I'm pleading the Fifth on that one.

Perhaps I could introduce you to the trinity of the sun of reality.

It shines equally upon three worlds.

The world of the physical.
The world of the mind.
The world of the spirit.

Seek to unite these three and love comes swiftly into that which is the
center of your being.

Bringing with it faith and hope.

That's cool but, for me, God is an integral part of all that,
too.

As with all of creation.

the sun of reality can not shine on anything but for the grace of god.

Humans can not breath but for the grace of god.

Without his spirit we are but a small piece of wood adrift in the storm
of uncertanity.

I believe it cannot exist but for the grace of God, not "god."

all christians not just catholics believe in the holy trinity, i'm
pretty sure the difference comes in atleast for Catholics when the
question becomes how much can one participate in "God" if you were to
say... which CAtholics believe in deification, symbols, and energies
that come off of the holy trinity which once you come to love God
unselfishly compassionately etc. you can participate in them and realize
that your inner nature is God... you can read ST. John of Damascus he
talks about this deification and im sure many other books from the
founding patriarchs of the church did as well... but as the far as the
holy trinity goes all of christianity believes in God the father, the
son, and the holy ghost.

JeanC>

Does it really matter which God or god is written.

There is only one and I am sure he would forgive my non use of the shift
key.

My god has no need of loudness therefore cares not wether I call him god
God or GOD.

this is a distinction only humans make.

It does to me. And of course if you simply just forgot the shift key,
that's one thing. But generally when referring to lowercase "god,"
people aren't referring to uppercase "God."

Did you know that Jewish people won't even write out His name in print?
They spell it "G-d."

Well when I refere to me I can spell it Me or me or ME but it is still
me.

Since I beleive there is only one the word god being the word assigned
to him/her/it by the english speaking portion of the human race I will
use that word with whatever mix of my poor english I wish. God god GoD
gOd gOD GOD.

If I spell it Allah is it the same as allah? Perhaps I should just
refer to IAM all the time. he he he IAM gave me the gift of faith IAM
loves me.

Words are just labels. I hope that in reading the way you put your
thoughts into labels I am capable of understanding you reguardless of
wether you place those labels in a format I am familiar with or not.

That-which-is cares not a whit of the structure of your language but
instead feeds the contents of your heart.

It's a matter of reverence and respect. I couldn't give two hoots in
Hades if someone spells my name, "sheila," with a lowercase "s," but I
am not the Lord God Almighty.

Ok, so ya didn't buy the concept that God started out as a multiple, to
placate those who thought there had to be more than one. So lets try
this, this is what I was taught,

God is without substance/mass, there is not form to the being.
God, though you won't find this part in the bible, was uninhibited
energy, ageless.
Now, if you are logical, at all, you will see that imagining somthing
of pure, uninhibited, energy as a being is nearly impossible. For us it
seems necessary to have form, mass, substance in order to be a being.
For without a brain of matter, what is there to produce thoughts, to
calculate logic? In pure energy, there is no brain, yet God created the
universe.

So - you have God, the thought processor, the analytical, the all
knowing.

Now as to the 'body' of God, we know from the above it is not
physical, therefore, it must be spirit or (Holy Ghost)

Now, the Christians believe that God through his 'physical' presence
in Mary, was able to be born in the flesh. Because the flesh is not
perfect as God is, the being conceived and born was not God, it was "God
made man". Since Jesus had a human brain and a human body, God was
still in heaven. Therfore, if God was still in heaven and God
impregnated Mary, then Jeses was the son of God.

Remember, in those times, the concepts above were alien to the
poeople. Even how birth worked was not fully understood.
So they put things in terms that they could understand. Since God was
in heaven and Jesus came to be man through Mary, then obviously God
planted that seed, so he must be the father. The Holy Ghost did not
plant a seed, it proceeded through Mary, using her (dna) to become
human.

If all of this had been understood in those timed, we might well have
a completely different view of religion.

Instead we get God who is thinker (the father of Jesus)
made of Spirt the body of God
and Jesus the combining of Gods seed with Mary

Even in the Bible, God tells Moses, that "His nature, His being" can
not be known or even imagined by man.
But perhaps he meant, only the men of those times????

"God is without substance/mass, there is not form to the being.
God, though you won't find this part in the bible, was uninhibited
energy, ageless. Now, if you are logical, at all, you will see that
imagining somthing of pure, uninhibited, energy as a being is nearly
impossible. For us it seems necessary to have form, mass, substance in
order to be a being."

That's what was so "freaky" about the NDE I had ...and that is nearly
impossible to explain! I had form, substance, or mass...I was sure of
it. I even looked down to see what I "looked like" but could see
nothing..not physically, nor even visualize it in my "mind's eye." I was
NOT the same person as I knew myself to be ...I mean, I was me, but a
differnt part of me, like what I perceive to be my spirit or soul, I
guess.

That was part of what further confirmed for me that God is real. Perhaps
it is just a certain level of "energy," but with it comes very powerful,
very profound emotions, too, which is also something you'd think
wouldn't come with just a mass of 'energy,' either.

Jean, so did that experience help you to better understand the "concept"
of the nature of God, in terms of a being, who can be self-aware, even
though there is not actual physical self?

It does get complicated to talk in these terms, but I think you'll know
what I mean.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean, but I'll just say that it made me
aware of two things:

1) That life exists beyond this one.

2) That God is real.

I relate it to the "Christian" God, I suppose, because I am a Christian.
However, I don't think that just because I am a Christian is why He
exists. Know what I mean? It wasn't just an experience that I attributed
to being God simply because *I* believe in Him.

All I know is that it was too profoundly spiritual and emotional to be
simply a chemically induced phenomenon, and it was too real to be a
dream or a hallucination.

I knew nothing of NDEs before it happened. Afterward, I did quite a bit
of research and was astounded to find out many people experienced the
same or similar things I did.

The most profound thing was the overwhelming sense of peace and calm and
the feeling that everything was going to be "okay."

Now, some people after they experience NDEs claim not to be afraid of
death anymore. I'm still human and still have a fear of death (it IS an
anxiety-producing experience, after all) but I no longer have a fear of
"what's next" after that.

For those people who think that you die and "that's that," well, I can
assure them that such is not the case.

If you haven't read about NDEs, I think you'd find them interesting. And
read not only about those from a Christian perspective, but from other
religions as well...and especially those accounts from people who were
convinced they were in hell. Enough to send cold chills up your spine.

Jean, I began reading about the NDE as far back as 30 years ago. I
followed it for quite sometime as did many physicians, psychologists and
scientist. As you said, I did and still do find it a fascinating
subject. It is, obviously, a very profound experience.

At a time when the alien abduction thing was really big, some people
related it, in nature, to the NDE. There are those who have come away
from the NDE with a sudden surge of faith, leading to a belief in God,
or a belief that the spiritual realm is God, and some who walk away
believing something akin to what ABRA speaks of as his faith based
views. And as you said there were others who had bad experience, only
out of body experienced with no spirituality, and those who have no
recall of any experience.

All of those experience, while mostly profound, consisted of so many
outcomes, of course, it bacame something to study.

No matter, the experience and your particular one was no less profound
and you related to it in a manner that is right for you. No scientific
study is likely to sway you and none has been found that is worthy of
trying anyway.

As far a fearing death, I don't think most fear death as much as they
fear HOW they will die. I recently had to put one of my dogs down, the
second time in my life I had to loose a long term, life long for the
dog, friendship. As I held them and they released their hold on life,
both times I thought, if this is how it could be at the end, what fear
would we have. It was peaceful, quiet sleep in the arms of their hearts
content.

No, no scientific study will sway me; however, I don't separate God and
science...or God and anything else, for that matter. There are certainly
scientific components to NDEs, as there are to everything else in this
life. I don't look at scientific explanations as proof that God
*doesn't* exist; rather, I look at it as absolute proof of God's
existence.

(I'm sorry about your dogs. I adore my animals (especially my doggies)
and it's heartbreaking to lose them. I think that there is a place in
Heaven for animals, too.)

It took 125 years for science to agree what post partem infections could
be prevented. Science is often wrong and should always be self
correcting with time.

From: http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote04.html
--------------------------------------------------------------
In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following
childbirth . One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander
Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes,
and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no. In 1843, Oliver
Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented
compelling evidence. The consensus said no. In 1849, Semmelweiss
demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal
fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a
Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact no
agreement on puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century.
Thus the consensus took one hundred and twenty five years to arrive at
the right conclusion despite the efforts of the prominent "skeptics"
around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And despite
the constant ongoing deaths of women.
--------------------------------------------------------------

Science could easlily be wrong about NDE. Science already rejects the
supernatural out of hand, so why would it be any surprise that they
reject NDE?

Oh, I know it's wrong, in terms of saying it's strictly a biological
process. Who better to speak to that than one who has gone through it?

g' day jean

Those that have not gone through it can never do more that imagine what
you have seen.

Careful what you tell them. If you should suceed in bringin them the
full realization of the greatness of that which you have seen they may
by their own had attempt to get there so they may see it for themselves.

Not realizing that you cant get there by your own hand.

I just discovered that God is very complicated to the way normal people
think. You want to learn what He means? Get to know Him better.

Pretty much with what the majority said and believes about the Trinity,
I see the same. That's just God.