Heaven and The Problem of Evil

[Senshi]

Bob Jones the prophet, in his death experience was asked by Jesus-
"Did you learn to love"?
Every person is asked the same question.

Bob Jones is a fraud!
Why ask a question you already know the answer to?

The surrounding presence of the Spirit of God there ensures harmony.

HMMM, why is that needed?

Food is made of light.

Doesn't sound very nutritious.
If I don't eat will I die?

[RobbyPants]

...

My personal view on our experience here on earth is that this realm is a test.
Most of us deTEST tests don't we.

P.S. those running this place are failing the test.

That was a really elaborate description you gave, but you didn't answer some of my initial questions:

• Are we capable of sinning in heaven? Why or why not?
  
• Are we capable of doing evil in heaven? Why or why not?
  
• Does a baby who's barely lived and suffered get to enjoy heaven?
  

In addition to the OP, I have another question based on your response? Why does God need to test us if he can see the future?

[Neo-Scholastic]

If you are looking for extensive details about Heaven you can find them in "Heaven & Hell" by Swedenborg.

I read Swedenborg. He is fucking stupid.

Perhaps you're too stupid to read Swedenborg who first proposed the nebular hypothesis for the solar system, the neural basis for brain function, and who is generally regarded as the most intelligent of all enlightenment scientists.

[Rampant.A.I.]

I read Swedenborg. He is fucking stupid.

Perhaps you're too stupid to read Swedenborg who first proposed the nebular hypothesis for the solar system, the neural basis for brain function, and who is generally regarded as the most intelligent of all enlightenment scientists.

Hit a nerve?

http://sacred-texts.com/swd/

In your opinion, is Swedenborg's description of Martians and Martian culture as accurate as his description of Heaven, or less accurate?

CONCERNING THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH MARS Spirits appeared in front to the left, who were said to be from the earth Mars, and who declared themselves to be holy; not that they were holy [in themselves], but the Lord, who is the Only Good, is their holiness.

---

1540.
As to the life of the inhabitants of that earth, I heard that they live in societies, but not under governments, the societies being such that they perceive immediately from the face, eyes, and speech, thus externally, whether they are among true associates, whom they thus recognize, and to whom they adjoin themselves, so as out of many to make one. In this manner they know how to choose such companions for themselves as are congenial in temper and thought, in which they are very rarely deceived; they become friends forthwith; yet they feel no aversion to others, as no such feeling as aversion or hatred exists among them, but conjunction according to states of mind, and by means of external things.

---

---

1541.
So far as external mediums are concerned, knowledge [of each other] is acquired from the face, especially the province about the eyes; and also from their speech, which is distinguished from that of others by not being sonorous like the speech of the inhabitants of our earth, but by being a kind of tacit speech, formed by means of a more subtle atmosphere, which is directed towards the mouth, and enters there, and thus [passes] through the Eustachian tube. This tube, it appears, is their organ of hearing.

---

One of them spoke with me in this kind of speech, that I might know something of its nature. It entered through the lips, the fibers of which are disposed to a diverse receptivity, and thus penetrated through the Fallopian tube, and thus upwards. It was perspicuously perceived, and is much fuller and more perfect than a language addressed to the ear, inasmuch as it conveys at once a greater variety of ideas.

http://sacred-texts.com/swd/sd/sd01.htm

[Neo-Scholastic]

Perhaps you would rather have been made incapable of loving and/or deciding who you would love?

This is, basically, the false assumption which undermines the entire Christian faith, the idea that love is a choice, that it is something you can simply opt to do, or not to do, as if love were no different than lunch.

Love isn't a choice. It is a reaction we have to external stimuli. Do you choose to love your parents when you're a child? Or, is that your natural reaction to the love and care they show for you? For that matter, do you make the conscious decision to love your children? Can you choose to hate a person completely on your own? Is that actually an option you can tick?

Belief is the same way. You can't turn it off and turn it on. It just doesn't work like that. Did you sit down one day and decide to believe in your god? Or, did you come to belief as the result of many different considerations leaving you thinking that it was the best, or only, way to go? Could you make the honest and conscious decision to stop believing in your god tomorrow? To be fully and completely honestly certain that he is just a fictional character?

Of course not.

I can't love your god because I can't believe in him, and I can't believe in him because there isn't enough to convince me he exists. Your religion insists that I can simply ignore this somehow, that I can, if I really want, make the conscious decision to go against how my brain is wired to operate and make a special and unjustified exception to the very rules by which everything else in reality is expected to operate. Your religion says that if I don't do this, it's because I want not to, and that I will suffer eternal punishment as a result. Your religion insists that it is a choice, because that way, it can blame you for the barbarity of it all.

Why should I worship a god that lacks even basic insight into the thought processes of his own creations? That's insanity.

If as you say love is not a choice then according to you neither is hate. You live in a very sad and hopeless world if people cannot choose not to hate. I pity you.

[RobbyPants]

If as you say love is not a choice then according to you neither is hate. You live in a very sad and hopeless world if people cannot choose not to hate. I pity you.

Argument from adverse consequences/argument from incredulity

Also, who says it's sad? If you don't consider your world sad, and what he said is true, then your statement is false. Your basic stance is that it doesn't seem feasible to you that you could be happy in that world, and then you imply that since you're happy, you must be right.

[Angrboda]

Perhaps you're too stupid to read Swedenborg who first proposed the nebular hypothesis for the solar system, the neural basis for brain function, and who is generally regarded as the most intelligent of all enlightenment scientists.

One of them spoke with me in this kind of speech, that I might know something of its nature. It entered through the lips, the fibers of which are disposed to a diverse receptivity, and thus penetrated through the Fallopian tube, and thus upwards. It was perspicuously perceived, and is much fuller and more perfect than a language addressed to the ear, inasmuch as it conveys at once a greater variety of ideas.

http://sacred-texts.com/swd/sd/sd01.htm

I've had people try to speak to me through my fallopian tubes. It doesn't work too well.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Perhaps you're too stupid to read Swedenborg who first proposed the nebular hypothesis for the solar system, the neural basis for brain function, and who is generally regarded as the most intelligent of all enlightenment scientists.

Hit a nerve?

http://sacred-texts.com/swd/

In your opinion, is Swedenborg's description of Martians and Martian culture as accurate as his description of Heaven, or less accurate?

CONCERNING THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH MARS Spirits appeared in front to the left, who were said to be from the earth Mars, and who declared themselves to be holy; not that they were holy [in themselves], but the Lord, who is the Only Good, is their holiness.

---

1540.
As to the life of the inhabitants of that earth, I heard that they live in societies, but not under governments, the societies being such that they perceive immediately from the face, eyes, and speech, thus externally, whether they are among true associates, whom they thus recognize, and to whom they adjoin themselves, so as out of many to make one. In this manner they know how to choose such companions for themselves as are congenial in temper and thought, in which they are very rarely deceived; they become friends forthwith; yet they feel no aversion to others, as no such feeling as aversion or hatred exists among them, but conjunction according to states of mind, and by means of external things.

---

---

1541.
So far as external mediums are concerned, knowledge [of each other] is acquired from the face, especially the province about the eyes; and also from their speech, which is distinguished from that of others by not being sonorous like the speech of the inhabitants of our earth, but by being a kind of tacit speech, formed by means of a more subtle atmosphere, which is directed towards the mouth, and enters there, and thus [passes] through the Eustachian tube. This tube, it appears, is their organ of hearing.

---

One of them spoke with me in this kind of speech, that I might know something of its nature. It entered through the lips, the fibers of which are disposed to a diverse receptivity, and thus penetrated through the Fallopian tube, and thus upwards. It was perspicuously perceived, and is much fuller and more perfect than a language addressed to the ear, inasmuch as it conveys at once a greater variety of ideas.

http://sacred-texts.com/swd/sd/sd01.htm

Read it from an Hermetic perspective and perhaps you will understand.

[Ryantology]

If as you say love is not a choice then according to you neither is hate. You live in a very sad and hopeless world if people cannot choose not to hate. I pity you.

You're falsely equivocating choosing to do something with choosing not to do something. You're also implying that love is as easy and effortless to build as hatred. You're also implying that there is no middle ground. You know better than that, or at least, you should. I pity you for your dishonesty keeping you from even trying to understand.

[Rampant.A.I.]

Hit a nerve?

http://sacred-texts.com/swd/

In your opinion, is Swedenborg's description of Martians and Martian culture as accurate as his description of Heaven, or less accurate?


http://sacred-texts.com/swd/sd/sd01.htm

Read it from an Hermetic perspective and perhaps you will understand.

Yes, perhaps if I read the descriptions of Martians and Martian culture from the perspective of alchemy, astrology and Christian mystic perspective after joining the modern illuminati and pledging myself to the order of the Rosy Cross I will understand better, and the following passage about the People from Jupiter:

THE SPEECH OF THE SPIRITS OF JUPITER WITH ME BY MEANS OF THE LIPS AND THE GUMS OF THE TEETH. Spirits of the earth Jupiter, but of a different class from the former, also spoke with me, but in a different manner, to wit, by the tongue and the lips, so that the sound entered through the lips, thus by another way than that made use of in discourse with the angels.

1658.
They spoke, moreover, through my gums, so that the gums and teeth perceived it almost with a sense of pain.

---

There was a peculiar constriction, and so manifestly sensible, that although the teeth did not actually ache, yet it came but little short of it. They said, indeed, that this kind of speech among them constringed the teeth in such a way as to cause a sensation of pain, and that it was the speech of spirits who had not yet become angels, consequently of those who had recently come into the other life. The sound of the speech, as was manifestly apparent, flowed in through another way, to wit, through the Eustachian tube.

1659.
Those who were with me in the first instance were desirous of being called angels, because their speech was of this character, but it was shown them that this attenuated and almost imperceptible kind of speech could be made use of by evil spirits, for it is, in fact, their thought, which this class of spirits employ for perverting other spirits, and also for perverting the thoughts of men, as they repeatedly endeavored to do with me.

---

But there is this difference, that the spirits of our earth are not able to determine their speech into the face.

http://youtu.be/LgLsUh2gQPA

So to repeat the original question you completely ignored, In your opinion, is Swedenborg's description of Martians and Martian culture or Jupiterians and Jupiterian communication as accurate as his description of Heaven, or less accurate?

As someone who claims to have read these passages and made sense of them from a hermetic perspective, what is their meaning?