What is heaven?

lealdragon
Tue, 16 Jan 2007 20:22:41 +0000

Thanks for your explanation. You’re actually doing fine!

I should clarify here that I actually was brought up Catholic, and then was a born-again Christian for several years. So I am completely versed in the Christian worldview. I just no longer accept it as truth.

I think Jesus was special in the sense that he was an example of PERFECT LOVE. He also had a very important role to play because he showed that the physical body is not all that there is. I think his mission was to demonstrate what God wants us to aspire to. It is in that aspiring that we become closer to God thru time, not thru some momentary proclamation of a certain belief.

The part I disagree with is the whole ‘punishment for sins’ thing. That’s not loving, plain and simple. Punishment accomplishes nothing. Loving discipline, otoh, serves the purpose of TEACHING the person to do better.

So, I believe that God does not seek to punish his creation, but instead seeks to TEACH us. That is better accomplished thru life lessons than some arbitrary rule that only those who believe a certain thing about Jesus get to go to heaven.

The reason I have a problem with that is because by that definition, many beautiful people who happen to be Buddhists or Pagans or whatever would suffer forever. That is simply not loving. Nor is it righteous, because it is elistist and we all know that bigots are not righteous. And nor is it just, because they didn’t do anything any worse than make the normal human mistakes that we all make. There is simply nothing righteous about condemning someone to suffer forEVER. I find the whole idea despicable. I couldn’t do it, so how could God? Surely God has more love and compassion that I, a mere human, have.

Why in the world does simply ‘believing that Jesus died for our sins’ and ‘accepting his sacrifice’ give Christians a free ticket to eternal paradise, while others who thought they were doing the right thing by following the religion or beliefs they felt were right for them, must suffer eternally for doing something they thought was right? Why would a Buddhist or Hindu who meditates daily for world peace and gives freely of himself on a daily basis, and prays earnestly to the Cosmic Creator be penallized? Sorry, but I find the idea ludicrous.

I think God has a lot more compassion than Christians give him credit for. The Christian ‘god’ is not very compassionate at all. If he were, no way could he condemn good people just because they aren’t Christians.

The thing is, all of this doctrine about sin and salvation was created by HUMANS purporting to be channeling what God supposedly told them. It was HUMANS who decided this, for political reasons.

I think there is a tremendous amount of good in the bible, and I think Jesus was an awesome avatar, and I most definitely pray to God on a daily basis. It’s the blind obedience to other humans’ interpretation of a book written by still more humans that I disagree with.

Just my opinion. It’s ok if we agree to disagree.