Do you think HADES/HELL/etc is real? Or a made-up thing?

Originally posted by ChrisCrikey
....Oh, yes, you heard me right. For those who didn't know, I am a follower of Christ - one with a sense of humor and an open heart for the dynamic teachings of the Christ which are still here and available to all who seek.

There's more:

Perhaps the best indication that God does have a sense of humor is that He created man in His image (Genesis 1:27), and certainly people are able to perceive and express humor. The American Heritage Dictionary defines a “sense of humor” as “...The ability to perceive, enjoy, or express what is comical or funny.” According to this definition, then, God must show an ability to perceive, enjoy, or express what is comical. The difficulty is that people perceive what is comical differently, and what sinful man perceives as funny would not amuse a holy and perfect God. Much of what the world calls humor is not funny but is crass and crude and should have no part in a Christian’s life (Colossians 3:8). Other humor is expressed at the expense of others (tearing down rather than building up), again something contrary to God’s Word (Colossians 4:6; Ephesians 4:29).

An example of God's humor is the instance in which the Israelites were using the Ark of the Covenant like a good-luck charm in taking it to battle, and the Philistines ended up capturing it and placing it in their temple before their idol of Dagon. They came into the temple the next day and found Dagon flat on his face before the ark. They set him back up. The next morning, there he was again, but this time he had his hands and head cut off as a symbol of his powerlessness before the God of the ark (1 Samuel 5:1-5). God’s putting Dagon in a position of submission to His ark is a comical picture.

This incident is an example of God laughing at the foolishness of those who would oppose Him. “See what they spew from their mouths— they spew out swords from their lips, and they say, ‘Who can hear us?’ But you, O LORD, laugh at them; you scoff at all those nations” (Psalm 59:7-9). Psalm 2 also reveals God laughing at those who would rebel against His kingship (verse 4). It is like the comical picture of a kindergarten-aged child being upset at his parents and running away from home...all the way to his neighbor’s house. But there is obviously a serious side to this as well, and although the picture of weak and silly man trying to match wits with an almighty and all-knowing God is comical, God takes no delight in their waywardness and its consequences but rather desires to see them turn around (Ezekiel 33:11; Matthew 23:37-38).

A person does not crack jokes in the presence of one who has just lost a close loved one; silly jokes are out of place on such occasions. In the same way, God is focused on the lost and is looking for those who will care for their souls as He does. That is why our lives (while having times of refreshing and humor) are to be characterized by “soberness” (seriousness about making our lives count for Christ) (1 Thessalonians 5:6,8; Titus 2:2,6).

Recommended Resource: Laugh Again, Experience Outrageous Joy by Charles Swindoll.

"...let him who has ears........LAUGH!!!!!!!" was that a scipture? I dunno? more: www.gotquestions.org...

Originally posted by CookieMonster09
It's a real place.

Short and to the point!

OT thinks ur a busy dad

I think we can go to hell if thats what we want.

The reports of a few NDEs of people going to hell often have a simple narrative...it goes a bit like this

a mean spirited athiest dies for a few minutes, goes to a hell, gets horrified, calls for jesus out of desperation (or some symbol of salvation) and voila...heaven...then back to the hospital.

My theory is that they never truely were an athiest...they had deep seeded faith that was supressed...they felt they needed to have a scare tactic at death for whatever reason and so they got what they requested...

Is this a spiritual realization or a subconscious manifestation is open to interpretation...but, one thing to realize is that all you appearantly have to do should you find yourself in hell is to call j-man for help and you got it...soo much for eternal damnation.

Now....

I had a friend long ago...this guy was exceptionally intelligent. I met him as a hasidic jew. I talked to him because we had a mutual interest in artifical intelligence...he made these robotic bugs with very basic neural networking for his research company. I one day asked him how he...a seemingly genius, believes in religion. He explained that one day he got in a car crash...now, he was a typical science based athiest. Not a bad chap, just had no time for such things as religion...anyhow, as he died, he experienced something that he claimed was more real than anything he experienced in life...He didn't go to hell, he actually found himself similar to a heavenly experience, but unlike anything he read in any bible...still, when he was resurrected, he researched all the religion and found the h jews was closest to what he experienced and only decided to become one not out of necessity, but out of paying honor or some such to his experience.

I of course discussed with him the whole brain deprived of oxygen and he did not dismiss that idea, however he then suggested it would be easier for him to believe reality right now was the illusion after whatever it was he experienced...again, he experienced no hell..just adopted a religion out of respect...

so..make that what you will. Personally, I refuse to believe a all knowing, all powerful and perfect creator would suck soo bad at his main invention that a hell would be required to make those little bastards pay for not praying correctly...that is a human conquorer trait moreso than any being more evolved than a savage.

we make our own heaven and hell.

Heaven is where you still have hopes and dreams, hell is when all your hopes and dreams come true.

reply to post by SaturnFX


My young scientist...you may be right!

Time (and experience) will tell....let me know in a few decades, k?

Thank you for taking the time to stop by and post

OT

i heard either on the history channel or science channel...cant remember but one of the first Popes was told 2 different versions of hell...one was being away from God's light and the other was the whole fire and brimstone.....he took the fire brimstone because fear would bring them into the church?

Originally posted by munkey66
we make our own heaven and hell.

Heaven is where you still have hopes and dreams, hell is when all your hopes and dreams come true.

munkey66, I sure wish you were right...certainly would be clean...and explainable....


I just can't dismiss the empty tomb/his words/my conscience/etc...

oh well move along move along, huh?

Originally posted by crash override
i heard either on the history channel or science channel...cant remember but one of the first Popes was told 2 different versions of hell...one was being away from God's light and the other was the whole fire and brimstone.....he took the fire brimstone because fear would bring them into the church?

ok, thx! Good info....


Question? Does VANTAGE POINT/PERSPECTIVE mean a ratts arse....?


When it comes to TRUTH?


John 14:6 never asked what a pope/religious leader choose, right?


It is what it is!!!!!! the choice is ours.....

OT's glad you joined!

Originally posted by ChrisCrikey
.........Oh, yes, you heard me right. For those who didn't know, I am a follower of Christ - one with a sense of humor .....

CC,

I found some more!

The attribute of God that is most forgotten and most relevant for today is God’s sense of humor. In the story of Creation the Book of Genesis quotes God as saying, “Let us make man in our own image.” And so He did. And He saw that it was good, very good. Since that time man has been making God in his own image. And that is not good at all. Most of these man-made images of God are caricatures

We often picture God as a serious old man, burdened with the incredible task of managing this vast, complex universe and providing adequately for all of His creatures, especially for the fickle, fallible, unpredictable human beings. But God is not old. Neither is He young. It is the passing of time that makes one young and then old. God exists outside of time. God exists in eternity, in an eternal now. And God is not serious, at least in the sense of being burdened with a task that is too big for Him. Is it more difficult to manage the universe than to create it out of nothing? And most of all God is not sad. God is perfectly and eternally happy, and enjoys a divine sense of humor. The sense of humor we have, if we have one, is but an imperfect participation in God‘s sense of humor.

A sense of humor, of course, is a sense of the humorous. So what is humorous? The humorous is that which is unexpected, incongruous and preposterous. At the circus, for example, it is the incongruity of the clown with the baggy pants, bulbous nose, long shoes, and painted face that is humorous. At the movies we laugh at the “Three Stooges” because they are always doing the unexpected, the incongruous and the preposterous.
A sense of humor then is simply a sense of truth, a sense of reality that enables us to discern the untrue, the unreal, the incongruous and the preposterous. God has a perfect sense of humor then because God is All-Truth and God is the “really real,” the source of all reality.

Creation is filled with the humor of God. Consider the giraffe, the kangaroo, the zebra, the ostrich, the hyena and the baboon. Could a serious, humorless old man even conceive of such creations? And what about us? Man has been called an “angelic animal.” What an unexpected, incongruous and preposterous combination! Angels are perfectly at home, wherever they are. Animals are perfectly at home in this world. But we are not. We are like displaced persons. We have not here a lasting city. And we do not have it all together. We are a bundle of contradictions. “The good we will we do not and the evil we will not that we do.” We are proud as devils and act like jackasses.

The Bible which contains God’s most intimate revelation of Himself also gives eloquent testimony to His sense of humor. From Genesis to Revelation God is constantly doing the unexpected, the incongruous, the preposterous, doing impossible things with the most unlikely people. The very first chapter of Genesis contains what is perhaps the greatest proof of the Divine sense of humor. “...male and female he created them.” (Gen. 1:27) Anyone who creates sex must have a great sense of humor. Nothing has made a bigger fool out of more people than sex.

Then there is Abraham and Sarah. Abraham, 99 years old, and his wife Sarah, 90 years old and barren, are promised that their descendents will be more numerous than the grains of sand on the seashore and the stars in the sky. On hearing this Sarah laughs. And God must have been laughing with her, because she does conceive and bears a son, whom they name Isaac, which in Hebrew means laughter. Years later, Isaac’s younger son, Jacob, tricks his older brother Esau out of his birthright. Then Jacob‘s youngest and best loved son, Joseph, is sold into slavery by his brothers only to become the chief executive officer of Egypt. Then a mere youth, David, slays the giant Goliath with a slingshot.

But God‘s sense of humor reaches its climax in the New Testament. What is more unexpected, incongruous and preposterous than the Gospels? The King of Kings is born in a stable and dies as a criminal on a cross. The first are last and the last are first. Those who lose their lives find it. You add by subtracting and multiply by dividing. The foolish confound the wise and the weak conquer the strong. The stone rejected by the builders becomes the cornerstone supporting all the rest.

The Bible seems to be telling us that the only reasonable response to God is faith and laughter. Believe and laugh. Yet I have seen many people read the Bible, very devoutly and prayerfully, but I have yet to see someone read the Bible and laugh. Or even smile.

God’s sense of humor is most obvious in theology. Theology speaks glibly and eloquently about God and then says that God is incomprehensible. I remember the theology class about the Trinity. We spent one hour a day, five days a week for one semester studying the Trinity only to learn at the end that if we understand it, we don’t understand it, because it is unintelligible.

There is tragedy, of course, in the Bible as well as in human life. Sometimes there is very great tragedy, as in the world today. But there is also God. God who loves us, as only He can, not for our possessions, not for our achievements, but for ourselves. For ourselves, not as we could be or should be, but as we really are with all the physical warts, psychological quirks and spiritual infidelities. And He loves us with a love we cannot merit or ever be worthy of. And in the unconditional love of a Father He can laugh at the human foibles of His children. And He can change human tragedy into divine comedy. All we can do is to believe and laugh. Laugh with God, our loving Father.

source: www.frksj.org...

OT laughing!

perception is never right nor wrong in the person that believes what he/or she is saying. for example i'm color blind and some blues look acually purple to me but since i know i'm color blind i wont argue the color but if i didnt know i was color blind i would argue its purple not blue

Originally posted by OldThinker



I just can't dismiss the empty tomb/his words/my conscience/etc...

Couldn't an empty tomb just be a metaphor for an empty heart or soul?

Think about this, if you have everything your heart desires, what is left?

Originally posted by crash override
perception is never right nor wrong in the person that believes what he/or she is saying.....

OK, good point!

Glad you had time to contribute!

OT

reply to post by OldThinker

Thank you so much for those posts on humor, OldThinker. Great stuff! Thanks for taking the time to do all this and respond to so many posts.
Chris

When in a more fictional mode, I tend to believe that they exist in some sense. Not exactly as they're described in literature or anything, but they have an existence which influences myth and literature. Since I am quite tipsy at the moment, I am in a fictional mode.

However, in my normal mode, I think that they probably don't exist. If they do they exist in a sense which we aren't very good at thinking about; a sense of "beyond" us.

I'm not going to convince anyone of my viewpoint, that heaven and hell exist. but I feel the need to correct something about the concept of hell that many Christians and non-Christans alike seem to not understand.

Hell is being separated from God. A person experiences hell because he or she REJECTS GOD.

God IS all loving and all powerful; God does not just punish those for eternity who have been rebellious or made poor choices. People THEMSELVES choose to reject God, and in so doing, separate themselves from God's eternal love after death.

God is not a pouty child who says "Fine! You didn't do what I said, now burn forever!"

People sadly misunderstand the concept of hell, and even what it means to have a "personal relationship" with Jesus.

When I started to devote myself to studying the Bible, and trying to discern its wisdom, but most importantly attempting to "listen for God", I became a new person. No, not suddenly checking my scientific mind at the door, but having a transformation in my heart. I no longer feel the need to compare my level of success to others for a sense of well being; I don't desire to watch stand-up comedy with tons of profanity; I have no desire to get drunk to have a good time.

I'm only posting my personal experience because it is saddens me that some people use Hell to scare them towards Jesus, when what I WISH would draw them toward Him is seeing a person leading a life of integrity/compassion/helping others--if more people saw the Christians that Jesus intended, so many more lives could be changed for the better.

No doubt that some here will ask me, "How do YOU know anything that you posted about hell is true?"

Well, I don't. It's only my perception I thought I would express in the hopes that it would resonate with others.

I personally believe in neither.

When we 'die' our brain survives for 12 minutes and functions taking us to a dream-like state. Think about the most intricate dream you have ever had, the ones that feel last forever, it only lasted but mere seconds. If you have 12 minutes of that it could feel like an eternity.

I, believe in dimensional energy. I think if you exude positive energy and are genuinely concerned for the well being of others, it affects your energy. Vice versa for negative thinking. Negativity is like a spiral that moves fast and it is like digging yourselves out of a hole unless you turn to positivity.

I mean, I am not a religious person, but I could not believe, no mater what, that someone knows the answer to this question. I think no one minds knows anything because, well, we all have the same mind. I will not follow, or believe something just because someone has said it.

Our energy never dies, we are all elements of the Earth and when we die we go back to becoming of the Earth. It makes us feel fuzzy and special to think we have a 'soul' but in reality, we only have consciousness because our brains are functioning. Scientifically speaking when our brains are off, our 'soul' is gone and our energy returns to the Earth.

Cool topic and I love to see others opinions on it.

Pred...



[edit on 29-3-2010 by predator0187]

Originally posted by Solasis
...Since I am quite tipsy at the moment, I am in a fictional mode...

HE shares in your joy!

Probably never heard that fom a religious dude?

Check out: www.saintbarnabaschurch.org.uk...

So when Mary said to Jesus, "They have no more wine," she wasn’t just saying that because she needed a stiff drink. She was genuinely concerned about the welfare of this young couple. She was saying in effect, "Jesus, this is serious! And I was hoping that you could do something to help.

But what did you make of Jesus’ reply? It’s an interesting one if you have a look. “Women what concern is that to you and me. My hour has not yet come.” In other words, he might be saying something like, ’Now listen, this is one area of our relationship where you don’t have any jurisdiction over me. I can’t go running around solving everyone’s problems just because you want me to. I have to be sensitive to what my Father wants me to do. And right now is not the time for me to make a full disclosure of who I am and why I came.’ He’s not saying to his mother that he won’t do anything. He’s gently reminding her that this isn’t the main point of his ministry. So well meaning though Mary might have been –Jesus demonstrates early that his obedience is to his Father’s purposes.

And that’s probably why Jesus addresses her as "Woman" or “ ‘Dear Woman’ instead of ’Mother.’ His relationship with his mother is changing. From now on, instead of approaching Jesus as her son, she (like all of us) needs to learn to approach him as Lord, as Saviour – as the child of promise who was now beginning to fulfil his destiny.

And Mary doesn’t give any indication that she was offended or took this the wrong way. She simply says to the servants "Do whatever He tells you." She has no idea if Jesus is going to get involved or not. But she does know that if he does get involved, your best bet is to listen to Him. And boy isn’t there’s a message there: if you and I do whatever Jesus tell us, something will happen in our lives for good; even if it makes us uncomfortable; even if it’s hard work, or inconvenient. Even if it’s something we’ve never done before and takes us out of what they call our ‘comfort zone.’

”Now standing there were six stone water-jars…and Jesus said to them fill the jars with water"; so they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, "Now draw some out and take them to the chief steward - master of the banquet."

Now you really aren’t supposed to drink water from those jars! Those were set aside for ceremonial cleansing. You’d take a cup of water from the jar, and pour it over the top of your hand, letting the water run down your fingers. Then you’d take another cup and pour it over the other hand. So when Jesus instructed them to fill the jars with water, they were probably nudging each other in utter disbelief. And then when he said, "Now go and give some to the steward, they’d have been incredulous – “WHAT? – he wants us to serve WATER to the master of the banquet? He’s gotta be kidding! When the master finds out that we tried to give him water instead of wine – especially drawn from those jars, he’ll “have our guts for garters” (as we used to say – that’s my paraphrase)

"Do whatever he tells you, Mary said – however bizarre – and this certainly was!" I’ll bet their hearts were pounding in their chest when they took that water to the master of the banquet.
And we’re told he put the cup to his lips and tasted… vintage wine – nectar! So, not surpsringly he called out to the bridegroom and said, "Could you come over here for a minute?" "Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink, but you have saved the best ‘til now! This wine is incredible!"

Now then, what’s going on? – are you getting a sense of something incredible here? Well for one thing, no one really knows how it all happened. As far as we know, Jesus never waved his arm over the water pots. He never said, "I command this water to become wine!" He simply willed it to happen, and it happened. And isn’t this the way Jesus still does his miraculous work today? – no hype, no fuss – he often acts in such a sublimely, low key, respectful way that many of us aren’t even aware that something supernatural might be going on – even when it is.
I guess another thing is that this miracle was not a ’necessity’, but a luxury. Think about this just for a minute: This isn’t like some of the other miracles Jesus performed, where someone had suffered for years, or where a child’s life hangs in the balance. This isn’t an emergency situation that demands immediate and dramatic action on our Lord’s part. Running out of wine was a problem – horrifically embarrassing. But it wasn’t a life and death issue.

The point is that God cares very much about our "non-critical" problems! He cares about the details of our lives that we might be tempted to think aren’t all that important in the scheme of things – he loves us!

reply to post by OldThinker


I don't have much to say beyond the suggestion that "full disclosure of who I am" was a phrase chosen by whoever wrote that VERY intentionally.

And this!



[edit on 29-3-2010 by Solasis]

Originally posted by sparkofdivine
........No doubt that some here will ask me, "How do YOU know anything that you posted about hell is true?"

Well, I don't. It's only my perception I thought I would express in the hopes that it would resonate with others.

Your opinion matters much, don't discount it, ok?

I am listening...and soooooo are others...

OT

Originally posted by sparkofdivine
No doubt that some here will ask me, "How do YOU know anything that you posted about hell is true?"

Well, I don't. It's only my perception I thought I would express in the hopes that it would resonate with others.

But you see, that's all everyone has is their opinions. Do not let people tell you your opinions are wrong because, what is wrong? Minus harming another person, which is really hard to do with thought, we have been told is right.

Same thing with normal. What is normal? Who knows? People talk about other people being normal, and yet ask them what it means and they have no idea.

I do know what happy is though, and that is my goal in life, is to be happy every day.

Pred...