We're obviously not created equal
Aug. 17th, 2008 09:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
doodlemaierI was clicking through random journals this morning and I came across a Catholic's question (to some Muslims, no less) within a community (I'm not going to site the source) but question came down to "I believe that if people are basically good and fair and compassionate (not her word) then they 'go to heaven', but if someone were to accept an opportunity (within a military context)" would they "go to hell"?
If it sounds like a bad joke. . . .
I'm not even remotely interested in the question. What I want to know is, within the context of religion what is this "Go to heaven" and "Go to hell" nonsense? What, is life a board game: "Go straight to Hell, collect $200 (you'll need it for your bar tab)?" Do mature, intelligent, and "educated" people really buy this crap? Are people really so cut-off from the basic awareness of themselves as they relate to others that they need all their potential choices in life dumbed-down and gift-wrapped in some extrinsic social formula? It is the most infantile world view I've ever been exposed to, and it's probably the single foremost reason why I fell away from the christian church, other than shear boredom and irrelevance. Yes, at the tender age of six this line of thinking was an insult to my intelligence! I have serious reservations about a "loving creator" who would condemn Her children to eternal damnation and torment because they knocked around for 60 or 80 years wearing a perceptual blindfold and making "incorrect" choices and decisions, or even that She would pick "favorites" to begin with. I can see the sense of it from the perspective of introducing young children to a concept of "God" and socializing them but I find it really frightening that the concept doesn't evolve through adulthood for some folks.
What good is the experience of this human life if we don't learn from our mistakes? What good is a life in which we have to get everything right the first time? (and if we don't get it right wouldn't that mean it's due to the fact that we are inherently flawed creations, limited by the creational abilities of our creator? Hmmmmmmmmm? (After all, 7 days is kind of a rush job for an entire universe) Wouldn't it make more sense to a creator who has endowed us with free will for us to collectively create of this opportunity a heaven or hell for ourselves, and thus determine "where" we belong on the CandyLand™ continuum of heaven and hell?
If it sounds like a bad joke. . . .
I'm not even remotely interested in the question. What I want to know is, within the context of religion what is this "Go to heaven" and "Go to hell" nonsense? What, is life a board game: "Go straight to Hell, collect $200 (you'll need it for your bar tab)?" Do mature, intelligent, and "educated" people really buy this crap? Are people really so cut-off from the basic awareness of themselves as they relate to others that they need all their potential choices in life dumbed-down and gift-wrapped in some extrinsic social formula? It is the most infantile world view I've ever been exposed to, and it's probably the single foremost reason why I fell away from the christian church, other than shear boredom and irrelevance. Yes, at the tender age of six this line of thinking was an insult to my intelligence! I have serious reservations about a "loving creator" who would condemn Her children to eternal damnation and torment because they knocked around for 60 or 80 years wearing a perceptual blindfold and making "incorrect" choices and decisions, or even that She would pick "favorites" to begin with. I can see the sense of it from the perspective of introducing young children to a concept of "God" and socializing them but I find it really frightening that the concept doesn't evolve through adulthood for some folks.
What good is the experience of this human life if we don't learn from our mistakes? What good is a life in which we have to get everything right the first time? (and if we don't get it right wouldn't that mean it's due to the fact that we are inherently flawed creations, limited by the creational abilities of our creator? Hmmmmmmmmm? (After all, 7 days is kind of a rush job for an entire universe) Wouldn't it make more sense to a creator who has endowed us with free will for us to collectively create of this opportunity a heaven or hell for ourselves, and thus determine "where" we belong on the CandyLand™ continuum of heaven and hell?
