Shake

Wouldn't an omnibenevolent god forgive us all and let us into heaven too? Did Jebus only die for the sins of the believers?

Anyway, it sounds pretty boring. Let's get together and find out how to get kicked out!

Amos

That's right Starboy, nothing has changed and what was right then is still right today. The only difference is that today we must be nice to each other.

hinduwoman

Well according to Islam you spend all your time drinking and having sex.

According to hinduism you become one with god, with dualists and adualists furiously arguing whether this means loss of identity or not.

Buddhism says nirvana is non-existence.

Amos

Non-existence in the sense that the ego is gone and no soul in the sense that ego and soul have become one and the same.

In the dualist argument the identity remains but is placed subservient to the soul identity (reason in support of intuition). I think it is when Arjuna hands over the reins to Krishna and just goes along for the ride in life.

[ October 10, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

Not Prince Hamlet

Hinduwoman,

Is it non-existence, or is it being spread infinitely thin? I got the impression it was sort of a merging with everything kind of deal.

Jeff

American Agnostic

Here's a paradoy of heavan followed by an arguement for why heavan would be boring. Great site.

<a href="http://www.minitru.org/llf/borg.html" target="_blank">Jesus of Borg</a>

[ October 11, 2002: Message edited by: American Agnostic ]</p>

hinduwoman

If you merge with everything then how can you have your own identity? But a Buddhist scholar should be better able to answer this.

Not Prince Hamlet

I guess it all boils down to, "What does it mean 'to exist'?"

Jeff

kalamasutta

Thanks for the discussion.............Most talk of "time" and "eternity", the difference between "having" and "being", leave me floundering but most of this I have been able to follow. The original question and some of the replies has made me remeber an old story - perhaps old enough for everyone to know! - about the guy who dies and wakes in a beautiful land of milk and honey......food grows on trees, dancing girls answer his every whim, a servant is constantly on hand to bring him all he would ever desire. For a few months all is well, than the whole place begins to pale a bit and boredom - even despair - sets in. Eventually, when the servant asks him for his next wish he says...."I just want a job of work to do, some way of feeling that I have earnt the bounty I receive each day".........."Sorry" says the servant, "anything else......food, drink....dancing girls.......but I cannot give you what you ask". To which the guy says......"In that case, I think I would rather be in hell" To which the servant replies...."Just where do you think you are then?" Boom! Boom!

Although for me "grace" and "acceptance" are fundamental, I think that the last verse of "Amazing Grace" remains one of the most awful and vivid descriptions of hell possible...........

"And when we've been 10,000 years
Bright shining as the sun,
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we first begun"

Good grief! (If there were a supreme being, it seems difficult to imagine him/her actually lapping up such unending "praise" and adulation without being sick.......it reminds me of the Awards Ceremony where Prince Charles sent a letter of aclamation to Spike Milligan.........and after the first few words of praise were read out Spike exclaimed "What a grovelling little bastard!" - I can imaging God having the same opinion.......)

Anyway, getting back to time and eternity, there is a little verse by the Christian mystic Angelus Silesius.......

"Eternity is time.
Time, eternity.
To see the two as opposites
Is mind's perversity."

Buddhism indicates much the same when it speaks of samsara and nirvana as being one.....there is no transcendence, no other realm beyond or above......more another way of experiencing this one world we all live in. Yet as I said, most of this sort of talk goes way past my own experience. What I do experience is the difference between time experienced in a dentists waiting room, or under the drill.........and time when absorbed in music, reading poetry or being with those I love....when it can almost seem to cease to exist at all.



[ October 12, 2002: Message edited by: kalamasutta ]</p>

bonduca

Being a former Christian, I'm familiar with the Bible. God appears to have a small problem with expressing his anger constructively. Please explain why I would want to spend eternity with that.