memories, death and the afterlife?

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to FUZZY.....thank you

to WALTUR.......thank you. listened to the track----very interesting. you must be a lot calmer of spirit than i am.

Of spirit, I am silent, at best. I'm much too reactionary, for my taste.

Anybody who openly confesses a belief that someone from an interstellar civilization gave the Jews a leg up in becoming the master race does not firm up any conviction in me as to his adherence in understanding truth.

at least you are honest. that counts for something.

knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing will get you far in this world .

I would suggest that religious doctrine will not provide real answers, but the ancient philosophy may be your best bet for perspectives on these issues. I would suggest that reading the Upanishads ("A step down from the absolute") would provide some good clues, and some of them relate to this question. In philosophy, an acceptable answer to such questions traditionally can only come from within.

I've been studying The Mentor paperback edition (New American Library) which I purchased nearly 40 years ago; this interpretation is by Swami Prabhavananda with Frederick Manchester, and is a somewhat easier read, but lacks explanatory footnotes; this is a slight disadvantage, as the originals were oral compositions, and it appears that there was once an oral tradition (the originals were part of the oral tradition, and were not written down until much later) that included additional explanatory material.

One of these asks the interesting question "Have you asked for that knowledge, by which we may know the unknowable?"

There is available online, Muller's 1879 translation, which is an excellent one, though a very challenging read, however his translation includes excellent footnotes, and a good preface as well, plus commentaries and transliteration tables. It can be found here:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe01/index.htm

My impression from what these ancient "saints and seers" (philosophers) have said is that we carry memory with us when we leave the body.

"Many lives we have lived together, Arjuna; I remember them all, but you do not." -- Prince Krishna, in the Bhagavad Gita.

"Memory is the Glory of Mind"

"When a man dies, he becomes one with the existence, but without losing an individual point of view" -- the late yogi Chiranjiva Roy, former atheist-communist businessman.

Regards, John

[quote="auntblabby"]]

knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing will get you far in this world .[/quote

Seventy four years plus and counting. That is fairly far.

ruveyn

I am almost 85 and find that a pitiable short time.

It is farther than average. You expect too much.

ruveyn

It does not even approximate enough.

hardly a master race. A Special Bunch yes. A Master Race no. And among those who invent new ideas and advance the human race, you will find Jews in disproportionate numbers. It is better to be Special and Smart than to be in charge. I will leave Being in Charge to the Gentiles.

ruveyn

I would think that you above all people would not underestimate the Jews that they would need some interplanetary intelligence to goose them into attainment. Their culture of respecting learning and mental attainment is quite enough. Just look at the American culture of despising learning and knowledge and see how fast the culture is sinking into the third world.

it is said that if you sin you go to hell, and if you do not you go to heaven.
how many sins will get you across the threshold to hell?

does one sin in your life send you to hell?
do only sinless people get to heaven?

what are the rules of the audit? i am sure each and every human has sinned.
but are people responsible for their sins?

it is said we all have "free choice", and it is up to us to steer ourselves toward or destinies.
but if you kidnapped mother theresa, and put her under anesthetic and destroyed her frontal lobes with razor wires, then when she awoke and was released from your constraint, if she murdered a child due to her diminished sanity, then would god send her to hell?

what is the reason that sinners sin? is it because they are born with a hardwired and immutable brain that is bound to transgress the boundaries of "moral decency" that is the territorial borderline of acceptability by the majority of people? can sinners really be blamed for their transgressions? they were born with defective brains, and by that i mean they were not born with perfect brains, and perfection is unattainable so it seems everyone is off to hell.

i think if god created imperfection in his universe, then he could not blame it for being imperfect.

In bulk, since there are more non-Christians than Christian, probably most people are consigned to Hell because they have no idea they are sinning.

how can anyone be punished for what they did not know ?
if god did not give them the wits to know how to play his game, then how could he be so ruthless to ignore that he designed them incompletely?

and by the way, i do not consider muslims to be any less deserving of heaven than christians

as smart as you are, i can not hop on to your heaving boat.

As everybody knows, ignorance of the law is no excuse. Of course, since you are intimate with the mind of God you know exactly what He is thinking.