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  • Pantheism
    If Christians were duty bound to forgive others in the afterlife then the primary countermeasure against evil might be vigilance in the material world. If we'd to rule out vengeance and supernatural hell then we'd have to ensure that all of our dependents were as safe as possible. We might need to be slightly more defensive and pre-emptive in our spiritual outlook against criminals. If anyone looked creepy then we'd be forced to either avoid the person or be polite to them and help them avoid being tempted into evil. If poor people weren't as heavily rewarded in heaven due to materialism then the middle-class might feel more responsibility to help them enjoy life to the fullest through charity. Christianity often looks like a world policeman as if it were a superpower like America. However Christians tend to help fellow Christians more than helping those from other faiths and so their level of objectivity might not be as absolute as a scientific afterlife.
  • Anti-Realism
    My blog isn't exceptional at any single thread but is very good only in how it combines a lot of good threads. Perhaps I'd need to describe one thread in more detail so as to have a thorough thread like anti-realism. What if Michael actually thought the thoughts in his inner mind were sometimes connected to the airflow through his throat and nose? So what I might have to say is simply that air can involuntarily activate the voicebox when you focus on it intensely and impersonally. Then every breath is capable of producing rapid thoughts if you interpret a muffling sound in a way that makes sense to you. Then your thoughts would be faster than natural and dependent on your breathing rate. Every breath would interrupt your thinking and accelerate them afterwards.
  • Pantheism
    One reason it's easy to be confused about Christianity is that we're forced to ignore large swathes of its militant history. For example it's easy to ignore the period of early Christianity to the early 20th century. What's particulary annoying is that some colonial Christians might even have appeared more devout in their faith despite their immorality compared to modern Christians. Perhaps a mitigating factor is that many conquistadors and aristocrats were motivated by nationalism rather than religion. In other words religion may well have been fig leaves for medieval crimes like the inquisition of Protestants in regal Europe. Another criticism of Christianity is its temperamental attitude towards feminism. You might say that this is mirrored in the very concept of asexuality among Catholic clergy. It can be an ambiguous gesture of not wanting to be bossy towards women or else it could imply a dislike of women for their romance. One way to view the historical crimes of Christianity is through moral relativism. In other words the way they took Christianity as the absolute truth was itself a relativistic gesture towards non-Christians.

    John Wick Scene: Little Russian Church
  • Anti-Realism
    One way to understand the extreme complexity of the brain would be as of each neuron could be quickly pressed twice for a different command. This would be like a video game controller where pressing a button twice can activate a different movement compared to the first push. Then the brain could look multiple times more complex then it already is!
  • Pantheism
    I'd a dream a few months ago in which I was travelling around an Indian city for a tennis tournament. I was confused by various return flights and tried to get buses back into the city. It was just a short dream but I never fully related pantheism to Hinduism simply because they seemed like polar opposites. Hinduism was nominally polytheistic but seemed to concede that each of their Gods were all manifestations of an ultimate God named Brahman. One way to relate this to pantheistic logic is that each polytheistic God was an unconscious dream of the conscious God Brahman. Although my interpretation of Hinduism is a mere metaphor! In one sense Hinduism is the only major religion that has shamanic components. Yet they still interpret such mysticism in a holistic way.
  • Pantheism
    One way we could interpret hell is that God might not throw anyone there directly. Yet if a God knows everything about the inner workings of a person then perhaps He'd simply force them to be truly sorry. So if the person can't emotionally engage in remorse then perhaps they'd put themselves in hell until they were better able to repent. An afterlife might always be difficult to describe in material logic given the absurdity of evil. Yet every form of evil is countered by another form of evil. For example let's take the example of war rape. A male misogynist would end up being engaged in vicarious misandry when we apply a hatred of women to wives that aren't theirs.
  • Pantheism
    Keeping your thoughts pure is often an important component in religions. Perhaps from a moral perspective the only redeeming factor of perversion is that it directly exposes an already overconfident and bad mindset. For example a truly self-secure mindset would never try to form perverted thoughts to feel even more confident. So those who are vulnerable to such vices likely have previous flaws in how they regulate their subconscious emotions. In order to resist perversion you'd need to first assess your thought patterns. An absurd version of happiness might only expose an absurdity in how we unconsciously view ourselves.
  • Pantheism
    One way to tame a fear in reincarnation is that our unconscious mind might need an affinity for the unconscious being in our next life. So we might not be completely different to the person in our next life even though there might be a wide spectrum of disagreement. Perhaps if there's a vocal pantheist in Scotland in 100 years time then you never know if that was me!
  • Pantheism
    One way we could assess the language of ancient religious texts is through amnesia. For example most amnesiac patients can't speak coherently because they're not sef-aware. Yet people who are fully absorbed into the present moment and can control their thoughts through spirituality could technically be dubbed amnesiac. Perhaps ancient generations had far more control over their unconscious minds without exactly interpreting experiences as dreamy.
  • Anti-Realism
    A trouble with emotional versions of anti-realism is that natural scenery could produce subjective happiness on a wider spectrum than consciously possible. That is to say our subconscious isn't geared to reward scenery like fields of flowers with intense hedonism. We're simply unable to enjoy our own nature spirits to their fullest given the complexity of the natural world.
  • Anti-Realism
    Perhaps to fully understand our own mind we'd nearly be so dissociated as to be dead! Maybe the mind could be viewed as existing outside our perception of the physical world rather than just the brain.
  • Pantheism
    Perhaps heaven is much like flying away from your body; the better behaved you were the higher you go! Or maybe Christianity developed primarily to fight against evil rather than to create an afterlife.
  • Pantheism
    An amoral God is neither good nor evil. Thus an amoral God that sent you to hell would be unlikely to throw you away for a very long time simply because He wouldn't be evil. An amoral God might resemble a rich capitalist or an impersonal spirit so to speak. An advantage of such a passive God is that evil people could be ignored as natural evil. After all evil isn't a concept in physics. For example we don't expect anyone to go to jail if we have a tummy bug even if it's just as painful as a robbery. However an amoral God might be beyond our comprehension given the infinities of infinities!

    The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) 4K HDR - The Bridge of Khazad-dûm
  • Pantheism
    Religion doesn't actually have to present detailed arguments to compete with a post-grad maths book. Religion merely needs to present analytical arguments to compete with secondary school science books to persuade youngsters! We'll probably be bogged down by mysteries all our life but some of our beliefs are hardened before we reach maturity.
  • Pantheism
    Yes they both explain with different methods but they can both approach the actual Truth (existence/universe) as it actually is without bias and contradictions between selves.Benj96

    Evil people can have extremely violent mindsets but they often don't blaspheme simply because they're not aware of God. Yet if evil people wanted to have violent self-talk towards God then there's not much that could stop them. In other words the fact that some of them don't blaspheme during their life might be an accident. So if evil people are capable of being forgiven in the afterlife then both deeds and faith would be relevant.
  • Pantheism
    "The pen/spoken is mightier than the sword" so to speak.Benj96

    A difficulty with faith is that the mind is partially deterministic such that your subconscious mind forces you to reconcile conflicting beliefs. So religious people who are exposed to a lot of science are often forced to analyse their faith to the same degree of logic. A little problem is that while religion is very intelligent it's self-referential to some extent. Thus faith directly clashes with materialism since the material world is more observable. Religion would almost need to investigate science solely to present religious claims more analytically. Otherwise they'd need to conceptualise the afterlife more vividly in order to sway agnostics.
  • Anti-Realism
    We're sometimes pressured to limit idealism in order to reconcile it with science and prevent tribal divisions. So an argument of last resort is that the material world is so unreal that it's nearly impossible for an idealist to be even more of an anti-realist. So if we truly viewed matter as being of the mind we'd be forced to concede that it's so mentally complicated as to be physical.
  • Pantheism
    One difference between Jesus and a stereotypical war hero is that He wasn't a vigilante type of person. In other words Christianity presents itself as being at war against evil even though it's not a militant type of religion. So when we apply this reasoning to the afterlife it might be upsetting to think that Christianity might actually forgive repentant serial killers. Strangely enough the only consolation for us is that they likely won't repent such that they wouldn't go to heaven! It's difficult to know how much the death of Jesus on the cross is scientifically relevant as a divine sacrifice given just how many others have died in warfare. Yet it's hard to know if the reason many virtuous soldiers gave up their lives was as a result of the inspiration of Jesus. Achilles was seen as a demi-God precisely because of his skill on the battlefield. So the benevolence of Jesus appears to be of a slightly different kind.
  • Pantheism
    Perhaps a meditative version of Christian prayers would focus more on the underlying message than the history much like an R&B song(!):

    T.I. - Live Your Life ft. Rihanna
  • Pantheism
    But what I reach as conclusion is that meditation cannot be connected with Jesus because with the act of meditation we are separating ourselves from any kind of identity.
    So, we can only "pray" to Jesus not meditate about him.
    javi2541997

    That's true from a purist perspective on Christianity. Yet what if there was an atheist who didn't really want an afterlife but still found peace in certain Christian doctrines? Are they allowed to meditate to Christianity? It's better than nothing!
  • Pantheism
    "Interfaith dialogue refers to cooperative, constructive, and positive interaction between people of different religious traditions (i.e. "faiths") and/or spiritual or humanistic beliefs, at both the individual and institutional levels. It is distinct from syncretism or alternative religion, in that dialogue often involves promoting understanding between different religions or beliefs to increase acceptance of others, rather than to synthesize new beliefs." (Wiki)

    One way to understand pantheism in the context of Christianity would be to think what would happen if you mixed Buddhism with Christianity. What would happen if we meditated to Jesus instead of praying to Jesus? If we wanted to understand panentheistic Christianity then perhaps we could view the religion in light of its Jewish ancestry. Christianity and Islam differ quite a lot when it comes to the afterlife. Yet it's possible to compare the two culturally when it comes to earthly life. So how would we feel if Christianity were like a social bond between the individual and the community? It might be easier to understand the trinity in Christianity if we were to contrast it with the different versions of Hindu's God.

    "Multiple religious belonging, also known as double belonging, refers to the idea that individuals can belong to more than one religious tradition. While this is often seen as a common reality in regions such as Asia with its many religions, religious scholars have begun to discuss multiple religion belonging with respect to religious traditions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam."

    "According to Baháʼí teachings, religion is revealed in an orderly and progressive way by a single God through Manifestations of God, who are the founders of major world religions throughout history; Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad are noted as the most recent of these before the Báb and Baháʼu'lláh. Baháʼís regard the world's major religions as fundamentally unified in purpose, though varied in social practices and interpretations. The Baháʼí Faith stresses the unity of all people, explicitly rejecting racism, sexism, and nationalism. At the heart of Baháʼí teachings is the goal of a unified world order that ensures the prosperity of all nations, races, creeds, and classes."

    Family Guy- Passion of the Christ 2
  • Pantheism
    But you are missing an important point: faith. Believe or not believe in God depends on faith.javi2541997

    There are many atheists in Asia but if we went centuries back in time we could say that they were all descended from meditative beliefs like Buddhism in China. I don't say that as a fact but merely as an interpretation. So no matter how much you or your society reject God, you are still influenced by the genes of religious ancestors. There simply were no materialists before the dawn of science. "Survival of the fittest" in previous millenia meant you'd to be religious or transcendent in some sense because that was the culture you were born into. So in a purely speculative way an impression of an afterlife could be internalised through genes. Would you put yourself in heaven if you could externally assess your past life once you had died? After all the genetics of a species takes a very long time to change. Such far-fetched ideas might help if you're trying to reconcile solipsistic pantheism, transcendent religion and non-conscious science all into one theory! If your mind expanded after you died, would you be able to excuse your past crimes as "work"?!

    John Wick (2/10) - Noise Complaint (2014)
  • Anti-Realism
    I was watching a thriller on TV and was almost on edge by the mere visuals and cinematography angles rather than the actual narrative! Sometimes it can be dreamy when the perspectives shift rapidly between first, second and third person camera positions. I found the way the actors' faces can be really close-up to the screen quite amusing when the previous shots were impersonal glances at the carraige! It almost creates a rhythm of time where viewers can be immediately absorbed into the high-octane tone of the film. This dizzy effect is wonderful if you're able to follow the story. Athough it might be mildly disorienting if you fail to understand the intensity of the action sequences.

    'The tech-savvy Cameron, who helped pioneer high-def digital techniques in 2004 when he shot Michael Mann’s Collateral, decided to exploit the ceiling of the train car where Vera Varmiga’s Joanna challenges Neesom’s ex-cop Michael MacCauley to hunt down bad guys during his afternoon commute from Manhattan. This “train” was in fact a 30-ton set perched atop wheels, undergirded by a giant hydraulic jack and located inside a Pinewood Studios soundstage in England.

    “I designed this custom camera rig that travels down the center of the car, but instead of moving along a track on the floor, it travels on the ceiling,” Cameron explains. Using Alexa Mini Arri cameras, a Stabileye Stabilized Head and Z Axis Pan device, Cameron automated the rig to move up, down and sideways as it tracked the action. “We could follow Liam in one direction down the center of the aisle, then move the camera to ‘arm’ around him and chase him back the other way, tracking over the other passengers’ heads as they sat in their seats,” he says. “We wouldn’t have been able to do that with a Steadicam.”'
    https://www.motionpictures.org/2018/01/commuter-dp-replicated-new-york-train-uk-soundstage/

    The Commuter Best Scene - Train Crash

    'Don't expect to laugh much during Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice. According to a report on the movie news site HitFix, Warner Bros. has a "no jokes" policy when it comes to DC Comics movies... An occasional joke that fits into the tone of the film and isn't forced can work quite well, as Marvel Studios has proved.'
    https://comicbook.com/movies/news/warner-bros-reportedly-has-a-no-jokes-policy-with-batman-v-super/
  • Pantheism
    What if I do not pray to Jesus? Am I a deluded patient too?javi2541997

    Well let's imagine that Jesus somehow hallucinated both speaking to "God the Father" and resisting the devil. The mere fact that other people wholeheartedly endorsed Him meant that He must have been more confident in identifying such "hallucinations". This meant that He may have literally created an entire world of His own by cementing His "dreams". For example we can see how complex Middle Earth is from JRR Tolkien and the author didn't even have anyone praying to him!
  • Anti-Realism
    If we can detect consciousness in the brain through correlations, then what if consciousness itself can work through indirect physical correlations? For example if the brain altered the rate of your heart then your thoughts would be synced to a new rhythym. In other words consciousness might be able to create its own patterns along a repeating rate of time. Each complete biological or neurological "circuit" as it were would create a unique flow of time that could be ignored or listened to. Then the physical system would be self-sufficient without needing conscious energy. This might be thought of as "micro time-travel".

    "The monks were using a yoga technique known as g Tum-mo, which allowed them to enter a state of deep meditation and significantly raise their body heat, some as much as 17 degrees (Fahrenheit) in their fingers and toes. After the first sheets were dry, they were replaced with new wet sheets by attendants. Each monk was required to dry 3 sheets over the course of several hours. In other contests held during cold Himalayan nights, the person who dries the most sheets before dawn is considered the winner.The heat generated through g Tum-mo is only a by product of a process designed to correct misconceptions of reality as defined by Buddhism."
    https://www.buzzworthy.com/monks-raise-body-temperature/
  • Pantheism
    What if we viewed the temptation of the devil when Jesus wandered the desert for over a month as arising from within Jesus? Then we'd interpret this tale in a far more mystical and dissociated way. Whether or not the devil had an extenal mind he was at least inside the perception of Jesus in a way that wasn't so for others. After all if God is the giver of life then He could probably create beings just in His own perception and outside of His own cognition! I'm not sure what the devil would mean back in that era unless it was a secret plan to overthrow the Roman rule of Israel! Despite atheistic arguments of Jesus being schizophrenic it might still be worthwhile from a religious standpoint to play devil's advocate. One core difference between Jesus and a deluded patient is that Jesus had lots of people praying to Him. This does sound a bit arbitrary from a scientific perspective but let's make an economic analogy. An entrepreneur might take risks out of a delusion of grandeur. Yet if bankers trust him or her with loans then this person really could become a millionaire. Likewise the mere fact that a prophet like Jesus had so many worshippers may have "materialised" the vision of that individual. Jesus was a poor person yet He turned out a billionaire in terms of the future adherents of the faith. A difference between science and religion is that scientists tend not to be militantly opposed to rival scientists as was the case in ancient religious wars! Quantum physicists versus general relativists will be in the boxing ring at 2pm!
  • Pantheism
    I think religious scholars are correct in using scientific and cultural analogies for religious terms. The only downside of using metaphors is that they could be misunderstood if they're not thoroughly explained. For example the concept of an unending entity might always have been known when the holy texts were written. However the mathematical concept of infinity is more recent. So when we say God is omni-virtuous we risk mistaking a technical infinity with an incomprehensibly high level of magnanimity. Some agnostics might be more comfortable briefly praying to God in private rather than worshipping God. God if He exists might have perfect excuses for the problem of evil. Although this logical possibility doesn't mean that everyone is capable of endless trust or gratitude for such a God. I differ from Bob Geldof in that Lord seems like a reassuring and polite title for a being who is allegedly going to save your soul during the vulnerability of death. I wouldn't be as comfortable saying it to an aristocrat given our egalitarian culture of democracy. Nonetheless the "Divine Right of Kings" might be tolerable for a truly benevolent monarch if it applied to the afterlife rather than to a materialistic being!

    (2:20) " The Supreme Being? What? Are we living in Star Wars?... Lord? Is it Lord of the Rings? The language is so weird."
    Bob Geldoff on his Atheism - The Meaning of Life with Gay Byrne
  • Anti-Realism
    I'd never dispute the honesty of atheists in asserting their disbelief in religion but is there a residual level of transcendence in their materialistic claims? The universe is itself an amoral and near-infinite source of energy that exceeds our comprehension. This orientation towards the possibility of future discovery is itself a mild form of mysticism in the present day. Science asserts we all share a physical world even though this isn't the only logical possibility. I fully accept that many atheists oppose supernatural claims about an afterlife or historical miracles. However there is an unconscious element of God being used in multiple philosophical problems rather than just ethics or life after death. For example if God doesn't exist and the universe openly tolerates the horror of genocides, then why would the universe care about your sense of self, your deterministic brain or your free will? We don't want to be paranoid by visualising an evil demon controlling everyone's faith. Nonetheless we must be capable of analysing such a viewpoint in order to assess science's ability to handle problems in metaphysics. Science must consider not only an amoral universe but also the the threat of an evil universe. Otherwise science would be relying on faith to reject an evil demon(to use the imagery of Descartes). If the universe determined that you should be murderer, what capacity does a conscious being have to rebel against such a faith? Perhaps faith in a spirit of benevolence is a helpful start for some people even if they don't go so far as to believe in God.
  • Pantheism
    Criminals can sometimes try to manipulate technicalities in the court system. However what if they tried the same with divine judgement? For example what if they made a pact to be remorseful when they retired even if they still planned to commit crimes beforehand. Perhaps we could say that evil is so intoxicating that if they tried to deceive themselves through "postdated" apologies then they simply wouldn't psychologically be able to apologise to God sincerely.
  • Pantheism
    If we view prehistoric people as being less self-aware then it might be possible to say that God "found" the universe rather than created it. In other words our high level of comprehension about the world around us might be because ancient people discovered different versions of God. Perhaps God would be the creator of our shared conscious realm instead of being a creator the physical world.
  • Pantheism
    Ironically it might be acceptable from a religious point of view for an atheistic convert to view God as an imaginary friend. A collective imaginary friend is forced to comply with certain limitations in behaviour. Religions don't really present God as always being in the material world where a prophet like Jesus is said to be in the afterlife. So it's still consistent to view God as an imaginary friend in this life and as a real entity if you reach your afterlife!

    "Leave Jesus alone? Don't cry! We've all got imaginary friends; I've just grown out of mine."
    Jimmy Carr - Funny religious clip on the late late show
  • Pantheism
    Whatever about original sin, there might still be an argument that people are born atheists. Death often seems a million miles away for young children. Then the churches would have to go out of their way to appeal to young people. Each religion doesn't have a separate set of genes to identify their children! Relying on agnostic or lapsed youths to convert during midlife is a high-risk strategy. Firstly if there's an accident or grief of some kind then they'd be left wholly unprepared. Secondly the Catholic Church is spared a lot of competition. Hinduism and Buddhism aren't overly concerned about western conversions given the sheer size of their own populations. Nonetheless a complacent attitude might lead to a permanent decline in mass attendence.

    "Hozier criticises the Christian idea that babies are born with original sin and must be cleansed of this through a baptism ritual to which they haven't consented."
    https://www.joe.ie/movies-tv/watch-hozier-criticises-baptism-and-the-catholic-church-in-meaning-of-life-with-gay-byrne-trailer-512833

    For example if there's such commotion about the inability of women to become priests then why not make mass from nuns in a convent just as ritualistic for the laity as a mass at a priestly church?

    "Deacons may proclaim and preach the word of God and distribute Holy Communion that was consecrated at a Mass previously. A religious sister, brother, or nun may also lead a celebration outside of Mass and also distribute Holy Communion consecrated at another Mass."
    https://zippyfacts.com/can-deacons-or-nuns-say-mass-when-there-is-no-priest/
  • Pantheism


    Even if religious people were to believe in hell then there'd really have to be safeguards against an abuse of power. For example if an evil soul were confined to a jail cell in hell then they'd probably need a back-up option of "quantum suicide". This would prevent an overthrow of personal freedom if the evil soul were subject to endless persecution.
  • Pantheism
    If we were to believe in an afterlife then perhaps we might be wrong to expect divine judgement to be like a court system. Who knows what to expect! Or is forgiveness in the afterlife much like a suspended sentence? Perhaps if we have challenges in our life then it might be best to sort it out with our own court system and political system! Perhaps we ourselves might have to forgive people in an afterlife even if we didn't or only partially forgave them in our earthly life. Otherwise you might have to ignore certain people!
  • Pantheism
    One way to think of God is through anti-realism. So God would be a subjective impression that relates to associations in your pre-existing consciousness. This would mean that anyone who believed in God could technically say that each of their images of God might exist as symbols reflected through culture. For example an image of Jesus might be non-material but the message so powerful that it overrides the rest of our cognition.

    https://depositphotos.com/12114574/stock-photo-brussels-june-22-crucifixion-on.html
  • Pantheism
    I had moments of existential angst this morning. Something deep down in my psyche started to fear about my faith beliefs. To some extent I endorsed both pantheism and Christianity without ever fully reconciling them. I was often alright with the ambiguity but somehow this contradiction had been simmering in me for many years. Christianity has beliefs that can be deeply antithetical to pantheism or materialism. Yet I could never really abandon pantheism simply because I was so attracted to my own system of logic. Pantheism is wonderful in that it allows you to feel fully in tune with spiritual life except that a flaw is that it also allows evil people to feel connected to God. There were certain metaphysical propositions about God that bothered me. Sometimes I'd be bothered that God created me and yet I didn't always like the world. Whatever happened I always dreaded the afterlife simply because I couldn't envision any possible logical system that attracted me. I couldn't abandon certain principles of materialism out of fear of being lost that meant I was never able to visualise heaven. So when I went into a state of panic I made my own solution to my self-made crisis that I'd really just enjoy praying to Jesus in the afterlife without really wanting a long stay in heaven. When I reached this conclusion I felt euphoria and cried momentarily. Somehow I always envisioned myself being reincarnated but needing time to myself in-between. My thoughts started mixing and my breathing became extremely relaxed. Thoughts started popping in to my mind as if they were elaborations on earlier complex combinations. It was like I focused on the basic syntax first and then decrypted my prior statements into a more coherent form. So it kind of felt like I was arguing with an extreme emotion that was beyond my former comprehension and I was forced to unravel the resulting thoughts for myself. There was a risk of dissociation when I tried to interpret the emotion as being almost external to my usual self. Then I rhymed my thoughts with an altered breathing pattern in order to flow with the emotion. It was like a working backwards mechanism that automated some of my thoughts temporarily. I concocted a plot that I was speaking to an anonymous gatekeeper in the afterlife. I interpreted him as saying my wish would be granted. He said that I'd be allowed to pray but that a lot of people in the afterlife didn't like me. It wasn't that they knew me but they knew my antagonistic personality. I inferred that my personal wish of being with women would be granted because it was my last journey. My chaotic thoughts lead me to conclude that I would get one beatiful women to love but that I could not envision myself as being in any way herself. So I had to say that I'd be stripping not for just for me but also for her. It'd have to be in a loving way to help her. If any other women would arrive I could see them nude but that I could only ever stay with the first woman. Afterwards I was to say that I lived as a slightly lonely person and wished to repent for my sins. I wasn't to interpret such women as coming from God but simply as a gift. Afterwards I was to pray in a deferential way. That sounded like a good bargain except that afterwards I'd be forced to forgive people. I was told that when I feel disliked I feel unappreciated and respond with hate. Then because I view myself as them I feel I must be hating myself. Thus I feel doubly hated. Then I must compromise on my principles and never see those that I forgive as being me. I cannot blame God because they are free. I responded negatively and said that I was deceived by the initial offer only be told that I'd to forgive people who offended me. I angrily said why was it not presented the other way round where I would be told the harsher part to forgive first and then to recieve the women. I felt enticed only to feel rejected by the offer. I said that if this afterlife is not for me I'd convert to a different religion or even form a religion of myself just for me. I was totally independent so to speak. The gatekeeper responded that he'd show me a different realm where I'd be with many women. I'd be able to like them but they'd be just like me and so they wouldn't love me. I didn't like this compromise because I'd be gone afterwards. I was also informed that I'd have to briefly stay in hell. It wasn't that they hated me but that they thought I was obsessed about fantasy. I responded that I wouldn't comply and was told that I wouldn't be in big pain but that people wanted to insult me. I needed to be made pure of my sins before being reincarnated. Otherwise some of my problems could carry on to my next life in a small way. I conceded that I felt lost and that the other traditional religions weren't for me. I engaged with a thoughtline in which the blame I placed on my creator is not proportionate. People create people and that God was a system. As such people come to God and His complicity was indirect in my creation. Too many people act surprised when they're told that God doesn't like them. I was told my idea that I'd die in prayer with Jesus wasn't because I really loved Jesus but that I almost envisioned myself as being Jesus. This really wasn't my viewpoint but they don't accept any ambiguity from me. I had to view everyone as being separate from me. People are offended when I appear to take credit for the pain they endured as if I were them. They don't think I'm very mean but that neither was I very nice. If certain people didn't recognise me in the afterlife it wasn't because they hated me but that they didn't remember me. In a later sequence I was told that I took too much enjoyment from highly unusual facial expressions from women. I rested for a long time afterwards for my thoughts and breathing to return to normal. I view it as being a very subjective sequence of events but that when we die we are disconnected from our brain. As such even a psychotic thoughtline could get personified and reified after death. I was really just speaking to myself in an intense state of dissociation. I never immediately committed myself to any of my fantasised options. To some extent if you'd to be both pantheistic and Christian you'd have to take both very seriously. Perhaps if aspects of Christianity disagree with pantheism you'd really have to be thorough in the immanence of your pantheistic spirit to cope with a lack of appreciation from certain Christians! Maybe my own emotions were simulating what would happen if I didn't display enough self-sacrifice. Christianity isn't really a pure form of pantheism but might be seen as the lesser evil in humorous way. For all I know I've tried to reconcile one of the most extreme forms of anti-Christianity with Christianity! Creating hybrid religious beliefs can be tricky but perhaps the burden is on you to come up with your own suggestions for an afterlife in a way that will be tolerated if such afterlifes were said to exist! Pantheism will not be for everyone but I'd always endorse it for those who can manage it. We often forget that two sinners were also crucified with Jesus. Maybe the thoughtline was pre-emptive in nature knowing my tendency to be temperamental. If a similar thoughtline occured after my death then I'd probably pick the first option but who knows! Perhaps I'd give general apologies to those I may have offended even if I wasn't always capable of giving a full apology. I'm not technically owed an afterlife anyway since I'd already be dead. So I'll have to be grateful for any offer at all! I simply don't have time to form my own little religious group in a garden shed!
  • Pantheism
    One problem that might be encountered by agnostic-style theists is that they might expect to hear a theory-of-everything so-to-speak when we die. We define God as infinite but even an infinite entity might not be able to resolve issues of absurdity. For example many unresolved maths problems can appear paradoxical. The problem is that science exists within the apparent universe of God such that we expect God to know everything about science. However our expectation of God is as a spiritual being. This means that not all of our questions might be resolved if we were to reach the afterlife. One more problem is that atheistic people might bank on seeing God simply because a large section of society believes in God. Perhaps a dilemma here is that people have different coping mechanisms for death. In other words your beliefs are your own but perhaps there's a slippery slope if we compensate on the religion of others without believing in religion. I'm not sure if potentially different afterlifes comply with democratic principles!
  • Pantheism
    One caveat with Hell is that if it is eternal than the souls sent there simply wouldn't last as no one is as resilient as that. Only a God could be described as resilient to an infinite extent when it comes to withstanding an eternity in Hell. So from a logical point of view anyone sent to Hell must have an option to re-incarnate. After all they physical world is amoral rather than immoral when it comes to punishment. Although a bad person could likely be forgiven if they chose to withstand some of Hell.
  • Pantheism
    How do we know if souls in the afterlife were to meet a thoroughly deterministic prophet given the age of such a being? Or what if some of the messages of historical prophets were like working-backward mechanisms? For example the message of Jesus might have been so powerful that souls might be forced over a long period of time to thoroughly commit to their belief in virtues like humility and charity?
  • Pantheism
    Many religious people believe that heaven is blissful beyond all comprehension. This is certainly a reassuring belief. Yet some agnostics might fear that an afterlife would contain fear if we become disoriented. Perhaps one way to think of it is that an afterlife isn't painful because our human pain sensors will be gone. So people who died with exhaustion might be content just not to be in pain!

Michael McMahon

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