Doc,

It was not your ego I was refering to.  I undertand you are coming from the perspective of forum policy to maintain the community and I believe your concern is appropriately placed.  However, the license is given through choice.  This certainly does not mean there are no consequences.

My point is to look from a different perspective and to realize the truth of where this is coming from instead of a polarized pro and con debate over the offensive nature of something... whatever it happens to be.

I understand Mactek,

I wonder at what point you would enter the discussion as I did?  What post or title would do so?  I think we both agree there must be standards, even if we are above the duality of a debate.


M

I find DaBears title and thread excellent, especially his post...It's about time forumites went
out on a limb and expressed their feelings. And it's about time we stood up to the Thought
Police from the Christian Dictatorship, whose main aim is to cast doubt among sincere
searchers(from the 'New Age Ghetto', as one Minister of Propaganda puts it) and sway
them into the fear and power-money-material based, christian empire.... Gman.
ps...I wonder how much the Rev. Howard Storm's personal wealth and income shot up
since he wrote his NDE book with that jesus-christian slant to it. ..Maybe book publishers
should hang around emergency sections of hospitals where just in the good old USA
alone, hundreds, maybe thousands of patients are resuscitated back from the brink
every month.  Better still, have fundy ministers convince some of them to write NDE
books(with the help of experienced writers, off course)  then those Beserks of the world
have endless quotes to prove their biased standpoint on the nature of the afterlife..Gman.

Wow, geez I didn't mean to start such a controversy. I didn't mean to sound like a bigot or anything like that. I was just letting my soul speak. After going through literally hell for almost a year. Because of this lie I have feared it for over a year. You know how badly that ruins someone's soul ?? To stay up all night crying that I myself may end up in such a place, or my family and friends may go there..! Also, to feel your soul just being ripped out of you every day and night worrying that you may go to this ungodly hell! Where the pain is undescribeable and out of this universe painful for eternity!! Waking up during the middle of night with night terrors.. Dreaming of hell itself at night.. Yes, I did have a few dreams about hell and it was not pretty.. Demons torturing me and snakes coming and ripping out my heart, while I hung roasting above a sulphur pit! Yes, my subconscious mind even created it for me during my dreams and added fuel to the fire.. Realising hell might as well be real.. Heck, I just had dreams about it! So, there I would go worried out of my mind seeing the proof of it all in my dreams.. Believing God was giving me these visions of hell  to warn me..

  So many hours of my life wasted due to the fact of this lie... Most of it was wasted by laying on my floor in my room crying and praying God would save me from this hell! Than other times of my life were wasted finding the truth through research about hell in the bible... The history of hell.. So, many different resources I went through, it would take a page to list all of them..!! Yes, many hours spent obsessing over this subject they called hell.. Was I finding the truth or was it something that just sounded good like wishful thinking?! I fret over that for awhile too.. Until, my higher self just took over and said Alex, this has to be the truth! God is Love and would never create hell! Plus, God never created hell in the first place.. That was the first time I actually communicated with my higher self.. Now, my higher self helps me out a lot..! Maybe it's a mixture of my spirit guides as well..

Well, now I still even fret over the hell thing because maybe I have already created it for myself to experience in the afterlife.. So, I'm stuck in the mud again.. Just like a clock on the wall, always moving but never going anywhere.. Yes, I do believe hell is  created by our subconscious mind out of fear, anger, lust, etc.. We add fuel to the fire and give it life.. It is a vortex that is created by people who think the same.. So, I'm a gonner.. What's a little soul speaking going to hurt from my part?? When this lie has caused me suffering and still does.. When I haven't hurt anybody with venomous words or anything like that..

I will change the title to nothing but stress... Thank you and wow I need to get back to a lot of people on this thread.. Oh btw I am just a new age ghetto person like Don says.. I have a little Christian Universalism in me as well.. Because Christian Universalist don't preach about an ungodly hell and don't believe in a sadistic God either...

peace

Gman wrote on Apr 19^th, 2007 at 2:22pm:

Thank you for feeling the same way I do!! I am glad to have a poster like you here! You also speak your mind! I like your fiery approach to things!!

[eace

Quote:

Good to hear you find this boring.. I find it to be quite the opposite.. Since, it has caused a lot of struggle in my life.. I feel this rant you people call it to be quite thrilling to express higher self!!! Because my higher self definately knows what I have gone through and wants people to know that.. So, others like myself can feel free from this lie.. And feel free to speak their minds!

peace

 I believe the original post was actually right on in some ways (and I am a Christian).  Hell is a difficult concept to defend as a Christian.  As a literal Christian, it may be impossible to reasonably defend against this attack.
 However, I think you can defend the doctrine of hell if we keep in mind that God attributes tremendous value to free will.  In fact, God values free will over temporary suffering.  In other words, we live with people who mistreat us, and we will mistreat them, in an abuse of our free will.  God sees our suffering, does not want us to suffer but allows it to happen as a natural consequence of free will.  In succinct terms; moral evil exists as a necessary requirement of free will; natural evil exists as a necessary requirement of a rational, orderly universe that is necessary for rational, ethical decisions to work out in consequential form.  If I shoot someone and some of the time a hole magically opens up to prevent them from dying, and sometimes that doesn't happen, how could we call that a logical universe?  How could the universe have any ethics if consequences of actions sometimes existed and sometimes didn't?
 Keeping this in mind (how much God values free will), plus adding ideas from near death experiences and people who have literally died, come back and told there story, there are some similarities and common themes.  One is a life review, where people are made aware of how every action and word they have spoken (maybe every thought and attitude as well) have fully affected others throughout their lifetimes.  Often people are overwhelmed when put through a life review.  Not everyone goes through a life review.  I believe (as mentioned I believe by Swedenborg) that often people will go through a life review if there serves some higher purpose.  If someone is totally rejecting of love and respect of others (including God) then they may not have a life review because it would just be a harmful experience of the person without a chance for bringing about redemption.  On the other hand, I suppose God might want them to go through a life review even if they are completely selfish so that they understand what is going on.
 In any case, I thought it was fascinating that during his life review Howard Storm was being given incredible love by Jesus, who had saved him from hell, and at some point he asks to be put back into hell.  Howard is fully aware of how many problems he has caused in his lifetime, the emotional (and physical?) pain he has caused others.  He knows he is in the presence of holy beings who in contrast have chosen to love and treat others with respect, even others who do not deserve such love and respect (PUL anyone?).  Howard also knows that in this mode of existence he cannot hide anything.  Given all of this, despite the way Jesus has treated him, he asks Jesus to put him back.  In other words, he chooses hell because he knows that he is not worthy of heaven.
 Given the fact that God has such high respect for our choices and free will, I think this serves as an example of how someone could be totally loved by Jesus, who wants to save us all from our own terrible choices, and still ends up in hell.
 The second point I wanted to address is that I believe that the gates of heaven are always open.  I think, given the nature of free will on earth and the attitude of God towards people while they are alive, that salvation from their selfish nature can happen on the other side of the grave, although it is more difficult and unlikely that this may happen.  There are some oblique references to redemption beyond the grave.  For instance, it is said that Jesus traveled to hell for the three days between his death and resurrection to preach the gospel.  This sounds very much like a retrieval scenario to me.  Bruce's retreival work also supports this idea.  Lastly, I think logically it makes sense that God would not so radically change his view, from being totally loving and open to someone who wanted to change while alive, to being totally closed to someone who is now dead.  The scenario (of no chance of salvation beyond the grave) becomes even more ridiculous when its considered how children can die.  Additionally, an analogy can be made to abortion - it seems as ridiculous to say that God will not allow redemption beyond the grave because the person is now dead, as when someone argues that a fetus is a baby only once it is born.  Both examples show a radical change of attitude based on the location or state of the being (alive vs. dead).
 Lastly, I want to also point out that if there is not some sort of judgement, or review, or analysis of one's life at the end of things, then life for many people is a sick joke.  When we talk about crushing poverty, disease, capitalism's exploitation of the poor, environmental degredation, injustice... if there is no accounting for all of this, life is a sick joke.

Doc,

No criticism intended of your decision to reply to the original post, but your "at what point" question doesn't really have relevance for me.  I'm not invested in this forum.  This is the most I have spent here for a while.  It is nothing like it used to be when Bruce was a fairly active participant and before current forum upgrade.

But in this specific thread, my little secret is that I did reply before you did.  Oh boy!  My ego had lot's of fun.  I really hurt some feelings.  I just never hit the post button.  If I can't empower people or spread light, what's the point?