The End of the Universe

[PacketThirst]

Nihil: meditation is ofcourse the means. But the kind of meditation that happens in religions is quite different... The sole purpose of religious meditation is to please God. But true meditation has no purpose other than to tune oneself into actual reality.

[Moira]

You are not getting my point. If God represented virtues, he would protect the innocent. How many infants and children have died terrible deaths?. They didn't even get a chance to use their "free will". Will they reach heaven according to your beliefs?.

No, you're not getting my point. I've already tried to explain why a) terrible wickedness happens on this earth and b) tried to get you to check your assumptions that God is in a position to do something about the evil that exists at this moment, or indeed that it would be in his interests to do so.

God wants us to learn to do his will .... and one day live in a paradise world

So thats what its all about...eh ?. A place where there is no pain and where you can do all the things that you ever wanted to do. Doesn't that concept suck ?. What's the fun in being happy all the time?. If you believe that paradise really exists, why my friend do you try so hard in life?.

So your idea of paradise is slacking and sleeping, lol? Well, it isn't mine! I'd like a world where we didn't have wars, disease, poverty and this "me, me, me" culture! This desire for instant gratification and damn the consequences and damn everybody else is not a nice world to live in, but believing what I do, it isn't surprising that it's happening now either.

So you embrace the idea of illness and getting old and sick and dying. I don't. I don't want to die, I'm frightened of dying and I personally don't believe anyone who says different.

Religions are so full of contradictions. For example, the old testament talks about not having sex with anyone related to you by blood. I wonder how Adam,Eve and their offsprings managed to create an another generation !

How would you explain this one ?

I'd have to look at what you were quoting from the Old Testament, PacketThirst. To be honest, I think this discussion has just about gone as far as it can go without diving off at a complete tangent. It's great to find someone at least open to thoughts and suggestions and concepts that most people are sadly closed off to. They don't have any interest or wonderment and awe at the mindbloggling questions that I think we should all be asking. But I seriously question how much more we're going to achieve here before it develops into an off topic flame war.

[greygnome]

and now for something completely different, a man with three buttocks.

[PacketThirst]

Moira: I am not you and obviously my concept of heaven is totally different from yours. My concept of heaven is living with my girl and a pc (with Internet ofcourse) on a nice little cottage at a river side. You sound like a beauty pageant finalist when you talk about heaven...lol !. I do agree that we are deviating from the point here. Thank you for your compliments about my open thoughts. Now if God really exists, let him shower you with all blessings and shove a pine tree up my buttocks for my ignorance.

greygnome: Interesting to hear that gnome's have three buttocks. Are they grey too?

[nihil]

Hmmmm?

Three buttocked gnomes?

Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and George Bush

There are your three buttocks?

[D0pp139an93r]

Exactly nihil. And dmorgan, by definition if something "starts" it has to "finish". Think about it - and not just in terms of the universe. Show me one single thing that starts and doesn't finish.

Energizer Bunny.

[fourdc]

From the looks of things this thread LOL

[tin.roof.rabbit]

light? Time? energy? The powers of your diety of choice? Or is it like what happens when an unstopplable object meets an unmovable object? That lazer on Real Genius? The Street Fighter series?

[Moira]

From the looks of things this thread LOL

LOL. PacketThirst, am I right in assuming your heaven wouldn't include mothers in law?

OK, your question about incest being expressly forbidden by God (in the Mosaic law, roughly 1500 BCE) and the seeming contradiction that for man to multiply then "incest" must have been commonplace when man first inhabited the earth.

I'm assuming your Old Testament reading was Leviticus, verse 18? Anyway, I'm not arguing with the reference. Nor can you deny that Cain married one of his sisters and Abram (In Genesis) married his half sister. Clearly, if man's purpose on the earth was to multiply then this sort of thing had to happen.

I'm not expecting you to accept what I say now, this is just what I believe (and others who interpret the Bible in a like minded way and have faith in it) and I'm sorry if it's hard to swallow. Man was created free from sin, and in a sinless world, there would be no problem with multiplying from other perfect men and women. However, as everyone knows the story, Eve ate from the forbidden fruit and Adam followed suit and they became tainted with sin and evil crept into mankind. Even after this event, we were not such an imperfect race that sexual relations between close relatives would have caused the genetic problems that inbreeding now does.

However, in Leviticus God told Moses that incestuous relationships were forbidden, and indeed religious or not, most people accept that today it would be wrong from the genetic point of view if nothing else.

So the answer to your question in a nutshell is, yes relationships with family members were fine in the days following Adam and Eve, but that was not the case post Mosaic law.

And PacketThirst, you're clearly not ignorant! I'm not so bigotted that I diss anyone who happens not to agree with me in fact it's refreshing to come across people who are willing to question our origins and purpose in the universe, the worst kind of people are those too apathetic to even care. FYI, your idea of heaven sounds not too far removed from mine, I'd have my computer and the internet there certainly

[nihil]

Nihil: meditation is ofcourse the means. But the kind of meditation that happens in religions is quite different... The sole purpose of religious meditation is to please God. But true meditation has no purpose other than to tune oneself into actual reality.

Actually I think that you mean prayer and contemplation. Meditation is a means to self awareness in my book.