Gelisgesti wrote:snood wrote:Gelisgesti wrote:Quote:So Satan has as much to do with an afterlife as does football?
Your question stipulates a belief in an afterlife. Assuming the properties of an afterlife would, to some degree, be influenced by the passions of this and prior lives. Ergo, to attain the most accurate answer, ask a deceased football hall of famer.
Yeah, okay - makes perfect sense to me...... really...<backing slowly away>... honest - I think you're really on to something there....
Then your question was mere sophistry and your response to my answer ad hominem in nature based on intelectual bigotry ... or just intelectually deficent?
...as opposed to your suggestion to consult dead people, which was a failed attempt at irony, or simply idiotic?
Kara wrote:Quote:Passage being the semantical equivalent of 'die' ... metamorphosis would also apply. Judgement is ongoing
I like that, D.
Thx B., it gives a glance inward with a scent of preordained fate.
snood wrote:Gelisgesti wrote:snood wrote:Gelisgesti wrote:Quote:So Satan has as much to do with an afterlife as does football?
Your question stipulates a belief in an afterlife. Assuming the properties of an afterlife would, to some degree, be influenced by the passions of this and prior lives. Ergo, to attain the most accurate answer, ask a deceased football hall of famer.
Yeah, okay - makes perfect sense to me...... really...<backing slowly away>... honest - I think you're really on to something there....
Then your question was mere sophistry and your response to my answer ad hominem in nature based on intelectual bigotry ... or just intelectually deficent?
...as opposed to your suggestion to consult dead people, which was a failed attempt at irony, or simply idiotic?
It was your question .... your stipulation of an afterlife ... and your apparent inability to assimilate the given answer ... that is so not my problem.
Gelisgesti wrote:snood wrote:Gelisgesti wrote:snood wrote:Gelisgesti wrote:Quote:So Satan has as much to do with an afterlife as does football?
Your question stipulates a belief in an afterlife. Assuming the properties of an afterlife would, to some degree, be influenced by the passions of this and prior lives. Ergo, to attain the most accurate answer, ask a deceased football hall of famer.
Yeah, okay - makes perfect sense to me...... really...<backing slowly away>... honest - I think you're really on to something there....
Then your question was mere sophistry and your response to my answer ad hominem in nature based on intelectual bigotry ... or just intelectually deficent?
...as opposed to your suggestion to consult dead people, which was a failed attempt at irony, or simply idiotic?
It was your question .... your stipulation of an afterlife ... and your apparent inability to assimilate the given answer ... that is so not my problem.
...and it was your glib answer to a question posed to someone else that began this exchange.
Quote:it gives a glance inward with a scent of preordained fate.
I understood what you wrote in the earlier post. I am not sure I am on the same page with you here. Are you speaking of the Hindu vision, with life rolled out as a carpet with us seeing only our portion as it is revealed?
<<BTW how are you?>>
snood wrote:Gelisgesti wrote:snood wrote:Gelisgesti wrote:Quote:So Satan has as much to do with an afterlife as does football?
Your question stipulates a belief in an afterlife. Assuming the properties of an afterlife would, to some degree, be influenced by the passions of this and prior lives. Ergo, to attain the most accurate answer, ask a deceased football hall of famer.
Yeah, okay - makes perfect sense to me...... really...<backing>... honest - I think you're really on to something there....
Then your question was mere sophistry and your response to my answer ad hominem in nature based on intelectual bigotry ... or just intelectually deficent?
...as opposed to your suggestion to consult dead people, which was a failed attempt at irony, or simply idiotic?
I suppose that would make all that pray to jesus or saints idiotic as well.
Kara wrote:Quote:it gives a glance inward with a scent of preordained fate.
I understood what you wrote in the earlier post. I am not sure I am on the same page with you here. Are you speaking of the Hindu vision, with life rolled out as a carpet with us seeing only our portion as it is revealed?
<<BTW how are you?>>
Morning B. If you plant corn ... you get corn, eventually. Caterpillars pass into butterflys ... and so on and so forth. I find it untenable to believe that the old man is the product of a baby. Life is more mysterious than that .... wrinkled and bald to wrinkled and bald. So we all (with maybe the exception of Snood
)glance inward ... ongoing judgement ....and each to discover a preordained .... adult (insert prefered euphemism here)
Doktor S wrote:snood wrote:Gelisgesti wrote:snood wrote:Gelisgesti wrote:Quote:So Satan has as much to do with an afterlife as does football?
Your question stipulates a belief in an afterlife. Assuming the properties of an afterlife would, to some degree, be influenced by the passions of this and prior lives. Ergo, to attain the most accurate answer, ask a deceased football hall of famer.
Yeah, okay - makes perfect sense to me...... really...<backing>... honest - I think you're really on to something there....
Then your question was mere sophistry and your response to my answer ad hominem in nature based on intelectual bigotry ... or just intelectually deficent?
...as opposed to your suggestion to consult dead people, which was a failed attempt at irony, or simply idiotic?
I suppose that would make all that pray to jesus or saints idiotic as well.
Only if they hold deceased baseball players in the same esteem as Jesus or their chosen saints. And why are you bothering to add your two cents here, but not when I ask you for your description of Satan?
Quote:
Only if they hold deceased baseball players in the same esteem as Jesus or their chosen saints.
You didn't add that qualifier to your original statement. Why is it idiotic to consult with certain dead people and not others?
Seem's a little arbitrary.
Quote:
And why are you bothering to add your two cents here, but not when I ask you for your description of Satan?
Perhap's because this has a little something to do with the discussion topic, while the other did not?
Seem's arbitrary? Yeah, I see what you're saying. Jesus and Jim thorpe hold about as much significance in people's lives and minds.
Satan has nothing to do with discussions of an afterlife? How do you figure that? There are millions of people whose belief system instructs them to avoid him during this life and the next, so my question to you, about defining what he is to you, is clearly relevant, and stands just as I stated it. You're the one zigging and zagging. Why not just offer up a straight answer?
and let me clear something up. It's not that I "care so much" about you, or your bent beliefs, that I keep asking. It's because I hate a phoney, puffed up, fetish-worshipping, voodoo and incantation shrouded bunch of animal sacrificing hogwash looney tunes mysticism trying to pass itself off as a sensible and practical way of thinking and living - like Satanism.
So here's your chance to say a few words about who Satan is to you. I know who he is, to me.
In our enlightened, secular society the mention of Satan usually draws questioning glances. "Can't you take responsibility for your own actions?" "Don't tell me you still believe in a devil?" We haven't heard much about the Devil since the string of popular Exorcist movies in the 1970's. The Bible doesn't get a lot of airtime either but the Bible is the source of information on the Devil. Let's start with Jesus and see what he had to say on the subject.
In Matthew's Gospel, chapter 13, Jesus preached the parable of the weeds. The Disciples wanted to know what it meant. Jesus had these things to say about the Devil in explaining that teaching: He is the Evil One. He is the enemy. Evil men are his sons. He sows weeds among the wheat. (Matthew 13: 38-39) Matthew also quotes Jesus as saying that Satan has a kingdom (12:26) and another name: Beelzebul (12:28). Later on while Jesus is teaching about the Final Judgement he says: "Away to the eternal fire, which has been prepared for the Devil and his angels". (25:41) Satan has angels with him and eternal fire is his destiny.
In Luke's Gospel Jesus "saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven". (10:18) He talked about a woman "whom Satan has kept in bonds for eighteen years." (13:16) Jesus told Peter that "Satan has received permission to test all of you." (22:31) Satan needs permission to test us.
John records Jesus describing the Devil as "the prince of this world" (12:31, 14:30). Jesus said, "You are the children of your father, the Devil, and you want to follow your father's desires. From the very beginning he was a murderer and has never been on the side of truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he is only doing what is natural to him, because he is a liar and the father of all lies." (John 8: 44)
It is clear from the Gospel accounts that Jesus believed in a literal, real adversary called Satan or Beelzebul. Did the other New Testament writers write about the Devil? Matthew, Mark, Luke and John continued to teach on this subject even when not quoting their Lord. John, who also wrote the Revelation, has a lot to say about how Satan meets his end. He talks about "Satan, that deceived the whole world. He was thrown down to earth, and all his angels with him." (Rev. 12: 9) Michael and his army of angels defeat Satan (the dragon, the ancient serpent) (Rev. 12: 7-9)
John's reference to the ancient serpent can only mean the serpent in the Garden of Eden. (Genesis 3: 1-20) The crafty serpent laid the bait and Adam and Eve bit it. The Devil makes an appearance in the Book of Job (Job 1:6-12; 2:1-10) and torments Job. He caused Job's troubles and had God's permission to do it. Satan wanted to make trouble for King David and he "made David decide to take a census" (1 Chronicles 21:1). In the Old Testament too, Satan was real and affected people's lives and their decisions.
The writers of the New Testament letters also had a great respect for the Devil. Paul wrote in 2nd Corinthians to "keep Satan from getting the upper hand over us" (2Cor. 2:11), "their minds have been kept in the dark by the evil god of this world." (2Cor.4: 4), "Even Satan can disguise himself to look like an angel of light." (2Cor.11: 14)
In Ephesians, the same apostle declares about Satan, "the ruler of the spiritual powers in space, the spirit who now controls the people who disobey God." (Eph.2: 2) and "Put on all the armor that God gives you, so that you will be able to stand up against the Devil's evil tricks. For we are not fighting against human beings but against the wicked spiritual forces in the heavenly world, the rulers, authorities and cosmic powers of this dark age." (Eph. 6: 11-12)
James and Peter also wrote about the Devil in their letters. James said "Resist the Devil and he will run away from you." (James 4: 7) Peter wrote "Your enemy, the Devil, roams around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Be firm in your faith and resist him." (1 Peter 5: 8-9)
According to the whole Bible, there is an adversary called Satan. His presence is consistently mentioned from Genesis to Revelation. He tries to upset God's plans but he seems to be tethered and can only go as far as God allows. Satan has the power to test us and tempt us but we have the option to resist. (See James 4: 7)
Bible quotations from: Good News Bible, CBS, 1992
Death is the last great experience of life. In the not knowing it is easiest to fear, to run from rather than to embrace this final act of what has been a truly great play. A lifetime of loves had and lost, of the divine, the ugly the beauty of a full moon on the ocean, the dramas we get involved in over the course of our lives. Or perhaps THIS is just a dream and very soon we will awake to realize we were only dreaming.
Well, I have not ventured my opinion on this thread, as yet. My post is in no way intended to answer what others have posted, but to simply state, "This is how I see it." You are all welcome to hold whatever opinions you choose, and no offence to me if we contradict one another.
I like Babs' version of a few posts back. Myself, I loath death, because I relish life too much to willingly give in to it. In my hardcore atheistic view, death is the surcease of the individual, irrevokably and forever. All that survives is that which we pass on through biology, though it's everchanging and dilutes away from one life to the next. As we were, pre-birth, so we become, post death. Better make this life a good one.
Quote:I find it untenable to believe that the old man is the product of a baby. Life is more mysterious than that ...
Ge, why do you find that hard to believe? Man is an animal, and we are born, age, and die. Do you mean that the essence, the learned and stored wisdom, of the old man could not have come from the baby? A fertilized and implanted egg has the potential to become that baby and then that old man.
Kipling wrote:
They will come back.
Come back again.
As long as the red Earth rolls,
He never wasted a leaf or a tree.
Do you think He would squander souls?
Now, that's what is mysterious and wonderful to contemplate.
Babs, as always you have wisdom to pass on.
You are SO SO right Edgar. I adore so much about life except for the fact that every single day is spent taking pain meds to be able to walk, to be able to function and now to find out that I have bone marrow cancer... it is like WHY would I go through all the agony of chemo (and which someone in my already immunocompromised state, because of my rheumatoid arthritis, would probably never survive) with just the very slightest of chances to hang on *(and chemo hanging on is NOT living, not to me. ) I helped my Dad and I saw enough for me. It did not one thing for his cancer but it made him deathly sick, destroyed his lungs and he could never taste food again - one of his great joys IN life. I can simply chose Chinese medicine and accupuncture ( thank God for my niece ) which is very non invasive and all I ask is the best life expectancy I can get and to be able to ENJOY those days, those months or whatever time they tell me they THINK that I might have and not to suffer.
I am certain that nothing is certain. I cry for my love of the moon on the ocean at night, for the gentle sound of a stream when I'm camping in a tent in the Smoky Mtn Natl Park. The agony I feel for my 9 year old grandson who will never be able to understand why I am not here & with whom I am his 2nd mother. He and his mom came back from Maui and have lived here for most of his life - her one brief marriage aside...and now she has a live in boyfriend at the current time, who also has a son for about 9 months now. He's a Leo and I'm an Aries & so is my best friend since we were only 12 years old who lives nearby in St Augustine, Charlotte.
Jade is my son too. It breaks my heart but I have to believe and I want his mother and everyone else to simply tell him ONLY that Barbara has gone to FOREVER, and that she will be waiting there for him, watching over him, and always loving him. I am crying. There is so much beauty that I hate the idea of leaving it. Frida Kahlo once said, "May my leaving be joyous and may I never return." I liked that.
I never cared for Kahlo before until you wrote:
"May my leaving be joyous and may I never return." I liked that.
I like that too!
I have the power to control time and through such control I can relive my destiny as I see fit.
As a backup, I've put my left testicle in the deep freeze and recorded all my brain waves on 8 track tapes so that I can be reconstructed in an emergency.
