Ben57 said:
Hello Quahom,
Thank you for relying to me.
First may I ask if I now understand what you were saying? Correct me if I am still not your track with your thoughts.
From the area highlited bellow ....
I think you are saying that I dissmised ther idea of a loving God wanting to look after his children... namely us humans. Is that what you were saying?
Based on my understanding of your words let me say please that I most certainly do beleive in a loving imortal God wanting only the best for his children ... us. That is why Jesus came to earth and ramsomed his life for us.
From that I understand that you are saying I it is unreasonable for me to talk about something I do not belive in? NOw I am not sure just as to what beleif you are refering too but read on and I hope I will clarify myself.
Yes I fully agree with you that most people seem to have some idea of a here after. That is part of the aspect behind the rich man and LAzarus account that Jesus spoke of, and the question as to if he really meant a here after or not.
I take my beleife system from the Bible and I appreciate that there are other beleif sytems that are not related to the Bible. I think part of the confution is this
Notice the word have and the way I highlited it! Well I do not beleive we have either a mortal nor imortal soul/spirt. I do not beleive the Bible teaches that subject. I beleive that the Bible teaches that each one of us individulayy are souls so we do not have (as a distinct part of us) a soul, we are the soul. That is the reason I stated in my earlier post
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By the way I presented my discution, you evidently felt that I "... douse the flame of hidden hope in humans that there is more than here and now "
I appologise that I gave that impression, but at the time I was concentrating on the idea of what Jesus was meaning when he spoke of the rich man and Lazarus, and because that discution was so long I did not have the room to include extra detail.
That can be the topic of another discution if you like. What is Gods purpose for us if not to go and be with our creator for eternity? I personaly beleive that Gods perpose is for man to live on erath as humans without dieing, and that being the case there is a sure hope for us just not in heaven
Good Evening Ben,
There is a difference between having something and being something, on this we agree. And I suppose that in your first post, had you continued your orginal thought (that of not having a soul, but being the soul...),then you would have taken the wind out of my sails. I must agree with you that we (our essence, the Us in this body) is soul, not that we have one.
We have a body, we have a mind, we are the spirit/soul, therefore you are right, we can't Have a soul, because we are the soul. But I still say that we are immortal, that us as souls are immortal.
Now some one (maybe it was you), said that the soul can only be or maintain immortality as long as it remains faithful. But I say the soul is born immortal, and perhaps, just perhaps can lose the immortality by deciding to have no faith. But that decision would not be made (if it were true) until after the soul left this physical realm.
Your beginning of your arguement, and the end of it (in your original post), reminds me of math student who skips writing down certain steps when working out an equation. The answer at the end may be right, but how can the reader tell without those steps in place? You may have figured them out in your head, and tried to shorten the length of writing to get to your main point, but because we don't know what steps lead you to your original hypothesis, we're left scratching our heads, and can only go by what we see before us.
Now, I know you do not believe in hell fire (or argued against it), are you implying that there is no consequence at all?, or just that there is no eternal fire? If your argument is that there is no consequence at all, then what is the purpose of trying to be decent, and finding faith, and treating others with respect? If your arguement is there is no hell fire, then what is the consequence for living a life holding faith in nothing, or worse, acting on evil impulse and harming self and others?
Again, the Lazuras/richman parable, holds far deeper meaning than its surface reveals:
You can't take it with you
You can't take it back
You can't warn others
You can't make amends
You can't order or conjoule your way out of it
You can't start again
You can't find comfort or solace
You can't stop the misery
You can't forget
You can't die (cease to exist)
If it is alright with you Ben, let's start again. Maybe hell fire is the fire of hatred, self loathing, anger, anguish, rage, fury, visciousness, that every failed human has, pooled into one spot, that the damned can never get away from.
v/r
Q