Religious debate

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Why?

Because either they go to Heaven or Hell and you say that they don't deserve Heaven, which leaves eternal suffering.

[Yukaphile]

Doesn't have to be eternal. It can just be till a sentence is served - their negative karma all purged, or until they see the light, which depending on if they never atone, can be a very long time. And I mean true redemption, true remorse, not a fake attempt to do so to escape the pain.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Doesn't have to be eternal. It can just be till a sentence is served - their negative karma all purged, or until they see the light, which depending on if they never atone, can be a very long time. And I mean true redemption, true remorse, not a fake attempt to do so to escape the pain.

So? Christianity has purgatory.

[Yukaphile]

Christianity strikes me as "obey God above everything else." I mean, look at Abraham. That, or it's way too forgiving to the point that you could let a mass murderer, rapist into heaven if "they just felt sorry enough, man." I'm sorry, but there's just some lines you cross that you can't come back from.

Besides that, my proposed scenario would be work in an ideal and fair universe, but we all know we don't live in that universe, do we? The presence of random injustice means there is no justice. The fact the innocence can be destroyed means there is no innocence. That there's random cruelty that leaves deep scars on someone to the point they are left broken for life means that life isn't fair, at all. So why should we expect the after-world to be any different?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Christianity strikes me as "obey God above everything else." I mean, look at Abraham. That, or it's way too forgiving to the point that you could let a mass murderer, rapist into heaven if "they just felt sorry enough, man." I'm sorry, but there's just some lines you cross that you can't come back from.

Christianity or other religions aren't "letting people into heaven." Its agenda is solely to help, and it does so in the most pacifist manner. What you're describing as a union with policies is actually more of a roadmap that shouldn't really apply to people in discriminant fashion.

[Yukaphile]

You think a serial rapist or mass murderer who spent his whole life evading the law and then felt slight regret near the end of his life should be allowed into a land of eternal peace? I don't. They don't need "help," they need to be punished. They shouldn't be allowed to get away with that. More than that, their hateful, chaotic personality that wants to inflict mass suffering on others doesn't seem like it'd fit well into a place of peace and light, not without going through an intense spiritual purging. Which I don't mind, as long as their negative karma hits them in the face, and they see what they've done. Remorse is fine. It can't change what you've done. The lives you've ruined or ended. And true atonement is not some mere token gesture. It takes real commitment. It's damned hard.

What about Adam Lanza? He butchered 20 innocent children and then denied us justice. He doesn't "need help." He's someone who absolutely deserves to pay the price for what he's done. Though that doesn't mean it has to be forever. It just means when his negative karma is used up, and past that, when he's seen the light - and genuinely. Not fake remorse to escape suffering. Which given the personality in question, could be a very long time.

That's why I reject organized religion, and why I tend to feel your personality and your actions in this life will shape the texture and dimensions of the world to come. If you're a hateful monster who hurts others and revels in their suffering, that's the form your after-world is going to take, until you can at least move on to a "higher vibration." Though hard work, dedication, suffering, paying back that negative karma, and of course, actually seeing what you've done with your hands and wanting to correct that.

[Yukaphile]

Seriously, why did you drag me back to this debate? I did not want to participate. For God's sake, let it rest.

[Madner Kami]

Besides that, my proposed scenario would be work in an ideal and fair universe, but we all know we don't live in that universe, do we?

We live in a fair and ideal universe. It allows us to exist, something that can't be said about many universes (I consider this ideal) and it's laws apply to each every thing and every one equally and without a possibility to break any of it's laws (it can't get much fairer).

[Yukaphile]

Where does my dislike for organized religion stem from? Lots of people seem confused about that. Ultimately, it's that I've read about people who sank to such depths, who did such awful, terrible, evil things, and got away with it their whole lives, then their comrades felt slightly guilty near the end of their lives, but never tried to turn themselves in, to the point it makes me wonder if there's any merit to this idea that all you have to do to commit the perfect crime is do whatever you want, literally whatever you feel like doing, no batter how cruel or vicious or nasty, then feel genuinely sorry near the end of your life, and boom. There you go. You're allowed entry into a realm of peace and light. That's what Jesus preached. I much prefer something like the medium or spiritualist or channelers' belief systems, which is more oriented to include justice, while the Abrahamic faiths were written during a time of tyrant kings, so of course that's the message that would come from the teachings that were passed down to become organized religion today. And justice is something that's deeply important to me.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Well I'm not really trying to drag you into this. Theoretical implications of organized religion and even its theology is personally interesting to me. But I still think you're misunderstanding the concept of heaven. It has to do with personal salvation, not universal justice. In these cases you're speaking, this heaven/hell duality doesn't really even apply to these people because they're probably not suffering anyway. When Jesus said all that crap, it was to a bunch of people in despair from poverty or slavery or imminent death.

So why allow those people you talk about to participate in the practice? Because there's no practical reason not to. First you'd have to draw the line somewhere, and second it doesn't affect anything here on earth. Either it's just made up illusion or it's eternal afterlife in which case there really is nothing that weighs against it in the long run, and senses of humor about things that happened in life is formated quite a bit. Then some people have consideration for purgatory. There was a neat little scene about it in The Sopranos.


youtu.be/ObglF8WUsWM