Does God Exist?

Which is only one point of view. The proper view is that sectional cults breaking away from the Church dilute the Christian power base and confuse the population and thus pave the way for secular interests to come to the fore with the only one possible agenda--scientific materialism.

They are, therefore, un-Christian because they are destructive of Christianity. As are all heresies by inner logic of a simple nature.

Trade Unions with any clout are monolithic organisations. It would suit employers down to the ground if there were 20 different unions representing teamsters.

Obviously, with Romeo attacking the Catholic Church as well as others, that is not his point. His point is personal I presume.

No mate, nothing definite because there are verses supporting both the material and non-material views.
Some Christian groups say it'll be on a new physical Earth, but others say it'll be a non-material realm in another dimension or plane of existence like a glorious golden "Soul Pool" where we become spiritual beings and merge with God and Jesus to become one, in the same way as a million separate raindrops fall into a lake and merge, losing their individuality to become one big lake.
All we know for sure is that wherever and whatever heaven is, it'll be Paradise..

Personally I lean towards the "non-material" camp due in part to verses like this one-
"So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable...it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body...flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor 15:42-50)

I appreciate your sharing Romeo,
Is it possible that heaven and the paradise are not one and the same?
Do you have a scriptural basis for tying the two together?

Lately I have viewing a Berkeley class on Darwin and evolution.

part 1

http://webcast.berkeley.edu/playlist#c,s,All,-XXv-cvA_iDsUmhP2fwRPE8LpsX_sCxc part two (This is a direct link.)


In what I have learned so far and what I hear from other biologists, there is clear and factual evidence that evolution of species occurred.

So there is reason to believe that God really had less to do with "forming us from the dust of the ground". Rather there is reason to believe that God needed to do nothing at all and the probability of life arising out of the soup of matter strewn about in this universe is evident.

So one must reach back earlier to find God...

It seems as wise as the holy books are they are still lacking in scientific fact and truth.

No God did not form humans from the dust of the ground and breathe life into our nostrils. The Earth did that for God and God just sat back and watched.

It took the Earth not seven days a but billions of years to become ready to host life. Someone might tell God that a day is 24 hours too if God wants to be on time.

Now physicists also say that the universe was here long before the earth. And they seem certain that the universe began with a big explosion (bang).

So then the question is, can we put God before the big explosion (bang) or did God just sit back and watch that too?

When the universe was first formed did God have to do anything to set that event into motion?

And physicists are perplexed as to what was before the big bang.

Well that is easy, there was energy captured in a small area before that energy was released and became the energy and mass of our universe.

So there must be a force that compresses energy and releases it in a circular manner. There are times when darkness is all there is and times when the universe is filled with life, times when there is a vacuum and times when there is a big bang.

Even this process can be set on autopilot and God does not need to even be involved and this process, it seems, would still go on without any divine intervention.

So one is then to ask, What exactly does God do?

Religion is certainly not the source of morality...

Morality evolved as humans became more socially connected it does not have anything to do with "sons of God" but it does have to do with social injustice. The story of Oedipus by Sophocles predates Christianity by almost 500 years and eludes to the abandonment of the Gods when it comes to the fate of humans.

Does God really care about us?

The words heaven and paradise seem to be interchangeable.
For example-
"Our Father which art in heaven" places God in heaven, and this verse places him in paradise which seems to be the same place-
"The tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God" (Revelation 2:7)

Indeed my friend, Revelation does mention the greek word paradeisos, meaning park or garden,"of" meaning belonging or related to and God, we know who he is, so the literal translation would be garden belonging to God.

Now this tree of life might be quite central to the answer, as we have heard of it before...

food for thought
Was the garden of eden also in heaven?
Would it have been possible for Adam to eat of the tree of life and live forever?

Romeo Fabulini. is an understanding kind of guy.

Or is he?

Beats me mate, anyway I don't read too much into the Eden story myself, I regard it simply as a warning tale about how Satan persuaded Adam and Eve into disobeying God and eating the fruit, and bingo! they found themselves in a world of hurt, a warning to us all.

so adam was a fictional character?

Romeo Fabulini wrote:


A warning to not listen to you?

Depends what you mean by fictional. Much of Genesis is written in metaphor and analogy in an attempt to put it into human terms, for example the talking snake stood for sly satan.
Maybe Adam and Eve were aliens or genetically-created humans placed here to seed the earth or whatever. This Twilight Zone episode explores the story-

See now you have me intrigued, I have not considered that before.

Is that your assertion or is it doctrinal to your belief? Can you back it with scripture?

Biblically speaking:

Those who inherit heaven have a distinction from those who will inherit paradise.

Paradise and heaven are the bride and bridegroom.

Paradise is almost always a place on earth.

I disagree.

That's true! I'm there now, and it's also called Hawaii.

I believe it depends on your mindset, state of mind, feelings, etc.

I ((personally)) don't believe there is such a place as paradise. To me it is all the same. Everywhere, no matter where. But say you say I 'must' consider some place a paradise. That would be in my bedroom on my bed. Preferably alone. Doing anything. But rather nothing. I don't understand why I like feeling sad. Depression has taken me over. Seriously consumed me. I like crying. Preferably on rainy days. I don't have to make a sound. I like that. I die each day. Within myself. I'm dieing slowly. I have problems. If I have diabetes. I'm sure. but I don't want to know. If I have cancer. I feel sure. but. I don't want to know. If I have aids or a killing virus within me I'm not doubting. but. I don't want to know. Someone wants to, [but] will in the future, kill me. I didn't want to know.

A few observations. First, I am not perfect. I have things that make me very sad too. Life cannot avoid that. For some things in life we need to respectfully be sad until we have grieved enough to move on.

I have heard of a thing called "confessing negatives".

I was once taught a story about confessing negatives.

The story is about a person who gets up every morning and looks in the mirror and says to themselves that they look terrible.

It is confessing a negative about themselves. Then they find another negative and another. They continue confessing negatives about themselves. We all do it and are not aware of it.

It is not enough to just stop confessing the negatives and to start confessing positives but I was taught in so many words that I needed to reverse the negatives.

So instead of getting up in the morning and saying in the mirror I look terrible to instead say, "Behold the glory of the lord!"

You may want to choose different words

Get tested.... Find out what is wrong and what you can do to change things that are vital to your health. Have hope for a quality life.

Reverse our very own negatives. Some we cannot reverse and we have to learn to live with them.

But a person doesn't need to get up every morning and say how terrible they are to themselves. These are things a person can reverse and change.

If a persons says to themselves "I am happy.", then they will "feel" the sensation of happiness.

If someone says to themselves, "I am sad and defeated" then they will "feel" defeated. Our hearts are, to some degree, a slave to our mind. So replace the thought. Some thoughts we cannot replace, they are too strong and primal, they are what makes us who we are.

What we think about, we feel...

I call them "doctrines".

I will never be successful
No one even likes me
I am a loser
The list goes on and on

Instead

I am successful
I am liked by people
I am a winner

doctrines and practices

some practices become doctrines

We as people sometimes practice being sad and eventually make a doctrine out of it. I am sad.

And if we simply replace the thought in the mind with its opposite counterpart (I am happy!) we will "feel" the opposite feeling.

We cannot always change our perspective because there are certain realities to our lives. In order to live peaceably and happy, people need to try and reverse as many negative confessions they say about themselves as they can.

dont hold your breath on an answer smiley, the minute he thinks someone is on to him he retreats until a more opportune time.

I'll answer for him. Any scripture that dispel his proclamations found outside the gospels are allegory, and probably made up by the devil. Any use of these scriptures to counter his prophecies are working against his god and henceforth you are going to hell.
*insert half of one scripture and half of another that when combined have some reference to point*
*declare scripture proof of point*
[img.] stupid picture [/img]
*gloat*

Ouch! You have really got Romeo's number, Dal! Right on the button.

Show us how this is true, Rex.