I left Christianity as an adolescent because when I ask simple questions, there were no answers (other than the stock, "We don't know of all of God's reasons or plans...").
The one question that always flummoxed them was, "When I die and go to Heaven, I will be happy, correct? But how can I be happy if not all of my loved ones are there? …
I left Christianity as an adolescent because when I ask simple questions, there were no answers (other than the stock, "We don't know of all of God's reasons or plans...").
The one question that always flummoxed them was, "When I die and go to Heaven, I will be happy, correct? But how can I be happy if not all of my loved ones are there? And if they are not here, then they must be living in agony forever in the fires of Hell! So how can I possibly be happy in Heaven?"
And another. "If you say man (and myself) are created in the image of God, then how can God allow souls to suffer forever in the pits of Hell? I would not - and I would tell that to God himself."
And there are many more unanswered questions. Hence, I have been led to Deism. My thoughts are that there is indeed a higher, more benevolent force. But one that we cannot understand, though one day, we might. That is my hope at least...
These are great questions, and I honor you for bringing them up. I have the same questions. C.S. Lewis, arguably the 20th century's greatest Christian Apologist, said that these are the most difficult questions to answer.
How can a "loving God" allow suffering. There are not good answers that I have encountered. Not satisfying answers. In order to deal with my own issues which include a low attachment to life and lots of nightmares and flashback from childhood trauma, I've had to embrace that idea that for me, life is supposed to be difficult. I don't know any sane person would would disagree that living ain't easy. That premise is what I hold onto. It is a tenet of faith for me. Once I land there, everything else takes on a different appearance.
There are no answers palatable to contemporary humans in an increasingly post-religious, materialistic society, who look to their time in this world for only comfort, security, pleasure, absence of pain and loss. That is, life in this world is exclusively suffering. Ask anyone who has truly loved another and has suffered the grief of that person's passing, like a crushing weight on your chest in bed late in a sleepless night. How can that be forgotten or made OK? This is our state because Satan is the prince of THIS world, served by his host of demons, and Almighty God gives him permission to put us to the test.
Has allowed us to be tested BECAUSE He endowed us with free will, perhaps the greatest endowment that He blessed our species with. We are not solely dependent on instinct, we can choose ... to live the Golden Rule or to do and say things even when we know they are wrong. I should know :) :)
I wonder if wider acceptance is in offing. I wonder why you think so. I guess the future will reveal this.
Love and Suffering do go together as you said. Sometimes, I think poetry is the best way to understand that which confuses us. Leonard Cohen "I've seen your flag on the marble arch, love is not a victory march, It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah" speaks to me about this.
Greetings Angus! I don't think so ... I believe so, as I believe in the apocalypse, the return of Christ the King, and His Final Judgement. Believe because the Gospels have told me so, and also told me the road between today and when those events take place ... is not going to be pretty. So bad, by human standards, that some will be ready to believe in ANYTHING that can provide relief. Also not an answer that's gonna win me any popularity prizes, I guess. Oh well :) Can't win em all!
I was raised in an immigrant Irish Catholic household. My mother was very , very devout, relying on prayer and devotion to hold her family together in the new country with an alcoholic husband tavern owner. When I was very young, maybe four, a stray kitten came to the back porch and my mother allowed me to offer it a saucer of milk. I was completely thrilled to see it respond by feeding, and I immediately fell in love and pleaded to be allowed to keep the kitty. That night, when I was put to bed, I couldn’t get to sleep. I started to contemplate a black void of emptiness and think about the terror involved with the ideas about hell I had been taught. I tried to console myself with the ideas I had been taught about heaven, that if I could just qualify to get there after death, all suffering would be obviated, all the horrible separations of deaths and crippling would be healed— but suddenly I remembered there was a catch. Animals, I had been taught, did not have souls and therefore could not go to heaven! I realized that this Catholic doctrine, which my mother seemed to find so consoling, did not console me at all! It horrified me that my little kitty could not come to heaven with me. I started to cry with fear and sorrow, realizing that I could never find this vision as an acceptable consolation like the adults around me.
Animals, I had been taught, did not have “souls” and therefore they were not eligible to come to Heaven. I could not feel at all consoled by this vision. To my horror, all my mentors seemed to find this vision perfectly acceptable, and I realized that I was not like them. I could not accept their “solution.” My heart prevented me from it. I cried. My mother heard me, came in to my bedside, and brought me out to the sofa, and made me some hot chocolate. I fell asleep! So much for the great questions that night!
"Man and animal -- both formed on the same day from the earth, both sensate, living beings with souls, both capable of pleasure and suffering. Man and animal, of the same genus -- but of different species. What is it that separates us? According to St. Thomas Aquinas, it is (as he explains) in his Summa Theologica.
I was recounting a story from childhood, when I was being “informed” by what “adults” around me were telling me to “believe.” I have long ago stopped listening to secondary “sources” and made my own direct investigations into these matters. No interest in your “appeals to authority” because I don’t buy into the dogma games.
If all shall be saved, I will have to start looking for a different final destination than the one I hope to reach, because there are creatures I do not want to be near. Search this page and read about an Australian man named Peter Scully: https://www.fisheaters.com/praeternaturalworld4.html But do take the warning in red font seriously. You might be better off to surf elsewhere. I have lived in this world for quite a long time, and it is the most horrifying thing I have ever heard about. Wish I did not know of it and cannot unknow it. And if you don't trust the website of the devout Catholic woman who runs it, and think she made it up to frighten people into going to church :) :), just google Peter Scully.
I certainly find nothing that is wrong, cruel or contrary to Christ's message if that man suffers for all of eternity. Only a human being fully owned by Satan could do what he did. People who seem to think Jesus is all puppies and fuzzy "everyone and EVERYTHING" is forgiven ... they might want to crack open the Holy Bible.
But in fact, some believe eternal damnation in hell is not unpleasant for people like Scully, that they may receive something like a paradoxical gift ... because they are in their element and in the company of others just like them. Right where they belong and feel at home. I personally prefer not to occupy myself with such musings, because I have unshakeable faith that God has everything well under control.
Pope Francis seems to think "everyone, everyone, everyone" should go to heaven ... but many are coming to the conclusion that he is not even a believer, like a number of popes down through the centuries, who might be waiting for Peter Scully in his final home.
In the Catholic faith, the only sin that cannot be forgiven is what is called "a sin against the Holy Spirit". Took me awhile to find out what that exactly meant. Any good Catholic priest can tell you that you can sin against Jesus himself, do the most awful blasphemous stuff, lead a spectacularly sinful life. And you CAN be forgiven and reach heaven, after a stayover in purgatory, where you can be "purged" of your sins and cleansed, through genuine, heartfelt remorse. People can pray for those in purgatory and help speed the process. What will NOT be forgiven, the only thing unforgiveable, is loving your sins, no matter how horrible, enjoying such a life, and if you were offered an opportunity for redemption, you would turn it down. Out of an insatiable desire to do evil. In other words, if you have become demonic.
I left Christianity as an adolescent because when I ask simple questions, there were no answers (other than the stock, "We don't know of all of God's reasons or plans...").
The one question that always flummoxed them was, "When I die and go to Heaven, I will be happy, correct? But how can I be happy if not all of my loved ones are there? And if they are not here, then they must be living in agony forever in the fires of Hell! So how can I possibly be happy in Heaven?"
And another. "If you say man (and myself) are created in the image of God, then how can God allow souls to suffer forever in the pits of Hell? I would not - and I would tell that to God himself."
And there are many more unanswered questions. Hence, I have been led to Deism. My thoughts are that there is indeed a higher, more benevolent force. But one that we cannot understand, though one day, we might. That is my hope at least...
These are great questions, and I honor you for bringing them up. I have the same questions. C.S. Lewis, arguably the 20th century's greatest Christian Apologist, said that these are the most difficult questions to answer.
How can a "loving God" allow suffering. There are not good answers that I have encountered. Not satisfying answers. In order to deal with my own issues which include a low attachment to life and lots of nightmares and flashback from childhood trauma, I've had to embrace that idea that for me, life is supposed to be difficult. I don't know any sane person would would disagree that living ain't easy. That premise is what I hold onto. It is a tenet of faith for me. Once I land there, everything else takes on a different appearance.
There are no answers palatable to contemporary humans in an increasingly post-religious, materialistic society, who look to their time in this world for only comfort, security, pleasure, absence of pain and loss. That is, life in this world is exclusively suffering. Ask anyone who has truly loved another and has suffered the grief of that person's passing, like a crushing weight on your chest in bed late in a sleepless night. How can that be forgotten or made OK? This is our state because Satan is the prince of THIS world, served by his host of demons, and Almighty God gives him permission to put us to the test.
Has allowed us to be tested BECAUSE He endowed us with free will, perhaps the greatest endowment that He blessed our species with. We are not solely dependent on instinct, we can choose ... to live the Golden Rule or to do and say things even when we know they are wrong. I should know :) :)
Not exactly an answer currently in vogue, I understand :) But it is going to become more widely accepted soon.
I wonder if wider acceptance is in offing. I wonder why you think so. I guess the future will reveal this.
Love and Suffering do go together as you said. Sometimes, I think poetry is the best way to understand that which confuses us. Leonard Cohen "I've seen your flag on the marble arch, love is not a victory march, It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah" speaks to me about this.
Greetings Angus! I don't think so ... I believe so, as I believe in the apocalypse, the return of Christ the King, and His Final Judgement. Believe because the Gospels have told me so, and also told me the road between today and when those events take place ... is not going to be pretty. So bad, by human standards, that some will be ready to believe in ANYTHING that can provide relief. Also not an answer that's gonna win me any popularity prizes, I guess. Oh well :) Can't win em all!
I was raised in an immigrant Irish Catholic household. My mother was very , very devout, relying on prayer and devotion to hold her family together in the new country with an alcoholic husband tavern owner. When I was very young, maybe four, a stray kitten came to the back porch and my mother allowed me to offer it a saucer of milk. I was completely thrilled to see it respond by feeding, and I immediately fell in love and pleaded to be allowed to keep the kitty. That night, when I was put to bed, I couldn’t get to sleep. I started to contemplate a black void of emptiness and think about the terror involved with the ideas about hell I had been taught. I tried to console myself with the ideas I had been taught about heaven, that if I could just qualify to get there after death, all suffering would be obviated, all the horrible separations of deaths and crippling would be healed— but suddenly I remembered there was a catch. Animals, I had been taught, did not have souls and therefore could not go to heaven! I realized that this Catholic doctrine, which my mother seemed to find so consoling, did not console me at all! It horrified me that my little kitty could not come to heaven with me. I started to cry with fear and sorrow, realizing that I could never find this vision as an acceptable consolation like the adults around me.
Continued:
Animals, I had been taught, did not have “souls” and therefore they were not eligible to come to Heaven. I could not feel at all consoled by this vision. To my horror, all my mentors seemed to find this vision perfectly acceptable, and I realized that I was not like them. I could not accept their “solution.” My heart prevented me from it. I cried. My mother heard me, came in to my bedside, and brought me out to the sofa, and made me some hot chocolate. I fell asleep! So much for the great questions that night!
You might want to dig deeper into what you were taught about animals and their souls, Mr. Kennedy. https://www.fisheaters.com/animals.html
"Man and animal -- both formed on the same day from the earth, both sensate, living beings with souls, both capable of pleasure and suffering. Man and animal, of the same genus -- but of different species. What is it that separates us? According to St. Thomas Aquinas, it is (as he explains) in his Summa Theologica.
I was recounting a story from childhood, when I was being “informed” by what “adults” around me were telling me to “believe.” I have long ago stopped listening to secondary “sources” and made my own direct investigations into these matters. No interest in your “appeals to authority” because I don’t buy into the dogma games.
We cannot with our small minds understand everything, or comprehend God’s massive love or divine justice.
Those in heaven have made a choice to be open to love and be loved. They are satisfied with God’s justice.
Imagine being in the union of God and man (heaven). You’d want to be sinless, spotless as God is perfect.
Now imagine being in the state of refusing love, being mired in pettiness and evil. That is contradictory to heaven and God.
Imagine being at a wedding covered in filth. Justice is being allowed to flee from that humiliation.
Hell is a mercy for those who reject (the brightness and intensity of ) God’s love.
Christianity 101: God's ways are not our ways. If they were, this world would not be decaying like a rotting corpse.
The Book of Job
Good questions and the first one forms part of the argument against eternal hell in the book That All Shall be Saved by David Bentley Hart
If all shall be saved, I will have to start looking for a different final destination than the one I hope to reach, because there are creatures I do not want to be near. Search this page and read about an Australian man named Peter Scully: https://www.fisheaters.com/praeternaturalworld4.html But do take the warning in red font seriously. You might be better off to surf elsewhere. I have lived in this world for quite a long time, and it is the most horrifying thing I have ever heard about. Wish I did not know of it and cannot unknow it. And if you don't trust the website of the devout Catholic woman who runs it, and think she made it up to frighten people into going to church :) :), just google Peter Scully.
I certainly find nothing that is wrong, cruel or contrary to Christ's message if that man suffers for all of eternity. Only a human being fully owned by Satan could do what he did. People who seem to think Jesus is all puppies and fuzzy "everyone and EVERYTHING" is forgiven ... they might want to crack open the Holy Bible.
But in fact, some believe eternal damnation in hell is not unpleasant for people like Scully, that they may receive something like a paradoxical gift ... because they are in their element and in the company of others just like them. Right where they belong and feel at home. I personally prefer not to occupy myself with such musings, because I have unshakeable faith that God has everything well under control.
Pope Francis seems to think "everyone, everyone, everyone" should go to heaven ... but many are coming to the conclusion that he is not even a believer, like a number of popes down through the centuries, who might be waiting for Peter Scully in his final home.
In the Catholic faith, the only sin that cannot be forgiven is what is called "a sin against the Holy Spirit". Took me awhile to find out what that exactly meant. Any good Catholic priest can tell you that you can sin against Jesus himself, do the most awful blasphemous stuff, lead a spectacularly sinful life. And you CAN be forgiven and reach heaven, after a stayover in purgatory, where you can be "purged" of your sins and cleansed, through genuine, heartfelt remorse. People can pray for those in purgatory and help speed the process. What will NOT be forgiven, the only thing unforgiveable, is loving your sins, no matter how horrible, enjoying such a life, and if you were offered an opportunity for redemption, you would turn it down. Out of an insatiable desire to do evil. In other words, if you have become demonic.