(May 10, 2012 at 3:41 am)Welsh cake Wrote: Well that's very un-Christian of you. You're not supposed to find the damnation of another amusing. According to you your god's not laughing, so why are you? Acknowledge the point please. If the sinner -utterly hates- god hell cannot function properly as a place or state of punishment as you claim. They'd hate co-existing with god much more than separation from him correct? Heaven on the other hand, surrounded by the god they detest, and forced to sing songs of praise, would be the rebellious soul's worst nightmare.
You haven't grasped the concept of punishment at all have you? Do you spite yourself with chocolate whenever you wrong someone?
Interestingly enough, you just described the Eastern conception of Hell.
In the West (Catholicism and the protestant denominations which split off), Hell is the absence of God, love himself. Wicked people reject God, and suffering is a result of that.
In the East (mostly the Orthodox churches), it is impossible to ever be in the "absence of God". Everyone is in the presence of God, but what can be more terrible to someone who has rejected goodness than to be in the presence of all goodness?
(Not that "rejected" does not necessarily imply "does not believe in")
I think both conceptions of Hell are interesting and worth contemplation.
Also I don't think he's laughing at damnation, just laughing at atheists who try to say that Hell is unjust and then turn around and say that Hell is a "party"!
Mary Immaculate, star of the morning
Chosen before the creation began
Chosen to bring for your bridal adorning
Woe to the serpent and rescue to man.
Sinners, we honor your sinless perfection;
Fallen and weak, for your pity we plead;
Grand us the shield of your sovereign protection,
Measure your aid by the depth of our need.
Bend from your throne at the voice of our crying,
Bend to this earth which your footsteps have trod;
Stretch out your arms to us, living and dying,
Mary Immaculate, Mother of God.
Chosen before the creation began
Chosen to bring for your bridal adorning
Woe to the serpent and rescue to man.
Sinners, we honor your sinless perfection;
Fallen and weak, for your pity we plead;
Grand us the shield of your sovereign protection,
Measure your aid by the depth of our need.
Bend from your throne at the voice of our crying,
Bend to this earth which your footsteps have trod;
Stretch out your arms to us, living and dying,
Mary Immaculate, Mother of God.
