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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32319 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023

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Part of the joy and sorrow of Heaven I anticipate is having no illusions.

This means I will remember the full depths of the public and secret sins I’ve been saved from by Jesus’ sacrifice. I will be made aware of the kinds of sins I would have committed if I hadn’t been sealed by the Holy Spirit and motivated by love instead of spite or greed. I will be left knowing just how righteous God would have been to condemn me away from His presence for eternity.

With no illusions, I will also be able to see the righteousness of the condemnation of all who chose to reject the Way of love-for-all and the damage they willingly cause wherever they may be. If one of the dwellers in misery is a close relative or even a lover, I will mourn them, but I will be disgusted by the depths of the evil they chose and agree they deserve their fate, just as I would have.

This all assumes the particular variant of Christianity I’ve been taught is theologically and cosmologically accurate. I’d like to be pleasantly surprised that all humans throughout history have ended up accepting Jesus’ forgiveness either before or after their death, and Hell ends up holding only the demonic angels who rebelled. I pray nightly that all will have ended up saved. But having watched both Sound of Freedom and the documentary Anne Frank Remembered this month, I don’t have hopes quite that high.

That idea is just alien to me. I couldn’t imagine my sweet daughters suffering in hell and me just saying “yep infinite torment is justified for being born and not choosing to believe in a particular religion with all human frailties.”

CS Lewis (along with many others) does have a solution which is that hell is proverbially locked from the inside. You seem to hint at it as well (ie maybe one can be saved after death). But are we really to believe that it is just to suffer eternally for not accepting a gift that was unclear if true, especially when there are many other religions with their own afterlife? Sorry you picked wrong eternal damnation. I can’t reconcile that with (1) a loving god and (2) a place where I could be happy. The Lewis solution seems at least palatable to me but being raised Protestant sola scriptura still has a heavy pull on me.

I'm not clear on how this differs from "I could be happy in Heaven despite knowing there are people in Hell because my mind would be rewritten to consider this justice". A divine entity reshaping you like that could make you think of anything as justice. How would you tell the difference between this, and the Hypothetical Reverse God who condemns all Christians making you think you perfectly deserve misery?

...Also, I can't help but notice that this whole "without these specific rituals and beliefs, you suffer forever" business feels a lot more like an idea maximising pressure to spread it than the kind of thing you'd expect from the Almighty. It seems very petty, very suspiciously human, for an entity with the majesty and sheer greatness of God to hold that kind of a grudge.

Who am I to teach God mercy? Well, I don't have a torture-dimension for my enemies, so I have that going for me. I sort of feel like the Almighty should be able to outdo me here, rather than the opposite.

The only necessary belief is that God counts Jesus’ death as fulfilling my death penalty for the harm I’ve caused.

The only necessary “ritual” is that I do not “blaspheme the Holy Spirit.”

The eternal suffering comes from being imprisoned away from the source of all goodness and kindness with all the other hateful people, and malicious powerful spiritual entities imprisoned too.

Boy, all those people with the thick book and the huge churches must be really wasting their time, then.

Necessary is the bare minimum to escape condemnation. It defies belief that you can have misunderstood this when user rolfmoo was talking about the many specific rituals and beliefs he thinks one must hold to enter Heaven and escape fiery damnation. The thick book, huge buildings, many rituals, and ancillary beliefs all serve the minimums, but have additional purposes.

just as I would have

Just as you do. Christianity is not salvation by being sufficiently good enough, but is by the mercy of God in forgiving our sins.

Thanks! Clarification: …but I will be disgusted by the depths of the evil they chose and agree they deserve their fate, a fate I would have shared were it not for grace.

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