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Yes Drone; I’m with you on that.
We don’t know with 100% certainty that "big bang" is correct. There are lots of things we can’t answer and can’t begin to comprehend (eg. what came before "big bang": if the universe is expanding what is it expanding into? etc.) Whatever the answer is (and the odds are that humans will never find out), I’m not too enamoured by the answer that it was the creation of some god who sent his only son down to a semi-literate bunch of peasants. As Christopher Hitchens points out, at the time of J.C., why didn’t this god send his lad to China, where, in comparison to Palestine, there was a degree of scientific understanding? That might have been a better way to spread the "truth".
If god’s plan was so "god-like", how come, 2000 years later humanity still disagrees over how to worship him and knocks seven bells out of one-another because of his lad’s inability to get his message across? (And that’s just Judeo/Christianity, Mohammed made just as great a botch in getting his adherents to believe in one strain of Allah worship.)
I’m happy to accept the possibility that something beyond my comprehension created the lot but don’t need to go beyond that in imagining some being has ever since waited for humanity to evolve and sits in judgement of our every action. Spinoza got that in the 1600s; 400 years later and in spite of an enlightenment in the sciences, too many nowadays still do not.
BTW, does this god who gives people NEDs, who is all merciful and loving (except to unfortunates like the McCann family and a few hundred-million others) allow Dogs, Cats, Sheep, Pigs etc. into his heaven? If not, why not?Well, apparently, he does allow pets, insomniac. The neuroscientist, Eben Alexander, who had an NDE said he spotted a family who looked like .. peasants (he hesitated a second before saying it, but it sounded comical!).. with a dog gamboling about. Also, another bloke said all his deceased pets were the first to run out to greet him.
What physicists now know for certain is that there is another reality (doubtless, the Singularity) outside of space-time, from which elementary particles must have issued, because, as I explained about light photons, they do not obey the laws of space-time. They are said to be ‘non-local’, evidently, ‘non-time’, as well, being implicit.
So, there you have it. If you believe scientists have no cast-iron evidence for another realm outside of our universe of space-time, you are sadly mistaken and very much behind the times. Although to be fair, so are all the truculent atheist scientists, who prefer the fantasy world of the putative multiverse and string theories, though of course, they are to metaphysics as most of us would be to molecular biology. So, you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do, about the non-locality of photons, electrons and the like.
The postulation that the Big Bang began with a stream of photons from oot the Singularity must make more sense that ever.
Our universe seems contained within a non-local matrix, and suffused by it.Also, if you look Irish, propping up the door of an Irish pub, as in that wee photee, you wax lyrical about poetry and literature and have a quirky sense of humour, you’re Irish to me. And nothing you can say will change that. And the top the evening to you.
he does allow pets..
But do non-pets go to your god’s heaven?
BTW Grimes for one so interested in science, it’s surprising that you buy into the NDE-proof-of-heaven line.
I can understand ones’ desire to have some existence after bodily death – I’m not too fond of death myself – but I’m ready to conclude that it really is the end: finito. Keep the fairy stories, keep the desperate wish to meet ones’ loved-ones and pets (but the jury is seemingly out on wild animals) again in some heavenly shangri-la – if that makes people sleep easier at night then fine. But please, don’t call it scientific knowledge in any way that such baloney is proven.
In the words of the late Dave Allen "may your god bless you."PS Has god decided to answer the McCann’s prayers yet? Probably not. I wonder why?
he does allow pets..
But do non-pets go to your god’s heaven?
BTW Grimes for one so interested in science, it’s surprising that you buy into the NDE-proof-of-heaven line.
I can understand ones’ desire to have some existence after bodily death – I’m not too fond of death myself – but I’m ready to conclude that it really is the end: finito. Keep the fairy stories, keep the desperate wish to meet ones’ loved-ones and pets (but the jury is seemingly out on wild animals) again in some heavenly shangri-la – if that makes people sleep easier at night then fine. But please, don’t call it scientific knowledge in any way that such baloney is proven.
In the words of the late Dave Allen "may your god bless you."PS Has God decided to answer the McCann’s prayers yet? Probably not. I wonder why?
Well, I can’t pretend to have the answer to the innocent suffering in the world caused by the immense and widespread cruelty and wickedness of human beings, other than to say that from the perspective of eternity – which that young girl in the NDE, who’d been a prostitute spoke from, when saying that God’s providence will be seen to be good, in the end, evidently meaning that innocent suffering would be more than richly rewarded, and seen in a different light for that reason. But it’s a tall order for us to understand how the abduction and presumably, suffering, of that little McCann girl, and her family, could possibly be made right. It’s the kind of question Christians’ have to put on the back-burner, in the knowledge that their own knowledge is indeed, imperfect, but that they know enough about God’s goodness and power to trust him. I must say, my first thought was the hope that she was dead very soon after she’d been abducted.
Nevertheless, with that on the back-burner for Christians, we remember the trials of the Paul the Apostle – he’d been shipwrecked three or four times, on one occasion spending 14 hours in the water, flogged and stoned and left for dead on a number of occasions and suffered much else for the sake of the Gospel, and he said that the trials we suffer in this life were slight and could not compare with the rewards awaiting us in the next life.
Anyway, I think you curmudgeons should take heart from the NDEs, as Jesus doesn’t seem to speak a lot about formal religion. If he did, the NDErs don’t seem to talk about it much. But what they do – I’m talking about the obviously bona fide ones, who get very emotional when recollecting their experience – but whatever the case, they do start seriously studying the bible, church-going, baptism, etc, in some cases on their own initiative.
Jesus wasn’t one to wear his heart on his sleeve. Like most people I expect, it doesn’t seem to me becoming for a man to do so. In fact, I don’t think you’ll find a character in the whole of literature, fiction or non-fiction, probably anywhere in the world, as roughly-spoken as Jesus usually did. But the people could read him like a book. The religious establishment, too, unfortunately, and they didn’t like what they were heard.
Anyway, I have links for you all, to two most interesting articles; one on the angels (a series of talks by John-Paul II):
http://www.ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp2angel.htm
… and the other entitled: Christianity – the Best Thing that Happened to Women
http://www.probe.org/site/c.fdKEIMNsEoG … _Women.htm
With the Bible, and Life, if it comes to that, everything is not always as it appears to be. And one instance of that is the status of women, despite apparent slights to it by the RC church.
Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, one of the Psalmists, evidently speaking of Christ in the person of God, the Father, says in one of the Psalms: ‘From the womb, before the Day-Star have I begotten you.’ And I believe this is just one of a number of indications that women are actually closer to God the Father in his eternal essence, more spiritual than men, more intuitive and sensitive to the supernatural, whether, like the angels, for better or worse.
Therefore, descending to earth to live among us as a man, rather than a woman, would have been fully in keeping with the principle and purpose of Christ’s incarnation. Of course, thinking of God, the Most Holy Trinity, as having a sexual character is a total mistake, but we must allow for paradoxes when seeking to understand mysteries.
Anyway, there is the kind of espousal of Mary as Jesus’ Father, a unique closeness, without which there would be no Christianity, at least as we know it.
Then look at how, apart from their bonces, women are less hairy than men, with the bloom of youth, having the complexion of children. And we have the nick-name for them, ‘babes'(as Wordsworth would have it, ‘trailing clouds of glory’, though with women I’m not sure it’s always quite the spiritual glory in our eyes, he had in mind.’ ‘Angels’ is another not inappropriate monniker – as, imo, can be extrapolated from that exegesis on the holy angels.
So, maybe women’s being subsumed under the generic term, ‘men’, and being created as our ‘help-mate’ are not quite the slights they might appear to be, prime facie. God the Father plays a similarly low-profile role in the Bible.
And it was to the women that Jesus first appeared after the resurrection, which is why they have been called, ‘the apostles to the Apostles’ – the word, ‘apostle’ meaning, ‘sent’. Indeed the first to see the risen Lord was Mary Magdalene, as a former prostitute (according to ancient tradition and given the badness of the mob), in some sense, an outcast; as also were the shepherds in the Israel of Jesus’ day, since they were looked upon as criminals or near-criminals by polite society, the monied people. (Their wages would have been so low, it’s thought likely they would have probably profited from the occasional dead sheep that ‘fell off the back of a lorry’ from time to time).
Yet it was to these shepherds, not to anyone else, not even to the Three Kings or Magi, that the angels first announced Jesus’ birth in the manger. ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for revealing these things to mere children, and hiding them from the learned and clever.’
Not everything is always as it appears.
PS: As for the other animals, insomniac, I believe one NDEr said that Nature was just the same as here, at least to look at, though nothing died, vegetation just thriving ‘in situ’, I suppose; and presumably the lion lying down with the kid.
Also, the the neurosurgeon who taught neurosurgery for 14 years at Harvard Medical School, for crying out loud, and has forgotten more about science and consciousness than 99.999999999999 % of people in the world, so don’t think you can bullsh*t us with ‘naive realists’ scientism.
Anyway, he described being carried on the back of a butterfly. Before we get our glorified bodies at the Last Judgment, as spirits, scale doesn’t matter. If you watched those videos, you’ll have heard that he later discovered that the beautiful girl with him on that journey was his own step-sister, whom he had never seen.
As for Dave Allens’ smart-alec valediction, ‘May your God be with you’, it reminds me of Marylin Monroe’s quip, ‘Sex is here to stay.’ She wasn’t though, was she. And nor are we.
If I dreamt about Narnia, would that prove Aslan existed?
Baley, you’re losing it! You’ve stopped taking the tablets, haven’t you?
Gosh! Do you read children’s books, then? And Christian ones? I didn’t read them even as a child, though I’m sure that’s my loss, as I’ve heard about them, and C S Lewis saw through the nonsense of scientism even in his day. A brilliant man. A couple of his quotes:
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
“Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained”
“Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives”
"I didn’t read"
Well obviously not, I was giving a sarcastic situation not a real one, notice the "if" at the beginning of the sentence. NDE’s are like UFO’s, unexplainable. If I seen a UFO I wouldn’t believe it was a little alien in his little spaceship. The reason I alluded to dreaming about Aslan was because I thought it was a good analogy, if I dreamt something it wouldn’t exist to anyone else except me and the same goes for NDE’s. it’s the product of the brain and not the product of a superstitious encounter on a supernatural plane with a supernatural being. I’d say NDE’s are evidence against heaven as no one seems to have one about hell, and isn’t there ment to be a hell and a heaven?
"Baley, you’re losing it! You’ve stopped taking the tablets, haven’t you?"
I’ve been told you’re in your latter years so I’d concentrate on your tablets. No wonder you’re so anxious about death, good to see your sense of humour hasn’t eroded. The only medication I’ve been prescribed was paracetamol after a minor operation and some of this absolutely horrible banana penicillin milkshake stuff that makes me want to chunder just thinking about it.
Oh, but there are plenty about hell, mate. Very scary stuff, too, considering the torment is endless. But I prefer to accentuate the positive, as people can see hell NDE videos, as well, can be watched when they go to a heaven NDE site. I don’t think you can have watched any of those I posted or you would have surely noticed them. Although each do tend to grouped together.
Good job you reminded me about the tablets! I swore to my sister on the phone just now, I’d go and take my morning tablets straight away… and still managed to forget.
The worst though is forgetting to mark them off as taken. I’d have sworn blind that I’d taken them and marked them off yesterday, even feeling pleased with myself about it – but when I looked on the calendar, not a thing. Better to go without though than take double. Must go and take them, especially while the fried-egg sarnie is still being digested.
By the way, when I was saying about men wearing their heart on their sleeve not being attractive to most people, I wasn’t ‘knocking’ Pope Francis, as after so many centuries of Pelagian and gnostic influences in the RC church (which he identified), it seems a lot of people need precisely the kind of reassurance he is giving.
What if you’re wrong and Islam is right? That would make you an ‘infidel’ and destined for hell, you can’t have it both ways G. You can’t have your cake and eat it.
We, the Jews and the Moslems all worship the same God, baley, although neither of the other two recognises the Holy Trinity.
And we have different insights; markedly so the Moslems, although the ordinary regular Moslem here we see running corner shops seem very decent souls, particularly when one considers, for instance, the teachings of the Koran in relation to their womenfolk.
"We, the Jews and the Moslems all worship the same God"
Why are you constantly at each others necks? Think twelve years ago, RIP.
"We, the Jews and the Moslems all worship the same God"
Why are you constantly at each others necks? Think twelve years ago, RIP.
Believe it or not, you too are a fallen critter, Baley.
"We, the Jews and the Moslems all worship the same God"
Why are you constantly at each others necks? Think twelve years ago, RIP.
Believe it or not, you too are a fallen critter, Baley.
"Fallen Critter"
Are you seriously comparing me to victims of a terrorist attack?
Thankfully we live in a country where freedom of speech and freedom of religion is paramount. So basically Grimes, you have the right to be wrong.
Well Grimes, here’s Epicurus’ take on things. 2,300 years ago, he seems one hell of a lot wiser than the bible/koran pushing folk of today and their gullible adherents:-
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
Heck, I thought I’d responded to this last week, insomniac!
It all comes down to seeing everything in the perspective of eternity. If in the next life, eternal as it is, this life’s suffering, whatever nightmarish agonies we may suffer during it, seems like less than a moment, and is swallowed up in a joy, bliss beyond anything we can even imagine here, well, there’s your answer. God knows what he’s doing, and what he’s allowing.
Incidentally, I wonder of you, baley and others might be interested in this interview with Francis I:
Heck, I thought I’d responded to this last week, insomniac!
It all comes down to seeing everything in the perspective of eternity. If in the next life, eternal as it is, this life’s suffering, whatever nightmarish agonies we may suffer during it, seems like less than a moment, and is swallowed up in a joy, bliss beyond anything we can even imagine here, well, there’s your answer. God knows what he’s doing, and what he’s allowing.
Incidentally, I wonder of you, baley and others might be interested in this interview with Francis I:
Excuse the bluntness and french but what a sick, twisted and sh!t outlook you have on life. Hundreds of millions starve everyday, is this God’s plan? Or are they simply on the wrong side of the poverty line? You say it’s ok that people suffer the most "nightmarish" agony possible because they will get a better deal when they die. Your rhetoric is extreme, you’ve also compared me to victims of the worlds worst terrorist attack. You are in my opinion; deluded, wrong and hold extreme views.
It’s just a shame that you will be unable to feel disappointment at not getting your much desired eternal afterlife. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but nothing lasts for eternity… It’s impossible.
Pope Francis appears a good man representing the most evil and horrible organisation ever to exist. His ideology though is centred around an outdated book, hence some of his ideology is outdated. If he really wants to turn the church around then he should start by apologising to every African, every women and every gay person and every single victim of the sex abuse scandal. That’s over half the worlds population. I do give him credit for following the Vatican’s position of rejecting intelligent design and acknowledging the fact that is Darwinian evolution, something you fail to grasp.
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