Discussion thread for religion and faith
Religion/Faith/Belief Discussion
I am creating this separate thread to discuss personal beliefs about the structure of the spiritual dimension and how that should affect how we behave…also known as religious belief. For many this kind of discussion is not wanted, hence the creation of separate thread/page for those who do want to get into it. Don’t read this if you don’t like religion or are offended by religious beliefs or positions. If you do engage, please keep it respectful (one of the reasons I have chosen to avoid this subject is that it generates strong passions). I will shut it down if it gets nasty. Having said that, disagreement using reasoned argument is encouraged!
I will start.
I am a Christian. I called myself a Christian into my teens more through my cultural upbringing, than any deep conviction. My views were typical of anyone growing up in Western Europe during that time…the church was boring, and riddled with hypocrisy, but Jesus was generally a decent chap, along with lots of other religious figures like The Buddha, Mohammad, Moses, Brahma etc.
When I was about 17 I had an experience which happened during my sleep but was much more than a dream. A brief summary is that I awoke, everything was very normal…not like a dream. I felt compelled to say the Christian prayer – “sorry I ignored you [Jesus], sorry I hurt you, myself and others, please forgive me and become my Lord”. My bedroom disintegrated before my eyes and I found myself in the presence of a being of pure love. I cannot say how long I was there as the moment felt outside of time. It was the most perfect experience of my life. When I awoke I did not repeat the prayer and continued as I had been, but more open to the faith of my culture than I ever had been.
About 18 months later, when I was 19, I visited a Pentecostal church with my girlfriend of the time. There I encountered the Holy Spirit (what Christians believe to be the temporal form of God on earth since the death of Jesus) in a way that I had only experienced in that dream until that point. I was overwhelmed with the sense of God’s loving presence.
A short while later I made the decision to say that prayer in real life, but was unable to physically form the words with my voice. It required deliverance from a darkness that had been oppressing me, causing suicidal thoughts among other things, before I was free to say the words. That was the moment I was “born again” in spirit.
Since then my faith has only deepened. I had a period in which I did question things, largely due to the fact that my writing did not take off in the way I had hoped and believed that God had led me to understand it would. As a result I dug really deep into the questions around the origin of life.
By this point I had gained a Ph.D. in organic medicinal chemistry and was an expert on the biochemistry of DNA and proteins, so was qualified to pursue this line of enquiry. My findings confirmed without any doubt that life could not possibly have emerged from inorganic matter by natural means, and to believe so was foolishness/delusion in the extreme. As a result I concluded that a creator or God existed, despite being disappointed with the outcome of my writing endeavours, and I just had to roll with my situation. Moreover, the evidence from the words attributed to Him in the Bible and from my personal experience of walking with Him convinced me that Jesus was exactly who the gospels claim he is…God the Son Of Man, God in the form of a human, and the only guaranteed path to eternal life.
39 years of being a Christian, attending various churches, talking to people of other faiths, visiting non Christian countries, researching NDEs, reading about origin of life research, and thinking deeply on these subjects has led me to conclude that I am on the right path. I do not believe that God/Jesus is exclusive in that I believe that anyone who truly seeks God will find him, but I am also of the view that those who reject Jesus as he is presented in the gospels (as opposed to represented by other Christians) are on a sticky wicket from an eternal perspective. I understand why many people reject Christianity because of the (mis)behaviour of some christians, but to reject Jesus himself is a whole different ball game.
As for the fact that reports from some NDEs seem to contradict the teachings of Jesus – specifically that some people come back having been told that all people go to heaven – it is also reported that some people end up going to Hell which instantly contradicts these heaven-only NDE reports and these internal contradictions from accounts have caused my view on NDEs to evolve into a position that they may not be exactly what people have come to believe them to be…including my former self. While I believe that these experiences are authentically experienced by NDErs, I am now of the view that there is a degree of deception or delusion going on in the dimension they find themselves in. I’m not sure which of those it is, not sure how it happens, and not sure why it is happening…but I have thoughts on that latter point related to maintaining the necessity of free choice (something I expand on in detail in my book Did Jesus Die For Nothing).
That is a summary of my faith. Feel free to post what you believe. Feel free to ask me questions about my beliefs, or even challenge them, but always maintain respect for each other and consider that we are all on a journey of discovery and often at different stages of understanding.
Test complete, Your post comes through! Paul
Yeah, but the structure of the blog is now all over the place! Trying to figure out how to set it all up properly so that I have separate pages where people can write their comments and that they are not all in one place.
It’s easy to do. Not tonight as I need some sleep. I’ve also chaged my picture ~ Now you see the real Pauiile!
I don’t understand. Atheists who report having seen the “bright light” are deluded? Does Hell exist or not? According to NDEs, it most definitely does. According to my tradition, Gehenna is a place where the soul is ritually purified. It appears to me that atheists, and people of different religious traditions, aren’t doomed, because a positive or negative outcome seems entirely based upon how one conducted themselves morally. Therefore, it shouldn’t matter much whether or not one accepts or rejects any particular belief.
My faith, and specifically the founder of my faith Jesus, is quite specific about this…some, many, maybe most will “perish”…they will be destroyed, and this destruction will take place in Hell. So if you are right, then Jesus was wrong, but if He was right, people will be “doomed” because of the choices they make in this life.
Isn’t that very arbitrary? What if you had been born a Hindu; wouldn’t you literally be on the road to Hell? No offense, but Christianity is far more tribal than Judaism, and Judaism is far more universal than Christianity, although we don’t seek after converts. Why? Because like a non-bias reading of NDE literature, one simply has to be a decent human being to earn a place in Olam HaBa, whereas in Christianity, one’s soul is only “saved” if they happen to be part of a particular religion. Now, which version of Gd do you find to be (a) more attractive, and (b) more loving and merciful? This is the main problem I have with Christianity. It’s not the claim that he was HaMashiach (the Messiah), or even HaShem (Gd). It’s the fact that, according to it, billions upon billions of people are eternally damned, not because of anything negative they might have done over the course of their lives, but simply because they never heard of, or misunderstood, the core tenents of Christianity! How very unfair! Again, I don’t mean any disrespect on my part; I simply don’t find such a tradition attractive. I’d apply the same criticism to Islam.
Hi Yitz, I need to correct you. The teachings of Jesus are not as exclusive as you suggest, although some Christians love to go down the exclusionist route. In my book “Did Jesus Die For Nothing” – have I mentioned that I wrote that book on here before – I address this issue very specifically, and use the words of Jesus. I came to the following understanding of how people will be judged according to Him:
1. Heard the message of Jesus, believed it and did their very best to apply it, failed, as everyone does, but ultimately did their best…straight to heaven.
2. Heard the message of Jesus, believed it, but were not brilliant at applying it, but nonetheless loved God and followed him. Should be alright as they live under forgiveness through faith, but if they did bad things and failed to recognise it, or grieve their sin and repent (try to turn away from it), then they may have issues.
3. Heard the message of Jesus and either ignored it, or rejected it outright. Here I mean that they really heard it, not that they met some shouty evangelical who preached only Hell and condemnation, or were schooled by some pervert Catholic priest…but really heard it but rejected it. They are in deep doodoo.
4. People who have not heard the message (properly) but behaved according to God’s desire for us to behave with love and compassion, AND sought God in this life. I believe these people will be judged less harshly, and if they truly sought God, and truly loved his ways and lived them, may be welcomed into heaven. Jesus hints at this through the parables referring to those who did not know the commands of the ruler and obeyed or disobeyed them…they will be punished less…and maybe not all if their behaviour was exemplary.
5. People who never heard the true message of Jesus, and did bad. They will be judged according to their behaviour…God’s spirit is present throughout the earth.
In my book I provide the scriptures that back this up. Ultimately as a Christian I believe that Jesus was God in the form of a man, or son of man. When he says “none can enter the kingdom of heaven except by me”, it is worth noting that context…he wasn’t just Jesus, he was God, so it makes sense that none could enter the kingdom of heaven except by God, and I believe that God is just and for those who didn’t really encounter him in the form of Jesus, either in the flesh, or through his words, there may be hope. Ultimately though, if you have heard of him, and looked into him, it is highly advisable to follow him.
Good place for you guys to ramble.
I am not christian or anything religious. I am just spiritual. Not as in meditating, esotericism and all that. Just as in; there is more than meets the eye.
If there is a creator or multiple then so be it but I think they do not gave us any books, prophets and rules to live by. We are just a bit more intelligent animals that experience the gift of life and have the fortune and also misfortune to grasp complex patterns in life.
Being able to deeply explore the feeling of love and connection also comes with the downside of being aware of death and loss – different to other animals. I doubt they fear what “comes after” because they lack the concept of such thinking.
I wouldn’t want to miss out on being able to think about good and bad things though.
I like to think that when we die we reach a different place. That maybe what we interprete as death doesn’t even exist. Just a metamorphosis. Because clearly something is happening there. Something good it seems.
Having a good bit of proof one day that yes, something indeed is waiting “beyond” would make me very calm because I know I’d see my loved ones again.
I miss some of them very much.
The idea of being able to see them again one day and hug them in a different way… soothes me.
Greetings. M.
That is certainly a hope that NDEs seem to give. I hope so too.
I grew up in a house next door to a CofE Parish Church. My siblings and I loved playing in the churchyard, where there were some great old Yew trees we could climb. My parents weren’t religious, and didn’t bother to have me christened. I had a very small amount of exposure to Christianity from perhaps 3-4 Religious Education lessons at school, but had little interest in it.
I’ve had several powerful experiences, starting at around 11-12 years old: a very powerful spiritually transformative event whilst asleep; a veridical OBE whilst asleep; in 2007 a wakeful religious epiphany during the day that ended with me waking up that night to a full colour apparition (apparently from the past); and a powerful wakeful vision that ended with a Kundalini-like experience in 2021.
My childhood veridical OBE has driven me the whole of my life, to search for an understanding of it, that fits with our existing observations, both scientific and experiential.
I set up my own company 27 years ago, which afforded me the income and time to pursue these interests.
When I visited the Etruscan Tombs in Tarquinia, Italy, I photographed a tomb discovered in 1969 with NDE-like wall paintings of ancestors welcoming the dead, and winged beings with golden ring halo’s floating above their heads, guarding a doorway. The tomb is dated to 250-150BC, well before Christianity.
I suspect that it is the attractive to repelling imagery and narratives of NDE-like experiences, from which early ideas of heaven and hell emerged.
Around 2007 – I think – a Methodist friend introduced me to the Gospel of Thomas, and my initial interpretation of the sayings – without any past religious learning – totally shocked them. I’ve lived with and thought deeply about the sayings attributed to Jesus within Gos Thomas (and the beautiful hymn of pearl), ever since.
Partially because Thomas generally gets a bad rap as: forged, late, and Gnostic, and partially because the NDE / NDE OBE is often given a religious interpretation. I more recently began delving into the evidence, authenticity, dating and historical context of Thomas, the canonical’s and Pauline documents. Undertaking my own research has been interesting
Hi Max,
You have had an amazing journey by the sounds of things, and you have been blessed to have had glimpses of the divine, as have I…they are truly transformative. Not many do. You say you have read the gospel of Thomas, have you read the other gospels?
I’ve read KJV / NKJV Luke – which I find almost incoherent – and partially read the other three. Luke felt chopped up with parts redacted and bit’s mixed up in incoherent ways… almost as if it had a terrible translation somewhere in it’s transmission.
But I’m coming to them after almost 20 years spent with the clarity of Thomas. No doubt it probably feels the same, if one comes to Thomas after spending time with he canonicals.
Certainly my Methodist friend said they could never have gotten to my interpretation of the Thomas sayings, after years of being taught the interpretation of the canonical sayings… hence he found my unbiased interpretation of the Thomas sayings quite shocking. I mean, Jesus is often funny or sarcastic in Thomas.
I’ve also gone back to the original Greek of the earliest physical canonical gospels, and translated them into English word by word myself, with the help of AI, and compared with KJV / NKJV and found many differences in phrasing or meaning that often result in a different understanding.
So you’ll get English KJV / NKJV translations like “holy one”, but the earliest Greek text we have, should actually translated as “called and separate”. It’s also interesting to compare the earliest physical documents that have not been translated into English, some of the earliest have only ever been translated into French.
For example, they retain the original Greek ‘Logos’ in the opening of John 1:1, rather than replacing it with the “Word”. The depth of understanding around what ‘Logos’ actually meant to the Greeks is so amazing.
In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.
Dukes Papyrus archive is interesting too, there are early documents on there that give a greater insight to what was going on.
It’s also interesting to to look at the history and early writings other cultures that bordered the Roman empire, which can give new context to these ancient papyrus.
I prefer the NIV version, and John is my favourite gospel. KJV is less accessible unless you like Shakespeare. I must admit, I shared your friend’s reaction to Thomas. I started reading it, and within about 10 verses decided that it was not the Jesus I knew…the voice was completely different and felt very worldly. That was the reaction in my spirit, not my mind, although that followed as I read more. I immediately thought of the verse in which Jesus says that his sheep will know their master’s voice.
While I rely on the gospels, Acts and the letters of Paul to ground me, I believe I have developed a personal relationship with Jesus/God…I have had at least 2 encounters with him where I heard his actual voice and was sober. My reaction to Thomas was involuntary and immediate and I was very open to it before I started. I just knew in myself this wasn’t the voice of my master. You obviously have a different experience of it.
When it comes to the word logos, it does indeed mean more than just “word”, but from my understanding suggests that the entire plan/power of God was with Jesus. He was God’s plan, power, philosophy, words…the whole enchilada…in other words he was the essence of God in the flesh. After years of walking this path, I believe that more than ever.
OK that post submitted prematurely, whilst I was looking for the reply formatting options like “quotes” (which don’t appear to be switched on in this forum?). But I’ll leave it there anyway.
Your perspective on Jesus is quite different to the message being given through the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas, so that’s understandable.
Thomas is a very ‘living’ text because it’s all present tense, and has a very different message to the narrative provided in the canonicals, hence it’s not Orthodoxy, and why it almost completely disappeared from our knowledge.
I don’t know why I liked the English translation of the coptic version so much, the very first time I began reading it… but it is ‘alive’, and funny, sarcastic, often blunt, and powerful.
Perhaps because for the first time I had what somebody had said in the past, unencumbered of any narrative or outside interpretation. And somehow the sayings spoke to me about the actual possibility of finding a new perspective on the world, someone else’s perspective, one that seemed worthwhile pursuing.
Hi Max,
I’m late to the post but if you have only read the New Testament in KJV I would also encourage you to give the NIV a read. I’ve used the NIV as well as the NRSV, both are modern English translations and are well sourced. The KJV is poetic but the language is too dated,… I suppose that is a kind way to phrase it.
I was surprised to read that Charles Murray has been reading into near death experiences. I don’t know how well known he is outside of the US but he’s a pretty prominent writer here.
How research on origin of life influence your religion views?
So I am going to create some posts and videos on the origin of life in a new category. To be honest it is an area that I have a lot more knowledge of than NDEs, but in general people have a lot less interest in it, hence why I have avoided it this far, and will put in its own section away from everything else…shame.
Firstly, I differentiate origin of life from evolution. There are common principles that apply to both, but origin of life predates evolution via genetic mutation. Also, while I am of the view that Darwinian evolution by stepwise mutation is unlikely to explain the emergence of new species or phenotypes, I am unable to provide certain evidence that this is the case, and the world in general has completely accepted Darwinian evolution as the explanation for the array of modern life, so I do not see much value in spending time on it.
The origin of life is a whole different ball game. If you google origin of life, AI will make out that it has been solved; it will point you to a youtube video of recent discoveries that are regarded as breakthroughs in solving the puzzle, and to the lay person who lacks expertise in this area, it seems very convincing. However, it is complete garbage, and just echoes previous attempts to say the same thing. The simple fact is that the answer to the question around the origin of life is just as illusive as it has always been. Any advances that people claim have been made are just reactions done in a lab that might facilitate the emergence of some basic building blocks, or energy sources, or polymerisations. They never ever ever explain in a satisfactory manner how the code for one chemical system came to be in an entirely different chemical system, and how the translation system came into being. These are conceptual questions, and no one has been able to conceive of how it occurred, let alone provide evidence that of it happening naturally. They will talk of the RNA world, but it is nonsense…a distraction that blinds the uninitiated with science.
Now we get to answer your question. As I sad, there was a time when I was having struggles in my faith, mainly due to the lack of success of my writing, which I had felt certain, and still do, that I was called into by “God”. So I dug really deep into this issue, and firstly having done so, I concluded with absolute certainty as a Ph.D. scientist with intimate knowledge of the biochemistry of the subject, that the DNA protein system could not have emerged by natural means, and that secondly, there was direct evidence that intelligence lay behind it. This strongly supported the Biblical understanding that God…an intelligent being…created life. Having established that, I looked at my experience of walking the Christian faith, and the words of Jesus in the gospels, and decided that I was on the right path, and to trust God with the outcome of my writing.
Having said, I am still believing in something more significant happening with my writing than has done so far…but it has been a very long wait!
Does that answer your question?
Parnia Team posted something new on Instagram
Seems to be more about the relationship between measured brain activity and ROSC during CPR. Don’t think there will be anything on REDs.
Noticed there was a letter in Nature that discusses REDs and Martial’s work by Parnia, but it is behind a paywall and costs $28…don’t think it will say anything we haven’t already heard.
https://www.resuscitationjournal.com/article/S0300-9572(26)00077-8/abstract
Thanks Z.
Very much as I suggested…nothing to see here from an NDE perspective. It is very much what you would expect or predict. If a patient is receiving highly effective CPR, the levels of oxygen in the blood reaching the brain would be higher and this would result in higher chances of brain activity. From this same study, which is AWARE II, I recall that none of the patients with measurable EEG activity had recollections, but 2 of those that did have EEG activity had no recollections…but I do need to check that last point as he was very coy about those details.
Z do you have the original AWARE II supplement? I did have it along with the paper but they self destruct under an adobe time stamping system. I had printed them out, but think they got lost in the move to NZ.
In my book I quote specifically from some notes under one of the graphs that states very precisely that 2 of the 28 patients who were interviewed had EEG data, but neither had recollections. That is the money line from the whole study, buried in a footnote. It means:
NDEs were not associated with EEG activity in this study or the other way round.
If Martial has data in which the opposite is true, it will mean nothing, but she will still make much of it and the physicalist Guardian, Observer and BBC will lap it up. I also think she will use her definition of NDEs, which is broader than Parnia’s new RED, to include experiences that we would not regard as NDEs.
Hi Orson
It sounds like something i may hage buy wouks need to go searching. A quicker way maybe to contact the parnia lab in nyu direct via email or socisl media