At What Point?

[Cypress]

I asked my mom something very similar when I was 9 or 10. She was a very devout Christian as well as a Sunday school teacher. Her answer is why I walked away and found a different path.

The fire and brimstone approach is baloney.

I have heard different Christian perspectives.

The fire and brimstone one about torment in hell is the least appealing. Although a part of me likes the idea of punishment and justice for mass murderers and ruthless dictators.

Then there is the perspective that hell is not a physical place, it just represents separation from any communion with god. It is just annihilation and cessation of any existence.

There's a minority view that other kinds of religious and spiritual commitment can lead to a type of spiritual liberation

 

[Kafka]

The fire and brimstone approach is baloney.

I have heard different Christian perspectives.

The fire and brimstone one about torment in hell is the least appealing. Although a part of me likes the idea of punishment and justice for mass murderers and ruthless dictators.

Then there is the perspective that hell is not a physical place, it just represents separation from any communion with god. It is just annihilation and cessation of any existence.

There's a minority view that other kinds of religious and spiritual commitment can lead to a type of spiritual liberation

Have you read Ehrman's book "Heaven and Hell"? Good read.

 

[Mason 22]

It's hard to believe that Jerry Fallwell Jr. and Majorie Taylor Green get to go to paradise, while Ghandi and the Dali Lama are going to be roasted in hell.

Lets see how it plays out! Remember Jesus said
"Many come in my name but they aren't mine"

 

[Cypress]

Have you read Ehrman's book "Heaven and Hell"? Good read.

No, I have not read it.

 

[Cypress]

Lets see how it plays out! Remember Jesus said
"Many come in my name but they aren't mine"

If Jerry Falwell Jr. gets into paradise and the Dali Lama doesn't, this game is rigged.

 

[Kafka]

No, I have not read it.

It's a good read. Highly recommend. Goes into a lot of how the Greeks' influence helped develop the afterlife concept for the nascent off-shoot sect of the Jews.

 

[Mason 22]

If Jerry Falwell Jr. gets into paradise and the Dali Lama doesn't, this game is rigged.

"If"!Organized religion is confusing your mind! YHWH knows what he's doing, it will all come out perfectly in the end!

 

[Kafka]

If Jerry Falwell Jr. gets into paradise and the Dali Lama doesn't, this game is rigged.

That might require a wholesale re-write of the rules of the game.

Basically Jerry and the Dalai Lama are playing two completely different sports. A "goal" in Jerry's game is not necessarily a "goal" in Dalai Lama's game.

 

[Kafka]

"If"!Organized religion is confusing your mind! YHWH knows what he's doing, it will all come out perfectly in the end!

But wouldn't it be BETTER if Jahweh were to communicate to everyone NOW so that they don't wind up killing each other over something Yahweh's going to straighten out in the end?

There's a lot of people throughout our entire human history who have mercilessly slaughtered each other over competing versions of religion.

Presumably if God is real and if God is a "personal" God in that he cares about the individual, then why let millennia of humans kill each other over religion?