I answered and I'm a Christian. i can't speak for us all obviously just myself.
Printable View
I answered and I'm a Christian. i can't speak for us all obviously just myself.
So your answer, Cassandra, is that you wouldn't be happy in heaven, isn't it? Or did I miss something?
I would be happy in heaven but I would be sad fort hose in Hell, again hard to explain, it's like when someone dies and you're sad their dead but you're happy their in heaven. Have you read the first part of inferno where Virgil says he pities those in hell and where beatrice pities Dante although she's in heaven she is sad for him. Maybe once you're in heaven things change though, I don't know. God's in heaven and he feels sad for us often.
Cassandra,
Don't you think that makes Heaven sound a little bit like Earth?
A little although you're closer to God. Nobody knows what heaven is so it's impossible to say what it is like other than God is there. Earth has some pretty great things as well you know, I don't think that we lose ourselves in heaven, maybe it just helps us become better, but we should still be essentially us so our sympahies would remain the same, if you were in heaven and didn't care maybe that would mean heaven was not perfect, again thinking on screen. Pity seems to me to be a chief virtue. If you're Christian it's one of the things you believe helped save you, Christ's pity for us.
I'm a girl, Kik. No biggy.
There isn't a definite answer to this. Talking about heaven or hell is always somewhat relative, for obvious reasons. I think that if you go to heaven, you would enjot it, because of its own definition. Everything that makes you happy is there. So, one possible scenario is that while you're being happy, you woulldn't care about anything else (and this has happen to me in the past, when I was involved in relationships mostly). Another possibility would be that you're not conscious of it ("igno rance is bliss", as the saying goes). Yet another explanation could be that you know that people are burning in hell, but you don't resent that, because it's their fair punishment for what they did in life (and I do wish for some people to burn in hell, because that would do the justice that hasn't been served on Earth). Also, maybe some of the people in hell don't resent it either, because they prefer that ("better to rule in hell than serve in heaven", as Lucifer said in Paradise Lost). Enduring torment could be desirable for some (no matter how stupid I find that), and others could manage it if that meant that they could inflict pain on others in the future.Quote:
Originally posted by atiguhya padma
Furthermore, how would you enjoy Heaven, knowing that there are billions of souls suffering endless torture?
I really am serious. I would like to know how you or any other Christian is preparing to enjoy their eternal life with this kind of knowledge.
Please give me an honest answer. I am asking in all sincerity.
Again, it's a very debatable topic, and has a lot of possible answers, this is just my 2 cents.
I know what you mean. As I said I think we would get a chance to believe after death so maybe these are really really eveil people or they did not want to be with God.
Either way I still pity them.
I find this statement incredibly offensive:
<Yet another explanation could be that you know that people are burning in hell, but you don't resent that, because it's their fair punishment for what they did in life (and I do wish for some people to burn in hell, because that would do the justice that hasn't been served on Earth).>
Fayefaye thought I was horrible for comparing the actions of Stalin and Hitler to some of God's actions. Yet the burning of people in Auschwitz, in the act itself, is, as an act, incomparable to eternal burning of a human being. Forever suffering 1st degree burns is fair punishment???? For what? What could possibly deserve this? And this is something you wish for Crisaor!! You are inhuman. Why don't you burn a few people who deserve it here on earth? Why wait til they get to hell. I guess you would have been one of those Christians celebrating at the burning of the witches during the inquisition.
And now what's going to happen? IWilKiku, are you going to castigate me for daring to declare how Crisaor's views disgust me? Or are you going to say that it is permissable for someone to profess their desire that people suffer the pains of melting flesh without end?
You are unbelievable Crisaor. Just unbelievable. This is why I find it so difficult to respect all beliefs. Because some people, like you, harbour the most dark and atrocious desires. I can have no faith in a profession of belief that can engender this kind of inhumanity.
Not critising either's views but isn't inhumanity is often because of the person not the belief system.
Cassandra,
My last statement was made with regard to Crisaor's personal belief, not with regard to Christianity in general. Although I can quite understand how it could be seen otherwise.
I have not yet found a Christian belief system that I could agree with or respect enough to adopt. I find more negatives in Christian thought than would suit my personal beliefs. Likewise, I see no reason to raise Christian belief above any other religious belief. Atheism, for me, is the most honest of beliefs about religion.
For now, I will have to disconnect from this site, as the night is drawing on.
Atiguhya Padma
I've heard the observation before from protestants that, in accordance with biblical creed, hitler himself might be in heaven.
though, I'm convinced he was an atheist (at best), I still think it's really awful that someone like him could make it to heaven while a jew or a muslim couldn't. morally, I just can't accept that.
went over this 'hell' thing before.Quote:
Originally posted by atiguhya padma
Fayefaye thought I was horrible for comparing the actions of Stalin and Hitler to some of God's actions. Yet the burning of people in Auschwitz, in the act itself, is, as an act, incomparable to eternal burning of a human being. Forever suffering 1st degree burns is fair punishment???? For what? What could possibly deserve this?
Today I had a terrible today. Tomorrow will be better. I don't know that to be true, but I believe it. that is what I mean by a belief in the greater good. Believing in a better tomorrow, or that people in the world are basically good, that there is a God looking out for us. A meaning to life. A meaning for me to get out of bed tomorrow rather than curl up into the foetal position and die.Quote:
Originally posted by atiguhya padma
[B]greater meaning? greater good?
Faith, love, hope is a reference to a part of Corinthians. 'These three remain, faith, love hope. But the greatest of these is love' Something like that. If you're held together by sex, power and ego you gotta be a pretty screwed up person.Quote:
I would say you have missed some essential elements that hold us together in your list. Try sex, power, ego, knowledge. These things hold us together too you know. Or do you consider them less worthy than love, faith, hope (btw this little list of yours does sound so Pauline, and old hat, sorry IWilKikU, but it does!).