Crossing the Bar
What is it about dying that motivates people to confess to crimes on their deathbed? A cynical person might argue it is nothing but the same self-interest that motivated them in life. After all, when a person has reached a point essentially beyond any effective human retribution what downside is there to admitting to any crime? Plus there’s the possibility that he might have new worries — besides the earthly — with which he might have to contend. John Henry Newman spoke of the rumor of dark wings in fevered dreams in what one might call the boundary condition.
I can no more; for now it comes again,
That sense of ruin, which is worse than pain,
That masterful negation and collapse
Of all that makes me man; as though I bent
Over the dizzy brink
Of some sheer infinite descent;
Or worse, as though
Down, down for ever I was falling through
The solid framework of created things,
And needs must sink and sink
Into the vast abyss. And, crueler still,
A fierce and restless fright begins to fill
The mansion of my soul. And, worse and worse,
Some bodily form of ill
Floats on the wind, with many a loathsome curse
Tainting the hallowed air, and laughs, and flaps
Its hideous wings,
And makes me wild with horror and dismay.
0 Jesu, help! pray for me, Mary, pray!
Some angel, Jesu such as came to Thee
In Thine own agony….
Mary, pray for me.
Joseph, pray for me.
Mary, pray for me.
What might a person not do when he hears those beating wings? Inevitably the Bard has explored the subject before. Shakespeare wrote of the boundary problem in this way.
For who would bear the Whips and Scorns of time,
The Oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s Contumely,
The pangs of despised Love, the Law’s delay,
The insolence of Office, and the Spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his Quietus make
With a bare Bodkin? Who would Fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn
No Traveller returns, Puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Thus Conscience does make Cowards of us all.
It’s what we don’t know that makes cowards of us all. But using a deathbed confession as a means of escaping our past suffers from the difficulty that there is no real way of knowing what turns the key. What puts the Hounds off the pursuit? A God who can hear confessions might very well count a cunningly calculated confession as a negative: it is possible that the more a blackguard falsely repents, the faster his descent is sped.
Come to that, what are the rules of the game?
People who have gone through life outsmarting their marks might be making a mistake by thinking they were still playing the same game. What mathematics tells us about phase changes and broken symmetry is that the rules which govern transitions are anything but simple. They are driven by considerations which are not only subtle, but non-obvious. For example, the nonlinear nature of weather forecasting was partially discovered by the observation that early computer simulations gave vastly differing results for the same set of inputs. The limits of accuracy in the way the computer represented digits showed that small differences caused entirely different outcomes.
Assuming death is some kind of phase change, then the best bet is that it won’t be an easy one for Sheeran, Chavez, or Kuklinski to game. There are so many variables to account for that dying remains an act of faith rather than a matter of calculation. Perhaps John von Neumann, who was the most rational of persons, got it right. “While at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., he invited a Roman Catholic priest, Father Anselm Strittmatter, O.S.B., to visit him for consultation. This move shocked some of von Neumann’s friends in view of his reputation as an agnostic. Von Neumann, however, is reported to have said in explanation that Pascal had a point, referring to Pascal’s wager.”
We live out our lives as a bet in everything that it expresses. Our deaths are no different. Neumann knew there was no sense not making a bet. Whether it works out or not — well maybe we’ll just have to find out.
Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.
How to Publish on Amazon’s Kindle for $2.99
The Three Conjectures at Amazon Kindle for $1.99
Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $8.95, print $9.99
As Voltair said to the Priest when asked if he renounced the Devil, “This is no time to be making new enemies.”
Winston Churchill is reported to have said on his 75th birthday, “I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.”
As uncertainty yields moral acts, power goes oppositely. Thus blindness achieves more than worship through doctrines, carrots, sticks, or invisibility rings. Oddly, their last desperate act is as much nonsense as anything. But it’s something… as with futile bombing campaigns or any symbolic action, only the subject knows how tangible “nothing” really is, having already crossed over so to speak.
Anyhow, I sure hope Hugo Chavez repents in time. I mean for the deeds he never committed, obviously.
THE PESSIMIST AND THE OPTIMIST
The most wonderful journey of all is the journey of life. In that journey there will come many joys and there will come some sorrows. The joys fill the soul and the sorrows make us strong. Do not think of the dusk as the setting of the sun, but as the beginning of the dawn. Especially if you are dying of cancer and have something to square. The pessimist, in that case, thinks God will not believe he is repentant, even if he is, while the optimist believes God will forgive him even if he isn’t. The pessimist is doomed whatever he does, while the optimist has a puncher’s chance.
The pessimist knows God is smart
And plans to lay him low
God knows he prays to play a part
As he prepares to go
He pleads to God in tear stained voice
To let him tell his side
That life had given him no choice
But His will he’d abide
And then as death drew quiet near
And children gathered ‘round
God bent and whispered in his ear
‘Tis wanting you’ve been found
The optimist on other hand
As on his death bed climbs
Smiles calmly to the family band
Because he’s dropped some dimes
On guys he knows had said a prayer
And off to Heaven sent
And so it was without a care
To God his message went
He had the goods on many friends
If God would care to know
And he would tell to make amends
And thus avoid below
The optimist as death drew near
Quite certain that his fate
Was Heaven bound was shocked to hear
God say it was too late
I’m not all that religious, but is it not the case that if you regard Pascal’s wager as an argument for belief then you’ve already lost the bet?
Plane Crash Survivor Finds God After Seeing Hell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jco8SZGKWHs
Imminent death focuses the mind.
Most folks never learn to contemplate things, puzzle out the real meanings, and thus, gain real wisdom. Suddenly, one finds one is dying, and one is contemplating all those things in life one should have contemplated before. One begins to wonder if one did the right thing, something one has never considered previously.
Keeping the Sabbath is about spending some time in contemplating God’s ways, reflection, gaining wisdom. The man who does so, begins to understand right and wrong, good and evil. He comes to refrain from wrong and evil. We are supposed to do this as we’re living, not as we’re dying. When you are facing the end, there is simply not enough time to do it, and not enough time to set things right.
Like the body gives its last feeble twitches when it dies, fighting for life with its final spasms, dying people try to consider things, and it is too little too late. These are merely the final spasms of the already dead soul. Time’s up. The test is over. Please put down your pencils. Breathe your last.
“Not finished? Well, perhaps you should have studied and paid attention in class.”
This is further to my last post.
Apologies, this should have been my first and only post which was incomplete.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBu5V_-M2Dc&feature=related
5. Fletcher Christian
“is it not the case that if you regard Pascal’s wager as an argument for belief then you’ve already lost the bet?”
Shhh. You can trick Him. He’ll never notice.
is it not the case that if you regard Pascal’s wager as an argument for belief then you’ve already lost the bet?
To a completely objective man, what happens to you after you die is entirely a sideshow. It has no bearing on what you did when you lived nor even on whether God exists. God’s existence does not necessarily mean you are going to have a consciousness after death. “For what is man that he should live the lifetime of his God?”
Still, we are interested in ourselves. It’s a weakness. One would have to be pretty detached not to ask the hypothetical. ‘What becomes of me?’ From the viewpoint of human nature there are probably two sorts of people. Those who know what happens after death and those who aren’t sure. Those who are sure may have convinced themselves that there is nothing after death or that they know exactly what happens.
But the great majority of people are frankly waiting to find out. There is nothing unusual about this. We live most of our live out under uncertainty. For example, most of us are waiting to find out what happens tomorrow. Some of us doubtless know what’s going to happen tomorrow, but I daresay they are in the minority. Ditto to what happens when we die. Our entire existence is a process of “I’ll get back to you when I find out”.
I think the spirit in which to understand Pascal’s wager is that the bet is unavoidable. It’s like waking up in a casino after a near-eternity of nothing you can remember — and finding yourself in the midst of a hubbub. Perhaps you are in a landing craft about to hit Omaha beach. Maybe you are a guy about to discover a method of quantum teleportation. Whatever you find yourself in the question is always the same: will you take the bet? Cross that beach or invest those 20 years?
You either decide that what you’re doing is worthwhile, or why bother? Do you act like there are real stakes or just the illusion of a pot?
I think Pascal’s wager reduces to this: if life is worth living then it is worth living to win not just in the limited sense, but in whatever sense and to whatever extent you define life to be. If you imagine yourself a creature with roots in eternity, then play those rules. Live as if things counted forever. If not, don’t. In either case you’ve made a bet. Will the House pay out? Well ask me another. Do you know where the little bouncing ball will land? No. Still, you’re stuck. Live for your purpose or don’t live. Inevitably we get to Tolkien:
Christ gave us the free gift of salvation by dying for our sins on the cross for all of us. All we have to do is accept it and let the Holy Spirit into our hearts and work in your life. It’s really quite simple. Then it’s between you and God. There is no “Please accept salvation by your 18th birthday or offer expires.” It’s free, no strings attached and it’s between you and God. Anytime, anywhere, any situation…just between you and God through Jesus. Seriously, is there anything in the history of mankind that offers so much for so little?
Further readings – C.S. Lewis “Mere Christianity” and of course the Bible.
Have a blessed weekend… Off to see my nephew graduate from West Point…have to sit through Joe Biden though…oh well
” We live out our lives as a bet in everything that it expresses. Our deaths are no different.”
Yes. Sometimes seemingly hopelessly beyond what it should express, speaking for me, but never the less, inexorably living with that faith playing in the background.
In him was life; and life was the light of men, And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness overcameth it not. Jn: 1:4
You don’t think that God understands ‘gaming the system’?
The penitent thief was not expecting salvation in exchange for having pass judgement upon himself for his earthly crimes.
W
To a completely objective man, what happens to you after you die is entirely a sideshow.
Ay, there’s the rub.
What happens to YOU after you die will be the same as what happened to you before you were born – nothing.
What happens to the living you leave behind, and in particular your progeny, will depend profoundly on what you have done in life to support future life. To be the “poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage” is not to be.
The next generation. That’s what I believe in. So do your genes.
ADE
Has any man (but Jesus) ever come to the point of death entirely satisfied and quiet? “Here I come, Father” he would say, “I am confident my life has been well lived and look forward to the pleasures of eternal bliss”. Or, has the most hardened atheist ever come to the point of death entirely confident of the non-existence that awaits him? This is man’s lot: not to know for sure, but to feel his way past and through great mysteries. Of course, these questions mean nothing to the dead. They know, or they don’t. These questions are for the living only.
Physics tells us that there is a greater probability that the vehicles in the mall parking lot will spontaneously self-organize into a functioning 747 than the probability that the physical laws of the universe combined at random to create life (10 to the 123).
Dawkins and Hawking tell us that because you do not need divine intervention to make a tomato red that there is no God. Big brains and childish logic circuits. The rational betting man will want to avoid whatever queue they are in.
Perhaps living in a state of truth, of keeping no lies and secrets, is the mortal analogy to living in a state of grace. Dying in a state of truth may be a poor substitute for having lived an honest and truthful life, but perhaps it is meaningful enough that people want to do it.
Perhaps confession is psychologically liberating regardless of your religion or lack of it. The deathbed is simply the one opportunity to do so and avoid consequence.
as usual – the best essay on the web.
My catechism taught that The Lord will forgive any sinner who sincerely regrets and denounces his sin. In the end, the damned condemns himself.
On my 19th century rosary’s crusifix is attached a carved skull – on which I pray after the apostle’s creed – memento mori, memento mori, memento mori. It is good to remember your destination on a daily basis.
Confess all ye want for it means nothing without a repentant heart! God knows your secerts and intent…
“Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” Jesus Christ
“I have lost heaven, and know that for sure. My soul, once faithful to God, now is destined for hell… And still, you personified mankind, I may take you by the power of my mighty hands and crush with fierce force. In the meantime, as the abyss gapes before me and you in the darkness, You will fall in it and I’ll follow you, Laughing and whispering into your ear: “Come down with me, friend!” Karl Marx
http://www.forerunner.com/predvestnik/X0013_Karl_Marx.html
Perhaps I should have said “if you believe that Pascal’s wager, or indeed any argument, is necessary for belief.”
Assuming God in the Christian sense, rather than Spinoza’s, exists, then you can’t fool Her. Pascal’s wager, or any other way of attempting to gain the system (such as loud but insincere last-minute repentance) is a sure way to lose the bet.
And how you live and your reasons for it are much, much more important than whatever noises might come out of your mouth. Gautama Buddha probably went to Heaven, whereas the vast majority of televangelists are going straight to Hell.
Additionally, AFAIK the official line from theologians is that the very essence of faith is belief without provable evidence. God’s voice in your head is not evidence; you can’t prove it, and in any case various mental disorders or chemically-induced hallucinations could account for voices in your head.
Proof of God’s existence would destroy religion.
Marc Malone 7: “Keeping the Sabbath is about spending some time in contemplating God’s ways, reflection, gaining wisdom. The man who does so, begins to understand right and wrong, good and evil. He comes to refrain from wrong and evil. We are supposed to do this as we’re living, not as we’re dying. When you are facing the end, there is simply not enough time to do it, and not enough time to set things right.”
God can be envisioned metaphorically as the Sun around which good men are in orbit. Similarly, the Devil is a large planet which has attained escape velocity and no longer orbits the Sun – which he hates. It would take conviction and courage for a man in the Devil’s train to turn around, and a great amount of force to reverse the momentum and re-enter an orbit around the Sun – even at a great distance. From a Christian perspective the Holy Spirit is our source of conviction and courage, and Jesus Christ is the force. God alone will be the Judge as to whether or not a particular man can pull this off at the eleventh hour, but with the power of Jesus Christ there is hope. Only God can judge whether or not the man in question loves or hates God – whether or not the last minute ploy is real or false.
Fletcher Christian (#23) “Gautama Buddha probably went to Heaven” I don’t remember ever hearing of Gautama Buddha confessing a belief in one God and savior Jesus… God judges who gets in not me but God does say “Good Works” alone don’t get you admittance!
“The world is so harsh and cruel and my faith is so small and weak, I fear that I’ll never be a good Christian.”
“How much faith you have is less important than where you put your faith. Put what faith you have in God and do not despair.”
Are deathbed confessions really a turn towards morality, or is simply that once the threat of punishment is gone, clearing a guilty conscience becomes a no-cost option?
I would bet the latter. I would bet that if you told one of these guys, moments after he made himself right with God “Good news! There’s been a scientific breakthrough, your cancer is curable, and you’re going to live another 20 years easy!”, the reaction would be “Oh crap, what did I just do?”
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, I seriously considered becoming a pastor. One of the issues that I faced as I considered pursuing this profession, was the sure knowledge that God loved all his children, both bad and good. He so loved all of us that should the most evil of all of us truly repent upon his or her death bed, God would forgive them and celebrate their redemption just as he would from the most truly good person. I found this a very difficult concept to accept and so came to the conclusion, correctly I believe, that I was not cut out to be a man of the cloth. As an aside, I feel that those who are indeed selected by God to spread his Word are strongly called and feel this calling. I did not feel the strong calling.
As I have grown older, I have come to believe that God is both simple to understand and impossible to understand at the same time. This is a koan to ponder. I ponder it daily as I come closer to that great abyss that daily comes closer for each one of us. All we can do is to strive to live our life in a way that is satisfying for each of us. Oh, and by the way, if Belmont club is still being published after our deaths and we wake up on the other side conscious of our individuality, be sure and try to post a comment telling the rest of us what it’s like.
“What you have done speaks so loudly, that I cannot hear what you are saying.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
ADE 14: “What happens to YOU after you die will be the same as what happened to you before you were born – nothing.”
“Where revelation comes into its own is where reason cannot reach… that Part of the Angels rebelled against GOD, and thereby lost their first happy state: and that the dead shall rise, and live again: These and the like, being beyond the discovery of reason, are purely matters of faith; with which reason has nothing to do.” John Locke
Science is the process of determining the behavior of matter (the universe) using observation, testing (controlled observation), and reason; with reason defined as the ability to observe, comprehend and accept self-evident truth. Faith is any belief undiscoverable by science, which is to say any belief based on that which is unobservable and un-testable, which is to say faith is any belief beyond the discovery of reason and science; beliefs beyond the discovery of reason and science cannot be in conflict with reason and science.
Religion contains faith that an eternal God created matter (the universe) with a finite beginning – the Big Bang – a supernatural belief not based on direct observation of that which preceded creation. If the universe was not created by God, then where did it come from? We know from the first law of thermodynamics that without outside force neither mass nor energy can create its self, nor can mass or energy be destroyed; the sum of mass and energy is always constant in any closed system, including the universe it’s self. Mass can be converted into energy, and visa-versa, i.e.: mass and energy are limited to interchangeability (E = MC2), but according to the first law of thermodynamics only nothing can come from nothing. It is self-evident that if the universe was not created by God, then, since it did not create its self, and since it cannot be destroyed, it must be eternal in time, both in the past and in the future – possibly an infinite series of Big Bangs. According to the most fundamental laws of science, a self-created universe is an un-scientific belief – an irrational belief. The most basic laws of science tell us that outside power is a requirement for the creation of nature’s mass and energy. So, we are left with either an eternal un-created God, with no beginning and no end, who created our finite universe with a Big Bang (religion), or we have an eternal un-created universe with no beginning and no end (atheism). Since faith is any belief based on that which is unobservable, such as belief in God, and since no one was or could be present to observe the beginning of a Universe with no beginning, belief in an eternal un-created universe is based on faith.
There is no conflict between religion, properly understood, and reason. Reason is simply the ability to understand and accept self-evident material truth which is physically observable and which can often be expressed mathematically, i.e.: reason is science. Religion is not based on reason or science; it is based on faith in the eternal God of creation – a belief which is undiscoverable by scientific observation (reason); a belief based on that which is unobservable and un-testable; a belief which is beyond the discovery of reason and science. Likewise, atheism is not based on scientific reasoning; it is based on faith that the universe is eternal; a belief which is also undiscoverable by scientific observation (reason); a belief based on that which is unobservable and un-testable; a belief which is beyond the discovery of reason and science. It should go without saying that nobody was or could be there (other than God) at the beginning of anything (the universe) whose timeline stretches back into the eternal infinite past – a universe with no beginning. Science and reason are relevant to the universe which we can all observe, both the atheist and the religious, but faith, not science and reason, is relevant to the origin of the universe – two entirely different subjects. Reason is capable of comprehending the universe but not the origin of the universe – the latter requires faith.
Many who think of themselves as atheists are only able or willing to express their lack of belief in God, but the only scientific alternative to this lack of belief, is belief in a universe with no beginning – a truth left un-considered. Only the agnostic can escape faith by an inability or refusal to choose between these two mutually exclusive faiths.
Atheist Faith: “What happens to you after you die will be the same as what happened to you before you were born – nothing.”
Judeo-Christian Religious Faith: “What happens to you after you die will be the same as what happened to God before you were born – Eternal Life.”
Does my dog seek to know if there is a God? Do folks at BC seek to know?
The Ontological Argument touches upon the essentials, but cannot close the gap. The reason for the shortfall is that neither rationalism nor empiricism can provide definitive proof of the Existence of God (EOG).
‘But, but, if you cannot offer rational or empirical proof of EOG, then I cannot believe.’ This rationalization is flawed at its very core. What does rationalism or empiricism have to do with the answer to the question ‘does God exist’?
The only proof of EOG is mankind, specifically, the nature of mankind. Just as Adam and Eve fashioned fig leaves for covers, we continue to ‘conceal our nakedness’ before others and before God. Whence cometh this consciousness of nakedness and the resultant shame? Just as God asked Adam, “who told you that you were naked?”
This small sliver of morality was the first fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Having learned evil, we are now compelled to impress ourselves, others, as well as God, with our efforts to be moral.
The proof of EOG is our behaviour resulting from the contamination by knowledge of good and evil, that scar tissue covering the eternal soul of man where the human spirit was excised, back in the garden.
No, my dog does not contemplate EOG nor does she cloth her nakedness. Humans are much more than a very clever, advanced apes. Our inherent bipolar nature, our capacity for good and evil, our endeavor to justify ourselves, is the evidence of EOG. We seek to know because we already know. Our nature is the proof. Our human morality is the proof. So is our arrogance.
The fact that we seek to know is the proof. What God protects, in all aspects, is our freedom of choice, our human volition. We can ‘seek his face’ or turn away. ‘All we like sheep have gone astray, and God the Father has laid on God the Son the iniquity of us all’.
Having decreed and established volition, God cannot, then, overrule volition by producing empirical or rational proof of EOG, for that would invalidate volition. Else every rational person would be compelled to believe.
Salvation, offered to fallen man, must be entirely without the merit of man. There is no act, work, or achievement necessary to acquire the grace of God. Just a non meritorious decision to believe or have faith in the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. It is all about what God is and has done, and nothing about what we have done or can do.
We are the proof. Just consider our nature. Consider the good and evil of mankind. Consider morality, the substitute spirituality designed by man to replace innocence before the fall. Consider our desparate struggle for liberty, freedom of choice – the uncoerced exercise of human volition. That which God has elected to respect. We decide for or against, and the consequences are eternal.
I’m in the Amit Goswami camp. Have been for a long time. (The documentary is so-so but the (watered-down) gist is there.)
Those who think the deathbed repentance gives an “all in free” ticket have a misconception. If I remember Catholic teaching correctly, a person repents, confesses, receives absolution, BUT there is still the “temporal punishment due for the sin”. To relieve some of this punishment due, a priest who hears the confession usually gives some duty to be performed after the sacrament, but the true extent of punishment due to us is unknown except to God. Knowing this oughtto keep us humble, and it should be some consolation to the victims of heinous crimes, whose perpetrators have allegedly repented and been forgiven.
7. Marc Malone
Most folks never learn to contemplate things, puzzle out the real meanings, and thus, gain real wisdom. Suddenly, one finds one is dying, and one is contemplating all those things in life one should have contemplated before. One begins to wonder if one did the right thing, something one has never considered previously.
Which leads me to ask: wouldn’t it be in the best interest of anyone to think seriously of one’s own death, and to do so well before there is any inkling of its coming? I know how facile that sounds, and how it is against the nature of most of us to do so — particularly in modern timesand especially when young — but it sure helps to clear things up and reorder priorities, doesn’t it?
I have, to my astonishment, been touched by the finger of God several times in my life, which makes belief in Him certain. I have scandalized the Christian faithful a few times by declaring that I am moved neither by the threat of Hell or the promise of Heaven. I live the Gospel because there is no higher, nobler or more worthy way of life to be found. That God exists, and loves me, is icing on the cake.
OT but happy memorial day weekend to all the warriors. Thank you for your sacrifices so that we may live in peace and prosperity.
When compared with the other, more charitable, manifestations of Death’s inevitability, deathbed confessions make for weak valeur. They come at little cost to the bedridden patriarch on his soft mattress surrounded by sterile tubes and humming diagnostic machines (or living in his sister’s house, shot through with carcinomas). And, in fact, they acrue a loud notoriety to the confessor, one that is amplified to a degree that is undeserved, difficult to verify, and awarded by mongers whose stores clot our popular media boutiques.
Maybe it’s simply that impending death gives a man courage in general. Not just the courage to confess to sins, but the courage to state his convictions, risk bodily harm for “greater” causes, and, in general, to act altruistically.
Examples include the modest millionaire who waits until death is on his doorstep to leave his secret millions to his church. Or the young man who, recognizing that he is trapped in a burning bus, risks all to push two little girls out a small window to their safety.
Don’t get me wrong. I am interested in deathbed confessions, but just as I’m interested in the way that certain electoral defeat tends to loosen politicians’ tongues – and yes, I have Dick Lugar’s recent loquaciousness in mind. Impending retirement can mimic impending death for people who equate a political presence, or media celebrity, with life.
I suppose Edgar Allen Poe had a piece of it in stories like The Telltale Heart. We are the sum of the deeds we do, and when a big part of our story nears the end we want to see it finished. If Christian doctrine encourages this further or whether it’s seeing your face on TMZ before you go, well I wonder if it matters and why not all of the above.
#23 FC
Proof of God’s existence would destroy religion.
Illogical nonsense.
Modern physics makes the existence of a transcendent super intelligence far more probable than not. One irony is that the New Atheists rely on unscientific reductions and tortured logic to claim “knowledge” that does not exist while calling Christians (for one) delusional.
The other irony is that atheists get exactly what they want – nothing.
Storm-Rider @ 30
By jove!
Well stated.
If as they say, matter and energy both can not be destroyed but exists within the confines of perceivable space-time in various stages of transition between states, what of the mind, body, and soul of a self-aware being…His pattern?
As thoughts are thought to be particular patterns of electrochemical phenomena housed within a biological vessel which is [often] capable of manifesting said patterns into the material world -as well as materially impressing a simulacrum of themselves into the thoughts of others- what of thoughts regarding one’s soul? Do the two connected aspects of our material ‘self’ leave their impression upon the unmeasurable aspect that is our soul? Is our soul destroyable? My faith is that there is a soul, and “I” will at some point be judged as to my fitness to exist in the light of my creator (the creative force).
If the entropy and destruction caused by men we call Evil in the material world is the manifestation of destructive thoughts, what of the possible eternal effect of even unrealized destructive thoughts upon our soul?
Who knows!
I just endeavor to do my amateurish best.
My shallow reasoning is; why frig around with the possibility that there is no transition into an afterlife, that my essence ‘lives’ only temporarily in an eternal uncreated universe wherein nothing apparently selectively/arbitrarily can cause both matter and energy and everything in between, to cease to exist. Forever.
Me thinks that those who’ve chosen to disbelieve in a creator -a beginning- and our possible relation-ship-wreck to/with him are operating in universe-sized faith as well…I’ll just note that it has proven rather difficult to measure either absolute nothingness or eternity. To my flawed mind, it seems they’ve chosen to play a losing hand. But hey, c’est la vie, we have all either been created, or have nothing to exist for – with the freedom to choose.
I choose Christ. Every flawed day, in every flawed way I can manage.
Oops! Correction to my #37: It was Alan Simpson, not Richard Lugar, who found his tongue this week.
Another aging lion of the Senate staring down retirement has rediscovered the power of his convictions! Meh, coming from a politician, this too is weak valeur, and not sufficiently different from a killer’s low-cost, deathbed confession.
(How did Simpson vote on the Clinton impeachment? Where did he stand on the Bush tax-cuts? How ’bout the debt-ceiling increase? It’d be nice to know.)
Crossing the Bar caused me to remember those words cited as the last uttered by Thomas Jonathan Jackson (Stonewall) – “Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees”.
At Chancellorsville he led a small group of officers to locate the retreating forces of Fighting Joe Hooker. Returning to his lines after the fall of darkness, the pickets fired into the returning scouting party, who were ahorse.
Jackson’s left arm was amputated. Thus Lee’s attribution “Jackson has lost his left arm, I have lost my right arm.” He died eight days later from pneumonia suffering fever and delirium, his wife at his side.
#25 CharlesWhite – Buddha died nearly 500 years before Jesus was born, and was unquestionably one of the saintliest men who ever lived. There were a few others in similar circumstances. If having the ill fortune to happen to live and die BC means they spend eternity in Hell, then that’s where I would rather be – the company would be better.
“I refuse to prove that I exist” says God “for proof denies faith and without faith I am nothing.”
“But!” says Man “the Universe proves you exist and so, therefore, you don’t. QED.”
“Oh dear,” says God “I hadn’t thought of that…”
And promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
(With apologies to Douglas Adams)
FC 23: “Proof of God’s existence would destroy religion.”
I have to agree with FC. Religious faith in God will end when scientific knowledge finally sets foot into the domain of God (when we have proof of God’s existence); at that point men with religious faith will finally possess direct and observable knowledge of God through revelation.
“The doctrine of a personal G-d interfering with natural events could never be refuted… by science, for it can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot.” Albert Einstein
Atheistic faith in an eternal un-created universe cannot have such an end point, because science on its own will never be able to set foot into the domain of the eternal past, that is to say we will never have scientific knowledge of the origin of an eternal un-created universe since no person was or could be present to observe the beginning of a universe with no beginning.
The existence of God is not dependent on faith. Redemption is dependent. It’s volition that is made paramount. You have used yours, and that is as intended.
Logic is a powerful tool in the service of the wise, but remains useless in the arena of faith.
If God exists, isn’t it rather pointless to disagree with his decrees, given our comparatively impotent position in the fate of mankind? We live but a brief period in the flow of time, stand upon the earth and shake our little fist at the creator insisting that he has done it all wrong, that we have a better plan.
Many adjectives and nouns come to mind, but wisdom is not among them.
FC 43,
Jesus said that no one comes unto God the Father except through Him (Jesus). In my opinion that does not mean that the souls (like Buddha) who lived before Christ are automatically damned. For all we know Jesus will be there (like an attorney) at the time of God’s judgment of Buddha, and Jesus may say to God: “I died for this man too.” I suppose at that point Buddha would have to choose, like all of us, to accept or reject the offer. In my opinion the same applies to non-Christians who lived (or are now living) after Christ. I believe it is wise to be morally conservative but theologically liberal.
Jesus said that rejection of God’s Spirit (the Holy Spirit) is the only un-pardonable sin. I believe those (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Marx, OBL…) who have rejected God’s Spirit – those who hate God – will not have the pleasure of Christ’s service – they will be beyond the reach of Christ’s saving power.
“I long to take vengeance on the One Who rules from above.” Karl Marx
“Where you are now,
I once was
Where I am now,
You soon will be…”
“As Voltair said to the Priest”
That’s the new electric airplane, right?
Richard: I don’t know how you do it so well, day after day. That was beautiful and thought-provoking. Thank you.
Just about to go into the Sabbath and a two-day Yom Tov, and here is perfect material to contemplate for the holy days. Thank you, Richard and commenters; a pleasant and meaningful holiday for all, whether it’s primarily Shavuot or Memorial Day.
Religion started tens of thousands of years ago…we know from carvings in Bone and rock our ancestors tracked the stars and planets and phases of the moon, and came to regard planets as God(s).
El, is the name given to Saturn by Phoenicians and many ancient religious orders. El becomes the root of many words for god in later writings and literature across many religions. The Bible has many references to the planets and stars, but must be researched, such as Ezekiel’s vision of women wailing for Tammuz.
Tammuz is the Origin of the Mystery Religions, which trace back to Nimrod and his mother/wife Semiramis. Tammuz is also the name given to Saturn by Babylonians, where Ezekiel was at the time of his Vision. This is not coincidence, just one example of how astronomy becomes foundation of many religions. The travel and events involving stars and planets are played out in the books of the old and new testament, and many other ancient religious writings.
Our fear and fascination with Death and what happens after formed our religions over tens of thousands of years. Modern religious beliefs can be traced in linear fashion from earliest writings of Phoenicia and Ugarit to the present day.
7. That is true for some, but not for all, else the Scriptures would not say, “Is there anyone sick among you? Let him send for the presbyters, and they shall anoint him with oil and pray for him, and the prayer of faith will save him, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed any sins, they shall be forgiven him.” Yes, “Seek the Lord while He may be found,” for “Whoever blasphemes the Spirit will never be forgiven,” but blessed are they who are revolted at the fact that they squandered their lives on sin and repent as they draw near to death.
I thought Catholics were supposed to confess their offences regularly, during the course of their lives, not in the last five minutes. I’m not religious myself and my ancestors were pretty hard-line Protestants from way back, but I was moved, a few years ago, by seeing a queue of modern, sophisticated Costa Ricans, waiting for confession.
How is it that trivial Costa Rican misdemeanours need and receive rapid absolution, whereas brutal murders in Sicily, the US and, of course, Northern Ireland, are able to wait for decades, but still receive enthusiastic absolution from a conniving priesthood?
As a lawyer in the north of England, my father was disgusted by the way Catholic priests would exploit the fact that the accused’s criminal record was inadmissible, declaring that the defendant was perfectly honest, despite the criminal record, as long as the M6, of which both prosecution and priest were well aware.
Storm-rider @30
epignosis @31
Powerful stuff. Best comments on the board. Kudos!
All these myth-weavers and fantasy-believers–all these wars, and wasted lives, and beheadings, and burnings, etc. etc. etc., all because you simply cannot accept the simple fact that one day you’ll be dead. There is no party in the sky. There is no lake of fire in the ground. You are no more important than a cat, a flea, a virus. Enjoy what time you have and stop trying to figure out the meaning of it all-because there IS NO MEANING to it all. See, don’t you feel better already?
54. The two are not mutually exclusive. Yes, we are supposed to confess our sins regularly, and we commit a sin of dereliction if we go a full year after committing a mortal sin without confessing it, or if we fail to receive Communion in a state of grace at least once a year. That said, we also have the Last Rites, which consist of Confession, Holy Communion (here referred to as the Viaticum, lit. “Provisions for the journey”), and the Anointing of the Sick, in order to prepare the souls of those in imminent danger of death for eternity. For the faithful, they are a source of comfort in their final hours, and even a hope for the recovery of their flesh. For those who haven’t been faithful, they are a glimmer of hope that gives them one last chance at redemption, if their hearts remain open.
56. If that were the case, we would just “eat, drink and be merry,” but as it is, Christ is risen from the dead. If it were not so, the people who claimed to have seen Him risen would not have been willing to be tortured to death rather than deny Him. No, we are not the ones in denial- you are in denial that you will one day be judged by the Living God, and if you do not repent, you will be food for worms that eat but do not consume you, and fuel for fire that burns but does not consume.
16. Peter Boston
I think rather the empirical study of the physical says it a borderline inevitability.
57: Bollocks. And I mean that in a nice way!
@28. programmr
Now there’s a request that stood out! It’s almost another anniversary of what may or may not have been my near-death experience in Purgatory (June 4, 1986). As I lay at the bottom of the waterfall, the pain was unbearable, so I…left…and the pain did too. I went up, and thought Oh dear, the light is supposed to be white but it was gray. I immediately repented of all that I had said and done wrong (and I assure you all that deathbed confessions are quite thorough). I traveled through A Barrier and entered Nothingness. It was completely black, empty of Good and Evil, except the tiny points of multicolored light which I recognized as souls. I wondered if my father was there, so I “intersected” with one, and someone else’s life flashed before my eyes. He/she was following other blond children through a wrought iron gate. They went to a cottage in back of the main house and to a hunched-over old man on the porch (I think he was black). Accustomed to movies, I thought it was odd that I didn’t see their faces but realized later it was real life and all. The person’s horror at this point made me realize I didn’t have any business seeing someone else’s sin so I moved out. In front of me was I can only describe as an infinite two-way mirror: on the other side was amazing Golden multicolored light. I knew I could not get through (this was during my college years so I had quite a few unconfessed sins at this point) but I just had to get as close as I could so I pressed up against the barrier, and noticed two Figures. I don’t have any explanation why I think it was Christ and His mother. And a silent Voice inside my head said “Go back, it’s not your time” so I went back the way I came. Opposite the Light was a gateway, partly obscured by a black cylinder on the left side. There was a catwalk with no rails then an infinite drop, surrounded by a greenish deadly atmosphere. I was tempted to look but realized down but decided that was a really bad time to disobey a direct order and that the catwalk was probably a lie. I went back down in Redness and the pain hit like a train. Then I heard my sister say “Oh my gawd, her brains are leaking out the side of her head!!” so my first thought upon my return was K—-, shut up”.
My very strong impression is that what is absolutely needed at the point of your death is as much humility and repentance as you can muster. I have since told the story to a priest who does not believe in NDEs and he said it does not contradict the Catholic Church’s teaching on Purgatory.
Wow! Lots of comments on this one.
My 2¢. Jesus was crucified with a thief on both sides. One thief put his faith in Christ and Jesus told him that they would be in paradise together. The other thief cursed Jesus with his dying breath. You are either the thief on the right or the thief on the left. The choice, and your eternal destination is up to you.
John Fredrickson 56: “There is no party in the sky. There is no lake of fire in the ground. You are no more important than a cat, a flea, a virus. Enjoy what time you have and stop trying to figure out the meaning of it all-because there IS NO MEANING to it all.”
Give JF credit for following the myth-weaving of radical Atheism to its logical end point. If, as you say, God is dead and the individual, like pond scum, is no more important than a flea, then all things are permitted, because on your view of human nature the individual, like a bag of filth, possesses little value, and thereby possess no unalienable God-given human rights. Under such a scheme those in power may legally crush him down, stamp on his face and annihilate him.
“We shall crush you down to the point from which there is no coming back… Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling; everything will be dead inside you… You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves… Always we shall have the heretic at our mercy, screaming with pain, broken up, contemptible; and in the end utterly penitent, saved from himself, crawling to our feet of his own accord… The more the party is powerful the less it will be tolerant; the weaker the opposition the tighter the despotism… If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a [worthless] human face forever.” George Orwell – 1984
“You will be lifted clean out from the stream of history. We shall turn you into gas and pour you into the stratosphere… You will be annihilated in the past as well as in the future. You will never have existed… What are you? A bag of filth.” George Orwell – 1984
59. Don’t patronize me. You sound pathetic when you try to be polite while declaring the Resurrection to be a myth, despite the evidence overwhelmingly supporting it.
@ # 6 Mike_W
I have been to this place of the nothing of ‘just all white’. It is most unpleasant and ‘hard’. It is a whiteness, you don’t want.
Actually, I have been there twice. The first time I did not know what to do.
The second time, I was really, really frosted. This was just too much. TWICE !!
So, peeved as I was, I walked over to the right side and I put out my hand and I literally grabbed the blackness back over into livable comfort.
That whiteness is simply not to be endured. It did not make it’s unwanted appearance again!
JF@56
It must be very lonely to be the center of your own universe.
11. KWB – thanks for that concise piece that says it all. And god bless you, and your son. I salute you both.
There’s a huge difference between a sincere repentance of one’s sins and a pro forma “now I’m covered” repentance. Sincere repentance requires that you accept God, accept the concept of sin, and (at the minimum) fear Divine punishment for your deeds.
Catholics are taught, early in the game, about the two acceptable kinds of repentance. Too crass an acceptance of the belief-side of Pascal’s Wager undervalues the requirement for sincerity. That’s not to cast any aspersions on Pascal’s own sincerity, of course.
So much crap. You want a religion – make it up including a bunch of phony rituals and seduce a legion of fools to follow you. There is money to be made and power to be acquired. Death bed confessions are the proverbial whistling past the graveyard. Never trust politicians or priests. Grow up !
From my perspective an adult is a person with a bit more of an inquiring mind about the wonders and mysteries of life than you seem to posses at the moment.
67. To elaborate: the two types of contrition are “perfect contrition,” which comes from a sincere love of God and a sorrow at the thought of offending Him, and “imperfect contrition” or “attrition,” which arises out of a fear of Hell or revulsion at the evil of sin.
Conversely, there are three vices that are not contrition at all, and indeed can only be forgiven after abandoning them: Presumption, in which the person acts entitled to God’s grace and assumes he will go to Heaven no matter what (therefore feeling no need for contrition), despair, in which the person does not believe his sins can be forgiven (and thus regarding contrition as worthless), and impenitence, in which the sinner refuses to admit that what he did was wrong and abandon it, or expresses sorrow only at the worldly consequences of sin (in other words, you’re not sorry you did it, you’re sorry you got caught).
68. What would it profit a man to invent his own philosophy? Such a man is a fool, though he professes himself to be wise. You are so afraid of being taken in, that you will not let anyone take you out of your despair.
An adult following someone or something on the basis of a selected philosophy or faith is just another way of not taking personal responsibility. #70- but a couple hundred billion sheep can’t be wrong. Talk about despair. Baaaaaaaa.
Go ahead and call me a sheep, I consider it to be a complement to be a sheep whose shepherd is the Lord.
Maybe this only makes sense to me.
Last night I was there when a slender slip of a girl, 13 years, stood before a congregation and recited the ancient words in the ancient language of her ancestors she worked so hard to learn. She spoke in her own voice and I thought ‘who really listens to or entrusts young teenagers with such adult matters anymore?’. The answer came to me that G-d does.
I do not need anymore philosophy than what happens every day.
Maybe no wager at all, just a case of taking Polonius at face value:
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
…or it must surely also follow, to God or the Void.
Confessions work for some — fine with that. But readiness for ‘phase transition’ doesn’t have to be heavy either, as Spike Milligan knew: “I told you I was ill!”
All situations require courage: something’s wrong if you want morphine for the fear not the physical pain.
Not entirely unrelated yet seemingly unGoogle-able: Does anyone recall who it was who went out with the demand “Next!”?
The flaw in Pascal’s Wager is that Pascal assumed that the God in question was the Judeo-Christian God–that either the Judeo-Christian God exists or no god exists.
But who knows what god or gods await us in the afterlife.
Jews and Christians may get a real surprise if it turns out that the Muslims had it right and Jews and Christians get judged by Allah.
So we don’t really know which god to pray to on our deathbed. Should we read from the Old Testament? The New Testament? The Quran? The Vedas and Upanishads? All of them, just to be on the safe side?
So my attitude toward God is: Whichever God you are, and whichever religion you represent, you know my life story. Deal with it.
The Bible is the only purported Scripture that makes the audacious claim that God has revealed the future in detail. There are over one thousand prophesies between the Old Testament and the New Testament, roughly half of which have already been fulfilled, with the rest referring to events in the End of Days. Isaiah even reports God saying that His ability to declare the future is proof that He is the true God, and challenges any who would dare to claim divinity to declare what the future holds. One of those prophesies is that the Messiah would die 483 years after the order to rebuild Jerusalem, and in other places it says that the Messiah would have His hands and feet pierced and be beaten to the point that onlookers could hardly tell that He was human. Only Jesus Christ fulfills the timing and the manner of of death, along with three hundred other Messianic prophesies in the Old Testament.
But most importantly, the window is closed- if the Messiah didn’t come and die 483 years after the order to rebuild Jerusalem, then God is a liar, so what sense does it make to say the Messiah has not yet come? Of course the fundamental claim that the New Testament rests on is the Resurrection of Jesus. If Jesus rose from the dead, trust the New Testament and do as it says. If Jesus remains dead, then discard the New Testament as worthless nonsense. So did Jesus rise from the dead? The evidence says yes. Despite their best efforts, the enemies of Jesus were never able to produce His body after His purported Resurrection. His tomb, donated by a member of the Sanhedrin, was well known and had a Roman guard posted there to ensure that no one stole His Body, but nevertheless, the tomb was empty come Sunday morning. Despite being severely tortured, none of the eleven men who claimed to have seen, spoken with, eaten with and touched Jesus after He rose from the dead ever recanted, nor any of the roughly five hundred other witnesses. Ten of the Apostles died as martyrs, and the eleventh, John, survived several attempts on his life before going into exile, and died at the ripe old age of 109, having faithfully followed Jesus for over 80 years from his call to be an Apostle. No threat of torture or death, nor promise of money or status could deter them from proclaiming that Jesus rose from the dead. They knew whether or not they were telling the truth; would these men have willingly died for a lie they created?
And then there is the Shroud of Turin- photographic evidence that Jesus rose from the dead. The image on the Shroud is not painted or stitched on, rather it is burned on. If you have an old Cathode Ray Tube TV set, you can observe the effect of X-rays burning an image of the back of the TV onto the wall behind it if you use it long enough in one place. The image is photographically negative. Pollen samples taken from the Shroud are consistent with plants from around Jerusalem in the first century AD. The nail marks are anatomically correct, contrary to medieval artwork depicting the Crucifixion. The only piece of evidence that is not consistent is the radiocarbon test, which placed the Shroud as being only about 700 years old, but this can be accounted for by the fact that the Shroud was pulled from a fire in the 1500′s. Exposure to smoke introduced fresh carbon into the Shroud, making it appear far younger than it actually is.
Sinz54 75,
According to our Founding Fathers the God of the Old and New Testaments is the Creator who endows every individual with equal unalienable rights to life, liberty and creative pursuit of happiness, and is thereby a God of love. The god of the Koran is one of murder, subjugation and destructive pursuit of happiness. God help you if you really believe, like Karl Marx and the radical Muslims, that the Creator is a God of evil.