You already know this so,,,,
,,, " the spiritual unaccountably seems to stop, too. And it is my suspicion that when death does finally come, it will take me, the only, non-dual me, "
----------------->

You are correct again that "you" have seen "no proof" of life after death .
However and as a matter of Fact , whether you believe it or not , some have seen proof of life after death .
This does not mean perhaps that the Human has a duel life , one of Matter and one of Ghostly Spritualism but like it or not , not only in written history but even today some are seeing proof of the dead person in actual live reality .
Not you of course , but those who do know of the 'dead' person in live format listen to many who state it is not real and they have to stay calm and say again ,,,

"It hasn't happened to you so you do not know if it is real ".

I know you can reply , " if l saw a can of spaghetti turn into a person " would you say it is real,,,,,?

Then l reply to you " It seems unreal "

And this is because God does not want everyone to know because it has to be the way it is today and always , of Man not collectively knowing the whole truth .
So you and l evangelicalhumanist are at a 'stalemate' because l feel l know the truth by seeing with my own eyes and hands , and your truth , with all due respect , is by word of mouth and by not seeing with your own eyes and hands .

Some unusual things l have seen and touched with my eyes and hands is this ,,

1] l saw and touched a person alive after being dead and buried over two years .
2] my deceased dog's stuffy [teddy bear] fly across the room .
3] l awoke to find myself ten inches in levitation over my bed and slowly decended down to the bed ,, ouch lol .
3] Healing of a person with a fractured spine in almost an instant using 'Distance Non -Touch Healing ' .


evangelicalhumanist l assume you always ignore my posts , and whenever l ask you this next question , you always talk around it and say it is 'too hypethetical' or whatever but you, cannot just say ,,

" Yes , if that happened to me l might believe in God " .

You will not say that will you
evangelicalhumanist ?
But you might say this in reply ..,

" If l told you the spaghetti monster was real would you believe in God ?'

,, and if you do reply that to me again , l will reply back ,,

" Yes l would believe that happened to you because l feel you are honest " .

I was running out of time and I didn't have the chance to respond to the last point here on your previous post.

I think what you're doing is what we all tend to do, and I certainly don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. If we sit down and read any set of scriptures or any philosophical writings, we are going to find things that we can relate to and also run across that which we cannot relate. Even though this is very natural, it sometimes may create a problem if we were accept something merely because we can relate or reject something merely because we can't relate.

In my anthropology classes, I would challenge my students with what religion would they likely be if they grew up in India or amongst the Inuit? Most agreed it probably wouldn't be Christianity, which most of my observant students were members of.

But as I said at the beginning of this post, I don't consider that always to be a negative by any means. If we can better relate, then it becomes more meaningful, and if it becomes more meaningful, then it may help us better in our everyday lives. Therefore, Christianity to me is not something that I see myself in opposition to. Much of the morality that is found there one will often find in other religions as well, and I'm generally more concerned about the moral conduct of people than I am about having p.c. religious beliefs.

But if there's a God or Gods, this feeling of "relating" may well influence our perception of maybe what God or the Gods might actually be like. I think we tend to attach certain characteristics to the deities that more reflect our expectations than what is most likely to be real (whatever that is). When we use terms like "omniscience" or "omnipotent", how could we possibly know that these are accurate characteristics-- especially if one doesn't believe in scriptural inerrancy? And when I hear people or see people write things like "God is ...", "God wants us to...", etc., I have to cringe a bit. How do they know this?

It seems that a great many people forget that their belief is just that-- belief-- and not necessarily facts.

__________________
"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."-- Einstein

So the Golden Rule is dead? And if a person is thirsty and hungry, one is just to preach to them?

__________________
"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."-- Einstein

I have done more than simply read philosophical works, though. I have spent, and still continue to spend, time in interfaith dialogue with flesh and blood people who actually practice other faiths. I have visited their places of worship and participated in their worship services. I have learned something of meditation, much to my benefit--but I have also re-discovered the mystical tradition of Christianity which is not generally taught in Sunday School. However natural my commitment to my own tradition may be, it is taken with considerable knowledge of and respect for other traditions.


Religion exists because people need a way to express their spirituality and they are attracted to one way over another. Take those who stay away from religion altogether. Is it not because they see nothing in it to attract them, and much that repels them? If religion never offered an attraction that we relate to, it would simply not exist.

The fact is that I did find much in other faiths, notably, but not only, in Buddhism, to which I could relate. But everything I found attractive in other faiths, I found also in my own. I also found that the disciplines and ethics of other faiths differed very little from my own. I could practice Hindu 'ahimsa' as a Christian. I could practice Buddhist meditation as a Christian. I could practice spiritual 'jihad' as a Christian. So what would I gain by leaving my own tradition?


Oh, certainly.


I fully agree with the section I have bolded.


When it comes to God, we are all like the blind men trying to figure out the elephant.


If by "know" you mean "have tangible evidence for" then of course they don't. But that doesn't mean we move in a vacuum either. We have a long history of spiritual practice and accumulated wisdom tradition that is grounded in experience. Not the sort of experience that is demonstrable, but which can be "caught" if not "taught".

Forty years ago, it would probably have been terribly arrogant of me to assume I knew anything at all about God's nature and will. In a sense, it still is, for God's nature and will are far beyond any human comprehension. But I do know and have learned over those 40 years, experientially, that God is love and that God's love is the basis of God's power and God's will; that God seeks the good of all creation and in human terms that God wills justice and peace. And that sets the direction of my purpose in this world.

In some ways it seems trite to set it out like this. Who would not like to believe this? What faith denies it? Yet, in fact, many people, even those who claim to be following a religious tradition, do not have this faith. For there is often a distinction between the faith a person professes and the one they actually adhere to.

Most people do not believe in the power of love. Most people do not accept that God was exercising omnipotence more fully in the crucifixion of Jesus than in any magical prevention of genocide in Rwanda. Even in the Church, more people are attracted to the Babylonian myth that the world is founded on the violent overthrow of chaos and that war, not justice, is the path to human security. They wouldn't say so in as many words, of course. In America, for the most part, they would say they are Christians. But their actions speak louder than their words. Jesus spoke truly: By their fruits you shall know them.


Belief, to my mind, is less important than faith---and I do draw a distinction. For most people, especially in Western civilization "belief" is a "what"--a statement X that is affirmed as truth.

But faith is essentially a "who" in which one places one's trust. I think that is the case even when ones' deity is impersonal. It is a matter of trusting (or not trusting) that the fundamental nature of reality aligns in a certain direction. One may call that direction the Tao or Wisdom or Christ. The name doesn't matter much.

Beliefs which take us into faith are helpful, but often beliefs stand in the way of faith by masquerading as faith.

I have a personal question against the question asked here.

If evil and bad is wiped out from this world ,then how would you justify
the existance of Hell that is actually created for those who do mischeifs on earth?

If you guys hold the existance and increase of evil and bad as the basis
to deny the existance of God which is quiet irrational and not sound.
Than don't you think the police is the 1st to be blamed whose job is to check and reduce all the evils and bads that exist in our society?

Was God really behind World War 1 and 2?
Is God responsible for the killings that are taking place in the world?

God has already mentioned in the Qur'an that there are 3 sources of turmoils

1) women
2) land
3)money

Now should we wipe out these 3 things from the world?

I realize that.






I agree. There's much in common with the different religions, which even includes the non-theistic ones such as Buddhism and some of the Hindu schools imo. And doesn't seem sometimes ironic that with all these similarities that we so often focus in on the differences instead?






And it would be even more difficult if it turned out that there was more than one "elephant".







Amen. When I found myself gradually abandoning my theistic beliefs, I was worried about there being left a void that could turn out to create some depression in me. Fortunately, at the same time my theism was waning, I was picking up in my studies on Buddhism. It's almost as if this was divinely ordained to happen to me. Wait a minute, did I just say that?






And you know I'll definitely agree with you here.






And I tend to think that even that "who" could also be each other. IOW, it might not at all be necessary to believe in a deity in order to understand the necessity of morality. One may well be a secular humanist and still operate under the Golden Rule. To me, whether there's a deity or not, this need not change the formula.

Nice post, btw.

__________________
"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."-- Einstein

Personally, I think Hell is a myth.

That's actually not the problem, Fahad. It's entirely possible for a god or gods to exist... The problem of evil only comes into play if one considers gods to be all-powerful, because all-powerful gods should be able to prevent evil.

I find that very odd and disturbing... Why women and not men as well?

Many of the religious texts were composed in times and places when it was naturally assumed that women didn't have many rights. It would be as odd to them to think of women as equal to men, as it would be for us Americans to think that we owe Mexico a huge sum of money for the state of Texas, California, and other states.

I understand the historical context of women's rights... That makes it all the more problematic. If women had so little power at the time these scriptures were written, how could they simultaneously be a major cause of problems? It seems to me that problems tend to originate via misuse of power, not with lack of power.

In fact,listing women along with land and money indicates that like land and money, they are considered property and not persons.