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Thank you so much for the deeply provocative post #95!

Being is the larger context in which we live and move and have, not only our being, as the Scriptures tell us, but also our very earthly existence. Being is larger than our earthly existence, encompassing it. Being is Truth, existence its "shadow."

Absolutely! I don’t think I could agree with you more. On personal experience, I assert that being is the spirit, which does not exist solely within space/time and does not require the body. Getting “into” the spirit is the only method of worship (John 4:24) – all of us who worship in spirit know the difference. The body is immaterial; the thought, emotion and language soar.

Eternity is being outside of the dimensions of space and time. There can be no sense of time passing in eternity, no concept of distance or size. When I am “in” the spirit, I sense being part of a great harmony. That “sense” has directed much of my research whether Scripture, Physics, Math or whatever.

As Einstein once said: Reality is an illusion, albeit a persistent one.

BMCDA, you say you do not wish to be eternal. I pray you change you mind. Perhaps you could stop for an hour and be completely still, don’t think, but just listen and see if you can “sense” being outside of your body. Nevertheless, if you wish an end, it can be granted in what is called the second death in Revelation.

I think that what we are is ultimately rooted in being -- in potentialites of which we are yet unaware.
Perhaps existence is merely the reflection of being captured within a particular time reference..
..Perhaps the way out of this conundrum would be to suggest that we do not exist forever; but our being is eternal.
Being is the larger context in which we live and move and have, not only our being, but also our very earthly existence. Being is larger than our earthly existence, encompassing it.
When you earlier said that human existence moves in a certain range, "in the stream," but that we cannot know either our beginning or our end in this stream, what I'd hoped to suggest was a corollary to this observation:
What we are is ultimately rooted in being -- in potentialites of which we are yet unaware. Perhaps existence is merely the reflection of being captured within a particular time reference....

Frequently, the configration -- of which we are all parts, participants, and observers -- is grating on us, if not positively painful. Being is larger than our earthly existence, encompassing it. Being is Truth, existence its "shadow."
Reality -- Being -- was here before we got into the stream of existence, and it will still be here after we've left the stream.
So how does this qualify us to say we know what the stream is? Or can even find out -- using the techniques of the scientific method, which says this problem does not exist in the first place?
Arguably, what we are does not find its root in existence.

OK, here is where I disagree. I don't think 'being' makes sense in this context or that we can separate 'being' from our personal selves.
So what is this 'being'? Is it a supernatural medium that enters the natural world at our conception (or is generated at our conception) to get recorded and then to leave the natural world to enter the supernatural realm again and exist there for ever?
If this is the case then what happens to my mind that got presumably recorded on this supernatural medium when it leaves the natural world? Is it preserved at the transition or is it heavily altered or maybe even ereased?

In case my mind is preserved I can't imagine existing forever in this supernatural realm, however nice and pleasant it may be there but if my mind is manipulated or even ereased then we're no longer speaking about me anymore so whatever happens to this supernatural medium - call it soul or whatever you want - happens to somebody else.
Of course I don't mind living longer than the ~80-90 years and I'd really enjoy seeing loved ones that died before me but I don't believe that this or similar scenarios will happen. It's not that I don't want an afterlife to be true but it's rather that I don't see any compelling evidence that conscious existence is possible without a brain. So whether "I" existed in some obscure unconscious state before my conception or whether I didn't exist at all before this moment is of no importance to me because I can't tell the difference.

BMCDA, you say you do not wish to be eternal.

Well, it's just as I stated above: if I'm still myself I don't want to exist forever but if I'm turned into a different "person" I couldn't care less since that's no longer me.

Perhaps you could stop for an hour and be completely still, don’t think, but just listen and see if you can “sense” being outside of your body.

It's interesting you mention this experience since I've read a lot about this kind of experiences although I've never had them myself. However, have you ever considered the possibility that these experiences are not of supernatural origin but are generated by parts of your brain?
I mean our brain is a complex organ and much is still unknown but I don't think we have to invoke supernatural explanations when dealing with such phenomena. How we perceive reality is dependant on how the different parts or our brain function and interact with each other (see split brain, temporal lobe epilepsy. In the meantime it is well known that meditation, prayers or similar practices can induce the experiences you described above (I think it's already possible to induce these experiences externally; maybe I try it out since "sensing" of being outside of my body sounds quite interesting ;^).
Especially since WW1 the effects that injuries of different parts of the brain can cause in a person have been studied and so far the possibility that our mind and the so-called spiritual experiences we may have are simply natural phenomena hasn't become less probable. Of course this doesn't disprove the existence of a supernatural realm but it also doesn't suggest that our brain is in some way connected to this realm.

Regards

Nevertheless, if you wish an end, it can be granted in what is called the second death in Revelation.

But nobody in their right mind would want that one, Alamo-Girl! You are speaking wryly, "tongue-in-cheek" here (I gather). For you well know that which makes us uniquely, personally self survives the destruction of the body in the first death -- which is the natural death. The second death utterly destroys the self itself (so to speak). It is the death of the spirit. In its essence, it is the utter and irreversible separation from God, the privation of light and grace; that is, it is absolute oblivion -- in the sense of God "forgetting us".... (Such is the nature of Hell....)

Well, look at me, ranting about theology -- to this audience! Of course, not a word I've said is amenable to experimental test. But mind, heart, and soul, I know it to be the truth. Oddly, it seems I was created in such a way as to be able to know this truth...and I further gather, so have all other human beings likewise. The question is, are people willing to search out this truth in the only place that it can be found -- in the depth of the soul, as mediated by consciousness?