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Well technically speaking this depends on denomination if you believe Jesus had anything to do with it...

Some seperate the Father, Son, and Spirit a little more than others.



I understand what you are saying.

My 2 cents:

I don't believe in a denomination or any religion.

That rebel from Nazareth was and is the one universal God.
*in my opinion :)

water
ice
steam

3 / One
 
Ice was talking to Water here:

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Water was speaking to Ice and to all of us a thru Steam here:

and a voice came from heaven, "Thou are my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased

3 separate united in purpose constituting 1 Godhead.

For in him (Christ) ie "Ice" dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily

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Ok guys you know that I'm very serious about NDEs.

I have met many people in real life who've been clinically dead and brought back.

A few have met Christ.

A few more have claimed to have met God.

Many and most meet relatives who have past on already, along with angels. Usually these past on relatives (spirits) inquire on how family members are doing on earth. These same spirits usually tell them that they have to go back to earth, that their mission or lessons meant to be learnt on earth is/are not completed yet.

80% of the NDEs go to a good place or what we would consider Paradise, and in Paradise, you're able to recognize people, or at least introductions are made.These angels and spirits reside in Paradise.

20% go to Spirit Prison or where Hell is and are shown that. You don't recognize anyone and souls are terrorize there. You have no comfort, security or light. Of these 20% most eventually are shown what Paradise will look like, and when they come back to earth they are invigorated to do only good.

Of all of the NDEs most learn the most important things we can do in this life is to be charitable and love unconditionally. The angels and spirits looking down from Heaven and Paradise are pleased by our conduct and they groan when we error.

Here a few NDEs I have found noteworthy.

An atheist:
YouTube - Howard Storm (Part 1 of 5) former atheist - near death experience (NDE) conversion

Interesting woman Betty Eadie, speaks on the ripple effect meaning everything we do has an effect on people here and we will be shown all of those effects thru our actions in the next life. The deal is do right here, you'll wind up in Paradise.

YouTube - Betty J. Eadie (w/ Cathy Lee Crosby & Christian Andréason) -- Embraced By The Light TV Special

Christian Andreason Gay singer, went to Paradise was shown what his future was to be and what he was suppose to do here:

YouTube - Christian Andreason's Near-Death Experience on NBC

Ian McCormick, Aussie 20ish yr old surfer and Atheist had his mind changed after visiting Spirit Prison and Paradise-met Christ where Christ taught him about forgiving all of those that have offended him before he could be forgiven:

YouTube - Ian McCormack (Part 1 of 10) former atheist, near death experience (NDE) conversion


There are so many more I may post later.

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you're able to recognize people....
.... You don't recognize anyone and souls are terrorize there. You have no comfort, security or light.

Just to play Devil's Advocate here, I've heard some skeptics of Heaven and Hell say how could Heaven be paradise if you know those who did not make it there are burning in hell instead? How could you know infinite joy that way?
 
I didn't say Paradise was Heaven, Heaven comes later-but that's all details.:)

There is some sadness for those in Paradise whose family and friends don't make it, from what I understand.

Free Will is a gift from God that is to be used here with discretion and wisdom, that's why we have a conscience-that's what a lot of NDErs have learned.

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Free Will is a gift from God that is to be used here with discretion and wisdom, that's why we have a conscience-that's what a lot of NDErs have learned.

What sort of impact, if any, has this learning had on their beliefs about war, poverty, capital punishment, abortion and other similarly divided life and death topics?
 
What sort of impact, if any, has this learning had on their beliefs about war, poverty, capital punishment, abortion and other similarly divided life and death topics?

Yes.

From my research:

Most come back less in favor of or against the death penalty, less judgmental, more charitable (against poverty) and more pro life.

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I haven't done any research but the whole topic of NDE is generally intriguing.

What about war?

I haven't heard anybody come back and say- "end all wars" actually what they have said is that God understands why wars happen and doesn't interfere with man's free will.

I think Howard Storm's NDE-the first video touches on this.

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A former soldier's altered conscience.

A NDE Perspective about War at Near Death Experiences Support Forum (NDE)

I was a soldier before I had my Near Death Experience(NDE). I was privy to how wars were planned and how wars were sold to the public. Even before I joined the military, as a teenager, I spent much of my free time playing tactical and strategic war games. I enjoyed simulating the wars of the past. In High School I took classes to prepare me to be in the military. I took paramilitary classes each week that had a program that provided me an opportunity to fly airplanes. I wore army boots to school even. I was gung ho. I loathed liberals and viewed them as enemies of God. Today, I see the labels liberal and conservative as just opposite sides of the same coin. Both liberals and conservatives believe there is an us & them. My Near Death Experience changed that about me.

As a product of fundamentalist theology, I very much bought into left and right way of thinking. My opinion at the time was the notion that Liberals hated America and freedom. Conservatives in my world-view believed in the American Dream and God, which in my mind were one in the same. I literally believed that liberals were the enemy of God and country. My preachers and often President also seemed to agree with my world-view. My preacher would say how proud he was of the returning soldiers from Vietnam who visited from the military. He would often take a scriptural shot at so-called evil Communists and Atheists in the sermons when those soldiers came to visit. When Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union the "Evil Empire," I was even more than convinced that God was on America's side and I could justify the cadence songs we sang about while we marched and double timed to songs about killing, murder, and rape of God's enemies. I say justify but still there was some dissonance when I sang,

"We are going to rape, kill, pillage, burn!
We are going to rape, kill, pillage, burn! & eat babies!
Rape, kill, pillage, burn!
We are going to rape, kill, pillage, burn! "

I was a Fundamentalist Christian before I went into the military and even before my NDE. Still, before meeting God, I knew that God had no hand in any of those kinds of actions...but...
I rationalized that I was going to have to do evil things for the greater good. Killing was justifiable in my belief system if I was to protect God's people from Communists, Liberals and Muslims.

The oil crisis of the 70's made the Middle East a strategic location. Following a hostage crisis in Iran, when we were on the brink of war, the running conversation around the military was how we were going to turn Iran into a sea of glass(with super heated sand) from nuclear bombs we were going to drop on them. I was okay with that.
We were briefed just before the hostages in Iran. The men telling us how to destabilize the Muslim nations came from intelligent sounding men about the Middle East and its strategic importance. They made killing thousands of Muslims sound as if
it was no more than squashing a fly with newspaper. Iranians and Muslims in general were evil in my fundamentalist estimation. Killing Muslims seemed just like killing evil NAZI's in the war games I played as a teen.

I was also okay with our strategy told to us by intelligent sounding men of destabilizing Middle Eastern countries by assassinating Muslim clerics and leaders who were Anti-American or Anti-Israeli. I was okay with destroying Muslim water supplies and destroying their electricity grids. You can't fight if you have no water. And not just Iran but every Muslim nation. We were told the primary strategic mission of Israel and America was to keep the Muslims fighting with each other to keep them from unifying against us. We would accomplish this by selling or giving weapons to both sides of rival tribes and nations. To create rival Muslim tribes and Muslim nations we were told we could also disguise ourselves as Muslims and kill other Muslims and blame our actions on opposing tribes or nations. As long as Muslims were fighting amongst each other, war could be averted. When I hear that evil terrorists have attacked America today, I can't help but think that America is being strategically gamed by those same P.H.D.'s who were running war colleges and think tanks when I was in the military over 25 years ago. They said it didn't matter what we did as long as the media reported what happened with an American or Israeli slant on stories that villainized Muslims and put America and Israel in the best light. Not only the media, but the military needed America's religious leaders to actively encourage support for the military. This was a critical need to keep the religious communities on the side of the military. Once you know this, you can't go back to unknowing it. Today is no different than it was way back when but unlike those days, today we are actually in a war with Muslims in Iraq & Afganistan and America is planning another war with Iran. Today, I have discernment enough to know that the media or a preacher saying we have been attacked by terrorists to justify war may be nothing more than propaganda and in fact we may have even attacked ourselves to convince the public that war is necessary.

When I joined the military, I was taught that what liberals thought was propaganda and what I was taught was "the truth." Following my NDE, I came back and viewed people in a different light. I was still in the military but I didn't want to kill anyone anymore. I was useless as a soldier at this point. I knew with certainty that the God of my NDE did not hate Muslims, Liberals or Atheists ...or anyone...we were all of us children of the light.

I met another being in my NDE. This super-being controlled the Earth and recorded every movement within it. Some people might say this being is God but I met what I called "God" in heaven and this super-being I met who controlled the Earth did not have the same personality as the God I met in heaven. The God of heaven is "love" but this other being was not love. I have discerned that the whole "us versus them" way of perceiving the world was the work of none other than the god of this world.

The more I learn, the more I understood that much of what I have been told by the media and preachers is propaganda. There were powerful men in the world whose whole mission in life is to make their citizens believe outright lies. Today is the same only the propaganda machine is even more powerful than it was when I was a young man. Know you are being lied to. Once you know then you either think it is okay to believe lies or you try to see beyond the lies. I am now on this journey to see beyond the propaganda.

When I was in the military, my fellow soldiers were planning to go to war with Iran. It is not so different from today. We supposedly were doing so way back when to protect our interests in the Middle East. Today it is the same. Israeli PHD's came to tell us how to destabilize every Muslim nation through outright attacks on their infrastructure and deception. Their counterparts and students are doing the same work today. They were the experts and we were their willing students. Destabilizing the Middle East could be accomplished with air-land-sea power but this was very expensive. Wars also turned the stomachs of the liberal citizens all around the world. Some lesson we apparently forgot.

The military was very fearful of liberals turning public opinion against them. It was not said outright but liberals in general were considered by those in the military to be the enemy. Winning the media and pulpit war silenced the liberals and this propaganda war was just as important as winning air-land-sea wars around the globe. This I understood.

I know it seems there is a good reason to kill other people and if you read your Bible you may even justify wars and killing. The Bible is filled with what may appear to be justifiable wars, sacrifice, and murder. Some of the wanton bloodshed it is even attributed to God. I can tell you this, God is not in the killing business. God is love. In my NDE, I met God and when I returned to my body I found God in my Bible but I read words like turning the other cheek and that sounded like the voice of God and they jumped out at me and reminded me of the God I met in heaven as opposed to an "eye for an eye" in other parts of the Bible. Words like God is merciful pooped out to me in the Torah. While I am not a sutdent of the Koran, I am certain that God who is love can be found in its pages...

It is very common to assume there is an "us and them" when one has a fundamentalist theological outlook, be it Jewish, Christian, Muslim or any religion that claims they have the only path to eternity. If you belong to "us" you go to heaven and if you belong to "them" then you are doomed. Those with fundamentalist outlooks may feel so strongly about their faith that they feel they can overlook the dissonance they feel about wars and killing they read in their sacred texts and their absolute belief that God is love. The fundamentalist can forgive themselves, soldiers, terrorists, and zealot teachers who kill or teach others that killing is justifiable for the greater good they perceive comes from overcoming the evil enemies of God...but the God I met in heaven loves my enemies... In fact, our souls are made out of God(light)...If I respond to killing by killing then I am killing myself.

In my own faith, Peter cuts off the ear of one of the soldiers coming to arrest Jesus; Peter was afraid and Jesus told him to put away his sword. This is the same Peter who would deny Jesus three times who was again afraid for his own life. Should a person who knows without a doubt that we will survive this world be too concerned about defending himself or his nation from human enemies? We can choose Peter's way of responding to violence by pulling out our swords at every perceived or imagined threat but should one respond from a place of fear or love? If you believe killing is love then you are rationalizing.

My friend says,"When Roman soldiers believed upon Jesus, and asked Him what they should do, He replied that they should carry out their duties honestly, and not abuse anyone. I note, He did not tell them to quit the military and lay down their weapons, and remove their uniform. I believe our military has acted conscientiously, which also includes the prosecution of our own soldiers who have committed crimes.
But, in war there are also ambiguities. It is a hellish situation."

I was a soldier and following my NDE, I came to understand that I was not in anything that looked like the "Lord's Army" that I sang about long ago in Sunday School. I was in an army that protected the strategic interests of America. I was in an army of what I once thought of as a "necessary evil" but if you think that the American version of the "Roman" army is not abusing anyone then you may not have heard of the over 650,000 Iraqis who have been killed since America invaded them. Ask the families of those with dead sons and daughters if they have been abused. It is difficult to understand because the media and preachers are so bought and paid for. If you think we are in just wars then I would ask you if you believe America and Israel are blameless? I do not believe it for a second. If they are not blameless then the propaganda machine controlling the media and pulpit is not blameless either. Turning the other cheek has a reward but when we disregard this this opportunity we give our strength away.

I believe the god of this world called God, Yahweh, or Allah by the bulk of the fundamentalist theologies in the world is very much concerned about wars. The God of this world has his minions called priests, rabbis, and clerics...princes, kings, bankers, industrialists, movie and television producers, newspaper and television reporters, professors, CEO's, policeman, soldiers...and all kinds of principalities and powers under his control....

When I was a child the preachers in my community called blacks, "niggers" but when it was not okay to say "******" out loud my fundamentalist preachers switched to be more subtle and began insulting those on welfare. Muslims in my days in the Army were the new "niggers" who were okay to hate. Hating on Muslims fell out of popularity so now
we can hate and kill Muslims be they hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children if we call them "terrorists." But who is terrorizing whom? The art of propaganda is very refined today... but here is the rule that I discern with...If it is from the God I met in heaven then the message is love...and it does not judge ...If the message is about flesh and fleshly things then God can not even see it and it is not love... Their is no faith in love while putting others("them") down to make "us" feel taller.

I have visited many many churches, since my NDE. If the message from the pulpit is love then I am on board but as the public is strongly opposed to war the fundamentalist are still for it...and why... because the preachers, priests, and clerics are deceived by the god of this world and they are just Pharisees of this age... If they read the Bible, Koran, Torah or any written or spoken word and justify killing in God's name then they missed the point. God is love... Peace is Patriotic.... Love wins in the end....so why not live like it?
 
.but the God I met in heaven loves my enemies... In fact, our souls are made out of God(light)...If I respond to killing by killing then I am killing myself.

That really jumped out at me.
 
.but the God I met in heaven loves my enemies... In fact, our souls are made out of God(light)...If I respond to killing by killing then I am killing myself.

Let see how consistent the believers of NDEs will be, shall we?

I'm sure Diamond will say, he just heard him wrong :wink:
 
*sigh* I dunno if I wanna engage..

I know the feeling Diamond:up::up:

I just do not understand the Heaven/Hell thing as well as other things for example

1. To me after 40 years on this planet if there is a God He does NOT care about Mankind NOW why will that change when we take our last breath?

2. Hell ?:huh: God is gonna chuck people/souls into an Eternal BBQ b/c they did not be LIE ve the right thing?















Carlos CONGRATS on 23 GRAND:applaud:
 
Let see how consistent the believers of NDEs will be, shall we?

I'm sure Diamond will say, he just heard him wrong :wink:

That's where you're mistaken; NDEr experiences are never equal or exactly the same for everyone-for different reasons.

The reasons usually depend on a person's circumstances here, and the extent of the spiritual growth they chose to accomplish while on earth and usually feel they are then judged accordingly in complete fairness.

A person realizes when standing next to perfection what his imperfections actually were and what he *could of* accomplished on earth.

The deal on earth is to heed the promptings of your conscience, and not go "oh sh*t" -when the jig is up.

Another interesting point is no one that has came back from a NDE and said God was unfair to them. People always say it was the fairest treatment they ever had and they know what to do now-which is to have compassion, love unconditionally, have charity and forgive often.

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The first thing you said was accurate, diamond.
NDEr experiences are never equal or exactly the same for everyone-for different reasons.
That's exactly right, so why do you go on to generalize here?

Another interesting point is no one that has came back from a NDE and said God was unfair to them. People always say it was the fairest treatment they ever had and they know what to do now-which is to have compassion, love unconditionally, have charity and forgive often.

There are people who have had them, being conscious of being dead and have experienced a nothingness, a blackness or some kind of void. This is the second most common (although rare) type of NDE.

Still others have experienced (the even more rare) 'Hellish' scenarios. And the majority, something pleasant of some nature.

Honest question:
What did God think of those that experienced nothing?

There are two pieces of general information we can take from these NDE's, if you've looked at them fairly closely. 1- is very obvious, we can't explain what is going on here, at least not thoroughly or soundly. YET. 2- is the very first thing you said. These experiences, while many are shared (and placed into general categories as I mentioned above), vary to a pretty distinct degree.

You can say that these "void" folks experienced a lack of God and therefore he was neither fair or unfair, but to me, it's unfair by default just to be ignored.

We can't point to the evidence and ignore part of it.
It's either reliable or not.
 
A person realizes when standing next to perfection what his imperfections actually were and what he *could of* accomplished on earth.

Are you familiar with NDE accounts from people of non-Christian faiths and cultures? I've now read that NDEs across the world often share common markers (light, tunnels, loved ones etc.) but wonder if the specifics reflect commonality (i.e. have Jews or Muslims met Christ?).

In other words, is perfection as you've stated above really a universal code or a reflection of your own culture...
 
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