(January 1, 2017 at 7:14 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: If that one action was done with a fully deliberate intent on turning away from God with no remorse for doing so, then I don't see why it matters if it happens once or a million times. "Hell" is the state of being of a person who separated themselves from God (or from goodness and love) by their own accord. If a person does not want to be with God, if that person rejects goodness and love, then they don't have to be with God if they don't want to be. That is Hell. It's the ultimate free will.
Also, the way you are talking about God, you don't sound like someone who genuinely doesn't believe he exists. You sound like someone who got so caught up in ocd/scruples, that you feel your only escape is to shut the whole thing off. Sorry if I'm wrong, and correct me if I am. But that's just what it is coming off as to me. It seems very emotional.
CT, This is not what the Catholic Church has taught, speaking, of course, from a strictly historical perspective:
Quote:693 [ De novissimis] * It has likewise defined, that, if those truly penitent have departed in the love of God, before they have made satisfaction by the worthy fruits of penance for sins of commission and omission, the souls of these are cleansed after death by purgatorial punishments; and so that they may be released from punishments of this kind, the suffrages of the living faithful are of advantage to them, namely, the sacrifices of Masses, prayers, and almsgiving, and other works of piety, which are customarily performed by the faithful for other faithful according to the institutions of the Church. And that the souls of those, who after the reception of baptism have incurred no stain of sin at all, and also those, who after the contraction of the stain of sin whether in their bodies, or when released from the same bodies, as we have said before, are purged, are immediately received into heaven, and see clearly the one and triune God Himself just as He is, yet according to the diversity of merits, one more perfectly than another. Moreover, the souls of those who depart in actual mortal sin or in original sin only, descend immediately into hell but to undergo punishments of different kinds [see n.464].
This is why the Church taught that infants who perish without sacramental Baptism go to the Limbo of the Children, which is, basically, the highest level of Hell. Read Dante's Inferno for more details.
You are, of course, free to make things up as you go along; religion is very good at doing that!
