We live in hell. The evangelicals are always prostelyzing that we should repent, lest we live for an eternity in hell. The problem is, we are already here. Our souls our roasting over our own self regret and self doubt. We live trapped by fear and judgement.
We commit a wrong against someone and are not judged once, but judged each time we remember it. And if that wasn’t enough, the person we wrong reminds us of how we did them wrong. Is that justice?
No. That’s hell. We are each a slave to sin. Not because we continually commit sin, but because we continually judge ourselves of sin. We are guilty before we act. we let our past regrets control our future actions.
We live in a hell where we cannot be ourselves for fear that it will cause the loss of attention from those we love. We strive for attention SO much that we will let the indoctrination of the foggy guide our intent and actions. The evangelical is but one example of a “foggy”. The atheist and agnostic are just as foggy.
Think of yourself as a set of mirrors:
The outside world /~/ The real you.
The ~ in between the mirrors is the fog of the dream of reality, that we let blind us to the real you and how each of us is a mirror of the other. The mirror to the outside world, is merely a projection of the outside world. We dare not let the outside world see the real you. It’s a conundrum.
How do we escape hell, when we are so fond of it?
How do we escape the slavery of fear, when we love being afraid?
No insult nor any condescension meant here, but, just some advice that sounds silly but, might work.
Skip and smile, bounce a ball off a wall, giggle three times as a catapiller tickles your skin. Kiss a baby on the forehead, hug a pup and laugh till your sides hurt with a friend. Smile at a stranger, ( no,Scythe not a feral smile) and let the ice cream drip down your arms and smudge your nose. if you are still in hell, repeat untill you see that first little star of the night twinkle down on you. You will no longer be in hell or too tired to give a damn.
I try to do at least one of those things every day. Keeps me young and smiling in mind at least.
It’s the young who like to make things way, way
more complicated then necessary. But don’t worry,
as you get older this tendency goes away, and you begin
to simplify your life. Beginning with losing such nonsense
as the stuff scyth just posted.
Such momentary retreats I take part in daily. Tickles are fantastic. Speeding down a hill on a bike… All these are great momentary escapes.
But until we change our behavior and the way we view the world fundamentally, we will continue to be slaves of sin. It’s not merely judging ourselves, but judging others as well.
The judge is the fog maker, responsible from hiding our inner self, from the outer world.
Peter,
For you a relevant quote from chesterton that sums up my feelings to a T.
And if your curious as to why I let others speak for me? Sometimes something is so timelessly brilliant that to re-prose it would be a crime to the original.
Eh, if I agreed with what you said, Scythe, I’d instantly feel like a jerk because I live in America. If it is hell, it’s like the hell Presidential Suite.
I think you got it upside down. We are in heaven since anything, even very intense constant physical pain is still heaven compared to actually burning in hell. Hell is based on our perception of extreme physical pain, but try burning your hand and then see what a relief it is to be out of the fire. No we are in heaven and actually everything is heaven compared to what hell is like. Hell is the only binding concept religions have, without the concept of hell there would be no religions.
“Hell” [is]:
One of the six self-actuated realms of existence, consisting of aggression which is devoid of meaning.
Meaningless aggression can become a spiritual and social foundation, and the astral cities made out of the civilian’s aggression against one another – becomes the heaven of aggression, which is one of the many hells.
A society built out of aggression against itself, is of the hell class.
Not too bad.
Not so easy.
Not so fun to live as one.
Living in the equinox of a periodic hell-flux:
Physical plane.
i think there is some misunderstanding, as to what I mean when I speak of “hell on earth”.
The fire and brimstone is overplayed, and fantasy. Hell is merely having to relive your stupid mistakes over and over and over again. The judge within us all, does this for us. When we do something stupid, we pay for it once, realizing we are doing something we shouldn’t be. Then we pay for it again, either publicly privately or both, when we are caught. Then when we’re caught, we punish ourselves again. Then when either party (the offendor, or the offendee) remembers the wrong doing, you are once again judged for it, either by your own judge, or the judge of others.
We also put ourselves through hell by hiding our true selves, via the fog I talk about in the OP. Most of the time, we are so busy trying to clamor for the attention of others, even if we don’t know those others that we ignore the still small voice within ourselves that tells us we’re not being true to who we are. Than when they don’t take to your action, don’t garner you with the attention you desire, you again put yourself through hell, because you take what is said or done personally.
that is how we enslave ourselves to sin.
and that is the definition of hell.
Anything else is fantasy invented by the catholic church to keep the sheeple in line.
Hell, if it exists, is perfectly painful, sinful, fearful, hateful, and endless. This is not how I would characterize life around here, as there are certainly other forces in play besides pain, sin, and hate, including time.
But since that isn’t what you’re talking about…enslavement to sin. I don’t think this is accurate for the same reason. We have sin, and we also have the capacity for good; we are slaves to ourselves, including the good and the sin. The reliving of mistakes is not endless in life; it is in the form of rational (in a universal sense) consequence. If you jump off of a building and think, “This was a stupid idea” and regret it, you will nevertheless hit the ground. This is a consequence of the patterned nature of existance, not an endless, senseless repetition of pain.
What I’m saying is that we’re on the border of heaven and hell, so to speak, in that life is a synthesis of good and bad; pain and pleasure; and chaos and order. Is your ultimate point that we are living enslaved to sin, or did you mean to base another idea off of that?
so a mere MAN can tell us who’s going to hell or not eh? this is ludicrous and unscriptural!
those ‘evangicals’ you talked about should read this:
Luke 6:35 To the contrary, continue to love YOUR enemies and to do good and to lend [without interest], not hoping for anything back; and YOUR reward will be great, and YOU will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind toward the unthankful and wicked. 36 Continue becoming merciful, just as YOUR Father is merciful.
37 “Moreover, stop judging, and YOU will by no means be judged; and stop condemning, and YOU will by no means be condemned. Keep on releasing, and YOU will be released.
He came to save you from yourself… instead the catholic church built up lies about a mythical god man that got himself resurrected and the only way to save you from the guilt that they pile upon you is to believe that he died for your sins.
ALL of that is un-necessary. The truth is there, hidden in the prose of myth and fable.
For instance:
Sin comes from condemnation. (something the catholics are really big on.) hell comes from reliving condemnation over and over again. Jesus, understood that we could only become free from hell, by being told we CAN live sin free. By being told we are saved from sin, by being saved from judgement. The catholics added the bit about “final judgement” to keep you in line. There is no final judgement.
The fact is, we know inherently when we do something against human nature… we feel it within ourselves. But, if you do something wrong enough times, it begins to feel less wrong, to the point where eventually you no longer feel that you are doing wrong and are just doing the easy thing. Living in sin.
People can also control us with the magic of their words. Like christ showed us here, he used the magic of his words to set this woman free from sin. We all have that capability. We can make or break someone with every word we speak or type.
We can set someone free from sin, or further enslave them to sin.
We can spread poison, or we can spread good will and happiness.
The magic is in the words, to set us free from the agreement to be in hell.
We have to be told we are good, before we can act good. We have to be told we are sin free before we can live sin free.
If someone continually expresses disapointment in your character or behaviour you will make an agreement, and act that way. If someone tells you, that you are ugly or stupid… you will take it to heart and act that way.
We let the power of the word enslave us, we need to use the power of the word to set others free.
You all realize that those that reside in villages that rarely if ever come in to contact with the rest of the world, these folks do not think of themselves as poor or bad off. They don’t feel sorry for themselves and don’t crave luxeries that we are exposed to. Is that hell? no. Someone who never had, cannot miss. If you sin and know you sin then feel guilty or degraded then that is on you, you choose to learn or not.
Humanity is not quite an ant hill, almost but, not quite. We do depend upon others, we depend upon our leaders not to get us killed, to help us stay fed, warm and dry. The world is more like a vast schoolyard in an inner city neighborhood. Good, evil and apathy exist side by side, you just have to choose. It is not hell though unless you choose it so.
I think people choose not to learn. Mostly when they feel they come to some sort of absolute truth about everything. (cults whether, secular/theistic all the same.)
I like the ant hill analogy. Our ant hill is more built up than the ant hill of the savage, but because it is, our hell is different in some ways than their own hell. I agree we “choose” to make it hell for ourselves and others whenever we choose to get upset or jealous, or petty. We choose which words to spew poison with, and in the process continue the hell on earth for ourselves and others.
The right thing to do is never the easy thing to do though… It’s far easier to criticize than to complement. It’s far easier to be apathetic, evil, than to help out and do good.
Scythe mate - are you feeling okay…? This is a very negative thread you got here. The hell bit and constant judgement syndrome is very subjective. Unless you’re talking about cyclic-thoughts, depressive tendency and associated allostatic loading.
I agree. However you decide to evaluate it, we are living in what could be considered hell. If anything exist that is worse than this, it could possibly be a temporal visit to a particular astral world, as I believe Dan was trying to explain.
Hell itself helps you to escape. Its our natural progressive evolutionary status as Life that will propel beyond this hell. Everything we experience, all situations and thoughts whether one is conscious of it, is leading us away from this hell. Everything is chiselling away at this hell nature, and things are being brought into the light. Just as the one poster suggested experiencing more moments of delight and joy, this begins to occur more and more naturally through progression. Its not necessarily about positive and negative, its about evolution. And we all are slowly evolving beyond this fear.
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