@Foxfyre,
Foxfyre wrote:
Not so long ago I was reading about a 'near death' experience in which the person passed over for a time and then returned to his earthly body. He reports that the people on the other side--that God--were not interested in his theology.
I think he was speaking the truth whether it actually happened to him or whether he dreamed it. I think God gets to call the shots on this stuff and our quite imperfect attempts to nail down what is and is not acceptable to God are often going to widely miss the mark.
All this is to say, that in my studies, it has been my impression that all religions have discovered something of truth, but none are perfect or complete so far as we mere mortals understand them, and I suspect none of us can claim the magic bullet to the exclusion of all others.
For me personally, Christianity is not a 'religion' with a set of rules and rituals and dogma that must be practiced or believed, but it is the experience of and relationship with the living Christ. For me that is certainty and I believe life changing for all who have experienced it, and I think that is why God does want people to know Him in that way.
But, I have also experienced that God indeed works in mysterious ways, and probably has a whole lot of ways to work things out with people.
And that's why I think we are instructed that it is not our prerogative to judge who has made the cut.
In one of the books of Raymond Moody, M.D.,
a friend of mine, he tells of a southern Protestant clergyman
who was revived after having died of a heart attack.
He had been a fierce Bible thumper who habitually
and severely threatened his congregation.
After his revival, he said that he was surprized that God
was not interested in his theology. He became more serene and benign.
Some decedents have described Life Review Experiences
wherein not only did thay feel (again) their own experiences
of interactions with others, but thay also felt their effects
upon the others, to wit:
one Tom Sawyer asserted that during a Life Review Experience,
he observed and felt the incident of an inter-vehicular collision
wherein he repeatedly slugged the other motorist in the mouth,
in the expression of his sentiments qua that occasion.
Tom said that in his Life Review Experience, he felt not only
the pain in his own hand, but
also that of his victim.
Attesteth he: that was not enuf. He said that he felt the remote
emotional pain of persons who were not present at the time
nor place of the occurrance, such that Tom felt the derivative sadness
of Junior who did not get a bike for his birthday because Dad
had to deplete available re$ource$ for a dental emergency.
Dr. Moody refers to this as a secondary "ripple effect".
From this, I extrapolated that it might be wise (and fun)
to go around committing unexpected R.A.S.K.s (random acts
of senseless kindness) like begifting unexpecting beautiful
waitresses with $100.oo tips, or unexpectedly begifting friends
with automatic umbrellas stuffed with $20s, $50s, $100s bills,
or just books with $100.oo bills included as bookmarks, etc;
creative unexpected gifts, that in time u yourself will re-experience.
Some folks who have returned from death
(meaning no EKG, no EEG, no respiration for a while)
have reported intuiting that all life, e.g.: the frantic medical personnel
who r reviving them, the tree growing across the street etc.
share the same life, and that the diversity of life is illusionary;
i.e., the acccurate number of people alive in the universe is
ONE.
Some believe that to a solitary Eternal Being,
the only threat is boredom
David
