So you do realize that Constantine is pretty much the sole reason that Christianity became the dominant western religion. He was emperor of Rome, converted to Christianity and so was Christian, like most of those after him. In fact much of what you believe to be divine truth was in fact developed by him and emperors after him. Rome fell for a bunch of reasons, "trying to do it without God" is certainly not one of them. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is a good book on the subject, one of hundreds though so no excuse for not spending some time reading about it if you're going to opine about it. Your evangelical pastor....not such a good source. Frankly he's making you look like an idiot, you should probably rely on him for theological advice rather than easily verifiable history lessons he's clearly never taken.
Problem with that is if absolute truth needs a designer, an ultimate designer cannot be an absolute truth. "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Whatever is in your mind as real, is real to you -- at least until your under psychiatric care and the influence of modern pharmaceutics.
I remember the first time I explored this question. It was fascinating to me. Every one seemed to be concerned with life after death, so I questioned life before birth. I would always ask the person in question, "Where were you in 1889?" That might be the same place you'll be in 2089, or not. I used to think the "place" you end up after-death is the same place you were before-birth, but then I thought that was a little foolish. The reason being is because what was the whole point of the life I just lived? If we assume there is a point (I think there is, but its a bit unconventional) then the place we end up should be different from the place we came from. If life does have a reason, my current hypothesis is we are born to process information, transmute/transduce it and project it out into the world in a different format. Each human is a processor of information. This is a theory I first read about by Philip K Dick in his magnum opus "Exegesis', he claims information is alive and this is what the "Logos" or the "Holy Spirit" is. Information is some type of living entity that finds the right mind to feed ideas to. When you have a bright idea, you might wonder how did I come to think of this amazing epiphany? Well maybe you didnt'. Maybe the bright idea found you. Its an interesting thought and has led me on a binge. I started reading a lot of Carl Jung psycho-analytics and Claude Shannon mathematical information theory systems. Who knew these concepts would be linked to the logos/holy spirit. Cheers!
Great post. Terence Mckenna posed this question in one of his many lectures. He said when one approaches the ripe age of around 44 the real quest of realization begins. Society will describe you as trader, banker, coder, accountant, garbage man, gardener, fire-fighter. But who are you really? Behind the mask of societal titles. Soul extracted and placed and weighed against a feather. Who are you?
Life after death is real. The soul is eternal. Energy does not get destroyed only transmuted to another medium.
Well i define death as change, specifically rapid radical change. But all change is destructive to what went before it, whether it happens uncomfortably fast, or boringly slow. So, life after death? I translate that to mean a more comfortably paced changing scenario after an uncomfortably changing scenario. The common denominator is change. Those of us who agree that reincarnation is the standard phenomenon experienced by all see it as the continuation of change, which is the same as the continuation of traditional death scenarios (a change scenario which results in more change). Beyond all change scenarios is a changeless original condition that i call LIFE, being life because it DOES NOT CHANGE. This is to say that change and death are the same thing. Life requires a changeless set of conditions.
As long as a belief like this makes you happy, this will lead to a contented life. But the problem with unfounded beliefs is that there is now way to judge a good one from a bad one. All beliefs, all faiths must be equally respected as none can be criticised in detail, for their contradictions, their lack of evidence, let alone in their entirety. And of course, this opens the door to respecting people who live their lives according to beliefs which we find abhorrent and inhuman. Because we have no mechanisms to criticise their faith as we admit no mechanisms for criticism of our faiths. So who thinks FGM is valid and its adherents should be respected? What about human sacrifice? What about the caste system? What about suttee?