To me, this passage/parable is very vague for showing that the early believers didn't go to the paradise until the time of or after Christ's incarnation.

I agree, however, that "things" were very different before the suffering/death/resurrection than after.

There is a large following that hold to the idea that the thousand years in the Revelation is figurative, that it is figurative of the whole time from Jesus' death and resurrection on earth until final judgment, that it depicts Satan's death, and that Satan was raised from the dead at the time he was let out of the abyss (which may have already happened). The world changes when there is no Satan around to do the actual tempting. Without Satan, people are only tempted by their own lusts, etc., and by the lusts of other people.

Actually, no person supports the belief of any other person exactly. So, what does this mean? 

Eternity and infinity are gigantic terms. Their in-depth understanding is mostly outside of our understanding.

Nature around us suggests only beginning and ending. Such things as infinity and eternity are not clearly indicated in nature. Everything has a beginning, especially the life of plants and animals, and people. These also have an ending. No infinity and eternity.

While the cosmos is gigantic, both in the macro and the micro, we are uncertain about its continuation in either direction. We are simply too limited in our ability to observe these things at present.

Parallel Universes. Quantum mechanics suggests that for each correct solution to a puzzle (answer to a question), there are an infinite number of incorrect solutions. What's interesting is that the reverse is true in quantum mechanics as well. For each incorrect solution to a puzzle, there are an infinite number of correct answers. This is mind boggling. It also suggests that modern advancements exist simply because we believe that they exist, not because they are scientific facts. Think about it.

Consider pure randomness. Virtually ALL science is based on cause and effect, action and reaction. All scientists are trained to look at what exists, and find out more, based on what they have seen that exists already. Because of this, scientists show that there is really no probability; pure randomness doesn't seem to exist, because everything that they learn is based on cause and effect. Although we use randomness daily throughout our lives, pure randomness is so extremely abstract that we almost can't conceive of it. Only Buddhists and Hindus talk about emptying themselves in meditation. Is this where religion borders on science?

The point is, if we ever get to the point that we can start to "see" everything that exists, we just might find that there IS a beginning and end, to all of it. But what we will probably also find is that the way we fit into the universe produces in us a seeming eternal and infinite existence, at least while we are conscious.

Chuckle.   

Good. Show it to me. I could have missed it. 

LOL

 

Yet, God is not an idol, unless the idol happens to be God, that is.

So, how do we distinguish where the dividing line is? I mean, if I say God is a redhead, and you say that God is a blonde, and that is the only difference we have about God, we probably both are talking about the same God, only we have a difference of understanding, or one or both of us have a misunderstanding. God might have brown hair.

However, if I say God is a lizard, and you say God is a bear, and someone else says God is the sun, and yet another person says that God is simply a spirit, maybe we are talking about different gods here.

Oh, you are so good in this point. 

Yet, the things that the Gospels, the Revelation, Jesus, and St. Paul say indicate that the faithful believers will be with God at and after death. So, was Samuel not a believer? Or does God dwell with His Paradise and passed believers in the Ground? Or might it have been a lying spirit and not Samuel at all?

Perhaps the spirits of the dead separate. After all, even believers are not entirely faithful. Perhaps the unfaithful spiritual part of believers remains in the ground, while the faithful part goes on to live with God in glory forever.

That's right. The conditions occur in nature. The thing we are trying to figure out is how they occur in nature. We don't see the coming-together of the conditions in nature. We only see that they HAVE come together, and that they work. By bringing them together in a test tube, we were able to see that it takes great intelligence to bring the things together, even in simple form. How much greater, therefore, must be the intelligence that brought the things together in nature? That is what God is like. Highly intelligent and capable beyond understanding.


Well, it is fun to say it. But the evidence listed above shows that the reality is exactly the opposite.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem

As in, based in suppositions.

Who was the spirit that came up when King Saul used the witch of Endor to call up the Prophet Samuel just prior to the war with the Philistines where Saul lost his life?

Now, now. Be gentle with Rigon. After all, St. Paul says that we are not supposed to argue. Consider Rigon like I consider him and many others in https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=778346.0.

Of course I like kids. To see that I like them, all you need to do is look at how I entertain them in:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=737322.0

and

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=770346.0

It only shows the contradictions in people. People simply don't have the ability to hold in their minds, all the points of the Bible. When people are able to do this, holding ALL the points in ALL their proper context, then will we finally come to understand the clear truth of God. St. Paul says that now we see in a mirror - mirrors back then were polished metal that didn't reflect very well - but then we will see God face to Face.

Now, now. You are clouding the issue.

1. We see nothing in nature that is able to create life. If we easily saw the creator of life, scientists would have proclaimed it long ago. Rather, they only have a theory called evolution.

2. We DO see a creator of near life. It is man, himself, who created a lowly form of test-tube life, that probably wasn't really life, but only something that was almost life.

3. Since it has taken much knowledge and effort by man to create something that is almost life (maybe it was life), how much greater is the Creator of true life that exists all around us in nature, in abundance, and is the thing that even makes us the life that we are?

4. Such a Thing that is so extremely knowledgeable and capable as to be able to be the Creator of the REAL life that exists all around us is the Thing that fits our definition of the word "God."

After all, if it takes all man's ingenuity to barely create life or something that simulates life, REAL life must be something that is very difficult to create. We don't see any process whereby life comes about by accident. Rather we see just the opposite; randomness produces disorder. By comparing man's creation against life that exists in nature, we can easily see that the Creator of the life in nature is Great, beyond our knowledge and understanding.

Actually, Vod is quite intelligent. Don't let him (her?) kid you.


Vod has just proven the existence of God.

Back in the 1960's or 1970s, I think it was, scientists made life in a test tube. Or at least that is what they tried to say. If they didn't actually make life, they came really close. They probably have done it over and over since then. I don't follow it.

What these scientists did (do?) was/is, they got together all kinds of apparatus, labratory apparatus, equipment that all kinds of inventors and engineers invented and built. Then they formulated methods to get some chemicals into a test tube, at just the right temperature, with all the right conditions. Then they zapped it all with some electricity, and they got something that approximated life.

When we look around in nature, there is life all over the place. It is complex life, of many kinds, and usually in large quantities of each kind. All of it is far advanced in form than the simple, test-tube life that scientists created back in the '70s.

So, you can see how this proves God, can't you? Intelligent man works hard and creates simple, lowly life. The far more complex, much more abundant and far better operating life has been created by a Being Who is as much greater than man as His created life is greater than man's created life. He is the Almighty God.

What is really wonderful is that God made man so well that man is actually starting to emulate God!

It's not a problem. It's my joy. Why? Because even though God can't quite be explained by science, He almost is. On the other hand, science has irrevocably proven that something like evolution does not exist. The only science that proves that evolution can exist is, political science. Political science says, among other things, that when you can't prove your cause, promote it by propaganda. So, in this way evolution has been proven by science. Yet it wasn't evolutionary science. It was political science.

One simple way to show how ridiculous the idea of evolution is, is through scientifically recognizing how many atoms make up the smallest possible living cell. Then add in the part where these atoms must all be situated in the right place. Then throw in the part about how the atoms must be kick-started into motion, all at exactly the right time, in the right direction. Now, compare this with the mathematical laws of probability while including entropy, and you can see that life through some form of evolution is more difficult than winning all the lotteries in the world, past, present, and future, all at the same time.

There is no evolution. There is no Theory of Evolution. All there is, is a bunch of so-called scientists hollering over and over that, evolution is real, real, real, and everything that tries to suggest it isn't is false, false, false.

Any time you want to investigate the papers, you will find that they are filled with loads of facts along with multitudes of suppositions. Yet the foundational points around which all this "science" revolves are steeped in such words as "if" and "maybe" and "possibly," etc. On these and many more similar words, the whole of scientific equation for age of earth and universe, and life source, stand. There is NO proof. There is only supposition, and a whole lot of propaganda. Science simply doesn't know.

Yes. Dr. Pauling.

If you add the coenzyme of niacin to his vitamin C/L-Lycine heart disease control, you will feel much better than the control alone. One of the best forms of the niacin coenzyme is NADH, which is sold over the counter and over the Internet.

http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/vitamins/niacin/

See? That's the problem. You haven't even thought things out deeply enough to realize that when you have proof, you don't need to believe. When you have proof, you know it. And when you know something, not only don't you need faith any longer, but you can't have faith in it. You know it. YOU CAN'T HAVE FAITH IN SOMETHING THAT YOU HAVE PROOF FOR. It's an impossibility. You have one or the other, not both.

Perhaps as Vod says, very soon from now we will have the ability to create. But at the present moment, general world "scientific" knowledge is almost 100% faith regarding things like the age of the earth and where life came from. The tiny bit we absolutely know has been extrapolated into all kinds of things that nobody has a clue exist for real.

At least people who believe in God have tons of evidence so that faith is easy for them. But faith that science has answered any of these large questions is more like delusion.