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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Please explain resurrection
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Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
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Posted
Its interesting how people are happy to imagine all sorts of after-worlds no two of them exactly alike. And postulate things like "spiritual substance", "spiritual worlds" . All things for which there is no solid evidence whatsoever. But when people bring up what the evidence we actually have points to its "scientism", or its preposterous to believe.
What is the "essence" of a human being? As people have pointed out we are a particular kind of animal that is the product of billions of years of evolution. There is no solid boundary between us and other animals. I find it strange to believe that there is a "me" that would survive my body. Actually the boundary between "me" and the rest of the world is a self imposed illusion that is useful for survival nothing more. If "I" believe "I" can exist independently of "other" people animals or simply the material world around "me". I would snap out of it pretty quickly when dumped in the vacuum of outer space.
This particular body is all anybody else would describe as "me" and if there is anything else
that could survive the destruction of the body nobody has ever found any evidence for it.
[ 09. January 2016, 20:45: Message edited by: Ikkyu ]
Posts: 434 | From: Arizona | Registered: Oct 2009
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
What signal?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
The idea of the brain as a receiver of thoughts was put forward by Rupert Sheldrake amongst others. There's no good evidence I know of for this. If brains were receivers, a very different mode of working from being creators and processors of thoughts, you would expect this to show. Ideas might crop up in distant people simultaneously (what RSheldrake thinks), perhaps in huge numbers of people at once.
Brain damage should have effects that reveal the way the brain works. We know that there are areas for language, for sight, etc. If the brain is a receiver there ought to be bits analogous to an aerial and a tuner. Damage to these would cut the brain off from its signal, even though the rest of it were intact. This doesn't seem to happen, though.
It seems to me that you're taking the analogy too literally, and then extrapolating from it even further in order to discount it. Even if the brain was literally a receiver, there would still be no need to assume that there are thoughts being broadcast so that multiple people can receive the same thought. The question boils down to whether or not there is more to our mind than our physical brain and body.
As for evidence that there is more to our mind than our physical brain, I can see why some people come to the conclusion that there isn't, but I don't see how that's the only reasonable conclusion. We know that what we call "seeing" starts with light coming into our eyes, which then triggers electrical nerve impulses that travel to the visual cortex, which in turn triggers other electrical nerve impulses throughout our brain to interpret the signals from the eye nerves and do a lot processing and pattern matching, including recognizing what we're seeing, retrieving memory associations, and responding to what we think we see. However, there is nothing to suggest how our brain could then use these electrical impulses to somehow produce what we experience in our conscious awareness as mental images, or how it allows us to "see" or "hear" and be aware of our own thoughts that are triggered as part of our response.
Could it all be inherent in the physical brain processes going on? Sure, but there is no more evidence to support that idea than the idea that there is something separate from our brain that is interpreting the brain activity. It may not be scientific evidence, but for me personally, it is very convincing mental evidence that I am more than my brain and body.
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
Posts: 1565 | From: U.S.A. | Registered: Nov 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Yeah it's 50:50, either/or ...
Like the evidence for God.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
(snip)
Could it all be inherent in the physical brain processes going on? Sure, but there is no more evidence to support that idea than the idea that there is something separate from our brain that is interpreting the brain activity. It may not be scientific evidence, but for me personally, it is very convincing mental evidence that I am more than my brain and body.
You were describing vision using scientific ideas that needed nothing "separate" from the brain.
There is experimental evidence for your description of how vision works (Of course a Neuroscientist might quibble here and there with your description but i'm not one)
There are decades of increasingly more detailed
and explanatory studies supporting the "brain only" side. What is the evidence for the other side?
What is this "very convincing" mental evidence that is as good as the other one? What is this "other thing" separate from the brain, we all have? Does it have a measurable effect on the brain? You don't explain.
[ 09. January 2016, 23:33: Message edited by: Ikkyu ]
Posts: 434 | From: Arizona | Registered: Oct 2009
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W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250
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Posted
Of course I use scientific ideas to describe the physical activity of the brain - that's what science is for.
The mental evidence that convinces me that there is something more is my experience of my own self awareness.
Where is the evidence that physical matter can be arranged in such a way as to generate awareness the way people experience it, even in a small degree? Do you think a sufficiently complex computer might be able to experience similar self awareness?
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
Posts: 1565 | From: U.S.A. | Registered: Nov 2008
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Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
Of course I use scientific ideas to describe the physical activity of the brain - that's what science is for.
The mental evidence that convinces me that there is something more is my experience of my own self awareness.
Where is the evidence that physical matter can be arranged in such a way as to generate awareness the way people experience it, even in a small degree? Do you think a sufficiently complex computer might be able to experience similar self awareness?
About evidence for matter being arranged in such a way as generating awareness. Every being that I have perceived as aware (and that includes other animals as well as men) has a body composed of a very intricate arrangement of matter. I have never seen or heard evidence of awareness existing in a "disembodied" state. And as has been mentioned before physical alterations to the brain do in fact alter its functioning. Exactly
like the materialist explanation predicts. How does a "non-physical" mind explain this?
Also you did not explain how that "non-physical" part of the brain interacts with the physical.
So your alternate explanation seems incomplete.
About computers so far we seem to be further from the goal of a self aware computer than many people had predicted we would be by this stage.
That does not mean I believe its impossible in principle but its one of those problems that seems hard enough that we won't really know until we find definite proof one way or the other and its hard to predict which way it will fall.
Maybe artificial self aware brains will have to be "grown" or "evolved" in some organic way but that's just speculation on my part.
Posts: 434 | From: Arizona | Registered: Oct 2009
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I'm going to drop the imagine thing. I can't imagine it will do any good to continue down that path.
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
The idea of the brain as a receiver of thoughts was put forward by Rupert Sheldrake amongst others. There's no good evidence I know of for this. If brains were receivers, a very different mode of working from being creators and processors of thoughts, you would expect this to show. Ideas might crop up in distant people simultaneously (what RSheldrake thinks), perhaps in huge numbers of people at once.
I posited that as an analogy, not as a theory. Merely to say there are potential ways of explaining why brain damage affects thought other than positing that thought cannot happen without a brain. Not to say that this particular explanation is the right one.
You missed this part of my post. I hope you will get to it later.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Saying "a brain thought those thoughts" is a million miles from "it is necessary to have a brain to think those thoughts." Going from "A did X" to "X can't exist without A" is not a valid mode of inference.
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
About evidence for matter being arranged in such a way as generating awareness. Every being that I have perceived as aware (and that includes other animals as well as men) has a body composed of a very intricate arrangement of matter. I have never seen or heard evidence of awareness existing in a "disembodied" state.
This is question-begging.
quote:
And as has been mentioned before physical alterations to the brain do in fact alter its functioning. Exactly
like the materialist explanation predicts. How does a "non-physical" mind explain this?
One potential explanation is the receiver thing as has been discussed above. Of course a busted receiver is going to mangle the signal. This may or may not be what's going on, but it's not like there's no possible explanation.
quote:
Also you did not explain how that "non-physical" part of the brain interacts with the physical.
So your alternate explanation seems incomplete.
This is the Achilles' heel of the "theory" of the non-material soul. Descartes the interchange between body and "mind" took place through the pituitary gland. I don't suppose even the most diehard dualists these days go for that.
(Gotta fly right now; will respond to more later)
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
And as has been mentioned before physical alterations to the brain do in fact alter its functioning. Exactly
like the materialist explanation predicts. How does a "non-physical" mind explain this?
The functioning of a legal trial that takes place in a court room can be altered by physically changing the court room or by moving it to a different venue, but that does not imply that the court room causes the trial. The trial does need to be "embodied" in some kind of forum and the particulars of the chosen forum will affect how the trial manifests itself as it proceeds, but that does not imply that the court room is identical to the trial. The trial has its own reality above and beyond the court room per se.
quote:
Also you did not explain how that "non-physical" part of the brain interacts with the physical.
So your alternate explanation seems incomplete.
Of course it's incomplete - I never attempted to present it as such. Are you suggesting that your explanation is complete?
I'm not trying to prove my point of view, or convince you of it's accuracy, or change your mind. I'm objecting to the idea that the "brain-only" view you describe is complete and sufficient enough to make the alternate view unreasonable. I continue to give both views serious consideration from time to time and often ask myself which seems more believable. I just always end up at the question of how to explain my own self awareness and I come to the conclusion that an extra-physical explanation is less outrageous than a "physical-only" explanation.
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
Posts: 1565 | From: U.S.A. | Registered: Nov 2008
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
Mousethief, I’ve re-read my post and I don’t see how you could have thought I said ‘it’s not imaginable’, but I see that Hatless and Ikkyu have responded better than I could.
[ 10. January 2016, 05:46: Message edited by: SusanDoris ]
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Mousethief, I’ve re-read my post and I don’t see how you could have thought I said ‘it’s not imaginable’, but I see that Hatless and Ikkyu have responded better than I could.
As I have said, I've dropped this. I suggest we all do.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
W Hyatt wrote:
quote:
I'm not trying to prove my point of view, or convince you of it's accuracy, or change your mind. I'm objecting to the idea that the "brain-only" view you describe is complete and sufficient enough to make the alternate view unreasonable. I continue to give both views serious consideration from time to time and often ask myself which seems more believable. I just always end up at the question of how to explain my own self awareness and I come to the conclusion that an extra-physical explanation is less outrageous than a "physical-only" explanation.
I don't think the extra-physical is outrageous; it just doesn't seem subject to any metric. How would we go about describing it, when most of our terms are suited to a physical world with physical measurements?
Well, it's possible that we're all in the Matrix, but in a sense, that idea is uninteresting, because there is no method whereby we could say if it's true or false, (as far as I'm aware).
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
I think we need to take more seriously the relational quality of human self-hood. We too easily focus on the existential anxieties of the lonely small hours: will I survive? As if I was the thinking entity in my skull.
But I am the person who knows who he is because of the way those who know me respond to me. I am the player who inhabits and interacts with the representations in my mind of the people who are important to me. I am the person who discovers he has been having an effect on people I haven't seen for months, because they have been thinking about me.
I am not changeless. When I am lost in a book, when I am amongst strangers, when I am with my family, at work, walking alone, making music or taken out of myself by great art, then I am different, my way of being alters. I am a child of my time, different from my parents and my children because the world moves on, the social and political climate changes - these things are influencing me all the time.
So who am I? Where is my being? My brain is where I am according to one sort of answer, but I am also in the relationships I've committed to, and in the causes I care about. Part of me is invested in the Kingdom of God (to be pious) and does not depend on me and my power. My faith tells me that when, in love, I lose my self, then I gain my self.
I think it's possible to free ourselves from the Cartesian brain-in-the-dark model and conceive of ourselves as embedded, contextual and as a function of our allegiances and longings. A shifting personhood emerging from the polyphonic interplay of our complex relational networks, captured better by poetry than an electro-encephalogram.
And this, I think, is where resurrection must be understood. What sort of life is beyond the power of death? What sort of life rises again? The answer must be the life founded on love like that we see in Jesus.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
It's just as well the Gospel is so simple! Why not accept that as God raised Jesus so he will raise us to and that we will live whole and complete with him in eternity.
All this philosophical argument and deliberation has got me lost - even with a BA Hons in Theology and Ministry!
[ 10. January 2016, 18:34: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
British understatement at its finest.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
Hatless
Super posts, as usual, which is why I always wonder, why isn't this man an atheist?!! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
[ 11. January 2016, 05:51: Message edited by: SusanDoris ]
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
I'd better add that of course no slur on anyone else implied.
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Why not accept that as God raised Jesus so he will raise us to and that we will live whole and complete with him in eternity.
Which means nothing at all. It just takes us back to the question in the OP.
Is there even such a thing as 'eternity'? I like what hatless said about living on in relationships and the memories of others, this is true and makes perfect sense. Anything else seems to be pure conjecture - philosophy/theology, call it what you will.
Of course there is hope that there is an entropy-free 'somewhere' that we somehow have completely new bodies which contain 'us'. But the idea (whist being full of hope and comfort) is no more real than the Rainbow Bridge as far as I can see.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Why not accept that as God raised Jesus so he will raise us to and that we will live whole and complete with him in eternity.
Which means nothing at all. It just takes us back to the question in the OP.
Is there even such a thing as 'eternity'? I like what hatless said about living on in relationships and the memories of others, this is true and makes perfect sense. Anything else seems to be pure conjecture - philosophy/theology, call it what you will.
Of course there is hope that there is an entropy-free 'somewhere' that we somehow have completely new bodies which contain 'us'. But the idea (whist being full of hope and comfort) is no more real than the Rainbow Bridge as far as I can see.
Which, to me, is called faith. Faith is precisely that hope that a creative force is there which is capable, ultimately, of overcoming the many forces of destruction we see at work in our lives day by day. It is hope that this creative principle will ultimately overcome destruction in ways of which we currently receive only hints: tiny clues to the life that is yet to come into being. That, for me, is resurrection. Not a complex idea to explain, but it takes a lifetime (at least) to live out.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
Which, to me, is called faith. Faith is precisely that hope that a creative force is there which is capable, ultimately, of overcoming the many forces of destruction we see at work in our lives day by day. It is hope that this creative principle will ultimately overcome destruction in ways of which we currently receive only hints: tiny clues to the life that is yet to come into being. That, for me, is resurrection. Not a complex idea to explain, but it takes a lifetime (at least) to live out.
So it's only available to those who have faith and live a lifetime full of faith?
What do you mean by 'destruction'?
I get these hints and tiny clues all the time, especially that my Dad is still around - but I am a very imaginative and creative person, there is nothing whatever that tells me these experiences are not from within myself.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
Which, to me, is called faith. Faith is precisely that hope that a creative force is there which is capable, ultimately, of overcoming the many forces of destruction we see at work in our lives day by day. It is hope that this creative principle will ultimately overcome destruction in ways of which we currently receive only hints: tiny clues to the life that is yet to come into being. That, for me, is resurrection. Not a complex idea to explain, but it takes a lifetime (at least) to live out.
So it's only available to those who have faith and live a lifetime full of faith?
What do you mean by 'destruction'?
I get these hints and tiny clues all the time, especially that my Dad is still around - but I am a very imaginative and creative person, there is nothing whatever that tells me these experiences are not from within myself.
I am coming at this from a perspective of faith, so those are the terms in which I explain it. The other mysterious force at work, which seems at times so cruelly arbitrary in its operation but which I nevertheless experience as a force of love, is grace. I think what you are describing is the barely discernible, barely comprehensible operation of grace, which leaves those hints behind and equips us to follow them. Or not.
I'm not condemning those whose experience is different; what I'm trying to do is to point out the unhealthy link between understanding and control, which are linked through the roots of the word "comprehend". To understand something is to control it, to nail it down and to prevent it from growing. Faith is something different: it is the discernment of fugitive movement and a determination to be open to that movement and its effects, and to resist the urge to comprehend, to nail down, because of its deathly effect on this fugitive life-force.
ETA: reading back through what I have written, I have implied a near-equation between faith and grace, which I have to conclude is probably right. I have no idea otherwise why some people have faith and others don't - it can only be by the incomprehensible, apparently inchoate operation of grace.
[ 11. January 2016, 08:26: Message edited by: ThunderBunk ]
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
I have implied a near-equation between faith and grace, which I have to conclude is probably right. I have no idea otherwise why some people have faith and others don't - it can only be by the incomprehensible, apparently inchoate operation of grace.
Or why some people have faith in bucket loads, then lose it.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
I also have a strong sense of the presence of grace in life. I don't conceive it as a personal power, a God that exists, but when I am low, when I am stuck, when I've had to conclude that life or some aspect of it makes no sense at all and lacks worth, sometimes, often, the unexpected comes along and turns me round.
Good stuff happens as well as bad, of course, and we are poor at judging probabilities or what is or isn't a coincidence. It maybe says something about human nature or my nature that I can find myself questioning myself and my life to a disturbing degree, letting a problem empty me of the very resources I need to deal with it. It maybe says something about us all that people will do the astonishing and generous thing. But it certainly feels, over and over, as if the world bumps into me with a great big smile on its face. Usually a smile in a place, or on a face, I've been refusing to look at.
I can't be sure I'll bump into something good next time I need it. I don't think the world is managed for my benefit. Maybe I'm just saying it's hard to be miserable for a very long time. I don't think there's any intervention going on here. But I am so glad of these experiences of grace that I receive and remember them, and trust that, so far, they are telling me something important about the nature of the world.
It's much the same with beauty. Does beauty exist? Do I see it? Do you? Do I choose to see it? I have no clear answers to any of these, but a sense of beauty is important to me. If I could no longer find beauty I would be lost. (Grace, though, whispers that it's amazing what you can find beauty in.)
I spent a long time last night going through the hundreds of letters my mother received when my father died, fairly young. I was sixteen and it felt like the end of everything. What does resurrection mean for Dad or me?
What I wanted, for many years, was to discover it had all been a mistake and for him to walk back through the door. But you grow up, live a bit, realise he would be aging, too, and that the most miraculous resurrection you could dream up wouldn't give you back what you want. The loss of those years of being a son with a father is permanent.
I realised one day that what I most missed, his example, encouragement and guidance, was still there. I lived deeply in my memories of him, painful though it was. Things I recalled but that made little sense made more sense as I grew in understanding. I did have a sense, not quite as I wanted it, but powerful nonetheless, of growing up with the company of my father alongside me.
After last night's immersion in those letters I would say that he is a bit more alive, his influence on me stronger and easier to share, his early death less defining. There has been a further degree of resurrection. I will keep working on it, because it's my resurrection, too.
I am an atheist, in your terms, SusanDoris. I don't believe in anything more than you do. Our world view is the same. I'm just trying to make atheistic sense of Christianity. I need a sense that the world us beautiful and life good, I need trust and hope and meaning. I want to find them not breaking in from outside, but in the human, worldly and commonplace. Easter in ordinary, to borrow a fine phrase. Resurrection for me and Dad, and not in another world, but here and now, reaching and redeeming the years back to my childhood and on into the future.
A very nice letter from Trevor Huddleston CR amongst all the others.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I thought it was grace that led me away from Christianity, to a new place, where I have found a non-home, if I can put it that way. I mean, it was grace that led me in, and grace that led me away.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Or not! Just remembering a great quote from Bowie, that he wrote about the highlights of his life, loneliness, anxiety and abandonment. But yes, there is love.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Why not accept that as God raised Jesus so he will raise us to and that we will live whole and complete with him in eternity.
Which means nothing at all. It just takes us back to the question in the OP.
Is there even such a thing as 'eternity'? I like what hatless said about living on in relationships and the memories of others, this is true and makes perfect sense.
Yes, but it's not 'me' is it?
I want to be me - conscious, sentient, individual.
I don't want to be a memory or a dispersed collection of DNA.
I don't want to be uploaded to a collective mind or absorbed into a sea of consciousness.
I want to be myself, loved and in relationship with God and others.
That's what resurrection is - anything else and I'd be a Buddhist or even an atheist.
And having said that the Christian faith is not just about 'me' wanting to live forever, it's about relationship with God in Christ. I have been offered that reconciliation with God into eternity where nothing will separate me from his love. He knows me and one day I will know him as perfectly.
I know that my redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
26 And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
27 I myself will see him
with my own eyes – I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!
That is my desire and hope - it's so important to me I had the first line tattooed on my bicep.
It's my resurrection hope.
[ 11. January 2016, 15:22: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
But that is your resurrection hope.
Me personally, I hope that resurrection takes me out of this tiresome self and I am caught up into something broader and wider perhaps the great praise of heaven.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
But that is your resurrection hope.
Me personally, I hope that resurrection takes me out of this tiresome self and I am caught up into something broader and wider perhaps the great praise of heaven.
Jengie
My resurrection hope necessarily includes Jesus and a 'me' that, as you say is broader and wider - change from this creature that I am, but still me as an individual.
If Jesus is not there, it won't be heaven.
Resurrection is pointless if he is not there.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I don't want to be a memory or a dispersed collection of DNA.
I don't want to be uploaded to a collective mind or absorbed into a sea of consciousness.
I want to be myself, loved and in relationship with God and others.
But you are not an individual - you are part of the Body of Christ.
Indispensable yes but egotist no.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
If you want to see Jesus, look at your neighbour, especially those in need. He said as much.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
And weep with them. Laugh with them. Eat with them. Work with them. Walk with them. Until we transition to doing that non-entropically with God in person.
Resurrection starts at the end of Tree of Life. ALL of us walking on the beach. Forever.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
ALL of us walking on the beach. Forever.
Yikes! On the beach? Forever?!
So I'll be resurrected into Hell, apparently.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
I thought there was no sea in heaven.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
So, not only do I exist as an individual because I am part of the Body of Christ, Jesus himself is also not an individual being because he only exists in the guise of the unfortunate?
What claptrap.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Or why some people have faith in bucket loads, then lose it.
Often it's one tragedy too many, although for many it's coming to believe that science explains everything that's necessary to know, and that faith is not "necesssary" (which is kind of circular but than again so are many atheists' atheisms).
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Mudfrog: So, not only do I exist as an individual because I am part of the Body of Christ, Jesus himself is also not an individual being because he only exists in the guise of the unfortunate?
What claptrap.
No, that's not it. It's about priorities. I'm coming more and more to the conclusion that this whole Christianity thing, it isn't about me and my buddy God.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
That's my heaven. North Norfolk. With ones menagerie. With the Forest of Bowland behind it. Of course one has to stop for lunch. Grow food. Will one draw, paint, sculpt? Learn the piano for sure. You'll have to come over from your world.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
Can I bring my trumpet?
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Mudfrog: So, not only do I exist as an individual because I am part of the Body of Christ, Jesus himself is also not an individual being because he only exists in the guise of the unfortunate?
What claptrap.
No, that's not it. It's about priorities. I'm coming more and more to the conclusion that this whole Christianity thing, it isn't about me and my buddy God.
But that's the point - it's not just about me!
It must be about God.
The thinking behind some posts and a lot of attitudes amongst the population at large, is that life after death (or even resurrection) is all about me still being around.
Whilst I am most definitely on the side of those who want to be individual and entirely themselves in eternity, I have to say that really it's all about a continuing relationship between us and God. If God in Christ is not at the centre then it's not heaven. And whatever else it might be, it's not Christian.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Joesaphat
Shipmate
# 18493
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Posted
I'm with Mudfrog, and eternity of 'me' does not look like heaven. On top of that, the doctrine of the resurrection as classically exposed has, I suspect, become so utterly unbelievable as to be the main reason people abandon Christianity in their droves.
I have no wish to deny the fact or experience of Christ's resurrection by the first disciples. I believe in it, but its theological articulation by St Paul does not make sense any more.
Romans 5: Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned...
is unconvincing. We know death has been our constant companion since we crawled out of the original ooze. If Christ's resurrection is the flip-side of Adam's sin because death held no dominion over Christ because of his sinlessness, it makes no sense to me.
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Opening my mouth and removing all doubt, online.
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I'm coming more and more to the conclusion that this whole Christianity thing, it isn't about me and my buddy God.
I'd agree if a "just" was stuck in there—it isn't just about me and God.
"You shall live the Lord your God with all your all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind."
and
"You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
They go together, now and in the life of the world to come.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Mudfrog: But that's the point - it's not just about me!
It must be about God.
Someone is missing here. Nick Tamen gets it.
You painted a picture of the afterlife that has two characters in it: God and you. And I'm sure that when you meet God, He will be all great and almighty and praiseworthy, and you'll make yourself all small and humble and worshippy. But someone is missing from the picture here.
The Bible has a lot to say about our neighbour. According to the prophets, our worship of God (in those days through sacrifice) isn't worth anything to Him if we don't take care of widows and orphans. And Jesus said explicitly that He won't know us unless we treat our neighbour in a certain way. Jesus only knows us — and filling in a bit here, we only know Him — by the presence of our neighbour.
Yet, my neighbour is absent from your story. He's a side remark, at most.
I'm moving more and more towards the point where I don't want to think about sin, repentance, forgiveness, salvation, love and worship, the afterlife … as being something that's between God and me. These things don't make any sense to me on those terms. All of these words only have meaning if my neighbour is involved in them.
The afterlife isn't about God and me, no matter how small I make myself towards Him. It's about God, my neighbour and me. And in that order.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
If you play as good as that, no problem.
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Love wins
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
Mudfrog - I think the point is that the Church as a whole is the Bride of Christ, not just individual Christians. Heaven is about *all* of us being part of the Church Triumphant in the presence of the Glory of God. Part of the tragedy of the Fall is that because we're separated from God, we're separated from each other. Part of the glory of the Resurrection and gift of the Holy Spirit is that not only are we re-connected with God, we're re-connected with each other in the form of the Church. Great cloud of witnesses and all that.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
The afterlife isn't about God and me, no matter how small I make myself towards Him. It's about God, my neighbour and me. And in that order.
Yes.
Freddy's New Church has a doctrine of 'uses', that we are not really ourselves unless being of use to others.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Freddy's New Church has a doctrine of 'uses', that we are not really ourselves unless being of use to others.
That's a nice way to put it.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Mudfrog: But that's the point - it's not just about me!
It must be about God.
Someone is missing here. Nick Tamen gets it.
You painted a picture of the afterlife that has two characters in it: God and you. And I'm sure that when you meet God, He will be all great and almighty and praiseworthy, and you'll make yourself all small and humble and worshippy. But someone is missing from the picture here.
The Bible has a lot to say about our neighbour. According to the prophets, our worship of God (in those days through sacrifice) isn't worth anything to Him if we don't take care of widows and orphans. And Jesus said explicitly that He won't know us unless we treat our neighbour in a certain way. Jesus only knows us — and filling in a bit here, we only know Him — by the presence of our neighbour.
Yet, my neighbour is absent from your story. He's a side remark, at most.
I'm moving more and more towards the point where I don't want to think about sin, repentance, forgiveness, salvation, love and worship, the afterlife … as being something that's between God and me. These things don't make any sense to me on those terms. All of these words only have meaning if my neighbour is involved in them.
The afterlife isn't about God and me, no matter how small I make myself towards Him. It's about God, my neighbour and me. And in that order.
This thread seems to have a lot to say about our form and identity in the resdurrection life and that's why I have spoken about 'me' as a resurrected individual; but not exclusively.
On 6th January I wrote:
quote:
From a pastoral point of view, people want to know that in heaven they will still be themselves, that they will recognise loved ones, that they will have life and not just some vague shadow-existence.
In that idea there is very much the implication of community and society in the 'next world'.
What I am trying to emphasise is that resurrection is the raising of the whole self, as a self-aware, recognisable (by others) individual, as opposed to some DNA-survival in following generations or a spiritual 'ghost' caught up in some ethereal collective in an amorphous spirit-world.
I would have thought that the idea of bodily resurrection in the presence of Jesus would presuppose the loving presence of others - or else why bother to be a whole person?
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Divine Outlaw
Gin-soaked boy
# 2252
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Posted
I've a lot of time for that, Mudfrog. My body is the basis of my community with others.
Myself, I don't think there's any clear sense in which a non-bodily entity (a 'ghost', whatever exactly that's supposed to be, for example) would be 'me' at all. It is only the body that provides us with an answer to the question which human being I am. Look, he's that one: *points*.
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