Part 39 of Post Your Tough Questions Regarding Christianity

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If I understand you right, I don’t think that’s true. There were several lines including Neanderthal, Denisovan, and in fact several lines within Denisovan itself. Obviously Homo Sapiens won the day and actually blended with others to some extent.

 

What evidence is there for life after this one?

I think to show evidence you would need to explain how a force (“life”) could not exist prior to your conception, become existent, and then continue on infinitely.

I think you would have to also explain why or how consciousness could exist apart from a brain that generates the experience of consciousness.

Then you would need to explain why infinite life, which would one day include the annihilation of the earth and all life on it BTW, would be anything but torture.

Also, why would your existence after death be any different from what it was 200, 500, 1,000, or a million years ago for you? Do you remember the settling of the US by Europeans? I don’t. I wasn’t born yet.

Science and good sense say that consciousness is an activity of the brain. That is why anesthetics work. So while the brain functions normally, consciousness happens. And if awareness (consciousness) can continue after death of the brain, then why do we not continue to be aware during surgery?

Death is the end of all things. It is the end of awareness. It is the stopping of all senses. It is the stopping of consciousness. It is even the end of stopping and going. This is something that we have HUGE difficulty imagining. We can’t imagine “ZERO”. So we cling to “life after death” as a belief, even if there is no evidence for it.

 

Perhaps .. but, the point here is not how mono was born ... but how to disable any argument from the theocrat --- and .. in keeping with the OP - pose a very tough question from which the OP and 2 other fundamentalists have run scared .. unable to answer the simple question .. what is the name of your God ? .. Just refuse to answer they do .. like you never asked the question.

 

Thanks. I certainly agree.

I decided that my post wasn't enhanced by getting into that with the person to whom I responded. I doubt Injeun is ready to accept that these animals had anything to do with modern man, given statements about bones found and incomplete records.

 

The evidence is that YOU - exist. your not getting this one -- which is important .. cause that is all there is to get - and it is the one and only thing you know for sure - everything else could be a dream . "Row Row Row the Boat"

Now this existence -- from what we can tell is a function of both the matter and energy that we are surrounded by - and made up of ?

Now one day .. the matter and energy .. got together in such a way that it opened its eyes and realized that it existed.. This event however was not unique .. for it had happened a million times before .. and a million times after .. no forseeable beginning nor end.

We know this because prior to the matter and energy configuring itself into this being - there was a finite potential - for this event to happen. and it matters not what the odds are .. we know there was this finite potential because you are here now .. that potential realized.

Now you want to say ... this could never happen again . .. the matter and energy coming together in the same combination that is You ..this entity would open up its eyes .. and it would be you ... in every way .. I am telling you that it is a statistical certainty .. just from a probability perspective. "IF" we assume time is infinite .. that these balls will go on bouncing for ever not just get frozen in some state .. and then it is the end .. Frozen in time.

If not .. your coming back .. some where some time .. in some multi universe.

I will argue further .. albeit not with such certainty .. that the above scenario .. has a Ghost in the Machine .. in that the combining of this matter and energy stuff .. is not random .. but is purposeful the matter itself has a purpose .. from where come . I can not say .. I can only testify to its presence...

So .. in an infinite amount of time .. all finite probabilities will re-occur - infinitely.

"Boredom" - The mind does not do well with pondering infinity now does it .. Freddie put it into the lyrics of a song .. later used for a really cool movie about Imortals ... "Who wants to live Forever"

This is why .. when you get through the pearly gates .. the Consciege Sataniel will escort you to the welcoming party .. folks you have met over the infinity who wanted to show up greet you back .. all shown on reality TV . its a fun thing we do up in heaven .. watch the people come back .. and of course you can watch what is happening on a million worlds .. hang out . do what you like .. until such time as your next Vacation.

Now in Heaven .. you can do pretty much what you want .. but, there are a few rules

1) No blowing smoke up Gods backside --- after the first trillion years -- everyone God met singing praises ... too painful .. almost destoyed all of mankind was so irritating .. according to the ancient texts anyway .. so don't be doing that .. If you see Jah .. will be sporting a Blunt .. sandals .. more like a Jesus figure .. Just be cool ..

OK now Rule 2) this is the one you are more interested in .. answers one of your questions. From time time to time you may want to take a vacation .. you have chosen the world .. the time period .. the location .. shown up at the vacation depot .. where the give you the blue pill explaining once again that you will fall asleep .. when you wake up .. you will be on vacation. The rule about vacations is that you will have no memory of the past..

 

And where was science to justify and validate your Mother and Fathers love for you when you were just a scientifically proven noisy, needy, poopy, burdensome thing. Why do you love and trust science and then devalue loving and trusting in God as being merely irrational feelings. Only you and to whom you are bonded, know of your bond. Such is life in God.

 

Is Joseph Smith a god now?

 

Just a thought as I'm not a scientist.

According to the law of conservation of energy, energy cannot be created or destroyed but simply transformed one state into another.

Mr Freeman argued the same is true for humans after death, claiming the energy once flowing through our bodies does not disappear but is simply rearranged.

 

Sure, rearranged. Meaning that the energy becomes dissipated. I mean it’s not maintaining your form just like when a car goes down the road its energy is not destroyed. It is expelled though. There is heat, noise etc all being released. It’s not like a phantom image of the car remains after it has driven by. The same is true of humans. The energy of our body is dissipated. The law of conservation of energy does not mean that a ghost image walks around after we die.

 

Obviously, you're too blinded with ignorance to see the significance of Lord Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection from the dead. He died to set us free from sin and the slavery of sin. He died to set us free from the punishment of sin. He died to redeem us, He died to justify us, He died to bless us, He died as our substitute, He died to heal us eternally, He died to adopt us to His Father as sons & daughters, He died to save us, He died to reconcile us with His Father, He died and rose again to assure us of our own resurrection and eternal life with Him forever.

The only place where there are holes in it is in your head. The devil who is the god of this world has blinded the minds of those who don't believe such as yourself Gawd. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. In other words they are unable to see the significance of Lord Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection from the dead.

We Read in Scripture:

4 Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God. 5 You see, we don’t go around preaching about ourselves. We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we ourselves are your servants for Jesus’ sake. 2 Corinthians 4:4-5 NLT

Almighty God has given each and every one of us the free will to choose to believe in Him or not believe in Him, the choice is ours to make.

And so be it, you are free to believe in your fairy tale religion that everything in existence came about by some cosmic accident, nothing caused it...poof!...then there came everything out of nowhere for no apparent reason...it just happened on its own...it had no cause...nothing caused it, there was no purpose. Then lifeless matter void of any kind of conscious intelligence somehow by another stroke of chance created all living beings...wow! that is some fairy tale to believe in Gawd, one would have to take a gigantic astronomical leap of faith more than the faith of believing in a Creator, an Almighty God to believe that fairy tale you atheists believe in but again that's your choice and so be it.

Ok thanks Gawd for your post.

 

Jesus didn’t die.

 

Jesus was a Jew. He did not believe in a vicarious sacrifice. Each man is responsible for his own sins. Thus Days of Awe and Yom Kippur. The rest is Christian teaching. The Gospel writers have simply adapted Jesus story for their own reasons. To save your time I don't read screeds of GotQuestions answers.

 

A candle flame also exists, but blow it out; where did it go?

Theory, myth, and guess work. “From what we can tell”. Hmmmm.

So you are among those who, when confronted by a grand question that you don’t understand, turn to the myths of religion to provide an answer because you just can’t stand having no answer? Seems that way.

Now a fairy tale! No such thing happened . . . “one day”.

Please speak for yourself.

Now you admits what you’re offering is your personal myth of make-believe.

Infinity doesn’t exist in anything, anywhere that we can identify. It’s just a theory intended for convenience when we cannot explain something without it.

LOL!!!!

 

That's the non-Christian belief, however the belief in the Christian religion/faith, is that Lord Jesus was executed unjustly by crucifixion and died a horrible painful death then 3 days later rose and resurrected from the dead. His resurrection from the dead assures us believers of our own resurrection and eternal life with Him forever in His Kingdom of Heaven.

We Read in Scripture:

4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” Revelation 21:4 NLT

Ok thanks for your post DRI.

 

Let me clarify my previous post. When I responded to DRI's post by initially saying, "That's the non-Christian belief" what I meant was that there are people (non-Christians) who don't believe that Jesus died from being crucified and that He somehow survived but of course later on died a natural death like everyone else and so they don't believe in His resurrection from the dead 3 days later and that the whole story is a hoax in their belief, made up by His disciples.

 

That’s not what I meant. Suspending my disbelief, he died by torture and then resurrected to eternal life. That’s not really a sacrifice to be honest. Like if you sent your only begotten son to die in a war for democracy and he died, then he sacrificed his life for his country. But if he comes home from war and sits at your right hand then, while I am sure he experienced a lot, he did not sacrifice his life.

 

Yes, that's true but more importantly He was God incarnate meaning that the Son of God took on a fleshly bodily form.

We Read in Scripture:

14 So the Word became human[a] and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son. John 1:14 NLT

Footnotes
a. 1:14a Greek became flesh.
b. 1:14b Or grace and truth; also in 1:17.

I read nowhere in Scripture that Lord Jesus tells us He did not believe in a vicarious sacrifice...oh wait...I know...it's just you making up stuff, sorry trev but that don't fly, don't even cut mustard.

But we do read where He says, He came not to be served but to serve others and give His life as a ransom for many, in other words He was saying He would sacrifice His life to save others from their sins.

We Read in Scripture

Lord Jesus said,

45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give His life as a ransom for many." Mark 10:45 NLT

You are not making any sense, I mean for a guy who doesn't believe in God, being the atheist that you are you are suppose believe there is no such thing as sins. Sins are a transgression against the Holy Almighty God.

But anyway, that's right we are all responsible for our own sins, truth is we are all sinners, not even one of us are truly righteous, the only exception of course was Lord Jesus who lived a perfectly sinless life.

We Read in Scripture:

10 As the Scriptures say, “No one is righteous—not even one. Romans 3:10 NLT

That's why we are all in need of a Savior, that's where Lord Jesus comes into the picture. Whoever believes that Lord Jesus sacrificed Himself on the cross to save them from punishment of their sins will be saved.

We Read in Scripture:

Our Lord Savior Jesus Christ said,

16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.

18 “There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. 19 And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. 20 All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. 21 But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.” John 3:16-21 NLT

Your unsubstantiated opinions are duly noted; however I don't agree with them. Here you are some 2000 or so years later making such a statement without any validity as if you were there yourself in person and knew the Gospel writers were simply adapting a story of Jesus for their own reasons. So, what were their own reasons?...never mind, you don't need to answer because you have no idea what you're talking about...it's just wishful thinking on your part.

That's not true, you have read many articles from my favorite Christian Ministry. It's too bad though you dismiss their very knowledgeable and insightful articles that complements and keeps in line with what's written in the Scriptures of the Holy Bible. They are by far much more knowledgeable than you'd ever dream to be yourself when it comes to thoroughly understanding/interpreting the Scriptures of the Holy Bible correctly.

Ok thanks trev for your post.

 

I think the verses just before verse 16 of John Chapter 3 are interesting too.

 

@Mitt Ryan what does your website say about the verses preceding John 3:16?


10“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.12I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. e 14Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, f 15that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” g

 

What a bizzare response Brother K .. completely deer in headlights in terms of content comprehension but full marks on the Strawman Fallacy .. making up some fantastical nonsense and attributing to others... followed by rolling on the floor laughing and salivating on self.

Something must have triggered you but have no idea what that might be.

Your claim that Infinity doesn't exist .. completely made up nonsense-- nothing to back up your claim ..

Who is turning to myths and/or fantasy and/or religious belief here ? Certainly wasn't me friend .. right out to la la land central this made up false nonsense you wish to attribute to me.


.

 

We could take my comments one at a time Brother G. I can explain and defend anything I say. Pick one.

Yeah, nonsense tends to trigger me.

Oh! Have you seen infinity? PLEASE tell me where it exists! I want to know! Now, not some concept because that is all infinity is, so justifying a theoretical concept with a theoretical concept doesn’t work. But “infinity” isn’t even a theoretical concept. It’s merely a convenient construct to allow thought about theories. So, where can I actually see or touch or feel or measure infinity?

I need not “attribute it to you”. You SAID it. Above, you said "The evidence is that YOU - exist.” So, do you mean my body, dead or alive, exists? Most people tend to think of self as a mysterious force or energy or consciousness that would be one’s ultimate identity. And it is usually believed to be apart from the body and transcendent to the body, so that the belief is that when the body dies, the self remains as an invisible force or awareness or consciousness. And it’s my position that this is the real nonsense. The idea that there is "evidence that you exist” is the nonsense. There is the activity of the brain. That’s all. Is that activity “you”? If so, do you believe it transcends the body?

Next, what I “attribute to you” is your question (I GUESS it’s a question) when you asked "Now this existence -- from what we can tell is a function of both the matter and energy that we are surrounded by - and made up of ? ”

The answer is “no”. The question is not well thought out. Who/what is the “we” that you say (ask?) is surrounded and made up of matter and energy that surrounds us? Yes there is matter. Yes there is energy. Yes there is a body. But who/what is the “self” of me and of you? What is the source of the feeling “I am”?

Next, you said "Now one day .. the matter and energy .. got together in such a way that it opened its eyes and realized that it existed.”
In saying this you are asserting that matter and energy comprise the source of the feeling “I am”. That source is the brain. And you’re saying it is not the “source” but it’s the “self” that “realized that it existed”. No, the brain produces the activity called “consciousness”, so “self” is more a verb than a noun.

And you say what?

 

I say your position is broken .. 1) you claimed I was defaulting to Religious Myth whcih is pure - unadulterated falsehood -- aka "Strawman Fallacy" -- I never said any such thing... and so this wild cry for help . "YOU Said It" -- is one of them made up fantasys desperate souls grasping at straws like to project nonsense onto others because you failed to comprehend what was said to you .. which then leads to the conclusion that you are .. in your words .. Triggered by your own Nonsense .. which is kind of scary, if you think about it - kind of a continuous self triggering mechanism.

2) You are the one making defacto claims about infinity -- A complete failure and 2cnd bout of Projection-Strawman Fallacy - suggesting that I was the one making the defacto claims .. triggered by (Nonsense) - your inability to support your nonsensical claim.

Forgive me for not addressing some of the less incoherent and false parts of your post .. as there is no point until 1 and 2 are cleared from the space - two barriers to understanding. So don't bother saying anything else .. drifting down further rabbit holes .. until both 1 and 2 blockages are removed ..

 

Well, if you’re going to attribute words to me without any real evidence, I’m outa here.

Yeah except that I QUOTED you. That is your “made up fantasy” accusation. And you call a direct quote a “project(ion of) nonsense onto” you.

Know what? I don’t need to defend what I said against lies and false accusations. Goodbye.

 

"Jesus was temporarily inconvenienced for your sins" just doesn't have the same ring to it, but it is the basis of Christianity.

If it can be guaranteed that I become eternal ruler of the universe afterwards, then yes, I want to be tortured for a few hours. That's not a sacrifice, that's an awesome deal.