So, today I was talking to a Christian, and I was basically told “You should really change your ways, otherwise you’ll be going to hell.”
Now, the old me would get triggered and frustrated when someone tells me this. But, since I have done some healing involving this, I don’t get triggered anymore. Instead I just tell the other person “Well thank you for caring about my afterlife. I appreciate it.”
To be honest, I don’t believe in a hell. It just makes sense to me that hell doesn’t exist, because otherwise what’s the point of having Free Will? The whole reason you have Free Will is to learn what actual love is, and sometimes you learn what love is by experiencing the opposite. I believe in reincarnation though, and that depending on how much karma you’ve accumulated will determine whether you reincarnate or not.
But, I know that Catholics/Christians, when they say that they mean well. I don’t think anyone truly wishes for people to go to hell. People who identify as Atheists or Agnostic take everything a religious person says as an attack, and people of faith are not attacking you. They just want to see you in Heaven, which is why sometimes they bring it up. Plus, when it comes to my friendships, I don’t let religion or politics get in the way of getting to know someone. I feel like we live in a very shallow kind of society, where if you disagree on one thing, people decide not to get to know you better based on 1 thing! I think that’s absolutely shallow, and just shows how there are people out there who think very 1 Dimensionally.
I’m friends with all kinds of people. I have a friend who is Wiccan. I have another friend who is very Christian. I have a friend who is liberal and very disabled. I think honestly having a diverse group of friends is great! There’s no point in judging people, cause all that does is further divide people, and as a society we can do without the division.
How do you respond when someone tells you that, or if anyone tells you that?
This is not a very charitable thing to say to someone who is not in a point in life to receive it charitably; and it often pushes Individuals who are not already journeying towards God away from God, not closer to Him. There is a group of Baptists who stand in the public square each month holding signs and shouting “Repent!” How many people do you believe this message speaks to? Not many.
In my own journey of faith, the times when I have experienced conversion (which is not a one-time-thing, but a process) was Christ working in others. It was the faith of others and our relationship that my soul, heart, and/or mind responded to. And there have been other signs, not the ones the Baptists are holding up, but the little God-winks as they are sometimes called (others might call them coincidences, but I believe they are God’s way of guiding us back to The Way, The Truth, and The Life).
I bet this caught him/her off guard : )
You have the free-will to choose God (Who is Love) or you have the free-will to choose Hell (which is the absence of Love). God does not force us to love Him. If He created us without free-will, then could you even call that love? Likewise, if you are only doing what you ought, because you fear going to Hell, that is not love either.
This week’s Gospel Reading (Luke 18:9-14) relates to this. Jesus addresses this parable:
“Two people went up to the temple area to Pray;
one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector.
The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this Prayer to himself,
‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity –
greedy, dishonest, adulterous – or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’
But the tax collector stood off at a distance
and would not even raise his eyes to heaven
but beat his breast and prayed,
‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’
I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former;
for whoever exalts himself will be humbled,
and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
I think this relates a little bit to how you see your Dad as well. You do not go to Church, because you don’t want to be like him—a hypocrite. He goes to Church, but look at him; he is living a lie and is sleeping with someone whom he is not Married to, while telling me I need to go to Church.
This is why instead of judging others, we should Pray for them in humility. Sure, the original response is judgement (of one’s behavior), but we need to move from judgement to Praying for them and not about them. At lest that is how this week’s Gospel speaks to me.
You mentioned that you do not see the point of Hell. I don’t see the point of love, if not for God.
I can see how reincarnation makes sense if the end goal is to learn love. But, again, what is the point of love for karma’s sake? I like to play board games. If I an taught a new game and it feels like simply an activity (without a purpose) then I am not likely to play the game. That is kind of how I see learning love for karma’s sake. And maybe there is a purpose to what you believe.
My brother believes similar to you, and he believe that you can level up to become a god over your own dimension. That is a purpose, but is the opposite of humility.
First, Catholics are Christians (the oldest Christian Church alongside the Eastern Orthodox Churches), but I know what you meant— Protestants and Evangelicals.
There are some Christians who wish some people to “go to Hell” ; ) But, usually this is out of emotional response, in the moment (triggered). If they took a step back and thought about it, they would come around to realize that, no, they really don’t want that individual to “go to Hell.”
I think that is the climate that our Country is in right now. People are losing control of their emotions. So many individuals are responding emotionally, rather than taking a step back and being able to have a real conversation. I am so happy that you are no longer triggered and are able to have these types of conversations. We don’t have to agree, and I think we all deep-down will the good of the other truly.
You and I are similar in this way.
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I feel like we live in a very shallow kind of society, where if you disagree on one thing, people decide not to get to know you better based on 1 thing! I think that’s absolutely shallow, and just shows how there are people out there who think very 1 Dimensionally.
I laugh, because, thought I know that what they are saying is based in truth (and you may disagree), the way, in which they are going about it, is not well received. Now if we have developed a close friendship and he/she said this to me, it might be taken in good faith. If we are both Christians, the Bible says iron sharpens iron and that we should hold one another accountable. Not to bring up your Dad again, but we can Pray that God might put people in his life or give him little signs that bring about conversion on his journey of faith. There was a time when I was living how your Dad was living, but by God’s grace, I went from “O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity” to “O God, I need your mercy and grace in my life, for I am a sinner.”
Also, I know you said that you believe in reincarnation. I jut thought of this, but The Sacrament of Reconciliation is a lot like reincarnation in some ways. We sincerely look at how we live our lives (how we have failed to love God and others, in our thought, words, and actions). And then we bring these to Christ Jesus and humbly ask him to Forgive us and to help us, by His grace, to do better.
Non-Catholic Christians will sometimes say that “Catholics have it so easy.” These are individuals who have never truly taken time to name their sins and take an account of how they have hurt God and others. Sure, they might say, Jesus I’m sorry for my sins (in a generic way), but to actually think about how we have sucked as a Christian, is not a pleasant experience (a type of karma perhaps). But, the new life one experiences after, not simply knowing that we are forgiven by Jesus’ merits on the Cross, but experiencing Christ’s forgiveness and receiving His grace is a beautiful gift.
It’s like the relationship between a Husband and Wife. You know the love that you have for one another, but if you do not experience the love you share, your relationship cannot grow. If we think we can behave however we want and never admit our faults and seek reconciliation to the one we love, then we are in a sense not loving, though we may say we love this person and that we know this person loves us. Covenantal love is unconditional love, but it is not just a noun, but a verb.
Well if God lives outside of Space and Time, God see’s everything all at once. So God knows what will happen in the future, even before it happens. I don’t think the Creator of the Universe is stupid, nor do I think He would create someone all for them to go to Hell. God knows when someone is going to Hell before they’re even born, and since God is very intelligent, it would be pointless to create someone when all they’re going to do is go to Hell anyways. This is why reincarnation makes sense to me, because if God is nothing but love, God will give you as many chances as you need to learn the lessons you need to learn to get to a higher dimension. For some souls, they’re gonna be stuck on Earth for a long time, but for those who are ready to graduate from Earth, they’ll be able to get to a higher dimension.
Another way to look at this is, so Catholic’s believe that we are made in God’s image. Therefore all of us have traits that God has as well. Well, let’s say you are a Father (if you’re not, it’s fine, I’m just giving you an example), and let’s say your son murdered someone. Now, at first you’d probably be really upset, and you’d probably have a long talk with your son about how it’s wrong to murder someone.
Well, let’s say then the police come and take him in cuffs and your son is put on trial, and of course is found guilty. And let’s say the judge says that he will spend the rest of his days being tortured as punishment. Would you, as a Father to that child, want to see your son being tortured for the rest of his Earthly life? No, of course you wouldn’t. Yes your son did something stupid, but that doesn’t mean he should be tortured for the rest of his waking life. He’s still your flesh and blood. Obviously your son deserves some sort of punishment, but as a Father you would fight to make sure he doesn’t have to be tortured. Yes what your son did was wrong, but its worse to be tortured than it is to just be in jail, and you would fight to make sure your son wouldn’t suffer, or suffer too much anyways.
So in saying that, Hell wouldn’t be an option. I seriously doubt God would create anyone who goes to Hell. Yes, God doesn’t have to worry about anyone wasting his time (Since God lives outside of Time), but God isn’t dumb either, and he wouldn’t create someone knowing they were going to hell. On a purely logical level it doesn’t make sense. That and souls would not incarnate on Earth if the result of them being there means going to Hell being a possibility for the rest of their afterlife. I get why you say that God not giving someone Free Will wouldn’t be very loving, but again if God knows what happens before it happens, than why would He even bother creating someone knowing that they’re going to Hell? God loves us, He doesn’t want to see any of his Creation be eternally tormented.
Like Eve who gave up her mortal eternal life for the love for Adam to have the freedom to love or not to love for Adam choosing his own death for the love of a dying Eve, we become to love only and to love with only the most love becoming again in all creation, One God, I believe.
Thanks, EarthsStudent, and we all already know, intrinsically, faithfully the truth is in the story that never changes and the greatest truth ever told is in the historical non-fiction story of The Christ becoming again in all creation One God, I believe, the Bible.
To me the mystic is who can unite all as one in being through the common denominator of all faiths which is the spirit.
Logically we become again from three powers and spirits in souls of Gods preexisting in a Holy Family always together as One God in being becoming alive conceived through the created flesh in all mankind and living through two natures, from the New Adam’s Incorruptible Holy Spirit through the New Eve’s Immaculately Immortal Life Flesh becoming One Body becoming in all mankind through The Christ for both natures, spirit and life becoming again in all creation, One Holy Spirit Family One God in being God, I believe.
Some might see your observation and draw from this that these individuals who will choose Hell serve no purpose. Other might draw from this observation and conclude that God is not Loving.
I believe these individuals, though they could choose God, but do not, still serve a purpose. You cannot have light without darkness. You cannot have humility without pride. You cannot recognize good without evil.
I see your logic in thinking this, but this could result in individuals choosing to be more evil, discovering that there are no real consequences to their behavior. If everyone simply respawns and they themselves simply get to come back and commit all kinds of evil grater than before, I can see this happening as well. Life becomes devalued, because who cares, they will get to do it again and again and again.
The value of money goes down when government has the Federal Reserve print endless amounts of paper. Zimbabwe produced a $100 trillion Zimbabwean dollar bill. Was this because they were very wealthy? No, it was the opposite. They dollar had less value, because they just kept printing more of it. The same could happen with the value of life. If you just keep getting an endless amount of lives, then the value of life goes down.
Correct. What Christians mean by this is that we have been given certain attributes that God has; ability to create, love, and reason to name a few. It does not mean that we are gods (not that this is what you believe).
I would not want to see this for my son’s life. Just as God does not want to see us choose such consequences. Which is why He gives us all the help that we need to not choose such consequences.
I know it sounds harsh, but it depends what he did. If I were in his shoes, I would expect to receive the punishment for my choices. And if the judge shows mercy, amazing. I would desire for my son to take responsibility for his actions. That would matter to me more than a child who believes he should not be held accountable for his choices. And as a father, I would have more mercy and sympathy for a son who is contrite than one who acts entitled.
Hell is an option. God does not desire anyone to go to Hell. Just like your father and son analogy. I do not desire for any of my children to go to Jail nor to be tortured. I do not desire for them to commit sin.
Are you suggesting God having a sort of quality control process? Abort the lives of those who will ultimately end up choosing Hell? I don’t think we fully understand God’s omnipotent knowledge. Our ways are not God’s ways (Isaiah 55:8).
An analogy I like to use is this. Say we are driving, we can only see what is visible right in front of us (minus alerts from our GPS these days). But, God can see things from a higher place and He can see what is ahead, as well as what is happening behind us and what is currently upon us. But even greater than this is that He can see what happens if we choose this path or that path. If we ask Him to, He may step in and help give us direction. It might not be the way we would have taken. Other times, He permits us to take the wrong way, because He sees beyond what we can see.
If someone believes He does not need God’s help, God may honor his/my arrogance.
Right. We agree. Where we disagree is how God should be. You seem to want God to be like us. I want God to be like God. This is the difference. I do not want God in my image. I want to be in God’s image. And I believe you do as well. Could God have given a trillion lifetimes to do this? Sure. Do I believe God gives us a trillion lifetimes? No. Otherwise He wouldn’t have sent His only begotten Son to show us the way and given us new life in this one.
I enjoy these hypotheticals and we are all trying to understand God’s ways better. But, God is God and we are not God.
I never said those who choose Hell serve no purpose. What I’m saying is, Hell simply doesn’t exist. Again…going back to what I said about Free Will. If people are born being able to think for themselves, then what’s the deal with Hell? Hell was a term that is used to control the masses. Do I think there’s no such thing as punishment? No…you have to have punishment, otherwise people would just be killing eachother right and left and the hueman race would cease to exist eventually. But, as far as metaphysical punishment? No….we live in a Free Will Universe where the possibilities are endless. Like I have said before Cade, everything that exists exists for a reason. Even very malevolent mindsets (like the Hitler Mentality, or Satanism) exists for a reason. I know why these things exist, but that’s because I have an open enough mind to see why they exist. Even abortion exists to serve a purpose. The problem is, most people aren’t ready to hear why these things exist, because most people cannot think for themselves, especially those who have black and white mindsets.
Ok, so we agree on that then….good.
I don’t think you truly innerstand the process of reincarnation, let alone incarnation. Which is fine, most people don’t get it, which is why they dismiss the idea. And, I’m glad you’re so skeptical, it means you’re actually thinking about things. It’s important to have a level of skepticism, it’s healthy really. I used to be skeptical of the things I talk about now, so that’s good Cade, and I want you to think for yourself. It’s the biggest reason why I talk about things, cause I’m challenging everyone’s perception of things. Most people in their lifetime aren’t truly challenged, but that’s because (and I partially blame our educational system) in school, you’re not really challenged to think for yourself. Instead, in school, you are taught what to think. You’re given information and are basically told to regurgitate this information we teach you, and you’ll get a good grade. Which I get why schools do that, it’s a way of measuring what you know based on what is taught. But very seldom do schools actually teach you how to think. And isn’t that funny? Cause education, especially in college is constantly telling us to be a critical thinker. In fact, colleges tout that the education you receive in college challenges you to be a critical thinker. But yet….what do they do? The exact opposite! They give you information, expect you to regurgitate it, and in return you get a good grade. And, it’s so funny to me, cause what if you disagree with the information you are given? Because what that college is going to tell you is “You can disagree all you want with the information we give you, but unless you are able to give us what we the college says is the right answer, you’re going to get points taken off for giving us an answer that we did not teach.” And, that’s part of the problem. In an academic setting we should be able to question anything. We should be able to draw our own conclusions based on what it is we observe. But, in the current system we live in, disagreeing is not an option. Because you can disagree all day, but at the end of the day, you’re ultimately just making matters worse. It’s a lot easier to be compliant and to give the college the answer it wants than it is to disagree with what the college teaches, I mean even the people who make A’s in school are the most compliant ones. Sadly I was one of those people, who was a Straight A student, all because I was good at being obedient.
But anywho, getting back to what I was originally gonna talk about, here is how reincarnation/incarnation works. So, when you are in spirit form, your Free Will is never taken away. Your ability to think freely is always with you regardless if you are a spirit or a 3rd Dimensional being. So, when you incarnate here on Earth, there are certain soul contracts that are required to incarnate to Earth. So, for example, you can choose to incarnate as a man or a woman, but those are the only 2 choices you got. There is no 3rd gender, or spectrum of genders, Earth has always operated off of the binary, male and female. This is a required soul contract to incarnate/reincarnate down here. Another required soul contract is that there will be a day and a night. Another required soul contract is there is a law of Gravity. But once you get the required soul contracts out of the way, then you get into the optional soul contracts. And many souls, to some degree, will do optional soul contracts (unless you want God to make optional soul contracts for you). The optional ones are just that, they’re optional. So like, one optional soul contract could be, what kind of family are you born into? Or another optional soul contract could be, would you like to get married at the age of 25 to a specific person? And because you still maintain your Free Will, you can decide to plan out your life the way you want to, you can decide that God will choose for you your optional soul contracts, or you can have a mix of optional soul contracts you do and the rest done by God.
The problem is, before you incarnate/reincarnate on the 3rd Dimensional plane, you are mind-wiped, and there’s a very good reason why. Let’s say before you incarnated on Earth, you had a past life in a certain star system, and let’s say in this star system you were a murderer. It would not be helpful to remember you were a murderer in a past life, in fact, your life on this planet could be terribly difficult remembering something like that. The mind wipe is a safety net. When I say reincarnation is a cosmic redo is because, it’s exactly that, a cosmic redo. Any bad that you did in your previous life is erased from your memory, and you start out completely fresh. All of these mechanisms are in place so you have the ability to start over and to become a better person. Now, of course, all of your past memories you didn’t completely forget, cause these memories reside in your sub-conscious. And if you ever go to past life regression therapy, you’ll be able to recall your past lives. But, the reason why God has the mind wipe in place too, is because, the most important thing about life is the “now.” It’s not what happened in the past, and it’s not what’s gonna happen in the future. It’s the present now. And really, past, present, and future are all happening simultaneously. It’s not like the past and the present are linear, both are happening in the now, and that’s what makes the now so important, cause it’s the now that can heal your past and give you a good future.
The reason I went into detail about what reincarnation is, is that you’re saying that people can do more evil if they realize there’s no real consequences to their behavior. But most people aren’t going to realize that, cause of the mind wipe. So therefore, no one is able to abuse the reincarnation system, cause most people will grow up without having any recollection that they did something wrong in the past. It really is a redo, and you truly are starting fresh. So, there’s no real way of abusing reincarnation, cause you’ll get mind-wiped everytime.
But it does. What’s God’s name? I AM WHO AM! And yes, when I say “I AM WHO AM!” I’m giving you God’s name. God is me! Just like God is you!
Of course, cause God is loving, not condemning.
I know if I had a son, and his punishment was to be tortured every single day, I would try to see if I can get an appeal or something. I mean, if there’s not much I can do, then I can try to at least lessen the punishment. I agree with you, if my son did something wrong, then there should be a punishment, I believe that 100%, but as a parent, I would not want my child to be tortured 24/7, or if that was just the way it had to be, I would try my best to at least lessen the punishment. That’s my son, and yes, he’s flawed, very flawed, but he’s still my son, and I would still love him, no matter how terrible of a crime it was that he committed.
I see….so you think that a hueman who was never exposed to actual love, but instead exposed to 2 parents being involved in a mafia and all this hueman knows is how to kill someone and was never exposed to actual love and care is going to Hell? You know, mercy is a concept that people seem to have forgotten about, or if they haven’t, discarded. My Dad almost was arrested for physically assaulting me at 25, and had I not have said “Don’t arrest him” to the police, my Dad’s life could have been ruined. It’s called mercy, and I would hope others would learn the beauty of being merciful.
Unconditional Love and Justice are incompatible. You cannot be Just and be Unconditionally Loving at the same time, cause to be Just is to put a condition upon your love for someone. Justice is for huemans, because we as huemans are conditionally loving, and when you kill someone of our flesh and blood, that ticks us off and we seek justice. I’m not afraid to admit, I would be the same way too. But God is not a hueman, he doesn’t have the same limitations nor does he have to worry about the same things we worry about. God is a spirit, so therefore some of the things that apply to us huemans doesn’t apply to God.
In response to God having a quality control process, why would he need one? What I was saying is, God would not waste his creative energy in creating a person who is basically destined for Hell. He wouldn’t “abort” someone (that’s an interesting choice of words for a God who is loving), but he wouldn’t abort someone, he just simply wouldn’t waste his time making that person. But that’s to assume if Hell is real, which in my view isn’t true. And again, if God is all knowing, it’s not like he’s sitting there wondering if you’re going to choose a certain path, cause he already knows. He doesn’t need to hold his breath on anything, cause he already knows. You make it sound like God knows to a certain degree, and then beyond a certain point he doesn’t know what will happen, which is incompatible to an all-knowing God.
See, this is why I don’t subscribe to a religion. What a very narrow-minded view to have of a benevolent Creator where anything and everything is possible. The God that I believe in makes sense. It makes sense to me that God loves unconditionally and doesn’t have a just bone in his body (or in his spirit LOL). And I just told you how God isn’t like us, he’s a purely good and benevolent spirit, and he doesn’t create trash. But not every person he creates is evolved in their spiritual evolution. This is one of the biggest reasons why everyone (including aliens) want to incarnate on this planet. Yes, this planet holds some of the toughest lessons in our Universe, but if you go into every situation with a mindset of “What can I learn from this situation?”, you’ll learn and grow in love.
One reason why I don’t care to be a part of a certain religion is because, every religion (more or less) puts God in a box. Every religion says that God is this certain way. And my thing is, God is so much bigger, so much more intelligent, and so much more loving that to try to put God in a box, while simultaneously saying you are the true religion of Jesus Christ is just a form of control. Because then that makes the person believe that they know all that there is to know about God, which unfortunately is a fallacy. Religion leaves nothing up to the imagination, but we live in such a big Universe, and reside in a Universe full of possibilities, that there’s more to God than just what religion says. Like I said…most people are taught what to think, but when it comes to how to think, most people haven’t a clue on how to think. Part of knowing who God is, is being able to think outside the box. If you’re putting God in a box, you really don’t know God all that well. But if you think outside of the box that most people put God in, only than can you truly know what God is like. So some of these concepts that you have accepted as true, isn’t true. Question everything, don’t give into the “hive mind” mindset. Think for yourself! Be an individual. I’m not saying you should abandon your friends, or even your religion, but so many people try so dang hard to fit-in. I don’t fit-in. I’m part of the 2% that literally does not belong to any organization or any community of any sort. I question everything, and when I mean everything, I literally mean everything. And, I’m sorry but most organizations, religions, and even institutions have been corrupted. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to notice this. Something about our reality is off, and you don’t have to believe everything I say to arrive at that conclusion. Something about our reality is off.
All I can tell you is what it is I’ve learned and tested. And yes, spiritual concepts can be tested, it’s not beyond anyone to do this. Part of the reason I became Spiritual is being able to test Spiritual concepts. What I believe in can be replicated by others. This is why I am 95% convinced that what I believe is true. There is a slight possibility that what I believe is wrong, but from testing Spiritual concepts, to doing research, to being part of a military group that literally has proof the size of a mountain that the things they talk about actually exist, I cannot write off what it is I’ve seen and experienced. I know, and have known, that it doesn’t matter what it is I say, most people are going to write me off as a conspiracy theorist. And that’s because most people are in a trance….and they literally do not know what is happening every single day, especially what is quite literally under their nose. And it’s sad…..it’s sad that most people don’t innerstand how to think critically, outside-of-the-box, have an open mind, and an open heart. Cause most of the the things we were taught what to think, are half truths at best mixed in with a few full truths, and lies.
Part of my soul contract is to cut through the lies and expose them. There are many subtle lies floating around out there that most people have fallen for. Yes, what I believe in doesn’t make sense to a lot of people, but we’re talking about the metaphysical. And the answers to anything metaphysical isn’t always obvious. Sometimes the not so obvious answer is the answer.
But until people innerstand how to think for themselves, all we’re going to do is be trapped in an endless time loop. All we do, day-in and day-out is repeat. We’re literally repeating history everyday. This is why it’s important to question this constant narrative that is being thrown at us. It’s important to question everything…every single thing, and like really question it. Put every piece of information you receive on trial, and really zoom in and see what’s going on. The answers are there, but most people don’t have “eyes that see.” Break free from your programming, get rid of your biases, get rid of your preconceptions, and see something just for what it is. And when you do this, then and only then do can you see something’s true nature, which is by simply observing. Again, I don’t advocate for breaking the law, but anything that is not deemed illegal, requires observation and patience. Again, the answer isn’t always obvious. Everything exists to help us grow and evolve in love and grace. Be the observer, admit that you know nothing, and just see how things pan out. Come to your own conclusions, be your own Spiritual Scientist. The answers are there, you just have to know where to look.
We are cousins from Adam and Eve brothers and sisters from the new eve sons and daughters in the new Adam becoming the Christ and all mankind becoming again for all creation in one Holy Spirit family one God in being, I believe.
You always make my day whenever you respond. You always have the best answers!