Ideas of eternity.

[Rev. Powell]

"Is there no change of death in paradise?
Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs
Hang always heavy in that perfect sky,
Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,
With rivers like our own that seek for seas
They never find, the same receding shores
That never touch with inarticulate pang?
Why set the pear upon those river-banks
Or spice the shores with odors of the plum?
Alas, that they should wear our colors there,
The silken weavings of our afternoons,
And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!
Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,
Within whose burning bosom we devise
Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly."

--Wallace Stevens, "Sunday Morning"

[indianasmith]

Religion isn't a bad thing. PEOPLE are bad.

I'd give you triple karma for that if I could!

[Alex]

Religion isn't a bad thing. PEOPLE are bad.

I'd give you triple karma for that if I could!

Very true. Religions do not cause war, people do.

[Svengoolie 3]

Well, when religions call for killing anyone who disagrees with it, turning other people into slaves, treating women like property, etc id' say the religion is bad, but then since all major religion is a human construct you could say they are bad because they were created by people.

And if people are bad and a god did create them, what does it say about that god?

[Svengoolie 3]

My personal theory is that humanity, or whatever it eventually becomes or it's descendants may have created the universe. Some new quantum experiments have indicated that either some form of time travel is possible or time is not as linear as we think. Maybe humanity reaches a level where it;s consciousness can transcend what we currently consider time, and possibly even looks back at what we now think of as 'the beginning' and sees itself already there looking back at it.

Quantum strangeness makes things possible that are almost impossible to envision and suggest possibilities that might make it possible for humanity to be it;s own creator.

Time has been proven to be less rigid as we used to believe and human consciousness can affect reality at very fundamental levels. The idea that humanity essentially creates itself is not as impossible as it might once have sounded.

[Allhallowsday]

If there is an afterlife-and I sincerley hope there is- I ain't gonna bet on it or anything-I would like it to be just free of this mortal shell and zoom threw the universe,checking out all the strange worlds.

That sounds wonderful... and familiar. 

[Allhallowsday]

Well, when religions call for killing anyone who disagrees with it, turning other people into slaves, treating women like property, etc id' say the religion is bad, but then since all major religion is a human construct you could say they are bad because they were created by people.

And if people are bad and a god did create them, what does it say about that god?

Perhaps it says that that God gave man free will; it is therefore man's choice to do wrong. 

[Svengoolie 3]

Well, when religions call for killing anyone who disagrees with it, turning other people into slaves, treating women like property, etc id' say the religion is bad, but then since all major religion is a human construct you could say they are bad because they were created by people.

And if people are bad and a god did create them, what does it say about that god?

Perhaps it says that that God gave man free will; it is therefore man's choice to do wrong. 

Hmm, religion says god gave man "free will" so man gets blamed for all wrongs. Then god says anyone who refuses to obey him will be destroyed and of course burn in hell for all eternity.

[indianasmith]

Well, when religions call for killing anyone who disagrees with it, turning other people into slaves, treating women like property, etc id' say the religion is bad, but then since all major religion is a human construct you could say they are bad because they were created by people.

And if people are bad and a god did create them, what does it say about that god?

I think you project your own misery, anger, and discontent onto everyone and everything else in the world.
You can't conceive of a good God because you can't find any good in yourself or anyone else.

[Trevor]

Well, when religions call for killing anyone who disagrees with it, turning other people into slaves, treating women like property, etc id' say the religion is bad, but then since all major religion is a human construct you could say they are bad because they were created by people.

And if people are bad and a god did create them, what does it say about that god?

I think you project your own misery, anger, and discontent onto everyone and everything else in the world.
You can't conceive of a good God because you can't find any good in yourself or anyone else.

Speaking very personally: what I went through as a child and as an adolescent (abandonment, sexual abuse, living through a war etc) should have by now turned me into some sort of psychopath with substance abuse problems, etc. Apart from the anger I carry with me on a daily basis - I draw some sort of weird strength from it - I'm actually quite stable.

And yes, I do have religious beliefs.

[RCMerchant]

Mao,Hitler, and Stalin were all atheists.
I'm an atheist. I don't wanna be lumped in with those guys! I would never lump anybody with any belief, because there's always a ying with the yang with everything, so maybe I'm a Buddist!
What's the sound of one hand clapping? There is none. One cannot exist without the other! You would not have anything to compare it to!
I won't cheat myself of having my mind open to ALL possibilities- no matter how outlandish they may seem- I believe in many things- and the concept of a God seems confusing, fascinating, and tempting. Buddism would be the way to go for me if I was to turn church.
And now I'm babbling while drunk at 4:30 in the morning!

[Svengoolie 3]

Well, when religions call for killing anyone who disagrees with it, turning other people into slaves, treating women like property, etc id' say the religion is bad, but then since all major religion is a human construct you could say they are bad because they were created by people.

And if people are bad and a god did create them, what does it say about that god?

I think you project your own misery, anger, and discontent onto everyone and everything else in the world.
You can't conceive of a good God because you can't find any good in yourself or anyone else.

What would a christian know about a "good god"?  They worship a monster who orders children murdered,  orders pregnant women "ripped open",  orders a man to murder his own son,  praises a man who offered to let a mob Rape his teenage daughters, sends famines to make children starve, floods the world and murders children,  then has the gall to demand everyone utterly fear him and love him more than their own mothers and has prepared a pit of everlasting torture for those who do not,  cannot and will not do so. 

I know many people  who are better in several ways than the christian or muslim god. That's one reason I can't buy Christianity, it means worshipping a god that is evil beyond imagining.

[Rev. Powell]

What's the sound of one hand clapping? There is none.

http://youtu.be/b6YSfEKMeC8

Try Taoism.

[Svengoolie 3]

What's the sound of one hand clapping? There is none.

http://youtu.be/b6YSfEKMeC8

Try Taoism.

Bart simpson answered this once.

I might go with gkosticism or maybe even the rosicrucians, their views seem to make sense. Well, more sense than most mainstream religions. Their views just also seem acceptable to me, they feel right.

[pacman000]

In school I tried to reason out what death would be like without an afterlife.

We'd read Plato's The Apology of Socrates, & he said death without an afterlife would be like a dreamless sleep. That didn't make sense to me; I'd already read we always dream; we just don't remember them unless we wake up during them.

So I tried to solve the question using my understanding nothingness, based on what I'd learned in science. It would be dark, for there would be no light. It would be cold, for there would be no heat. It would not be wet; there would be no water. But darkness, coldness, & dryness are all things I could feel, & I wouldn't have a ind to feel them. I wouldn't have a mind to feel the passage of time.

So then what? Without an afterlife we could not feel death, but we could feel the events which led to our death, & we'd never realize those events ended. In short, hell is inevitable, but Heaven would have to be the work of a merciful God.

If Hell is a place... I'm not sure it would work if it was escapable. It would become an economic issue, & years of pleasure would no longer be scarce. The rich man might decide 5 minutes with Abraham are worth a 1000 extra years of torment. After all Lazarus has been sitting in Abraham's lap so long, it's only fair to pull him away.