Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell

[Deleted]

I think i have found Purgatory. It is the dwelling of us Insomniacs!

[Reckless Roselia]

I wonder who gets the credit of inventing the notion of hell & heaven, in other words who first conveyed the message of it. Was it the first man on earth?

[mrsdutt]

AHAM said: It's the recycling of energy that seems to exists that interests me.

You may be on to something with this. Unfortunately I think there is so much to know, no one will ever know it all. So let us know if you come up with any answers on this one.

[mrsdutt]

Sept 15, 2012 3:03:10 GMT -5 Reckless Roselia said:

I wonder who gets the credit of inventing the notion of hell & heaven, in other words who first conveyed the message of it. Was it the first man on earth?

I'm really bad about remembering what book (biblical) I have read something - I've read the Bible 3x front front to back - but there is a scripture in the new testament where a man's brother went to hell and he found out about it. Some sort of spiritual experience. He asked Christ why He didn't show that there was a Hell and Christ told him everyone was told about it, it was up to the person to choose it. Kind of a level playing field. Maybe someone can help me here who is good at knowing where things are located.

[mrsdutt]

Sept 15, 2012 2:58:38 GMT -5 @shooby said:

I think i have found Purgatory. It is the dwelling of us Insomniacs!

[mrsdutt]

I have one of those reflective questions. Or maybe two or three.

Each one of us seems to have a belief system. Please understand I don't consider it my business or life's work to transform anyone. My belief is it is up to an individual to search for truth.

As I see it there can be only one truth. It can be defined in multiple manners, culturally. It can have many layers. It can be many things we just have scratched the surface of - or things we know nothing about.
As an example, let's take LONE's GS. His experiences of WW2 can be very real and can be part of the truth. Have a place in the truth, but we are unable, as humans, to place the experience in some sort of order. So as a (let's say) Catholic we dismiss the experience. What if souls volunteer to return to earth for some reason or another?

If an individual is truly searching for the truth, then he/she would research this in any manner that is available to them, including prayer.

I hope you get the picture.

My questions are: Does everyone come up with an individual belief system, then just stop there? Close the door to any further enlightenment? Not be afraid to advance and perhaps alter their thought process? Can the truth, as a person understands it, be based on a lie - one that sprang from a deep injustice?

Just things to think about, if you're so inclined.

And thank you AHAM. I'm glad you like this thread.

[Deleted]

Good morning Lone! So, with your belief, is there any final justice or ultimate righting of wrongs or how would that work?

[Deleted]

Sept 15, 2012 5:04:40 GMT -5 mrsdutt said:

I'm really bad about remembering what book (biblical) I have read something - I've read the Bible 3x front front to back - but there is a scripture in the new testament where a man's brother went to hell and he found out about it. Some sort of spiritual experience. He asked Christ why He didn't show that there was a Hell and Christ told him everyone was told about it, it was up to the person to choose it. Kind of a level playing field. Maybe someone can help me here who is good at knowing where things are located.

Don't know if I'm considered good... The text you referred to is found in the Bible, Luke 16:19-31.

By the way, finding bible text is easy. It's not that I've committed every account to it's location by memory.. I just google a portion of the phrase I do remember and voila! Bible references appear.

[Deleted]

What about the likes of Hitler and those who choose to perpetrate evil?

[Deleted]

I guess i am saying, if they choose to be evil and destroy innocents, then that they have the ability to destroy lives with no ultimate accountablity?

[Deleted]

heart...i believe most people's beliefs are a byproduct of their raising...i was raised catholic and pretty much accepted that because my parents did...i pretty much thought what i was taught was bible based...

hope you have a good look into it...

Ktunes.. Oh, I agree with you concerning our mimicking what other's taught and we believed it truth.. To study to show ourselves able, to prove God's word biblically so, is a true saying.. I do intend to have a good look, Ktunes. I believe the reference in Luke I just posted will become part of the whole matter of study. If Luke 16 is lifted out of it's book's total context without several surrounding chapters as backup, several interpretations can be drawn and are, already .. It is indeed how bad doctrine is birthed..

The corner of my study will begin with Old & New Testament prophesies, that our Old Testament brethren and (we) the New Testament believer's will be caught up together and all will stand before God in judgement etc etc etc...

[Deleted]

But, it isn't just the neglectful parent that suffers from guilt. Some people feel no guilt. The child suffers. Then how did that child have 100% free choice and where is the justice in the end?

[Deleted]

Sept 15, 2012 3:03:10 GMT -5 Reckless Roselia said:

I wonder who gets the credit of inventing the notion of hell & heaven, in other words who first conveyed the message of it. Was it the first man on earth?

The One who created both, the heavens and the earth is who I believe established hell too.

[Deleted]

So, those for whom have evil perpetrated on them have choosen that for themselves?

[mrsdutt]

LONE said: But then again, he may have chosen to be here

Where do you believe he was when he chose to come here?

[mrsdutt]

Sept 15, 2012 8:18:43 GMT -5 @heart2heart said:

Sept 15, 2012 5:04:40 GMT -5 mrsdutt said:

I'm really bad about remembering what book (biblical) I have read something - I've read the Bible 3x front front to back - but there is a scripture in the new testament where a man's brother went to hell and he found out about it. Some sort of spiritual experience. He asked Christ why He didn't show that there was a Hell and Christ told him everyone was told about it, it was up to the person to choose it. Kind of a level playing field. Maybe someone can help me here who is good at knowing where things are located.

Don't know if I'm considered good... The text you referred to is found in the Bible, Luke 16:19-31.

By the way, finding bible text is easy. It's not that I've committed every account to it's location by memory.. I just google a portion of the phrase I do remember and voila! Bible references appear.
Thanks for the info HEART.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the info HEART.

Your welcome, Ldut.

[mrsdutt]

Thanks LONE. This helps in understanding what your thought process is.

[Deleted]

Sept 15, 2012 9:19:17 GMT -5 @lonewolf said:

Sept 15, 2012 9:08:18 GMT -5 @shooby said:

So, those for whom have evil perpetrated on them have choosen that for themselves?

I know...not a popular thought, but I believe that they may have put themselves into situations that directed them toward the evil, for whatever reason they chose.
A drug addict who finds himself beaten up and robbed in an alley may not have been there had he not chosen to become a drug addict. But, you say, what about the nice preacher who finds himself in the same alley, this through no fault of his own?
None of this will make any sense to us as long as we keep believing there is a right and wrong to anything. Think about it...What if there was no right and wrong to anything.

Well, that is my point exactly about moral relativism. There is either an Absolute Standard and Truth or not. If everyone can simply make up their own rules about what is right and wrong, then there is really is no good and evil and one cannot say that murder is "wrong" or not.

[mrsdutt]

Sept 15, 2012 10:27:15 GMT -5 @lonewolf said:

Sept 15, 2012 10:18:50 GMT -5 mrsdutt said:

Thanks LONE. This helps in understanding what your thought process is.

So, is that a good or bad thing.

A good thing! ;D


I really think I'm gunna get an F this semester.

LOL

[Reckless Roselia]

Sept 15, 2012 5:04:40 GMT -5 mrsdutt said:

Sept 15, 2012 3:03:10 GMT -5 Reckless Roselia said:

I wonder who gets the credit of inventing the notion of hell & heaven, in other words who first conveyed the message of it. Was it the first man on earth?

I'm really bad about remembering what book (biblical) I have read something - I've read the Bible 3x front front to back - but there is a scripture in the new testament where a man's brother went to hell and he found out about it. Some sort of spiritual experience. He asked Christ why He didn't show that there was a Hell and Christ told him everyone was told about it, it was up to the person to choose it. Kind of a level playing field. Maybe someone can help me here who is good at knowing where things are located.

Ah, thanks Idin, I also know of Muhammad and his trip to the seven heavens and him then seeing heaven and hell...but I was thinking if Adam was the first man to speak of heaven and hell after Eve being responsible of them leaving heaven.

[mrsdutt]

You know, ROSE, I don't see Adam speaking of either heaven or hell too often. There was little need for it with just the 2 of them. But there was both while they were on earth because they were deceived. So there had to be if satan was in existence then. It would seem to me that they spent a lot of time figuring out how to survive. Since there is no historical data or way to communicate in the written word at that time, it's anybodys' guess. Good question.

[Reckless Roselia]

Sept 15, 2012 14:05:29 GMT -5 mrsdutt said:

You know, ROSE, I don't see Adam speaking of either heaven or hell too often. There was little need for it with just the 2 of them. But there was both while they were on earth because they were deceived. So there had to be if satan was in existence then. It would seem to me that they spent a lot of time figuring out how to survive. Since there is no historical data or way to communicate in the written word at that time, it's anybodys' guess. Good question.

I have my thinking cap on today. ;D

Yeah, I agree with your post - of course the message has to be leaked out somehow from the first man on earth, Adam.

[Deleted]

Sept 14, 2012 5:34:42 GMT -5 mrsdutt said:

Purgatory is a safe place with areas of privacy. Each soul examines their life and comes to terms with their sins. I don't mean saying shit 42 times in one month. I mean how we treated one another. The mean things we've done to hurt each other. Things like this.

Hi, I-d. This reminds me of the African Iboga tribes. The entheogenic bark from Tabernanthe iboga is consumed ritualistically and, at some point during the ensuing visionary experience, one enters a state of mind in which she is able to examine her life in a profoundly objective way. I've not tried it yet myself, though speaking to someone who has, and reading various reports, it seems characteristic that one is able to re-experience the wrongs they've committed in the past from the perspective of the one against whom they committed them. By all accounts it is a life-changing experience.

This is obviously not the same as what you were referring to there, though perhaps similar enough to make me consider the possibility that certain archetypes were embedded in the human psyche at some distant point in the evolutionary past, which perhaps contribute to the beliefs we hold about such things now.

Sept 15, 2012 10:36:18 GMT -5 @lonewolf said:

Sept 15, 2012 10:31:23 GMT -5 @shooby said:

Well, that is my point exactly about moral relativism. There is either an Absolute Standard and Truth or not. If everyone can simply make up their own rules about what is right and wrong, then there is really is no good and evil and one cannot say that murder is "wrong" or not.

Yes, if believing as I do, then murder would not be wrong and this is where I have problems, as I've always been a person who sees no gray areas. Many things are either wrong or right. So it's very hard for me to accept these beliefs that I feel in my heart are true.
I really think I'm gunna get an F this semester.

An interesting line of thought. A lack of wrong and right doesn't necessarily mean that moral relativism is in effect. It might just mean that there is no wrong or right at all, relative or otherwise. This is the view I ultimately subscribe to myself, Lone, though I too have difficulty reconciling such a lofty idea with the down-to-Earth, day-2-day occurrences of life.

[mrsdutt]

INNER said: to make me consider the possibility that certain archetypes were embedded in the human psyche at some distant point in the evolutionary past, which perhaps contribute to the beliefs we hold about such things now.

You may be onto something here. There's so much we don't know, but what if our spirits are aware of heaven and God and such things? As time goes on the minutia of this worldly environment gets in the way. i would refer to the innocence of a baby. Could it be they don't speak until the heavenly knowledge they have retreats? My gosh, something else to think about while I walk up that mountain. Humans think we're so smart, but I bet our knowledge could fit into the eye of a needle.

[mrsdutt]

ROSE said: of course the message has to be leaked out somehow from the first man on earth, Adam.

And 'they' say women can't keep a secret! ;D

[Reckless Roselia]

Sept 15, 2012 15:47:37 GMT -5 mrsdutt said:

ROSE said: of course the message has to be leaked out somehow from the first man on earth, Adam.

And 'they' say women can't keep a secret! ;D

;D Indeed Idin.

[Deleted]

Sept 15, 2012 15:46:29 GMT -5 mrsdutt said:

Humans think we're so smart, but I bet our knowledge could fit into the eye of a needle.

Yeh, indeed. Donald Rumsfeld probably didn't realise how on point his little speech was. He was talking about terrorists of course, but it can be interpreted in a more general sense -

There are things we know that we know.

There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know.

But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don't know.

A second's consideration of "unknown unknowns" should be enough to instil humility in most people.

[Sum Dum Gai]

I believe that when you die, that's it. No afterlife. No do-overs. We each get our one shot at life, and when it ends it ends. That's why it's so important not to be an asshole to others with the time you have. They're living their one shot at life and if you do anything to take joy away from them, or inflict pain, you're fucking up their one shot.

[mrsdutt]

DARK: Do your views include how you interact with your wife? By your own words, she's living but one shot at life. Don't do anything to take that joy away, or inflict pain.