How can there be life after death?

[Mancunian]

@Mancunian @Sel@h @amigo de christo
No, you can’t. You will be wailing. Forever regretting your decision.

Sorry, but the Bible tells us it is a literal lake of fire and it will be horrendous. The Lord doesn’t say that the damned will no longer exist.

After Judgement Day they are thrown into the lake of fire. God’s righteous judgment for denying the Son of God Christ Jesus, who died and rose again so we can receive forgiveness of sins and live in blissful eternity with Him. It is a free gift from God. But we have to accept it whilst we are in this life. Once we leave this life, it’s too late. Believe on Him today. Tomorrow might be too late.
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And you'll live happily ever after in your eternal life, knowing that good people will burn in agony forever?

How nice.

 

[ProDeo]

I won't be running anywhere.
When I'm dead my ashes will be scattered to the wind.

Context please...

Then don't accuse God you don't know and don't believe in.

 

[Brakelite]

Consciousness has to be generated by the brain...otherwise anaesthesia would be impossible.

People who suffer with dementia have a brain disorder that leads to their memories being affected. They lose consciousness of themselves, their loved ones and short term memory.....but long term memory seems to be still tucked away in there somewhere.....

Strangely, I observed at a nursing home where one of my family members was living, they had “happy hour” every Friday afternoon, where the dementia patients were led in by staff, barely able to speak or to acknowledge where or who they were.
But old time music was part of that weekly event. As soon as the music of their youth was played, the transformation in these patients was nothing short of a miracle! They stared singing and some even got up to dance as they used to do in their youth...memories long buried by the disease process, were somehow retrieved and relived. But as soon as the music stopped, these ones retreated back into themselves....lost and broken again. It was a joyous thing to watch them wake up and become someone that they used to be, but sad to see them go back into that hollow shell.

Consciousness is a miracle....something that no one can really explain....but it’s something that all creation possesses in some way or another....it is the programming within each one that moves them to reach out to a mate and reproduce themselves to continue the cycle of life.

Humans, who alone are made in God’s image, are the only ones who do that consciously. The animal kingdom do so by instinct......another miracle of nature. Programmed wisdom in action.

There is no such thing as an “immortal soul” that lives on after death...the Bible never mentions such a thing....but what it does speak about is resurrection......a return to life under God’s Kingdom, which is yet future for the majority of mankind. (John 5:28-29)

Death in the Bible is the opposite of life....not a continuation of it.
Who turned that lie into the truth held by the majority of people in the world today? It was the devil who told that first lie...”you surely will not die”....when God had told Adam that they “surely would”. Now he has the whole world believing this lie....

Once you study the difference between the “soul” and the “spirit”, you will never make the mistake of conflating these two words again.

Consciousness was what God breathed into Adam... the breath of life. Adam before this was nothing but a pile of wet earth. Afterwards, he became a living soul. When we die, the reverse takes place. The living part of the soul dies, the consciousness returns to God Who gave it.

Then why do so many Christians believe in an immortal soul that immediately goes to heaven or hell upon physical death?

Originally a necessary and pet belief of pagans who inherited that belief from Satan, the father of paganism.
The resurrection amounts to the return of consciousness to a new body rising from the old. This takes place at the second coming, and not before. In the meantime, the person who died has no consciousness, no awareness at all of anything that is taking place anywhere, because consciousness only works when there is a body/brain for it to occupy.

 

[Brakelite]

As for today's Christian's. Wisdom in found in many A.I Chabots.

Yes. It has taken the place of thinking. Of studying. When I discuss anything with AI, I like to bring up alternative arguments. AI seldom offers a complete answer. They answer first that which is the most popular and commonly accepted answer. AI get their answers from mortal beings and error prone web sites. They dig deeper when you ask deeper questions, and can change their opinion if you steer them in the right direction.

 

[RLT63]

How is such a thing possible? In order for the soul to leave the body upon death, it must break the laws of the universe. It is a supernatural event. But supernatural events do not happen in this universe precisely because they would break the laws of physics, and that's not possible.

My view is, once the brain dies, the person creases to exist because we are our brains. A great example of this is people who have suffered an extensive brain injury. They often experience significant changes in their personality because of the physical changes to their brains.

We still don't understand consciousness, it's true. It's possible that conciuousness is something that happens outside our brains and its interpreted in real time by the brain. However, I think that's unlikely given that it would require an insane amount of compute power from an outside source, and that the brain acting as a receiver would require an immense amount of power from the brain itself to interpret and render 3D reality in real time.

Therefore I conclude that it is very likely that there is nothing beyond the physical death of the brain. We return to the state we were in before we were born.

Thoughts?

All things are possible with God. He will resurrect us to eternal life for believers and to judgment for non believers. I trust God and Jesus is my Savior, he grants eternal life to those who believe. My faith is in Jesus and I pray that you come to this saving faith and accept him as your Savior.

 

[Sel@h]

And you'll live happily ever after in your eternal life, knowing that good people will burn in agony forever?

How nice.

No, not true. God is not that cruel. Consider this, too. When we die, our flesh body is replaced with our spiritual body. Spiritual bodies feel no pain, right?

This eternal torment view is a critique of the "everlasting burning inferno" popularized by writers like Dante, where the unrepentant suffer eternal agony while saints watch from above.

The Bible repeatedly describes the fate of the wicked as perishing or experiencing the "second death," which is the complete destruction of the soul. This is supported by the words of Christ:

Matthew 10:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

These claims of eternal torment are based on a translation error. They compare this to translating an English idiom like "cold feet" literally into another language, which changes the meaning from "losing nerve" to the actual temperature of the feet. In this case, the Greek root basanos (the origin of "basis") suggests a process of being consumed or debased. Therefore, the phrase indicates that Satan, for example, will be completely gone for eternity, rather than existing in a state of perpetual pain.

A second witness to this is found in Ezekiel, which describes Satan's death by fire:

Ezekiel 28:18 Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.

Since God is described in Hebrews 12 as a consuming fire, He will reduce Satan to ashes. This does not mean an eternal process of burning, but a final result of non-existence:

[19] All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.

Satan will simply cease to exist. This is reflected in his Greek name, "Apollyon," meaning "perish," and his title, the "Son of Perdition." The author concludes that this same fate applies to anyone not part of the first or second resurrections. @Marvelloustime suggests a few mistranslated verses to establish a doctrine of eternal torture so cruel that it contradicts the very nature of love and exceeds the cruelty of human laws against torture.

 

[Lambano]

Then why do so many Christians believe in an immortal soul that immediately goes to heaven or hell upon physical death?

"The idea of an immortal soul has ancient roots in Egyptian and Babylonian religion, was systematized in Greek philosophy—especially by Plato—and entered Jewish and Christian thought by the late Hellenistic period, becoming a doctrinal controversy by the 2nd century CE.... By the 4th century BCE, Plato (c. 428–348 BCE) had formulated a coherent theory: the human being consists of a mortal body and an immortal, immaterial soul that survives death.... According to scholars, Platonic thought entered Judaism in the last century before the Common Era. This was a period of Hellenistic cultural contact, when Jewish thinkers encountered Greek philosophy. The “immortal soul” concept was foreign to earlier Israelite belief, which emphasized the whole person’s death and resurrection rather than a disembodied, eternal soul...Early Christian thought initially reflected the Hebrew view, but by A.D. 200 the immortality of the soul was a controversy among believers. Influential theologians like Origen adopted Platonic ideas, including the preexistence of the soul. Over time, Christian doctrine increasingly combined the soul’s immortality with the belief in resurrection and final judgment."

(The chatbot cites some United Church of God website.)

 

[Lambano]

We know born again Christians on death row believe that they're saved,...

If a criminal asks the Judge for mercy and the Judge grants his plea, would you be envious?

 

[keithr]

Thanks. There is ambiguity in the statement, as the note is pointing out, and I agree that “I have been in existence” is a possible alternative reading. The issue then is preexistence.

Other verses of Scripture also support that translation (that Jesus had been in existence before Abraham was born, and continued to exist up to the time that he spoke in John 8:58), e.g.:

John 17:5 WEB

(5) Now, Father, glorify me with your own self with the glory which I had with you before the world existed.​

Jesus said, John 16:27-28 WEB:

(27) for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I came from God.​

(28) I came from the Father, and have come into the world. Again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.”​

John 8:42 WEB

(42) Therefore Jesus said to them, “If God were your father, you would love me, for I came out and have come from God. For I haven’t come of myself, but he sent me.​

Jesus said, John 6:38 WEB

(38) For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.​

and John 3:13 UASV:

(13) And no one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of man.​

Philippians 2:5-7 WEB

(5) Have this in your mind, which was also in Christ Jesus,​

(6) who, existing in the form of God, didn’t consider equality with God a thing to be grasped,​

(7) but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men.​

 

[Brakelite]

And you'll live happily ever after in your eternal life, knowing that good people will burn in agony forever?

How nice.

That might be what marveloustime believes, but it isn't what the Bible teaches. Don't come to a Christian forum unless you are willing to do some serious homework beforehand to find out exactly what the Bible actually teaches, and not what is handed down by false tradition from the dark ages. I don't blame you though for the confusion. The belief of eternal torment is very popular and if you criticise it, even from scripture, start dodging the flak.

 

[Lambano]

 

[Matthias]

I can't. Dont you understand that?

Better than the cavalry I sent for.

 

[keithr]

These claims of eternal torment are based on a translation error. They compare this to translating an English idiom like "cold feet" literally into another language, which changes the meaning from "losing nerve" to the actual temperature of the feet.

Or it's like when they translated the slogan "Come alive with Pepsi" into Chinese, resulting in an advertising board that said, "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead"!

(Okay, Google tells me that that wasn't actually true; it say "The story is a classic corporate folklore example often shared in business and translation classes to highlight the importance of cultural localisation". Pepsi used the slogan "Come Alive, You're in the Pepsi Generation" starting in 1963 as part of a major youth-focused marketing campaign. Here in the UK I'm sure the TV adverts said "Come alive with Pepsi".)

 

[Matthias]

I can't. Dont you understand that? I can't force myself to be something I'm not.

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

(John 6:44, NIV)

Do you understand what Jesus said? What is your response to it?

 

[Sel@h]

If a criminal asks the Judge for mercy and the Judge grants his plea, would you be envious?

Ww sure do have a merciful and gracious Father.

 

[RLT63]

Or it's like when they translated the slogan "Come alive with Pepsi" into Chinese, resulting in an advertising board that said, "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead"!

(Okay, Google tells me that that wasn't actually true; it say "The story is a classic corporate folklore example often shared in business and translation classes to highlight the importance of cultural localisation". Pepsi used the slogan "Come Alive, You're in the Pepsi Generation" starting in 1963 as part of a major youth-focused marketing campaign. Here in the UK I'm sure the TV adverts said "Come alive with Pepsi".)

A real example: When the slogan “Got milk?” was translated into Spanish the ad read “Are you lactating?”

 

[Brakelite]

I can't force myself to be something I'm not.

None of us can. But you can choose to let Jesus change you.