How many people....

[sparrow]

Are people going to go on forever...? or is there a set number of people?
How does God decide? when will there be "enough"?

I mean... will God keep creating new worlds when old worlds are used up...
Will there ever be an end to His creating stuff? Is he creating new stuff everyday and sticking them all in heaven?
So when we die, there will be like ten thousand trillion new species of animals and plants and trees and things?
Or has HE created all the stuff he wants to create and now HE is just enjoying it all?

hmm.

Or will He keep creating stuff for eternity?


Sometimes when I think about heaven.. I think "God.. I just don't think I want to be around all of those people! I mean... :laughing7: I'm such a loner. You have all of those planets out there.. couldn't we just all have our own little planet?  :laughing7:



Sometimes... everything makes sense.
and other times.. NOTHING makes sense..

:sigh: God, where did you COME FROM??? How could you possibly have just "always existed".
That is like IMPOSSIBLE.  :mshock:
I cannot think outside of time.
I just can't.
When did God happen?

And why are WE here on earth... NOW?
am I somewhere else in another dimension...

oh my gosh, my brain is going to explode.
I hate when I start thinking about this sort of thing. :msealed: :mshock:

[Paul Hazelwood]

I've always thought that the bible has truth, but not necessarily the whole truth or all knowledge concerning any beings he has created.

The bible, perhaps, are writings in context with this universe that we are aware of and God being ALL in ALL is not necessarily a statement that there will never be another "in the beginning" or that there was never a previous "in the beginning".

It means he will be all in all in context with reconciling however many humans he had designated to exist in this "in the beginning".

There certainly is nothing preventing a new batch of creatures.

[sparrow]

Sometimes, with all the thoughts floating around in your mind, ya just gotta let it all out in the most basic of forms. I still need to let my kid inside say.."God...What the heck are you DOING????!!"  :laughing7:


With that said, Paul thank you for your participation.. :icon_flower:
I understand what you're saying and I agree.

It's like an ant has absolutely NO idea the world he is living in. He only knows a teeny tiny part, He can't FATHOM human beings. That's what it's like for us... We are like ants. We can only know so much or FATHOM so much...

That's what is so insane.
We KNOW that we can only fathom so much.

Man.
Life
is
wacky.

[Akira Takahashi]

You mean, were we the first of God's creations, or perhaps this has all happened before?

[Paul Hazelwood]

You mean, were we the first of God's creations, or perhaps this has all happened before?

That perhaps this has all happened before, and may happen again.   

[Paul Hazelwood]

Sometimes, with all the thoughts floating around in your mind, ya just gotta let it all out in the most basic of forms. I still need to let my kid inside say.."God...What the heck are you DOING????!!"  :laughing7:


With that said, Paul thank you for your participation.. :icon_flower:
I understand what you're saying and I agree.

It's like an ant has absolutely NO idea the world he is living in. He only knows a teeny tiny part, He can't FATHOM human beings. That's what it's like for us... We are like ants. We can only know so much or FATHOM so much...

That's what is so insane.
We KNOW that we can only fathom so much.

Man.
Life
is
wacky.

Yes, for instance, there really is nothing to say that there aren't all sorts of creatures that God has created that he has a plan for that we are unaware of.  They too on a journey to learn righteousness and the knowledge of truth.   A time specified for their existence and God becoming all in all with "them".   

[Akira Takahashi]

You mean, were we the first of God's creations, or perhaps this has all happened before?

That perhaps this has all happened before, and may happen again.  

I'm having a Twilight Zone moment.

[Paul Hazelwood]

You mean, were we the first of God's creations, or perhaps this has all happened before?

That perhaps this has all happened before, and may happen again.  

I'm having a Twilight Zone moment.

lol. well I can clarify further that I am not necessarily talking about things happening before exactly as they are going on now.   Just that there is nothing to say that God did not create another set of humans or creatures before us and nothing to say he cannot create another batch in the future as we understand future.


Of course, then there is also not anything to say that there isn't multiple batches of created beings happening all at the same time too.

I'll bet that cleared up your twilight zone.    :happy3:

[Akira Takahashi]

Yeah, it did.  Good thing, because it was giving me great ideas for a novel!

The interesting thing would be, are we really the only creatures he ever considered to create in His image?  I'm thinking, perhaps once upon a time there was a world in which little green men ruled.  Or a land where satyrs and centaurs coexisted with humans.  Granted, I don't think these things ever existed, but you get the point.  What would they look like if they existed before us?  Did they have a Bible?  A plan for redemption?

Let's keep this thread going, as it's making me think.

[Paul Hazelwood]

I would assume that God could not create any beings at anytime without the intention and ability to succeed in teaching them righteousness and redeeming them to himself.

I do get your point, we can imagine many things, and there would possibly be no end to the variety of creatures God could create and love.

[Akira Takahashi]

Agreed.

However, would any previous creations be before the creation of the angels?  I mean, would Satan have existed, or was his fall from grace long before the world was created.  I can't remember.

[reFORMer]

I put this somewhere in tentmaker about 14 months ago in an earlier version.  I hope you don't mind a sort of repeat; but, I've improved it a bit and it seems relevant again.
------------------------------------------------------------

I understand that the promise to bless to Abraham's offspring, even also to those obedient in love to God, is for a thousand generations.  "Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations..." (Deut 7:9)  Calculating a generation as forty (40) years, we have at least thirty six thousand (36,000) or, thirty seven thousand (37,000) years left.  Much change indeed can be expected in that one revolution of the mammal's aptly named "Milky Way."  We haven't even emerged from the womb yet.

The Firstborn immortal head of the Royal Priesthood body, Jesus, is preparing a Marriage Feast, of God's deathless lamb's flesh and man's made one.  When that many-membered body of Glory, the Shekinah Consort of the God-head is manifested, trained and reigning upon the great white Mercy Throne, that New Man, homo novae,  will have finally begun.  The Adamic form will continue, individuals living at least a restored thousand years, ("...for the child shall die an hundred years old..." Is 65:20) though expected to normally partake of the Tabernacle feast so defeating death long before reaching a natural end.  ("...but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed." Is 65:20)  Under the discipline of the incorruptible members of the first resurrection mankind will not only enter full redemption, but will disperse into the reaches of "the land" promised them to inherit, all that is within the realm called space/time.  "For not through law is the promise to Abraham, or to his Seed, for him to be enjoyer of the allotment of the world [cosmos,] but through faith's righteousness." (Rm 4:13, CLV)  We are joined to the Promised Seed and God's sure work with us is, "...to be conformed to the image of His Son, for Him to be Firstborn among many brethren." (Rm 8:29, CLV)  God's intent is a vast fellowship of beings in His image and likeness.  Farther, it is His word that "all things are yours," "...let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; And ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's." (1 Cor 3:21-23)

But ah, the thousand generations is a "calculation" of years!  What forty (40) is to one hundred twenty (120, the present lifespan promised on leaving the ark,) could the coming generations living a restored thousand (1,000) years be by comparison three hundred thirty three (333) years?  This would mean about three hundred thousand (300, 000) years are remaining for flesh man, though perhaps under different dispensations or conditions resulting from greater revelation of God.  Though debatable, the Biblical "Millennium" is plural in the original, so times are not clear for what seems the training period for the young immortals.

What not only of light, but also of the darkness?  In Jude's letter it is mentioned of the fall of glorious beings, their forbidden intermingling with the seed of Eve and subsequent chains of darkness.  Such great and high cultures, prior to the appearance of man, with their technological marvels grasping to imitate the abilities of the Divine nature, can have fallen and be held in the darkness of a forgetting mind, even denying it's glorious past in dim myths sung at ceremonial occasions.  Even man perhaps once travelled away from his planet, reaching now erased pinnacles of ability.  Whether or not it is sure he is fallen and makes no move to the vast unmined horde of stars like diamonds, glittering in God's cold dark vault.

But mankind's future is brightest of all that ever may be, no superior sequel is possible.  The ultimate has occurred.  God's own manifestation as one of us leads forth into undying dawn, continuing onward and upward ever, even beyond all matter being collapsed into a keepsake, another "primal atom."  "And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail." (Heb 1:12)  Yes, space can be folded and dark matter and energy now hide his out raying from consuming us.  "He made darkness His secret place." (cf., Ps 18:11)  But, "Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end..." (Is 9:7)  We are coming to the finishing work, "That we should all attain to...the measure of the stature of the complement of the Christ." (Ep 4:13, CLV)  Humanity will be reconstituted God's special means of making Himself known.  We are His bride.

While our local Andromeda cluster is hurtling toward a point in the constellation Virgo at about a million (1,000,000) miles an hour and that point is in turn moving toward another point at about a million (1,000,000) miles an hour.  There are many more galaxies than all the people that have ever lived, including those projected to be born during the next Millennium.  It seems clear we are being created to have dominion.  Our own galaxy and Andromeda are going to start colliding in about one billion years.  Wherever in the cosmos, in whatever form, two or more saints appearing in the sky or realm in which other living beings are, seeming even as one of them:  it is the arrival of God with us, Emmanuel in our midst making Himself known to perfect them and draw them unto Himself.  We are His temple, his chosen place to dwell and we will reign as Royal Priests.

Psalm 102:25-28 (AV):
"Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth:
and the heavens are the work of thy hands.
They shall perish, but thou shalt endure:
yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment;
as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed:
But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.
The children of thy servants shall continue,
and their seed shall be established before thee.

your brother, James Rohde

[firstborn888]

Yeah, it did.  Good thing, because it was giving me great ideas for a novel!

The interesting thing would be, are we really the only creatures he ever considered to create in His image?  I'm thinking, perhaps once upon a time there was a world in which little green men ruled.  Or a land where satyrs and centaurs coexisted with humans.  Granted, I don't think these things ever existed, but you get the point.  What would they look like if they existed before us?  Did they have a Bible?  A plan for redemption?

Let's keep this thread going, as it's making me think.

God does an infinite number of things besides create. Some of those things have nothing to do with this universe or matter or time or people. Everything we can imagine or conceive of is an infinitesimal speck in a vast universe of existence. And that vast universe is another infinitesimal speck in a larger universe that is another infinitesimal speck and so on. Actually, words like large and small do not even apply. Or past or future.

So we're living inside this tiny box of understanding and even that seems enormous from the vantage point of our tiny speck of perspective.  :Sparkletooth:

[sparrow]

Why did I start this thread? I'm really starting to get freaked out.  :mshock:









:laughing7:

[chuckt]

Why did I start this thread? I'm really starting to get freaked out.  :mshock:









:laughing7:

there is more inner space than outer space  :faint:

We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at any given moment knew all of the forces that animate nature and the mutual positions of the beings that compose it, if this intellect were vast enough to submit the data to analysis, could condense into a single formula the movement of the greatest bodies of the universe and that of the lightest atom; for such an intellect nothing could be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes."
— Marquis Pierre Simon de Laplace


think fractals:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=t&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ADBR_enUS248US254&q=fractals

:Egyptdance2: :boogie: :myahoo:

[firstborn888]

Why did I start this thread? I'm really starting to get freaked out.  :mshock:
:laughing7:

There's no way not to get freaked out a bit. It'll knock you unconscious if you try and take it all in.  :mshock:

To think this universe is God's one pet plan, no matter how vast this universe is, is to see one finite aspect of infinity. Matter/energy is only one reality.

Once when I was about five years old I was trying to comprehend how long forever was. Then the thought came "what if nothing ever existed? What would that be like?". Suddenly it felt like the ground became the sky and I was falling into infinity. I lost my balance and fell to the (actual) ground before snapping out of it.

Some would argue that I hit my head and have not been the same since  :dontknow:
:laughing7: :laughing7: :laughing7:

[claypot]

Are people going to go on forever...? or is there a set number of people?
How does God decide? when will there be "enough"?

I mean... will God keep creating new worlds when old worlds are used up...
Will there ever be an end to His creating stuff? Is he creating new stuff everyday and sticking them all in heaven?
So when we die, there will be like ten thousand trillion new species of animals and plants and trees and things?
Or has HE created all the stuff he wants to create and now HE is just enjoying it all?

hmm.

Or will He keep creating stuff for eternity?


Sometimes when I think about heaven.. I think "God.. I just don't think I want to be around all of those people! I mean... :laughing7: I'm such a loner. You have all of those planets out there.. couldn't we just all have our own little planet?  :laughing7:



Sometimes... everything makes sense.
and other times.. NOTHING makes sense..

:sigh: God, where did you COME FROM??? How could you possibly have just "always existed".
That is like IMPOSSIBLE.  :mshock:
I cannot think outside of time.
I just can't.
When did God happen?

And why are WE here on earth... NOW?
am I somewhere else in another dimension...

oh my gosh, my brain is going to explode.
I hate when I start thinking about this sort of thing. :msealed: :mshock:

Sparrow, the spookiest thing in the world right now for me is how exactly you have voiced my own thoughts and ways of dealing with them. I am the same way with God as you describe.

I have the 'exploding brain' thing often. I mean was there ever a time when there was nothing? If yes then how could something come from nothing. If no then how could something have always existed.

I think God gets the biggest kick out of our childish (to Him anyway) questions. I know I like it when my kids ask me weird questions.

cp

[reFORMer]

Three times within the course of a few days the Holy Spirit realization of the truth near the end of Romans 11, that, "From Him, through Him and to Him is the all" flooded me with such brightness that it was like getting too close to the sun and being drawn into its gravity, so much so that I almost collapsed.

Other times like that, several times within less than two weeks, came about following when across a couple weeks I was missing my grandmother, my mom's mom who passed away some years ago, very much.  I had a vision of her sitting at a sewing machine.  When she looked up she was very tired and her face turned into my friend Marion's who's about my mother's age.  She lived a few miles away, along the route I took to and from my job.  I understood what God had taught me for some time, that I was responsible to love the ones that crossed my path.  The words that came to me were, "All the love I've known was just God wearing different faces."  The awareness of this on several occasions was so powerful I felt I was being overcome with brightness as I was so drawn into God that I was losing consciousness as a distinct entity with personal identity.

One time that all strength left me and I did collapse was right before God's word came from behind me saying, "Call no man Father."  Immediately I was brought into a higher realm and saw above me in a white robe with an empire sash a bearded man standing nobly upright while moving around me in a perfect arc.

There are other experiences of being overwhelmed.  He not only illumines but also disciplines.  God has things to make known to us, things concerning Himself that are more powerful than what our flesh can bear.

your brother, James Rohde

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: Amen reFormer. I think He's had us in the same school.  :winkgrin:  He did what you are describing, to me one day, as the thought hit that there was nothing but God in vessels of clay and I felt myself being drawn in so fast that it brought fear and I stopped it. I felt as though I was going to melt into Him and lose all sense of personal identity and the knowledge of the personal identity of other humans. That was what scared me the most; not wanting to be THAT "alone".

That is the only time fear blocked what He was trying to do with me, and now of course, I regret giving in to it. But some of things He does are not even within our realm of wildest expectation so there is no way to buffer the experience beforehand (nor should there be) to make it less shocking. He is truly beyond words sometimes. Blessings....

[sparrow]

Sparrow, the spookiest thing in the world right now for me is how exactly you have voiced my own thoughts and ways of dealing with them. I am the same way with God as you describe.

I have the 'exploding brain' thing often. I mean was there ever a time when there was nothing? If yes then how could something come from nothing. If no then how could something have always existed.

I think God gets the biggest kick out of our childish (to Him anyway) questions. I know I like it when my kids ask me weird questions.

cp

To the bolded: I think that's GREAT! It's nice to finally have some company over here...!!  :laughing7:

[sparrow]

Once when I was about five years old I was trying to comprehend how long forever was. Then the thought came "what if nothing ever existed? What would that be like?". Suddenly it felt like the ground became the sky and I was falling into infinity. I lost my balance and fell to the (actual) ground before snapping out of it.

Some would argue that I hit my head and have not been the same since  :dontknow:
:laughing7: :laughing7: :laughing7:

:bigGrin:

I remember stuff like that...

I remember laying in my bed, just not being able to sleep, just laying there sweating (money was tight, we hardly ever turned on our air conditioning) anyway... just sweating and thinking about stuff like:

"Where was I before I was born????"  :dontknow:

"I'm going to die. One day..I'm going to be dead.  :mshock: DEAD. And there's no way out of it!!!!" <--- When I heard that little boy say that very line in "What About Bob?", I cracked up so hard.

"What's beyond the universe? Is it just like a wall or what? like just white space?? Maybe there's some stuff back there that we don't know about. Maybe God put some stuff back there that he forgot about, and what if it's like all mutating now??!!"  :dontknow:

"What the heck does God look like?!"

"Can God see me all the time?"

"When did God begin? Who made God. He HAD to have had a starting point..." --> my brain would LITERALLY turn inside out on that one. (actually, it still does. I cannot think outside of time. Can't do it. it's impossible to me.)

"What if God forgets about us? We're sooo small. What if he made us and he forgot about us?" ACK!!!

"What if the earth is like an atom on a hair follicle on God's dog?"  :mshock:

[firstborn888]

I remember laying in my bed, just not being able to sleep, just laying there sweating (money was tight, we hardly ever turned on our air conditioning) anyway... just sweating and thinking about stuff like:

"Where was I before I was born????"  :dontknow:

Wow sparrow. No air here back then either. How many similarities can there be? You are my heart.
:Sparkletooth:

[sparrow]

I remember laying in my bed, just not being able to sleep, just laying there sweating (money was tight, we hardly ever turned on our air conditioning) anyway... just sweating and thinking about stuff like:

"Where was I before I was born????"  :dontknow:

Wow sparrow. No air here back then either. How many similarities can there be? You are my heart.
:Sparkletooth:

:happygrin: :mfriends: