I am baffled, please explain

[Peter_Plato]

“Erasing” is different from “forgetting.” God forcibly erasing our memories of loved ones is different from our forgetting of heinously evil people after a time of healing. Besides, the only people who will arrive at this terrible end are truly evil people (Hitler, Stalin, etc).

It seems to me that you have a problem. If only “heinously” or “truly evil” people will arrive at the “terrible end,” what happens to the not-so-truly-evil people who enjoy just a little evil or profit by it and refuse to repent or change their ways? It would appear that your view of Heaven is not so different from our current existence absent the “truly evil” deeds of the heinous ones.

What’s a little theft, jealousy, betrayal, pride, injury or coveting among friends, eh? God will just have to tolerate it while things sort themselves out, I suppose. Even if they never do?

Under Catholicism though, there is no reason to suppose any of us will be going to heaven. Everyone is one missed mass, one false belief, one utterance of “fool” against a brother from eternal damnation. It is very likely that many of my own family members and myself are headed there, given Catholicism, and I don’t think we’re unusually evil. Simple, average, decent people are barred from Catholic heaven, in my opinion.

Well, to be completely straight, Catholicism doesn’t claim one faux pas will get you into Hell, it does insist that every sin will be forgiven. Following Jesus, the Church claims that “one utterance of ‘fool’” can make you eligible for eternal damnation, but that is because of the pernicious nature of evil. Like a cancer or infectious disease it can spread and take over even good and healthy beings. Evil needs complete eradication, not mere “addressing” or masking of symptoms.

The final result of a life of sin and a refusal to repent is utter destruction. The scriptures are full of statements showing that God will one day totally destroy people like this.

Either God is a just judge or he is not. Either Christ is who he claimed to be or he is not. My preferred option is to go with the former in each of those either/or statements because

1. I believe in final justice.
2. An honest appraisal of the authority of Jesus confirms that he far surpasses any “argument” I could possibly muster to try and counter or undermine that authority.
3. God’s solution will be better than any I can come up with, even though I might find my own appealing to me at this time. That these “solutions” appeal “to me” makes them suspicious and probably specious, which is why I defer the entire question to God.

 

[PRmerger]

Forgetting occurs naturally when one focuses on something else, like the glory and wonder of the “World to Come” and life with God in peace. “Erasing” is what happens when someone uses the body against the soul by damaging the brain in order to forcibly prevent one from recalling something. This can be done with drugs, surgical instruments, or ghoulish psychological torture of various kinds. Surely God doesn’t do this!

Well, this is just semantics. No one has said that God erases our memories.

So it appears that we are agreed and we possibly can and will forget our loved ones not with us in heaven.

I’m glad that you have now come to see that possibility!

#thatswhywedothisfolks!

 

[PumpkinCookie]

It seems to me that you have a problem. If only “heinously” or “truly evil” people will arrive at the “terrible end,” what happens to the not-so-truly-evil people who enjoy just a little evil or profit by it and refuse to repent or change their ways? It would appear that your view of Heaven is not so different from our current existence absent the “truly evil” deeds of the heinous ones.

What’s a little theft, jealousy, betrayal, pride, injury or coveting among friends, eh? God will just have to tolerate it while things sort themselves out, I suppose. Even if they never do?

God will punish us in this life and the next, for the purpose of restoring justice as well as teaching us the error of our ways. Those who still haven’t learned by death will go to Sheol where they will be punished until they can join in eternal life. Very similar to purgatory.

Well, to be completely straight, Catholicism doesn’t claim one faux pas will get you into Hell, it does insist that every sin will be forgiven. Following Jesus, the Church claims that “one utterance of ‘fool’” can make you eligible for eternal damnation, but that is because of the pernicious nature of evil. Like a cancer or infectious disease it can spread and take over even good and healthy beings. Evil needs complete eradication, not mere “addressing” or masking of symptoms.

Agree, we need to be healed.

Either God is a just judge or he is not. Either Christ is who he claimed to be or he is not. My preferred option is to go with the former in each of those either/or statements because

1. I believe in final justice.
2. An honest appraisal of the authority of Jesus confirms that he far surpasses any “argument” I could possibly muster to try and counter or undermine that authority.
3. God’s solution will be better than any I can come up with, even though I might find my own appealing to me at this time. That these “solutions” appeal “to me” makes them suspicious and probably specious, which is why I defer the entire question to God.

I’m not going to oppose you here. Believe what you think is true, you aren’t able to do otherwise of course.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

Well, this is just semantics. No one has said that God erases our memories.

So it appears that we are agreed and we possibly can and will forget our loved ones not with us in heaven.

I’m glad that you have now come to see that possibility!

#thatswhywedothisfolks!

OK? I wouldn’t be able to forget if I knew my own mother were being actively tortured forever and forever. My mind would have to be erased!

If my mother were annihilated, I would be deeply sad, but eventually heal I suppose.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

Sin is a very, very serious thing, so yes, without Christ and His Church there is no reason to suppose any of us will be going to heaven.

But thank goodness (or rather, God!) for His Sacraments!

It’s odd that you would know more about the state of your family members’ souls than the Church…which doesn’t even reserve for herself the right to judge that.

Yet, for some reason, you seem to know more about their destination regarding “Catholic heaven” than the Catholic Church.

#peculiar

Psalm 92 says nothing at all like that.

Any other sources?

So if we can’t know whether or not we’re on the path to hell, and we can’t know if anyone else is on the path to hell, then I guess it will be a big surprise when we arrive? How can it be “chosen” if it is a surprise and we didn’t know what we were choosing? Further, what is the point of evangelization? How do you know everyone isn’t just absolutely fine? Why bother to spread the warning of impending endless doom?

The church says that those who die in mortal sin descend directly and immediately into hell. She has shelves of books describing serious sins and their gradients of severity in detail. Yes, we can’t know if a person has full knowledge (does anyone, ever?) or complete consent (does anyone, ever?) but if you witness someone engaged in a serious (aka grave) sin wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that they might be in danger of mortal sin and thus eternal doom?

How about this, why don’t you find me a passage in the Tanakh stating that there is a place of endless torment called hell where God sends sinners to punish themselves forever? Jews have never believed this in more than 3,000 years of having the Torah. I think such a thing would be crucial for the people of God to know, don’t you? Why the total silence?

Look, I’m done with this thread. I feel like we’ve explored most of the arguments regarding the OP. I’m not here to proselytize, it doesn’t lead to truth. The desire for truth has to come from within, I think. If you want to talk about hell we can do that, but I’ve had enough for now. Thanks for engaging with these ideas though, your contributions are valuable!

 

[mamlukman]

"Under Catholicism though, there is no reason to suppose any of us will be going to heaven. Everyone is one missed mass, one false belief, one utterance of “fool” against a brother from eternal damnation. It is very likely that many of my own family members and myself are headed there, given Catholicism, and I don’t think we’re unusually evil. Simple, average, decent people are barred from Catholic heaven, in my opinion.

That’s a bit harsh! Without taking a poll, I would think most Catholics would think the opposite–almost everyone would go to Heaven.

Let’s leave aside the obvious answer of sorrow for sins and confession and go to the conditions for a serious sin. It has to be actually serious–not some trivial thing that an ultra-scrupulous person thinks is serious. I suppose you could make a list of those, but for most people those serious sins rarely come up. I don’t contemplate killing my neighbor or robbing a bank. Some people do, but they’re a small minority. Second, you have to know that it’s serious. So if you commit a sin thinking that it is simply a venial sin, although it is really a serious sin, you are not guilty of a serious sin.

Thirdly, and most importantly to me–and a lot of people–is the question of consent. You must give you full consent to the sin. But then the question becomes how free is your consent? You are influenced by your genetic makeup (tendency to drink, for example), your upbringing and environment (your father beat your mother every day, so you think that’s normal), and your situation at the time–let’s say missing Mass on Sunday. Yes, it’s serious. Yes, you know it’s serious. But you live 20 miles from the church and there is a big snow storm…sure, you could try to make it. But common sense tells you to stay home. Is this a sin? Of course not. And the more you think about “full consent” the more you realize that this is virtually impossible. There are always influences, whether they be bad habits, bad companions, TV, whatever. There are those who think that the only time you are truly free is at the moment of death–and at that moment God will present you with your sins and you then have a truly free choice of embracing them or rejecting them. Even if that’s just a theory, we would all agree that when God judges someone, He takes into account the degree of freedom that person had when consenting to a sin–and only God knows what that degree of freedom was. The person himself doesn’t even know.

So, considering all that, can you commit a serious sin? Sure. But you’d have to really work at it!

 

[SonOfMan]

It’s always amusing to me that folks who demand evidence for God’s existence will believe in oh-so-many things without a shred of evidence.

Its always astonishing to me that people who believe in Jesus as God on thin and weak evidence will not believe in other gods with much stronger and modern evidence, which you shyed away from answering in an earlier post. Why is that?

 

[PRmerger]

Its always astonishing to me that people who believe in Jesus as God on thin and weak evidence will not believe in other gods with much stronger and modern evidence, which you shyed away from answering in an earlier post. Why is that?

Can you offer what gods you mean, and what evidence you have for their existence?

 

[Aloysium]

Its always astonishing to me that people who believe in Jesus as God on thin and weak evidence will not believe in other gods with much stronger and modern evidence, which you shyed away from answering in an earlier post. Why is that?

Which people in particular astonish you? Who are they and where did you meet them?
What thin and weak evidence are you referring to?

 

[SonOfMan]

Can you offer what gods you mean, and what evidence you have for their existence?

I cited Sathiya Sai Baba as an example, if you recall. He has millions of direct and immediate eyewitnesses/followers of whom you can speak with directly, his miracles are all very well documented, video proof of miracles, you could have met him yourself in your lifetime, thousands of westerners who have visited him have been changed by him, etc.

Much stronger and abundant evidence for him, yet you choose not to believe, but rather choose to believe in Jesus who has much less and weak evidence. Why is that?

 

[Peter_Plato]

I cited Sathiya Sai Baba as an example, if you recall. He has millions of direct and immediate eyewitnesses/followers of whom you can speak with directly, his miracles are all very well documented, video proof of miracles, you could have met him yourself in your lifetime, thousands of westerners who have visited him have been changed by him, etc.

Much stronger and abundant evidence for him, yet you choose not to believe, but rather choose to believe in Jesus who has much less and weak evidence. Why is that?

We have standards.

And the fact that Sathiya Sai Baba attempts to use the name and reputation of Jesus to give him some credibility.

If he were who he claims to be why would he need the nod of someone whose existence is based upon “much less and weak evidence?”

In addition, Jesus claimed to be God. That claim stands or falls on its own merit. Either he was or was not. If he was not that “fact” ought to be easy to demonstrate. It hasn’t been.

Unlike Sathiya Sai Baba, whose claims are all disputed and shown to be more plausibly false than true.

 

[SonOfMan]

We have standards.

And the fact that Sathiya Sai Baba attempts to use the name and reputation of Jesus to give him some credibility.

Where does he attempt to use the name and reputation of Jesus?

If you are referring to the fact that he claimed to be God in form of man, that just means the idea isnt particularly unique.

However, we were discussing evidence though. Based on evidence, he has more than Jesus by far.

 

[Pallas_Athene]

Some evidence for this please. Something that is objective and physical, has been peer-reviewed, and with data that can be duplicated.

The concept of “possible worlds” is a philosophical concept - NOT a scientific one. You can read about it here: plato.stanford.edu/entries/possible-worlds/ It does not deal with “what IS”, rather with “what COULD BE”.

… because all our thoughts are determined by our genetic makeup and we are the random result of a specific sperm winning the race to the ovum.

If you believe that our thoughts are DETERMINED by our genetic makeup then you are seriously mistaken. On the other hand, “WE” as the body and mind are PARTIALLY determined by the genetic inheritance we received from our parents. And since it is obvious that those billions of sperms are not identical, there is indeed a huge variety of the “possible” persons who could emerge from the lottery of conception.

 

[PRmerger]

I cited Sathiya Sai Baba as an example, if you recall. He has millions of direct and immediate eyewitnesses/followers of whom you can speak with directly, his miracles are all very well documented, video proof of miracles, you could have met him yourself in your lifetime, thousands of westerners who have visited him have been changed by him, etc.

Much stronger and abundant evidence for him, yet you choose not to believe, but rather choose to believe in Jesus who has much less and weak evidence. Why is that?

Well, I think the fact that he is accused of sexual molestation, and living ostentatiously is kind of a downer, as far as his being God Incarnate and all.

elephantjournal.com/2011/04/10-things-we-can-learn-from-the-bizarre-case-of-sai-baba-a-manifesto-on-reality-based-spiritual-empowerment/

 

[Aloysium]

I cited Sathiya Sai Baba as an example,. . . Much stronger and abundant evidence for him, yet you choose not to believe, but rather choose to believe in Jesus who has much less and weak evidence. Why is that?

From what I have read about him, the evidence for anything other than hysterics is rather slim.

That said, I am coming from a position where the holiest person, as far as I have been able to discern, with whom I have come into contact, was an old wizened Hindhu man. In his presence, the air seemed to dance with other-worldly fragrances; this does not make sense but is the best description that I can come up with of a meeting that happened about five decades ago. He actually did not do much other than sit, breathe and nudge me to sit up straight. There were a less than a handful people who hung out with him, nothing at all like the example you gave.

I believe intellectually in Christianity the way I believe in mathematics, as a way to make clear the nature of Reality.
As to Jesus’ divinity, the evidence is about as rock solid as anything else. More solid for me, I must confess, than that which tells me that the earth revolves around the sun.

Jesus taught, but more than that:

• as the Word incarnate He allows for our entering into communion with God.
• through His death, He takes on our sins;
• and, by His resurrection, He frees us from death.
  As we all fell, in Him we are redeemed. He is our Saviour.
  He is the Way to God.

It seems we see things from different perspectives.
If you are looking for magic and demonstrations of power you may miss that which is of true value.

 

[PRmerger]

Forgetting occurs naturally when one focuses on something else, like the glory and wonder of the “World to Come” and life with God in peace.

BINGO!!!

So you can see that you’d still be the same person you were on earth without the memory of your mom, (per your example), not being in heaven with you.

Perhaps you may want to retract your previous assertion that you made here forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=12928545&postcount=840
which stated:

“.What could possibly be left of my memory, and how can we say that I would be “myself” in any meaningful sense?”

 

[PRmerger]

I don’t know how rape victims will be able to heal and forget the evils done to them during life. I would imagine that life in the “World To Come” and the knowledge that the rapist has either repented and been restored or has been “torn from existence” is helpful. As the psalm said the past Sunday at mass “Justice and peace shall kiss.”

OK, I don’t know if Hitler, Stalin, or “etc” will be annihilated. I guess they could have repented. But, God’s law is clear about which offenses are “capital” and jeopardize our eternal lives. Certainly, causing the deaths of millions is one of them!

For so many assertions as you’ve been making, you certainly have a lot of “I don’t knows”.

It seems to me that you’ve simply created a paradigm that sounds appealing to you.

Kind of like oldcelt does.

“I don’t like it that A, B, and C” so I’m going to reconstruct my paradigm to make it more palatable, and say, “The world is really like X, Y and Z!”

Except that you have no evidence to support your X, Y and Z.

 

[PRmerger]

The concept of “possible worlds” is a philosophical concept - NOT a scientific one.

Ah. So nice to see you are indeed responding to my posts. And nice to see you visiting my Profile Page.

At any rate, I’m glad to see you understand that we can come to the knowledge of the existence of things without use of Science Alone. But rather some things require Philosophical proofs.

So it’s rather curious that you would embrace Philosophy as a discipline to prove the existence of “possible worlds”, (of which there is NOT A SINGLE SHRED OF EVIDENCE)

but reject Philosophy as a discipline to prove the existence of God.

 

[Richca]

I cited Sathiya Sai Baba as an example, if you recall. He has millions of direct and immediate eyewitnesses/followers of whom you can speak with directly, his miracles are all very well documented, video proof of miracles, you could have met him yourself in your lifetime, thousands of westerners who have visited him have been changed by him, etc.

Much stronger and abundant evidence for him, yet you choose not to believe, but rather choose to believe in Jesus who has much less and weak evidence. Why is that?

Jesus also had eyewitnesses and followers who witnessed all he did and which they wrote down for us in the gospels as well as by spreading it by word of mouth. The apostles witnessed Jesus’ miracles: making the lame walk, the blind see, the deaf hear, curing all manner of diseases, casting out demons, walking on water, raising the dead, calming the winds, and finally they were a witness to his resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven. They were also a witness to Jesus’ holy life and what he taught. We also have a church which Jesus founded through the apostles which still exists today. All this is obviously not weak evidence but eyewitness evidence. We also have many saints who in the name of Jesus have performed many miracles as well as who have seen the living Jesus in visions. And these saints were not hysterical people or people on drugs of some nature; just examine their fruits for by their fruits you shall know them. Jesus’ coming as the Messiah was also foretold by the prophets of the Old Testament hundreds of years before Jesus appeared on earth. Was the appearance of Sathiya Sai Baba ever foretold by any credible prophet of God? The claim for weak evidence for Jesus is a subjective claim unsupported by objective facts and truth to say the least.

 

[PRmerger]

OK? I wouldn’t be able to forget if I knew my own mother were being actively tortured forever and forever. My mind would have to be erased!

If my mother were annihilated, I would be deeply sad, but eventually heal I suppose.

But you would be able to forget her.

You said so yourself.

Upon death, if this person refuses to repent and relishes the evil he has worked, then God will tear him from existence. He will go into the void, never to be seen or heard from again. Utterly wiped out. As if he never was. Everyone will forget and move on. His annihilation will allow healing and justice to prevail totally and completely, forever.