Your eternal destination: you decide.

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If you were to die a few minutes from now where do you think God would send you? And why do you think he would send you there.

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I'm coming here late, but to answer the question...I have no idea where I'd be sent.I hear so many contradictory explanations of god's character and nature that I have absolutely no basis upon which to make a prediction one way or the other.

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Iano - I'm scared that the crows are about to fly from London Tower and the world is about to end

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Aren't those ravens, not crows, at the Tower of London?

LOL! It's all I could come up with using the information I have at hand.Going further is just making stuff up.

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An atheist cannot know God doesn't exist. Whereas I can know he does.

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You believe you know.But that doesn't mean you actually know.You'd have to demonstrate a few things first.

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For example: I believe/think/hope the sun will rise tomorrow. I don't know that it will. If someone were to ask me what would I do were it not to I could answer them.

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That is trust based upon experience. It is, in fact, true that we cannot know with 100% surety that the sun will rise tomorrow. But the probability is very high based upon many independent observations and borne out predictions.Do you think that trusting in the likely constancy of the Physical Laws of the Universe is exactly the same as believing in an invisible, undetectable God?

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I know many people who feel EXACTLY the same thing I feel from God.

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It is not possible for you to know that.You cannot feel what another person feels.What, are you claiming to have PSI abilities now?

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Why not? We talk about it amoung each other all the time.

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You are not inside their mind with them, so you cannot know if you are feeling EXACTLY the same feelings as they are.That's just common sense. You can't feel EXACTLY what another person feels because you do not share their central nervous system, nor do you have any way to transfer their feelings to your own nervous system.You may talk together and get the impression from each other that the feelings you get are similar, just like people who experience other very emotional situations, like being in a car accident or watching an exciting sporting event. But that in no way translates to having EXACTLY the same feelings.

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When you say stuff like that to me, you give me the impression that you think I am some kind of floozy air-head who just believes whatever.

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Well, not quite, although I do think that you put far, far too much credence in the accuracy and truth of your own perceptions and resist critical examination and doubt of those perceptions. You generally tend to ignore bias and wishful thinking and communal reinforcement, especially in your own beliefs.IOW, you are a pretty typical human.

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EXACTLY? LOL
I never said EXACTLY

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Yes you did, in message #176. You even emphasized the word by using all-caps:

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I know many people who feel EXACTLY the same thing I feel from God.

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If you hadn't said "EXACTLY", I wouldn't have bothered to respond.Why didn't you go back to check what you had said yourself?You do this sort of thing all the time.You very clearly make some claim in a post, and then when you are called on it, you say you never made it, or that's not what you meant, or some such excuse.

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I said I know people who feel exactly the same thing I feel from God. This does not mean everything is the same, but certain things are EXACTLY the same.

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You cannot know that you feel anything EXACTLY the same as anyone else, for the reasons I have already given.

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You turned it into EVERYTHING EXACTLY, when that was not what I meant, something you do all the time, twist words around, or just not understand what was meant.

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You flatly denied using the word "exactly", and now that I have quoted your own words back at you, instead of saying "yes, I guess I did, in fact, say 'exactly'", you try to bullshit me.You used the word "exactly" to describe the nature of the similarity of the feelings you have and the feelings someone else had.You emphasized the word "exactly" further by using all-caps.Lastly, I am not twisting your words, I am using your exact words.I never said that you felt "everything" "exactly" the same as someone else, so it is a strawman to accuse me of doing so.Why is it so difficult for you to admit that you said this?:

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I know many people who feel EXACTLY the same thing I feel from God.

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What I said in reply was, and I quote from Message #210Furthermore, you defended this exact statement in the reply in message #213

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Why not? We talk about it amoung each other all the time. We get the same "downloads" from God all the time.

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Then I replied in Message #214But now, you say that I misunderstood?Nope.You made the claim that you can EVER feel EXACTLY the same things someone else can.You can't, unless you share their CNS or have found a way to do an actual Vulcan mind meld or something.

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If at the end of a prayer service, someone says to me "I feel peace", and I to, also feel peace, we have both felt the same exact thing.

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But this is not what you said, nor defended, initially.You said, and emphasized with all-caps, that you knew that you felt EXACTLY the same thing as someone else.What you are describing is not exact at all, and you are only comparing similarities. You cannot possibly know that you feel the EXACT same feeling of peacefulness that another person feels. The EXACT feelings that you are feeling are still only your own.You may think that I am being unreasonably nitpicky, but remember, I am only responding to what you said, and the emphasis with which you said it.

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Of course this is an oversimplification of other parellel feelings that we exprience.

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It is an oversimplification of ANY feeling we experience.

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There is also the fact that this happens on numerous occasions.

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So? We are emotional creatures. We tend to be greatly emotionally affected by groups. That's part of why revivals and rock concerts and sporting events make people do wild, emotional things that they ordinarily wouldn't do.

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So let me ask you a question, you feel it is impossible for two people to feel exactly the same thing?

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I don't know.I do know that it is currently impossible for one person to know if they feel exactly the same thing as another.

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If there are 60,000 people at a footbal game, and the home team scores a touchdown, you don't think that a large percentage of people will all happy together?

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Sure. But are they feeling the EXACT same sort and intensity of happiness?How could you even begin to know this?If all you meant was that people who have similar emotionally-stirring experiences will tend to have similar feelings about them, then I have no argument.You may think that this is amazing and remarkable, but why would you think that?That a whole lot of people at a football game would collectively feel "happy" when their team scores, or "disappointment" when their team fumbles is not the issue.

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Let me guess, you are going to provide some abstract meaning of the word happy now?

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LOL!"Happy" is an incredibly vague, general term, rat.Edited by schrafinator, : No reason given.

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I could literally write a book about all the evidences, and shared feelings that I have experienced concerning God. You could then proceed to nit-pick apart every single experience, and give possible other explanations for them.

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Yes.And if you were as honest and skeptical as you claim you are about your own experiences; if you really don't "just accept things because they make you feel good", then you would have already nit-picked apart every experience yourself.You would do this readily and not looked at such an activity as a negative.(Be sure to read my sig quote, as it is extremely relevant.)

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No, that fact that 100% of the people there felt something, means that there is indeed a football game going on.

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That doesn't hold up, rat.Even observers who don't feel anything at all can observe and agree that there is a football game going on.

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Some people even feel convicted, and run from the church, because they do not want to face the truth.

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Oh, so you have The Truth now, do you?

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Sometimes a person can just walk in off the street, who wasn't even a participant of the service, and as soon as they enter the door, they get overwelmed with the feeling of peace.

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Someone who walks in to a quiet library off the street is likely to lower their voice and behave in a quiet, subdued manner.We are social creatures, rat, trained since birth to respond to social cues from individuals and groups we encounter.Anyway, do you understand that nobody can know EXACTLY the feelings of anybody else? You can compare notes, as it were, and realize that you felt similar things, but unless you have some amazing PSI ability, you cannot know EXACTLY what they feel.You can only know your own EXACT feelings.

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"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool."- Richard Feynman"Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends! Well I say there are some things we don't want to know! Important things!"
- Ned Flanders

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You can nit-pick apart (for your own conviences) or you can accept that God exists. I have reached a point where I cannot deny God anymore in my life. The most I could do at this point is just not follow Him.

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I'm not saying that you should stop believing in God.I am saying that if you avoid critical examination of your own experiences, then you have ceased even trying to determine if you are deluding yourself, are biased, or mistaken.You said that people who run away from church are running from the truth.I assumeed that you meant that you understood what The Truth was, si8nce you said that it was to be found in the church.

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If you and I jumped in the lake together for a swim, and then looked at each other and said I feel wet, then you would say, I feel wetter than you. LOL

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So, you know EXACTLY how another wet person feels to themselves?How do you know this, since you aren't them?And, being "wet" is an entirely mundane sensation that almost everyone can relate to. I can assume that we both feel the same thing called "wet" (even though we don't actually know) because that we know that the cause (jumping into the lake) is the same.You can't do the same with an experience that you, personally, attribute to God, since the cause can never be known. We can't know if the peacefulness you and others say you experience are due to God or due to a group-influenced, purely-human, emotional experience.And besides, the physical sensation of being "wet" is much simpler than an emotional feeling like "peaceful".

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How we handle that feeling of being wet may be different, but that's another story.

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You can safely say we both feel wet, and it would be the same exact feeling of being wet.

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How do you know EXACTLY how I feel when another is wet, or peaceful?By what means do you know this?Can you know EXACTLY how a person is feeling if they are in the next room? Wearing a mask? Behind a curtain? If you can't talk to them?Edited by schrafinator, : No reason given.Edited by schrafinator, : No reason given.

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I have no clue how you can come up with that conclusion.

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Well, you're the one who pretty much said that you can't critically examine your beliefs anymore.

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It is pretty obvious throughout our conversations that I demonstrate the charachteristics of a critical thinker.

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Uh, obvious to whom, exactly?

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I examine the facts and evidences all the time to make sure I am not deluding myself.

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I don't think so.

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If my current self could meet my old self from just a few years ago, I would call myself a wacko for sure. I don't know how else to explain it to you.

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What does this have to do with if you examine your experienced critically?

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But some people do feel something, and then rationalize it away, because they don't want to face God,

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So, when someone feels something in church, that means that it is god that they feel?How do you know this? [quote]Yea, wet.[quote] How do you know this, since you aren't them?

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How we react to feeling wet may be different, but the feeling of being wet can be considered exactly the same.

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How do you know it is exactly the same?

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Because water IS wet.

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So what?By what means are you able to feel exactly the same sensations as anyone else? How do you know if "wet" feels the same to you as it does to anybody else?But more to the point, rat, by exactly what means are you able to feel the exact same emotions as someone else?I mean, physically, how does it happen? Because as far as I know, you have your nervous system that is sending information to your brain which emrges into your consciousness.How are you able to know EXACTLY what a wholly unconnected nervous system, brain, and consciousness to yours, feels?What mechanism or means do you use?Or, are you just assuming that the sensation is EXACTLY the same, but have no actual way of knowing that is is EXACTLY the same?Edited by schrafinator, : No reason given.