(January 13, 2014 at 5:51 pm)The Reality Salesman Wrote: ... something occurred to me the other day while talking to my mom. If she believes she is following the correct criteria required for admittance into heaven, and she also recognizes that I am certainly NOT. Worse still, I have persuaded others to abandon their faith. If there’s a hell, there is certainly a special section reserved for the likes of me. Anyway, I realized that my mom’s belief that she’s going to heaven coinciding with her belief that I am most certainly not, implies that my mom believes I am going to be tortured for eternity, and she’s okay with that idea! Holy shit! That, or she’s never considered it, and perhaps is trying her best not to think about it. ...
Almost certainly the latter. When I was a devout Christian, I did not think much about hell. When the thought was forced upon me, I believed that the only inhabitants were really evil people like Hitler. (No Godwin's law back then!
) If I got theological, I solaced myself with Origen's heretical universalism, that Christ's sacrifice would ultimately redeem "the whole of creation."
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people — House
