  does He eat with such scum?'  When Jesus heard this, He told them: `Healthy people don't need a doctor.   I have come not to call the righteous [= sarcasm like Frederick's] , but sinners (Mark 2:16-17).'"

I must view myself as a constant work-in-progress and focus on the areas where I need to grow. I must view others through the lens of their magnificent potential by God’s grace.   How do I know I’m doing  both these things right?  Paul succinctly expresses the feeling: “Be humble.  esteeming others more than yourself (Philippians 2:3).”  

(4)  The atonement means I am not judged by the totality of my life in the sense of an accumulation of merit (= brownie points).  That orientation only leads to smug self-righteousness.   Instead, God's grace and forgiveness are focussed on my future, on the magnificent person I might yet become by God’s grace.  Consider the early lives of our greatest saints.
   
Abraham sends his wife and son off to starve in the desert and endangers his own wife by lying about her to save himself.  Yet Abraham is later called “the friend of God (Isaiah 41:8).”  Moses repeatedly loses his temper at the people he is supposed to be leading; but Moses is granted an intimacy with God that no other prophet experiences.   David commits adultery with Bathsheba and covers this up by having her husband murdered.   Yet David is later described as “a man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14).”  St. Psul was a hitman for the Pharisees who jailed, beat, and murdered Christians.   Yet he becomes Christ’s most effective apostle.  As a young man, St. Augustine is pronounced incorrigible by his teachers.  He becomes a cultist and a womanizer who fathers a child out of wedlock.  Yet he later writes the first spiritual autobiography in history and blesses millions by doing so.   John Newton is a brutal slave trader whose early life is full of debauchery.   Yet he experiences Christ’s grace at sea in a life-threatening storm and, in response, later writes the most beloved hymn  “Amazing Grace.”  He then teams up with William Wilberforce to abolish slavery in the British Empire a century before our Civil War.

Christ’s atonement means God buries my sins in the sea of His forgetfulness and puts up a sign that says, “No Fishing!”  So when I wallow in guilt, I am insulting God’s grace by fishing in a No Fishing zone.  Luther insightfully reduces this truth to two poignant words: “Sin boldly!”   What he means is this: I’m going to sin anyway; so I have two choices.  I can immerse myself in self-flagellation and guilt feelings or I can sin with gusto.  Not that I sin deliberately, but I know that as long as I long to grow in grace, God will erase all memory of my sins and give me a clean slate and a fresh start.   So I sin cheerfully, knowing that my missteps are but a small step backwards in the upward journey towards blissful union with God.        

Don

Matthew,

Good question!  Luther's motto, ‘Sin boldly!” applies only to the spiritually mature and so presumes that we acknowledge and learn from our mistakes.   The mature conscience is tuned into God’s moral law and produces guilt and pain when we violate that law (Romans 2:14-15).  People with this type of conscience no longer need moral teaching (1 John 2:27) and safely live a live free of obsession with complex moral guidances.  Augustine expresses this liberating attitude in his motto: "Love God and do what you please"---terrible advice for the morally underdeveloped!      Luther’s slogan, “Sin boldly!”,  reflects Paul's stress on the need for joyful living as opposed to a guilt-ridden or fear-based life.  For Paul, joyful lving requires a disciplined thought life: "Fix your  thoughts on what is pure and honorable and right.  Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable.  Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise (Philippians 8-9).”  

Luther’s motto does not apply to people with an underdeveloped conscience.  Paul warns that an immature conscience can be warped by peer pressure (1 Corinthians 8:10), force of habit, or a lack of spiritual knowledge (8:7).  Relationships with such people must not be guided by the principle, “Let your conscience be your guide.”  Instead, let the conscience of those with a less enlightened spirituality be our guide (1 Corinthians 10:25-29) and let them grow at their own pace.  Premature moral pressure might cause them to develop a resistance to the pangs of their own underdeveloped conscience.  Conscience gets its signals from the heart, which can be dulled, hardened, or calloused (1 Timothy 4:2).   We must not defile the conscience of the “weak” (1 Corinthians 8:7).  So we need to back off, empathize, and use a low-key approach that respects Paul’s principle: :”Let each one be fully persuaded in his own mind (Romans 14:5b).”  The corruption of the capacity of the “spiritual newbie’s” remorse for sin is a worse calamity than his currently inadequate rational capacity to discern right from wrong (1 Timothy 4:2; Titus 1:15).  We must recognize that God evaluates us according to how well we live up to the limited spiritual illumination we have received  (Luke 12:47-48) and does not impute sin when there is no enlightened moral perception (Romans 5:13).  

Don

Don-

You continue to force people to think instead of just blindly accepting the new age yadda yadda feel good stuff.

Fact is, people who repeat the new age mantras about how we supposedly write our own life script before incarnating are just repeating what they read.  None of them know this as an indisputable fact.

Cheerleaders are great at football games, but really don't add one iota to our knowledge base when it comes to afterlife questions and concerns.

At the same time, however, I will acknowledge that our intellect falls woefully short in terms of truly grasping what lies beyond.  I don't think we will ever be able to use our brains to get from here to there.  That kind of knowledge is of a whole different kind and quality. 

We really do need to "look within."  But where "within" is and what it is, I have no idea.  It's probably some sort of spiritual awakening that is wholly apart from our brain and intellect. 

Which is why we all could be on this board for another 100 years and we wouldn't be any further ahead.

(5) WHY FAITH WITHOUT CONCLUSIVE PROOF:

Practically speaking, Craig's next question is the most crucial of all: "Why would god demand that we have blind faith?" The answer is necessarily complex and must be explored from a variety of aspects.  In this post, I will limit myself to 2 issues:
(1) Can we reason our way to knowledge of God?  
(2) What is the feel of the transforming moment?

(1) No, we can't simply reason our way to communion with God.  Jesus says, "No one really knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him (Matthew 11:27).”  The same point is made by Paul in a different way: “People who aren’t believers can’t understand these words from God’s Spirit.  It all sounds foolish to them because only those who have the Spirit can understand what the Spirit means (1 Corinthians 2:13).”  

These texts raise the questions: (a) Under what circumstances does Christ choose to reveal God to us?  (b) How do we receive the Holy Spirit and the spiritual discernment that comes with this?  For now we can find reassurance in Jesus' promise:

“People can’t come to me unless that Father who sent me draws them to me...However, those the Father has given me will come to me, and I will never reject them (John 6:44).”

(2) Let's skip to Q2 of our opening salvo: "What is the feel of the transforming moment?"  The answer is elusive and varies from person to person.  Jesus expresses this variation by punning on the word "Spirit" which in both Aramaic and Greek is the same as the word for "wind:"

“Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit (John 3:8).”

Just how mysterious this transforming moment can be is eloquently illustrated by C. S. Lewis's description of the last 2 stages of his journey from atheism to faith in his book "Surprised by Joy."  Lewis was the Oxford scholar who inspired Tolkien to write the trilogy "The Lord of the Rings."  Lewis became a prolific Christian author.   His children's book 'The Chronicles of Narnia" was recently made into a Hollywood blockbuster.   The sensitive movie "The Shadowlands" portrays his faith crisis triggered by his wife's death in his later years.  Listen to how this profoundly articulate man describes the last 2 ineffable events that marked his transition from skeptic to believer.  His first moment envelops him during a London bus ride:  

(a)“The odd thing was that before God closed in on me, I was in fact offered what now appears a moment of wholly free choice.  In a sense, I was going up Headingly Hill on the top of a bus.  Without words and (I think) almost without images, a fact about myself was somehow presented to me.  I became aware that I was holding something at bay, or shutting something out.  Or, if you like, that I was wearing some stiff clothing, like corsets, or even a suit of armor, as if I were a lobster.  I felt myself, there and then, given a free choice.  I could open the door or keep it shut; I could unbuckle the armor or keep it on.  Neither choice was presented as a duty; no threat or promise was attached to either, though I knew that to open the door or to take off the corset meant the incalculable.  The choice appeared to be momentous but it was also strangely unemotional.  I was moved by no desires or fears....I chose to unbuckle, to loosen the rein...I felt as if I were a man of snow at long last beginning to melt...I rather disliked the feeling (224-225).”    

His 2nd moment occurs during a car ride to the zoo:
(b) “I know very well when, but hardly how, the final step was taken.  I was driven to Whipsnade [zoo] one sunny morning.  When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did.   Yet I had not exactly spent the journey in thought.  Nor in great emotion....It was more like when a man, after long sleep, still lying motionless in bed, becomes aware that he is now awake (237).”

One misunderstanding about the transforming moment needs to be cleared up.  When the Psalmist entertains the possibility of knowing God (e. g. 36:10), he means acknowledging God or knowing about God's principles.  But what about the possibility of knowing God in the sense of entering mystical communion with "Him"?   Paul deems this impossible but urges us to reverse the image.  We need God to get to know us intimately!

"Now that you know God, or are rather known by God...(Gal 4:9).”
‘The person who loves God is known by God (1 Corinthians 8:3).”
Now, I know (God) only in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known (by God--13:12).”

A Medieval mystical classic called “The Cloud of Unknowing” beautifully expresses Paul's thought here in terms of the poetic image of skyward ascent.  God is too grand, complex, and ineffable for us to know "Him" in this life.  As we ascend to the clouds, we can sense the warmth of divine love and radiance, but we cannot see it.   We have the sense of being enveloped, of being known in a mysterious new way.   When we descend, we do not really know God, but we sense that God has come to know us in the sense of an intimate bond and communion.   Of course, this in no way clashes with divine omiscience.   God always knew all the facts about us.   No, this sort of divine knowing plays off the Old Testament use of "to know" in the sense of sexual union.   God interpenetrates us with the divine equivalent of an emotional bond by which He becomes our Father and dearest Friend.

I'd appreciate your questions and comments and will allow those to detour me from my prior agenda for developing my response to the issue of blind faith.

Don

Don:

Regarding the impossibility of reasoning our way to God, I don't know what to make of the frequent references about God choosing certain of us:  "No one really knows the Father except the Son & those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him"; "those the Father has given me will come to me"; & throughout John there are so many repititions along the lines of "I chose you out of the world" (John 15:19).  When you asked "Under what circumstances does Christ choose to reveal God to us?", by "us" do you mean those chosen, & what would be God's criteria?  If God loves & forgives us all unconditionally, what is the meaning of this "chosen"?

So much food for thought regarding "the transforming moment".  Something about C.S. Lewis just resonates:  "without words, almost without images", no threat or promise attached to a momentous choice, the incalculableness of it all, wierd how you can be greatly moved but not in great emotion.  And the fine distinction you presented regarding two types of "knowing".  I'm just speechless about it all.

Ellen

Very well written, Don.  It is interesting to me, because in all the books and information about thought creating reality what is required is not a mere wish (for a healing or personal gain), but a belief that it has actually happened and will happen.  Along with this, many suggest a feeling of thanks for the achievement (one source I read even quoted a man who achieved his goal with the intention, followed by saying "thank you, father."  Although he was not a religious man, this method was effective for him.  This is the kind of faith in God you speak of, and I have seen biblical quotes to support it.

If as human beings, we are true co-creators; if the divine spark is within us, though we are but a small part of the great whole, then in order to create, faith and belief must come first.  Thought or intention that is not grounded in faith is fleeting and has no real result or manifestation.


Matthew

Craig, you just raised agenda question #6 about the death of the firstborn sons in Egypt during the 10 plagues.  I think it best to respond by offering my views on many of the events associated with the Israelite exodus from Egyptian slavery (c. 1260 BC).   On one level, all these events can be explained naturally.  But on another level, the combination of all these coincidences at the same time can be interpreted as a sign of divine providence.  Also, it must be remembered that the Old Testament often fails to distinguish between the active and the permissive will of God.

I like Dr. John Marr's interpretation of the plagues.  The first plague, "the river of blood," is a perfect description of the toxic algae bloom "Physteria," which dissolves the still living fish and makes the water toxic and red.  The absence of fish allowed the 2nd plague (frogs) because there were not enough fish to keep down the number of tadpoles.  The 3rd plague was the midge "coolacoidees," which spreads the blue tongue for cattle and African horse sickness, two diseases which nicely fit the 5th plague.  The 6th plague (boils) was caused by a bacterial infection (Glanders) which is carried by stable fies, which were the 4th plague.  Plague #7 was a massive hailstorm and Plague #9 (darkness) was a massive standstorm.  Plague #8 (locusts) infected the grain with locust droppings, producing Plague #10, the death of the firstborn sons.  This plague was caused by the storage of the wet grain harvest. The grain storage pits were then covered with sand.  This made them hot and humid--ideal conditions for growing the lethal "Stachybotrys atra" bacteria.  Why did this outbreak only kill the firstborn sons?  First, it only affected the top part of the grain store, and the firstborn Egyptian sons got the first servings.   Second, the Egyptian firstborn were given an extra helping of the best food.  By contrast, the Israelites lived in a different area (Goshen) that might have escaped this infection.  In any case, they were employing different methods for food preparation that didn't concentrate the infected grain into lethal doses.
 
The biblical Hebrew “yam suph,” has often been  mistranslated “Red Sea,” but it really means “Reed Sea.”   This is important for two reasons: (1) There are no reeds along the Red Sea, but reeds abound along the lakes (Menzaleh and Timsah) near the Hebrew captivity.   (2) About once a century, a dry path has been known to emerge through these lakes through a combination of unusually strong wind and tide conditions. The miracle, then, is the perfect timing of this very rare natural event with the Israelite flight from slavery.

One might object that there is no mention of the Hebrew exodus in the contemporary Egyptian daybooks and journals.   This objection may be summarily dismissed on 4 grounds: (1) Over 99% of the relevant Egyptian sources are missing for the exodus period.  (2) In any case, the Egyptians only recorded triumphant news that served their propangandistic purposes.   For example, they put a deceptively positive spin on their military reversals or standoffs. (3) Besides, in precisely the period when the Israelites enter Canaan, the first ever Egyptian allusion to “Israel” appears in the Pharaoh Merneptah’s stele.  (4) The Reed Sea Crossing occurred in the 13th century and is already celebrated as early as the 12th century Song of the Sea in Exodus 15.   Tbis implies a reasonable family connection with eyewitnesses of an earlier generation. 

The historicity of the exodus can be defended on other grounds as well.  Many of the Hebrews in the Exodus story had Egyptian names (e.g. Moses, Aaron, Hophni, Phinehas, Merari).  The Hebrew slaves were forced to build the capital at “Raamses” (Exodus 1:11).  But after the 11th century this identification is dropped in favor of  “Tanis.”  The method of Israelite brick-making in Egypt is archeologically confirmed as ancient Egyptian building practice, but it is unknown in ancient Palestine.  So if the Exodus story were a later invention, one would expect the capital to be called Tanis and  the building methods to be Palestinian, not Egyptian.  

One should not be surprised that the escaping Hebrews retained several possessions.  Egyptian slavery might better be labelled forced labor.   The “slaves” were permitted to retain their possessions and valuables.  

The Israelites benefit from water gushing from a rock.   Even in our day, archaeologists have discovered considerable amounts of water trapped in some desert rocks in the Sinai. The Israelites twice feast on the evening migration of quail from what is now Turkey, once each at the Gulfs of Suez (Exodus 16:13) and of Aqaba (Numbers 11:31),  These are precisely the areas and time of day still overflown by quail in Spring, the season applicable to these two biblical references. The Israelites reportedly also feast on “manna”, which is formed by the secretions of various insects that feed off desert tamerisk bushes. In Hebrew "manna" means "What is it (Exodus 16:15)?"   The Israelites understandably viewed this tasty delicacy as a divine provision in the desert.  But one wonders whether they would have gladly devoured manna, had they known they are eating insect excrement!   In any case, "manna" remains an Arab delicacy to this day.

Don

Matthew,

To a great extent, I've already answered your question in reply #32 ("The Problem of Natural Evil and the Seemingly Unfair Distribution of Pain"), with elaborations in replies #22, 35, 51, and 64.  In these replies I explain why ours may be the ideal world for soul-making because of, not in spite of, all the seemingly unfair suffering.  But let me add these clarifying comments.  God wants both a universe and intelligent beings that are "not God."  The Bible claims that the natural forces of chaos operate independently of God's active will (e. g. Ecclesiastes 9:11).  The natural phenomena that generate the the Egyptian plagues are substantially interconnected.   God may have unleashed the natural forces that produced these plagues without micromanaging their impact on specific individuals.  And yes, these plagues do function as a divine judgment upon a slave-based Egyptian society.  

Does this mean that God is not "good" in the same sense as humans?  Of course!  The Bible concedes this point and warns of the dangers of an excessively anthropomorphic interpretation of biblical descriptions of God:

[God:] "I form the light and I create the darkness.  I make well-being and I create disaster.  I, the Lord, do all these things (Isaiah 45:7)."

"My  thoughts are completely different from yours, says the Lord.  And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.  For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9)."

Jesus confirms this perspective on natural chaos during atheist Howard Storm's NDE:

"God knows everything that will happen and, more important, God knows everything that could happen.  From one moment to the next, God is aware of every possible variable of every event and each outcome.  God doesn't control or dictate the outcome of every event, which would be a violation of God's creation.  This is because every bit of energy and matter has its own integrity and course to fulfill ("My Descent into Death" 38)."

It is precisely for this reason that the preexistent Christ is labelled the Logos (John 1:1, 14) or the rational self-expression of God as opposed to God in His unknowability.   Our claim that God is love must be limited to His promises, His gracious acts in history, His intimate communion with faith-based humans, and His relentless pursuit of justice and soul evolution for humans beyond the grave.

Don

THE GOSPELS AS EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY

Mark’s Gospel can be connected with eyewitness testimony in two ways.   (1) The earliest Jerusalem church meets in the home of Mark’s mother (Acts 12:12).  As a young man, then, Mark has many opportunities to hear from the apostles and Jesus’ family members.  (2) In Rome Peter expresses affection for his missionary travel companion, Mark (1 Peter 5:13).and Bishop Papias (c. 60-130 AD) recognizes Mark’s role as Peter’s interpreter. Papias describes how Mark shapes Peter’s teaching notes on Jesus’ life into our Gospel, probably after Peter is executed by Emperor Nero.  Papias's evidence is important because he prefers “the living voice” of eyewitness testimony to written sources and because he has access both the apostles and those trained by the apostles (Papias as quoted in Eusebius HE 3.29. 4 and 15).  The many Latinisms in Mark’s Gospel support Rome as its place of origin.  

Further corroboration of Mark’s historicity can be detected in embarrassing details about Jesus’  healing ministry that are not likely to be later inventions.   When Jesus’ prays for the blind man of Bethsaida, the man’s eyes are initially only partially healed.  Only after a second prayer session is this blind man healed completey Mk 8:22-26).  A fictional account would have portrayed Jesus’ healing efforts as succeeding on His first attempt.   Jesus’ initial failure poses no problem as long as the guy's blindness is eventually cured!   Mark also has the integrity to report that Jesus’ ministry was initially not respected in His home town even by His family (6:4).  The negative energy in Nazareth actually hampers Jesus’ ability to perform miraces there: “Because of their unbelief, He could do no mighty miracles among them...(6:5).”  A later scribe adds an “except” clause to remove the iimplication that  Jesus’ totally bombed in Nazareth.   Mark’s willingness to report the failure of Jesus’ healing ministry in Nazareth lends credibility to Mark’s (Peter's) reports about Jesus’ spectacular miracles elsewhere!    

Papias laments contemporary complaints that Mark put some of events in Jesus’ life in the wrong sequence.  This problem seems inevitable, given that Mark is relying on Peter’s teaching notes, not on a finished biography of Jesus’ life.   In any case, this complaint implies a connection with an eyewitness source who verifies the truth of Mark’s stories but, unlike Mark, knows the correct sequence of events in Jesus’ life.

Papias’s apostolic sources inform him that "Matthew complied the sayings of Jesus in the Hebrew language. but everyone translated them as he was able (Eusebius HE 3.39.15).”  This seems to mply that Matthew compiled the earliest and largest collection of Jesus’ sayings in a source modern scholars call Q.   This sayings source was copied by Matthew and Luke, but not by Mark and John.  Did Matthew also write the Gospel material unique to the Gospel that bears his name?  Perhaps, but we have no independent verification of that fact.  

Luke the phsysician was St. Paul’s missionary travel companion.  Luke bases his Gospel on the testimony of “eyewitnesses” (Luke 1:2) which he received during his visit the disciples in Jerusalem (Acts 21:18). The Fourth Gospel is based on an eyewitness source known as “the disciple whom Jesus loved (John 19:35; 21:24).”  Early church tradition idienfies this source as the apostle John, the son of Zebedee, I think this disciple is in fact Jesus’ brother James.   Every time this anonymous disciple is mentioned the Fourth Gospel, the context supplies hints that point to James, not John.  But it would take far too much space to spell out this case in detail.

There is no evidence that first century Jewish skeptics ever dismiss Jesus’ alleged miracles as a myth.  On the contrary, they concede that eyewitnesses toJesus’ ministry would have seen apparent miracles. What they dispute is whether God is the source of Jesus’ supernatural power. Instead, these skeptics  eclaim that Jesus either performed miracles through demonic power (Luke 11:15) or faked miracles through “magically produced hallucinations (Justin, 1 Apology 14:5).  The evidence from first century skeptics to Jesus’ healing activity is significant.   In 125 AD, Quadratus is aware of contacts in “our own times” with people who were healed by Jesus.  Interestingly, Quadratus must refute charges that some of Jesus’ cures did not last (Quadratus as quoted in Eusebius EH 4.3.2).  It must be remembered that in Jesus’ day life expectancy was very short and people healed of one ailment might easily succumb to another ailment a few decades
later.  

Don

Hey don,

I hav'nt been replying as much, as i have just absorbing some of your posts.

I'll give you some point's,  which i contradict in a shortwhile.

Craig,

I've shared many of my paranormal experiences, but you have probably not read about one of my experiences of divine guidance that continues to be a special source of encouragement for me. I share it now in the hope that you will become aware of what's possible for your own quest.  One powerful mystical experience can do more for one's faith than even the best rational arguments.

It was summer and I had just taught a graduate course in the first of two summer sessions.  I was now intellectually burned out and really felt the need for a vacation.  But that Friday, I suddenly became obsessed with a macabre thought: someone was going to die unexpectedly and that death would affect my life!   I tried in vain to clarify this premonition, but I was merely left with this insistent question: "Are you will to give up your summer as a result of this death?"    I tried in vain to suppress this depressing thought.  By Sunday I was worried that one of my parents might die.  When Monday morning arrived, I decided to suppress these depressing thoughts and begin my vacation.   First, I decided to go out for breakfast.

But the moment I reached the door of my apartment, an inner voice issued this order: "SIT DOWN!  YOU'RE GOING TO HEAR ABOUT THE DEATH NOW!" Startled, I sat down on the couch near the door.  The nearby phone immediately rang.  It was the panicky voice of the the Director of our Graduate Studies program.   She explained, "Don, Father Cassian Corcoran was supposed to teach a graduate course on St .Paul, but he didn't show up for his first class.  The students assumed he had forgotten about the time.  So they went over to his room in the friary.  Cassian was found dead in bed!  you're the only professor around trained to teach that course.   Will you do it?"   I had been primed all weekend to say "Yes" and did so.

God knew that Cassian's time was up and wanted me to teach that course.  I'm convinced that the relentless inner voice was that of an angel or perhaps a discarnate Christian.  if I had left my apartment that Monday morning, the course might have been cancelled.  The inner voice prevented that with perfect timing.   I would never claim that God was endorsing everything I taught, but I took this experience as a sign that God at least thought I had some worthwhile points to teach.  That is one reason why I've presented some of these theological insights on this thread.

Don   

Berserk wrote on Mar 27^th, 2007 at 11:01pm:


  Interesting post Don.   It feels like i've gone through one of these periods.  Feels like i'm wrapping up the loose ends.

  Anyways, bout John of the Cross, is it true that his physical remains were supposedly preserved in an unusually high state of non-decay?   Fascinating if true, and if true would show that he spiritualized the body to a very deep degree before transitioning.  But maybe its one of those urban myths?

Juditha, I do not mean to take away from you but this is not correct :  watchers or angels will not interfere with mind, spirit or soul it is against God's law due to the gift of human free will.  They do help in the physical by manifestering opportunities, if appropriate for the person’s particular need. It is up to the person's free-will to recognise the opportunity or coincident, big or small.

Anything else is malefic spirits latching on; even if they say they in the name of good they taking a person for a ride and breaking God's Law of interfering with an individual's free will.  

When a revelation was revealed to the prophets of the past the Angel would physically appear in front of the prophet. Receiving messages and visions, as say Don and Albert do, is from himself - his Higher Self. This is an Ego which is purified before God and speaks and recognises the Truth.  An ego surrendered to God has the ability to recognise whether another ego is speaking the truth or has a malefic spirit latched on.  A person who has a malefic spirit latched on needs help.

Not saying you have Juditha; you are strong in God.  Just have to be cautious about these things and trust in oneself.


Hi Don - hope you are well  

From my studies and understanding; John of the Cross was not Catholic but belonged to the Carmelite Order in Israel - which was a monastery and roots originated from the Essene branch.  

Just thought I’d point that out and wonder if you had read or heard otherwise.

His writings are wonderful.

Thanks for sharing what happened to you over Summer - amazing. I do believe higher selves connect with higher selves in God's Will and help one another in Earth.

[quote author=Spitfire link=1139456669/90#104 date=1144765602]Hey don,

I hav'nt been replying as much, as i have just absorbing some of your posts.

I'll give you some point's,  which i contradict in a shortwhile.
*****************
Hey, welcome back, Spit.
I see it didn't take long for the Donster to re-launch his proselytization campaign on you (as you can see, not much has changed around
THIS place.)
Anyway, hang onto your hat, Don's on the warpath again (has been for
a couple weeks now.)

B-man