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nancy_dalrymple
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That makes sence to me: Thank you for your (name removed by moderator)ut Love of Christ Nancy
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That makes sence to me: Thank you for your (name removed by moderator)ut Love of Christ Nancy
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JMJ_coder
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The lives of the Saints disprove this. Oh, they may not have lived materially comfortable lives, but they had such a divine peace about them – and a happiness in doing God’s will, no matter what.
God doesn’t answer yes every time. Sometimes the answer is no and sometimes the answer is yes or maybe…but not yet. Again, God is not there to do your bidding or make things happen just the way you want them. But, every prayer is answered in the way that will lead the soul closest to God.
I remind you that the best good is not the material well being but the spiritual well being of a person, and every prayer is answered in the way that God knows will be of most benefit for this good.
I also note that I have witnessed such “outcomes being affected” by prayer and other sundry miracles.
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JMJ_coder
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Here are some things I observed. You had at times an inaccurate understanding of what the Catholic teachings on things actually are. I observed someone who seemed to come to the Church for aesthetic reasons, which is why I asked you if you truly believed in the teachings such as the Eucharist and such. You claim you did and I will take you at your word. So, did you spend time in adoration before the Eucharist or in praying the Rosary with the intention, not of any sort of petition for physical well being, but for the primary and exclusive intention of being strengthened in the faith, in submitting to the will of God no matter what it be, in resolution to struggle through temptation and to remain steadfast in loyalty to God no matter the outcome. If so, how long did you persist and did you make these petitions unconditionally, with no strings attached (as in do this or I won’t believe in you)?
Beyond that, in what was written gave the indications of a person who has an immature and selfish attitude about the nature of human love. I assume that there was some condition that would place your wife’s life at risk if she carried a baby to full term. Did you ever consider remaining perpetually continent?
I have repeatedly observed, in both the blog and in your responses here an attitude of demanding that God make your life materially happy with a fullness of physical health and granting of all physical pleasure.
That’s all I can recall at this moment, the blog entry is unavailable at the moment.
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JMJ_coder
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You didn’t answer my question in post 126:Wow, I wonder how this went from the concept of hell to my personal relationship and lack thereof with god.
To the OP, I’m sorry for hijacking the thread, but it seems like when an agnostic or atheist post, people want to know why they way things, how they got to these conclusions and how they could fix it.
Sorry for the de-railing!
Would you find it merciful and loving to be forced to forever behold someone you absolutely hated?
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tonyrey
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If you sincerely believed that with all your heart you have nothing to blame yourself for!
It is the teaching of the Church that the ultimate authority is our conscience.
It is absurd to equate difficulty in following a particular moral precept with total rejection of God and His Church. If that is the only reason for your disbelief you have nothing to worry about. But I suspect from your interpretation of hell that your faith was too literal and legalistic. We are in hell when we worship ourselves and put ourselves before everyone else, including our Creator.
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JMJ_coder
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But the conscience must be well-formed in light of the teachings of the Church. One cannot simply appeal to “conscience” to justify any behavior or attitude no matter how aberrant. (cf. CCC 1776-1801)
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nancy_dalrymple
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JMJ, what does that mean? To be forced to forever behold someone you absolutely hated? Love of Christ Nancy
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JMJ_coder
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The general assertion/question in this thread has been how could a loving God punish someone in a hell forever. Heaven is the state of beholding the beloved, what the Catholic Church terms the beatific vision. So, my question is how could a loving God force someone to be where they do not want to be for eternity – how is it loving or merciful to force someone to be in an intimate union with a person they absolutely hate?
Does this wording make sense?
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nancy_dalrymple
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NO! does that mean that peole don’t stay in hell? or there is no hell? nancy
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JMJ_coder
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Those who of their own volition choose some part of creation (e.g., money, lust, etc.) more than God as their ‘god’ who they worship, those people choose hell. Once we die we are confirmed in our free will choice – to love and serve God or to love and serve something else. Their will be no changing our minds either way after death (a concept hard for us here are used to being fickle), we will be forever confirmed in our decision. Those who hate God (i.e., those who love and server something else) are cast into hell, God will not force them to be with them against their will.
Hell is the absence of God. Those who hate God go to be without Him. But, since God is the only true good and happiness of man, their is no happiness in hell. The veil is lifted from the lie of ‘glamor of evil’ and the horrors of hell are presented to those. Their is no love in hell, only hate. Those in hell hate everyone and everything, including themselves, and most especially God. It is truly the saddest state of affairs.
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nancy_dalrymple
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What of those people who were brought up without love and never had a chance coming out the gate? They tried to love but had a defect? Nancy
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JMJ_coder
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There is no personal defect of character, no imperfection, no impediment so great that it cannot be overcome by embracing the grace of God. We all have our own cross to bear.
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nancy_dalrymple
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I agree with you and i dont, because that’s kind of cut and dry,and i’m glad i came to this forum so i can see how people realy are, from what they profess they are. Truly Nancy
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JMJ_coder
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Now I’m the one who doesn’t quite understand what you’re saying.
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tonyrey
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I agree but there are complex cases where it is necessary to choose the lesser of two evils. A person with a well-formed conscience has to make the decision after reflection, prayer and consultation without trying to abdicate responsibility and pass the buck. After all we are individuals who are uniquely responsible for our salvation or damnation…
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tonyrey
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Your question implies that God forces a person to be in hell. Surely God has given us the power to choose for ourselves…
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JMJ_coder
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No, the person chooses to be in hell. God has given us the power to choose for ourselves – do you want to live with God or not. That is do you want to be in heaven or hell – the choice is ours.
We choose hell by not choosing God. Heaven is the place where we love and serve God for eternity – if you choose not to do that, you choose hell.
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Mijoy2
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I am not knocking the individual post here, I am attempting to express the non-sensical attitude behind this popular notion that people “choose” hell.
Every single person I know and have experienced in my life believe they are a “good” person. Most believe they are going to heaven. Some question the existance of God and do not know what may occur at the moment of thier death and some (I am sure) believe they will enter into non-existance.
Yet NONE “choose” hell. i.e “I think I will pass on eternal bliss and burn for all eternity in a spiritual and physical pain beyond all comprehension”.
Augustine believes that the individual in hell expereiences everlasting flames where the flesh of thier bodies burn off, only to be regenerated such that it can burn off again throughout eternity.
Frankly, (and I fully understand and realize the good intentions of people who continously profess this notion) I am sick of hearning that people who go to hell choose it.
If you doubt my stance ask yourself this: Do you know anybody who continuously hits thier finger with a hammer only to do it again and again and again? Of course not. Choosing hell, is simply non-sensical and NOBODY in sound mind would do such a thing.
We have to come up with a better answer fellow Catholics. This one is ridiculous.
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nancy_dalrymple
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HI Myjoy2, I have been reading this and i feel you can choose hell. There is either life or death and Jesus say’s choose life! Yes unfortunatly there are those out there who choose to follow satan and even go to his church. And have sex rituals and drink blood and offer it to satan. They could be our neighbor and you might not even know it. There are real sick people in this world and you should not be so nieve, there is a hell and a hell fire and the very wicked will go there! How long? The bible say’s to burn forever,and in Rev. it say’s after the thousand years death and hell will be swollowed up and be no more. Everdently the thousand years hasn’t happened yet if it did there would be no more suffering or sorrow, all would be made new, And that has not happened yet.So with that in mind there must still be a hell and people must be choosing to go there or there would be no need for God to make it, and He did make it because God made everything, but keep in mind for the very wicked, loosers, evil for which we put on the whole armour of God why would we need armour if there was no such evil? Remember the man that the decipals turned over to the devil? Some people can be redeemed but some are right from the gates of hell they kill children and rape and plunder the land and sacrifice baby’s and animals to Bali or what ever they believe in. you will know them by their fruits. God be with you Love of Christ Nancy
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JMJ_coder
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There are some very sick people out there, some even explicitly desire hell. But, most don’t do this explicitly but implicitly.
How many people do you know that are consumed with the acquisition of wealth? How many do you know that spend all week thinking about their weekend flings? How many do you know that would rather sleep in on Sunday than go to Mass?
Each of those scenarios (and countless others) is the intentional choosing of some created good over the Creator. And sin is a lie - that is why we profess in the Renewal of Baptismal Promises: I do reject the glamor of evil, and refuse to be mastered by sin? I do reject all Satan’s empty promises?
In a survey of the theology of Saint Athanasius, Thomas G Weinandy notes:
In creating human beings in the image and likeness of his Word, the Father has necessarily endowed them with freedom. This freedom was to be employed in the loving contemplation of God and in the virtuous doing of good. However, it is this same divinely bestowed freedom that made possible, for Athanasius, the outset of sin as the voluntary turning from God to the voluntary turning inward upon oneself. For sin, to Athanasius’ mind, is more than a turning toward and seeking after the sensuous things of the world; rather, these are but symptoms of human beings being more concerned about themselves than they are about God.
Unlike the Gnostics or Manicheans, matter and the body, because they are created by the good God, are not intrinsically and ontologically evil. The intellectual soul may be superior to the body, and so the governor or charioteer of the body; yet, it is precisely because of the soul’s governorship, and not because of some inherent sensuous weakness within the body itself, that a human being is at fault with regard to sin. While it was through the bodily senses and the pleasures associated with these bodily senses that attracted the soul, it was the soul, not the body, which became inordinately enamoured of and so ultimately seduced by earthly and bodily pleasure to the exclusion of God.
Athanasius’ employment of human freedom to account for sin allowed him to refute the common ancient philosophical tenet, as found in the Mesopotamian creation myths - Platonism, Gnosticism, and Manicheism - that matter is the ontological ground of evil. Equally important, it permitted him to deny that evil finds its source in some substantive existing malevolent deity who could rival and so stifle the providential plan of the all good God. Thus Athanasius transformed evil from being something ontologically grounded either in matter or an evil deity into moral evil, that is, something that springs forth from the voluntary abuse and so immoral use of what is good. Athanasius could then stress that evil, far from existing in its own right, is actually a parasite upon the good. The ‘God Who is’ gave good existence to all that is and so all that is is good. Moreover, as long as human beings lived virtuous lives, pursuing the good, they would grow in their existential likeness to the good God Who is. however, since human beings are, by nature, always active, having enmeshed themselves in the web of sin, they drove themselves headlong toward non-being, for the pleasures of sin never impart the joy and happiness they deceptively promised. Sin, for Athansius, by its very turning away from the God Who is, turns the sinner toward non-existence.
(Athanasius: A Theological Introduction, pg. 16-17)
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