I see that a lot of people really hate the idea of a God who would cast them into eternal hell fire for looking at porn or something akin, and supposedly He loves us so much and all this business. So I thought I would post my vision of the next life.

What I am not curious to hear is what I'm sure will be posted on here 1000 times, and that is fucking shit ass fuck fuck I hate this I hate that blah blah. Please do not pollute my thread with your nonsense. If you want to comment with a level head, and to say something that you are convicted about, like say how God appears evil to you etc., then do so with respect please! I will try to do the same. I know I can be an ass from time to time too, but I try. Please forgive me.

Anyway, I believe when one dies he does not perish, in the sense of disappear or something akin. Everyone passes into God's love. In fact, we are all already in the presence of God's love even now. When one passes his soul is judged by God, as to the content of its hate.

If one is void of hate, one passes into heaven, which is in fact only a more pure presence of God's love, in which one is able to more fully participate in God's love by returning His love with love.

When one passes and has some measure of hate within, but not to such a degree as to consume the soul, this one passes into purgatory, which is similar to Earth, in the sense that one is still in the presence of God's love but one does not have a completely proper relationship to the fire that is God's love. Anyone is purgatory will go to heaven, God has foreseen this, it will happen. While in purgatory you pay for your sins on Earth, that you had not already paid for on Earth, and along the way you learn more fully what it means to be loved by God, and in return to love God.

One who passes from this life and who is consumed with hate will go to hell, which, you guessed it!, is the presence of God's love. Now what has happened is that God has foreseen that this person will never under any circumstance whatsoever, short of God destroying the person's very personness, that is changing the person to such a degree that they become another person altogether, love God. Now God remember still loves them, the difference between them and those in heaven is that they return God's love with hate. This hate is very painful. It is a self-inflicted torment caused by something akin to an extreme pride, and jealousy of sorts.

Therefore, Hell is not God's hate on a person; it is God's love which is returned with hate. God would do anything short of changing a person's nature to bring them into heaven. My entire approach relies upon the mystery of free will, which makes no sense, apart from the fact that we experience it every day. But it is impossible to speculate on, as it makes no sense within the context of a Sovereign God who is omnipotent/omniscient.

I am curious, is there anyone who thinks that if God were real they would eternally hate him, even if it were painful? Also, you Theist's/agnostics what do you think heaven and hell is and why? And finally, you atheists, what do you think about this approach to heaven and hell? Do you hate it, is it nice but obviously false because God isn't real, or something else?

dqualk Wrote:I see that a lot of people really hate the idea of a God who would cast them into eternal hell fire for looking at porn or something akin, and supposedly He loves us so much and all this business. So I thought I would post my vision of the next life.

Looking at porn, putting your genitals into an unapproved human hole, various thought crimes, not submitting yourself to absolute and unquestioning fealty... the list of crimes goes on with some being more ridiculous than others.

dqualk Wrote:Anyway, I believe when one dies he does not perish, in the sense of disappear or something akin. Everyone passes into God's love. In fact, we are all already in the presence of God's love even now. When one passes his soul is judged by God, as to the content of its hate.

If one is void of hate, one passes into heaven, which is in fact only a more pure presence of God's love, in which one is able to more fully participate in God's love by returning His love with love.

That's nice that you believe that, but salvation is stated in the bible to be directly related to accepting Jesus under the interpretation of your local church. It doesn't seem to matter what emotion you're experiencing or how sinful you've been because it clearly matters more whether or not you've accepted Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior.
Given the number of different churches, however, that milage may vary.

dqualk Wrote:Therefore, Hell is not God's hate on a person; it is God's love which is returned with hate. God would do anything short of changing a person's nature to bring them into heaven. My entire approach relies upon the mystery of free will, which makes no sense, apart from the fact that we experience it every day. But it is impossible to speculate on, as it makes no sense within the context of a Sovereign God who is omnipotent/omniscient.

This has already been established. Purgatory is neither heaven nor hell. It is nothing. Hell is the absense of God's love because the Devil himself occupies the lowest level of hell, which is the place furthest from god, where Satan's power is greatest.

dqualk Wrote:I am curious, is there anyone who thinks that if God were real they would eternally hate him, even if it were painful? Also, you Theist's/agnostics what do you think heaven and hell is and why? And finally, you atheists, what do you think about this approach to heaven and hell? Do you hate it, is it nice but obviously false because God isn't real, or something else?

My opinion toward a real-life god would become greatly dependant upon his previous actions toward humanity.
The god of the bible is a jealous, murderous villian. I have no love for such a being because I think no emotion other than disdain would be apprpriate or whatever emotion would be appropriate for a convicted felon or mass murderer.

I think you are delusional.

The Bible says a lot of thing, most of which is analagous, not literal. If purgatory is nothing than Earth is nothing. In my opinion he who truly loves has already accepted Jesus as his Savior. For more information you can look up Anonymous Christianity by Karl Rahner, a great Catholic theologian.

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lol thank you Minimalist.

dqualk Wrote:I see that a lot of people really hate the idea of a God who would cast them into eternal hell fire for looking at porn or something akin, and supposedly He loves us so much and all this business.

I don't hate the idea of God, I just don't find it credible. Well, truth be told your god is not very attractive and I'd prefer watching German porn flicks from the 80s rather than believing in anything you wrote.

Ooh ja, Helga, Ich komme.

No one here hates god, he is a fictional character remember.

One might as well hate the easter bunny or Batman.

What we do hate are the men who use the authority of god to justify their lust to control and dominate others.

Who get people to kill and die in the name of a false belief and yet garner to themselves wealth and luxury whilst exhorting others to poverty and chastity.

The ones who would have you believe that just being alive is a sin and that you need to beg for forgiveness from the very entity who made you that way in the first place.

The ones who claim to have a direct line to god and use that to perpetuate their own hate, bigotry and intolerance.

In short, we hate the hypocritical bastards who call themselves "men of god"

As to god, well there might be an intelligent first cause to the universe, at the moment we can neither comfirm or deny.

But it won't be the petty, insecure, murderous nutjob portrayed in the bible.

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Strappado Wrote:and I'd prefer watching German porn flicks from the 80s rather than believing in anything you wrote.

Ooh ja, Helga, Ich komme.

Isn't that from " Eva Braun does the Nuremburg rally"

dqualk Wrote:The Bible says a lot of thing, most of which is analagous, not literal. If purgatory is nothing than Earth is nothing. In my opinion he who truly loves has already accepted Jesus as his Savior. For more information you can look up Anonymous Christianity by Karl Rahner, a great Catholic theologian.

... and that is your folly.
I didn't accept religion because it's based on lies and fantasy. My capacity to love and be loved is wholly independant of your religion and just as strong as anyone else's.

dqualk Wrote:I am curious, is there anyone who thinks that if God were real they would eternally hate him, even if it were painful? Also, you Theist's/agnostics what do you think heaven and hell is and why? And finally, you atheists, what do you think about this approach to heaven and hell? Do you hate it, is it nice but obviously false because God isn't real, or something else?

I don't know how I'd feel if God were real, but it wouldn't really be up to me. Feelings are not a matter of choice. As for whether I like this approach to heaven and hell, I'm generally indifferent to obvious fantasies, but as obvious fantasies go, I suppose it's better than fire and brimstone.

Zen Badger;114500 Wrote:No one here hates god, he is a fictional character remember.

One might as well hate the easter bunny or Batman.

What we do hate are the men who use the authority of god to justify their lust to control and dominate others.

Who get people to kill and die in the name of a false belief and yet garner to themselves wealth and luxury whilst exhorting others to poverty and chastity.

The ones who would have you believe that just being alive is a sin and that you need to beg for forgiveness from the very entity who made you that way in the first place.

The ones who claim to have a direct line to god and use that to perpetuate their own hate, bigotry and intolerance.

In short, we hate the hypocritical bastards who call themselves "men of god"

As to god, well there might be an intelligent first cause to the universe, at the moment we can neither comfirm or deny.

But it won't be the petty, insecure, murderous nutjob portrayed in the bible.

That is kind of hateful... hating men of God. Well I do not hate you, any case! Also, the Bishops of the Catholic Church, at least for the past 300+ years have lived without any kind of luxury, for the most part, many of which take vows to povery and celibacy, like our dear Pope, who does not have an personal items, besides a few keep sakes, like a watch his sister gave him. Further, Religious (monks and nuns) make true vows to poverty and never own anything, and hardly eat anything. Many never eat meat or drink alcohol. And they work, and all of their work goes to others. Many men of God our heroes, even if you think they are delusional, and if you can't see that I would say you are blinded by hate.

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The Omnissiunt One;114521 Wrote:

dqualk Wrote:I am curious, is there anyone who thinks that if God were real they would eternally hate him, even if it were painful? Also, you Theist's/agnostics what do you think heaven and hell is and why? And finally, you atheists, what do you think about this approach to heaven and hell? Do you hate it, is it nice but obviously false because God isn't real, or something else?

I don't know how I'd feel if God were real, but it wouldn't really be up to me. Feelings are not a matter of choice. As for whether I like this approach to heaven and hell, I'm generally indifferent to obvious fantasies, but as obvious fantasies go, I suppose it's better than fire and brimstone.

Thank you for your honest and charitable answer. In truth I call those my brothers who truly seek the Truth. As I believe the Truth is God, and Jesus tells us that those seek shall find, those who knock the door shall be opened to them, and those who ask will receive. This obviously extends to anyone of any relgion, if they seek the Truth and are charitable then I count them as my brothers and sisters, because I have faith that God's love has made a way for them, I just can't see it.

Therefore I do not worry myself with whether or not people are going to hell unless they are religious (atheist or Theist). (BTW I'm using religion in its negative connotation, as religious can also have a positive meaning) Anyway, here is the story I intended to include in my initial post but forgot but would be most useful at this point:

The Prodigal Son to me is an analogy of heaven and hell. Here's how it goes in my own style, there were two brothers who worked for their loving father. The older one is a hard worker and the younger one was rather wild. When the younger one turned 21 he asked for his share of his father's inheritance. This is most disrespectful for a few reasons, 1) Younger sons do not get inheritance at all except out of the kindness of the master, within this culture, and 2) It’s a sign of disrespect and abandonment to leave your family because in these days it was literally impossible to survive on your own. You needed a family to take care of you when you were sick, as there was no health care; you needed a family to help you pull fruit from the hard ground etc. So it was an ass whole thing to do. But his father knew that he could not convince his son otherwise so he gave him the inheritance.

The younger son went straight way to spend it on boos and babes (obviously ha-ha) after wasting all of his money he was too full of shame to go back to his father so he sought work elsewhere. No one was hiring. He had to travel a long ways and he was finally able to work for a heather pig farmer. It was most disturbing for this man to work for a pig farmer as pigs were unclean and any handling of pigs was a way of abandoning the God of your fathers. But he needed the money and so he abandoned his religion. At this point he has abandoned his family and his religion. He's basically at the bottom of the barrel.

After many long days of very hard and nasty work he decides that working for his father as a servant is far better than working for this man. So he decides to go back and beg for forgiveness and ask that he be able to be a lowly servant in his father's house.

On his way home his father spots him from afar and immediately races after him. He meets him in the field and embraces him and says my son who was dead has come back to life. The prodigal son immediately begins apologizing and asks if he can be a lowly servant, and requests nothing more. His father refuses him and instead puts a ring on his finger (the symbol of inheritance effectively meaning that he has a new inheritance) and sandals on his feel (meaning that the was a free man, as in this society servants did not wear shoes to differentiate them from others).

After this the father calls for his older son and asks him to get the fattened calf as they are going to celebrate the return of his brother. The older brother is infuriated at his father. He says all these years I've worked diligently for you, never asking for anything and doing everything you say. You never once threw me a party or gushed with joy over me like this. The father replies, my son you know that I love you, anything I have is yours and you know it. But his son is so angry that his father has shown mercy on his brother who didn’t deserve it that he refused to enter the party. Instead he remained outside of his own volition.

In the story the father is analogous to God, the older son is analogous to a religious man and the younger son is analogous to us all. The party is analogous to heaven, and being outside the party is analogous to hell (or perhaps purgatory). God is always ready and willing to forgive us, eternally. He loves us eternally. The only people who suffer are those who hate God for his mercy on those who the religion believe do not deserve mercy, or perhaps because the religious people believe that the gift of free will was not worth the suffering endured by many.

So pleasure seekers are typically safe because they live wild until they are hit with some tragedy then they immidiately turn to God. lol I'm sure all of you have seen it in high school or college, the kid that partied like crazy, all of a sudden something happens and he becomes Mr. Righteous, then he falls back into whatever and the cycle starts again. These are probably safe, of course they are not necessarily safe, they are sort of living life on the edge I suppose. The people I would worry for are those who believe they deserve love, and others do not.

dqualk Wrote:The Bible says a lot of thing, most of which is analagous, not literal.

If that's the case, and the Bible is mostly analogy and metaphor, then it can be interpreted in nearly limitless ways. Interpreting a metaphor in the way that is most pleasing to you, then calling your interpretation the truth, is laughable. And you can't pick and choose which parts are literal, and which parts are metaphorical. On what basis could you make such claims anyway? Let's just agree that it's all fiction, with no bearing on the truth, and leave it at that.