itsamysteryhuh

How would they know if they've never been there? :huh:

Free Thinkr

Any time an atheist asks why there must be suffering on earth, we hear either:

1) It is necessary for free will

-or-

2) We must know evil to appreciate good

If heaven is eternal bliss, wouldn't we have to give up part of our humanity?

Legend

My point exactly.

Catholic Convert

I know that God is perfect Justice as well as perfect Mercy.

Only those who have made their beds in Hell will sleep there.

It is impossible that anyone who attained Heaven would have greater compassion, mercy, or a sense of justice than the God who created him.

There will be better things to do than worry about those who chose to live in Hell. I know that I will not worry about something that is not God's worry. My worry in this life is to attain Heaven and end up IN Hell worrying about it!

Avatar

Of course, that depends of one's definition of "sin". I've heard priests rail on about how certain movies, books, or even ideas are mortally sinful.

I've seen the Catholic definition of "good" (approved) activities. How can that not be boring?

How can it possibly be "true" freedom? Entire classes of activities and behavior are eliminated as possible options. If there is no possibility of making "wrong" choices, how can it be called "true freedom"?

Oh, yeah. The Original Sin BS.

Funny. That's not what the victims of the Inquisition would say. Or the children of Jericho. Or the victims of Joshua. Or the targets of any of the many other genocides God ordered.

Catholic Convert

BTW, the Catholic Church at times "Canonizes" Saints, and proclaims that because of their holy lives, there is a certainty that they are in Heaven. But the Church has never proclaimed that a single soul is in Hell--not Judas, not Hitler, not the 911 terrorists.

There is always hope that somehow in their final moment, they repented and accepted God's forgiveness.

So it's quite possible there won't be that many souls in Hell, anyway. But we don't know...

Avatar

Even when (or because) the actions of those "Saints" led to the total or near-total extermination of a lot of aboriginal tribes (see the California Missions).

Anat

One idea (though not unanimously accepted) in Jewish thought is that heaven and hell are exactly the same place, that is perceived differently by different people. I think this thread is evidence for the plausibility of this idea, assuming heaven exists at all.

Catholic Convert

I don't know of any saint who wiped out aboriginal tribes. If you want to provide proof for it, I will look at it.

Avatar

A recently cannonized Saint (alas I have no information on the name...the event was several years ago) worked at one of the California Missions where Native American tribesmen were used as labor for the mining of mercury. As a direct result of this treatment, the local native population was devastated. There was an uproar by the Native American groups in California, but the missionary was cannonized anyway.

Then of course we have Augustine...

Slavery is not penal in character and planned by that law which commands the preservation of the natural order and forbids disturbance.
-- Augustine, quoted from Helen Ellerbe, The Dark Side of Christian History

Women should not be enlightened or educated in any way. They should, in fact, be segregated as they are the cause of hideous and involuntary erections in holy men.
-- Augustine (attributed: source unknown)

It is indeed better (as no one ever could deny) that men should be led to worship God by teaching, than that they should be driven to it by fear of punishment or pain; but it does not follow that because the former course produces the better men, therefore those who do not yield to it should be neglected. For many have found advantage (as we have proved, and are daily proving by actual experiment), in being first compelled by fear or pain, so that they might afterwards be influenced by teaching, or might follow out in act what they had already learned in word.
-- Augustine, Treatise on the Correction of the Donatists

And never mind the holy words of quite a few other Saints...

Woman is the gate of the devil, the road to iniquity, the sting of the scorpion, in a word, a dangerous species.
-- St. Jerome, from from Susan H. Wixon, "Woman: Four Centuries of Progress," speech delivered at Freethinkers' International Congress in Chicago, Illinois, in October, 1893, made a Truth Seeker pamphlet in December 1893, quoted from Gaylor, Women Without Superstition, p. 285.

Woman is the daughter of falsehood, a sentinel of hell, the enemy of peace.
-- St. John Damascene, from from Susan H. Wixon, "Woman: Four Centuries of Progress," speech delivered at Freethinkers' International Congress in Chicago, Illinois, in October, 1893, made a Truth Seeker pamphlet in December 1893, quoted from Gaylor, Women Without Superstition, p. 286.

To embrace a woman is to embrace a sack of manure.
-- St. Odo of Cluny, from Joan Smith, Misogynies, quoted from Ciaran Hanway, Omnipurpose Page

Wonderful things were to be seen. Numbers of the Saracens [Muslims] were beheaded ... Others were shot with arrows, or forced to jump from the towers; others were tortured for several days, then burned with flames. In the streets were seen piles of heads and hands and feet. One rode about everywhere amid the corpses of men and horses. In the temple of Solomon, the horses waded in the blood up to their knees, nay, up to the bridle. It was a just and marvelous judgement of God, that this place should be filled with the blood of unbelievers.
-- Raymond of Aguilers, describing the scene when a band of Crusaders massacred both Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem in 1099, in James A. Haught, Holy Horrors (1990), quoted from Helen Ellerbe, The Dark Side of Christian History, critical editing by Cliff Walker

If forgers and malefactors are put to death by the secular power, there is much more reason for excommunicating and even putting to death one convicted of heresy.
-- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell.
-- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica