Posted on 11/02/2009 10:37:34 AM PST by Blind Eye Jones
A disturbing though came to me that I can't counter the way I would like to. My thought is this: What if life was like a ride at Disneyland? Maybe we have been spirits waiting in line for a body just like people wait in line for an amusement ride. Worldly life is then like a rollercoaster ride where nothing is ultimately real. Good and evil are just part of the ride and may not even be part of the spiritual world. What's important to the spirits is that you get a body. And anything can happen to you: short life, long life, good life, bad life, etc... it doesn't matter you because you got a body and, therefore, enjoyed the ride.
I can't counter this idea and what it does is make a joke of good and evil in this world. If you believe this idea you can dismiss good and evil as just part of the ride. To say this idea is not true, for me, means that I know way more than I do at the present.
A very wise man once told me that if you start from a false premise, you can use logic to prove absolutley anything.
This can’t be true. I’m the only real person in the world, everyone else is a hologram.
This sounds very similar to what Chesterton called "that extreme Skepticism that can find no floor to the Universe."
Example: when at the Slade Art college Chesterton had to wrestle with the idea that there might be nothing but Mind - i.e. all his experiences of the world around him might be an illusion, including the existence of other people.
And you have the paralyzing fear that your life might be an amusement ride.
The essential problem is that such ideas are not disprovable. They are not true - but they are not disprovable.
Like Chesterton, you have developed another non-disprovable, and it's preying on your mind. Do not be fearful.
The solution is to insist on the truth and reality of the world as an axiom: a fact or assumption that requires no proof. The use of axioms (axiomatic thought) is the same logical process that Euclid used to derive classical geometry: so don't be afraid to embrace it. You do not have to prove your axioms: you simply adopt them.
Chesterton got rid of his fears by taking the real existence of the real world as an axiom. The solution for you would be to adopt a similar axiom - that the world is more than what it appears to be, not less: that our lives here on Earth are indeed once-only and vitally important, not trifling amusements.
I sincerely hope this was helpful.
What if it’s not a ride but a test. A test to see if you can learn right from wrong in spite of conflicting ideas of what is the truth. To past such a test assume the world is real. Make a model and when you get contradictions adjust your ideas.
God speaking to Abraham said
23 And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born. 24 And there stood one among them that was like unto God, and he said unto those who were with him: We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell; 25 And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them; 26 And they who keep their first estate shall be added upon; and they who keep not their first estate shall not have glory in the same kingdom with those who keep their first estate; and they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever. 27 And the Lord said: Whom shall I send? And one answered like unto the Son of Man: Here am I, send me. And another answered and said: Here am I, send me. And the Lord said: I will send the first. 28 And the second was angry, and kept not his first estate; and, at that day, many followed after him.
It is true that our faith or lack of faith will have eternal consequences but the scripture you have posted is not from the bible.
It is true that the scripture I posted is not from the bible.
However, there are a lot of truths that can be found that are outside of the bible.
Thank you all for your responses. I found a lot of pleasure reading your insightful posts.
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