james bond
Well-Known Member
This is a serious topic, but I decided to add some fun to it with the number 13.
First, the serious part. It's the way I look at our religious beliefs and differences. It is tied to worldview. Worldview is very personal because it is yours. Someone else cannot have it as I will explain below. You may share a similar worldview, but it is still not the same as your worldview. The dictionary defines it as:
" a comprehensive conception or apprehension of the world especially from a specific standpoint —called also weltanschauung"
"the way someone thinks about the world"
I would like to try and explain it. Someone who is four-years old will have a different worldview from an adult. Yet, we cannot say their worldview is wrong compared that to an adult. It may not be as complete as an adult's as a child is still learning, but my point is it is still theirs, i.e. the child and the adult.
Thus, the first fact of life I like to present is that your world exists because you exist. That is, your perception of the world or worldview exists because you exist. You have a world just like I have a world. There may be things that we share such as a recent trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for the Olympics. Yet, the place where I live, the people I interact with daily, the things that I do and so on would be different than yours. No one person's world is the same as another. We can see that it is unique. Should you get ill and have to stay in bed for a week under doctor's orders, then your world stops and is relegated to your room or hospital bed. So, I hope you accept the fact that your world exists because you exist. When you die, then your world will not exist anymore.
The next fact, I would like to present is that of death. When we die, we die alone. When we die our world and worldview dies with us because it is ours and ours alone. We usually can't time our loved one to die with us at the exact time. Even then, it would still be our world and worldview from the above "fact" that ceases to exist so we do die alone. What we did in life and what people remember us for is what remains.
So, what about the afterlife? Unfortunately, there is no fact associated with it that is comprehensive so it depends on one's worldview. There's that pesky word again. It's tied to one's beliefs, one's logic and reasoning or one's experience. The closest I can get to sharing my worldview would be if we find some common ground whether in faith (belief), logic and reasoning (no belief) or experience such as we shared a life-changing experience or life-revealing one. It could be a movie or show that we watched or a book that we read. It could be a lecture or a church service one attended. There may few of these moments in our lives, but it's one that we will remember. We share common experiences. To me, the afterlife is tied to religion and science. It is based on Christianity and what the Bible says. It is also based on my investigations into near-death experiences. To someone else, it could be rebirth or reincarnation and that they will return as someone else or another creature depending how they lived their past life. That could be religion, too. They may consider it science as they have some scientific theories to back up their findings. To others, it may mean the end of life. No more consciousness and their physical body decays. What remains are what others remember of them and the life that they lived. To them, this is science.
So, that's the serious part. The fun part has to do with the number 13. Someone pointed out to me that Americans consider it unlucky because of superstition relating to Christianity and Judas Iscariot who was the 13th guest at the Last Supper who eventually betrayed Jesus. In ancient Sumeria, they developed a number system that put emphasis on the number 12 such as 12 months to a year, 12 hours to a day and two 12-hour half-days. We buy foods such as eggs by the dozen. 12 seems like a significant number in our lives while 13 which follows it is considered less important. In Asia, the number 4 is translated to mean death. 1 + 3 = 4. In the United States, we may not have a 13th floor in hotels or office buildings because it's is considered bad luck. Americans also associate 13 with Friday the 13th which is unlucky, too.
"Others theorize that Friday being unlucky predated Christianity. The name “Friday” was chosen in honor of the Norse goddess Frigg, also known as Freyja, who was the multitalented goddess of love, beauty, wisdom, war, death, and magic. Teutonic people are thought to have considered the day extremely unlucky, especially for weddings, due in part to the lovely goddess the day was named for. Later, the Christian church attempted to demonize the goddess, so that may or may not be a contributing factor as well.
...
However, the Hindus also believed that it was bad luck for 13 people to gather together for any purpose at the same time.
Far away in northern Europe, the Vikings of ancient times told a very similar story. According to the old Norse myth, 12 gods were feasting at the banquet hall at Valhalla, when Loki, the god of Mischief, showed up uninvited. This, of course, brought the count of gods up to the dreaded number of 13. Loki then encouraged Hod, the blind god of winter and darkness, to murder Balder the Good with a spear of mistletoe, throwing all of Valhalla into mourning, and once again providing another example of a story in history that congregating with 13 for dinner is a bad idea.""
http://gizmodo.com/why-people-think-friday-the-13th-is-unlucky-1306401570
So, whether you believe in religion, science or experience, we can all claim that we live in a crazy world
.
First, the serious part. It's the way I look at our religious beliefs and differences. It is tied to worldview. Worldview is very personal because it is yours. Someone else cannot have it as I will explain below. You may share a similar worldview, but it is still not the same as your worldview. The dictionary defines it as:
" a comprehensive conception or apprehension of the world especially from a specific standpoint —called also weltanschauung"
"the way someone thinks about the world"
I would like to try and explain it. Someone who is four-years old will have a different worldview from an adult. Yet, we cannot say their worldview is wrong compared that to an adult. It may not be as complete as an adult's as a child is still learning, but my point is it is still theirs, i.e. the child and the adult.
Thus, the first fact of life I like to present is that your world exists because you exist. That is, your perception of the world or worldview exists because you exist. You have a world just like I have a world. There may be things that we share such as a recent trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for the Olympics. Yet, the place where I live, the people I interact with daily, the things that I do and so on would be different than yours. No one person's world is the same as another. We can see that it is unique. Should you get ill and have to stay in bed for a week under doctor's orders, then your world stops and is relegated to your room or hospital bed. So, I hope you accept the fact that your world exists because you exist. When you die, then your world will not exist anymore.
The next fact, I would like to present is that of death. When we die, we die alone. When we die our world and worldview dies with us because it is ours and ours alone. We usually can't time our loved one to die with us at the exact time. Even then, it would still be our world and worldview from the above "fact" that ceases to exist so we do die alone. What we did in life and what people remember us for is what remains.
So, what about the afterlife? Unfortunately, there is no fact associated with it that is comprehensive so it depends on one's worldview. There's that pesky word again. It's tied to one's beliefs, one's logic and reasoning or one's experience. The closest I can get to sharing my worldview would be if we find some common ground whether in faith (belief), logic and reasoning (no belief) or experience such as we shared a life-changing experience or life-revealing one. It could be a movie or show that we watched or a book that we read. It could be a lecture or a church service one attended. There may few of these moments in our lives, but it's one that we will remember. We share common experiences. To me, the afterlife is tied to religion and science. It is based on Christianity and what the Bible says. It is also based on my investigations into near-death experiences. To someone else, it could be rebirth or reincarnation and that they will return as someone else or another creature depending how they lived their past life. That could be religion, too. They may consider it science as they have some scientific theories to back up their findings. To others, it may mean the end of life. No more consciousness and their physical body decays. What remains are what others remember of them and the life that they lived. To them, this is science.
So, that's the serious part. The fun part has to do with the number 13. Someone pointed out to me that Americans consider it unlucky because of superstition relating to Christianity and Judas Iscariot who was the 13th guest at the Last Supper who eventually betrayed Jesus. In ancient Sumeria, they developed a number system that put emphasis on the number 12 such as 12 months to a year, 12 hours to a day and two 12-hour half-days. We buy foods such as eggs by the dozen. 12 seems like a significant number in our lives while 13 which follows it is considered less important. In Asia, the number 4 is translated to mean death. 1 + 3 = 4. In the United States, we may not have a 13th floor in hotels or office buildings because it's is considered bad luck. Americans also associate 13 with Friday the 13th which is unlucky, too.
"Others theorize that Friday being unlucky predated Christianity. The name “Friday” was chosen in honor of the Norse goddess Frigg, also known as Freyja, who was the multitalented goddess of love, beauty, wisdom, war, death, and magic. Teutonic people are thought to have considered the day extremely unlucky, especially for weddings, due in part to the lovely goddess the day was named for. Later, the Christian church attempted to demonize the goddess, so that may or may not be a contributing factor as well.
...
However, the Hindus also believed that it was bad luck for 13 people to gather together for any purpose at the same time.
Far away in northern Europe, the Vikings of ancient times told a very similar story. According to the old Norse myth, 12 gods were feasting at the banquet hall at Valhalla, when Loki, the god of Mischief, showed up uninvited. This, of course, brought the count of gods up to the dreaded number of 13. Loki then encouraged Hod, the blind god of winter and darkness, to murder Balder the Good with a spear of mistletoe, throwing all of Valhalla into mourning, and once again providing another example of a story in history that congregating with 13 for dinner is a bad idea.""
http://gizmodo.com/why-people-think-friday-the-13th-is-unlucky-1306401570
So, whether you believe in religion, science or experience, we can all claim that we live in a crazy world
.
