i have questions...

[onlyme26]

ok... i wasnt sure where to post this, and i can assure you i aint taking the mickey,

im 28 i have a nice family, 2 kids, nice home, good job, and live a pretty average/normal life, and then lately i cant stop thinking about really weord stuff, i would LOVE to know the answers to these questions.....
1. is there really a god? i mean i grew up believing the mary and joseph story, but is that all it is a story?? i mean if i believe in heaven surely i should believe in hell, and if i believe in god i must believe in the hell, you cant believe in one and not the other, i dont wanna believe in gthe devil!!!

2. do ghosts really exist? have people really seen them??

3. why do we dream?

4. what is way beyond pluto?


i have all this swimming roundin my head! never been bothered before but i have been watching to much supernatural me thinks!!!!

[WaldoMcFroog]

I would imagine most people in Bacon's time would have shared his view that on the basis of the evidence, belief was rational.

I don't know if you noticed, Skyplus, but that was FOUR HUNDRED YEARS AGO...

[naomi24]

1. Nobody knows, but I have my doubts. If there is a God, in my opinion, it can't possibly be the bloke we currently endow with that title. I don't really understand why you say you 'should' believe anything in particular. Why? Because someone else told you it exists? Are you sure you should believe him?

2. Yes and yes. I have no idea what they are though, or how it works.

3. Because when we are asleep our brain isn't.

4. The rest of the cosmos.

[onlyme26]

hi naomi24
i wasnt saying i "should" believe in god, i was saying that if you choose to believe in one (god) then realisticly you would believe in the other ( the devil) same with heaven and hell, i mean i always believed there was heaven, but i dont wanna think that people go to hell aswell, course you can believe in one without the other i guess, there is nothing to stop you, i just wanted peoples opinions on what they believed. xx

[naomi24]

Sorry onlyme, I misunderstood your question. I think you'll find there are many people who see a bigger picture and believe that a mightier power exists, but nevertheless discount entirely the concept of hell - and possibly the concept of heaven too - even though they may believe the soul survives death. However, their 'God' (for want of a better title) isn't the one you'll find in the bible/koran. That one built his reputation on that terrible word 'sin', and on the notion of eternal punishment in retribution. :o)

[jake-the-peg]

If you believe in one God you have to believe in the devil

Really? Why?

You might as well say that if you believe in one God you may as well believe in dozens

Seems to me there are a lot of problems with the Christian idea of the Devil (note the muslim view of satan is very different).

Not least God creating him in full knowledge of his future actions.

Perhaps if you believe in Santa you have to believe in the Boogey man too?

[naomi24]

Jake, I assumed she said that because she was brought up in the Christian culture, and therefore the two go hand in hand ..... so to speak. ;o)

(Onlyme, you are a 'she' aren't you?).

[jake-the-peg]

I'm not sure that that's true.

Ideas about the devil have varied quite widely between Christian sects and through time.

The Satan of the New Testament is a very long way away from the lurid Denis Wheatley image. Then you have the garden of Eden Devil - or is it a talking snake? and the bizaare images of the apocalypse.

So I'm not convinced that the devil is a necessity of all Christian culture - just certain ones.

The Cathar image was interesting - they were a dualist sect who saw the entire world as created and ruled by the Devil and only by rejecting it could you reunite with a rather distant (somewhat disinterested) God

[jno]

jake, I think the devil exists in most if not all Christian teachings, and the notion of humanity pulled between good and evil is very widespread even among non-believers (just look at posts in AB News, where many seem convinced that 11-year-old killers are irredeemably evil). But estimates of his power vary considerably. The Cathars saw him as very powerful. Most modern Christians (ordinary worshippers rather than the Pope) seem, as far as I can see, not very bothered by him at all, let alone in fear of him.

Other religions, particularly those with a variety of deities (eg Rome or India), seem to get along without big-time devils though they may allow for minor demons and badly behaved gods.

[naomi24]

Jake, I think it's fair to say the Devil is portrayed as a baddie wherever you find him - even in the guise of a snake. (Incidentally, I've been reading about the Cathars again recently. Interesting).

[mibn2cweus]

To understand what is out there you have to take into account what is inside of you, the means by which we perceive the world and bring meaning and coherency to our experience. Essential to the process of determining what we know is the understanding of how we know, that is, learning to differentiate between conjecture and conclusion, beliefs and knowledge, dreams and consciousness, imagination and reality.

Many people have been taught to believe that knowledge is simply the accumulation of facts. But facts are of little use until they have been related to the self-evident of personal experience. Nature has provided us with the tools to conceive the nature of the heavens, but we must first learn how to use them, to relate what we think to what we know, to organise our thoughts conceptually into units of thought that we can grasp and retain bringing the heavens down to earth and within our intellectual reach.

[mibn2cweus]

Much of the confusion which has plagued human understanding for millennia stems from a lack of understanding of the nature of consciousness, from whence it arises and the means by which it becomes manifest. Once you’ve learned to relate consciousness to the mind which makes conscious thought possible, the possibility of gods and ghosts evaporates along with the allusions and misguided imagination that allows for the possibility of their existence. It is only in recent years that we are now able to observe first hand the correlation and interdependence between consciousness and the complex processes of a highly developed and evolved organism, the human brain.

The pinnacle of consciousness is reason, the application of logic (non-contradictory identification) to conscious experience. Reason is the cause and enabler of our existence as human beings and subsequently the reason for our existence, to bring to and derive from the universe a reason for its existence as much as our own, to comprehend our mutual existence and bring meaning to and a purpose for the existence of both, to know our place among the stars which provided the raw material of our existence and to which we give thanks by our acknowledgement to and understanding of our mutual importance to an otherwise incomprehensible and meaningless universe.