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Infinitely Powerful

Sigh. You guys have it all wrong.

There is another plane merely 6 feet above the Earth which is the "Other Side." That's where we go when we die. Consequently, that's why we can see "ghosts" because they are people who are bleeding over into our world who don't realize they are dead.

We hang around the Other Side until we feel we need to rejoin Earth again. We choose what lessons we want to learn in this lifetime which will help us round out our souls. Then we are reborn.

God, don't ANY of you read Sylvia Brown?

<cricket....cricket...>
 
Bri said:
Although this discussion is getting completely off-topic, I understand your difficulties with these beliefs. Of course, that doesn't make any of them impossible.
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Nor is it impossible to win the lottery 52 weeks in a row. One must therefore make personal decisions as to whether or not a claim is truly valid and not just possible.

I would guess that those who hold these sorts of belief see humanity is something larger than the individual, and see death as a returning to humanity. Of course, some find the idea of reincarnation to be comforting, as it allows you (at least your soul) to live again after death, even if you don't remember your previous life.
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Then I would again argue that this new person is not you, since there is no closer a connection between you and him compared to you and me.

My point was simply that we cannot assume that we have free will in heaven, at least not in the same way that many theists believe that we have it on earth. Of course, if you find that disturbing, you would probably find it particularly disturbing that there is no evidence that we actually have free will here on earth either, and in fact most scientific evidence would indicate otherwise.
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If you read my posts you will see that I do in fact question free will here on Earth among humans. But that does not mean that lacking it in heaven equals the same thinking processes one has here on Earth -- and I doubt if anyone can prove otherwise. Any major change in that process is no longer the person one was. If I am said to be in Heaven, then I must be what I perceived myself as here on Earth.
 
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bruto said:
It's obvious that free will is not entirely compromised by possession of good information. I contend that free will would still be possible with a somewhat more obvious presence of God on earth.
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This is a fair point, but I don't think you can equate knowing for a fact that God exists and "good information." When you were in gradeschool, did you feel as free to shoot spitballs at the blackboard when the teacher was watching as when s/he left the room? You have to admit if you knew for a fact that God was watching you at every moment, you would probably act differently, right? You might even be so overwhelmed with his presence that you wouldn't be able to do anything at all.

So if God wants us to take responsibility for actions made of our own free will, it might make sense that he wouldn't make himself known to the world. It is certainly possible that in order to meet his goals, God would have to maintain a balance somewhere between us not knowing about God at all and us knowing about God for certain.

-Bri
 
Just thinking said:
But that does not mean that lacking it in heaven equals the same thinking processes one has here on Earth -- and I doubt if anyone can prove otherwise. Any major change in that process is no longer the person one was.
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Agreed. Of course, if you don't believe in heaven, then after you're dead you're just worm food -- definitely not the same person that you were when alive. I'm not sure why you would find that any more comforting. At any rate, this is a topic for another thread.

-Bri
 
Bri said:
Agreed. Of course, if you don't believe in heaven, then after you're dead you're just worm food -- definitely not the same person that you were when alive. I'm not sure why you would find that any more comforting.
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I would find it more comforting than believing in an existance I described earlier -- post 285.
 
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Bri said:
This is a fair point, but I don't think you can equate knowing for a fact that God exists and "good information." When you were in gradeschool, did you feel as free to shoot spitballs at the blackboard when the teacher was watching as when s/he left the room? You have to admit if you knew for a fact that God was watching you at every moment, you would probably act differently, right? You might even be so overwhelmed with his presence that you wouldn't be able to do anything at all.

So if God wants us to take responsibility for actions made of our own free will, it might make sense that he wouldn't make himself known to the world. It is certainly possible that in order to meet his goals, God would have to maintain a balance somewhere between us not knowing about God at all and us knowing about God for certain.

-Bri
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BAd analogy, I think. We knew there was a teacher and we knew the rules. We were then free to assume the risk of disobeying the rules, and although we couldn't be sure of the consequences without testing them or seeing the results when someone else tested them, we were well enough informed to make an informed choice. I'm not talking about God watching everything, necessarily, but if as some people suggest, the penalty for guessing wrong is eternal hellfire, a penalty nobody can confirm, I think it's reasonable to expect better information. I'm talking about even a reasonable first-hand assurance that there is a God.
 
Bri said:
Agreed. Of course, if you don't believe in heaven, then after you're dead you're just worm food -- definitely not the same person that you were when alive. I'm not sure why you would find that any more comforting. At any rate, this is a topic for another thread.

-Bri
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Sounds to me like the reason people believe in heaven is to be comforted. And I have no problem being worm food.

But if you want to split this to another topic, I concur.
 
Tricky said:
Sounds to me like the reason people believe in heaven is to be comforted. And I have no problem being worm food.

But if you want to split this to another topic, I concur.
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Yes that is certainly possible, although that wasn't really the point. I was simply responding to another poster who was lamenting the possibility that there is no free will in heaven because it would mean that he would be different than he is here on earth. I'm just wondering what the alternative might be. In order for us to be exactly the same in heaven as we are on earth, heaven would have to be the same as earth. In that case, we might be in heaven right now!

It's definitely off-topic though.

-Bri
 
sphenisc said:
Wow, are you going to be embarrassed when you re-read that post....

;)
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Yes, a failed and embarrassing attempt at brevity. But I thought I'd leave it for your enjoyment.

Hopefully, Just Thinking realizes that I meant that the post to which he was referring doesn't appear to be the one he meant (since post 258 seems to have been written by me and not by him). I'm guessing that specific posts cannot be referenced by number or else Just Thinking was mistaken about the post number he was referencing.

I sure hope that clarifies it!

-Bri
 
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Why do believers believe in God being infinitely powerful.

You ask the question of Why is it necessary, for the believers, to go along with God being infinitely powerful?
That is because the mind needs to know that they are not alone in this life and that an invisible presence of power that cannot be seen by the enemy will take care of them at any given moment. People like to know that they run with the masses and to believe along with the masses in a powerful God and it is like belonging to an elite club where you are accepted and looked after as long as you accept what you are told, and believe and pay your dues every week.
It is necessary for the believers to believe in the theory, for to not believe will throw them in a form of chaos, and disrupted thoughts.
God has taken on many forms and names over the centuries, Isis, Ray (Ra) Diana, Abraham, Isaak, Joshua, Buddha, Yehua, the cross, Jesus, the Bible etc. At the present moment it is debatable whether christians worship Jesus, the human made Bible, or the red pouring blood that poured out of the human person Jesus. Hard to tell, which is worshipped the most, seeing all the bibles and red colors and Jesus churches that abound. Each is equally thought to be most infinitely powerful. In truth, none of these things are infinite or powerful. I can only assume that the word God means Nature and Nature can be very powerful indeed and yes, it is invisible, but also visible only through nature's effects on the visible.
 
Bri said:
Agreed. Of course, if you don't believe in heaven, then after you're dead you're just worm food -- definitely not the same person that you were when alive. I'm not sure why you would find that any more comforting. At any rate, this is a topic for another thread.
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What we find comforting is of no consequence, no ?

Bri said:
Although this discussion is getting completely off-topic, I understand your difficulties with these beliefs. Of course, that doesn't make any of them impossible.
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If they are self-contradictory, yes. And some of them are.
 
Bri said:
Yes, a failed and embarrassing attempt at brevity. But I thought I'd leave it for your enjoyment.

Hopefully, Just Thinking realizes that I meant that the post to which he was referring doesn't appear to be the one he meant (since post 258 seems to have been written by me and not by him). I'm guessing that specific posts cannot be referenced by number or else Just Thinking was mistaken about the post number he was referencing.

I sure hope that clarifies it!

-Bri
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Okay you've taken this far enough..

Just Thinking referred to post 285 , that's 2..8..5.

You checked post 258, that's 2..5..8.
 
sphenisc said:
Okay you've taken this far enough..

Just Thinking referred to post 285 , that's 2..8..5.

You checked post 258, that's 2..5..8.
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Thank you for not allowing this to continue...

Now I'm really embarrassed!

-Bri
 
Renee Rynn said:
You ask the question of Why is it necessary, for the believers, to go along with God being infinitely powerful?
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If we in fact lived in The Matrix, all God would need to do is pull the plug. It's as simple as that.
 
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Iacchus said:
If we in fact lived in The Matrix, all God would need to do is pull the plug. It's as simple as that.
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Well, actually it's my question from post No. 1 ... but I don't see your Matrix analogy. Does it require God to be infinitely powerful to destroy what He created? I can destroy what I create, to the point of it no longer being what it was ... does that make me infinitely powerful? Certainly not. Besides, what proof is there that it requires infinite power to create the universe? If God could have created two universes (or five or a million), then creating one required less power than the multiple creations --- and less of anything is less than infinite.
 
Just thinking said:
Well, actually it's my question from post No. 1 ... but I don't see your Matrix analogy. Does it require God to be infinitely powerful to destroy what He created? I can destroy what I create, to the point of it no longer being what it was ... does that make me infinitely powerful? Certainly not.
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And if God pulls the plug and everything vanishes? He certainly would have had infinite power over us. Beyond that, however, I'm not sure we can describe who or, what God is. In which case I think the question becomes moot at this point.
 
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Iacchus said:
And if God pulls the plug and everything vanishes? He certainly would have had infinite power over us. Beyond that, however, I'm not sure we can describe who or, what God is. In which case I think the question becomes moot at this point.
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Not really.

A great deal of power ≠ infinite power (omnipotent -- a commonly accepted and proclaimed qualifiier).
 
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