@lizzie I saw reference to the harrowing in first peter and thought of you.
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@lizzie @patchuun I think hell is a real physical place of great suffering some people who live lives very far from goodness go to, a place where the presence of God is much harder to feel than earth-like planes. I believe in a countably infinite multitude of varied existences and universes some better and some worse, where we are (re)born into account of our karma. however I think all achieve liberation eventually through karma yoga, jnana yoga, bhakti yoga or a meditation discipline like raja/laya/etc yoga. (or some combination of them) all the illumined mystics of the earth pretty much agree: the ultimate goal is union of the soul with God, and the easiest way to do this is through pure selfless love. thus all become one in Him, no one is left behind to suffer forever.
@georgia @patchuun i do think it involves a lot of real suffering, just as a more metaphysical place than physical. father of fathers st gregory of nyssa describes it as a ‘refining fire’. in a sense it does gain a proportionality imo, since clinging to one’s injustice brings suffering.
oddly a lot of the other church fathers seem to had a similar perspective that it was purification bc obv God doesnt do retribution, but unlike st gregory they thought that those in it would be claimed forever.
“the ultimate goal is union of the soul with God, and the easiest way to do this is through pure selfless love. thus all become one in Him, no one is left behind to suffer forever” trvke trvke trvke
@lizzie @georgia @patchuun still unable to unsee the speculation (first encountered in sunday school at age 12, not something on a sketchy forum as an adult) of how the minds of the believers will be changed so that they see things the way God sees them and they will understand and rejoice that the sinners are suffering
i identify as an atheist for everyone's safety
i identify as an atheist for everyone's safety
@apophis @georgia @patchuun a thought i think more than i would like to admit is “if your conception of God is less loving and less forgiving than chief from path to nowhere, youre doing something very wrong” which i first thought bc someone i know really wants people to burn in hell and was projecting that onto God.
but this is even worse than that. if your conception of God is less loving and less forgiving than even you are, wtf.
@patchuun @georgia @lizzie on the other hand, this:
> but this is even worse than that. if your conception of God is less loving and less forgiving than even you are, wtf.
can describe a lot of people i've met in churches over the years
often exacerbated by people who've reasoned out that a person's willingness to forgive and be gentle with people is actually a weakness and sin caused by their corrupt nature and that true piety would help them overcome it...
> but this is even worse than that. if your conception of God is less loving and less forgiving than even you are, wtf.
can describe a lot of people i've met in churches over the years
often exacerbated by people who've reasoned out that a person's willingness to forgive and be gentle with people is actually a weakness and sin caused by their corrupt nature and that true piety would help them overcome it...
@apophis @georgia @patchuun pastor at my church last week gave a sermon that basically boiled down to “people often use ‘jesus is God’ to project the tyranny they associate with God onto Jesus, and treat his kindness as a temporary aberration for while he was on earth. we need to remember that it works both ways. ‘God is jesus’. the goodness we witnessed in jesus’s actions is the clearest image of Gods character we have. read that into how we see God, not the other way around”