I had a great time at church, thanks!!!! Why do I know so much about God? Because I am trying to base all of my beliefs on just the Bible. The Bible reveals quite a bit about God. OK, I will also admit that I have also learned quite a bit from other believers who have studied the Bible. However, I only accept into my beliefs the things they teach that I can see are taught by the Bible. The Bible was given to us by GOD so that we can know Him. Now this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent. John 17:3 I have eternal life, meaning that I will live forever with God even after my body dies. Knowing God is what this life, and the next, is all about.
But without the persistence of memory, the you that you are now will not exist after the body dies, which means the you that is you also dies, because memories die when the brain/body dies.
But how do you KNOW that? How can you be sure that the spirit doesn't continue forever? A spirit is not flesh and blood or brain matter. There are stories in the Bible of spirits coming back into their bodies after having died. There are repeated teachings throughout the Bible that everyone will see God someday and live eternally one place or the other. There are some in the medical field that have written up about people who have died and had out of body experiences then came back to life. There are a lot of supernatural things that happen in occultism. I don't recommend learning about them. Even the existence of UFO's, which I think are a branch of the demonic spirit world, is being more accepted by the science community. These are some reasons to consider that there is a spirit realm, not seen. Hope this doesn't give you any scary dreams tonight!
You just contradicted yourself in many ways in this thread... K, that's a supernatural experience. It's called the NDE. Near Death Experience. Bzzzt! Even the existence of UFO's, which I think are a branch of the demonic spirit world, is being more accepted by the science community...[/QUOTE] Yeah, that's the demonic spirit world alright. UFOs are Satan. And his name is Pearlie.
Yeah, I'm not denying a spiritual dimension, it's just, as you know, humans have such a weird brain, funny to me how Christians have all the answers but with heads in the clouds continually crash back on terrafirma. A typical Christian response, "has to be the enemy, the devil!" I will admit, a UFO encounter naturally raises our fears, but naturally maybe we fear God too due to our sin. I'm happy that you are happy. There are many people if they weren't in church would be in a worse place and behaving badly, there are positive spin offs to church. Me thinks church/christianity is good for younger people to learn morals, but as one ages they need to begin to think for themselves, and ween off church's control.
There you go, thinking logically again. Remember, you are in a social-media-infused world now. Your thoughts and ideas are no longer are valid, old man. Oh, and yer from Aussieland, so naturally you are a few years behind the rest of the world, while simultaneously being ahead on the world clock. Go figure.
@themickey I hope you don't mind that I decided to borrow your thread for a personal, self-evaluation post. I should probably go write in a private journal rather than a public forum, but for some reason my own journals seem lonely and I get nowhere with them. I don't want to open a new thread, so here are my thoughts on a totally unrelated topic that might even be considered a form a trolling. After seeing the devastating effects a friend of mine has had in life from living an emotionally driven life and not maintaining balance in several areas, I have noticed that I have the same tendency. It kind of took seeing it in someone else to cause me to do some deep self-reflection and discover that I am not only overly emotionally driven in many areas of my life, likely because it's a bad habit that I haven't seen any reason to break out of, but I am also emotionally driven when trading in ways that are hurting my ability to trade. I've gotten this far in my self-evaluation mode, but there is probably a lot more I need to become aware of. Maybe tomorrow when trading I will have to pay attention to how my emotions are driving my trades. I know I fear losses so I take many tiny losses, rather than placing stops in logical locations. I fear losing money, so I take quick profits and hold onto losers occasionally, which I think is pretty common for a lot of people IF they are following an emotional style of trading. I really do struggle with a rules-based trading approach. Then there is my emotional side when it comes to things about God. I like my happy emotions, I like the emotions that I get when understanding God's love, but I do need to keep the perspective that these are just emotions. God loves the same, whether or not I feel it or am aware of it. So, as a Christian, what kind of emotions are right and are any unbalanced? I have been thinking about this for the last few days. I came across this lengthy article that dealt with the topic very thoroughly. I'm going to pull a few quotes from it. Quote #1 Finally, emotions do not authenticate truth; emotions cannot verify the historicity of the resurrection of Christ or other historical and theological realities. Emotions, however, do authenticate our understanding of the truth. A happy heart is the greatest evidence of the apprehension of spiritual truth. In the Bible, truth is supposed to strike the life with positive emotional force. Truth without effect is an unknown within scripture. Quote #2: God as the archetype of personhood is therefore the source of emotions. At the center of all reality is a being who feels and thinks. We are a reflection of that deep and wondrous reality. Since the Bible says that we are made in his image, we too feel and think.3 Being made in his image is the reason for our emotions and our thoughts. Men and women are similar to animals in having flesh and soul (man—1 Cor 2:11; animals—Gen 7:22; Eccl 3:21-22), but the critical difference is that we are made in the image of God (Gen 1:26-28). The totality of our personhood including our psychological make-up has been molded to be a reflection of the divine. Animals are a whimsical poetic expression of God’s artistry; we are expressions of his nature. Quote #3: The management of our emotions involves our imagination (how we reckon; Rom 6:11), our mind (how we set our perspective; Rom 8:5-7), and our ego or self (how we relate to God and people). The terms fall naturally into that order because how we relate to people and to God is based on how we imagine the world to be and God to be, and how we analyze what life presents to us. Management of our emotions is a by-product of a number of such factors. In New Testament terms the “by-product” nature of emotions is illuminated by the use of fruit and tree imagery. Matthew 7:15-20 and Gal 5:22 underscore the fact that character, the proper use of emotions and our inner life, is a product of a healthy set of spiritual processes or a healthy tree. Seemingly the healthy tree is the identity, perspective, and relationships of the righteous person. This makes the entire process more holistic and fits the biblical and psychological realities well. What we have to do to gain and maintain spiritual health is as follows: A. We have to recognize or differentiate what is going on within our emotional life and in the management of our appetites (Gal 5:16-24). This gives us information as to where we are starting from, either with spirituality or carnality. https://bible.org/seriespage/10-holy-spirit-and-our-emotions Oh no, I just realized that even now, when I'm trying to be aware of how emotionally-driven my decisions are, I have succumbed to my emotions once again, by posting here because I wanted to, not because it made any logical sense to.
Ok, you want to talk openly about emotions, a very good subject. We are probably going a bit off topic, but never mind. Although readers of my posts on religion think I hate Christianity, that's not entirely true. A couple of things, I quite like christian music, not that stupid short repeating hymn shit choruses that belongs in a kintergarten, I mean serious music. The other thing, talking of emotions, I've noticed that women in churches are usually, gentler, softer, often have a down to earth prettiness. They lack the hardness often found in others. Just my observation. But I think worship in music especially arouses emotions. Perhaps that encourages attractiveness in humans. Every now and again I will listen and appreciate church music.
But there is this, one can go to church until the cows come home, and still be an asshole of a person. Never mind how genuine a christian or not. I can recall as a kid, no sooner leaving a Sunday service then I'd get a bashing from my parents. I remember another church guy, had his dog tied up at the clothesline and beating his dog ruthelessly. There's plenty more stories, not gonna go down that track though as its ugly. But it seems, the more brainwashing, the worse the outcome.