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Date Line May 28, 2007
Building on the previous, we can ask: “If there is no Hell, why should we behave?”
A very simple, simplistic, thoughtless, question. It is the question used to justify evil. Curiously, it is the excuse for murder which underlies all Christian and Islamic doctrines of fundamentalist action.
Hell! It is that which damns all Christians and Islamists; it is what damns the rest of us to mindless conflicts such as the current one in Iraq. Hell, and its imaginary Lord, Satan, exist so they can justify evil.
Gehenna is the entrance; it has many names in many religions. But each of those religions has a common theme; each of them talks of peace, love, and doing no harm. Sounds Christian; but when did you ever hear of a Christian who followed the teachings of Christ?
Let us start with a basic: Church. Christ said you spoke to his father by going to a “closet”, a room, in your house and speaking privately. It was the hypocrites who made a public show of prayer.
Now that we know that, according to Christ, all those Church-going Christians can be seen as hypocrites, all the rest of their murderous deeds fall into place; all their bigotry, their racism, their witch trials, all these things fall into a consistency of actions.
Gehenna is the entrance, it is a mud-room, an entry hall; it is the place where the mud, dirt, or grim on ones outer clothing, the random filth of the journey, is removed before one enters the home of their host.
If we wish to use such analogies, we can see the soul as steel forged in the fire of life, having been poured from the crucible of creation. That steel, found worthy and pure, is then polished in Gehenna.
What of the impure? What of those which Christians say is eternally damned? What becomes of them?
Well, in our steel analogy the answer is easy: they get poured back into the crucible. They experience resurrection, rebirth, reincarnation; it matters little what name is placed on their return to this universe, return they do, and they continue to return until they are pure, until all the impurities are gone.
For those who want Hell. The answer is simple; this is Hell; we are there; we are in the crucible of our birth and shall remain there until we are worthy of being polished and presented at Court.
There is the image presented in scripture. There is the image of a Hell which comports well with the founding faith upon which it is based and to which it is responsible; it is the same faith to which Islam is also responsible.
Hold on!
That sounds Hindu; that sounds Buddhist, that sounds like many religions whose people revere peace and tranquility.
Yes it does. And so it should. It is the heart of all religions and all knowledge. We are eternal beings, a part of eternal existence, and we are all stuck with that reality. Their goal, is the universal goal.
One beginning, one end. If all is known, then where is the free-will? If all the steel is to, eventually, be used, what is the objective of life?
Their goal, our goal, is to exit the crucible. We want to graduate to the polishing room. We want to be something of beauty and utility. Do we care who we serve? Do you really need to place a name on that entity?
Think about it. The first enlightened religion pictured the creator in terms of a king, a pharaoh, in terms of a single elemental ruler whose name really didn’t matter.
“Who are you?” was the query.
“I am who I am,” was the response.
Give a name, any name, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Why does that work, why is it so universally accepted by so many when applied to a rose? And yet, why is it so devoutly rejected when applied to a deity, or a creator?
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