Evangelism: Well Intentioned Bullying

[Gravekeeper]

The Eastern Philosophies I was raised with said it would be appropriate for me to kill myself rather than be a burden.

Geez, which philosophy was this?

Though I'm beginning to think we all need to sit down for another round of casuation =/ correlation lecturing.

[Rageaholic]

But...hell isn't a place you actually burn. And God doesn't throw you there just because you don't love him selflessly. Somebody skipped telling you about Purgatory along the way I think...

Hell's just...empty. It's an emptiness which can never be filled. And we choose it by choosing not to love God. True, we may not love Him perfectly (because we're afraid of the emptiness, afraid of the punishments, the unknown, whatever) but that's what Purgatory's for, to purge us of those imperfections.

So God's not threatening; it's just the logical conclusion to choosing not to even try to develop a relationship with Him in life when you're able to make choices.

Just something to think about in counter to those fundamentalist teachings...

Yeah, I've heard a lot of different interpretations of what hell really is. Emptyness, seperation from god, annilihation and even purgatory. To be fair, a lot of them don't sound nearly as bad as the high octane nightmare fuel some preachers make it out to be. It also doesn't make god look like a complete monster.

On the other hand, there's still things that make no sense. Like how do you have a relationship with a spirit? Why do we have to know him in this lifetime (when we're just grasping physical things)? And while the theology is pretty light compared to the hellfire stuff, it still promises a miserable afterlife for not believing.

[Kheldarson]

Purgatory and hell are different. Purgatory is a place to be cleansed before going to Heaven. Kind of like taking a bath before jumping into your nice newly cleaned bed. Or getting a shower after playing in the mud. Just get rid of those sins that wouldn't allow you into Heaven, but won't condemn you into Hell.


And having a relationship with a spirit is a lot like having a relationship with someone online. Lots of trust is involved. I trust that you've presented yourself as who you really are. Same with God. I trust that I'm interpreting what I'm reading in the right tone, right context. Same with God. And, to go with a number of philosophers, how do I know you're a real person since I've never met you in person? How do I know anybody I've actually met is a real person? Well, trust. God relies on the same thing.

And why in this lifetime? Because you can't actually do anything when you're dead.

[radiocerk]

If one has an eternal soul, you could do plenty after you're dead. Why shouldn't you be able to repent, or learn, or anything else after your physical death. I don't think it's fair to decide where you will spend eternity based on a 1 to 80 year span. It'd be like holding one's future career to what you said you wanted to be on your third birthday.

[Kheldarson]

Depends on what you mean by eternal. According to St. Augustine, one of the early Doctors of the Church, the soul is eternal simply because it would be rejoining with the mind of God. This lack of maintaining an individuality after death was, of course, hard to swallow and tended to get tossed out, only to come back in. I can't quite remember what the official stance of the Church is on that one right now, if she has one. She kind of backed down from a bunch of those assumptions after the Council of Trent.

So it could be we're here to experience things for God, in a sense, but can't rejoin His mind unless we maintain a oneness with him...or it could be something more like reincarnation or what have you. Or it could be exactly what we envision heaven to be--a bunch of souls singing God's praises. I figure we'll find out when we get there, so need to live the best way we know how.

[FArchivist]

1. It would be nice to see the rules that govern advertising applied to religious messages. For example: "these statements have not been reviewed by the surgeon general" or "results not typical."

The moment you tried that tactic, you would have 1st Amendment challenges. Those rules you refer to are legislative acts and administrative regulation, both of which are created, operated, and owned by the federal and state governments. 1st Amendment says no.

2. As long as religious folks have freedom to posit their views, so, too, do dissenters have the freedom to state their dissent.

Under the 1st Amendment, that is correct.