she was fond of sayin we don't know if christianity works or not.
it's never really been tried. so, we're at a loss at what a christian world would look like.
One common denominator...They are all transgressors - that just happen to come in all shapes, sizes and colors.
natural man by his failed design/wicked nature cannot avoid being the enemy of GOD...man is considered stained with sin and ungodworthy for good reason.
but its said Jesus can get your garments cleaner, whiter, brighter, and smelling fresher than any detergent on the market.
. Claiming Christianity means nothing. Walking that walk means everything. ..
what % of those who identify as Christians actually have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them whereby they actually genuinely live their life directed by such?
Pretenders far outweigh the real deal Christians?
Knowing humans, they typically transgress much more than they manage to repent?
-Bulletproof and Waterproof don't mean Idiotproof.
Quote the scripture that unequivocally states wicked humans are actually considered 'worth saving' by God.
Luke 15:11-32 leaps to mind.
So if God says people are not worth saving, and He goes ahead and saves them anyway, then God is irrational. Which is error by definition. More like God says people are not worth saving by their own merit but are worth being saved through His mercy. We are his children.
The key elements in human thinking are not numbers but labels of fuzzy sets. -- L. Zadeh
Not really, nothing has been proven. Nobody doubts the phenomena of NDE's and out of body experiences happen, but the evidence supports that these are a brain induced experience, a form of lucid dreams or visions. Both NDE's and OBE's have been induced in the lab using both hallucinogenics and electrical brain stimulation.
That's what I thought too. But then there have been clinical peer reviewed studies since. There are documented events which cannot be explained. Leaves open the possibility of a transcendent part of our being as long as no physical explanation is available.
Proves nothing, leaves open the possibility of alternate explanations.
Here's one I particularly like, dunno why.
Shoe on the Ledge
Melvin Morse and Kim Clark reported a woman who had knowledge of a shoe on a window ledge outside the hospital. The shoe was nowhere near the place she had been resuscitated, but was next to a third-floor office. Though the shoe could have been seen from a window after the woman’s resuscitation, she had described it with such detail that it must have been viewed up close. She noted that the shoe had a worn little toe, and the shoelace was tucked beneath the heel.
The psychologist who interviewed the woman (Kim Clark) had to crawl along the ledge outside to verify the claim. The shoe was indeed there precisely as the patient had described it.
Clark concluded that:
“The only way she [the patient] could have had such a perspective was if she had been floating right outside and at very close range to the tennis shoe. I retrieved the shoe and brought it back to Maria; it was very concrete evidence for me.”
Things are never quite as simple as some folks would have it. The world is far too complex to assume anything;
Quote; ''Although she had been able, with difficulty, to see the shoe from inside, Clark believed her view of it had differed from Maria's. That is because for Maria to have noticed that the side of the shoe next to the small toe was worn and that a lace was tucked under the heel, she would need to have viewed it from the opposite direction; i.e., looking toward the building rather than out of it. Clark is adamant that these details of the shoe could not have been visible from inside the hospital. She then proceeded to retrieve the shoe, convinced that it offered irrefutable proof that Maria's spirit had indeed left her body and floated outside of the hospital during her CPA.
Do the facts require a spiritual interpretation?
On the surface, certain aspects of Maria's story seem to defy naturalistic explanation. The leading NDE researchers, Ring and Lawrence, quoted above, accept Clark's spiritualistic interpretation wholeheartedly, although they do admit that not everyone would agree. There are, of course, other plausible explanations for the key points that distinguish this case. Closer examination reveals that the story is much less impressive than it seems at first blush.
Clark was impressed by the fact that Maria recalled seeing that the monitoring apparatus was streaming out chart paper while she was supposedly out of her body. But, as she herself admits, Maria could have been familiar with the hospital equipment and procedures. So, like other parts of typical NDEs, it is quite possible that this was merely a visual memory incorporated into the hallucinatory world that is often formed by a sensory-deprived and oxygen-starved brain. We know that the brain frequently tries to construct a substitute image of external reality from memory when traumatic changes temporarily deprive it of its normal sensory inputs (Blackmore 1993; Beyerstein, in press). Because this memory-derived imagery is the most complete and stable construct the brain can muster under the circumstances, it is accepted as reality for the moment.''
Quote the scripture that unequivocally states wicked humans are actually considered 'worth saving' by God.
Luke 15:11-32 leaps to mind.
So if God says people are not worth saving, and He goes ahead and saves them anyway, then God is irrational. Which is error by definition. More like God says people are not worth saving by their own merit but are worth being saved through His mercy. We are his children.
Well, actually, it goes much further than that.... if we consider what it says in the bible about God deliberately creating some for Glory and others for destruction:
''Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory.'' - Romans 9:21-23
"And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? Or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I the Lord?" Exodus 4:11
But, as she herself admits, Maria could have been familiar with the hospital equipment and procedures.
And coincidentally familiar with a tennis shoe on a third floor ledge on the opposite side of the building. Doesn't add up. And if it's a physical process why don't all similarly situated patients have them? I believe that was a conclusion of a study of cardio patients whene only18% had an nde experience (going from memory.
Something we don't understand is going on here.
The key elements in human thinking are not numbers but labels of fuzzy sets. -- L. Zadeh
But, as she herself admits, Maria could have been familiar with the hospital equipment and procedures.
And coincidentally familiar with a tennis shoe on a third floor ledge on the opposite side of the building. Doesn't add up. And if it's a physical process why don't all similarly situated patients have them? I believe that was a conclusion of a study of cardio patients whene only18% had an nde experience (going from memory.
Something we don't understand is going on here.
A lot of possible things may happen when it comes to brain function. For one, the senses acquire far more information than we are conscious of. A process of filtering prior to readiness potential and consciousness selects the focus of attention, Libet, et al.
Just because we are not immediately aware of something in a given instance in time doesn't mean the information is not there, or that it may not be recalled at a later time. A subconscious impression of something that results in a eureka moment...."oh, that's what it was."
Just because we are not immediately aware of something in a given instance in time doesn't mean the information is not there,
On the other hand it doesn't mean that the information necessarily IS there. In this case it's pretty hard to envision how Maria would know of that shoe in detail. And there are other reports with similar improbability. So we don't know and cannot foreclose the possibility of some transcendent event, no matter how much we may wish to.
The key elements in human thinking are not numbers but labels of fuzzy sets. -- L. Zadeh
Just because we are not immediately aware of something in a given instance in time doesn't mean the information is not there,
On the other hand it doesn't mean that the information necessarily IS there. In this case it's pretty hard to envision how Maria would know of that shoe in detail. And there are other reports with similar improbability. So we don't know and cannot foreclose the possibility of some transcendent event, no matter how much we may wish to.
We don't have access to whatever actually transpired, who happened to be precisely where in what position in any moment in time, what their peripheral vision picked up, etc....what is telling is the willingness to consider extraordinary explanations over natural possibilities, perhaps because the mundane is not as appealing as the fantastic, a ghost in the machine, the promise of something more, god to look after us, an afterlife.
''The unconscious mind is still viewed by many psychological scientists as the shadow of a “real” conscious mind, though there now exists substantial evidence that the unconscious is not identifiably less flexible, complex, controlling, deliberative, or action-oriented than is its counterpart. This “conscious-centric” bias is due in part to the operational definition within cognitive psychology that equates unconscious with subliminal. We review the evidence challenging this restricted view of the unconscious emerging from contemporary social cognition research, which has traditionally defined the unconscious in terms of its unintentional nature; this research has demonstrated the existence of several independent unconscious behavioral guidance systems: perceptual, evaluative, and motivational. From this perspective, it is concluded that in both phylogeny and ontogeny, actions of an unconscious mind precede the arrival of a conscious mind—that action precedes reflection.''
So if God says people are not worth saving, and He goes ahead and saves them anyway, then God is irrational. Which is error by definition. ...
or you simply don't understand the nature of Grace.
"Grace may be defined as the unmerited or undeserving favor of God to those who are under condemnation."
In others words, despite God viewing the wicked as being worthy of destruction ,he can still choose to exercise his option and offer you something you have not earnt [offer His benevolence to the unworthy-undeserving]
Grace is God offering the greatest treasure of Life to those rightfully deserving of the punishment of death.
Now if you truly believe you are one of his children and He loves you, why would He not do that?..
-Bulletproof and Waterproof don't mean Idiotproof.
What about predestination? God is said to know the end from the beginning, Omniscience. In which case everything you do was known 'before the foundation of the World.
But, as she herself admits, Maria could have been familiar with the hospital equipment and procedures.
And coincidentally familiar with a tennis shoe on a third floor ledge on the opposite side of the building. Doesn't add up. And if it's a physical process why don't all similarly situated patients have them? I believe that was a conclusion of a study of cardio patients whene only18% had an nde experience (going from memory.
Something we don't understand is going on here.
Originally Posted by Thunderstick
I had to go the hospital for colitis. I will need to "bowel" out of this for now..
Best wishes for a speedy recovery.
People who choose to brew up their own storms bitch loudest about the rain.
that is, the aliens have extracted the info they were lookin' for.
now, the jungle, zoo, failed experiment is running on it's own, fueled by the urth.
some say only the strong survive, others say the christians are in full control of events.
others who walk amongst us claim that a ton of folks don't have a soul whatsoever. no soul?
that would mean, according to some, we were dumped down here as assault troops to civilize things?
if our job is to save things, how are we doing so far? about half way in, and the results are somewhat uncertain?
Gus,,,, is it feasible biblical Adam actually arrived via a time displacement wormhole like the T-800...?...
T800s "A.I." shades that of biblical Adams intelligence by far .. Adam would be downright jelous that he got a fig leaf and unsaddled unicorn while T800 gets a set of fitted leathers and Harley..
-Bulletproof and Waterproof don't mean Idiotproof.
The odds are that if we are living in a created World - however unlikely - it's more probable to be one of countless Worlds being generated by a Super Civilization and Quantum computing than anything Supernatural.
recall the creationist -evangelist [Ray Comfort] who proclaimed that the everyday supermarket banana is ' proof' that God perfectly designs everything.
-Bulletproof and Waterproof don't mean Idiotproof.
