Life After Death - Mediums, Ghosts, Heaven or Nothing?

*warned against

I tend to think that after death we might exist in the now as time and space will not apply. I know this maybe a strange thought and I do believe in god so it is sort of comforting to think that we all could be in god's presence for eternity with no past or present to concern us. Anyone else have strange thoughts like mine?

I had an uncle, of Anglo-Indian heritage, who said that a cousin of mine, only a few years older than me, was an ‘old soul’. She was truly a lovely person, but died quite unexpectedly, at only 40.

What worries me about an afterlife is that we might meet people we would rather never see again . I have in mind an aunt who caused so much family trouble and my father who never cared a jot about me . They might have turned into lovely people but who knows. What if your DH had a previous wife and they were both there when you arrived.

My elderly neighbour is a widower, and is in a RH. He is a Jehovah's Witness, and his belief is that at the end of days, only Witnesses will be saved by Jehovah, they will continue to live on the earth in complete happiness and harmony. He is very impatient for this to happen. He also believes that his wife will return and that they will continue happily with their lives.

Skye, thank you for your reply.
'son of God' and 'son of man' are phrases like ' daughter of the Church' or 'son of Scotland' or 'daughter of mankind'. These phrases are not biologically true but are true inasmuch as they express devotion or allegiance. To this day Jews are renowned for poetic and humorous turns of phrase . Surely one cannot believe that Jesus is a biological son of God!

The raising of Lazarus story is more likely to refer to a ritual similar to born - again and similar rebirth rituals than to a dead body becoming alive again.

Again, Jesus was so inspiring that he may have brought the will to live to a man who was suffering from deep depression.

Caleo

Skye, thank you for your reply.
'son of God' and 'son of man' are phrases like ' daughter of the Church' or 'son of Scotland' or 'daughter of mankind'. These phrases are not biologically true but are true inasmuch as they express devotion or allegiance. To this day Jews are renowned for poetic and humorous turns of phrase . Surely one cannot believe that Jesus is a biological son of God!

The raising of Lazarus story is more likely to refer to a ritual similar to born - again and similar rebirth rituals than to a dead body becoming alive again.

Again, Jesus was so inspiring that he may have brought the will to live to a man who was suffering from deep depression.

Thank you, Caleo. ‘Son of Man’ had a particular meaning to Jews who knew their Scriptures and a particular prophecy of Daniel.

‘In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.’
- Daniel 7.13-14

Jesus quotes some of this prophecy when he says to the high priest in Mark 14:62:

‘… you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.’

He also quotes it in Matthew 24.30.

We can see that it was in the sense of this prophecy that he was using the phrase ‘Son of Man’. He was saying that he would be worshipped and his kingdom would never be destroyed.

‘Son of God’ had more than one meaning, but if you look at the parable of the tenants in Mark 12 you will see how Jesus was using it, to mean that he had a unique relationship with God the Father which no one else had.

As God is spirit, it’s obvious that ‘Son of God’ isn’t referring to a biological relationship. Jesus was saying that he is God as well as man. He is the same kind of being as God the Father as well as the same kind of being as other human beings. He has a dual nature, both God and man.

Caleo

Skye, thank you for your reply.
'son of God' and 'son of man' are phrases like ' daughter of the Church' or 'son of Scotland' or 'daughter of mankind'. These phrases are not biologically true but are true inasmuch as they express devotion or allegiance. To this day Jews are renowned for poetic and humorous turns of phrase . Surely one cannot believe that Jesus is a biological son of God!

The raising of Lazarus story is more likely to refer to a ritual similar to born - again and similar rebirth rituals than to a dead body becoming alive again.

Again, Jesus was so inspiring that he may have brought the will to live to a man who was suffering from deep depression.

The raising of Lazarus story is more likely to refer to a ritual similar to born - again and similar rebirth rituals than to a dead body becoming alive again.

Again, Jesus was so inspiring that he may have brought the will to live to a man who was suffering from deep depression.

I think you are mixing up the parable of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16.19-31 with the account of the raising of Lazarus from the dead in John 11.38-44. They are two different Lazaruses.

I would say, though, that in the story of the raising of Lazarus, considering that when Jesus says ‘Take away the stone’ from Lazarus’ tomb, Lazarus’s sister says, ‘But, Lord… by this time there is a bad odour, for he has been there four days’, it is a strange reading of the text to say that Lazarus was just badly depressed.

C S Lewis, who was a Cambridge professor of English Literature, said of the Gospels:

‘I have been reading poems, romances, vision literature, legends, and myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know none of them are like this. Of this text, there are only two possible views. Either this is reportage…or else, some unknown writer…without known predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern novelistic, realistic narrative…. The reader who doesn’t see this has simply not learned how to read’.

- C S Lewis,Christian Reflections

‘Reportage: the factual, journalistic presentation of an account in a book or other text.’
- Oxford Languages

I agree with him.

Skye, you certainly know the Scrptures better than me!

Your quite from Daniel is interesting, as "son of man " means what I take it to mean, that Jesus was a man.

As a Christian you probably believe in miracles when God intervenes in this world of time, and sorrow.

I prefer to seek probable explanations before I believe in direct interventions from God. don't believe in that sort of God. Same with me and ghosts and other paranormal events: I seek natural explanations before I believe ghost stories.

PS CS Lewis was a very clever author .However he is not the only writer who is good at stories that include gods and God.

I find the little clips on youtube of toddlers speaking to (deceased) granny or grandad difficult to explain away.

There are some that are caught on baby monitors....

Skye wote:

"As God is spirit, it’s obvious that ‘Son of God’ isn’t referring to a biological relationship. Jesus was saying that he is God as well as man. He is the same kind of being as God the Father as well as the same kind of being as other human beings. He has a dual nature, both God and man."

This is a doctrine that was decided at the council of Nicea about three hundred years after Jesus died,

Jesus was son of the God of the Jewish religion .Jesus was a faithful Jew, and a progressive one. I am a daughter of the scientific enlightenment and I want the teachings of Jesus to be taught for post enlightenment people.

Where this connects with the dangers of beliefs in ghosts and such is that spirits are described as if they were separable from physical bodies. This is not the case, there are no separable spirits , and churches are right to modernise certain doctrines . It's also true that people in Palestine at the time of Jesus were as natural and real as are people today.

Literal Biblical interpretation is superstition.

Caleo

Skye, you certainly know the Scrptures better than me!

Your quite from Daniel is interesting, as "son of man " means what I take it to mean, that Jesus was a man.

As a Christian you probably believe in miracles when God intervenes in this world of time, and sorrow.

I prefer to seek probable explanations before I believe in direct interventions from God. don't believe in that sort of God. Same with me and ghosts and other paranormal events: I seek natural explanations before I believe ghost stories.

Thank you! I’ve been studying them for a while now.

Yes, Jesus was a man, but not just a man. The son of man in Daniel 7 is both a man and a divine being who has sovereign power, is worshipped by all nations, and has everlasting dominion.

I am naturally sceptical and always look for natural explanations before turning to supernatural ones. That does not mean that there are no supernatural explanations. As Craig Keener has shown (see my comment on 14/03/2024 at 19:45), there is good evidence for the existence of miracles.

I like to go where the evidence leads. That’s how I became a Christian in my 30s.

Caleo

Skye wote:

"As God is spirit, it’s obvious that ‘Son of God’ isn’t referring to a biological relationship. Jesus was saying that he is God as well as man. He is the same kind of being as God the Father as well as the same kind of being as other human beings. He has a dual nature, both God and man."

This is a doctrine that was decided at the council of Nicea about three hundred years after Jesus died,

Jesus was son of the God of the Jewish religion .Jesus was a faithful Jew, and a progressive one. I am a daughter of the scientific enlightenment and I want the teachings of Jesus to be taught for post enlightenment people.

Where this connects with the dangers of beliefs in ghosts and such is that spirits are described as if they were separable from physical bodies. This is not the case, there are no separable spirits , and churches are right to modernise certain doctrines . It's also true that people in Palestine at the time of Jesus were as natural and real as are people today.

Literal Biblical interpretation is superstition.

This is a doctrine that was decided at the council of Nicea about three hundred years after Jesus died

The idea that Jesus is God was not invented at the Council of Nicea, but goes back to the early days of Christianity.

‘In his book Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code, agnostic historian Bart Ehrman writes,

“Constantine did call the Council of Nicea, and one of the issues involved Jesus’divinity. But this was not a council that met to decide whether or not Jesus was divine... Quite the contrary: everyone at the Council—in fact, just about every Christian everywhere—already agreed that Jesus was divine, the Son of God.

The question being debated was how to understand Jesus’divinity in light of the circumstance that he was also human. Moreover, how could both Jesus and God be God if there is only one God? Those were the issues that were addressed at Nicea, not whether or not Jesus was divine. And there certainly was no vote to determine Jesus’divinity: this was already a matter of common knowledge among Christians, and had been from the early years of the religion. [Emphasis added.]”

…The New Testament is full of references to the deity of Christ…the earliest church fathers [leaders] explicitly affirmed the deity of Christ.’
www.str.org/w/did-the-council-of-nicea-invent-the-deity-of-christ-

Jesus was son of the God of the Jewish religion

Yes, the God who gave this Old Testament prophecy about the Messiah who was to come:

For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given…

And he will be called

Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father …
- Isaiah 9.6

Caleo

Skye wote:

"As God is spirit, it’s obvious that ‘Son of God’ isn’t referring to a biological relationship. Jesus was saying that he is God as well as man. He is the same kind of being as God the Father as well as the same kind of being as other human beings. He has a dual nature, both God and man."

This is a doctrine that was decided at the council of Nicea about three hundred years after Jesus died,

Jesus was son of the God of the Jewish religion .Jesus was a faithful Jew, and a progressive one. I am a daughter of the scientific enlightenment and I want the teachings of Jesus to be taught for post enlightenment people.

Where this connects with the dangers of beliefs in ghosts and such is that spirits are described as if they were separable from physical bodies. This is not the case, there are no separable spirits , and churches are right to modernise certain doctrines . It's also true that people in Palestine at the time of Jesus were as natural and real as are people today.

Literal Biblical interpretation is superstition.

I am a daughter of the scientific enlightenment and I want the teachings of Jesus to be taught for post enlightenment people.

It is no coincidence that the scientific enlightenment grew up in Christian societies. As Professor John Lennox says,

‘Men became scientific because they expected law in nature and they expected law in nature because they believed in a lawgiver.’
- John C. Lennox, God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?

When the universe seemed unpredictable and at the mercy of the whims of the gods, there did not seem much point in looking for patterns and regularities in nature and writing equations to describe them.

Many great scientists, such as Isaac Newton, William Kelvin, Michael Faraday, James Clark Maxwell, John Polkinghorne and Francis Collins, have had no trouble in accepting all the content of the teachings of Jesus, both natural and supernatural. (Isaac Newton spent quite a lot of time writing about the book of Daniel.)

In the life and teachings of Jesus, the natural and the supernatural are inextricably entwined. To have teachings of Jesus without reference to miracles, angels, demons, heaven and hell, you would have to throw away most of the four gospels.

Chucking out the majority of his teachings isn’t really respecting Jesus in my view.

Caleo

Skye wote:

"As God is spirit, it’s obvious that ‘Son of God’ isn’t referring to a biological relationship. Jesus was saying that he is God as well as man. He is the same kind of being as God the Father as well as the same kind of being as other human beings. He has a dual nature, both God and man."

This is a doctrine that was decided at the council of Nicea about three hundred years after Jesus died,

Jesus was son of the God of the Jewish religion .Jesus was a faithful Jew, and a progressive one. I am a daughter of the scientific enlightenment and I want the teachings of Jesus to be taught for post enlightenment people.

Where this connects with the dangers of beliefs in ghosts and such is that spirits are described as if they were separable from physical bodies. This is not the case, there are no separable spirits , and churches are right to modernise certain doctrines . It's also true that people in Palestine at the time of Jesus were as natural and real as are people today.

Literal Biblical interpretation is superstition.

there are no separable spirits [separate from bodies]

How do you know? Jesus certainly thought there were. This is an assumption based on a naturalistic worldview (that physical things are all that exist).

churches are right to modernise certain doctrines

Which doctrines are you thinking of, and which denominations have modernised them?

Literal Biblical interpretation is superstition.

Well, no one interprets the Bible 100% literally. Some of it is poetry for a start. But if you mean taking the words of Jesus and the words of the New Testament at face value is superstition, that also is an assumption based on a naturalistic worldview.

There is a good intellectual case for believing that Jesus rose from the dead. Part of that case is the minimal facts arguments for the resurrection.

There are at least four historical facts which are well attested and are granted by almost all Ancient History or New Testament Studies scholars, even the sceptical ones: the death of Jesus by crucifixion, the empty tomb, the post-resurrection appearances, and the origin of the Christian faith. The best explanation for these minimal facts is that Jesus was raised bodily from the grave.
crossexamined.org/the-minimal-facts-of-the-resurrection/

There are videos on this on YouTube (search ‘minimal facts resurrection’).

If Jesus rose from the dead, as he predicted he would, that validates his claim to be God and every other statement he made.

Skye , I think we will have to agree to differ. It is sufficient to accept the moral code as explained by Jesus of Nazareth without also believing in miracles.

Caleo

Skye , I think we will have to agree to differ. It is sufficient to accept the moral code as explained by Jesus of Nazareth without also believing in miracles.

According to the Bible, that’s not sufficient when it comes to standing before God after we die. Everyone is ‘destined to die once, and after that to face judgement’ (Hebrews 9.27).

Everyone has broken the moral law of God in some way (sinned), e g lied, taken things that do not belong to us, however small, misused the name of God. ‘There is no one righteous, not even one’ (Romans 3.10). So everyone deserves judgement for sin. That means separation from God (Isaiah 59.2) for eternity.

What is sufficient, according to the Bible, is to believe its message before we die – that Jesus has paid the penalty for sin, when he died on the cross, for everyone who will trust and follow him – and to turn from sin and turn to God, to trust and obey Jesus.

Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many…
Hebrews 9.27-28

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
- Romans 10.9

So according to the Bible, to be saved from the judgement of God, and to be with him in heaven, someone does need to believe in its message, including that Jesus was raised from the dead, which is certainly a miracle.

This message of how to be saved is the whole point of the Bible.

Yes, we will agree to differ, on that and other things.

If anyone would like more understanding of the Bible message about how to be right with God, I can recommend the free online 321 course.
speaklife.org.uk/321course/

Alpha courses are often good too.
alpha.org.uk/try-alpha

Well, this thread has been well and truly hijacked, has it not?

It sure has!
The religious ruminations would be better on another thread.

Indeed it has.
Driving home from nursery school with 2 year old granddaughter in the back, we passed by a local pub. Small voice from the back seat said, "we should put on our makeups and jewels and go to the plub." DD remarked that in a previous life granddaughter must have been a lady that lunches.
Same grandchild at a local agricultural show wanted a drink. When given a plastic glass of juice, she tapped it and with a look of disdain said, "this is not crystal."

Haha love it MiniMoon

DD’s house had been owned by a man whose

oops. …wife had died unexpectedly in it shortly before he decided to sell. Dd and Sil knew this but it didn’t put them off - the house had a lovely warm atmosphere - you could tell it been a happy family home - they’d had 3 children.

When Gdd1 and Gds were about 8 or 9 months, and had just learned to wave, dd saw both of them waving and smiling at someone who wasn’t there. Same place both times, in the landing near the bathroom, with no mirror or any other reflective surface anywhere within eyeshot.
AFAIK it never happened with Gdd2, a few years younger than the other 2 who were born only 15 months apart,