Why doesn't God stop gun violence

The consciousnesses, not the body. It's very hard for most people to accept that when you die everything just goes black and all your thoughts, dreams, wishes, memories, etc just vanish into the wind.

 

Serious question, where else would they go?

 

I don't know. I'm not proposing an answer, just trying to explain the rationale.

 

Thus the fairy tales of the after life and a wonderful place where you run free with all your loved ones...

It makes the end easier to digest if you can convince yourself it isn't the end.

And that is waiting for you.....unless you masturbate or desire to sleep with your neighbors wife or kill or don't accept that the great sky daddy is the only sky daddy. Then it's fire and anal rape with large objects for the rest of whatever happens after your machine stops running.....

Seems completely rational to me.

 

Yes, there are all kinds of "control" aspects of it that have been introduced by man, but the root of the belief is fear of death.

 

While I am scared shitless about death, I don't believe in God because I am scared shitless about death.

 

So...All this netflix and chilling I have been doing with myself is leading to eternal damnation????

 

Depends on what you believe.

 

How's your eyesight?

 

I'm agnostic. There's probably something greater than us - doesn't mean that we have an afterlife - but the universe is not what we understand it as.
Believing that all I have is this one life leads to existential crisis - so, I choose to try and just shove it to the back of my brain.
The simulation theory seems to lead to all sorts of Matrix style rabbit holes - I like that one.
oooh - and all of the multiverse theories. Those are cool.

Ultimately we are alone. And so is anything else out there.

My left eye is 20/30 - right eye is 20/20.
Got it checked after my random UA this morning.

 

Good enough to see the individual hairs on my palms.

 

Good question. I've been 'dead' and had an out of body experience., But I guess I still don't really know the answer.
Well, I'm still here on this plane/consciousness.
Unfortunately for me however, I have had and lived thru a complete out of body experience.
I say unfortunately b/c I went back in, lots of pain, and was in a GCS3 Coma for 10 days.
Although I lead a relatively productive live again after all this time, it really f'd me up, gave me PTSD ( which I don't claim any type of disability for- yet) and it's hard for me to keep a decent job at my high level of education and profession.

However for a short time I was dead. But I guess I still don't know what happens when we die, 'cz although I was outside my vessel/body at the scene, I went back in and I'm here. 30 years later- haunts me everyday. Not a day goes by for 30 years that I don't think about some aspect of that accident, or the recovery to where I am now. It's ironic that I think this sucks when so many people have it WAY worse than me. I'm still trying to forget and move on- sometimes writing about it helps.

Now back to your discussion...

 

That reminds me of the riddle of Epicurus.

 

Riddle me this Batman. Riddles can be constructed simply to make a certain point.

 

Pretty simple for me, when children stop getting cancer, then I'll believe there is a god.

 

You're thinking too small.

Or, it's the acceptance of life.

I don't think so... We are all a part of everything. As the song goes, "We are stardust..."

That's one belief. Vanishing into the wind is still a destination, no?

There has been documented observations of a body becoming ever so slightly lighter upon death. Not a slow disappearance of substance as if something was dehydrating, but more like in an instant, poof, something just left. Where did it go? Vanishing into the wind might just be an old way of saying, returned to the essence beyond the veil, or some shit.
.........

Those of you thinking that God is some grey-haired sage sittin' in the clouds are being deluded by centuries of hand-me-down attempts to explain the existence thereof. Think larger, and remove the idea of a physical being. Instead, look at it like the pervasive force or energy that permeates everything in existance. Everything.

Love is the result of making that connection.
Not love is the result of dismissing that connection.
Your choice.