Where do we go when we die?

[Sheshbazzar]

I have no obligation to open yet another thread.
You may respond to my posts, and stated objections within the thread in which YOU first offered up your illogical and nonsense imaginary scenario, thus retaining the context.
Why would you wish to avoid continuing and defending your 'logic' within the very thread and context that YOU first presented it ???
THAT being as completely 'out in the open' as it can get.

I believe the answer to that is self-apparent.
You already know that you fucked up bad there and are now attempting to distance yourself from the matter.
You are welcome to attempt proving that analysis wrong by returning there and attempting to defend the validity of the 'logic' of the illogical scenario which you presented.

Sheshbazzar

[Sheshbazzar]

I am a Gnostic Christian and Universalist and am happy to share what a God would see in the evil souls of all sinners ...
<snip of gobs of preaching>
--- when we are all evil sinners to God.

Regards
DL

No imaginary God. No heaven. No hell. No sin. Death is the permanent end and cessation of all experience.
'we' go nowhere except returning to the basic elements we are composed of.
'we' then no longer exist; Ashes to ashes, stardust to stardust into eternity.

Sheshbazzar

[John T]

I have no obligation to open yet another thread.
You may respond to my posts, and stated objections within the thread in which YOU first offered up your illogical and nonsense imaginary scenario, thus retaining the context.
Why would you wish to avoid continuing and defending your 'logic' within the very thread and context that YOU first presented it ???
THAT being as completely 'out in the open' as it can get.

I believe the answer to that is self-apparent.
You already know that you fucked up bad there and are now attempting to distance yourself from the matter.
You are welcome to attempt proving that analysis wrong by returning there and attempting to defend the validity of the 'logic' of the illogical scenario which you presented.

Sheshbazzar

Your objection to starting an O.P. in order to have an honest debate based on facts/evidence is duly noted but no surprise.
So, until then, that will do Sheshbazzar.

Goodbye.

John T

[Gnostic Bishop]

I am a Gnostic Christian and Universalist and am happy to share what a God would see in the evil souls of all sinners ...
<snip of gobs of preaching>
--- when we are all evil sinners to God.

Regards
DL

No imaginary God. No heaven. No hell. No sin. Death is the permanent end and cessation of all experience.
'we' go nowhere except returning to the basic elements we are composed of.
'we' then no longer exist; Ashes to ashes, stardust to stardust into eternity.

Sheshbazzar

A logical fallacy. Such a negative cannot be proven.

I will agree that no one has yet proven the premise as no one that I know of has returned from a real death. I do not think near death experiences are valid.

Even I cannot prove my belief to others. Apotheosis has no proof except to the one who suffers it.

Regards
DL

[Sheshbazzar]

A logical fallacy. Such a negative cannot be proven.

It also cannot be proven that invisible and undetectable 'spirits' of the hundreds of billions of decapitated chickens and pigs do not also fly off to your imaginary heaven la la land.
That it cannot be proven that they do not, does not constitute any evidence of it not being a fact.

Do tell us now O "bishop", Are good and faithful dogs to be 'resurrected' in your imagined heaven?
Will they piss and shit at the corners of your streets of gold? Will you still permit them to hump your leg in doggly heavenly bliss?

Do tell O "bishop" Are there going to be heavenly chickens, pigs, and flies, fleas, and ticks reincarnated in your imagined heaven?
...And I need not at all even to inquire concerning the presence of resurrected religious 'snakes' and 'cockroaches', do I.
And pray tell "bishop", how DO you know the manner of these things?

Whatsoever is asserted about the 'mind' or 'thoughts' of 'God', and the nature of 'Heaven' without any evidence, can, and most rationally and rightfully ought to be rejected in the absence of evidence.

Sheshbazzar

[Leucius Charinus]

No imaginary God. No heaven. No hell. No sin. Death is the permanent end and cessation of all experience.
'we' go nowhere except returning to the basic elements we are composed of.
'we' then no longer exist; Ashes to ashes, stardust to stardust into eternity.

Hi Shesh,

So the spirit of life enters a bit of stardust in the womb or in a seed and things live.
When the spirit of life leaves we're back with the stardust and the elements of nature.
Maybe the universe is alive? IDK.

I am often moved and inspired by a book I read many years ago. I found it in some text archive and marked it up for the web.

The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation by Dr Charles Alexander Eastman, 1911 born Ohiyesa of the Santee Sioux, in 1858

One of my favourite chapters is Chapter 1 - The Great Mystery
http://www.mountainman.com.au/eastman1.html

• Solitary Worship
  
  
  THE original attitude of the American Indian toward the Eternal, the "Great Mystery" that surrounds and embraces us, was as simple as it was exalted. To him it was the supreme conception, bringing with it the fullest measure of joy and satisfaction possible in this life.
  
  The worship of the "Great Mystery" was silent, solitary, free from all self-seeking. It was silent, because all speech is of necessity feeble and imperfect; therefore the souls of my ancestors ascended to God in wordless adoration. It was solitary, because they believed that He is nearer to us in solitude, and there were no priests authorized to come between a man and his Maker. None might exhort or confess or in any way meddle with the religious experience of another. Among us all men were created sons of God and stood erect, as conscious of their divinity. Our faith might not be formulated in creeds, nor forced upon any who were unwilling to receive it; hence there was no preaching, proselyting, nor persecution, neither were there any scoffers or atheists.
  
  There were no temples or shrines among us save those of nature. Being a natural man, the Indian was intensely poetical. He would deem it sacrilege to build a house for Him who may be met face to face in the mysterious, shadowy aisles of the primeval forest, or on the sunlit bosom of virgin prairies, upon dizzy spires and pinnacles of naked rock, and yonder in the jeweled vault of the night sky! He who enrobes Himself in filmy veils of cloud, there on the rim of the visible world where our Great-Grandfather Sun kindles his evening camp-fire, He who rides upon the rigorous wind of the north, or breathes forth His spirit upon aromatic southern airs, whose war-canoe is launched upon majestic rivers and inland seas -- He needs no lesser cathedral!
  
  That solitary communion with the Unseen which was the highest expression of our religious life is partly described in the word bambeday , literally "mysterious feeling," which has been variously translated "fasting" and "dreaming." It may better be interpreted as "consciousness of the divine."
  
  
  The Savage Philosopher
  
  
  The first bambeday , or religious retreat, marked an epoch in the life of the youth, which may be compared to that of confirmation or conversion in Christian experience. Having first prepared himself by means of the purifying vapor-bath, and cast off as far as possible all human fleshly influences, the young man sought out the noblest height, the most commanding summit in all the surrounding region. Knowing that God sets no value upon material things, he took with him no offerings or sacrifices other than symbolic objects, such as paints and tobacco. Wishing to appear before Him in all humility, he wore no clothing save his moccasins and breech-clout. At the solemn hour of sunrise or sunset took up his position, overlooking the glories of earth and facing the "Great Mystery," and there he remained, naked, erect, silent, and motionless, exposed to the elements and forces of His arming, for a night and a day to two days and nights, but rarely longer. Sometimes he would chant a hymn without words, or offer the ceremonial "filled pipe." In this holy trance or ecstasy the Indian mystic found his highest happiness and the motive power of his existence.
  
  When he returned to the camp, he must remain at a distance until he had again entered the vapor-bath and prepared himself for intercourse with his fellows. Of the vision or sign vouchsafed to him he did not speak, unless it had included some commission which must be publicly fulfilled. Sometimes an old man, standing upon the brink of eternity, might reveal to a chosen few the oracle of his long-past youth.
  
  The native American has been generally despised by his white conquerors for his poverty and simplicity. They forget, perhaps, that his religion forbade the accumulation of wealth and the enjoyment of luxury. To him, as to other single-minded men in every age and race, from Diogenes to the brothers of Saint Francis, from the Montanists to the Shakers, the love of possessions has appeared a snare, and the burdens of a complex society a source of needless peril and temptation. Furthermore, it was the rule of his life to share the fruits of his skill and success his less fortunate brothers. Thus he kept his spirit free from the clog of pride, cupidity, or envy, and carried out, as he believed, the divine decree -- a matter profoundly important to him.
  
  It was not, then, wholly from ignorance or improvidence that he failed to establish permanent towns and to develop a material civilization. To the untutored sage, the concentration of population was the prolific mother of all evils, moral no less than physical. He argued that food is good, while surfeit kills; that love is good, but lust destroys; and not less dreaded than the pestilence following upon crowded and unsanitary dwellings was the loss of spiritual power inseparable from too close contact with one's fellow-men. All who have lived much out of doors know that there is a magnetic and nervous force that accumulates in solitude and that is quickly dissipated life in a crowd; and even his enemies have recognized the fact that for a certain innate power and self-poise, wholly independent of circumstances, the American Indian is unsurpassed among men.
  
  
  The Dual Mind
  
  
  The red man divided mind into two parts, -- the spiritual mind and the physical mind. The first is pure spirit, concerned only with the essence of things, and it was this he sought to strengthen by spiritual prayer, during which the body is subdued by fasting and hardship. In this type of prayer there was no beseeching favor or help. All matters of personal or selfish concern, as success in hunting or warfare, relief from sickness, or the sparing of a beloved life, were definitely relegated to the plane of the lower or material mind, and all ceremonies, charms, or incantations designed to secure a benefit or to avert a danger, were recognized as emanating from the physical self.
  
  The rites of this physical worship, again, were wholly symbolic, and the Indian no more worshiped the Sun than the Christian adores the Cross. The Sun and the Earth, by an obvious parable, holding scarcely more of poetic metaphor than of scientific truth, were in his view the parents of all organic life. From the Sun, as the universal father, proceeds the quickening principle in nature, and in the patient and fruitful womb of our mother, the Earth, are hidden embryos of plants and men. Therefore our reverence and love for them was really an imaginative extension of our love for our immediate parents, and with this sentiment of filial piety was joined a willingness to appeal to them, as to a father, for such good gifts as we may desire. This is the material or physical prayer.
  
  The elements and majestic forces in nature, Lightning, Wind, Water, Fire, and Frost, were regarded with awe as spiritual powers, but always secondary and intermediate in character. We believed that the spirit pervades all creation and that every creature possesses a soul in some degree, though not necessarily a soul conscious of itself. The tree, the waterfall, the grizzly bear, each is an embodied Force, and as such an object of reverence.
  
  The Indian loved to come into sympathy and spiritual communion with his brothers of the animal kingdom, whose inarticulate souls had for him something of the sinless purity that we attribute to the innocent and irresponsible child. He had faith in their instincts, as in a mysterious wisdom given from above; and while he humbly accepted the supposedly voluntary sacrifice of their bodies to preserve his own, he paid homage to their spirits in prescribed prayers and offerings.
  
  
  
  Spiritual Gifts versus Material Progress
  
  
  In every religion there is an element of the supernatural, varying with the influence of pure reason over its devotees. The Indian was a logical and clear thinker upon matters within the scope of his understanding, but he had not yet charted the vast field of nature or expressed her wonders in terms of science. With his limited knowledge of cause and effect, he saw miracles on every hand, -- the miracle of life in seed and egg, the miracle of death in lightning flash and in the swelling deep! Nothing of the marvelous could astonish him; as that a beast should speak, or the sun stand still. The virgin birth would appear scarcely more miraculous than is the birth of every child that comes into the world, or the miracle of the loaves and fishes excite more wonder than the harvest that springs from a single ear of corn.
  
  Who may condemn his superstition? Surely not the devout Catholic even Protestant missionary, who teaches Bible miracles as literal fact! The logical man must either deny all miracles or none, and our American Indian myths and hero stories are perhaps, in themselves, quite as credible as those of the Hebrews of old. If we are of the modern type of mind, that sees in natural law a majesty and grandeur far more impressive than any solitary infraction of it could possibly be, let us not forget that, after all, science has not explained everything. We have still to face the ultimate miracle, -- the origin and principle of life! Here is the supreme mystery that is the essence of worship, without which there can be no religion, and in the presence of this mystery our attitude cannot be very unlike that of the natural philosopher, who beholds with awe the Divine in all creation.
  
  It is simple truth that the Indian did not, so long as his native philosophy held sway over his mind, either envy or desire to imitate the splendid achievements of the white man. In his own thought he rose superior to them! He scorned them, even as a lofty spirit absorbed in its stern task rejects the soft beds, the luxurious food, the pleasure-worshiping dalliance of a rich neighbor was clear to him that virtue and happiness are independent of these things, if not incompatible with them.
  
  
  The Paradox of "Christian Civilization"
  
  
  There was undoubtedly much in primitive Christianity to appeal to this man, and Jesus' hard sayings to the rich and about the rich would have been entirely comprehensible to him. Yet the religion that is preached in our churches and practiced by our congregations, with its element of display and self-aggrandizement, its active proselytism, and its open contempt of all religions but its own, was for a long time extremely repellent. To his simple mind, the professionalism of the pulpit, the paid exhorter, the moneyed church, was an unspiritual and unedifying, and it was not until his spirit was broken and his moral and physical constitution undermined by trade, conquest, and strong drink, that Christian missionaries obtained any real hold upon him. Strange as it may seem, it is true that the proud pagan in his secret soul despised the good men who came to convert and to enlighten him!
  
  Nor were its publicity and its Phariseeism the only elements in the alien religion that offended the red man. To him, it appeared shocking and almost incredible that there were among this people who claimed superiority many irreligious, who did not even pretend to profess the national. Not only did they not profess it, but they stooped so low as to insult their God with profane and sacrilegious speech! In our own tongue His name was not spoken aloud, even with utmost reverence, much less lightly or irreverently.
  
  More than this, even in those white men who professed religion we found much inconsistency of conduct. They spoke much of spiritual things, while seeking only the material. They bought and sold everything, labor, personal independence, the love of woman, and even the ministrations of their holy faith! The lust for money, power, and conquest so characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon race did not escape moral condemnation at the hands of his untutored judge, nor did he fail to contrast this conspicuous trait of the dominant race with the spirit of the meek and lowly Jesus.
  
  He might in time come to recognize that the drunkards and licentious among white men, with whom he too frequently came in contact, were condemned by the white man's religion as well, and must not be held to discredit it. But it was not so easy to overlook or to excuse national bad faith. When distinguished emissaries from the Father at Washington, some of them ministers of the gospel and even bishops, came to the Indian nations, and pledged to them in solemn treaty the national honor, with prayer and mention of their God; and when such treaties, so made, were promptly and shamelessly broken, is it strange that the action should arouse not only anger, but contempt? The historians of the white race admit that the Indian was never the first to repudiate his oath.
  
  It is my personal belief, after thirty-five years' experience of it, that there is no such thing as "Christian Civilization." I believe that Christianity and modern civilization are opposed and irreconcilable, and that the spirit of Christianity and of our ancient religion is essentially the same.

Be well,


LC

[Leucius Charinus]

2. Christ is the firstborn of the dead. Rev 1:5.

Hi John T,

Why is Christ called the firstborn from the dead if others were raised from the dead before him? (2 Kgs. 4.32-35; John 11.43f; Matt. 27.52f).

Be well,


LC

[Gnostic Bishop]

A logical fallacy. Such a negative cannot be proven.

It also cannot be proven that invisible and undetectable 'spirits' of the hundreds of billions of decapitated chickens and pigs do not also fly off to your imaginary heaven la la land.
That it cannot be proven that they do not, does not constitute any evidence of it not being a fact.

Do tell us now O "bishop", Are good and faithful dogs to be 'resurrected' in your imagined heaven?
Will they piss and shit at the corners of your streets of gold? Will you still permit them to hump your leg in doggly heavenly bliss?

Do tell O "bishop" Are there going to be heavenly chickens, pigs, and flies, fleas, and ticks reincarnated in your imagined heaven?
...And I need not at all even to inquire concerning the presence of resurrected religious 'snakes' and 'cockroaches', do I.
And pray tell "bishop", how DO you know the manner of these things?

Whatsoever is asserted about the 'mind' or 'thoughts' of 'God', and the nature of 'Heaven' without any evidence, can, and most rationally and rightfully ought to be rejected in the absence of evidence.

Sheshbazzar

I agree with this last.

You could have shown a better character by just accepting my legitimate criticism instead of making yourself look un-intelligent.

Regards
DL

[John T]

2. Christ is the firstborn of the dead. Rev 1:5.

Hi John T,

Why is Christ called the firstborn from the dead if others were raised from the dead before him? (2 Kgs. 4.32-35; John 11.43f; Matt. 27.52f).

Be well,


LC

The standard answer is: All those you listed in the Bible who rose from the dead, died again. However, Jesus is the firstborn from the dead who will no longer die.
According to the Book of Revelation, every soul will be resurrected from death, Rev 20:4-11. Also, Paul claims some Christians will never die, due to the rapture, 1 Thess 4:13-18.

The bigger problem is, what is 'soul'? The answer differs among different philosophies/religions. Trying to determine what the actual physical make-up of the soul is has been debated long before Christianity. Some presocratics, e.g. Pythagoras rationalized that the 'soul' was immortal/divine and could not be destroyed but could be reincarnated into lower forms of animals. To stir-up the pot even more, biologists of today can't even say exactly what life 'is' let alone what the soul is. Go a step further and physicists of today can't even say what 'energy' is, so how can they know there is no such thing as a soul within the energy of life?

As for what I believe; the soul/mind of being, is real.

Sincerely,
JT

[Sheshbazzar]

As a rural North American, the red man has been an integral element of my life for these last 66 years.
As a youth, the poverty stricken circumstances of my Northern Michigan life placed me in a social status and a life setting not all that different than that of my local 'Indian' family playmates.
My father made his sparse living as an old-time woodsman and trapper, regularly hunting and trapping along Michigan's wilderness trails and rivers with his life-long Indian friends, and many were the cold and tough winters where we turned to one another and shared of what little we possessed.

In High School my favorite, and certainly my most supportive, inspiring, and memorable teacher was the daughter of an Odawa Tribe chieftain, whom as it were, took this poor white-eyes child under her wing and spiritually nurtured him (me) with a level of personal attention and instruction beyond that of any of my classmates. Her son Frank was also on my Football team.

As adults, I, my wife, and mother have often attended the local Indian pow-wows as invited guests, and I have spent many hours engaged in private one on one conversations with various Indian Medicine Men.
Every summer for decades now, my wife and I have camped in the Petoskey Michigan area, where we spend entire days socializing with our long time Odawa Indian friends. They always delight in sharing the bounty of their Reservation harvest with us, invariably gifting us with bushels of fresh produce.
I well know first hand both what and how my Indian friends think on spiritual matters. They who have NOT been seduced into embracing the white mans sick death cult religious mythology, have earned my respect.


Sheshbazzar