Posted by Roberta Grimes • August 10, 2019 • 31 Comments
Afterlife Research, Human Nature, The Teachings of Jesus
Jesus has some wonderfully positive things to say about faith! He sees it as the engine that empowers our minds. For example, when His disciples have trouble driving out a possessing spirit, they ask Him why they are unable to do it. And He says, “Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you” (MT 17:20). The dictionary definition of “faith” is “Complete trust or confidence in someone or something.” The reason why Jesus can tell us that our having even the smallest speck of confidence will enable us to move a mountain is the fact that our minds actually are that powerful. Having faith in what is true is a reliable way for each of us to maximize the power of our vast, eternal minds, and thereby to supercharge our lives!
But having faith in something that is not true is worse than useless. A false faith that is eventually betrayed can bring on such deep disillusionment that it can put its victims off ever again having faith in anything. We are seeing this problem play out now in modern Christianity. For centuries, Christians have been taught to have faith in a host of things that are not grounded in the Gospel teachings of Jesus, but instead are just the fear-based theological whimsies of the religion’s prior adherents. Thanks to the fact that in recent years we have been able to judge these Christian dogmas against the truths we have begun to learn from those that we used to think were dead, we now can objectively 
determine that most of what modern Christians believe is not true. Here, from my forthcoming book, The Fun of Loving Jesus, are a few beliefs held by most modern Christians that we can now demonstrate are false:
As you can see, a lot of what Christians believe is sadly from man and not from God.
We have spoken at length about some of the reasons why the forty thousand modern versions of Christianity are failing all together now, but the bottom-line reason is the simple fact that having faith in something that is not true leads to disillusionment. More and more, Christians worldwide are finding their faith in Christianity’s human-made dogmas so badly shaken that thousands of churches are closing each year in the United States alone. By contrast, of course, those of us who reject modern Christianity in favor of sitting at the Lord’s feet as He speaks to us two thousand years ago have no trouble establishing the kind of faith that Jesus urges upon us, since what Jesus tells us in the Gospels is abundantly confirmed to be true by so many of those who are not now in bodies, but in wonderful fact are not dead at all!
So the cure for the worldwide crisis of faith that is disheartening so many Christians now will be the rise of the genuine teachings of Jesus in the public mind. While Christianity has declined in popularity, Jesus retains an approval rating above ninety percent in the United States, and He is known and loved worldwide. So the only restriction that exists on how quickly the crisis of faith in Christianity can be addressed will be the speed at which those whose faith lies only in the genuine teachings of Jesus can manage to share the Lord’s truths with the world. Our Christian crisis of faith is maturing to the point where soon it can be resolved.
Our scientific crisis of faith, however, remains a stubborn and destructive problem.
The greatest scientific challenge of the twenty-first century is no longer the search for a theory of everything. That naïve old twentieth-century notion had held that surely it must be possible for physicists to unify quantum mechanics, general relativity, and all the other well-established theories into a single overarching theory in physics that would let them explain everything. The search for a theory of everything was doomed to fail in any event, because modern science as it was being developed during the early twentieth century had foolishly transformed itself into just another faith-based belief-system. The bogus faith that now has governed mainstream scientific inquiry for a century is materialism. And as was true of the old, false versions of Christianity that held sway for centuries, this false version of science that is based in a whimsical human dogma eventually must die. The only question is how much more damage it will do before its adherents give it up!
We are seeing the first encouraging signs of a weakening of faith in their materialist dogma in the working scientific community. Some wonder whether we have come to the end of physics, while others hopefully seek to redefine science – or at least the study of the mind – as the art of not knowing. Contributing to this loss of faith in science is the fact that a key scientific tenet is the proposition that reported and peer-reviewed experiments can be repeated to yield the same results; but it turns out now this is not true at all, so those who adhere to the materialist faith are seeking a way to fix this problem by rethinking experimental research altogether.
In their growing despair, the most faithful believers in science’s failed materialist dogma are in the process of attempting something that would be the equivalent of diehard Christians using the Shroud of Turin to reconstitute a living Jesus. For their faith in materialism to be right, scientists will have to discover a mechanism by which the human brain generates consciousness. So the search for a theory of everything seems to many to be less important now, as more and more researchers undertake an ambitious new effort that also is doomed to fail. No one has come up with a reasonable theory of how matter could give rise to consciousness, so some consciousness researchers have lately decided to just go ahead and declare victory anyway.
A mind-bogglingly clueless article was published in the July, 2019 issue of Scientific American with the title “How Matter Becomes Mind.” Since 
nowhere do the authors do more than to drill down on the brain’s complexity and hint that consciousness must come out of that somehow, the article’s title has been backed down a bit in the magazine’s online archives; but still, it reeks of un-seriousness. To give you a flavor of this faith-deluded nonsense, here is the article’s third paragraph:
“What has been missing from this account of human brain function is how all these distinct regions interact to give rise to who we are. Our laboratory and others have borrowed a language from a branch of mathematics called graph theory that allows us to parse, probe and predict complex interactions of the brain that bridge the seemingly vast gap between frenzied neural electrical activity and an array of cognitive tasks—sensing, remembering, making decisions, learning a new skill and initiating movement. This new field of network neuroscience builds on and reinforces the idea that certain regions of the brain carry out defined activities. In the most fundamental sense, what the brain is—and thus who we are as conscious beings—is, in fact, defined by a sprawling network of 100 billion neurons with at least 100 trillion connecting points, or synapses.”
(Quick translation for non-scientists: This is really extremely complicated! But we are true scientists. Our faith sustains us.)
Meanwhile, the fundamental truth that the great quantum physicist Max Planck first outlined for us a century ago – the fact that what we experience as consciousness is primary, and it pre-exists matter – continues to be abundantly validated. For example, afterlife researchers have known for decades that as death approaches and our minds begin to detach from our bodies, many people whose brains have been destroyed will briefly become lucid and mentally normal. Working scientists don’t yet feel free to talk about the materialist-faith-destroying implications of terminal lucidity, but at least they are finally noticing it! And we who are watching can have renewed hope that perhaps the scientific community’s liberation from its century-old false materialist dogma might not be much longer in coming….
Encouraging as always, thank you! My friend has been experiencing loss of memory for about four years and have wondered when he transitions will his mind become lucid?
It always makes me happy to see i have an email form Roberta Grimes…your articles are always so enlightening!
His mind will be free from all the constraints it’s experiencing presently having to operate through a highly-compromised physical body. 🙂
Freed from our bodies we will all function effectively.
Thank you, dear Mac, for sharing this assurance when I was in meetings yesterday and couldn’t quickly get to responding here. Perhaps people wonder, too, about whether those who are born with Down syndrome or are otherwise mentally impaired for their whole lives will carry their impairments into the afterlife; and there, too, the answer is clear: even if mental handicaps are present from birth, they are nevertheless only bodily impairments so they are left behind once the mind leaves the body. For me, the very best part of researching and teaching these truths is that virtually all of it is such good news!
Dear Lois, I’m glad to imagine you feeling delighted to find an email from me! I put considerable effort into researching and writing these missives, so I’m glad to know that you and others enjoy them.
And yes, all the evidence indicates that the only impairment your friend has relates to his brain, so once his mind is free of that, it will at once be as clear as it ever was. And the news gets better. Very soon after he completes his transition, he will rejoin the vast, eternal mind that he left behind when he transitioned to an earth-body, and then he will become a literal genius with memories that stretch for eons!
Thanks as always
You are very welcome, dear Millie!
Roberta
Thank you.
Question(s)
If one does not have the faith at least the size of a Mustard seed, it seems to me one is failing in faith and that is additionally upsetting.
What are your thoughts about human beings who have de minimis faith .
There is many of us.
After all the good folks of the world have challenges moving their bodies in cars for work, much less mountains with their faith.
Are they failing/failures?
Thank you
Bryan
Oh my dear Bryan, if having trouble establishing a strong faith absent a lot of proof is a failing, then I am the world’s greatest failure! I had two experiences of light in childhood – I had proof of God’s existence, to the extent that any human being ever has had proof – but still, my ability to have faith in the nonsense notions that Christianity teaches was so shaky that I am confessing here and now that my weakness of faith was the big reason why I majored in Christian history in college. I have always said the reason was that I wanted to understand those childhood experiences, and I did; and that the impulse to choose such a silly-seeming major came from Thomas, my guide. It did. But I could have overruled it all and majored in chemistry or math or art appreciation! I didn’t, though. My faith was so shaky that my majoring in early Christian history was a plain challenge to the Christian God. Okay, let’s have it all. Show me your best stuff!
And just as someone who loves hot dogs should never watch them being made, so someone who wants to believe what a religion teaches should never watch it being made, either. I left college with my faith feeling even shakier, to the point where I had to spend the next half-century investigating and figuring it all out for myself!
If “faith” is “complete trust in someone or something” – or “belief amounting to certainty,” which is my preferred definition – then at last I have it now! I am certain that Jesus is genuine, and He came from the highest aspect of the genuine Godhead with a mission that has nothing to do with the false religion that bears His name. That is why I have foregone golf and shuffleboard and spending a lot more time with my grandchildren to spend the rest of my life helping you, Bryan, and so many others who share my handicap where it comes to having faith in silliness. I want to share with you the absolute joy that my own certainty has given to me!
Thank you for taking the time to respond.
Great to read your viewpoint on faith.
I am certain there is a God and my intention is to live daily with a modicum of faith as I work, relate, create: even without moving a mountain,
It’s enough to progress in a coherent , sequential lifestyle.
B
Dear Bryan, certainty about God is a great deal more wonderful than having mere faith, isn’t it? That is why I have spent my life studying the evidence! It turns out that I am pretty lousy at having faith in something that cannot be proven. What is wonderful, though, is that when you are certain about God – as you and I are really certain! – there is no limit to the joy and peace that is possible for you. Thank you for visiting us here!
Hi Roberta,
When thinking about consciousness, it really is a fascinating topic given the amount of knowledge that science has learned about the physical body and the brain. Even the processes that occur during sleep are somewhat of a mystery. Perhaps sleep is a way to rest our consciousness but there is no scientific way to monitor or extrapolate any meaningful data.
As an animal lover, I believe they too have a consciousness and that consciousness also transcends this physical world. When I think of my dogs, their vibration scheme seems very different from ours, but it also meshes well with ours. Certain elements of their consciousness seem to be at an even higher level than even ours. Fascinating to think about.
Dear Timothy, we are told that animals are of a separate conscious from ours, and they don’t need to grow spiritually as we do. We don’t know much about them really, other than the fact that every animals we ever have loved develops a separate existence and is waiting for us when we transition, now young and healthy; but unless they have a love-tie with a human being, they return to what is sometimes called their species-specific “group soul.” Where wild animals are concerned, there are apparently gigantic areas of the astral where they can go to live their wild-animal lives between lives in bliss!
And where sleep is concerned, what seems to be the case is that our bodies need to sleep but our minds do not, so while our bodies sleep we might travel in the astral, visit with our guides and with our deceased loved ones, and generally enjoy being “off duty” for awhile!
Thanks for your thoughts on Animals – I am happy to expect to be reunited with them. Sometimes in the rush of life and all, I may not have always made great decisions on their behalf. However, I hope they know that I loved them and only want the best for them. I believe they do.
It would be awesome to connect regularly to the other side. Most times when a big decision needs to be made, I often want to sleep on it. Often, I wake up with a clearer understanding of the right one for me. I hope that is in part because I was guided in my sleep by my guides, or at least they weighed in a bit.
Yes, dear Timothy, “sleeping on it” works so well because we do indeed visit with our guides while our bodies sleep! And your animals completely forgive and love you, no matter what: I never have seen a message from an animal who was anything but grateful and absolutely devoted to his or her human friend. It really is such a beautiful detail – I wish that everyone could know it!
Roberta: I don’t want to put a damper on any of this, but I noticed that there are a ton of videos with accounts of people claiming to have actually seen hell because they were taken there by Jesus. Yes, it’s the fiery hell we learned about as kids from Christian church leaders. The latest one is from a girl in Ecquador named Angelica, and her video has gone absolutely viral. What is astonishing is that so many people in the comment section believe it. She claimed to see Michael Jackson there and Selena (who was a popular Hispanic singer in the 1990’s and was shot by her jealous female manager at age 23). According to Angelica, even Pope John Paul was there for deceiving people. This all sounds kooky to me, but she claims that she and her mother fasted and called out to Jesus for fifteen days, resulting in him coming to her and showing her hell and telling her to warn the rest of us about it. I carefully checked, but she has no agenda or reason to lie and neither does her mother, so what could be going on here? Their fasting and calling for Jesus for 15 days sounds a bit weird, but they certainly had faith “greater than a mustard seed.” Just wondered if you heard of or saw this video.
Do you believe something, Lola, simply because an individual proclaims it and posts a video on social media? There are individuals who claim all manner of things and no matter how many believe their claims it doesn’t make ’em true when they’re not.
Dear Lola, the following things are true:
1) Those who are actually dead tell us that death is always a one-way trip. You cannot be where the dead are and return from it to report about it. Period!
2) There even is independent evidence that this is true in some of the more extensive near-death experiences, where people report coming to a place where they are told that this is the demarcation, beyond it is the afterlife, and if you go any farther you will be dead and you won’t be able to go back again.
3) There is also abundant evidence that there is no religion practiced in the afterlife at all! So all religious experiences reported this way are not related to the actual afterlife.
4) It is the dead themselves who tell us that no fiery hell exists. And they would know!
Dear Lola, all of these reports, as sincere and well-intentioned as they might seem, are entirely unrelated to the genuine afterlife. Most of them are probably near-death experiences, which certainly can feel vivid and real but which have nothing whatsoever to do with death or the afterlife. Apparently about one in seven NDEs is “hellish,” often including a fiery hell, but that experience is pulled from the mind of the experiencer – who likely learned this nonsense in church – and none of it is objectively real. And Angelica, whoever she is, is in fact doing a particularly appalling disservice to God and to the Lord for spouting all this nonsense!
Dear Roberta. This post brought me back to my childhood listening to my father talk about Christianity and spirituality. He would talk to me like an adult rather than a child, and it was way over my head. About all I could do was nod as I listened, but I can see in my life now how much it influenced me. He grew up in the deep South, very “bible thumper,” and went off to college with the hope of becoming a minister. However, in college he discovered that very dangerous subject, according to his fellow bible thumpers at least, philosophy, and the importance of critical thinking. That became his major, and after that, he changed his mind about a lot of Christian dogma, but still loved Jesus, like you. Later in life, having moved back to the South, he had many “discussions” with people who would just respond to his questions and arguments about the bible with, “You just gotta have faith!” That was usually about the best they couId do, along with a bible verse or two. I suppose in a way he became a preacher of another sort. Thank you, Roberta, for also showing people how to see beyond blind faith.
Wow, dear Scott, your dad seems to have been a wonderful man! Thank you for sharing his story with us. For anyone with a sincerely open mind to speak with the “Bible-thumpers” about thinking beyond those Christian dogmas is so hard, since these people so often feel that they have found an easy way through life! Just claim Jesus as your personal savior, and you’ve got a get-out-of-hell-free card for life. Oh, if only it really were that simple….
Hi Roberta would you comment on Lolas’ post of Aug.12- I find it interesting thanks Danny
I have been traveling, but I have just done that, Dan. If you have more questions, please of course just ask them!
In answering Mac’s comment, I nlever believe anything just because someone on the internet believes it, but I just wondered what could be going on here. I even mentioned that I thought it sounded “kooky” especially since I agree there is no “correct” or in fact any religion at all in the afterlife. She claims this was not an NDE, as she says she simply passed out or fainted. It’s just that I found it rather frightening that she would call out for Jesus for 15 days and get such a negative response.
Yes, dear Lola, you were right to be skeptical! Whenever anyone finds anything frightening being said about God or about Jesus, you know with lead-pipe certainty that it did NOT come from the genuine Godhead or from the Lord, who only perfectly loves us. This woman is telling us a lot about herself, but nothing whatsoever about God!!
Dearest Roberta,
You know my dear that this blog can take some interesting twists and turns! I was going to express something about the original blog entry, but since we are now onto hellfire and damnation…..
I’ve got to thank Lola for mentioning the fewer unsavory NDEs out there. It concerned me somewhat when I was looking at these experiences. (The case of Angelica’s ‘vision’ amid fasting, frenzy and fainting speaks for itself. Many episodes of psychosis exhibit similar symptoms.) I too, came to the understanding that the astral realm, where NDEs occur, is responsive to the experiencer’s own consciousness. Perhaps it is a cradle that holds a person’s thoughts, hopes and dreams. Maybe our guides or helpers and family meet us there. However, the true afterlife can’t be reached by NDErs because there is a boundary that cannot be crossed by those who come back to life on earth. Beyond that boundary is our real home.
Hence, so much of what we perceive on earth, or glimpse in the astral, is mixed; some things are of Spirit and some are human, as in our religions.
Please Roberta, allow me to share an ‘impression’ of Hell that I was given, when I asked about this subject in my heart. This picture came as a whole into my mind, and was not initiated and imagined by myself. Thankfully I’m learning to tell the difference between my own musings and something given from my guide:
When I asked about Hell, I saw a large bottle with a big stopper on top of it. This looked like one of those plant terrariums that people sometimes keep in their homes. Inside this bottle was a painted landscape of people in ones and twos, wandering aimlessly, or sitting down and being sad. The overall aspect was dim and miserable. However there were no flames, demons etc.. I understood that this ‘Hell’ was contained by a granite stopper in the bottle.
On the stopper a ‘seal’ was written in golden handwriting:
“I knew Enlightenment would be wonderful, but I never knew that it would be so simple. Love as much as you can, who you can, where, how and when you can and it will all be alright in the end.”
I know that this was a personal impression given to me. Of course it does not apply to anyone else, but I was moved to write about it here as a contrast to the fierce and craven images broadcast by people like Angelica and her ilk. You see I now understand that Hell is not real and it is not a serious option for us (unless we choose to be in self imposed exile from the Light).
…..So someone like me, who was informed by various people (and sources) that I would go to Hell for being gay, finally understands that fire, fume and eternal damnation is but farce.
In addition, why would a loving God – who is all about bringing us back to the Source of love, abundance, light and joy – choose to send some of us to suffer forever ? That doesn’t make sense. Especially if Love doesn’t give up on us. Which true parent would send a single child to the fires forever? Wouldn’t a gradual learning and growing process for all, be designed by a loving God INSTEAD of a process of eternal agony for some ?
Lastly Roberta, I try to know something by its fruits:
What are the personal fruits of a Heaven and Hell, salvation or damnation belief system ?
I know that by believing this once I doubted myself, I didn’t accept myself as I am, I felt under confident that God loves/saves me and this left me feeling coldly judged and distant from my Divine source.
What are the personal fruits of an approach to Oneness via growth to perfect Love belief system ?
Well, I feel my mistakes are forgiven, I am loved for who I am and I’m an eternal being who already has a home in a shining Afterlife. And I will, in fullness, return to Source.
To to know these systems by their fruits leads me to see that the system involving Hell, guilt, separation and cold judgment is bad fruit indeed. Rotten fruit. It just leaves you feeling inadequate, powerless and guilty.
Only in the system of loving Oneness, in the fullness of Divine timing, can fruits grow and ripen beautifully.
❣️🙏🏼🌅
Dear Efrem! You have in fact posted at once about the twists of the comments AND the original post. For it is in our view of reward vs punishment for our lived life that our faith most betrays us. The Christian/modern Western view is indeed a cultural artifact that we ought to have outgrown. Yet we’re stuck on it. There can be no hell as such. Because there is no “place” after we end this experience we perceive as incarnation. There is only mind. Our minds, God’s Mind. There can in fact be a state of mind that is hell-ish based on how we feel about how we did. But this would be a very unique and personal experience for each individual. And certainly we know we cannot be abandoned there because our guides’ jobs are not finished until we’re safely home from our incaranate experience (that last sentence is interjected straight from Etonah just now!).
Hey Mike, That’s true isn’t it ? ! I did somehow manage to talk about both the comments and the original post (by pure chance, not by design…). Your point about there really being only Mind is a telling one. In the light of this truth, the ‘place called hell’ looks pretty foolish and superstitious. And I’m comforted by Etonah’s added sentence; our guides wouldn’t let us get lost on the way home, after helping us our whole lives. This is an important point actually. I think I’ll just relax in the trust of Love Eternal.
Dear Efrem, this is beautifully said! And your “hell” clearly is the Outer Darkness, which is the only negative region of the afterlife of which the dead apparently are aware. It is quite bad, true, but as the sign on the stopper said, if you live in love you will never come near it!
The whole nonsensical “Christian” crusade against homosexuality comes from the same place in the Old Testament that insists that we stone to death our rebellious sons and our daughters who come to their marriages not virgin. That those who call themselves Christians feel free to pick and choose and then to rigorously apply rules against those who are wired differently in terms of sexual attraction while they give themselves passes where stoning their children is concerned is really all you need to know about that deeply misguided old-time religion!
I’m sure I have said this before, but there is some Gospel evidence that Jesus Himself might have been a homosexual man. All observant Jewish males of His day married young, so either He was married or He was emphatically opposed to marrying a woman: professed Christians can take their pick! And John was “the disciple that Jesus loved”; the one who reclined beside Him at table and leaned back against His chest to ask Him a question; the one He gave to His mother from the cross to be her son. See, e.g.: “There was reclining on Jesus’s bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved” (JN 13:23); “Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; the one who also had leaned back on His bosom at the supper and said, ‘Lord, who is the one who betrays You?’”JN 21:20); “When Jesus then saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!'” (JN 19:26).
I realized as early as college that the Lord had likely been gay, and no one ever has been able to show me otherwise. If Christianity as it has developed had not been to this day so adamantly homophobic, I think most people would assume today that He and John were lovers. And that would not matter to a single soul!
Thank you Roberta, your reply is amazing; what you say about Jesus is true and valid. Rabbis were supposed to be married early. That does leave open the distinct possibility that an unmarried Jesus (should this have been the case) could well have loved John in that special way…
Also, I’m aghast at some of the stuff in the Old Testament! People say it was okay ‘in its time’ but we don’t inflict those horrible punishments now. But heck! How can stoning a non virgin daughter be right ANY time?!
Incidentally, I was given the ‘bottle’ image of ‘hell’ before I knew about the nature of the Outer Darkness. (IE: Before I’d heard of your good self.) So I’m delighted that my image dovetails with the Greater Reality. Thanks for your help with all that. I love the confirmations on the path to discovery !
❣️🙏🏼🌅
Dear Efrem, this sense of delving ever deeper into what are really gigantic truths is indeed a wonderful thing! The cobwebs are melting and the light is dawning, and it begins to feel now as if the light of truth is beginning to dawn over all the earth. It really is not our doing at all, but rather we are privileged to be in bodies and of service at this crucial time. I only wish that everyone could share in this glorious sense of being of some small service to these greatest, most important truths of all!
For me personally, too, the fact that we all are sharing in helping to enlighten one another is the source of the deepest happiness. There really is nothing that could be more joyous, and I am so grateful to you, and to everyone here!
Efrem: What a profound vision you had of hell! You actually saw the writing on the seal about love being the answer? Your vision makes a lot more sense than the ones that have gone viral on the internet. Any hellish environment certainly would be a place of sadness and regret, but you saw no demons. It makes you wonder why demons don’t suffer from the heat and misery of such a place. Do they wear flame retardant suits LOL? You also mentioned psychosis, and I think in at least some of these cases, that it could play a big role. The bottom line is that sending anyone into eternal misery would serve no real purpose, since it is not a corrective approach, and it would only result in the sadistic satisfaction of knowing that people are being tortured rather than learning from past mistakes
As far as being gay is concerned, read the account of Jonathan Hunter, a young gay man, who accidentally overdosed. He was totally not expected to live at all. His vital signs were virtually gone, but he experienced love and acceptance (much to his surprise) and there was no fiery hell involved. He comes across as very credible and honest, so I doubt if he is making things up.
Hi Lola, Do demons wear flame retardant suits? I love it ! 😄 What a thought !!
Actually I was glad that you brought up the dark NDEs and the hellfire stuff. This made for interesting blog entries on what is the real nature of the actual Afterlife. Also what is the nature of Love. I agree with you that sending someone to hell is in no way corrective approach, let alone loving !!
And thanks Lola, I’ll check out Jonathan Hunter’s experience. 👍