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Is Heaven, Nirvana etc the goal?

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
You have yourself stated that how soul will progress towards Allah after death has not been revealed by the Iranian preacher. I suggest that you try the Indian preacher, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. He was also sent by Allah. Perhaps you will find the information revealed there. Progressive revealation, you know. The new one knows the best. :)
 

Saint Frankenstein

Wanderer From Afar
Premium Member
However the Gospel (Good news) is that people will spend eternity in a new body on earth.
Actually, the true vision of Christianity is the salvation and sanctification of the entire universe, where Heaven and earth are remade and become one. The resurrection of the dead (and the joining of those glorified bodies with their souls) is just part of this overall goal.
 

A Vestigial Mote

Well-Known Member
The soul does not depend upon the brain, it is the reverse.
We can all just make statements with an air of finality without backing them up in any way with real, observable or demonstrable evidence.

Here... let me have a turn:

There is no such thing as a soul.

See? There you go. I did it. Exactly as you have done. Until someone produces some verifiable evidence, this is nothing more than a game.
 

soulsurvivor

Active Member
Premium Member
I hear a lot of Christians say they are looking forward to eternity in Heaven. Hindus say they want to become one with God and Buddhists say they want to reach Nirvana.

However the Gospel (Good news) is that people will spend eternity in a new body on earth.

Perhaps what God thinks is good is different from what people thing is good.
According to most scientists, the Earth will not last for eternity
 

wellwisher

Well-Known Member
I believe Jesus says "where your heart is, there will you be also." So if Jesus says He is God of the living and not the dead, does that mean the love of God is for the living?

Think in terms of psychology. If you are happy, life will appear more positive. If you angry and afraid, then the same reality will look different. We create our own reality often based on our feelings about life. Our feelings can influence our perception.

One classic example is falling in love. When this occurs, the beloved can appear perfect and bigger than life. It can created an exaggerated reality. Your friends and family may not see this, but they may support you, since they wish you to be happy. The emotions triggered by love and infatuation can create beer goggles, that can allows one to see reality through rose colored glasses. It is the same reality as yesterday; science based, but the change of feeling makes one interpret it differently.

Nothing around you needs to change, for one to see life differently, if an internal changes occurs in your brain chemistry. When in the love, the sound of the birds will become beautiful. If you are pissed off, the same sound becomes an annoyance. Reality based on science did not change. Jesus said to be transformed by a renewal of the mind; alter the brain chemistry to that of love; and the your same world will look better and brighter; brain chemistry 1.o.

Much of fake news tries to alter brain chemistry, via inductions of fear and anxiety about all the little things of life, that in the end, never make any difference. However, if you succumb to the induced change of feeling, from rest to fear and anxiety, your whole world will appear to change until the illusions appear real.

Nirvana and Heaven are places one would expect to see when in love. One will not see these places, if one is afraid or angry all the time. It takes work to protect your brain chemistry from outside triggers and remain tin an emotional state of nirvana for the correct perception of reality. In Heaven, there is no longer any work needed to maintain the optimized view. It sticks.

This all has to do with the brain and the creation of memory. When memory is created, aspects in the core off the brain, adds feeling tags to sensory content, when it is written to the cerebral matter. Our memory is part sensory content and part feeling tone. Our strongest memories induce the strongest feelings due to this writing process; marriage, birth of a child, trauma, etc.

In the case of internal and external love or hate inductions, if the brain chemistry is induced to one of these states, the writing process can become biased by that feeling. The same sensory input from external reality, when written to memory, can end up with love or hate tags, based on how the ego perceives reality and then reinforces the underlying feelings. This is part of willpower. It can alter the natural tagging process. The animal will see things as they are in a practical way. The goal in many religions is to maintain a good feeling; love your neighbor, so the writing process does not create a lifetime of bad memories or angry feelings.

Our memory appears to be stored in layers. For example, if we get the feeling of hunger, memories of objects of food appear in the mind. The rest of the memory is not as visible. The feeling of hunger is like a red filter, that overlaps red and blue dots, with only the blue dots visible. The red merge with the filter and appear to disappear. This helps us to focus. Emotional filters can become a detriment to objective reality, since a linear feeling; colored glasses, will only show memories which have the same feeling tag, which reinforces the feeling we have. Conclusions can become biased and reinforced through new memory added to that biased layer. It is easy to get into a loop.

The goals of heaven and nirvana is to find the best feelings; rose colored glasses. Let this positive layer of memory bias your perception, since this will reinforce the best feelings of life, even for bad things, until life is always good; nirvana. It is an advanced application of willpower and choice. This is easier said than done, due to the superego of culture. Both political parties try to induce fear of the other; half the data is suspect. Fake news is mostly about anxiety. Marketing and advertising is about some anxiety and exaggerated feelings of desire. While law is about fear and punishment. None of these things are found in the Nirvana and Heaven layers. However, they can all prevent you from finding that sweet spot.

The alternative is to lower the impact of all emotional triggers, so objective reality is easier to see. The cerebral spinal fluids circulate and will absorb the brain chemicals of emotions. There is a sustain and decay of affect. One needs to be aware of the induction, and try not to reinforce the anger or fear chemicals with will power and loops. I found these negative feelings can also come from the side. The brain will exercise, make use of its entire dynamic range. But all these inductions do not need to be reinforced, beyond the test cycle. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
 

Sand Dancer

Crazy Cat Lady
I hear a lot of Christians say they are looking forward to eternity in Heaven. Hindus say they want to become one with God and Buddhists say they want to reach Nirvana.

However the Gospel (Good news) is that people will spend eternity in a new body on earth.

Perhaps what God thinks is good is different from what people thing is good.

Some of what Jesus said shows that the kingdom of God is here and within us, not somewhere else sometime in the future. That aligns with the earlier religions' views.
 

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
I hear a lot of Christians say they are looking forward to eternity in Heaven. Hindus say they want to become one with God and Buddhists say they want to reach Nirvana.

However the Gospel (Good news) is that people will spend eternity in a new body on earth.

Perhaps what God thinks is good is different from what people thing is good.

The traditional Christian understanding of the afterlife, involves both personal disembodied existence of souls after death and an ultimate general resurrection in a new body in a new universe created by God after the dissolution of the present material reality.

If you look at the Nicene creed (325 CE), it refers both to "heaven and earth, of things visible and invisible" the latter referring to immaterial entities, such as angelic beings and immortal human souls and "we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come", which the Armenian translation renders: "the resurrection of the dead, in the everlasting judgement of souls and bodies".

The New Testament belief in an afterlife in Hades and heaven developed from Pharisaic theology during the Second Temple period, as well as Platonism. Faith is described as the “the substance (hypóstasis) of things hoped for, the demonstration of things not seen...By faith we understand that the worlds were created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear” (Hebrews 11:1-3). Faith, moreover, makes it possible for those living in the world of the senses to ascend to the higher world and participate in the eternal Sabbath rest of God, to have access to the benefits of the sacrifice that truly cleanses the conscience (9: 14), which our High Priest (Jesus Christ) offers “in heaven itself,” in the sanctuary not made by hands (9: 24) that is “not of this creation” (9: 11).

In Hebrews the Christian’s hope is “to enter into God’s rest”, to live in the unchangeable, eternal reality: “Let us strive to enter that rest” (4: 11).

This defines that there is an eternal, immaterial and transcendent reality or state of being ("heaven", the "tabernacle not made with hands", "the unseen") which is beyond our senses and another phenomenological reality ("earth", "what is seen") that suffers changes, corruption and is available to our senses. Salvation enables the souls of the righteous to rest eternally with Christ in the eternal heaven after death, summed up by the famous prayer in the Latin liturgy: "Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace".

The traditional doctrine of the church calls this "the Beatific Vision", in which the souls of the just perceive the essence of God directly without intermediary, are conformed to It in union and enjoy It for all eternity.

In addition to this, we believe in bodily resurrection in a new pneumatic or spiritual body in a new universe which God will create at the consummation of this one: "God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. 39 Not all flesh is alike, but there is one flesh for human beings, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40 There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another...

42 So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 Thus it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit." (1 Corinthians 15:38-45).

These pneumatic or spiritual bodies, which are glorified and imperishable, will - according to traditional doctrine of the church - inhabit a new physical reality with different laws of physics to the ones operative in this one, so as to house these glorified pneumatic bodies i.e. "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven (referring to literal heavens i.e. sky in this case) and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more...See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; 4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away...And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light." (Revelation 21:1-4).

The precise relationship between the 'new universe' and the 'eternal heaven' - is it a case of "the immovable kingdom (heaven) that precedes the phenomenological, shakeable, changeable world in which we now live" becoming the only reality (as the image in Revelation of the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven above may imply), or an actual new material universe co-existing with it? - is obviously a matter of theology that's up for discussion, but we believe in both.
 
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viole

Ontological Naturalist
Premium Member
I hear a lot of Christians say they are looking forward to eternity in Heaven. Hindus say they want to become one with God and Buddhists say they want to reach Nirvana.

However the Gospel (Good news) is that people will spend eternity in a new body on earth.

Perhaps what God thinks is good is different from what people thing is good.
I think that will vastly depend on the new body and the part of the earth we will spend eternity in.
To be honest with you, I would consider it suboptimal to get a look alike body like Mother Teresa, and spend all eternity in Nebraska.

ciao

- viole
 

firedragon

Veteran Member
I hear a lot of Christians say they are looking forward to eternity in Heaven. Hindus say they want to become one with God and Buddhists say they want to reach Nirvana.

However the Gospel (Good news) is that people will spend eternity in a new body on earth.

Perhaps what God thinks is good is different from what people thing is good.

Which particular verse are you referring to?
 

Muffled

Jesus in me
So the many mansions are on earth?

John 14:2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

I believe the mansions are in the New Jerusalem:
Rev 21:2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
 

Muffled

Jesus in me
I always love it when people tell us what they think, and call that what God thinks. No shying away from pretending humility there. "Thus saith the Lord, hear my servant's words as my very own, verily verily, verily, gently down the stream, and such". ;)

I, God do speak through him.
 

Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
I don't believe I know to what you are referring.

I wouldn't think so. How can you be with god, be god, and have a goal to be apart from any conception of god at the same time?

Oh. I don't know how you can be "with" god in christianity, be god in Hinduism, and have the goal to be apart from god in Buddhism at the same time. The three religions all have different goals.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
I believe the mansions are in the New Jerusalem:
Rev 21:2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
John 14:2-3 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

I believe that the many mansions are in heaven, not on earth and that Jesus was preparing a place in heaven for His disciples so that they could be with Jesus always.

As a Baha'i, I believe that the new Jerusalem is the new Revelation from God that came through Baha'u'llah, which fulfills all the promises of God as recorded in the holy Scriptures. The Law of God in the following passage refers to the Revelation of Baha'u'llah.

“The time foreordained unto the peoples and kindreds of the earth is now come. The promises of God, as recorded in the holy Scriptures, have all been fulfilled. Out of Zion hath gone forth the Law of God, and Jerusalem, and the hills and land thereof, are filled with the glory of His Revelation. Happy is the man that pondereth in his heart that which hath been revealed in the Books of God, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting. …..

In the Book of Isaiah it is written: “Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of His majesty.” No man that meditateth upon this verse can fail to recognize the greatness of this Cause, or doubt the exalted character of this Day—the Day of God Himself. This same verse is followed by these words: “And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that Day.” This is the Day which the Pen of the Most High hath glorified in all the holy Scriptures.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 12-13
 
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Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I, God do speak through him.
So, you do believe you are an oracle of God. Do you have any accompanying signs and wonders to attest to your status as God's mouthpiece on earth that you can point to to silence the skeptics? Have you raised any dead critters, or even something simple like walking on water?
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Here... let me have a turn:

There is no such thing as a soul.
See? There you go. I did it. Exactly as you have done. Until someone produces some verifiable evidence, this is nothing more than a game.
As I tell all my atheist friends, you will have your verifiable evidence when you die and realize that you are not dead.
I cannot say what will happen to you after that, such knowledge is with God alone.
 
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