Originally posted by sonship

I do understand where you are coming from with this. I've been there, remember. But isn't all this stuff [above] simply good for a long dinner party chat or a thought-provoking self-help book or a hobby idea that you carry around with you?

It is good truth for preaching the gospel and raising up local churches around the world on the fiv ...[text shortened]... rg/local-churches.htm

Many testimonials are included on the websites of these congregations.

Originally posted by FMF
And you use up *how much* of your life ruminating on this speculation/superstition?

And another question: would your family life and raising your children, for example, all have been somehow meaningless to you if you hadn't been reassuring yourself in the face of the finality of death all along?

Originally posted by FMF
Well it is my opinion that "trepidation about the finality of death" underpins religions and underpins religiosity. I have been around a lot of Christians and a lot of Muslims. My observation has nothing to do with "the seeming belief of most atheists". Anyone arriving in this forum and reading some of the threads will find numerous Christians talking about how ...[text shortened]... all set to live forever in some form or other. It's all about coping with the finality of death.

Originally posted by FMF
I do understand where you are coming from with this. I've been there, remember. But isn't all this stuff [above] simply good for a long dinner party chat or a thought-provoking self-help book or a hobby idea that you carry around with you?

I myself see turning all these ebullient self-pep musings ~ you and your "real" life, and others with their "shadow" liv ...[text shortened]... if THAT is your "life" ~ then good for you. If it gives your life a sense of purpose, then good.

Originally posted by Suzianne
[b]"tragically self-absorbed, inconsequential and fanciful"

It is none of these things. That you see it this way simply shows the extent to which you've fallen away.

"But if it works for you ~ if THAT is your "life" ~ then good for you. If it gives your life a sense of purpose, then good."

This is not merely "a" sense of purpose, it is ...[text shortened]... estined to have from the beginning. That you cheapen it ( "life" ) shows your misunderstanding.[/b]

Genesis chapter one is really a chapter about the ascension of life.

The first life that appears besides the creating God is the grass which sprouts on the third day along with herbs and fruit trees.

"And God said, Let the earth sprout grass, herbs yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit according to their kind with their seed in them upon the earth; and it was so." (Gen. 1:11)

This was life on a unconscious level. A low life. Perhaps according to modern science not the lowest life. But to communicate to most of us, it represents unconscious life. The first rung of the ladder.

It should be noted that both the dry land appeared and the first life came about on the THIRD day. Of course the Spirit of God had in mind the THIRD on which the Son of God resurrected.

Why didn't the life appear first on the second day or on the fourth day? Why the THIRD day ? It is because the transcendent God as Author of the revelation looks forward to Jesus Christ rising from the dead on the THIRD day to impart divine Life into His believers.

The act of being born again can sometimes be rather imperceptible. Sometimes it can be rather unconscious that you have just been born again. The sense of God is very slight sometimes like the unconcious grass or herb or fruit.

Notice that even with the grass, the herb, and the fruit there is an ascending too. Each level of life is a bit higher than the previous one. Genesis one is about ascending up the ladder of life.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
[b]Life

Let's have a civil conversation about physical life, soul life, spiritual life, an after life or the cessation of life? Your views?[/b]

Originally posted by Dasa
Before any person launches themselves into talking about life, they must firstly show that they know what life is.

So is there any person in this forum who knows what life is?

Or putting it another way....................

"What is life".

Originally posted by Dasa
"What is life".

Originally posted by FMF
...human body [especially its brain]...

Originally posted by C Hess
Yeah, only humans experience life. 😛

Originally posted by Dasa
Before any person launches themselves into talking about life, they must firstly show that they know what life is.

So is there any person in this forum who knows what life is?

Or putting it another way....................

"What is life".

Originally posted by sonship
Ultimately, finally the source of all lives is the triune God.

[b]" Life is God the Father in Christ Jesus,
As the Spirit flowing into us.
How enjoyable, this Person wonderful.
He's our life so rich and bountiful." [/b]

We are all witness to life everyday when we see people walking and birds flying and dogs running and trees swaying etc.

This is called ........observing life in action.

But what is life?

If we cut open your body and perform an autopsy will we discover the life within?

Atheistic science seems to think so, because science would speculate and tell us that the life within is the sum total of all the DNA and RNA and protoplasm and enzymes and proteins and genes etc.

Sadly science does not know what life is, and therefore our scientists have simply reduced life down to chemical interactions even though they have been experimenting to create life in the laboratory for 100 yrs using chemicals.

When you don't know what life is you cannot create life, however even if you did know what life was you still could not create life, because all the life that exists is already existing.

Life is spiritual energy / not material energy and the deceased body on the table being dissected for autopsy is material energy.

There is no difference between the table and the dead body on the table because they both shall rot and return back to the earth only to become dust in the wind, and therefore the spirit soul which was animating that body to life has now left that body only to go onward to receive a new body under the laws of reincarnation.

So now we understand that the life in the body was the "soul."

And the soul is spiritual energy / as opposed to material energy.

What is spiritual energy?

It is................sat - cit - ananda / eternity - knowledge - bliss.

Originally posted by RJHinds
John 14:6

New King James Version (NKJV)

[b]Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.[/b]