Just say no to the Godfather
I have suffered through trials and tribulations of all sort, and I honestly believe that if there is a heaven, that I will not go there, so why am I here?
Because sooner or later, we must arrive
somewhere. What you have put words to in your topic post is a classic theological conundrum that is as old as omniscience, omnipotence, and redemption. It is as stale as the whispers of Immutable Will and Perfect Knowledge that still tempt the blind with subjective invitations.
Jesus healed the blind; in the modern day his adherents seek to deceive them, to win them through whispers of convenience, fear, and a
love that is as subjective as any human being.
Modern redemptionism is a sorry state of ad hoc metaphysics, claiming at once both
tradition and the
innovation. Of actual innovation, what new has been written about this God? When was the last time something new became essential to the faith? Well and fine, for us, to criticize the adaptations of the past, but what of a paradigm realignment in the modern day? One of my favorite cartoons--I cannot reproduce it here as I have not found an online copy and am unwilling to slice up the Pulitzer edition of the book--is a Dave Horsey political spot from a few elections back. A man in a robe with long hair, a halo over his head, and scars on his wrists stands with his back to the reader, occupying much of the center vertical third of the frame. Around him, the faces of regional "Christian conservatives" looking on with disdain as they explain to Jesus that his policies just aren't "Christian enough" in the modern day.
I can only urge you,
stRgrL, to examine the basis of the heaven and hell you consider; I think it's fair to say that in any redemption-punishment scheme, you'll find a paucity of canonized evidence to support the desperate rhetoric of a dying church aiming to capture you through whatever means civilization allows.
Any means. In the past, deviants and dissenters were murdered. In the modern day, factions push ostracism onto public ballots; if they can't have your conduct through volition, they will seize it through force of law. To watch the absolute depravity with which the holier-than-thou redemptionists excoriate the spirit of the world is a revelation in the truth of human nature. Fear of God is a multibillion-dollar media industry, and how many times have you heard the fire-and-brimstone crowd advance their paradigm by attacking another? Savage Muslims, heathen Communists, Catholics and Protestants, cats and dogs ... is the movement so bereft of genuine progressive force that it can only tear down in an effort to equalize?
The problem is that of the heaven and hell you seem to refer to, and here I give deference to
Mr K's indictment of the Christian tradition, is rooted in what is, essentially, a blackmail. God, who, as noted, knows in advance, foresaw the Fall of Man at Eden, and thus the necessity of redemption through Christ. And, yet, He still went through with it. In terms of software production, it's like releasing the beta to the market (a common practice) and expecting one patch to fix the problem (a common error amid the ephemeral tech boom; note how few of those companies still exist, as such). In terms of the developer, God designed the project, executed it, marked its flaws, and prescribed a patch. The present condition is that the designer sees that the patch has failed and thinks that screaming at the OS will make the program run better. You'll notice, in the Biblical sense, the notion of updates, upgrades, and patches go quickly by the wayside. Instead of researching the fundamental problem and developing further solutions, the sperficial problems are addressed and the fundamental patch reapplied over and over with only a decline in the statistical result. The Muslim and Mormon upgrades, apparently, are apparently like startups in the Microsoft race: they are to be bought out (converted) or destroyed.
Thus the whole notion of life and faith becomes one of blackmail, with very vague and confusing instructions from the Criminal Mastermind. As Don Jehovah has it, the family is not to question, but to obey and trust. Like the hitman with inadequate instructions, sometimes the wrong guy in the black suit gets taken down. Are the inadequate instructions excuse enough to pity the unfortunate hitter's life? Don Jehovah does not even lift a finger:
Depart from me, ye cursed fool ....
This is what I mean when I say I think you'll find a paucity of canonized evidence for your considerations; that you have been put on the path, as such, is a deception. You have been invited, conditioned, or otherwise to accept a fear and focus that is not real.
Take Wicca, for instance. There are many names for the land of the dead, the most foreboding being perhaps Tir na 'Og (I can't even remember what, exactly, it means; it's just a gray-sounding word in this example), the brightest being the Summerland. It is well and fine to say that all good witches will dance in the Summerland, but honestly, I've never heard what comes of the
waer-loga, the oath-breakers, the warlocks. Of course, in a less cohesive discipline such as Wicca, one encounters various speculations from straight reincarnation to Nirvana to attainment of Universal Secrets.
Thus I suggest to you, first,
Who says the redemptive scheme must punish or deprive? and, secondly,
Who says the redemptive scheme is necessarily true?
In the end, nobody can say either definitively, and we might look to the heaven and hell to which you refer and consider for a moment the most common post-Christian heaven and hell. In other words, where do these ideas come from, if the paucity I've asserted is correct? They come from frightened, desperate, undereducated people who live in fear of spectres invented rather than step forth and face the life they have before them. They seek tradition to justify them because they refuse reality. In the end, the heaven and hell you refer to may well be a psychiatric symptom.
And so I urge you to dispense with such notions as redemptionism. After all, how is it that, in the case of, say, religion, the masses are right, while misfiring so consistently in other judgments made
en masse? For instance, are Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys, and whoever the flavor of the day is really and truly constitute the best modern music has to offer? Was
Seinfeld really the best television had to offer? In the case of
The Simpsons, I might accept that. And there exists a certain distinction. Is all popular conception pure shite? Hardly. But if you pick up enough junk along the side of the road, some of it's bound to be valuable. But I just watched a disaster of a concert last week from a band--who gets a free pass here--that claimed to wish to change the way pop music was presented to its audience. Aside from sound troubles--and those I'll forgive in the grander scheme--the band actually did just fine. The show works in other places, but what happened here is that people bought their tickets and forgot to expect something different. They stood around, wondering where the traditional Seattle show was; they didn't want this pseudo-British, post-rave event they found themselves at. One of the finest DJ's in the business was nearly reduced to snow, the audience was so frosty. In this case, the mass judgement was a rejection of what people had bought in for. Except for the freestyle portion, they actually got what they paid for, and just couldn't admit it, loosen up, or enjoy themselves. Written reviews would suggest that the band has no future after that show; here I disagree with such a pop-tripe conception. To shorten the point: do you really trust the result of the common paradigm?
If so, all I can do is point again to my excoriation of redemptionism as spiritual blackmail. If not, I can only urge you to forsake such considerations. Quite obviously,
stRgrL, you have a mind that sees a certain degree of detail. Trust that mind. Let the trials of the past contribute to the triumphs to come; as tacky as that sounds, it is much easier to accomplish if one is not consistently badmouthing their own self in order to find a way to pay the extortion.
As you noted that you're split 50-50 on the issue, a degree that, honestly, I do not envy, I submit to you that, in limiting yourself to the two issues, you have already surrendered to the one. Is there a heaven and a hell? Okay, there's a 50-50 throw. Whose heaven and hell is it? Ah ... now there is born a mighty conundrum.
Thus I urge you to dispense with considerations of theological blackmail. The mysteries of God only blossom when the fear is wiped away. A dazzling adventure or a stoic resignation--it's all in what you make it.
Why adopt a God that would condemn you for living as He has prescribed?
Sometimes the lost ones do come home alive. Should God punish them for their trials? Or just be happy they're home?
Thus, with no better answer, I submit that
you are here because we are the eyes and ears of the Universe; what you see, it sees; what you know, it knows; when you look into the Universe, the Universe is seeing itself.
Perhaps it's not a comfort, but the Universe would never have known your trials without you, nor would It ever have come to realize what wisdom such trials have given It through you. If there
is an afterlife, I'd say your gifts qualify for admission.
There will, most likely,
never be another you; the circumstances of the event we might call
stRgrL will most likely never occur in the Universe again; and, should they find a way, would they truly be the same, or would they come after, or separate from? The Universe will never again know Itself as It does through you.
thanx much,
Tiassa
