I think that belief in the afterlife is egotistical. Why should my tiny spark of life mean anything in this vast universe? As Yan Yan points out we are all made from the same cosmic stuff, it just gets recycled and rearranged.

Yes BT, but does that make you meaningful or meaningless?

You could only be meaningless if you didn't exist.
If you do exist (I'm assuming you're not a hologram) then everything you say, think and do will echo down the ages. You're already immortal for heaven's sake! Are you merely a wave on the ocean or are you part of the ocean itself?
(You can't 'phone a friend' or 'ask the audience' and 50/50 would be a cop-out to those who merely think they know the answer.)

IMHO we are all 'Servants of God'/ Slaves of Allah / Knowers of the True Way, whether we like it or not.
We should take from organised religion what we need to know and disregard the bullshit.
We were put on this earth to learn.

I peruse this thread with much interest.

In the 17th century, the moghul emperor Jehangir (1605-1627) heavily influenced by his father Akhbar, set up a debating chambers in his palaces where spokesmen from all the major religions could come and argue. He would sit quietly and listen while they quibbled over the fine print.
It was an age of plenty, efficiently-governed, tolerant of all and beloved of the Arts - an inspiration to all men in all corners of the world - a golden age.
But it didn't last. His son Shah Jehan was an effemimate lover of luxury, besotted with his favourite wife (hence the Taj Mahal). His son Aurangzeb (1658-1707), threw Dad in jail and embraced fundamentalism (which nobody really liked).
In 1757, the empire was so weak that Sir Robert Clive just walked in and took over. By 1784 India was, to all intents, a British colony.

Percy's sig says:

"I have tried all my life to leave the place better than I found it. But there are 6 billion other buggers out there messing it up. I am outnumbered. I am tired."

When we all meet our Maker, Percy, I know you'll be having a few beers/goblets of nectar/ maybe even a few shots of Glenfiddich with the noble Jehangir. Could you possibly wangle me an invite? I'd like to get his autograph.


But lets's return to more important matters.

Did Adam have a navel?
How many angels can stand on the head of a pin?
What's the well-mannered way to address God? We wouldn't want to appear clumsy when meeting Him. Would eating with the left hand consign us to Hell?

Let's assume there's a divine force in the universe that's endowed us with everything we need to prosper by virtue of a few simple rules.
For a few thousand years we passed evolution 101 and rested on our merits. We cooperate and survive. Men need to be innovative but must share their knowledge.
Women should help to maintain a stable community where men can do this wierd stuff. We don't really understand it, (they say) but it benefits us -that's what counts.

The next grade is beyond us. Wrong answers. We're doomed to failure.
Our only hope is to repeat 101. Over and over again.

Quote from Yan Yan

Yes BT, but does that make you meaningful or meaningless?

You could only be meaningless if you didn't exist.
If you do exist (I'm assuming you're not a hologram) then everything you say, think and do will echo down the ages. You're already immortal for heaven's sake! Are you merely a wave on the ocean or are you part of the ocean itself?
(You can't 'phone a friend' or 'ask the audience' and 50/50 would be a cop-out to those who merely think they know the answer.)

IMHO we are all 'Servants of God'/ Slaves of Allah / Knowers of the True Way, whether we like it or not.
We should take from organised religion what we need to know and disregard the bullshit.
We were put on this earth to learn.

I didn't phrase that very well. I was speaking specifically about life after death as it is usually understood, maintaining the personality I call 'me' after my physical body expires. If God sees fit to give me some sort of immortality that's fine, but I think it's an error to expect this.

We humans have the freedom to define meaningfulness in any way we want. This is a wonderful thing. For myself personally I choose to find meaning in living as good and healthy a life as possible. To me this includes by definition the ongoing quest for knowledge and wisdom. For example I've been learning things from Annette in this thread

Quote from bachelor tom

Good stuff Annette.

You can answer this: is it not true that the Christian interpretation of Old Testament prophecy is quite different from the Jewish? For one thing, when many of those passages were written, were they not referring to events happening in the time of the prophet rather than the far future?

Its true that the Christian interpretation differs quite a bit. And yes, its true that many of those events were happening then, not for the future. It looks like you know your stuff, too!

Isaiah 53 was not referrring to a future messiah; it refers to the Jewish people and the suffering the people of Israel have gone through for thousands of years....I was struck with a realization while reading Isaiah 53 not long ago in fact....many people have ridiculed the fact that many Jews seemed to walk passively into the gas chambers during WW2...the expression I have heard many times is, "like sheep to the slaughter they walked, without fighting back" (usually said derisively by atheist Jews looking for a way to lash out at religious Jews, etc)

But it fits with Isaiah 53!

The biggest fundamental problem I see with scripture is that folk are referring to wisdoms that were grafted hundreds or thousands of years ago before the invention of contraception and the modern past-time of recreational sex threw a huge cock-shaped spanner in the works..

Also, the state has taken the place of religion as the effective all knowing and all powerful "God"..

Much of the fuck-ups blamed on religion are surely a matter of interpretation of the scriptures..

With all matters pertaining to God, the words of man are the only words that most folk haev to refer to, so the religious leaders are effectively being followed blindly..

Folk like myself, with a direct link to God thanks to the gift of schizophrenia, have a natural understanding that does not always tie in with much of what is preached by the established relgions, which seem to me to be more concerned with "crowd control" than anything else..

I guess, one way or another, its all gods will and indeed, every word uttered or written is by his will and his design..

Which is precisely my take on the matter..!

Why are you guys even bothering to follow a link that some feminised cretin has started...
Where the hell are you at...


DUH...................

guys fucking wake up...

I must admit, I was wondering something simialr myself, but it keeps popping up..

FC is not feminised however, she is all woman already.. complete with the characteristics we all love and hate !

Quote from Drex

I must admit, I was wondering something simialr myself, but it keeps popping up..

FC is not feminised however, she is all woman already.. complete with the characteristics we all love and hate !

If being "all woman" is what she is, then I think I am rather grateful to be the androgyne I am.

Quote from Annette1313

If being "all woman" is what she is, then I think I am rather grateful to be the androgyne I am.

Well we all have to make the best of what we are!!

Fc certainly perked up life on here for a while, and we still cant stop talking about the cute little bunny..

To get the thread back on its original track, I highly recommend that you read this book:

Jesus In The Eyes Of The Sufis
Author: Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh

http://www.amazon.com

they used to debate just how many angels could be accommodated on the head of a pin !!!

Quote from shaazam

they used to debate just how many angels could be accommodated on the head of a pin !!!

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Those were christian theologians. Medieval christian theologians, to be exact!

Quote from bababob

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Those were christian theologians. Medieval christian theologians, to be exact!

but some still are at it even on this forum

just boils down to what folk care to accept as the "truth"

Quote from Yan Yan

As a young man I took (and failed) an entrance exam to read physics at a posh university. One question I did get right.

"Estimate the possibility that when you inhale, one of the atoms in your lungs came from the dying breath of Julius Ceasar." You'd have to estimate the volume of the biosphere, the number of atoms in a lungful and assume that after 2000 years the atoms from old Julius were uniformly distributed.
The chances are odds-on.

The implications of this are profound. Everything that constitutes "you" was here before you were born and will still be here after "you" die. Things just keep getting rearranged. Personality traits are passed to our children along with our DNA. Your personality and memory change the world in ways that would not have happend if you had never existed so in a sense, they too are still here.

Ecclesiastes 1:9 ..... there is nothing new under the sun.

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Whatta ya think now, shaz? Is this beautiful or what?