Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ Mark

[August]

1. What happens in an imaginative brain is not evidence of an afterlife.

2. The thought of an afterlife certainly has appeal as a fantasy, but that is not evidence that it exists. 3 Whether Darwin was right or wrong has nothing to do with it.

3. The alleged resurrection of Jesus has no good evidence. That gods get resurrected was already a part of myths at the time of Jesus. You probably don't believe in those other myths.

4. "Near-death" is just that. The brain is in bad shape then. But the interesting thing is that NDE's vary by religion, with each religion having images of their own religious figures and legendary afterlives. I doubt that you are going to switch religions because of that.

5. Science doesn't pretend to know everything. Science is just a methodology that helps determine truth. But it only can deal with testable things, and heaven is beyond that.

[jimwalton]

> What happens in an imaginative brain is not evidence of an afterlife.


No one can really say, can they? Is it the chemical process of moribundity, the brain "dreaming" as it approaches mortality, or is it evidence of the afterlife? I know for a fact you can't say for certain that it is only "an imaginative brain." Science can't tell us the full picture and meaning of what's happening here.

> The thought of an afterlife certainly has appeal as a fantasy, but that is not evidence that it exists.

Nor is it evidence that it doesn't exist. The jury is still out. It may not be fantasy or wishful thinking after all. That we all have some inner instinct to a reality beyond life has nothing to do with survival, but it sure is an intriguing intuition that may speak to greater truths.

> The alleged resurrection of Jesus has no good evidence.

There is actually quite a body of good evidence. And the alternate explanations are quite weak. If you'd like to have this conversation, we can, but it would have to be its own thread.

> "Near-death" is just that.

NDEs continue to be researched, but research can only take them as far the chemistry and biology, obviously. If there is a spiritual reality to it, that's beyond the scope of science.

> But it only can deal with testable things, and heaven is beyond that.

Correct. Science has limited reach.

All in all, I've presented you with at least the possibility of an afterlife. While I can't prove it exists, neither can you or anyone prove it doesn't. The logical possibility of an afterlife should motivate you to give it serious consideration as real. As you said, science doesn't pretend to know everything and can only deal with testable things.

[Tony Hawk]

The fathers want to have a stronger inseparability to the operations of the Trinity as they often use disanalogies like, say, three cooks working together to prepare a single meal and are often having to explain how it is that the Son alone became incarnate but not the Father and Spirit as well, which they (thinking of Augustine) find hard to answer.

And btw, closely related to this doctrine of 'inseperable operations' is another one called the doctrine of 'appropriations' which L. Ayres explains in his book 'Nicaea and its Legacy':

Closely linked to the doctrines of divine simplicity and inseparable operation is the practice of appropriation. Appropriation is the practice of attributing to one divine person an attribute or action that is common to the Godhead and thus to all divine persons: because the persons work inseparably in the context of the divine simplicity we frequently speak about something as characteristic of a divine person although it is in fact equally true of all divine persons. Appropriation is, for pro-Nicenes, an important habit of Christian speech because it is central to Scripture's own speech about the divine persons. Appropriation is sometimes presented as an ‘Augustinian’ doctrine: in fact, Augustine's clarity about the doctrine—which may be seen in Chapter 15—is simply the clearest statement of a common pro-Nicene principle.