The problem with an afterlife or preserved consciousness

Post Reply New Topic

Please don’t apologize, no need to be sorry.

That is a good question that I used to struggle to answer. The struggle wasn’t that I was wrong, but rather that one argument turned into increasing numbers of counter arguments, none of which I found satisfying, whether it was an atheist argument I disliked or my own failure to convince someone of the capital-tee Truth. Airtight logical proofs have been around for millennia for the existence of God, so what’s the problem?

It then occurred to me that all classic proofs fail because they all have in common that they accept the non-existence of God as a premise and then proceed to prove the opposite. If you know God exists, why start from the atheist position that He doesn’t? I also questioned my own beliefs—do I REALLY know God exists? Yes, because I’ve personally experienced God’s actions at key points in my life. And while the skeptic will hand wave that as not valid proof, it can’t change the fact that SOMETHING inexplicable DID HAPPEN, and it would be absurd for me to deny what I already know to be true.

I enjoyed studying apologetics for a while and studying the Bible...which was IMMENSELY satisfying. However, along the way I learned to be careful with that. An apology is a defense. If God is sovereign, why does He need a defense from me? Proof that God exists is unnecessary and perhaps even borderline blasphemous, especially since everyone knows who He is whether they admit to it or not. So I tend to focus on telling my own story about my own journey as a Christian.

I think the main problem with “proof” and logic is the nature of the mind. The mind is by nature corrupted and incapable of reason. We are all essentially insane and incapable of any knowledge. The only true knowledge out there is what God reveals. We only have to trust that knowledge comes from an omniscient God and that God isn’t trying to trick us. That requires a leap of faith. But if you can trust that God isn’t lying to you, then you can claim certain knowledge. Only then can you trust the human mind to make logical conclusions about the world. All knowledge, therefore, presupposes God.

Since we accept God’s existence as axiomatic, the only reasonable conclusion is that YHWH of the Bible is God and that the Bible is true along with it’s formulation or description of Heaven. Which...btw...there aren’t many details about Heaven. It’s more about what Heaven is LIKE, since the focus of Christianity is coming to the Father through salvation through Jesus, not how much gold or crowns you have. Regardless, what little we can know from the Bible must be true.

I’ve also concluded that Christianity as a whole has gotten a lot of things wrong, but that’s another topic for a better time.

Have you been making the mistake of being sober?

There are a number of medicinal plants known to facilitate contact & communication with the spirit world.