Saturday, January 09, 2010

Something for Markus….

....HERE, because it can’t seem to post on Charlie (Colorado) Martins thread at Pajamas Media

Once again, the ‘moderation’ of threads at Pajamas Media seems to be ‘interesting’.

I’ve tried about six times over the previous 36 hours to post a comment or two on Charlie (Colorado) Martin’s thread about Brit Hume on Buddhism. All to no avail.

In the meantime, I’ve had no such problems posting comments on Ed Driscoll’s thread about WMD definition flexibility. Coincidence? Charlie would like to think so, but after a while that ‘explanation’ seems to wear a tad ‘thin’.

At any rate, Markus on Charlie’s thread asked an interesting question about God and Hell.

Please explain to me why any soul deserves to be damned to hell, rather than simply being extinguished or punished for a finite period of time.—Markus

I tried to answer it. Here is what I tried to tell him.....

TO: Markus, et al.
RE: Consider THIS

Please explain to me why any soul deserves to be damned to hell, rather than simply being extinguished or punished for a finite period of time.—Markus

Are you familiar of the theory of the ‘Cyclical Universe’? [Note: I know that recent theories discredit it, but those theories are, likewise, just theories themselves. So the theory of a cyclical-universe is still a ‘contender’.]

Suppose a Cyclical Universe. Big-Bang. Expansion. Collapse. Another Big-Bang. Etc., etc., etc.....ad infinitum.

Now. Consider God and ‘Heaven’ being outside of the ‘Universe’. Each cycle of the ‘universe’ being like our annual cycle of Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter....Etc., etc., etc.....ad ni infinitum.

For us, each year brings a new cycle of planting, growing and harvesting. It could be such with God in His Heaven. Each cycle being one of planting, growing and harvesting.

We, for our part, harvest the good things we grow and leave the bad things to die off on their own with the coming of Winter.

The same may well be true with respect to God. It’s not that he condemns them to Hell. If you read—or better yet, understand—that Old Book, you’ll see in there where He just doesn’t let the bad things into Heaven.

You’ll also note the presence of another entity. He’s known as Satan. And he hates God. Why? Because God made Man and God told Satan to bow down to Man as God’s greatest creation. Satan, full of pride in himself, refused. He rebelled against God....according to the report in that Old Book. Satan HATES Man.

So. God takes into Heaven the men, women and children that He chooses as ‘good’. [Note: The criteria for the decision is also described in that Old Book.]

All the others are left outside of Heaven. Something like the ‘outer darkness’. Pay attention to the parts that relate to some ‘feast’ and the ‘invited guests’. And who is ‘thrown out’ of the party.

Now, consider the part about Satan as a ‘roaring lion’. And how he is looking for the ‘sleeping’, i.e., dead. He prowls around the area outside of the protected sanctuary [Heaven]. He collects those who are ‘cast into the outer darkness’ and takes them to where he holds authority, e.g., Hell.

Once he gets these unfortunate creatures who rejected God to his domain, what do you think he’s going to do with them? The creatures that caused him to rebel against God. The creatures that God told him to bow down to.

Think he’ll put them up in a penthouse with view? Or do you think he’ll torment them to his hearts delight?

So. There’s a ‘theory’ of how people ‘go to Hell’. Not that God sent them there, but that Satan takes them there. And they go of their own choosing, as they rejected God.

Now, about that Lake of Fire business. The bit where Hell gets cast into the Lake of Fire for ‘eternal burning’.

Back to the cyclical universe.

If the Big-Bang was a bright light in the midst of blackness. What do you supposed the coalescing of the universe at the end of the cycle would look like? Could it be a lake of bright light? Like a lake of ‘fire’ in the midst of darkness as the matter is consumed into that infinitely small point, just before another Big-Bang?

Hence, my understanding of how it is that there IS a Hell and that God is not responsible for whether people go to it for tormenting. People decide they’ll go there for themselves.

As we would say in the infantry, “A self-inflicted wound.”

Hope that helps.....

Happy New Year,

Chuck(le)
[Hell is empty and all the devils are HERE!—A Christian in a corporate-imposed ‘Diversity Training’ session]

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