The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Can you disprove this?

Theology
#49

Oh, there’s been tons of research on near-death experiences by psychologists and other researchers. Dr. Moody is one of the more well-known researchers in that field, but you can find others. I’ve read some of his work and seen a lot of documentaries, etc.

You think that just because God controls the laws behind the particles that make up the brain that means that He’s controlling what a person is thinking? I’d disagree with that one. Just because God set the laws in place that govern how those particles function doesn’t mean that He’s controlling how a person chooses to use those particles that comprise them. The fact that a person can come out of body in their spirit and function just fine proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt. There are TONS of near-death experience testimonies out there, literally hundreds of thousands now. And a lot of scientific research has been done on it by reputable scientists. But you’ll have to go searching that out on your own because it’s been quite a while since I’ve researched it so I’ve forgotten the details such as names and studies, etc. You may want to look into epigenetics. There are some great books on it and tons of research on it now. It’s finally a solidly accepted science. It was accepted around a hundred years ago, but no one really put much money into the research back then, so it kind of fell by the wayside until about 20-30 years ago. And the solid research on it has come out in the past 15-20 years I’d say. Epigenetics proves that there is something beyond our DNA, above it, that is controlling it. Even above the RNA. And we’ve found that emotions, both conscious and subconscious, control it, thoughts control it, and the food we eat control it. What it’s controlling specifically is the genetic expression of it. So this dictates how the RNA interprets the DNA and carries out its instructions. In other words, the instructions aren’t always carried out the same. Some people explain it as turning genes on or off, but that’s really not an accurate description.

Hope that helps. I’m in a bit of a hurry so I can’t respond to everyone’s posts just yet.

#50

You phrase my belief in a way that oversimplifies the issue, but ultimately, “yes - probably.”

I find it impractical to hold a belief that God has specific intentionality in His allowing our thoughts to become what they become. Such thinking can lead a person towards destructive living, due to the person’s supposed ability to blame all thoughts and actions on God.

But take Jeremiah, for instance (maybe someone who knows the original language used in the text can correct me on this). If God “knew” him before forming him in the womb… consider the true consequences of that statement. Who Jeremiah was at the moment God made the statement was a complex person with a complex personality. Jeremiah’s decision-making personhood was formed over years of millions of interactions with his surroundings. Hundreds/thousands/millions of neurons in Jeremiah’s brain interrelated to form his views on justice towards, say, the poor. For God the Father to truly “know” Jeremiah, He would have needed to understand every tiny event in Jeremiah’s life up to the point of God’s statement of foreknowledge. And God would have needed to understand how each of those events would alter the neurons in Jeremiah’s brain that held information or decision-making “algorithms” on the topic of justice for the poor.

Ultimately, if you think deeply on the matter, God the Father would have needed to understand the chain reactions of every chemical reaction in the universe from before Jeremiah was conceived to the moment God made the statement - in order for God’s statement to truly make sense from His point of view. Then again, maybe I’m making a leap in logic. My reasoning is founded on the idea that the personhood who makes the statement “I knew you” affects the depth of the “knowing” that is necessary for the statement to be accurate.

In explanation of the paragraph before last:

“That time when a neighborhood kid stole Jeremiah’s lunch,” had a small effect on the formation of Jeremiah’s personhood - including effects on his neurons and potentially his spiritual “mind.” The causation chain for such an event would have had many different people in it, many different weather conditions (relating to scarcity of food), many different trade/bartering/economic events, and so on. To truly understand the eventual effect that each event in Jeremiah’s life would have on his neurons (and potentially his spiritual mind), God would have had to have foreknowledge of every chemical reaction that affected each macro event affecting events around Jeremiah that would take place from Jeremiah’s conception to the moment God made the statement.

Another perspective on the Jeremiah issue: maybe God the Spirit, a somewhat bounded personhood of God, is the one who spoke of “knowing” Jeremiah. And perhaps God the Spirit, who has no part in sustaining the existence of each particle and force in the universe, acted with intentionality throughout Jeremiah’s life in shaping Jeremiah’s general personhood. I suppose a limited form of God could say, “I knew you,” with a weaker meaning than the true meaning of the ultimate fullness of God saying, “I knew you.”

I said “probably” at the beginning of this post because it’s conceivable that God might have included some kind of randomness in the workings of creation, whereby He does not intentionally hold natural laws literally constant. But the idea that God the Father can blindfold his ultimate consciousness and truly allow randomness in natural laws, while at the same time sustaining existence, might be akin to the idea that a computer can produce truly random numbers. Computer scientists can create programs that, in all seeming reality, produce randomness in number choices. But those numbers ultimately come from a list in the computer’s memory.

On the issue of the NDE’s, Dr. Moody may have reported on good faith, but he seems to have some thoughtful detractors (at least from a simple reading of his Wikipedia page). One thing that is certain about Dr. Moody, though, is that he was interested in selling books.

If the gospel writers were selling copies of their work, I would probably have a similar skepticism about their reporting of miracles.

#52

The man made the direct choice. God is responsible for creating and sustaining a universe that eventually led to that choice.

At the judgment seat of Christ, judgment will be rendered based on the man’s choice. But since - in my thinking - God is ultimately responsible for the chain reaction that led to the choice, I find it unreasonable that He would infinitely punish a finite being for making said bad choice.

The totality of Christ’s judgments will eventually lead to all who have lived to appreciate their past, current, and future existence (once the kingdom is delivered to God the Father - 1 Cor 15). We will all still have an unbounded future existence once this happens . . . and thus God is just and good in creating and sustaining a world that produces short-term evil.

Due to the eventual overarching goodness of all creation, I find it possible to believe that God the Father; in his infinite understanding, knowledge, and wisdom; is the subtle artist of every moment in history. I wouldn’t necessarily suggest that it is wise to teach such a concept, though.

#53

No, I don’t think that. Having freedom to think or to choose does not imply that the mind is “a spirit entity” or a “soul”, at least not in the Greek philosophical sense.

#54

Paidion, I agree BUT what about in the 2nd Temple Judaism sense, before Greek influence?

#55

I did a little search on the internet about 2nd temple teaching. It seems that at first they believed in a day of resurrection. But later, they adopted re-incarnation.

Even in Jesus’ day, they seemed to believe in re-incarnation.

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” (Matt 16:13,14)

But the puzzling thing is that some said, “John the Baptist.” How could Jesus have been John the Baptist re-incarnated? He and John were contemporaries prior to John’s death.

#56

A person can’t blame any thoughts on God in my belief of how the creation works. In my belief, we were in heaven for a heck of a long time and chose to come here and live a life that we knew God would direct externally without affecting out freewill. That’s a must, by the way, because unconditional love requires freewill. Love isn’t love if it isn’t a freewill choice. Love is a choice. It’s not a forced thing. So we absolutely must have freewill without no control over it whatsoever. However, God can manipulate our circumstances and maybe even use emotional pushes to cause us to choose what He wants us to choose so that we will go down the path He wants us to go down. If you think of Him as a director and we’re in a movie, but we forgot that we auditioned and took the acting role, that’s a pretty good comparison. And it basically fits what we hear from near-death experiencers. Not only does this belief mean that we cannot blame God or anyone, but it also means understand that God literally knew us before we came here. If God knew us before we came here, that is the simplest explanation for the verse in Jeremiah. But because Christianity doesn’t believe we existed before we came here, they take that verse to mean that God foreknew us. And yet we have zero evidence that that makes any sense whatsoever elsewhere in the Bible. Sure, God has foreknowledge of a person, but to say He intimately knew them in foreknowledge makes no sense with the original Hebrew word for “knew.” That’s a very intimate word. And just knowing everything about someone is very different than “knowing” them in the Hebrew sense. Knowing someone means you have either a strong relationship with them as a friend or spouse.

Example: I can read everything about Tom Cruise and know every little detail about his life. But that’s very different than “knowing” him intimately as a friend.

So, for me personally, I don’t think there’s a chance that the verse in Jeremiah means foreknowledge. And keep in mind that Jews believe we can choose to come here to earth to learn multiple times if we like (reincarnation, but not like the Eastern karmic balance reincarnation). Where do you think they get that from? How do you think they interpret that verse? The Jews have a few beliefs that are quite different than ours when it comes to this stuff. They believe hell purifies, just like several Church Father’s did. They call it a kindness, not a punishment. Their strictest sect, the Hasidic Jews, who are very legalistic, even say that only about 10 people will be in hell forever, but that everyone else will not spend more than 11 months in hell (though they know the 11 month time period is figurative/symbolic rather than literal).

When you say the Spirit of God wouldn’t have had the same control over Jeremiah, you’re getting into theory on God’s makeup. For instance, if God is One, like Christians believe He is, then every part of God has the same power and is the same as the others, but He simply presents Himself in three different forms. That’s Trinity Doctrine. But because people have so poorly defined it over the years, we get this idea that the three persons of the Trinity are three different people with “oneness” or something like that. So if you understand the Trinity in a “One God” sense, your argument doesn’t really make sense when you say one part of the Trinity would have a different type of control over Jeremiah. The Jews, and the Old Testament, say God is Spirit. So the Spirit of God is God Himself, not some separate entity. Christians screw this up all the time when talking about the Holy Spirit, trying to define It as something other than God the Father. But if you really take it all at face value and the fact that God is Spirit and the Spirit of God spoken of in the Old Testament is God the Father, then you know they’re the same Thing/Person/Entity. The only reason Jesus stands out is because He was human for a short period of time, but God being able to split His person and run the Universe and a human (Jesus) at the same time isn’t a big deal for Him. He can still be “One” and be in Jesus as a human. But after Jesus’ resurrection, that was like God bringing a part of Himself back into full union with Himself. Keep in mind that the New Testament says God raised Jesus from the dead in one verse, and that Jesus raised Himself from the dead in another verse. So God and Jesus are the same according to scripture. It’s a very thin line that people constantly cross. However, I don’t claim to know the truth on this subject, but it seems pretty clear to me even though people try to muddy it with their concepts.

I disagree with your assertion that randomness is the same as God giving freewill to people without any forced control of their freewill. That’s a simplistic and erroneous understanding of how it functions. It’s not that simple. God can have control without ever touching our freewill in any way. That’s not random, especially since He’s controlling the circumstances around the person to influence their freewill.

Think about it like this: a rat in a maze has freewill to choose where he’s going to go, but he can only work within the maze (creation). The maze directs him, in a sense, with its different features what the creator knows will influence his decisions. Let’s make it a dog instead of a rat. If I create a maze for the dog and I know his heart well, and I want to direct him down a certain path in the maze, all I have to do is take meat juice and rub it on the ground down the path I want him to go down. I’m 100% certain he will follow that smell all the way to the end of the maze because I know he wants the meat he thinks is at the source of that smell. That’s a very simplistic example of what God’s doing with us, and there’s nothing random about it. He’s God for crying out loud. lol He’s not a human and He doesn’t have even close to the restrictions we have with the way we think and act. People in near-death experiences say that when they come out of body, their mind in their head is gone–they no longer think from that place. Instead, they think from the mind that’s in their chest, which is their heart. Our emotion center is in our stomach, and our thought center is in our head, and the heart is the middle point between the two, and that’s where we have the mixture of thoughts (beliefs) and emotions. That’s where most of our subconscious could be said to exist, I suppose. That’s where people say they “think” from once they die. They say that part of us not only communicates telepathically, but it learns WAY more quickly than our old mind and it can learn multiple things at the same time, extremely fast, blink of an eye. If that mind can do that, imagine what God’s mind can do. You’re trying to reason this out with your conditioned, limited, human mind who can only see things through your human experience, but God said, “Your ways are not My ways, and My thoughts are not your thoughts.” In other words, He sees things much differently than we do and understands things differently than we do, and so He therefore acts much differently than we do. So you’re sitting in a mental exercise here trying to reason out things from a human perspective which is truly futile in our limited capacity. Even if we get close to the truth on this, we still won’t truly understand it with our limited minds. So I simply speculate for fun, coming to the best conclusion I can for now. I have to let it go past that point.

As for Dr. Moody, sure he wants to sell books. I’m a writer and even though I hate marketing, I have to sell books if I’m going to do it full-time. You can’t judge the man by how he sells books. He truly enjoys what he does and he tries to give solid information. But let’s take Moody out of the equation and check out the other scientists/psychologists in the NDE research field. Many of them aren’t nearly as well known as Moody and they’re solid researchers and their information matches his. It’s not like Moody’s work isn’t peer reviewed. We have to be very careful about judging people on limited information. Judging is the cause of most of our problems in this world. There’s a certain amount of objective, healthy judging we need to do on a regular basis, but most of our judging is unhealthy and destructive and we don’t realize it. Unconditional love does not judge. Sure, it knows a loving action from an unloving action–it’s the most clear-sighted thing there is. But it doesn’t judge people. The way to actually experience and know unconditional love is to stop judging, which means tossing all standards of right and wrong, good and bad. And oddly enough, that fits perfectly with the beliefs I expressed in an earlier post and with NDE accounts and the Bible and Ancient Hebrew beliefs.

Probably best to end these threads of conversation at this point because it’s a little too abstract and I can’t devote the time to it anymore (and I don’t want you to think I’m rude if I can’t answer posts after this, as well). I appreciate the conversation, though. These are fun topics.

#57

You nailed it. People don’t realize they believed in reincarnation back then. It was only after it was turned into a religion and mangled over the years that people lost the original beliefs. But there are hints of those beliefs in the text if people look closely.

#58

Reincarnation was BY FAR a vastly minority opinion ‘back then’.
An exhaustive treatment of the resurrection, including surveys of 1st century worldviews in Juadism, is in NT Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God.

#59

I agree. The Hebrews believed the mind was in the chest, in the heart. When we read that verse that says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and incurable. Who can know it?” that actually should say “The mind is deceitful above all things.” The mind in our head is a trap. The heart, the subconscious, controls the mind without us ever realizing it. These people who meditate to get deeper into their heart are trying to get into their subconscious and understand it and feel and think out of that place rather than the mind in their head. I do that as best I can, but admittedly, I’m not that great at it even though I’ve been doing it for years. You wanna see what emotions you have repressed? Start meditating by clearing your mind and not moving a muscle and just focusing on your even breaths. Your repressed emotions will start surfacing because the mind is the biggest coping mechanism and emotional repressor we have. Stop it and you’ll start to discover what’s underneath it. Then real healing can start taking place if you’re taught how to love the surfacing emotions unconditionally. It’s both easier than you’d think and harder than you’d think. lol

#60

NT Wright is very biased, too, and he’s flat-out wrong on some things because of it. NT Wright is paid for what he does and unfortunately that causes some bias. NT Wright is a smart guy and knows his stuff, but there’s a whole lot he doesn’t know either and a whole lot he works hard to bend to his doctrinal beliefs.

#61

My view is similar to yours, Brock. I think teaching it is a good idea because I think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks–and if you truly believe your position, you’d have to know that God has it worked out whether you teach the belief or not, right? lol If we do not teach the truth, we’re trying to play God by controlling other people’s beliefs in an attempt to keep them from sinning more prolifically, correct? It’s kind of funny when you think about it.

#62

Then I need documentation to show that reincarnation was a prevalent belief among 2nd temple Jews.

Wright is not perfect, but laying bias on him and calling him ‘sold out’ for money is grossly unfair. There is no better scholar in the world today imo.

#63

Agnostic_Gabe, I wasn’t disputing that brain chemistry influences behavior nor that genes influence behavior. What I’m saying is that emotions and thoughts control the brain chemistry, and that we know for certain now. So the point is that we can change our brain chemistry simply by working out our emotional issues properly. We can also influence our behavior by changing our brain chemistry with drugs. But to show that the mind and heart are more powerful than drugs, they’ve done experiments on people drinking alcohol–double-blind studies. They gave people who didn’t want to get drunk alcoholic beer and proved that no matter how much those people drank, they really never got drunk. They gave people non-alcoholic beer who wanted to get drunk and believed they would get drunk and those people ended up showing all of the signs of being drunk. lol The mind is far more powerful than our brain chemistry, and our brain chemistry is mostly controlled by our emotions and thoughts. But it’s a two-way street to a degree.

#64

An issue with this analogy: there is no way to make the analogy of a maze maker’s relationship to a rat or dog in a maze parallel to God’s relationship with us.

The maze maker does not have complete knowledge of the inner workings of the brain of the dog. God not only has complete understanding of the inner workings of our brains, but He sustains the existence of every particle and force within our brains and bodies. He also sustains any spiritual mind, that we may have, that interacts with our physicality, before death. To sustain every aspect of our being, He must, on some level, understand the ramifications of every movement of every particle within us. A rule-maker with an unbounded mind has the ability to foresee the results of His rules.

An unbounded rule-maker, it would seem, also has the ability to limit Himself by creating a subset personhood of Himself (God the Spirit) to interact with humans. I would agree that God the Spirit could be viewed as the maze maker, or as the one who leaves a train of meat juice within the maze.

If God did/does limit Himself as the Holy Spirit, then why could God not leave all aspects of His relational personality within the workings of the Holy Spirit? He could have left omniscience of the fundamental rules of nature and its sustenance out of the make-up of the Holy Spirit subset of God.

There’s a lot more to what you wrote - I’ll enjoy looking back over it.

#65

That’s a bit of an over-statement Brian. It actually cuts both ways… what you said can be true BUT not to the exclusion of the other. In fact the other is extremely prevalent to where brain chemistry can directly affect and effect one’s thoughts and feelings… this is the case with the likes of depression relative to PTSD etc. An incident occurs and in reactionary shock the brain produces an oversupply of naturally occurring chemicals that can drive one’s persona to the depths of despair.

#66

I’m not saying he’s sold out. I’m just saying that he, like every other person in this world, has his own biases, and anyone who has a reputation and career experiences influences toward what keeps that reputation and career intact because that’s their livelihood. Why do you think Paul pointed out that he took no payment so that no one could say his message was influenced in any way? He knew the reality of money influencing us. It’s just a fact of life. I don’t care who a person is, or how great their research is, everyone who makes money off sharing their beliefs has some kind of influence as a result of it. And anyone raised in this world and taught certain doctrines growing up will have some type of bias built in their makeup due to that. And the influence is much stronger when one’s career is dependent on that. I’ve seen pastors who’ve had good positions who chose to go with Universalism because they realized it was true…and they lost everything. That’s a very scary proposition, and we’re naive if we believe that doesn’t influence our beliefs. I’m just being realistic and stating what should be the obvious to anyone who understands human behavior to some degree. NT Wright’s great at what he does and a very good scholar. He’s not perfect, though. No scholar is. I apologize if I offended you by stating reality, but I’d say that about any scholar, even ones I really like. That’s just life. If you don’t believe me, by all means, do some research into the psychology of bias and beliefs.

And I can’t give documentation that the majority of 2nd temple Jews believe in reincarnation. I wasn’t saying they did. I was saying that the belief existed back then to some degree. To what degree, we don’t know. Also, 2nd temple Jews need to be sorted out between the Pharisees, Sadducees, and everyone else. Each had different beliefs. Each acquired their beliefs from different sources. So who knows what the dominate belief was back then. That’s not what’s important, though. What’s important is that we understand that the Jews are pretty good about keeping their major beliefs intact (It’s why God chose them), and they believe in reincarnation. I’d need to do some research to see just how many of them nowadays believe in reincarnation because their beliefs do vary a little between sects. But the belief persists and that’s important. And we see that belief presented in the Bible. Those are strong evidences that there’s something to that belief. However, that belief could have just as easily come about when the Hebrews were in captivity. But I doubt that’s the case since all religions were Eastern until around the 7th Century B.C. approximate, and Eastern religion/philosophy is where we get the reincarnation belief.

#67

Davo, you actually just proved my case, not yours. You said, “the [emotionally traumatic] incident occurs and in reactionary shock, the brain produces an oversupply of naturally-occurring chemicals that can drive one’s persona to the depths of despire.” See the problem there? The emotions are what flooded the brain with the chemicals, not a drug. The emotions were in control there. They were the major influence.

#68

No I don’t think you understand… and I made no comment re any drug. The emotion AND brain chemistry work in concert — which is WHY I noted… “not to the exclusion of the other.”

#69

I never excluded one or the other. I simply said that the emotions and thoughts (mostly the subconscious and conscious emotions) have a much stronger influence over brain chemistry than the other way around. Again, epigenetics has proved this repeatedly. They’ve proved that RNA gene interpretation is regulated by our emotions, thoughts, and food as well. It’s old science being referenced if someone says genes control us. They influence us to a degree, sure, but it’s our emotional issues that truly control us.

All of the functional MRI studies show that a choice is made in our brain approximately 10 seconds before our conscious mind chooses something. So we know the subconscious emotions and beliefs tied into them are what’s really running the show, not our conscious freewill. And epigeneticists have shown that about 95% of control is the subconscious. The other 5% is our thoughts. So while we have freewill, most of it is being hijacked by our subconscious’s conditioning. And that’s what our chemical makeup is primarily being controlled by. Not 100%, of course, but the majority of control is there.

Research has proved that exercise is as good or better than the best antidepressants on the market (specifically working a major muscle group with strength training for a minimum of 4 minutes). However, there are plenty of cases that show that exercise didn’t work because the emotional issues are too strongly rooted. Emotions trump the chemicals, but not 100%.