I'm Dying So Please Open This Thread

[Hetta]

Yes, that we enjoy life while we can, make the most of it, and leave the world a little better for our brief sojourn.

That's a great plan. Would that more people embraced it.

 

[Aldebaran]

1. You don´t know who my friends are.
2. You ignored all of my points. I can only guess why that is.

1. They seem to be the other nonbelievers on this site, evidenced by the fact that they are the only ones you not confrontational with.

2. No need to guess. I'll tell you. They weren't worth responding to.

 

[leftrightleftrightleft]

Yes, that we enjoy life while we can, make the most of it, and leave the world a little better for our brief sojourn.

Well put.

"Leaving things as they were or better when you leave" is a pretty standard childhood lesson. It crops up all over the place in different areas of life. But so few people follow it and our society as a whole generally doesn't put a value on it either. We, as a society, seem to prefer the "scorched earth" approach for our future generations.

 

[Deidre32]

1. They seem to be the other nonbelievers on this site, evidenced by the fact that they are the only ones you not confrontational with.

2. No need to guess. I'll tell you. They weren't worth responding to.

hey! that's not nice.

 

[Aldebaran]

hey! that's not nice.

Sorry, but I felt the need to be blunt in this case.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

I've had an NDE around a drowning scenario. I exited my body and felt nothing but peace extending forever in all directions.

I had a NDE but was completely uninjured. I was thinking of quoting the koran on "the intoxication of death" (50:19) and comparing notes with the secular idea that DMT is produced by the dying brain ( e.g. Sam HArris: This Must Be Heaven). But then why would an uninjured brain hallucinate so vividly in the time of an NDE near miss traffic incident? Ok, so I was very slightly st***d.

According to the current mainstream neuroscientific view, the mind fails to survive brain death and ceases to exist

This type of view probably dates back, in kind, to the Charavaka (600 b.c.) school of thought in Hinduism. An alternative Buddhist idea is that there are gross and subtle levels of consciousness, and the subtle (which contains the karmic "storehouse consciousness" with imprints of the actions we have performed) actually survives death, goes into an intermediate state, and then enters a new body.

There is a nice poetic Buddhist saying along the lines of "Our life is like a candle flame and the winds of death blow from all directions".

from here
In the third bardo the soul encounters the Lord of Death, a fearsome demonic deity who appears in smoke and fire, and subjects the soul to a Judgment. If the dead person protests that he has done no evil, the Lord of Death holds up before him the Mirror of Karma, "wherein every good and evil act is vividly reflected."

 

[quatona]

1. They seem to be the other nonbelievers on this site, evidenced by the fact that they are the only ones you not confrontational with.

a. There is a difference between "not being confrontational with..." and "being friends with...".
b. Discussing different viewpoints is something else than "being confrontational".
c. I do have discussions with other atheists. With many of them I disagree on many important topics.

2. No need to guess. I'll tell you. They weren't worth responding to.

Translation: You have run out of arguments.

 

[Aldebaran]

a. There is a difference between "not being confrontational with..." and "being friends with...".
b. Discussing different viewpoints is something else than "being confrontational".
c. I do have discussions with other atheists. With many of them I disagree on many important topics.



Translation: You have run out of arguments.

If I've run out of arguments, then my response here will prove you don't know what you're talking about.

a. I was referring to those you ARE confrontational with--obviously not friends.

b. Your version of "discussion" obviously differs from mine. Discussion requires respect of the other person's views, rather than ridiculing them whenever possible.

c. I'd love to see an example of this where you talk to the other atheist the way you do Christians. Show me an example.

 

[quatona]

If I've run out of arguments, then my response here will prove you don't know what you're talking about.

None of what follows is addressing the topic we discussed. So, yes, this post proves that I know what I am talking about: You keep evading my points regarding the topic, and you insist on discussing ad hominem instead.

a. I was referring to those you ARE confrontational with--obviously not friends.

No, you were explicitly talking about "my friends", without mentioning those "that I am confrontational with". Look it up.

b. Your version of "discussion" obviously differs from mine.

Indeed. E.g. I would never say things like "They [your points] weren't worth responding to."

Discussion requires respect of the other person's views, rather than ridiculing them whenever possible.

Indeed. And I haven´t even ridiculed you once.

c. I'd love to see an example of this where you talk to the other atheist the way you do Christians. Show me an example.

You may want to use the search function, then. I don´t know what you particularly take issue with in the way I talk to Christians - so I don´t know what to look for when to look for an equivalent.

 

[Aldebaran]

You may want to use the search function, then. I don´t know what you particularly take issue with in the way I talk to Christians - so I don´t know what to look for when to look for an equivalent.

I was referring to atheists in general.

 

[Hetta]

Quatona has "talked" very civilly to me on other threads, just fyi. He has not treated me in any way differently than any atheist I have seen him "talking" to/with.

 

[quatona]

Quatona has "talked" very civilly to me on other threads, just fyi. He has not treated me in any way differently than any atheist I have seen him "talking" to/with.

...and we did have one or two major disagreements, I may add.

 

[Hetta]

...and we did have one or two major disagreements, I may add.

And that's okay. Disagreements are just another way of communicating. If I come away having learned something, even if I don't agree with it, it was still a worthwhile experience.

 

[Chesterton]

Four days and no one's posted a Monty Python clip in response to the OP?

 

[Chesterton]

Given you're all dying and so am I, shouldn't we be concerned about something?

Alright I guess it's up to me:

You should be wearing a hat.

"Meaning of Life" - "People are not wearing enough hats" - YouTube

 

[stevevw]

I've had an NDE around a drowning scenario. I exited my body and felt nothing but peace extending forever in all directions. I had the choice to let go into it or return to my body. I considered leaving and a voice came to me like a thousand mothers all said "Don't go yet". I realized that choosing to go at this point would devastate my friends and family, and that all the confusion I was feeling in life was simply a formation in the body that I had built or allowed to be built. I could also destroy them.

So I leapt back into my body full of joy and purpose.

I am no longer afraid of death at all. I plan on earning my death and looking back on a life lived as courageously as I can.

Thats interesting. I am interested in the realm that is somewhere between life and death. Maybe its the realm that is beyond this life but it can be experienced in this life without having to die completely. Either through a near death experience or getting in tune with the spiritual world. Jesus says that heaven is within you and that heaven can start now here on earth. But I have also been looking at what some scientists have been saying about some evidence they see that is pointing to a consciousness that is beyond the physical and material like meta physics and Biocentrism. This may be associated with the things they are seeing in quantum physics which shows that what we see in our reality could be a manifestation of another reality that is really driving things and it operates on a different level to how we measure things in our reality that we see around us.

So that brings me to what you are saying about where you got to a point where you had to choose life in this reality or to go onto this other reality which seemed so peaceful and out of body. I am wondering if we can tap into this and it has something to do with the heaven on earth thing. Some say that God is the creator of this reality which may be linked to the quantum world. Jesus was able to perform miracles and so were those who believe in Him. Jesus could materialize and dematerialize when He rose from the dead. He was actually a physical presence but also had a spiritual presence. This was said to be because of His act in obedience to His father in dying on the cross and defeating the power of sin and death.

Our world was like this spiritual one where there was no pain and suffering and death in the garden before Adam and Eve sinned and brought death and decay into existence. So now things wear out and die. But we can tap into this spiritual world again through the power of Jesus act in that we are born again in the spirit. So we crucify the flesh which is the physical and are reborn in the spirit just as Christ died and rose again from the dead.

Some scientists are saying that in the quantum world we dont measure things the same as in cause and effect like we would in this reality. So when something happens in the quantum level it can have many different outcomes as though there is no one particular end result and all is possible. I am thinking that there is a link between Jesus and this reality and that we can tap into this and have some control of the quantum events. When we believe faith is the key. It somehow can penetrate into this quantum reality and make things happen.

So when a person says that they realized that they needed to come back to their life from a near death experience they are actually being saved and all the possibilities of the quantum world fall into place for making this happen. The same for a miracle and any other thing that may happen that is beyond what we would thing is possible in this world and call beyond understanding or a miracle or coincident. I know it may sound a bit far fetched to some but it is a theory I am starting to think has some merit. I believe others are also saying may be the case from whet I have been reading but they will explain it in other ways yet they all have similar aspects.

 

[CryOfALion]

Should we care about something other than God and people you love? No.

Life is meaningless and meaningful at the same time. If you think there is life after this one, then this life is ephemeral.

 

[znr]

My heart aches for people who suffer a lot, whether I know them personally or not. I imagine that compassion is God's way of telling me that, yes, I do care about total strangers.

Ephemeral, huh? The first time I heard that word years ago and read the definition was love at first read.

Should we care about something other than God and people you love? No.

Life is meaningless and meaningful at the same time. If you think there is life after this one, then this life is ephemeral.