29% of Americans say religion 'out of date'

reply to post by bsbray11


Characteristics of Near Death Experiences

1. Knowing you are dead.
2. Out of body experience
3. Meeting Beings of Light
4. Overwhelming sense of peace and painlessness
5. Tunnel experience
6. Life review
7. Being of Light
8. Reluctance to return to body.
9. Post experience lessened fear of death
10. Post experience renewal of mission in life.
11. Difficulty sharing experience.

This is for the NDE of persons who believe in God and his Son.

Characteristics of NDE for non believers, or believers with grave sin and error.

1. Know you are dead
2. OBE
3. Meet beings of evil
4. Overwhelming sense of fear, hate, loneliness
5. Hell experience
6. Difficulty sharing experience

Now NDE are not a new event.
They have been around for long periods of time.
How are they consistent (Dante and current NDE in Hell) over centuries?


[edit on 27-12-2009 by fmcanarney]

Originally posted by saturnine_sweet
reply to post by InfaRedMan

 

Wow..I see that point TOTALLY went over your head. You're like walking proof of my point. All you did was indirectly try to make anyone religious sound as though they have an inferior intellect

I said nothing of the sort. That's just your own inferiority complex gnawing away at you. You simply created your own subtext to satisfy that monster that lives within your own id.

and then ranted about people coming to convert you.

So... you have an aversion to the truth? It's you who brought up enforcing belief systems/view points upon another... I just showed you the hypocrisy that fuels your own ignorance.

you have no interest in trying to understand or work with those who follow religion. Which makes my point, like I said.

Thanks.

Your original post was understood. Just not agreed upon... but of course, if we don't agree, it is by default, the error of the non religious - not yours... Yes? And we all know why many of you hold such opinions.

Search for your hollow validations elsewhere because you certainly didn't get it from me. To suggest otherwise would be delusional.

Nuff Said!

NEXT!

IRM :shk:

[edit on 27/12/09 by InfaRedMan]

reply to post by ohsnaptruth


because he created man with a free will.
including Jesus.
Angels have free will.
God has free will.

Originally posted by RedGolem
If this is correct, then there could be some change on the horizon for society in the U.S.

I do hope you're right! I would like to see every speck of religion removed from government, leaving a secular government. As it was meant to be by the founding fathers.

Originally posted by bsbray11
Someone said they wonder what religion 2.0 will be like.

It will be spirituality WITHOUT having to say "that's wrong; you're wrong; these people are wrong; let's kill them/let's imprison them/they're going to hell, screw them."

Wow... you mean as it was meant to be? Non-judgmental and loving? I could live with that.

I'm surprised that more people don't admit that they don't believe in God. I think part of it is fear of committing "the worst sin" of denouncing God. I'd like to see these same people put on a lie detector test. I think we'd find that many more don't believe, but say they do because of fear. The great motivator!

how can religion be out of date?? wierd.

While I was getting electrocuted the electricity was flowing right through me, I saw my spirit leave my body. Instantly, I was in hell! At that time, I didn't know anything about the bible. I wasn't a religious person or a Christian and didn't know any Christians. I just know that I was cast into outer darkness. I heard the most horrifying, tormenting screams imaginable.

Jeanette Mitchell-Meadows lives in the USA. She is a Christian. She had a Near Death Experience during a spinal fusion operation on her back, and, while in Heaven, met her daughter, Annette, who had been killed two years previously in a road traffic accident.

Also when I was a small boy I was taken to Hell. I was made to watch big guards with spears herding people before a magistrate who was sitting on a throne. One by one the people stood in front of the magistrate and he read out their crimes from a scroll. Then the guards took hold of the person and threw them off the cliff into the fiery lake. There were lots of people in the lake and they didn't die, they just writhed around in agony. They held up their arms and their flesh was dripping off them. Many years later I saw an oil painting of the exact same Hell. Everything was the same in every detail. It was obvious that someone else had seen the same Hell I had seen. So I knew it was not just me..

Sister Josefa was a Spanish Catholic nun of the Society of the Sacred Heart and lived only four years as a religious, at the convent of Les Feuillants in Poitiers, France, where she died at the age of 33. She lived from 1890-1923.

The devil is a reality, and in his dealings with God's saints he shows himself in the undisguised perversity of his vicious and corrupt nature. What must his cruelty be to those souls that are damned and are his for ever, if he is so pitiless with those over whom, after all, he has but limited sway?

The devil tried by every possible means to delude and beguile her, disguising himself as an "angel of light", even going so far as to assume the very features of Jesus Christ Himself. Most often however, he tried to turn her from her chosen path by inflicting on her grievous bodily harm.
At times Sister Menendez was violently snatched away from the chapel, or prevented from entering it. Again and again the devil appeared to her in the guise of a terrifying dog, snake, or worse still, in human form.

Soon the forcible abductions became more frequent, in spite of the supervision exercised by Superiors. Under their very eyes she suddenly disappeared, and after long search would be found thrown into some loft, or beneath heavy furniture, or in some unfrequented spot. In their presence she was burnt, and without seeing the devil, they saw her clothes consumed and on her body unmistakable traces of fire, which caused wounds that took long to heal.

God permitted the devil to take Sister Menendez down to hell. There she spent long hours, sometimes a whole night, in unspeakable agony.

Then Our Lord showed her the treasures of reparation and expiation she had gained by her repeated ordeals (6th October 1922 and 5th November 1922), and allowed her to witness in hell the devil's bursts of fury, when there escaped him souls of whom he thought he had a firm hold, but for whom she was offering expiation. The thought that she could console and rest Our Lord and gain souls for Him kept up her heroic spirit and excited her zeal.

Thomas Welch tells how he, while working as a lumberjack in Portland, Oregon, slipped and fell into a creek and found himself crushed by giant logs. It took workers more than an hour to find his body and pull it out from between the logs. Not seeing any signs of life, the workers concluded that he was dead. Thomas, meanwhile, in a temporary state of death, found himself on the shores of boundless flaming ocean. He was frozen by fear of the fiery sulfur rushing towards him. This was the fiery Gehenna that cannot be described in words. There, on the shore of the fiery Gehenna, he recognized the faces of a few people who had died before him. All of them stood in absolute horror of the rolling fiery surges. Thomas knew that there was no chance of leaving this place. He began to regret that he had previously shown so little concern for his salvation.

Oh, if only he had known what awaited him, he would have lived very differently. Then he noticed someone walking in the distance. The face of the stranger showed great strength and goodness. Thomas understood that this was the Lord and that only he could save his soul, condemned to Gehenna


link

reply to post by fmcanarney


I don't know what your point is... NDE's don't validate religion. There certainly could be a 'life after death', but that doesn't mean that there's a God, or really have anything to do with religion. People who aren't religious at all have these experiences, some quite pleasant. And they don't "get religion" after it's over. NDEs are unrelated to religion, IMO.

Of course, if one IS religious, they're bound to associate religious ideas and dogma to their experience, claiming to have been 'in hell' or feeling the love of God.

[edit on 27-12-2009 by Benevolent Heretic]

reply to post by InfaRedMan


Jesus Christ, can you see around that huge ego you carry around? (pun intended) I wasn't stating opinion in the first post. I was listing facts. Like the fact you are arrogant and condescending, which is what a lot of my original post was about. It takes a special breed of person, (which generally can be labeled as "progressive") to consider ignoring reality and factual truth as a difference of opinion.

My inferiority complex? Im not Christian. Im just rational. And people coming to your house to share something that they believe is wonderful, however misguided it might be, is a world away from pseudo-intellectual asses trying to legislate that everyone must live and believe as they do.

Set down the giant ego for a while, and try to understand the world around you, instead of dismissing everything you don't understand and everything that is different from you and your beliefs as inferior. You might find some real enlightenment, then.

To keep on topic, I would also question the wording of this poll. The numbers between those who are Christian and those who say religion is outdated are pretty far apart, when an accurate poll should give a bit more correlation, especially given that there should be a percentage of non-christian religious people to make the percent labeling religion as outdated lower than the number who are Christian.

And btw....no knowledge is ever outdated; it is only misunderstood and improperly applied.

Originally posted by Chevalerous
Yep! they surly got that right I believe!

We need updated religion 2.0!

I wonder what that would be?

Religion 2.0 will be downloadable to your hard drives shortly. It is the electronic faith of the digital mind and will be installed at birth.


[edit on 27-12-2009 by Vikingwolf]

I love in Jay-Z's new song "Empire State of Mind" he says "and Jesus can't save you, life starts when the church ends"

its been making people scratch their heads

reply to post by Divinorumus


STAR!!

I loved this!!!!!!!!

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic

Find some NDE where th person becomes a peach, goes to heaven where twenty six virgins await, or Rock and Roll is played by Jimmi Hendrix and Janis.

NDE does not substantiate religion, but religions predict very accurately what eventually will happen after the end of the world as we know it.

29% is way less then half of the population of America. I don't see what the big deal is.

Originally posted by fmcanarney
Find some NDE where th person becomes a peach, goes to heaven where twenty six virgins await, or Rock and Roll is played by Jimmi Hendrix and Janis.

Here's a guy who went "into the energetic void of nothingness behind the Big Bang". A guy who saw a white Buffalo and another that claims to have seen the rock stars you mentioned:

Then it seemed we stopped and it was very dark but it felt like we were in a big room somewhere. We were just floating in midair and there were all these demonic looking creatures around us and also faces of recently deceased rock stars like Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin, those are the only ones I recognized. Jimi Hendrix was trying to warn us about something, and he kept saying "go back, go back before it's too late", or words to that effect.

Rock Star NDE

NDE does not substantiate religion, but religions predict very accurately what eventually will happen after the end of the world as we know it.

More likely, people are seeing and experiencing what they expect to see and experience, based on what they've heard about religion while alive.

Originally posted by SuperSlovak
29% is way less then half of the population of America. I don't see what the big deal is.

SuperSlovak
yes it is way less then half of the population, but I can assure you it is enough to bring about a change. If nothing else by way of making it an issue.

Religious preconceptions are contained in the memory and the consciousness.

The soul is not conected to the body, then how does it manfacture the experience by way of memories that are not part of the departed spirit or soul?

NDE/OBE happen in hospitals where the EEG is flat. No brain or mental activity.

Originally posted by fmcanarney
reply to post by AlreadyGone

 

Look at the societies which do not have a majority of its citizens believe in God. Totalarian dictatorships, and other substandard governmental regimes.

Would you like to cite some references for that statement? This sounds suspiciously like the kind of thinking that comes from ultra right-wing religious forums.

Yes, let's look at them. Some of the most progressive, democratic countries with the highest standards of living are characterized by having a majority of citizens who are non-believers.

If McCain Wins, Should We All Move to Scandinavia?

This will come as a surprise to cultural conservatives, who for a long time have pointed baleful fingers at the atheist dictatorships of Albania, North Korea, China and the former Soviet Union. But as Zuckerman argues, there is a significant difference between imposing atheism from above and absorbing it from below.

As for faith being the cornerstone of personal morality, Zuckerman would remind us that Scandinavians rank near the top in charitable giving to poor nations, that their murder rate is among the lowest in the world and that the safety net they've created for their poorest citizens puts the U.S. welfare state to shame. And all this has been accomplished without God breathing down anyone's neck.

Journal of Religion and Society, Vol 7, 2005

Data correlations show that in almost all regards the highly secular democracies consistently enjoy low rates of societal dysfunction, while pro-religious and antievolution America performs poorly.

The Bible's crap. I prefer the story of the three little pigs.

reply to post by IrnBruFiend


Thank you for your opinion.
Now go to your room without desert, or television.

Originally posted by fmcanarney
Thank you for your opinion.
Now go to your room without desert, or television.

It's easy enough to impose that on kids, but if someone tried pulling some kind of controlling BS on me as a grown adult I would smash them in the face, and for all the people Christianity has murdered over hundreds of years, and they are STILL trying to force it down peoples' throats, I'd say they more than deserve it. It would make my day if someone tried to force Christianity down my throat. I have no sympathy for evangelicals. I don't care if you're Christian but keep it to your damned self, not everyone is afraid of dying and going to the boogey man.

Originally posted by fmcanarney
Characteristics of Near Death Experiences

...

This is for the NDE of persons who believe in God and his Son.

Characteristics of NDE for non believers, or believers with grave sin and error.

Sorry but I have read hundreds of NDE reports and you are grossly mis characterizing them. AP and OBE are amongst my greatest interests and I have been studying them for years, and everyone from Buddha to Hindu gods are involved in NDEs and no, not in an evil, menacing way. Maybe a church congregation would gobble up your bull crap but not me. You create your own reality and what you believe, what you look for is what you see, every single time. Muslims believe in Allah and Christians believe in God, no exceptions.

[edit on 27-12-2009 by bsbray11]