A fraction of a second after you die is the same thing that happens a fraction of a second after you fall asleep. You become nothing as you lose consciousness.
Not complicated if you are the child of a lawyer. I have a little time to parse this. Let's see if any of this is a turn off. Through his faith, the prodigal son spent everything he had on the making, manufacturing, manifesting a combination of opposites. Heaven and earth would be examples of opposites. Opposition is a function of more. Earth is more than heaven, for example. Some think it is a suburb of downtown kingdom of god. It's not. The proverbial Son of God is/was the entire, and ONLY creation, perfect as created. No need for additions, subtractions, or other manifestations of more. Life is the prime attribute of Christ, the only creation. Here is an example of taking a quality that belongs only to Christ, and applying it to the manifestations of the prodigal sons faith. S.I.N. is seriously insane notions about Christ, the only Son of any god that is Good. In the making and manufacture of his own world, the prodigal son puts forth nothing but SINs, manifests them, pronounces them real, and proves them to be the truth. As a product of this manifestation, mankind inherits these insane notions, and propagates them through each generation of sinners. Sinners, like the prodigal son, are in self-exile. It's not so much cannot tolerate, it's that opposite conditions cannot coexist. You cannot be asleep and awake at the same time, for example. Time facilitates the alternation of opposites so the prodigal son can have both, and thus, more. Another example, the prodigal son proposes you can have both knowledge and faith, a conflation that destroys knowledge before it can destroy faith. These states of mind cannot coexist. Christ is whole, complete (Holy). Faith fractures that. If you were to symbolize the whole Christ, you could visualize one whole loaf of bread. Faith tears the loaf into pieces. Destroys it. The fragments only "exist" because the whole loaf of bread no longer exists (is dead). Again, it's about the inability to coexist. Christ's Creator loves Christ, and really knows nothing about what the prodigal son is up to with his faith, and faiths companion, imagination. There is no need, want or wish for more than the one Christ. There are no plans to bring the pig pens of the prodigal sons world into the original world, only that part of the Sons mind that is being abused. Seriously insane notions about Christ split the mind of the prodigal son, making cognitive dissonance. Man is a product of that cognitive dissonance. As such mankind is born out of the seriously insane notions propagated through faith. Notice how mankind is separated from pretty much everything. Are you making this up as you go along? Jesus has admitted already his participation with the prodigal son in the manifestation of this world. So the only way he could be sinless is if he was actually Christ. The prodigal son was not sent anywhere to bring anything back. A new capacity was initiated to bring the insane side of the self-exiled sons mind back to holistic unification. If you like, you could call this new capacity the Holy Spirit, a being whose initial function was to save the mind of the incapacitated son. The Holy Spirit has not actually participated with the foolish notions that were manifested by the self-exiled mind of the son, but does call out those fragments of mind who have participated, including Jesus. It is this Jesus, working very closely with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who managed to capture a lot of attention through attention-getting-mechanisms, like miracles. Arguably, Jesus opened the door to a club that was previously private (the private world of the prodigal son). Now it is open, light will continue to spread through the darkness till the world that came from nothing (faith), returns to the void nothingness from which it came. There is no penalty. A world built on a foundation of faith (sand) is its own worst punishment, for all the fragments of a foolish mind that wished to participate. The manifestations of faith are indeed painful. The Holy Spirit is only interested in relieving the pain by bringing the mind back to knowledge. There is no way to make man righteous before that which Knows. What knows, has never known man, a manifestation of faith. The existence of man, of it were true, would indeed come at the expense of Christ, the only creation that is known. Only in this sense would Christ "pay" for S.I.N.s. This payment is not so much given as it is taken by the prodigal son as an inheritance. As mentioned, it has been entirely spent. The prodigal son has lost the locus of power, so the spending spree is ended. If faith could, it would indeed cause the death of what knows (Christ). This is due to the functional impossibility of co-existing. Only the child of a good trial lawyer could understand this. Actually not a very good lawyer. All men are technically dead, compared to Christ, life itself. Jesus "rose from the dead" when he renounced manhood, and accepted Christ hood. Everything else, volunteering for crucifixion, not feeling any pain, and walking out of a tomb were theatrics...attention getting mechanisms, miracles showing that nothing about this world (faith world of the prodigal son), it's pain, its death, is real, or to be taken seriously. Mankind does not have a debt except that it owes it's experience of "living/existing" to the death of Christ, speaking poetically from the inability to co-exist framework. You can only continue to be a human to the degree you can continually kill Christ, through your faith. You clearly have a lot of faith in mankind. This betrays your complicity, and your involvement. Don't forget to drink his blood into your stomach. Then you could have the same longevity as any other vampire. Yes, you must believe this, because Christ knows it is not true. Through this faith you can, at best, prolong the experience of being a man/woman...until the Holy Spirit brings all of the shenanigans to and end. Oh, now you, a man, are speaking for god. Not really surprising coming from those who are ok with the death of the Only Son to obtain a more prolonged experience of existence. You want to exist so badly you are willing to be "judged". This is really peak narcissism. You, who don't exist, want to be the center of attention of what does exist. You demand validation. Sorry, you're not going to be judged. Once again, faith offers its own worst punishments through your own judgments about Christ. Seriously insane notions about Christ (S.I.N.s) are basically judgments. You should no longer pose as judge, nor should you pretend that judgment is a universal characteristic of Christ. You, oh man, cannot co-exist with Christ. That's not a judgement, that's just a fact. In the land of judgments, the Holy Spirit, the Savior of Christ, has already given judgment upon your "god": The god of this world is powerless to kill Christ. That judgment is for the benefit of any of the mind fragments who will rise up and renounce this world. The god of this world, a world built on a foundation of faith (sand) technically does not exist. That is the judgment. You will suffer with it's faith depending on how you judge this judgment. Arguably, the self-exile of the prodigal son was experienced immediately, in a fraction of a second. What cannot coexist, cannot coexist for even a fraction of any moment. The experience was shortened a great deal by the work of the Holy Spirit, and those leading the cooperation, like Jesus. So why are you still lingering in a world that is long since "finished"? Evidence suggested you still want Christ dead, or at least dead enough for you to linger on (feel as though you, oh man, exist). There is no delay in this wish, and your experience of hell. Conversely, there would be no delay in your actual acceptance of Christ, and your experience of Christ's current experience. It could happen in a flash, if you were ready.
I feel for you guys especially you diehard christians. If anyone at some point wants to dive in and explore having a real saving relationship with reality you can PM me. I mean, having all your dreams of God popped and you come crashing back to earth would be painful. It would be a bit like a kid having all their christmas presents stolen from under the tree, youcheeboos.
I like you Mickey and I will see you around the forum in other threads. Take care of yourself and I wish you well with your cancer fight. I thought about taking your PM offer but I think it would be a waste of time for both of us. One of my friends and favorite lunch buddy was a liberal and non-believer. He was on dialysis and had a 10 year battle with cancer. We fought hard on religion and politics but the day before he died he called me to come to the hospital for a final 3 hour visit. He asked me why I tried so hard to convince him and I just told him that one day he won't walk out the the hospital he will be wheeled out and I don't want him knocking his head against the wall because his buddy did not try hard enough. Among my final words to him was that if he wakes up at 2 in the morning and reaches out to God, He will be there for you. Little did we both know that he only had one 2AM in the morning left.
As a thought experiment, i would challenge anyone to contemplate conditions that cannot co-exist. I believe this kind of exercise is needed to overcome the laziness of cognitive dissonance, which accepts double-minded mixing and mashing. The most famous of these thought experiments has been "The Lord's Supper", which people don't even realize is a mental exercise needed to "remember" the True Self, aka "Me". Take a loaf of bread, any kind of bread, leavened or unleavened. Break the bread into pieces. Now you have pieces. Now you don't have one loaf of bread anymore. You can have the one loaf, or, you can have the fragments. You can't have both. They do not co-exist. In this case, in this parable, the loaf represents: The original condition Christ Reality Self, True Self "Me" Conversely, the fragments represent: All people All nations Planets Stars Animals All expressions of inequality and unique identity All the laws of physics, even if they appear to be understood (usually not). All particles (anything separated from anything else), even the smallest atom or quark. If you attempt to partake in a ritual, such as "communion", without attempting to differentiate between conditions that cannot co-exist with the unity of Christ, then you partake "unworthily" so-to-speak. The cognitive dissonance that you retain is it's own worst punishment. That is what makes hell so uncomfortable, not to mention occasionally painful. To overcome hell ("I have overcome the world"), you must start to get really honest psychologically. The mind must be cleansed of compromising, "double-minded" concepts that propose that conditions that are mutually exclusive can cohabitate. This is how the world begins, as represented by a "tree" which bears the "fruit" of totally opposite concepts, namely, "good" and "evil". The "tree" and it's singular fruit, are evidence that perhaps opposite conditions can indeed be combined into a singular entity, thus adding up to MORE. Eating is the universal symbol for believing, for FAITH. The combination of opposites (which cannot coexist) is something requiring faith, because it can never be a known. Faith, then, is a kind of zone, some kind of twilight zone, where cognitive dissonance can flourish, as best it can. It's no wonder that those still promoting the "tree", glorify faith, and condemn knowledge, as if it would be a "sin" for man to know what god knows. This is because knowing, anything, threatens the domain of faith. You cannot know what Christ knows, and still "exist", as a "man", or any of the things on the list above. As a man, you stand entirely upon a foundation of faith. That is the "sand" that Jesus warned of. Given enough time, that foundation will give way, and anything built upon it will fall, crumble, and be washed away. The most obvious double-minded cognitive dissonance are those making claims that man and Christ can co-exist, can mix together, can become one new thing. If you can make this true for even one man, say, Jesus, then you can make this true for your own man-self, which is the whole intent. Making these mutually exclusive conditions mix together is how too many of us propose to save our unique identity. It won't work. You still "eat" from the same "tree" which offers a 'fruit" that combines opposites. From that will come all kinds of cognitive dissonance about opposites like life and death, so much it will make your head spin. You won't be able to decide whether Christ is dead or alive, whether Christ was dead for three days, or not at all. You won't be able to figure out if death is permanent, or whether it is a door to another zone. Nothing will be certain, only sad. Three days dead is three days too many, for Life itself. If you admit it possible, for even a split second, in that second you will find your experience in hell. That split second is when a clock starts ticking. The clock stops ticking, and hell comes to an end, when you finally decide that you cannot add anything more to Christ, the original condition.
The truth of the matter, both christians and disbelievers share a common theme. We are babes, ignorant, dumb. Trying to make up theories about God and creation etc is stupid. Christians love to market their wares and use fancy rhetoric to sell a pie in the sky story, it adds to entertainment in this world.
My brain has been eating thought experiments like this for years. We can simplify it with the universe itself. God is such a lame backstory to these experiments, we shove Him into a corner. It involves the basic concepts of the line segment, line, and ray from maths. The universe, in our three-dimensional thinking, is in one of three states. It has a beginning and end (line segment), a beginning with no end (ray), or no beginning or end (line). In none of these three states can a creator exist, because in each of these three states it will either negate it's existence (line segment and ray), or negate the existence of the idea of a creator (line).
@studentofthemarkets This video is about two hours, but worthy of your time. And you also @Good1 I think you will like it. Yer the one that made me remember it.
I am proposing that the domain of faith comprises the entire domain of imagination. Within this domain arises a new set of "laws" that generally predict how the smallest of particles will behave. It gets blurry: Is it a wave of light, or, is it a particle. Is it a particle, or a wave of light? How much of that depends on the observer? I'm saying this domain ("the world", "hell") is vast enough that anyone who does not have full and total knowledge could easily get "lost". I propose that math, and the laws of physics, are entirely part of the domain of faith/imagination, and are utterly foreign concepts in the domain of knowledge/Christ. So you have to be careful about thought experiments that start and stop within this domain, and don't have any reach beyond the domain. Better to focus on the concept of mutually exclusive existence by considering conditions that cannot coexist, like: Life/death Knowledge/Faith Oneness/Particles (partitions, separations, unique identity, inequality) The conflation between knowledge and faith is really a stickler for most people. You can't even be a person without having first confused the difference between the two. So we have to be very careful about observing phenomenon that arises out of faith, and presuming we can derive some kind of knowledge from it. As people, we are biased toward further conflation, because deep down, we realize knowledge threatens our perceived existence as a unique being.
Whenever i might have two hours to spare for a scientist. Science is basically the observation of faith-based phenomenon, attempting to derive knowledge from the observation of persistent, repeating phenomena. But the phenomena generated by faith is vast. You really have to be humble, and psychologically honest to rise above the biases of human beings, even should we become a "scientist".