Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to "We are all sinners and no sin is worse than another in his eyes. Just believe in him and you are in. That’s it."

My dad and the Jesuit
Mary Anne — (archived)

When my dad was in college, after WWII, he had a teacher, a Jesuit, in a religion class that said to the class, more or less off the record, that he didn't think an eternal hell was possible for a just God, because nothing, absolutely nothing, that puny little creatures like us can do is important enough to merit that. It can feel like eternity. He also told me not to tell my mother he had told me that.

I understood that, and still do, even though I no longer believe in hell as a place we go to after death. The minister with the interesting pedigree sounds like he got the wrong end of that philosophy and ran with it. Rather than being too insignificant to merit a huge punishment (rather like drawing and quartering a two-year-old) he got the idea that we are too adorable to be punished if we say we're sorry (also a reaction people have to two-year-olds).

Christianity is good stuff; one doesn't even have to believe in the Deity to practice it, or attempt to practice it. It's difficult. Jesus once said that the Kingdom of God is at hand. That doesn't mean "here soon". It means "here, now -- reach out and take it". So we have it in our power to make heaven around us. Hell, too. We're better at hell right now. We could practice the other...

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