Consider:

Do we ever learn anything without pain? Perhaps if we go into the pool of thought with a wee bit of desire to learn something of other's experiences? Then maybe that is why water has been such an age old symbol for the media of the soul/mind/psyche complex and all the ripples of sounds that echo in the vast space of the mind.

What humans communicate  relate reasonably... devilish alchemy?

If God is pure love on an infinite scale (just not accepted by hardcore "Nuts" of Egyptian myth ... dark, mysterious recesses of the mind)? If so, would such pure emotion have exploded when Hurim saw the offshoot of the first attempt at creation ... Big Bang Metaphor of EURIKA in massive terms?

The mortal Pious sense cannot grasp such learning process, and doesn't want his neighbour to either. Remember the nature of all the tiny pieces of the infinite contaminating your poor effort of thinking ... as compared to the infinite degree: "I am a jeaulous God!" Common think people get some control over your blind emotional responses!

We are just insignificant wee bits of the story passing through on our way to pure awareness ... where reverence for the neigbour is tantamount to survival! This is a dimension beyond the human! Up there is no hockey, only basket Ba'aL for the unknown cases (Nuts, of Egyptian myth?) where they have to learn to stay on their own cloud ... no contact ... all emotion is flat out plate eau-like ... until eL freezes over. If you step off your cloud except in spirit your soul takes another plunge into the Isis pool that's called earth (dirt in some expressions) ... not so chilling! There hasn't been a Khol thought here for years unless ... Ob'Mah's that you? Bath Sheba, a wash of the soul! That lightens things a bit.

Is this t'Ruth? I don't know but there seems to be a spark hidden somewhere in that dark formless void we call the human mote of thinking, or is that emotive Rapture ... a holiday for "eM" the wee children of God?

If you step into the dark without an ember ... you won't know where th eL you've been ... pack lightly for such trips ... no heavy Christians there! After all God is rumoured to be a roue awed wind ... just a wee shade in the light ... bees heaven?

Always remeber the devil to a heavy Christian is giggling just arround the corner ... they hate that ... they can't control what they cannotsee ... scripture of metaphor, satire ... banned in fixed light? Now who broke the smoldering embers of the past? Roman book burners ... adjusting history? Well I'll be damned and all awash like Naam'n of myth ... a wee dirty salty water never hurt any seaman on the Madgellain 'c'! Finnegan will always arrange for a Rein ... heh's a Khol Kat Gette a grip on yourself ... a grand expanse to know well before taking the ul-tim-ate leap! It makes even the best a bit nervous, but perfect angst ... leave that to Bath Sheba ... shuol hald it all together for the light bouce ... an echo, canon in the filmy veil! You can add some strings to the story ... it helps hold the lower tiers together in the pool!

Check process and faith and the issue is discussed there - go to John Cobb - the short answer is suffering is not sent to us - it is a reality of life - it is not to make us better or any other outcome.  We can though in suffering learn something about ourselves and discover strength and the images that can come from religion can help us live through suffering.

Heaven is not the goal but to bring heaven on earth is the prayer - Heaven or paradise is the metaphor for a good creations -yet in the good creation we still have the snake - we are to save paradise here and the image of a heaven may helps us acheive a part of this ( CF Saving Paradise by Parker and Brock)  It is not a reward but it could be a place where issues are resolved -  a completion happens - we are not to worry about it, though.

I agree with you - there's almost something magical about how being in the shower promotes thought. There are times when I feel I'm "stuck" in that little cubicle.

About Heaven. I don't believe it's a place we go to for NOT committing sins. In fact, science has shown us that there's no physical place "up there". To me, Heaven is a metaphor for all that's positive about life, love, compassion, fellowship etc.

About suffering. I believe we suffer because it's part of life.  Once again, nothing to do with sins.

What happens when we die? My brain says we came from stars, and whether as ashes or dust, we'll be recycled in Nature. My heart hopes that, whatever happens, in the words of William James, I'll still have a sense of "the More". 

I'll find out one day!!!

Heaven is for holy people, children of light. If a person repents of sin, and turns from darkness to light they will enter into eternal bliss. Anyone want to know if they're going to heaven? Anyone who thinks the deserve heaven aint going. Ill put my life on that.

Lordy, Brad, your ego is more verbal than I have ever been accused of; now I know why people sometime wish I would just say simply what I mean. I guess you take long showers. I tend to lean toward what Panentheism is saying - heaven is not a reward but a completion.

On the other hand, when I put the books away and all of the intellectual struggle, I do not connect God with any part of our suffering. We were created. We began to be recognizable as a single cell. Suffering has little to do with free will. It is part of what happens when organisms with minds share space. If we had no free will, we could still suffer. It is a state of "mind". As that single cell evolved to contain a mind, and then a body/mind/spirit, suffering simply became a lack of contentment, fulllness, fulfillment, dreams, etc. One could say it is a lack of "heaven". As humans we create our own experience and one may suffer in the same environment another may thrive. So suffering comes with the battle of the mind/body and then the mind/spirit and body/spirit. Emotions, reason and hopes are in constant tension to evolve to higher levels of consciousness (so it is said). This is what I consider to be "vital tension". Carl Menninger wrote a book on The Vital Balance - a state of Mind/Body that would leave us healthy. Vital tension gives an edge to this, so that we are always seeking to change rather than remain the same. It is, indeed a creative or constructive part of humans, and not destructive unless it is put on overload.

So I see the Creator as simply creating intelligently, so that there is some evolving order in things with a tendency toward moving to higher and higher levels of complexity (evolution). In order for change to happen within this system, there has to be some inbalance to keep things moving. We are not the end of evolution, I suspect. We are suffering, like all living organism, to strive to stretch, reach and grow to a higher level of complexity. And what might heaven be? Perhaps when we have evolved to "match" the original Creative force (when the ends of the snake consume themselves) or when we become "One". We assume God "looks like us", but in fact we are to look like Him/Her/It (according to the Bible). I would hope this is an internal state.

So has God created us and left us on our own? Not at all. We all have God within us. We just need to connect with It. If all mankind could connect with their divine spirit, we would soon evolve to create that Heaven we talk about - on earth. Not very likely? Hey we are just a small dot in infinity. We have lots of time to spare to either destroy this site (I'm sure there are others) or create that heaven on earth. When I die, I hope I will be recycled but I do believe that I will likely enter the dream of the Creator that flows through everything, and eventually find my place, as I should. God is Love; God is good. How can it be a bad ending?

Well the obvioius conclusion from your "shower musings" would be that God is both good and evil (did I say that out loud) BUT

when someone asks if God can make a rock so big that even he can't lift it, they are essentially asking a question that is designed to pit God's omnipotence against itself in a contradictory framework. Can God create square triangles is another one.

Does this mean that God is not omnipotent? No, IMO.

Basically the nature of the universe and the nature of mass itself is insufficient to test God's manipulitive or creative omnipotence.

Why does God allow suffering? I've asked this many times myself. As Pan once pointed out the snake was always in the garden before "the fall", light and dark are essentials in our world, good and evil do exist. This is the "creation" as much as we'd like to deny it. Temptation is a part of our existence. Could it be that evil actually has a purpose? Does it in itself "do good" by being a comparitive? Without it would we just be "stepford wives" living in a controlled bliss? Would we even know it if it were so? Would I be typing these questions?

Suffering for me and others appears an unnecessary evil. I want God to make square triangles. I want it to stop, but would this also stop compassion, love for one another, creativity? Because what I would be asking is that I would desire a sterile existence where the light couldn't be seen without the dark. Suffering, it's awful, but could there possibly be a worse existence though that didn't include it?

I don't have all the answers obviously, just more "shower ramblings" without the shower. Which brings up another question. Why can't we have all the answers?

Do we learn anything without pain as stimuli?

Good and evil, God and Satan, that's smooth nonsense ... somewhat resembling an attractive emotive ... angst, vital tension?

Were we told to love the enemy ... the devil of empty space that disturbes our mind ... but we refuse to calm it with some far ranging feed. Let it expand folks ... we were told 366 times: "Fear not!" Do we listen and read carefully or just skim the surface of the depths of the story of the sole ... literally superficial?

Take the plunge ... there's no bottom to fear ... falling or flying is a distinct metaphor ... at least ambiguous once you are released from the physical Nut ... an Egyptian sign in myth!

Who is the cause of all the wars over religion: God or Amman that thinks existence is a fixed commodity? Like moot in space!

Take the journey ... go inside and feel the reversion ... reciprocal action ... a reflection of the injuries caused here with no logical, reason but unbound emotions ... no reverence fot the beyond (myth in anlternate meaning). You just have to learn a bunch of metaphors ... their like sighns of change. You can see it in a study of liguistics ... Ancient Voices is an assist --- James Norman! Another gathering of stray words ... brilliant story!

The integral Gods needed something to amuse them in their vast confinement! It is a universal thought that we were separated from and hate both sides of the equation ... sophitry? Theosophy, or Philosophy? How about balance for some justice ... humanity would never go for that ... there has to be another space ... like losing the body for a giggle. Has anyone heard of Near Death, or Out-of-bod' Sin'd Rome? Rho mei is "what penetrating" experience in old tongues ... get inside yourself and find what is out there!

Authorities think it is just a song and a dance routine ... like light on the waters of the mind ... a shimmer ... in ancient Hebrew ... pure gold, something for the spirit and sole survivors to walk upon!

waterbuoy, Im not trying to be rude but ah, I try my best to read your comments but I dont got a clue what you' re talkin about. The real funny thing is though, I dont think you got a clue what you're talking about either. To string together a whole bunch of big words, and disregard obvious fundamental truths does not make you intellectual. You seem to be educated in language and certain philosophies, alot more than myself, but if you are trying to convince people that you are "intellectual" by using confusing, complicated arguments, it is only a hinderance to their salvation. Intellectuals make the complicated simple, pseudo intellectauls make the simple complicated. It takes more words to sell the wrong side of the argument.

It struck me that there are two terms we often equate:  heaven and the empire of God.  I believe the empire of God is accessible to us now in this life--it is a combination of states of mind, relationships, and spirit..  I like panentheism's statement about heaven as the completion of life.  As for suffering, our sense of suffering is very much a culturally-based perspective on events.  For a lot of people, work is an opportunity to express our capacity to make a difference in the world, but for many others work is a burden that interferes with their pleasure-seeking.  Most events that comfortable moderns equate with suffering can be easily seen differently through other lenses.  For us a better question may be, "Why do we see ourselves as so important that we deserve to be protected from pain?"

It struck me that there are two terms we often equate:  heaven and the empire of God.  I believe the empire of God is accessible to us now in this life--it is a combination of states of mind, relationships, and spirit..  I like panentheism's statement about heaven as the completion of life.  As for suffering, our sense of suffering is very much a culturally-based perspective on events.  For a lot of people, work is an opportunity to express our capacity to make a difference in the world, but for many others work is a burden that interferes with their pleasure-seeking.  Most events that comfortable moderns equate with suffering can be easily seen differently through other lenses.  For us a better question may be, "Why do we see ourselves as so important that we deserve to be protected from pain?"

It struck me that there are two terms we often equate:  heaven and the empire of God.  I believe the empire of God is accessible to us now in this life--it is a combination of states of mind, relationships, and spirit..  I like panentheism's statement about heaven as the completion of life.  As for suffering, our sense of suffering is very much a culturally-based perspective on events.  For a lot of people, work is an opportunity to express our capacity to make a difference in the world, but for many others work is a burden that interferes with their pleasure-seeking.  Most events that comfortable moderns equate with suffering can be easily seen differently through other lenses.  For us a better question may be, "Why do we see ourselves as so important that we deserve to be protected from pain?"

I have posted these stories before, but they have really shaped my idea of heaven and hell:

Heaven & Hell

A holy man was having a conversation with the Lord one day and said, Lord, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like."  The Lord led the holy man to two doors. He opened one of the doors and the holy man looked in. In the middle of the room was a large round table. In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew, which smelled delicious and made the holy man's mouth water.

The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles that were strapped to their arms and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful, but because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.

The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering.
 
The Lord said, "You have seen Hell."

They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as the first one. There was a large round table with a large pot of stew, which made the holy man's mouth water. The people were equipped with the same long-handled spoons, but here the people were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking.
 
The holy man said, "I don't understand."

"It is simple" said the Lord, "it requires but one skill. You see,  they have
learned to feed each other, while the greedy think only of themselves."

Creation - A Sioux Indian Story

The Creator gathered all of Creation and said, "I want to hide something 

from the humans until they are ready for it. It is the realization that they 

create their own reality." The eagle said, "Give it to me, I will take it to 

the moon." The Creator said, "No. One day they will go there and find it." 

The salmon said, "I will bury it on the bottom of the ocean." "No. They will 

go there too." The buffalo said, "I will bury it on the Great Plains." The 

Creator said, "They will cut into the skin of the Earth and find it even 

there." Grandmother Mole, who lives in the breast of Mother Earth, and who 

has no physical eyes but sees with spiritual eyes, said, "Put it inside of 

them." And the Creator said, "It is done."

 I was raised to consider that scripture (Christian and other 'holy' writing) is all about the life and journey of the Spirit, and not really about the temporal or material world at all ... even when it appears so.

 To reconcile earthly suffering with heavenly transcendence becomes a bit less problematic if you postulate that perhaps a loving God/god/gd would certainly be concerned with our souls ....  but our bodies? ..... maybe not so much.  

How we handle things like suffering or affluence is Spiritually more important than the fact of the affliction or material gifts.  As to the 'square triangle' or 'head of pin'. arguments  ... go and Google NASA/Hubble telescope images for perspective on the Universe and ask yourself whether a creator/god couldn't do more than that but just in places we have not seen.

i couldn't agree more :)  every time i look up at the sky, i always think the same thing.  every time i look at nature and it's perfection, every tiny detail, all of it, even the things we as humans consider disasters, i cannot deny the existence of a creator.  it is all intricately intertwined and there isn't a word that adequately describes it. how it all works together. all of it with a purpose. i wish the bible contained such a word.  good, that's all we got *lol*  god said it was good.  good?!?  *lol*  i guess i should stop using that word to describe my apple torte *lol*

thanks for the nasa tip.  i sat with my son this morning and looked through pictures of outer space.  we hadn't done that in a long time.  it was a nice addition to our morning.