I know Heaven is real as well as everything in the bible from experiences in my own life. I wish I could say I currently have a relationship with God now, but the truth is that I currently don't because I have chosen not to. Hopefully that will change soon.
With all that being said, the reason I started this thread is to let people know about a new book that's out called "Proof of Heaven". I just watched the author of the book get interviewed. He is a nuero-surgeon that was not a religious person. He went into a coma for a week and his book explains how he visited Heaven for a week. I know there are similar books through out the years about the same thing, but this book sparks my interest because it happened to an unbeliever who was a nuero-surgeon. He explains there was no way it could have been a dream or his imagination or anything like that because his brain was completely shut down. Of all people, I have to believe he knows what he's talking about when he talks about the condition his brain was in because of the type of coma he was in.
Any way, I haven't read the book. I just found out about it and i plan on buying it. Just thought people from this forum would find it interesting and would want to buy it. Maybe if this thread is still around and people have a chance to read the book, we can further discuss it.
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Ohiophinphan Chaplain Staff Member Luxury Box
I saw the same interview. He was very sincere and not anything like what I expected when I first heard of the book.
As to your walk, I hope you will get back to it. It is never about us but about the God who loves us. -
I guess what I don't understand, is the need for believers to prove their faith.
That, going by the definition of the words, "faith", "belief", "fact", "truth", etc. indicates its the sign of weak faith not strong faith. The very definition of faith means you can't know it for a fact. Once you do know something as a provable fact, its no longer something you can have faith in.
Faith is the point of a religion. The faith in the unknowable, is where people get their comfort who are religious.ToddPhin, Boik14 and Ohiophinphan like this. -
Ohiophinphan Chaplain Staff Member Luxury Box
I suppose everybody enjoys a little "See I told you so!!!" so stories of "proof" will always be with us.Fin D likes this. -
See heres the thing, ask me if I believe in the Bible and Ill say yes....but at the same time, in my mind Im like " do I really? how can I be sure? Theres alot of fantastic stories..." ...from there, if you listen to non believers and why, they make a much better case than the bible.....Then your left asking your self " am I really a christian? Is everything Ive tried to be failed?"
Being a christian is pretty difficult, so any proof weather perceived or not, goes along way! -
There can be no facts in faith, if there are, it is no longer faith. Don't look for facts, don't listen to us non believers when we try and debunk the Bible. Faith is personal to you, and should not be affected if I can prove Noah ever existed or not.
I would say, if you are really having a hard time, maybe you need to investigate other Christian denominations or even other non Christian religions. I don't think faith is supposed to be hard, though I could be wrong about that.Fishweiser likes this. -
And thats true, thats what Ive come to learn the meaning of faith. Faith is kind what bridges the dooubt. Say there was a million dollar bet on whether god was real, or that heaven exists and there was a rock solid way of prooving it. I would put my money on that they do exist....I would be a very nervous though...very, very nervous. I mean theres a billion to 1 reasons to doubt religion via science and just everyday common sense even. I dont think theres much to rise above that other than to just go with it. Ive come to figure thats just how its going to be if Im going to be a christian. Its nothing new really, its just part of the struggle.
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Fishweiser likes this.
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Well, Ohiophinphans the only person of faith Ive had contact with actually. LOL!! But maybe Im wrong, but the way I figured it, most people, no matter what religion have some sort of struggle with doubt. That would just seem normal. Im always tempted to feel that if a person never had doubt, or struggle then they are not being truthful or maybe they are a little off their rocker LOL!!...Hope that doesn't offend anyone, because Im open to being wrong about that, its just where my perspective leads me to. I just have a hard time imagining a religious person with absolutely no shadow of a doubt. Now, I can see people using faith to bridge it all, because thats basically what I do....again thats kinda how I perceive it all...Now if Im wrong, then it would be because of perceptions that are new to me.
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Ohiophinphan Chaplain Staff Member Luxury Box
I wouldn't call it a crisis of faith. I've read lots of religious biographies and many describe similar stories.
I would suggest that a fruitful direction of study might be the difference between fact and truth. The post enlightment world wants us to think the two are the same but the world in which the Bible was written was not burdened by such limited categories.Fin D likes this. -
I guess what I am trying to say is that the certain thing is that the bible is real and Jesus already paid the price and "it is finished". The difference is the faith that is applied by people in what "is finished" so to speak.
Faith goes both ways. I believe fear is faith pointed in the wrong direction. Some people have greater faith for bad things to happen. Job said what I have feared happened to me, what I dreaded came upom me.
Some people believe "I always get sick around this time of year" and it happens like clock work. If those same people would take that faith and apply it to something good they would have great faith for good things as opposed to bad things.
Just my 2 cents.
I just brought up the book because I thought people would find it interesting. It something I would usually use if my walk with God was back on track as a wittnessing tool. Plus its always nice to have further insight of something people believe but have never seen. Personally the book wouldn't make me believe in Heaven any more than I already do.Ohiophinphan likes this. -
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Ohiophinphan Chaplain Staff Member Luxury Box
Let me throw a different twist into this discussion.
I would simply draw your attention to two things. First of all, despite the importance of faith, especially in the New Testament, no one, not Jesus, not Paul, not any of the disciples/evangelists ever tell us how to get more!? Curious huh????
Secondly, while the classic translation of the Greek has been faith IN Jesus, more and more scholars are suggesting it should read faith OF Jesus! That then suggests a more Orthodox view of the Jesus event and that we are made right before God when we are merged into or grafted onto Jesus. -
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That's why i made the statement I made in my original post. I am very knowledgeable about what we are talking about in this thread but i have also noted that I really no longer have a relationship with God anymore. I hope to change that soon. But I just wanted to make sure everyone is aware of that if you assume I am a devout christian by things i say in this thread as opposed to the way i act in other forums, mainly just the political forum. lol I seem to get fired up in the political forum. -
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Ohiophinphan Chaplain Staff Member Luxury Box
In part I believe we are all using "faith" in multiple ways. Ricky talks about having faith in a chair that it will not collapse when he sits on it. Many are talking about faith as it is used in the Bible and even there variations exist. That causes confusion.
To me faith is something given to us by God in our created make-up. It can become more or less "evident" (good phrase Ricky) as we more or less surrender our will to God's will. That is not so much provable as observable in behavior. -
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You used an example earlier about a chair. You said you had faith every time you sat in one. That's not really true.
You know the chair is going to hold you. You sat in it before and it held you. That is fact. There may come a time the chair you sit in, fails apart. That will be because of facts you weren't privy to, like age of the chair or a weakness in a joint. If you knew those things before, you wouldn't sit in it. But it wouldn't be because you lost faith in the chair, it would be because you knew for a fact there was a crack in the leg.
Now if you happened upon an object that you didn't know what it was or made of, but decided to sit on it, that might require some faith. However, if it held you while you sat in it, you no longer have faith in it, now you know it will hold you. -
Maybe I am going to the extreme of what you're saying. I feel like if I took what you said as advice it would make me give up on faith. know what i mean?
Speaking about the chair again, i feel like its faith that makes me keep sitting in the same chair over and over again. -
And I am not advocating giving up faith. I'm defending faith actually. Because, again, the second you prove something to be true, it is impossible to have faith in its existence. -
In other words in a spiritual context once someone starts a relationship with God they no longer need faith in God's existence but they still need faith for many different reasons throughout their walk with God.
Do you concur?
I like asking people if they concur ever since I saw the movie Catch me if you can. lol -
Notre Dame is undefeated....!!!!
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MrClean Inglourious Basterd Club Member
There is no proof heaven is real. You say you know it is real, but you have no actual proof. You choose to believe in it because in your mind it gives you comfort and makes you feel good. Yes, there may be a heaven and there may be a god who created everything from the beginning of eternity until forever, but there is no tangible proof in the existence or non existence of either.
I tend to agree with the words of one Thomas Jefferson, when he said: "I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology."
You say you believe in god, but do you believe in the Greek god Zeus? I'd guess not. Well, there is as much proof, or lack thereof, in his existence as there is in the existence, or not, of the god of any of the Abrahamic religions.
You give the impression that the Christian bible is important to you. Yet, you were totally against the candidate for president who follows the same basic religion as you claim to, and chose instead to vote for a man who's religion professes that god lives with Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith on some faraway planet called Kolob. They also believe, or some of them anyway, that earth was created near Kolob over a period of 6000 years, and then moved to its present position in our solar system. Wow, that sounds really logical. lol.ToddPhin likes this. -
As far as politics, one party holds more christian biblical standards than the other. A canidate's or a President's religion is irrelevent IMO as long as the majority of their policies don't go against the morals and policies that I believe are best for the country, they have my vote. There is no such thing as a perfect President or a perfect canidate. -
Zeus gave birth through his skull once. Does that count?
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MrClean Inglourious Basterd Club Member
As for your sorry Republicans I sure do not see anything at all more Christ-like in their beliefs or policies than I see in the Democrats. If Christ of the New Testament were alive today he would not be rubbing elbows with the freakazoids who permeate the power structure of the GOP. Jesus was a liberal socialist. -
Then by all means, regale us with stories from Greek Mythology of Zeus healing anyone.
As for the political stuff, when any mention of the Divine was added into the D platform, they convention goers literally boo'd. -
Ohiophinphan Chaplain Staff Member Luxury Box
MrClean, why do you feel such a need to insult those of us with faith? Is your life so full you need to denigrate ours?
I would also question your chracterazation of Jesus. Even if you are correct, we Christians believe Him to be the living Son of God. His sinless life may be a model for us but we Christians also understand the reality of evil in life and thus a socialist or capitalist, or communist, or colonialist or...... system will be thus infected by the sinfulness of the people espousing it. This is at the core of the question asked in the "Do we need God to be good" thread.
I am not a republican nor have I voted that way in a general election since the first Bush. Political parties and the Kingdom of God are important but not interchangable.padre31 likes this. -
Well OhioP, to me this is supposed to happen, as Christ said "..don't be surprised if the world hates you, remember it hated me first"
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If he takes the word of the man at the start of thread for proof he does.
Eyewitness testimony is valid in any court of law.
My point is not to condescend or what have you rather to point out that "proof" consists of more than what one can objectively examine based on physical evidence.
As a further aside, I can now see the genius of the founders when they did not want religion and govt to mix, imo clergy has done a disservice to the faith by being identified with a political party.
Now it is sort of "Oh he's a Democrat he can't be a Christian" or "oh she's an R she must be a Christian" such a close identification of faith with a political party is a detriment to that faith imo.Ohiophinphan likes this. -
MrClean Inglourious Basterd Club Member
Proof, other than physical evidence may satisfy your requirements, but IMO, one should not feel offended if others do not accept your belief or faith in something unprovable as proof of anything.
One other thing about eyewitness testimony in court. That in of itself is the weakest form of evidence, when compared to physical evidence. One perfect example is the from the classic movie 12 Angry Men. 11 jurors were ready to convict an innocent boy based on eyewitness testimony. The efforts by Juror 8 to force the other 11 to more closely examine the evidence, caused them to rethink their positions.
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