A3

Hi Corona688,
First of all, my internet connection is screwed-up but I'll try.
The overall difference is that when we die we are who we are and that and only that determines "where" we go. As I understand it, the system is set up so that we have all the freedom in the world to shape ourselves into whatever makes us happy, and then we 'have to live with it' to eternity. There is no carrot that I can see other than, if you make yourselve like the right people you will be one of them and spend till eternity with them. What makes people in heaven happy and the people in hell less happy is that they life with people just like them. But in order to develop how we want to develop humans need the freedom to do so. As you can see around you, we can do anything we want.
Most people are totally ignorant of the spiritual world and that is too bad because 'the better you know the rules, the better you can play the game.
Regards
Adriaan

Corona688

Fair enough. Hope your prob gets fixed.

So if you're good, you get to spend eternity with nice people, and if you don't, you burn in hell. How is this not classical 'carrot and stick'? And how do you know there is any system at all?


What about the children that die at birth, and never get a chance to shape themselves into anything?

And no, we CAN'T do anything we want. We have these things called 'laws', 'social interaction', 'laws of physics' and stuff like that.

Lastly, you say this is eternal. Yet we have only a finite amount of time to shape ourselves into proper God-fearing sheep, else face the punishment of hell for eternity. Infinite punishment for a finite crime does not jive with the idea of a loving gawd.

I've yet to see any evidence - any evidence at all - that would convince someone that doesn't already believe. If this spirit world exists, show it to me! C'mon, this is your big chance! Open mind right here. Show me something, anything!

Can't?

Why am I not suprised.

[ December 17, 2002: Message edited by: Corona688 ]</p>

A3

Hi Corona688
-----------------------------------------------------
“A: The overall difference is that when we die we are who we are and that and only that determines "where" we go. As I understand it, the system is set up so that we have all the freedom in the world to shape ourselves into whatever makes us happy, and then we 'have to live with it' to eternity. There is no carrot that I can see other than, if you make yourselve like the right people you will be one of them and spend till eternity with them.”

C688: So if you're good, you get to spend eternity with nice people, and if you don't, you burn in hell. How is this not classical 'carrot and stick'? And how do you know there is any system at all?
-----------------------
A: You keep going back to this (literally!) burning in hell. There is no physical burning in a physical fire because hell is not a physical place. What remains from us after death is our spirit and our spirit is what we love. With some people all there is, is a burning hate and they love it. It is the love of self that is being ignited and causes a person to burn with hate towards anyone who does not comply. It might surface as all sorts of behavior, even “road rage” but it is any hate towards others who do not as we wish. It can take the shape of any kind of contempt or disgust towards anyone who thinks differently than us. The love of heaven is to serve, the love of hell is to be served. Hell is a state of mind in which a person makes the deliberate choice to only love him/her self first and others only in so far as they comply with this person’s wishes.
===========================

C688: What about the children that die at birth, and never get a chance to shape themselves into anything?
A: Before their rationality is opened all children are lovingly accepted and raised in the spiritual world. They are “in the innocence of ignorance” and have no evils of their own. In a way, because of this, they have it made because they cannot go to hell. In the chapter “Small children in heaven” in the book “Heaven and Hell” Swedenborg writes:
===================
C688: And no, we CAN'T do anything we want. We have these things called 'laws', 'social interaction', 'laws of physics' and stuff like that.
A: For heaven’s sake read the papers It may be illegal, !but we can still decide to become a sniper! Fly into buildings, kill 6 million Jews, etc. etc. Whether we get away with it is besides the point, we can love and want to do anything! If we decide against stealing just because we might get caught, it means we still love it and would like to do it. If we decide not to steal from obedience to the law we are on a higher level of goodness. If we don’t steal because we see it as a sin against God than we are good on a spiritual level. Do you think that the Jews were such a deprived and horrible people that they needed the ten Commandments handed down to them with all the sound and light effects? Of course not, everyone on earth knew that stealing and murdering were wrong. A level was added, now it was made a sin against God to do those things.
What makes you say we CAN’T do anything we want??
=======================
C688: Lastly, you say this is eternal. Yet we have only a finite amount of time to shape ourselves into proper God-fearing sheep, else face the punishment of hell for eternity. Infinite punishment for a finite crime does not jive with the idea of a loving gawd.
A: God is a God of love. He is love itself. He cannot hate, punish or send anyone to hell. He would prefer we all went to His heaven but He cannot force anyone. There are spiritual laws and He will not break them. Again, people in hell prefer hell over heaven; our heaven is hell to them. Those people would be punished if sent to heaven. In hell they are still free (up to a point) to commit their evil deeds (just like they did here). The drawback is that everbody else there can too, so one person can experience the great pleasure of stealing from another, but later the roles are reversed. And that is where the burning hate comes in again. God does not punish anyone, evil punishes evil and anyone in evil is the slave of evil. And yes this is eternal, but not an eternity of time but of state. Time is only in this physical world.

BTW, this is not really anything new. Thousands of years ago this was common knowledge because people were spiritual. But humanity has gone off track and lost any spirituality it had, somewhat how people in the big cities lost touch with nature. We wouldn’t last a day in the jungle without some survival training. Before the Bible existed there was a higher kind or level of revelation. God has constantly needed to adapted His revelation to us as we slowly sank away and lost contact with our spirit.
===========================
A: Most people are totally ignorant of the spiritual world
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C688: I've yet to see any evidence - any evidence at all - that would convince someone that doesn't already believe. If this spirit world exists, show it to me! C'mon, this is your big chance! Open mind right here. Show me something, anything!
A: Can you show someone you love her? Can you force someone to love you against their will? Can you show anyone what you are thinking? Can anyone make you believe something you don’t want to believe?
I don’t think there is one of the (by now) more than ten million people that had a Near Death Experience who says it was not real or that it happened because of something they ate.

Kind Regards
Adriaan

Corona688

The literal burning is a metaphor; eternal punishment for finite crime. It is not just, no matter how much you try and cloak it in epheremal spirituality.
Also - don't you think that the heaven/hell split is a bit of an oversimplification? You can't just divide people up into 'good people' and 'bad people'. What happens to everyone inbetween?

Prove it.

Oversimplification... Our society as is makes it considerably more difficult for such events to happen; these horrible events are the result of rare overlaps of attitude, ability, and opportunity. I still maintain that society makes it very difficult to just 'do what you want'.

False dillema. There are more than two options here. One could not steal simply because they know theft is to the detriment of everyone, including themselves, for instance.

No, I don't. I never claimed they did. Please do not put words in my mouth.

The Police Force... the Legislative Branch... every born-again and bible-banger... my neighbors... et ad infinitum. No human is a society unto himself; they are all shaped by the people around them.

Numbers 16:35 - "And fire came out from the LORD and consumed the 250 men who were offering the incense."

Deuteronomy 5:17 "Thou shalt not kill."

Ah, I think I see what you're getting at.

This has what to do with spirituality, again?
Our what?

As with everything else in this world, emotions can't be shown, no. But they can be demonstrated.

I personally don't care what you THINK the spirit world is anyway, I only care what it IS. If it is invisible, intangible, and undetectable, there is absolutely *NO* way to differentiate it from a figment of your imagination. Which is what I believe it is.

Then evidently you haven't been reading these boards enough. I know of at least one person who had a pseudo-NDE triggered by a bad LSD trip. He would have not had that if he had not eaten that LSD. Check.

But that's beside the point. So lots of people who have NDE's think they saw something spiritual. Too bad. Reality isn't a democracy; personal opinions are not made right by majority. The very fact that they were near death makes their perception and judgement at the time of the vision very suspect. There is some evidence that these effects are due to oxygen deprivation.

[ December 19, 2002: Message edited by: Corona688 ]</p>

A3

Hi Corona688

C688: The literal burning is a metaphor; eternal punishment for finite crime. It is not just, no matter how much you try and cloak it in epheremal spirituality.
A: There is nothing spiritual in just making choices, setting priorities, deciding what to accept and what not. No one is sent to hell as punishment it is a deliberate choice. That is the justice of it all, everyone decides by their life choices which direction to go..
=======
C688: Also - don't you think that the heaven/hell split is a bit of an oversimplification? You can't just divide people up into 'good people' and 'bad people'. What happens to everyone inbetween?
A: I have to simplify to keep it short, there is a whole lot more involved.
Very few people go straight to heaven or hell right after death. First we ”arrive” in the middle ground or “World of spirits.” There we go through several stages in which basically our true nature comes out, no more hypocrisy. We can no longer think one way and speak or act in another. In this life “. .whatever we understand and therefore think, we call true; and whatever we intend and therefore think, we call good.” But this does not mean it actually is true or good.
This is sorted-out here and through this process we become either good or bad, no middle ground. Can I prove it? Of course not.
=================
A: Do you think that the Jews were such a deprived and horrible people that they needed the ten Commandments handed down to them with all the sound and light effects? Of course not, everyone on earth knew that stealing and murdering were wrong. A level was added, now it was made a sin against God to do those things.
C688: No, I don't. I never claimed they did. Please do not put words in my mouth.
A: Please read with more care, I never claimed you said it. It was to illustrate that we can attain several levels of spiritual development.
================
C688: The very fact that they were near death makes their perception and judgement at the time of the vision very suspect.
A: And LSD would have eliminated that problem? Still, one in ten million is not half bad.
==================
C688: Numbers 16:35 - "And fire came out from the LORD and consumed the 250 men who were offering the incense."
Deuteronomy 5:17 "Thou shalt not kill."
A: I’ll see what I can find out about this text.
=====================
C688: I personally don't care what you THINK the spirit world is anyway, I only care what it IS. If it is invisible, intangible, and undetectable, there is absolutely *NO* way to differentiate it from a figment of your imagination. Which is what I believe it is.
A: Fine with me. When you know where your thoughts come from please let me know. And, of course, with proof.
What could it be that makes us human? Couldn't be our hands because animals have those too. Or our eyes because..., or our brain..

Regards
Adriaan

Corona688

Thoughts come from the brain. If this is news to you, then there is no point in continuing this argument. <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

[ December 20, 2002: Message edited by: Corona688 ]</p>

A3

Hi Corona688,
What we see is not created inside the eye and what we say is not created inside the mouth. Why are you stuck in thinking that what we think is created in the brain? Just like the scientific community that is collectively hiding behind its instruments. The “what we cannot see does not exist” approach.
To anyone with an open mind I can highly recommend several articles on the website of Dr. Leon James, professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii. He writes in part:
[<a href="http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/psychobiology.html" target="_blank">here</a>]http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/psychobiology.html]here[/URL]

Swedenborg's approach provides alternative solutions to familiar problems in human behavior and societal management. His writings open the gate for a 'new age' psychology that is dualistic and spiritual, grounded in a universal theology that encompasses all religions and races. With Swedenborg, the postmodern paradigm in science attains a stage of maturity unparalleled for its coherence, scope, and pragmatic utility.

This type of new dualism in science has been dubbed by some as the "re-enchantment of science" (Griffin, 1988) and provides a workable solution to what Sperry (1993, 881-3) has referred to as "our present self-destructive course" involving "traditional reductive physicalism" and "materialist logic, in which science has been locked for more than 200 years." The Swedenborgian approach provides a science-based approach to global, basic, humane issues: morality, wisdom, justice, euthanasia, God, the afterlife.

Why believe the matters this unique man has brought back to us? Swedenborgians today, like Trobridge, give as an answer to this question the argument that the system Swedenborg erected is entirely rational, with no contradictions, and capable of giving answers to all the old theological and philosophical issues; finally, the system is entirely compatible with Western scientific attitudes of materialism, functionalism, and organicity. Surely this is indeed a powerful answer and those of the modern world that have examined this claim in detail, like clinical psychologist Wilson Van Dusen and New Church educator and philosopher Hugo Lj. Odhner, found not a single contradiction in Swedenborg's system that is expounded in some 30 volumes in modern English translations! Leon James has personally examined the bulk of this work, a full time job that took five years to accomplish, and found no internal contradictions; as well, the claim that the system is biologically based is also correct. Swedenborg was an accomplished and well published scientist and public figure in Sweden in the 18th century. It is because of the rational and objective character of his system that enabled Swedenborgian ideas to have a strong influence on many thinkers of the l9th and 20th centuries. This list of selfacknowledged influence by Swedenborg is very long, but just to mention a few, it includes Balzac, Berlioz, William Blake, Robert Browning, Thomas Carlyle, Coleridge, Emerson, Benjamin Franklin, Goethe, Victor Hugo, Henry James, William James, Jung, Kant, Helen Keller, Maeterlinck, George Bernard Shaw, Thoreau, Yeats (Swedenborg Foundation, 1984).

To distinguish between a workable scientific theory and one that is unworkable by today's standards, we might evaluate each theory on the basis of these five criteria:
1. Organicity. The proposed theory must be biologically grounded.
2. Objective Reality. The proposed theory must be verifiable by interpersonal observation and group discussion and recognition.
3. Operational Definitions. The proposed theory must offer concrete measurement procedures for assessing the magnitude of effects indexed by dependent measures under various known independent conditions.
4. Empiricism. For the proposed theory to be scientifically viable by today's behaviouristic or functional standards, the theory must be able to grow through the work of others.
5. Usefulness. In today's world of accountability and big budget deficits it is imperative that the proposed theory have a good possibilities for payoff in terms of community or client delivery of services.

This article will show that applications based on this revelation have occurred in psychotherapy, medicine, curriculum planning and development, embryology, neuroscience, theology, and evolution theory.

Regards
Adriaan

[ December 21, 2002: Message edited by: A3 ]</p>

Corona688

Modern technologies like Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Positron Emission Scanning have conclusively shown direct relationships between thoughts and brain activity. Another point - those with damaged brains often have impaired mental abilities. A 'spirit', being invisible and noncorporeal, could not be hurt in such a way.
You've got it backwards. It's the 'what we can see does exist' approach. Claims without evidence cannot be accepted. Prove I don't have an invisible noncorporeal pink unicorn in my garage.
Preferably lobotomized 'locked into'? We use it because:
a) It darn well works! Let's see you build a faith-based nuclear reactor.
b) The scientific method is the only method that can approach true objectivity. Anything that's without real-world evidence could just as easily be a figment of your imagination than anything else.

Quite simply, if you ditch materialistic logic, it won't be science anymore.
*snort*
This may be true, but only because it provides no answers either. Saying 'goddidit' doesn't contradict itself but is utterly useless in describing reality.
Speak for yourself, Dr. Leon.

Oh, and I *love* his definition of the Scientific Method:
He breaks this one himself. What is the biological grounding for the assumption of God?
Wrong. All this objectively shows is the group of humans believes roughly the same thing. If it's real, it ought to be measureable whether a human observes it it or not.
Fine. Measure God.
Hm... this sounds almost right.
Wrong. Science doesn't seek to create a theory that everyone likes; science seeks to create a theory that works.

I've looked at those links, and my bullshit meter is melting here, guy. Paging QueenOfSwords! I'd LOVE to see you nutwatch this one.

And when I click on the 'spiritual substances' link for an explanation, I get:
This is nothing but 'God works in mysterious ways' cloaked under an extremely thick layer of ofusication. He doesn't know what Spiritual Substances are! He's using a cool-sounding made-up term without a definition and hoping we don't notice.

And get a load of the <a href="http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy/instructor/gloss/abbrev.html" target="_blank">Glossary</a>: References many such unbiased and skeptical tomes as <a href="http://www.theisticscience.org/books.html" target="_blank">True Christian Religion</a>, <a href="http://www.lifeafterdeathdetails.org/index2.htm" target="_blank">Life After Death - the Details</a>, and <a href="http://www.netaxs.com/~mvd/es/hcsg/" target="_blank">The Heavenly City: A Spiritual Guidebook</a>!

So, in short, this entire work falls to pieces if one does not assume the existence of spirits and the interference of God. Check those assumptions at the door until you can demonstrate them, guy.

[ December 22, 2002: Message edited by: Corona688 ]</p>

A3

Hello Corona688

A: What we see is not created inside the eye and what we say is not created inside the mouth. Why are you stuck in thinking that what we think is created in the brain?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C688: Modern technologies like Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Positron Emission Scanning have conclusively shown direct relationships between thoughts and brain activity.
---------------------------------------------
A: There is a definite relationship, no question about it. But which is doing the receiving and what is doing the responding? There are clear indications that a brain seems to process thought, but there will never be evidence of what that thought is about or what is being thought because that is a discrete degree above the physical.

“The doctrine of degrees is peculiar to the Swedenborg’s writings and fundamental to an understanding of their philosophy. The gradations from light to shade, fine to gross, rare to dense, loud to quiet, etc., are continuous degrees, which are degrees of one thing -measurable by various types of instrumentation. Discrete degrees are the degrees of the formation or composition of one thing from another. They exist in all things, but each distinctly, although they make a one when taken together. They are related as end, cause and effect, and the only ratio between them is that of correspondence; that is, the higher degrees can flow into the lower ones, but not the lower into the higher. Lower degrees have qualities not found in higher ones, but these are qualities of limitation. Love, thought and speech are a series of discrete degrees. Thought cannot formulate all that love perceives, and speech cannot express all that man thinks. However, discrete degrees are homogeneous, and it is in the ultimate degree that all the power of a series is exerted. The three heavens and the three degrees of the mind are discrete series.Yet it should be noted that there are discrete degrees in natural as well as in spiritual things..”

Human beings are, for specific reasons, the only species that can reflect on their own thoughts and so influence and modify their behaviour.
The concept of this duality seems often compared with the common radio.
I know next to nothing about the inner parts of radios (or brains for that matter), but with the right tools it should be possible to determine (guided by schematics) that radio waves are being processed, in stages, from the moment they are received untill they emerge as sound. Radio waves are completely separate from the radio. We can damage or destroy the radio but the radio waves will still be there.
======================
C688: Another point - those with damaged brains often have impaired mental abilities. A 'spirit', being invisible and noncorporeal, could not be hurt in such a way.
A: It isn’t. It is like a car and driver. The driver can only communicate by means of the car, such as the lights, horn etc. If parts brake down so does communication but the driver is relatively fine.
===========================
A: ....the system Swedenborg erected is entirely rational, with no contradictions.
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C688: This may be true, but only because it provides no answers either. Saying 'goddidit' doesn't contradict itself but is utterly useless in describing reality.
---------------------------------------------------
A: If that were all it said. Yes!... but how about a rational explanation of creation and why. A thorough treatment of Who and What God is and His (hopefully) reciprocal relationship with us. Why we are male and female and have a male and female mind. And I can go on for some time but the crux of the matter is that this is fully compatible with the inner meaning of the Bible and our own normal, everyday experiences (foremost in marriage).
==========================
5. Usefulness. In today's world of accountability and big budget deficits it is imperative that the proposed theory have a good possibilities for payoff in terms of community or client delivery of services.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wrong. Science doesn't seek to create a theory that everyone likes; science seeks to create a theory that works.
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Would you, as an employer, reimburse your employee for a visit to a psychiatrist that proves useless?? Please read in a calm fashion and cool the knee-jerk reactions.
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C688: He doesn't know what Spiritual Substances are!
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A: OK, you tell me. Would 'love' be nothing maybe?

Regards
Adriaan

gwh00

During life our consciousness continually fills with the memories of positive and negative emotional events. That content, upon ego or physical death, empties into our visual field.
We re-live the emotional events of our lives and react with sorrow or joy and perceive the occurrence as passing through Hell or Heaven. So to answer the question… Heaven and Hell exist as a subjective psychophysical event within the spectrum of human consciousness.


Gary