Ghosts, Time Travel, and Space / Inter-dimensional Neural Communication...

[Fading Fast]

^^^I just love that we still don't fully understand gravity - we are still debating its working and its causes. Even though we know what "it" does and can accurately measure its effect, we still debate how "it" works.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Speculation about what transpires in the Great Beyond really has more to do with Dante than the Bible for most folks, anyway.

That's truer than most people will ever realize -- between Dante and "Faust" we got the modern concept of hell. That and the label on the can of Underwood's Deviled Ham.

"Come on, you knowwwwwwwww you want it! So what if it's treif?"

(Seriously, though -- ain't the Boys something? Still early in their evolution, and they'd already signed Satan T. Devil hisself to an endorsement contract.)

The Hebrews had no concept of a "hell" -- they had "Sheol," which was merely "the grave," not a place where horned, forked-tailed fellows in red tights danced around jabbing you with pitchforks. There's quite a bit of contradiction in the New Testament, too, with most of the "literal hellfire" arguments coming down to how one chooses to interpret the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus -- which, if we take it literally, states that hell exists *within full sight* of heaven, and that it's possible for those in one place to clearly communicate with the other. Which is something that would strike any person with an ounce of compassion to be utterly hideous -- whose idea of paradise would be sitting back and watching other people roasting alive for all eternity? Cockfighters? Dogfighters? Bear-baiters? Gladiator fans? Cable news viewers? If that's the kind of people they're letting in, include me out.

Although I was raised a Methodist, I never bought the idea of hellfire -- and Methodists of the northeastern sort don't go in much for fire and brimstone anyway, we were always much more Social Creed Methodists. I always reasoned that a normal human parent would never punish a disobedient child by torturing that child for all time -- a normal human being would find that a horrifying, disgusting, revolting idea no matter how disobedient the kid was. And that human being would have a higher moral standard than a god who would set out literal "eternal torment" as a possible future for his children.

 

[HudsonHawk]

As a good Southern Baptist, hellfire and brimstone were as real as the nose on your face. Roasting on an open pit for eternity was your fate. If there was a reason to give up the drinking, dancing and playing of cards, that was it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yeah, we were strict Prohibitionists -- but it wasn't hellfire that scared us, it was the disapproving glare of the W. S. C. S. ladies. Lucifer himself would've shriveled up with shame.

 

[Fading Fast]

Being scared of my dad was all I needed to stay pretty straight. When I was a kid, hell, Dante's Inferno, afterlife, blah, blah, blah was all "out there" somewhere, maybe, but cross my dad and he was real and in front of me. Eternal damnation was esoteric, dad was real.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Yeah, we were strict Prohibitionists -- but it wasn't hellfire that scared us, it was the disapproving glare of the W. S. C. S. ladies. Lucifer himself would've shriveled up with shame.

And that raised yet ANOTHER tangent: the idea that "Lucifer" (Which isn't a Hebrew word at all: its root is Latin.) and "Satan" are the same guy. Not in the text of the Bible.. at all! The concept originated in the Second Century C.E.

 

[Benny Holiday]

That's spot-on about the concept of hell, Lizzie, stolen from the idea of the Greek underworld and used by the Medieval church to make money from people in the form of 'indulgences', money paid to the church to supposedly get a dead loved one out of suffering in 'hell' earlier. Makes so sense in context of the rest of the Bible.

As to Biblical authenticity, the only way to reasonably settle the issue is with the same sort of bibliographic tests applied to other ancient texts, like Caesar's writings or Homer's Iliad. The earliest of about 24,000 ancient manuscripts existing of the New Testament (NT scholar Dan Wallace states there are 5,824 in the original Greek) is the John Rylands papyrus fragment of the Book of John, dated to roughly 125 AD. If we compare this to other works of antiquity:

Author Date Written Earliest Manuscript Time Span No. of Manuscripts
Caesar 100–44 BC AD 900 1,000 yrs 10
Plato 427–347 BC AD 900 1,200 yrs 7
Thucydides 460–400 BC AD 900 1,300 yrs 8
Tacitus AD 100 AD 1100 1,000 yrs 20
Suetonius AD 75–160 AD 950 800 yrs 8
Homer (Iliad) 900 BC 400 BC 500 yrs 643
New Testament AD 40–100 AD 125 25–50 yrs 24,000+

By applying the tightest standards scholars can muster, the New Testament we have today comes across as a trustworthy copy of the original. Scholar F Bruce (1919-1990) wrote in 1956 that
“The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no-one dreams of questioning. And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt.”

Given that we have a trustworthy copy of the original, can we say that the original itself is trustworthy? Liberal scholars usually argue that the gospels were written long after the events they claim to record. They typically date Mark between AD 65–75, Matthew mid 80s, Luke and Acts between 83–90 and John about the turn of the first century. So with a time gap of 35–75 years, there is allegedly no chance that the gospels are reliable records.

However, there are cogent arguments by J.A.T. Robinson (1919–1983), who was a liberal and Bishop of Woolwich, for redating the gospels to between AD 40 and 65. If Robinson is right, the gospels were written in the lifetimes of people who knew Jesus personally (~6 BC – AD ~30 for His earthly lifetime). Matthew and Luke record Jesus’ prophecy of Jerusalem’s downfall and the destruction of the Temple (Matthew 24:2, Luke 21:20-24) but do not record its fulfilment in AD 70. Matthew, especially, would not have failed to record yet another fulfilled prophecy if he had written after the event. Acts, written by Luke after he wrote his gospel, mentions neither the fall of Jerusalem, the horrific persecutions under Nero (mid 60s)—although other persecutions are mentioned—nor the martyrdoms of James (61), Paul (64) and Peter (65), so it was probably written before then.

Swedish scholar Birger Gerhardsson has shown that the canonical gospels drew on a collective communal memory made strong by the oral teaching methods of the time. These techniques would have enabled ‘very accurate communication between Jesus and his followers’ and would have ensured “excellent semantic recall”.

So Jesus’ disciples would have been very capable of recording His statements accurately, and they give evidence of having done so honestly. For example, they admit certain facts which forgers probably would have left out (e.g. the cowardice of the disciples, the competition for high places within the Kingdom, Peter’s denial, the failure of Jesus to work many miracles in His hometown of Galilee (because of their unbelief—Matthew 13:58, Mark 6:6), references to accusations against His sanity and parentage, and that He didn’t know the timing of His return.

If the gospels were written by church communities (as many skeptics argue) instead of the four evangelists, it is likely that they would have tried to solve their problems by putting solutions into the mouth of Christ. But the gospels do not mention some of the controversies of the early church (e.g. circumcision), but record things quite irrelevant to a mainly gentile church, such as Christ’s being sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 10:5-6). Thus the internal evidence points to the gospels being written before many of the Church’s problems arose.

Paul wrote even earlier: the summary of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15 was written in c. AD 55, but Paul says he is reminding them of something he preached to them about 15 years earlier. Therefore Paul records a tradition which was well established within a decade of Jesus’s death.

As for Einstein . . . that guy was a genius.

 

[sheeplady]

So

That's spot-on about the concept of hell, Lizzie, stolen from the idea of the Greek underworld and used by the Medieval church to make money from people in the form of 'indulgences', money paid to the church to supposedly get a dead loved one out of suffering in 'hell' earlier. Makes so sense in context of the rest of the Bible.

As to Biblical authenticity, the only way to reasonably settle the issue is with the same sort of bibliographic tests applied to other ancient texts, like Caesar's writings or Homer's Iliad. The earliest of about 24,000 ancient manuscripts existing of the New Testament (NT scholar Dan Wallace states there are 5,824 in the original Greek) is the John Rylands papyrus fragment of the Book of John, dated to roughly 125 AD. If we compare this to other works of antiquity:

Author Date Written Earliest Manuscript Time Span No. of Manuscripts
Caesar 100–44 BC AD 900 1,000 yrs 10
Plato 427–347 BC AD 900 1,200 yrs 7
Thucydides 460–400 BC AD 900 1,300 yrs 8
Tacitus AD 100 AD 1100 1,000 yrs 20
Suetonius AD 75–160 AD 950 800 yrs 8
Homer (Iliad) 900 BC 400 BC 500 yrs 643
New Testament AD 40–100 AD 125 25–50 yrs 24,000+

By applying the tightest standards scholars can muster, the New Testament we have today comes across as a trustworthy copy of the original. Scholar F Bruce (1919-1990) wrote in 1956 that
“The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no-one dreams of questioning. And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt.”

Given that we have a trustworthy copy of the original, can we say that the original itself is trustworthy? Liberal scholars usually argue that the gospels were written long after the events they claim to record. They typically date Mark between AD 65–75, Matthew mid 80s, Luke and Acts between 83–90 and John about the turn of the first century. So with a time gap of 35–75 years, there is allegedly no chance that the gospels are reliable records.

However, there are cogent arguments by J.A.T. Robinson (1919–1983), who was a liberal and Bishop of Woolwich, for redating the gospels to between AD 40 and 65. If Robinson is right, the gospels were written in the lifetimes of people who knew Jesus personally (~6 BC – AD ~30 for His earthly lifetime). Matthew and Luke record Jesus’ prophecy of Jerusalem’s downfall and the destruction of the Temple (Matthew 24:2, Luke 21:20-24) but do not record its fulfilment in AD 70. Matthew, especially, would not have failed to record yet another fulfilled prophecy if he had written after the event. Acts, written by Luke after he wrote his gospel, mentions neither the fall of Jerusalem, the horrific persecutions under Nero (mid 60s)—although other persecutions are mentioned—nor the martyrdoms of James (61), Paul (64) and Peter (65), so it was probably written before then.

Swedish scholar Birger Gerhardsson has shown that the canonical gospels drew on a collective communal memory made strong by the oral teaching methods of the time. These techniques would have enabled ‘very accurate communication between Jesus and his followers’ and would have ensured “excellent semantic recall”.

So Jesus’ disciples would have been very capable of recording His statements accurately, and they give evidence of having done so honestly. For example, they admit certain facts which forgers probably would have left out (e.g. the cowardice of the disciples, the competition for high places within the Kingdom, Peter’s denial, the failure of Jesus to work many miracles in His hometown of Galilee (because of their unbelief—Matthew 13:58, Mark 6:6), references to accusations against His sanity and parentage, and that He didn’t know the timing of His return.

If the gospels were written by church communities (as many skeptics argue) instead of the four evangelists, it is likely that they would have tried to solve their problems by putting solutions into the mouth of Christ. But the gospels do not mention some of the controversies of the early church (e.g. circumcision), but record things quite irrelevant to a mainly gentile church, such as Christ’s being sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 10:5-6). Thus the internal evidence points to the gospels being written before many of the Church’s problems arose.

Paul wrote even earlier: the summary of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15 was written in c. AD 55, but Paul says he is reminding them of something he preached to them about 15 years earlier. Therefore Paul records a tradition which was well established within a decade of Jesus’s death.

As for Einstein . . . that guy was a genius.

So, I don't actively have a horse in this race, but *even* if the scriptures were in large part written by those who personally witnessed many of the events they wrote about, it is very true that even an accurate account can differ vastly from person to person, let alone when our memory of events long ago becomes involved.

 

[Benny Holiday]

Agreed Sheeplady. I find it fascinating simply because there are a great range of books, by a great range of authors, written over an enormous period of time that meld and come together on a variety of topics that just makes sense to me. Bottom line is, you need faith to believe, but is it just blind faith, or does what we see in the world add up from what is to be learned from those books? In my personal case, and I'm simply writing from my personal case, it does. In a nutshell, those combined books talk about human struggle in the midst of a war between two opposing factions, good and evil, love and hate, light and dark, selfishness and self-sacrifice. From my perspective, they jibe with what I see and what I've experienced in life. Why are we the only creatures on this world with such higher intelligence? Where does the information in DNA come from? How could a single cell, with its irreducible complexities, arise by chance? Why do we age and die? Why, if death is a natural part of life, do we mourn over it? And so on and so on, the answers I find there make sense to me.

There is, too, a built-in desire within people to worship. Some people worship money, others social status, political power, or sports or music stars. Poor old Elvis and Michael Jackson are good examples of what happens when we set mortal people up as gods; it never works out good.

Anyway, lots of different ideas and opinions coming out here. I'm just passing on the bits I've discovered, which interest me but may not others.

 

[Zombie_61]

I certainly have to say, with an open mind, yes....we may not fully know the journey into life after death until we open that door....for me however, I have faith there will be something of a door to open and lots of loved ones waiting there. As my Husband states, he would be fairly ticked off to merely be "worm food material" when that time comes. And as much as he has been a fighter most of his life, his health is slowly bringing him to a day when he will be looking to open that door to heaven.

Well, that's the thing--in most cases believing in an afterlife in some form does no one any harm. And if it turns out that we merely become worm food when the body ceases to function, our consciousness will end as well and we'll never know it (or care, for that matter).

As a good Southern Baptist, hellfire and brimstone were as real as the nose on your face. Roasting on an open pit for eternity was your fate. If there was a reason to give up the drinking, dancing and playing of cards, that was it.

This is one of the issues I have with the way some of the "Western" religions present their beliefs--they manipulate their followers into behaving themselves through fear. "Love and worship Me and Me alone, and do as I say or I'll make you suffer forever!" It makes God sound like a vindictive 14-year-old schoolgirl with a crush.

 

[GHT]

This is one of the issues I have with the way some of the "Western" religions present their beliefs--they manipulate their followers into behaving themselves through fear. "Love and worship Me and Me alone, and do as I say or I'll make you suffer forever!" It makes God sound like a vindictive 14-year-old schoolgirl with a crush.

That's pretty much the way I was educated. Irish priests who taught you that God is love with the aid of a foot long, lead filled, double sided, leather strap. Of course God exists, of course God is love, of course, of course, of course. Anything you say Father! We were even told to sleep with our hands clasped in prayer. ( You couldn't play with your dick if you had your hands clasped in prayer.)

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Some say that being free of the body is then existing in the consciousness/mind of Christ. Also that hell, hell fire has perhaps a simple comparison to an embarrassing act being revealed. Such as getting caught in the act of stealing, deceiving, etc. A decision that we may 'decide' to commit and then confronted with what we finally cannot deny. Our temperature rises, face heats up, and turns red from the guilt as we have betrayed the ideal. However, now, we can go on to rectify that wrong and possibly learn from it.
Imagine the possibility of, one day, facing the perfect ideal, yet have never learned from what we are actually doing to ourselves. Causing our own ultimate torment as we may be in the presence of complete truth with the offenses we bear, not only to ourselves, but also deep remorse that a door of escape had, indeed, been opened that we always refused to enter because surely our intellectual ego could cover it all instead. Resulting in extreme 'embarrassment' of thinking we (ourselves) could handle separation from the essential love that could lead to our final downfall that we accomplished all by ourselves (free will, ya know). That regret.. remorseful self conscious realization that we failed of our own stubborn resistance that led us past the warning and into our own finale of burning guilt of no way out. Otherwise..the hell of that decision of excluding ourselves and finding there is absolutely no one else to blame.
HD

 

[Edward]

As for the afterlife itself, I'm extremely willing to be open-minded about whether it exists, and what it would be like if it does exist. If we were intended to know, or if it was worth knowing for us to know, a loving God would have made sure to tell us, explicitly and clearly, and with no symbolic obfuscation, what it would be like and what would be there. That we haven't been so told suggests to me that such foreknowledge is of no consequence. We'll find out when we get there.

Funny thing. One of the main criticisms I hear made of religion these days is that it is rooted in man's fear of death. I guess things are different for everyone, but in all honesty, while the older I get, the more my faith matters to me personally, equally, I findd that in my early forties now, in all likelihood well past the halfway point, with less time left than I've had, I find myself increasingly indifferent to the idea of an afterlife. It would be very nice indeed to see some people I miss, others from history hom I'd love a chance to meet, and such, but it's really just not enormously important to me any more.

That said, if I wind up in Heaven and my cats aren't there, I'll be less than impressed.

 

[sheeplady]

Funny thing. One of the main criticisms I hear made of religion these days is that it is rooted in man's fear of death. I guess things are different for everyone, but in all honesty, while the older I get, the more my faith matters to me personally, equally, I findd that in my early forties now, in all likelihood well past the halfway point, with less time left than I've had, I find myself increasingly indifferent to the idea of an afterlife. It would be very nice indeed to see some people I miss, others from history hom I'd love a chance to meet, and such, but it's really just not enormously important to me any more.

That said, if I wind up in Heaven and my cats aren't there, I'll be less than impressed.

Having been told I would mostly likely die long before now when I was diagnosed with cancer, I have to say I never feared dying. Leaving my children and husband at a disadvantage and sad over my death did and does bother me.

I also remembering being wistfull I would not see the finale of several TV shows or use up all of my fabric stash if I died. So, um, yeah. Being dead in the ground doesn't bother me, but not seeing the end of Downton Abbey does.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's kind of the way I look at it -- I'm more worried about what'll happen to my island-of-misfit-toys ad-hoc family at the theatre after I go than I am about my own eternal destiny. And, of course, my cat, who is kind of a misfit-toy herself, and would be unlikely to be happy in another home.

I think a lot about my own mortality. My grandmother, after whom I take physically, died at 69. That's sixteen years away for me, which in the grand scheme of things is not very long at all. I'm in better health than she was, certainly, and I've never sabotaged myself with tobacco the way she did, but You Never Know. I worked with a guy in radio who was a health nut, .01 percent body fat, ran ten miles a day, all that -- and he dropped dead at 46 from an aneurysm he never knew he had. The older I get the more conscious I am of the fact that something could cut me down at any moment and I might never know what hit me.

I do not, however, want to end up like my mother, who has outlived nearly everyone she ever really cared about. I think that would be a fate worse than death.

 

[GHT]

That said, if I wind up in Heaven and my cats aren't there, I'll be less than impressed.

I'm with you on that one Edward, what kind of heaven is it that you can't love a pussy?

I also remembering being wistfull I would not see the finale of several TV shows or use up all of my fabric stash if I died. So, um, yeah. Being dead in the ground doesn't bother me, but not seeing the end of Downton Abbey does.

You can 'see' it from the other side, just don't snuck back on here and post a spoiler. Your contribution is far to valuable for you to consider popping off earlier than planned, so stick around, there's a good girl.

I think a lot about my own mortality. My grandmother, after whom I take physically, died at 69. That's sixteen years away for me, which in the grand scheme of things is not very long at all. I'm in better health than she was, certainly, and I've never sabotaged myself with tobacco the way she did, but You Never Know. I worked with a guy in radio who was a health nut, .01 percent body fat, ran ten miles a day, all that -- and he dropped dead at 46 from an aneurysm he never knew he had. The older I get the more conscious I am of the fact that something could cut me down at any moment and I might never know what hit me.

In the grand scheme of things Lizzie our whole lives, and by that I mean those who can survive to 99 not out, is not very long at all. Death for me is like those who regale us with their war time reminisces. the bullet that killed their comrades, their buddies and their shipmates was never going to get them, and it didn't. Those who died felt the same, but they can't reminisce. Death won't happen to me, until it does, but then I won't be able to hear, I told you so. For me at least, the biggest fear, if that's the right word, of death, is fear of the unknown.

 

[Trenchfriend]

I'm 31 and often thought about cancer and nutrition, the last two years. More and more middle-aged are dying, in my relationship too, and their +/-80's-parents are alive.

And the interesting thing is, that medicine more and more seems to be confirm, that to be a flexitarian is probably the best way to go.
Genetic diseases are not known, in my direct family-line. But I think, I must not anyhow provoke anything. So, just discipline remains, I think.

And there is another thing:
Since my childhood, I was noticing again and again, how many actors or other people from showbiz are gone, and so often cancer was named. The thing about stress, alcohol, tobacco and bad nutrition. The body goes to be sour. If it's permanently, the tissue will get sick, very fast. Sick tissue desperates and starts growing the tumors. Cancer....

And yes, over the years of noticing, I was realizing, that now there are more than a few mid-50s/mid-60s around, looking 15 years older and more than a few mid-70s/mid-80s, looking 15 years younger.
Kirk Douglas is an good old man, but Michael is exactly that old, now.

I'm going on, fondling all nice kittys and not having stress with any exhausting girls.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

I'm going on, fondling all nice kittys and not having stress with any exhausting girls.

Fondling all nice girls & not having stress with any exhausting kittys..................that's much better.

 

[Zombie_61]

...That said, if I wind up in Heaven and my cats aren't there, I'll be less than impressed.

Hear, hear!

...I also remembering being wistfull I would not see the finale of several TV shows or use up all of my fabric stash if I died. So, um, yeah. Being dead in the ground doesn't bother me, but not seeing the end of Downton Abbey does.

When I was in grade school we took a field trip to see and hear author Ray Bradbury speak at a local college. Among many other things, he spoke of seeing the trailer for Fantasia when he was in his late teens, and said from that moment on he lived in constant fear of being hit by a car or bus and dying before he saw the movie.

 

[2jakes]

In my late teens in the military,
the constant fear of dying or as GHT pointed out, the unknown.

The realization that there was humans out there trying their best to end me.
And that I was there for the same purpose.


Nowadays, my concern is that there won’t be any tennis courts in Heaven.

Or...if there are tennis courts, but no tennis balls...

now that would be hell.