My problems with Reincarnation and Karma

[Alan McDougall]

My difficulties with the concepts of karma and reincarnation

 

 

REFUTING THE BELIEF IN KARMA

 

 

Karma is a belief that a person has to live many lives and improve in each until they become an ascended master and finally lose self-awareness into the mindless soup of the cosmic mind.

 

Alternatively, one chooses ones own next life from the spiritual plane in order to learn something in the next.

 

It is claimed by some variants of this illogical belief that one might have to live sometimes millions of lives before becoming perfect to escape the cycle of birth and rebirth and find enlightenment.

 

I believe this Karma is nonsense and will list my objections to this belief below:

 

1. The bible says it is appointed for a person once to live and then the judgment.

 

2. Karma says that a soul must live many mortal lives to reach perfection. Thus humanity undergoes must undergo many many incarnation from a bad human until one finally becomes an enlightened master.

 

One, nevertheless, must start out as a lowly life form such as a cockroach or garden Lilly and finally, after countless millions of years progress to become human

 

For the life of me how does a bad cockroach or garden Lilly become a "good cockroach or garden Lilly".

 

This belief if it where not so tragic would be very very funny indeed.

 

3. Karma says that if we have a weakness or fault in this life, we must return reborn, again and again and overcome our failings in the previous in the next life, or horrors upon horrors maybe revert to been a cockroach again. :shocked:

 

4. Therefore, any suffering we have to endure in this life, be it cancer, aids, all other sicknesses poverty, etc, etc is our own fault due to the evil or bad things we did in our past life. This is a cruel belief as many saintly people suffer and die in the most horrific manner. What soul would choose to be a Jew in the Second World War and see their beloved's torn from them in the holocaust and consumed in the ovens of Hitler's death camps?

 

5. the above paragraphs shows that Karma is nonsense, how can one so often be punished so terribly for something they do not even remember from a sinful forgotten past life. In my case I have had to endure a lifetime the unimaginable pain, horror, desolation of a sever mental illness. Is this the punishment for something I did in past life, that I have absolutely no recollection. (Manic Depression)

 

6. Another view favored by spiritualists and modern day channellers is that between lives we sit in some other dimensions and decide exactly what kind of life we choose be it beggar, rich person or what ever. Therefore, our fate is consciousnesly decided by ourselves, what nonsense.

 

7. What then about souls like Hitler, Stalin, Nero and the numerous depraved people on earth at the moment, did they deliberately choose a life of depraved evil and what they could learn by there wicked actions? They will degenerate further and further through each life as they are totally depraved without any redeeming good qualities what so ever. Surely, this type of person deserves judgment and eternal punishment, not escape into karma.

 

8. If we look at the out of control world population we see an exponential increase in the total world population, which is already a frightening 6.5 billion and growing faster and faster by the day. Where are all these people coming from? If karma is true, surely people should be reaching perfection and escaping the cycle of life and the worlds population decreasing. Not so?

 

9. Again, if karma is true we should be observing just the reverse. With more and more people becoming better and better and finally reaching enlightenment and escaping the relentless birth and rebirth with a subsequent decrease in the world population.

 

10. Although people are no more evil now than they were in the past (middle age horrors as an example), they are also no better, if we read our daily newspaper or listen to the news on the electronic media.

 

We just have to read up on the mechanized world wars of the past century and see the awful weapons humanity has developed and continue to develop to kill one another, with more and more sophisticated tools of death. Where is Karma in all of this?

 

11. Where are all the enlightened masters? There seems to me so few in these latter days. Please could one name just one living master for me?

 

12. A person I would call an enlightened master in present times would be mother Teresa and she did definitely not believe in the law of Karma but believed and practiced active love caring and charity nearly all the years of her long life.

 

13. If the law of karma is true, why are we still having more and more conflicts and wars all over the planet, instead of peace?

 

14. How then are the memories some claim come from past lives? I believe that locked up in our genes and encoded within the colossal D.N.A. molecule racial memories could be stored. Perhaps these ghosts of memories could perhaps leak into the conscious mind of some people who then believe they are remembering past lives.

 

15. Another fact that, has been proven, is forgotten childhood memories that are remembered in the case of trauma or under hypnoses.

 

16. My personal search for an explanation has shown not one indisputable past life memory in anyone. All could be explained rationally.

 

17. My own personal view on Karma and past life regression is that I hope this awful concept is not true. Who wants to live earthly mortal repeatedly?

 

Anyway, 99.999999999+++ of people just like me have no memories of past lives.

 

In addition, if I lived in the past and have no recollection of that life, the person I was then is truly dead.

 

18. I believe I exist now because years ago my beloved parents decided (Not me) to make love. I am sure I did not choose this life and am positive it is the only life I have ever had. What comes after, if anything remains an enigma to me and to everyone else on eat?

 

19. I therefore reject the concept of karma and reincarnation as potentially cruel false beliefs and nonsense to any logically rationally thinking person.

 

Alan

[Prometheus]

I would agree that it is extremely unlikely reincarnation exists in any form, or karma exists in the form you have defined, i just find it quite interesting that you have not explicitly cited a lack of evidence as one of your reasons for not believing.

 

Also, is this the hindu, buddhist, jain or new age concept of reincarnation?

[Alan McDougall]

I would agree that it is extremely unlikely reincarnation exists in any form, or karma exists in the form you have defined, i just find it quite interesting that you have not explicitly cited a lack of evidence as one of your reasons for not believing.

 

Also, is this the hindu, buddhist, jain or new age concept of reincarnation?

 

It reflects the core beliefs of all these religions, but there are minor differences and I did not want to make the post too long

 

I will come back with the lack of evidence although I did mention a few. Lets waite for the believers first to respond

[CaptainPanic]

What is the purpose of this thread? Are you trying to convince people (convert)? Maybe something else?

 

Also, do you think there might be a deeper moral to these religions, even though the superficial stories seem to be impossible to science? And if so, do you think that such a moral has a benefit to society compared to the situation without?

[immortal]

My difficulties with the concepts of karma and reincarnation

 

 

REFUTING THE BELIEF IN KARMA

 

 

Karma is a belief that a person has to live many lives and improve in each until they become an ascended master and finally lose self-awareness into the mindless soup of the cosmic mind.

 

Alternatively, one chooses ones own next life from the spiritual plane in order to learn something in the next.

 

It is claimed by some variants of this illogical belief that one might have to live sometimes millions of lives before becoming perfect to escape the cycle of birth and rebirth and find enlightenment.

 

I am not a believer, I hold a neutral position when it comes to religion and it is insignificant to my way of life.

 

I believe this Karma is nonsense and will list my objections to this belief below:

 

1. The bible says it is appointed for a person once to live and then the judgment.

 

It depends on how you interpret it and the kind of Gospels you refer to.

 

Reincarnation and Early Christians

 

Some believe that Jesus was a reincarnist.

 

4. Therefore, any suffering we have to endure in this life, be it cancer, aids, all other sicknesses poverty, etc, etc is our own fault due to the evil or bad things we did in our past life. This is a cruel belief as many saintly people suffer and die in the most horrific manner. What soul would choose to be a Jew in the Second World War and see their beloved's torn from them in the holocaust and consumed in the ovens of Hitler's death camps?

 

Well, the righteous and the innocent suffer more than the one's who are evil. Many religious scholars and even Elaine Pagels of the early christians say that these ancient people believed in predestination and didn't believed in free will so I don't think our suffering in this life has anything to do with the evils in our past life. Even if Karma exists it is accumulated in a pre-deterministic way. Everything should be in the protective care of God.

 

5. the above paragraphs shows that Karma is nonsense, how can one so often be punished so terribly for something they do not even remember from a sinful forgotten past life. In my case I have had to endure a lifetime the unimaginable pain, horror, desolation of a sever mental illness. Is this the punishment for something I did in past life, that I have absolutely no recollection. (Manic Depression)

 

I like to see it as a necessity that you had to suffer and not as a punishment for something you did in the past.

 

6. Another view favored by spiritualists and modern day channellers is that between lives we sit in some other dimensions and decide exactly what kind of life we choose be it beggar, rich person or what ever. Therefore, our fate is consciousnesly decided by ourselves, what nonsense.

 

That is nonsense and its not what the theory of Karma says according to it no one has the authority to chose the kind of body one can enter into. If that was possible why would people strive for freedom from bondage. The whole point of Karma is that we're not free and that we're subject to the forces of the numnious nature.

 

7. What then about souls like Hitler, Stalin, Nero and the numerous depraved people on earth at the moment, did they deliberately choose a life of depraved evil and what they could learn by there wicked actions? They will degenerate further and further through each life as they are totally depraved without any redeeming good qualities what so ever. Surely, this type of person deserves judgment and eternal punishment, not escape into karma.

 

All souls are equal in essence. I don't think Hitler's soul is any different from Mother theresa's. The soul doesn't have individual names only the body has.

 

8. If we look at the out of control world population we see an exponential increase in the total world population, which is already a frightening 6.5 billion and growing faster and faster by the day. Where are all these people coming from? If karma is true, surely people should be reaching perfection and escaping the cycle of life and the worlds population decreasing. Not so?

 

It is believed that the individual souls are created by the first-born God and he can create as much souls as he want, I don't think there is a finite constraint for that.

 

11. Where are all the enlightened masters? There seems to me so few in these latter days. Please could one name just one living master for me?

 

If there were enlightened masters, I mean free men, we should have seen the miracles of Jesus many times by now.

 

12. A person I would call an enlightened master in present times would be mother Teresa and she did definitely not believe in the law of Karma but believed and practiced active love caring and charity nearly all the years of her long life.

 

I rather prefer an objective test before to call someone as an enlightened master.

 

13. If the law of karma is true, why are we still having more and more conflicts and wars all over the planet, instead of peace?

 

I don't think everyone are prepared enough to be enlightened, well we don't know the dynamics or the requirement to be enlightened so there will be different kind of people with different natures.

 

14. How then are the memories some claim come from past lives? I believe that locked up in our genes and encoded within the colossal D.N.A. molecule racial memories could be stored. Perhaps these ghosts of memories could perhaps leak into the conscious mind of some people who then believe they are remembering past lives.

 

Yes, there could be other explanations and some might not be genuine and some might be very difficult to explain like the case studies of Stevenson's.

 

17. My own personal view on Karma and past life regression is that I hope this awful concept is not true. Who wants to live earthly mortal repeatedly?

 

The majority of the practioners of past life regression want or believe that reincarnation is true, lol.

 

Anyway, 99.999999999+++ of people just like me have no memories of past lives.

 

Well practioners claim that they can make anyone to experience their past lives and some even claimed to have talked with animals and plants. Weird.

[Prometheus]

Lets waite for the believers first to respond

 

Well, i'm a 'believer' in karma, of a kind. But i don't define karma in the same way you, or most, people do. Rather i think of karma as simply being volitional actions. An action, being a cause, has an effect. Thus the law of karma is the law of causality applied with free will.

 

 

 

[Jebus]

The last words I would ever use to describe mother teresa is, "enlightened master."

[Alan McDougall]

Immortal,

 

All souls are equal in essence. I don't think Hitler's soul is any different from Mother theresa's. The soul doesn't have individual names only the body has.

 

You made the above quote as it it were fact, maybe at birth Hitlers soul and Mother Teresa's souls were the same, but after death Hitlers soul due to his earthly actions, was blackened with hate, violence, depravity, darkness, murder, rape, war, genicide and the personal reponsibilty for the death of over 55 million people, who the heck can you equate the pure altruistic soul of Mother Teresa with that of possibily the most depraved evil monster of all human history?. Hitler is in Hell, and that is not wher MT is. Silly man!!

[JMJones0424]

You made the above quote as it it were fact, maybe at birth Hitlers soul and Mother Teresa's souls were the same, but after death Hitlers soul due to his earthly actions, was blackened with hate, violence, depravity, darkness, murder, rape, war, genicide and the personal reponsibilty for the death of over 55 million people, who the heck can you equate the pure altruistic soul of Mother Teresa with that of possibily the most depraved evil monster of all human history?. Hitler is in Hell, and that is not wher MT is. Silly man!!

 

Pot, meet kettle. There is no evidence for the existence of either the soul or of hell.

[immortal]

Immortal,

 

You made the above quote as it it were fact, maybe at birth Hitlers soul and Mother Teresa's souls were the same, but after death Hitlers soul due to his earthly actions, was blackened with hate, violence, depravity, darkness, murder, rape, war, genicide and the personal reponsibilty for the death of over 55 million people, who the heck can you equate the pure altruistic soul of Mother Teresa with that of possibily the most depraved evil monster of all human history?. Hitler is in Hell, and that is not wher MT is. Silly man!!

 

We are all Gods, sons of the Most High, made truly in the image of God. A prostitue, priest, pastor, black man, an evil monster, a righteous man are all equal in terms of divine. Whatever Hitler did he did it in ignorance and ignorance is respnosible for all evil on earth and whether a man is ignorant or an enlightened master is determined by the numinous nature and its wrong to put all the blame on Hitler. Yes he will be punished but it was all providence. The killings of Hitler was as much necessary as the care and love of Mother Theresa.

 

I can accept that his intellect might be blackened, his personal God which is his ego might be blackened, these are all archetypes or anthropomorphic Gods existing in all humans and they control all our actions, we don't have free will but I cannot accept that his soul is blackened, all souls are equal in essence whether it is of a prostitute's or of a high priest's. Christ resides in everyone. I'm an optimist and I think whatever is happening is necessary and it is for good.

[Abecedarian]

Reincarnation is illogical for a wide range of reasons, including those which you've listed in your opening post - and which you've done well to mention. My first thought, when we start discussing cockroaches and beetles, is whether the concept could be an early attempt to describe evolution? Religion, being what it is, it doesn't seem too hard to imagine that such an idea could be converted/ individualised into a spiritual 'penalty system' to encourage morality and good behaviour. Does that make sense?

Edited July 4, 2012 by Abecedarian

[Alan McDougall]

We are all Gods, sons of the Most High, made truly in the image of God. A prostitue, priest, pastor, black man, an evil monster, a righteous man are all equal in terms of divine. Whatever Hitler did he did it in ignorance and ignorance is respnosible for all evil on earth and whether a man is ignorant or an enlightened master is determined by the numinous nature and its wrong to put all the blame on Hitler. Yes he will be punished but it was all providence. The killings of Hitler was as much necessary as the care and love of Mother Theresa.

 

I can accept that his intellect might be blackened, his personal God which is his ego might be blackened, these are all archetypes or anthropomorphic Gods existing in all humans and they control all our actions, we don't have free will but I cannot accept that his soul is blackened, all souls are equal in essence whether it is of a prostitute's or of a high priest's. Christ resides in everyone. I'm an optimist and I think whatever is happening is necessary and it is for good.

 

How the heck can you say this as if it were fact, in my opinion just a lot of nonsense.I know and am no god and if Hitler is anything he is a little Satan

 

Pot, meet kettle. There is no evidence for the existence of either the soul or of hell.

 

Yes there is I know this from a personal beautiful near death experience, which was not a hallucination or ilussion

 

The last words I would ever use to describe mother teresa is, "enlightened master."

 

Descibe her then?

[imatfaal]

The last words I would ever use to describe mother teresa is, "enlightened master."

 

 

...

Descibe her then?

She was a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud, and a church that officially protects those who violate the innocent has given us another clear sign of where it truly stands on moral and ethical questions.

Mommie Dearest

The pope beatifies Mother Teresa, a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud.

[JMJones0424]

Pot, meet kettle. There is no evidence for the existence of either the soul or of hell.

Yes there is I know this from a personal beautiful near death experience, which was not a hallucination or ilussion

Why is your belief based on your unsupported and subjective experience a statement of fact, yet someone else's subjective experience and beliefs are nonsense? Is your criteria for determining if a statement is factual whether or not the statement agrees with your preconceived notions? You appear to me to be arguing that fairy tale A must be false because it does not agree with fairy tale B, which you know to be true.

[immortal]

How the heck can you say this as if it were fact, in my opinion just a lot of nonsense.I know and am no god and if Hitler is anything he is a little Satan

 

Perhaps you're ignorant of what all the enlightened masters like Jesus, Buddha and others of all major religions taught us. They taught about unity, that we are all made of one essence, made truly in the image of God, if we were not then man could not have become God. I can accept that Hitler's body and his character was evil but I cannot accept that Hitler's soul is not equal to Mother Theresa's.

 

Yes there is I know this from a personal beautiful near death experience, which was not a hallucination or ilussion.

 

Did you had a complete near death experience? Did you came back to life after a doctor declared you as dead? What evidence you have for that?

[Ben Banana]

Whatever Hitler did he did it in ignorance and ignorance is respnosible for all evil on earth and whether a man is ignorant or an enlightened master is determined by the numinous nature and its wrong to put all the blame on Hitler.

 

What did Hitler ignore? Was someone like you pestering him? You're not neutral. "Neutral" is like agnostic (although, of course, not exactly). You've refused a religious position, although you implicitly make one.

 

EDIT: Also known as ignorance. . . Ignorance of positions which are equally sincere. Also, please understand how ignorance is necessary, and you're a silly idealistic to call it absolute evil. Go become an enlightened master about how ignorance is fundamental, omniscience is impossible, and immortality is a terrible burden.

 

"Enlightened master," what a silly label.

Edited July 6, 2012 by Ben Bowen

[Alan McDougall]

Why is your belief based on your unsupported and subjective experience a statement of fact, yet someone else's subjective experience and beliefs are nonsense? Is your criteria for determining if a statement is factual whether or not the statement agrees with your preconceived notions? You appear to me to be arguing that fairy tale A must be false because it does not agree with fairy tale B, which you know to be true.

 

You are right it was subjective, nevertheless I have the right to believe what fairy tale I like without asking your permission!!

 

Perhaps you're ignorant of what all the enlightened masters like Jesus, Buddha and others of all major religions taught us. They taught about unity, that we are all made of one essence, made truly in the image of God, if we were not then man could not have become God. I can accept that Hitler's body and his character was evil but I cannot accept that Hitler's soul is not equal to Mother Theresa's.

 

 

 

Did you had a complete near death experience? Did you came back to life after a doctor declared you as dead? What evidence you have for that?

 

 

On the 18th August 2011 I died numerous times on the resuscitation table due to third stage AV heart block. I went through the whole drama of my heart stopping, flat lining over and over again, adrenaline, atropine were injected directly into my heart and the shock paddles first used and then chest depressions, used over and over again in a desperate effort to get my heart to beat again on its own and save my life.

 

I saw a beautiful pulsating orb of golden light that I took for Jesus as it emanated perfect peace and love. I had no tunnel and meeting of a being of light. I think because I was continually being resuscitated by the medical treeam

 

Each time I flatlined my consciousness I seemed to go way for a lifetime, but on the table only seconds passed. Time over here on earth does not flow like it does in the spiritual realm.

 

It took nearly three hours to install a tremporary pacemaker to maintain the pulse at 80 beats per/minute instead of the 5 to zero it had been beating/not beating on the resuscitation table. I was told by the doctor that I had been “really really dead”

 

I now have a permanent pacemaker in my chest which should last ten years and despite the great shock of the event I am feelling very alive and well.

 

There was much more to this but that is a summary of what happened a year ago now.

[immortal]

What did Hitler ignore?

 

He didn't ignore anything. He was ignorant of his own divine nature and the divine nature of all of humanity and thought that their race was superior than others and called it the Hitler's Master Race and this ignorance was the reason for the killing of innocent lives.

 

Was someone like you pestering him?

 

Do you have anything interesting to say?

 

You're not neutral. "Neutral" is like agnostic (although, of course, not exactly). You've refused a religious position, although you implicitly make one.

 

Agnostic is the belief that the existence of God cannot be known, that cannot be a neutral position as there are many sects who believe that existence of God can be known. If I was arguing for a particular religion then you can term me as religious but I'm not arguing for a particular religion and dismissing other religions as false. I hardly do idol worship and I won't do anything if it doesn't look rational to me or without understanding something or fall blindly.

 

A neutral position is to have both the theistic mindset and the atheistic mindset as modules or worldview in your brain. I really don't care which worldview turns out to be wrong.

 

EDIT: Also known as ignorance. . . Ignorance of positions which are equally sincere. Also, please understand how ignorance is necessary, and you're a silly idealistic to call it absolute evil.

 

A growing number of scholars and philosophers are discussing and recognizing this worldview in Religion and theology journals and the worth of such papers are measured in dollars and just because someone like you call it silly it doesn't change anything.

 

 

Go become an enlightened master about how ignorance is fundamental, omniscience is impossible, and immortality is a terrible burden.

 

Why not? If you take a top down approach to the origin of our cosmos where you have to know only one thing to know about everything that is there to know, it is not so impossible.

 

Immortality is the point of life, I think, otherwise life as no meaning.

 

"Enlightened master," what a silly label.

 

I didn't invoked that term, the original poster did.

 

On the 18th August 2011 I died numerous times on the resuscitation table due to third stage AV heart block. I went through the whole drama of my heart stopping, flat lining over and over again, adrenaline, atropine were injected directly into my heart and the shock paddles first used and then chest depressions, used over and over again in a desperate effort to get my heart to beat again on its own and save my life.

 

I saw a beautiful pulsating orb of golden light that I took for Jesus as it emanated perfect peace and love. I had no tunnel and meeting of a being of light. I think because I was continually being resuscitated by the medical treeam

 

Each time I flatlined my consciousness I seemed to go way for a lifetime, but on the table only seconds passed. Time over here on earth does not flow like it does in the spiritual realm.

 

It took nearly three hours to install a tremporary pacemaker to maintain the pulse at 80 beats per/minute instead of the 5 to zero it had been beating/not beating on the resuscitation table. I was told by the doctor that I had been "really really dead"

 

I now have a permanent pacemaker in my chest which should last ten years and despite the great shock of the event I am feelling very alive and well.

 

There was much more to this but that is a summary of what happened a year ago now.

 

Its normal to have such experiences when one is under medication or when one is being subjected to a high dosage of medical drug and these experiences can be easily explained by one or the other types of epileptic seizures - Types of seizures. There is no need to invoke a supernatural explanation.

 

I was once under high dosage of Deriphyllin and experienced a form of complex focal seizure and it felt like if I had slept that day I would never wake up again. Neurologists term this as a partial near death experience.

 

Complex focal seizures

Complex focal seizures (CFS) affect more of the brain than simple focal seizures. The person’s consciousness is affected and they may be confused and not know what they are doing. They might wander around, behave strangely, pick up objects or make chewing movements with their mouth. Afterwards, they be confused for a while or need to sleep. CFS can last a few seconds or a few minutes.

 

How to help:

 

do not restrain the person as this may upset or confuse them;

gently guide them away from any danger (such as walking into the road)

speak gently and calmly as they may be confused. If you speak loudly or grab them they might not understand and get upset or respond aggressively.

 

After the seizure:

they may feel tired and want to sleep. It might be helpful to remind them where they are;

stay with them until they recover and can safely return to what they had been doing before. Some people recover quickly but others may take longer to feel back to normal again.

 

---

 

You can believe in whatever you want but you cannot objectively convince everyone with your subjective claims.

 

A complete near-death experience should be of this type -

 

In 1975, Dannion Brinkley was speaking on the telephone during a thunderstorm. A lightning bolt hit the phone line, sending thousands of volts of electricity through his head and body. His heart stopped and at the hospital, he was pronounced dead, and a death certificate was issued. He was then covered with a sheet and wheeled towards the morgue….then he woke up! He had been dead for 28 minutes, and this was the longest clinically documented near-death experience ever recorded at that time.

 

Then we can investigate it objectively.

[Ben Banana]

He didn't ignore anything. He was ignorant of his own divine nature

Well said. But, really, divine nature? Has that been manifested to anybody; Hitler? Claiming divine nature sounds pretty ignorant.

 

Do you have anything interesting to say?

Interesting enough to not be ignored. Thanks for the reply.

 

If I was arguing for a particular religion then you can term me as religious but I'm not arguing for a particular religion and dismissing other religions as false.

Explicit classification, especially with religion, doesn't work well.

 

A neutral position is to have both the theistic mindset and the atheistic mindset as modules or worldview in your brain. I really don't care which worldview turns out to be wrong.

I already understand your position to some degree. Ah... I would expect one who is neutral to have the same ideology as another who is neutral. Otherwise they take a distinguishable position.

 

I hardly do idol worship and I won't do anything if it doesn't look rational to me or without understanding something or fall blindly.

That's irrelevant, but I see why you're insisting neutrality.

 

If you take a top down approach to the origin of our cosmos where you have to know only one thing to know about everything that is there to know, it is not so impossible.

Ah. You've already failed. That's not purely "omniscience," anyway. Its like having a library of all knowledge. Even if you have the capacity to contain all of that knowledge at a single moment (fully accessed), it means nothing without distinction and distribution. This has relation to mortality. Mortals are unified neither by time or space. That's useful, actually.

 

I have more to say, but I must sleep now.

Edited July 6, 2012 by Ben Bowen

[immortal]

Well said. But, really, divine nature? Has that been manifested to anybody; Hitler? Claiming divine nature sounds pretty ignorant.

 

Yes, to many of them through out the human history across different cultures. Its an argument from religious experience.

 

Professor Marts Vanucci says "It is illogical to test the validity of ancient knowledge with XX century methods and techniques. Statements should be assessed in the context of the level of culture and language of the time when they were expressed"

 

If you test religious scriptures like the way Daniel Dennet does when he says that Why does God doesn't talk about mathematics in his scriptures? then obviously religion sounds like a ridiculous ideology, a silly idea. But when you assess those scriptures with the view that they are not talking about the empirical reality but a numinous one then it makes some sense and has lot of wisdom in it and more importantly it questions our basic notions of reality.

 

Ah. You've already failed. That's not purely "omniscience," anyway. Its like having a library of all knowledge. Even if you have the capacity to contain all of that knowledge at a single moment (fully accessed), it means nothing without distinction and distribution. This has relation to mortality. Mortals are unified neither by time or space. That's useful, actually.

 

More than immortality and omniscience what is important to me is the question do religious ideas have any basis in reality? Omniscience is just an inevitable consequence if religion is right since majority of the content in religious scriptures is only about immortality, birth and rebirth.

 

I have more to say, but I must sleep now.

 

Good night.

[Alan McDougall]

Immortal,

 

It is difficult to try and debate with a God like you, I am only a little finite being that pales in comparison to your exalted awesomeness

Edited July 7, 2012 by Alan McDougall

[immortal]

Immortal,

 

It is difficult to try and debate with a God like you, I am only a little finite being that pales in comparison to your exalted awesomeness

 

Ah, No, that's not what most religions say. We all are gods .