God made life a cycle. All living beings have a beginning and an end. Death is as much a part of life as birth. Man is a part of God’s creation and must obey the same laws as the rest of nature. We are born. We live. We die. And if God created life and death, and if much of the rest of the natural processes in the universe are ordered into cycles and circles, we can hold out some hope that the essence that is us will live on in some fashion.

And if our faith in an afterlife for our consciousness is misplaced, we can at least be comforted by the knowledge that we will live on in the memories of our friends and relatives. And we can be comforted by the fact that our life ended honorably and with dignity.

So of what comfort is all this? Many religions tell of a heaven and a hell, of rewards and punishments. Different religions answer this question in different ways, and since all cannot be right, most must be mistaken. All claim to be correct, but none show proof. Some claim proof through faith, but such faith requires that man abandon reason. Reason demands proof that faith cannot provide.

God has created an immense and wonderful universe, full of mysteries. Man has grown and matured and has learned at least partial answers to many of nature’s mysteries. Those who have completed life’s journey before us have discovered the answer to the question of what comes when life ends. And while God has not revealed to each of us, the living, the answer to the question of death, in time He will.

Many claim scientific "proof" for an afterlife, especially reincarnation. I think the jury is still out on that one. (Expected back when I die.) Try Googling "scientific reincarnation" if you want to examine some theories.

And if you must know the answer to the question of an afterlife now, the WWW (as always) has an answer:
http://reserveaspotinheaven.com/

new river wrote:

Wow, I agree nature can be a beautiful thing, but it can also be cruel, would you not agree.So not all is the rosy type picture you paint.

Also, you state we are only just a little star dust, I just have a hard time fathoming that, all are inner and outer body parts must work together in some coordination, our heart must beat so many times a minute, our lungs must filter out toxins, as do the kidney's, our liver must get rid of the waste matter, etc...The human eye and brain, so complex that science still has not got a handle on it. It just hard to conceive it was all thrown together from a bit of ":star dust", by accident

Nature is not cruel..it is merely nature.  It is only your misconception which gives the wind, the water, or the earth, human emotion.  What is cruel about nature?  I don't see it.  Any biologist wouldn't see it.  Any geologist wouldn't see it.  Any meterologist wouldn't see it.  It is only the ignorant who see cruelty in nature.

Are you aware of what the human body is composed of?

          Oxygen      65%
          Carbon      18%
          Hydrogen    10%
          Nitrogen     3%
          Calcium      1.5%
          Phosphorous  1.0%
          Potassium    0.35%
          Sulfur       0.25%
          Sodium       0.15%
          Chlorine     0.15%
          Magnesium    0.05%
          Iron         0.0004%
          Iodine       0.00004%

If you take away the oxygen and hydrogen (the components which make up the water portion of our body) then you are left with carbon at 18%.  We are considered to be "carbon based" life forms.  Do you know where carbon comes from?  Does it pop up from the ground?  Is it formed on the end of a cigarette?  No.  The carbon in our bodies, and in the world itself, comes from the outside of a dying star which exploded billions of years ago and came to form our solar system.  Contrary to the fables of the bible, there are scientifically proven facts which explain life.  We are, as Carl Sagan famously claimed, stardust.

The true wonder of Gods creation isn't that he took his "hands" and made the earth and man...but at one infinite fraction of a second, God created the laws of nature which ENABLED the POSSIBILITY of life to randomly occur here.  I find THAT God to be more amazing than your human-type God with all of his frail jealousies, rage, ineptness, and other sad human qualities...truly man created God in HIS image.

No, most of us Deists were Christians...and the more Christian we were, the more Deist we have become.

We reject the son and grow closer to the father.

After all, we aren't a bunch of Athiests, but former bible-believing (and some very evangelical) Christians.

Count me as the latter.

As far as the human body and it's "design", you may want to study biology 101 where simple organisms are discussed and explained, including yeasts which have a mouth and anus...they eat sugars and fart CO2...this is how fermentation occurs.  More complex organisms are simply that...more complex.

You would also have to study abiogenesis and some of the questions formed by Stuart Kauffman and organization theory as it applies to the origin of life, chemicals, and spontaneous emergance of life (these models can be replicated on a computer so even you can test the proof).

My faith is in God and creation...it is supported by science, physics and mathematics.  It never needs re-translating and can be tested by everyone who seeks to duplicate the findings and not merely on the revelation of Gods word to men of ancient times of dubious origin through countless scribes and translators...no...my faith is in the God of creation.