RE: A Muslim, a Jew, a Christian, and an atheist walk into a coffee shop...
November 2, 2016 at 2:22 pm
I'm glad I was able to explain it in a way that made sense. It took a while for me to understand it as well, and I still feel like a lot of your average, everyday Catholics don't quite understand if fully either. We often hear the simplified versions of this like "if you die in mortal sin you go to Hell" and "you must be a follower of Jesus to enter the Kingdom of Heaven"... and that's a real shame. It takes some digging deeper to put all the pieces together and understand that it is far from as simplistic as it seems. God is so much bigger than that, and humans are so much more complex than that. That's why the Church stresses that we must never judge the fate of a person's soul, with the exception of canonized saints who we fully believe are in Heaven. But as far as Hell goes, we have no idea who is there and neither can we assume to know. Even if they are Hitler, we can't make the claim that they are in Hell.
"Of course, everyone will claim they respect someone who tries to speak the truth, but in reality, this is a rare quality. Most respect those who speak truths they agree with, and their respect for the speaking only extends as far as their realm of personal agreement. It is less common, almost to the point of becoming a saintly virtue, that someone truly respects and loves the truth seeker, even when their conclusions differ wildly."
-walsh
-walsh
