Strange,????? Not really The past tence can create the mind of the man and feelings of the women for the future. As long as people believe in triangle communications there will be a judging GOD.

Walter

People believe this kind of stuff not because they really believe it, but because of fear. I should know…I was like that for a time..

Mormon theology holds that in the next life, people’s spirits inhabit the place in which they feel most confortable. Those who would shrink from the presence of God or Jesus Christ, see them only as a twinkling star. Only those who have known the Holy Ghost (Spirit) and denied Him will be consigned to Outer Darkness (only a few spirits).
Not all religions dwell on Dante’s fire and brimstone.

Neale, you wrote, “You know, I can understand how people can believe in a God who punishes someone who did something absolutely horrible while on earth. An Adolph Hitler, for instance.”
If a person can believe Adolph is punished, they can believe Grandma is punished too. It’s not about the offense committed, it’s the act of judgment itself.
My understanding is that each of us was uniquely created with a set of talents and challenges. We are not cookie-cut-outs of each other. We see things differently. An offhand remark, easily dismissed by one person is an affront to another. It is not our place to judge anyone, because only God knows what each of us has had to cope with. None of us has the benefit of foresight. If we knew we were making a mistake ahead of time, there would be fewer made.
There is no reward or punishment, except for the way we choose to live our lives while we’re here. Being grateful to God for the gift of drinking in a magnificent sunset is given to the king and the prisoner. God is listening and helping the rape victim as well as the rapist.
When we let go of self-righteous indignation, as the fortunate man in your essay did, we truly are rewarded. On Earth. When you forgive, you can fill your lungs with sweet air and feel the burden lift off your shoulders. And you may provide a beautiful example of God’s love to others.
The meek will not inherit the earth, because God has no favorites. Dan Dastardly is as well-loved as Little Nell. We are all God’s children.
We appreciate you Neale. Keep up the great work.

Anybody who has experienced depression knows first hand what hell is. Hell is simply seperation from God that I would define as self condemnation,fear panic and a sense of trapped helplessness. I had a very powerful and intensly moving experience with this phenomenon and the presense of God last night, or maybe it was just my own cultivation of compassion for myself, it doesn’t matter. I was feeling intensly depressed and helpless in the face of my current problems so I sat down quietly for an hour and let myself feel my pain with acceptence. As my compassion and love for myself grew, I had a strong sense of my own intrinsic worth and how much I am loved. What struck me was how different these feelings of love acceptence,compassion and meaningfulness were to how my depressive feelings were, which were essentially saying exactly the opposite. Love is limitless and hell is a self imposed state of mind. Happily I believe so is love. You cannot fight pain and hatred with pain and hatred.

Neale,
You have asked the question: How can a God of love send anybody to Hell? Well, there are several answers to that.
One of course is that God doesn’t send anyone to Hell. You send yourself there. God has done everything He possibly can to keep you out of Hell and still leave you as a person with free will and not just a robot. That’s the way He made us–after His image, after His likeness, the power to say “yes” or the power to say “no,” the power to reject our own Creator, and of course to take the consequences.
In one sense you can say He doesn’t send anybody to Hell, because across the road to Hell he has placed the cross of Christ. There are also the prayers of parents, pastors and Sunday school teachers, and all the other things that God brings into our lives to stop us on our selfish way and to bring us to the Savior. We have to go wandering on past it all and put ourselves in Hell.
Sometimes you hear people say, “God wouldn’t send His children to Hell.” God certainly doesn’t send His children to Hell because when we’re His children we’re in the family of God. We’re born again and part of our salvation includes deliverance from judgment. We’re not all children of God except through faith in Christ Jesus.
Can a God of love send anyone to Hell? You might as well ask some other question to make just as much sense. Does God allow disease in the world? Does God allow jails and prisons for some people? Does God allow the electric chair sometimes? Does God allow sin to break homes and hearts? Does God allow war? All of these things are the consequences of sin entering into the world, and in some cases the direct result of man’s rebellion, and the result of greed and pride and egotism and hunger for power that doesn’t have any use for people–only the desire to get ahead.
This is the incredible fruit of sin. Sin brings suffering into the world. There’s no way of getting around it. And the greatest sin in the world is to reject the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior.
We have our catalog of sins. We have rape and incest and murder ; and we have them all cataloged and classified–but there isn’t one of them (or even put them all together in one big hunk) that comes close to the sin of keeping Jesus Christ out of your life. Did Jesus say, “I’m going to send the Holy Spirit to convict the world of sin because they rob banks”– or, “because they believe not on me”?
It is folly to expect that you or I can trifle with the Lord Jesus and not have a penalty attached to it. What ridiculous thinking people have in this area! We expect penalties for doing much less. Life is just built that way.
You jump off a high building, the law of gravity will take care of you. You might say, “God is love,” all the way down, but you’re still going to get splattered when you hit the bottom! You break the law of gravity, and it breaks you! You may love your little child, but if he puts his finger up on that hot burner on the gas stove or the electric stove, he’s going to get burned!
Fire burns. Gravity kills. Water drowns. And you can say, “God is love, God is love, God is love,” until you’re blue in the face. But water will still drown you, fire will burn you, and gravity will kill you, and sin will damn you no matter how much you say about a loving God.
God just set up life that way. He set up the rules. He set up the laws by which we are to live. And if we break those laws, they break us, and we pay the consequences.
Here are some quotes from Christian leaders past and present that may help you understand more fully:
I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside.
All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened. And yourself, in a dark hour, may will [a grumbling] mood, embrace it. Ye can repent and come out of it again. But there may come a day when you can do that no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood…
–excerpted from The Problem of Pain and The Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), included in The Quotable Lewis, 1989 Tyndale
In a sense, the concept of hell gives meaning to our lives. It tells us that the moral choices we make day by day have eternal significance, that our behavior has consequences lasting to eternity, that God Himself takes our choices seriously.
The doctrine of hell is not just some dusty theological holdover from the Middle Ages. It has significant social consequences. Without a conviction of ultimate justice, people’s sense of moral obligation dissolves, and social bonds are broke.
Of course, these considerations are not the most important reason to believe in hell. Jesus repeatedly issued warnings that if we turn away from God in this life, we will be alienated from God eternally.
And yet, although “the wages of sin is death,” Paul also says that “the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). While breath remains, it is never too late to turn to God in repentance, and when we ask for forgiveness, God eagerly grants it.
–excerpted from Answers to Your Kids’ Questions, by Chuck Colson, 2000 Prison Fellowship Ministries.
We may rest assured that no one will suffer in hell who could by any means have been won to Christ in this life. God leaves no stone unturned to rescue all who would respond to the convicting and wooing of the Holy Spirit.
As for the fate of [the damned] being eternal, it could not be otherwise. Death is not the cessation of existence but the continuation of the eternal being with which God lovingly endowed man–but now in painful separation from God and all else in utter darkness and loneliness.
–excerpted from In Defense of the Faith, by Dave Hunt, 1996 Harvest House Publishers
The Bible says that God prepared hell for the devil and his demonic cohorts (Matthew 25:41), that He is “…not wishing for any [person] to perish but for all to come to repentance.” (II Peter 3:9), and that He has done everything possible to save us from that terrible, terrible place. Yet in the end God will not violate or overrule the deliberate choice of those who consciously and willfully turn away from Him.
–Daryl E. Witmer of AIIA Institute
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil.”
–Jesus Christ, John 3:16-19, NASV Bible
Neale, you say what about the devout Buddhist, or Muslim, or Hindu, or Taoist, or whatever? Would God send them to hell just for believing in the “wrong” religion? There is no right and wrong religion, simply truth and falsehood. God put the truth out there for us in three ways: Through his sovereign creation, through the testimony of the Bible, and through the life, death, and resurrection of his son Jesus Christ. He has also sent us prophets, apostles, ministers, missionaries, sunday school teachers, youth counselors, camp counselors, and a host of other faithful witnesses to tell us what we need to know.
The reason your views are not trustworthy, Neale, is the lack of empirical evidence. To believe what you believe, we have to take your word for it. There is no revelation from past believers, no eyewitnesses here to corraborate your testimony, no outside sources that affirm that what you say is true. The same can be said for a number of religious texts. However, the Bible has been proven trustworthy time and again. The New Testament has over 8,500 manuscripts still in existence, the most for any ancient book (by comparison, Homer’s Ilyiad has 160, Alexander the Great’s autobiography just 1). The people, places, and events described in the Bible have been verified through archaelogical and extrabiblical findings and writings – the people, including Jesus of Nazareth, are real people; the places described actually exist and are real places, and the historical events pictured in the Bible really happened. It is not just a bunch of myths or made-up stories, it is living history. And there were hundreds of eyewitnesses to both the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ himself.
As to your philosophies, the apostle Paul spoke of such things to his friend Timothy in 1 Timothy 4: 1-4, which reads,
[In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.]
People don’t want to hear about punishment and hell because it makes them accountable to a higher power for their deeds here on earth. Therefore, when someone like you comes along with a system that conveniently skirts around the sin issue, some people can’t fall over themselves fast enough to grab hold of it. You are saying exactly what their itching ears want to hear – NO JUDGMENT, ONLY LOVE! Only that is a lie, and by teaching it you are leading others away from the true path of righteousness which is found only in the person of Jesus. I will pray for your repentance, Neale, because if you continue down the way you are going, may God have mercy on your soul.
James 3:1 [Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.]
Turk182

**********************
But again, WHO IS GOD?
**********************
I still think, we have to decide what you mean by GOD.
If most readers think he is outside entity somewhere, and other think he is internal to all matters, the discussion falls apart.
We have to decide who God is first, then see if this thing will punish us or we will be punishing ourselves or it is all a big happy Merry Go Round…
Peace
Mounir

‘Man’ is more forgiving than God, depending on what belief system you follow.
Cyrus Rumi (United Kingdom)
(cyrusrumi.blogspot.com)

Good morning to you all! An interesting thread we have going here. Is man more forgiving than God? Well, there certainly are people who seem to exhibit this trait, but the question really is; is forgiveness an integral part of man’s nature? You can’t take an isolated incidence like Walsch has and make a broad generalization that, wow, man is the superior being here. That is way too huge a stretch.
Peter asked Jesus how many times a person should forgive his brother if he has sinned against him. Up to seven times? No, Jesus said, seventy times seven. In other words, we to forgive others just as our Father in heaven has forgiven us. How many sins have you committed in your life against other people? How many times have you spoken crossly to someone without justification, gossiped behind someone’s back, or impugned someone’s reputation unjustly?
God’s forgiveness spans eons. The Scripture repeats over and over again how God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness. Yet over thousands of years men and women have heard of him then turned away, driven by their own selfishness, lust, and greed. How many times has God forgiven and not just bagged the whole thing? How many times has he lived and let live instead of just washing the universe from the human experience?
Let’s be very clear on this, folks: As a race, we as human beings have not been an easy group to love. We whine, we complain, we argue, we beat and berate and rape and rob and kill each other, usually for trivial causes. We make war, we make fun, we make a mess of things on a regular basis. We fish and hunt and pollute with abandon, then wonder where all the clean water and air went, and why there seem to be fewer bison or whales or wolves or fish around. I read a report last week on Chesapeake Bay, and scientists now estimate that there are 1% of the oysters in the bay now than there were 30 years ago. I know Walsch is fond of saying that Separation Theology is the cause of all of our ills, but is it? The cause of our ills can be found deep inside each one of us: it is our own selfish desires that causes us to commit acts that aren’t right. If I want to knock over a convenience store to fund my drug habit, is that separation theology at work? If I want to go to strip clubs after work, is it because I think God and man are separated? If I cheat on my income taxes, it’s because of the church’s teachings? As a race we are excellent at the blame game: It’s not me, it’s my lousy upbringing, my horrible parents, my nasty neighborhood, my cruddy friends, none of the people around me will give me a chance, it wasn’t my job, my boss doesn’t appreciate me, blah blah blah. Few people man up and say, you know, it was all me. It was no one else’s fault, just mine. People jump at the chance to take credit for their successes, and even credit for other’s successes, but they point fingers at everyone else and anything else when something screws up.
Walsch’s philosophy is fine at painting a rosy picture of mankind, and aren’t we cute, perfect, and lovable. But it can’t explain why we do what we do to each other, and what possible ramifications are in store for us when we do things that civilized people would say are “bad”. Is there punishment for that, is there a hell awaiting the unrepentant? Let me put it to you this way:
You probably have purchased some sort of insurance–first, theft, car or personal liability–you name it. Insurance is a multibillion dollar business. But have you ever stopped to think that the whole business is built on the one word–MAYBE. I get my car insured. I’m not looking for an accident. I don’t expect one. I’m going to try not to have one, but maybe I will, and it would be awfully nice to be covered. Hospitilizations? You don’t expect to be sick, you’re not planning to be sick, but maybe you will be, and boy, the hospital will take you to the cleaner if you’re not ready.
To the person who finds the whole subject of Hell and judgment distasteful, and who refuses to believe it, even if Jesus Christ taught it, I ask the question: What about that little word “maybe”? Maybe there is a Hell.
“Maybe” your car will have a wreck, and because of the little word “maybe” you’ll spend hundreds of dollars on car insurance. And yet you’ll walk around town without ETERNAL life insurance. You walk the street, cross the highways, in a world of crime and terrorism and potential accidents all over the place, yet you gamble with eternity! You are living one big risk 24 hours a day! It just doesn’t make much sense, does it?
If there is no Hell, I’ve lost nothing; but what a benefit it is just to have the joy of the Lord, to know your sins are forgiven, to go to bed at night and to know that if you don’t make it through the night, you’ll wake up in Heaven! To have something forever settled. My it’s great. That’s finished business. Whatever comes my way, “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8).
Jesus taught about the reality of the fact of Hell . We may agree on different angles or interpretations in our understanding of it, but I just leave this with you. Our Lord spoke about it in a very unfunny manner. He wept over communities going to judgment. He prayed in Gethsemane with strong crying and tears because He knew about all these realities for which He has provided a way of escape.
I hope that you have settled this issue, and that you’ve opened your heart and your life to Christ. Make yourself safe either way. If there is a Hell, you’re safe. If there is no Hell, you still get the best out of this life. And you can’t lose on a deal like that. Make sure today that your trust is in Christ.
My prayer is that you all will come to the knowledge of the truth, the truth that forgiveness is of God, not man, and that you can experience that forgiveness for yourselves by trusting in Jesus Christ.
Thanks for reading this far, if you made it…Robert

This is the sole purpose I turned from Christianity but did not turn from God. I was living in that world because I thought I was supposed to, but nothing made sense to me. The deeper I dove into the Bible, the more frustrated I got. I completely agree with Assaji’s posting above…it’s fear. Religion is a box and no box can contain God. Now that all the labels are gone and I live in God and God lives in me, I am so much more at Peace.

I think that for God our hearts are more important than outside world. God has turned fear into something, that could help our hearts…so he created this for us, to be Godfearing.
But who could not be Godloving? Only the one, who lives in this world. Who thinks, that this world is his only love. Only the one, who fears for others, that they would not be accepted by God. So he fears for himself, that God will not love him, if he is not like world told him, he should be. Only the one, who in himself (his heart, not mind) believes in thing more than in God itself. Becouse God itself has no form.
So God created Armaggedon. We created it to be again in harmony with God, who has no form. To feel loved unconditionaly and freely loved again. Is there anything, that is not accepted by God? No, becouse everything is God! How then can’t we agree with someone’s doing if all is accepted by God? If we are creators of this moment? Who can we blame? Only ourselfs, actually ourSelf, becouse there is only one Self!
The Good deed is not something, that you can name, but deed, who has pure love in it. You can live your life further, but with different feelings to it, with pure love. You can be killer further on, but you must consider whole love, not to kill with hate and dissagreement with someone. Becouse there is only one. You must consider yourSelf!
We are all responsible for ourSelf. To be with everyone, that is compassion. So, we really must ask ourself who is God.
I did believe in revengeful God in my heart (interesting, not my mind), but I don’t believe that anymore (maybee becouse of my mind). Your heart is like you believe it is – nothing from outside can condemn it. Heart condemns only that, what comes from inside out, not outside in.
And in the end heart always win, it can’t be otherwise. I gues Jesus is leafing at us, who think, that our worldly faith is more firm than his. Yes, love allways wins, and all her glory. I don’t know, why we insist in this wordly faith on good and bad. Godfearing is not being afraid of love or God, but to be in love becouse of fear of dead and so called hell.
But I know what hell is and for what fire and cold is – it is surely not for destroy God, but to restore it. And it is everlasting only in Self thinks that. If he do not end with his faith in outside world, things and fear of unconditional love, becouse he knows, it is conditional.
Cold comes after fire, after that, when we become aware, that a thing was destroyed and love to it goes away – after our homes, on whom we’ve been attached, are destroyed, and then it is harmony.
Love,
Teja

Personally, I don’t believe in Hell or any similar place where souls are punished for their transgressions here on Earth…. I don’t believe in a system of punishment/rewards yet many partake in just that kind of behavior…. giving love is ever-lasting while setting out to punish then expecting to ‘change’ a person’s behavior while sanctifying your own is like a dog chasing it’s own tail……. Yes, there are many here on beliefnet who believe that God will punish those who do not think as they do and ‘in the end’ reward those who are in their cliques with everlasting life in Heaven…. Just go to any number of sites, read the blogs…. see the lack of compassion, the lip service given to blessings and prayers…. I am told by my Highest Guide that INTENT is the precursor in any blessing, prayer or unfolding drama…. a sincere prayer or thought is all that is needed in a situation…. and I do wish that people would stop making declarations of God’s Intent. It is enough to declare your own soul’s path then stay on track!

Robert said:
“Walsch’s philosophy is fine at painting a rosy picture of mankind, and aren’t we cute, perfect, and lovable. But it can’t explain why we do what we do to each other, and what possible ramifications are in store for us when we do things that civilized people would say are “bad”.”
Hi Robert:
The core cause of this is the belief in Separation. Separation Culture, Religions and everything else related to Separation Paradygm is the core cause.
That’s what CWG explains thoroughly.
Robert said
” Is there punishment for that, is there a hell awaiting the unrepentant? Let me put it to you this way:”
The point here is that hell is not only for murderers, robbers, etc. The point is that it is also for buddhists, hinduists, or any other person that beliefs in other religion than fundamentalistic christianism. No matter how loving, or ‘good’ they are…
Robert said:
“To the person who finds the whole subject of Hell and judgment distasteful, and who refuses to believe it, even if Jesus Christ taught it, I ask the question: What about that little word “maybe”? Maybe there is a Hell.”
This is the trade conception of God. This is the vindictive conception of God. This is the nonsense God.
I find Jesus talking and teaching in many places about a different kind of God, and the places in which he teaches hell and punishment, I consider those are additions, interpolations from ‘holy writers’ and transcribers…
It doesn’t make sense that He, whom said, allegdly: “Father, forgive them, because they don’t know what they are doing”, teached that his father is less forgiving than Him…
Of course there is a hell…! Many Hells!
Hells created by Separation Theologies, and consequently, Separation Cultures.

Robert, when we love God freely, knowing there is no threat of eternal damnation, that no matter what we do, God is accepting of us, that is love. When we are kind, even when it’s difficult, knowing God would love us just the same if we were nasty, that is honoring and loving God.
We are imperfect and always will be. That is how God made us.
Yes, there are diseases and floods and wildfires. That’s the result of the renewal of the planet. Life was not meant to be easy! We grow through challenges! We progress FROM this life. We take what we have learned with us into the next.
Jesus also said He would loose no one. God knows all. God knows every choice every one of us will make. Why would God create a life, only to one day see it destroyed? God is Perfect.
If I ‘bought’ my faith as an insurance policy on the fear of hell, it wouldn’t be much of a faith. Love is not fear-based.
God bless you.

Turk182… superb post, I read and reread every line of it..
with an open mind and I just have no questions to ask..
and I am not even a christian…
I want to embrace it out of love
but it was fear that puts it upfront
*sigh

People,
Of course it’s fear! But it’s your definition of fear that is wrong, not that fear should not play a part in our coming to God.
Joshua said that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Solomon said, after he had tried EVERYTHING under the sun (wealth, pleasure, education, meditation, looking “within” himself to find inner peace, etc.) that here is the conclusion of the matter – FEAR God and obey His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
When the thief on the cross rebuked the other thief for practically daring Jesus to save them all, he said, “We are getting the just rewards of our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong. Do you not fear God, seeing that you are under the same condemnation? Remember me, Jesus, when you come into your kingdom.” To that man, Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth today, you will be with me in paradise.”
To fear God is not to be afraid of Him like you would be to a mass-murderer or IRS audit. It is to regard Him with reverance and awe, giving Him His due as the majestic Creator and King of this universe.
Some people are reacting as if to fear God is not something we should even think about, or it is distasteful to think of God that way. Just because God is a God of love, does that take away from His transcendancy, power, and might? Just because He forgives us and has mercy on us, does that make Him any less holy and righteous? No.
Think about it….
Chief1989

idolhunter, let me ask you a question. It will seem strange at first, but believe me there is a method to my madness.
Do you work for someone besides yourself?
Turk182

Turk 182 wrote:
“You have asked the question: How can a God of love send anybody to Hell? Well, there are several answers to that.
One of course is that God doesn’t send anyone to Hell. You send yourself there. God has done everything He possibly can to keep you out of Hell and still leave you as a person with free will and not just a robot. That’s the way He made us–after His image, after His likeness, the power to say “yes” or the power to say “no,” the power to reject our own Creator, and of course to take the consequences.”
Pardon me… Turk… But…
Who created ‘Hell’…?
Satan?
Adam?
Eve?
Men in general?
God, isn’t it…?
If God created ‘hell’ and the system of punishment-reward, you commit the sin, or don’t believe in the Lord Jesus, etc., but you ‘go to Hell’ because the system created by ‘Him’…
We have said this many times, but I suppose we’ll have to say it over and over again:
What free will is there in saying: “I want you to love me; ok, you have free will, but if you don’t love me -or whatever I want-, you’ll go to everlasting damnation…”
What kind of ‘free will’ is that…?
As idolhunter puts it, there’s any Love in that at all…
Just FEAR.
The ‘god’ of fundamentalism, separation and Fear.

I also agree that its fear, controlling religions.
Fear is their only weapon to control their members…
But its all because of our incredible low conciousness…
Let us hope it will raise the coming years.
That is our only chance to overwin the destruction of enviroment and violence and the darkness of religions.
Higher conciousness will make the religions melt like snow in spring…

Smart people are very good at rationalizing things they came to believe for non-smart reasons. That is why smart, adult people can believe in a God that really makes no sense at all.
phillip

Chief said:
To fear God is not to be afraid of Him like you would be to a mass-murderer or IRS audit. It is to regard Him with reverance and awe, giving Him His due as the majestic Creator and King of this universe.
Some people are reacting as if to fear God is not something we should even think about, or it is distasteful to think of God that way. Just because God is a God of love, does that take away from His transcendancy, power, and might? Just because He forgives us and has mercy on us, does that make Him any less holy and righteous? No.
Think about it….
Hi Chief:
The thing is, I think that John was right when he wrote: “Perfect Love, gets out Fear…”
A God of perfect Love does not need fear as his principle tool as the “whole duty of man”…
Only a lesser God would…
Or a Devil…
You try to put nicer and kinder the awful nature of fear -terror I’d say- when you say:
“To fear God is not to be afraid of Him like you would be to a mass-murderer or IRS audit. It is to regard Him with reverance and awe, giving Him His due as the majestic Creator and King of this universe.”
As the majestic Creator and King of this Universe? or as the Vindictive and terrorist Being that will punish you, or harm you in any way, including everlasting damnation for temporal ‘sins’…?
And the worst ‘sin’ is reject his Son, no matter you didn’t know him, understand him, or accept him, because you born in the’wrong’ part of the world… No matter how ‘good’ or lovely you live…
But thank you for your sincerity, you have said it very well…
Fear is the entire thing of this ‘business’…
“Of course it’s fear! “

And, by the way…
The question in not only if there is a Hell…
Or who created it…
But Why?
Why would a Perfect, Almighty, Omiscient, Merciful, and Loving God, have to create a place of everlasting torment, for the creatures he created…?
Eternal cosnequences for temporal ‘sins’…
Didn’t he had another tool to make ‘his children’ do ‘What HE Wants’…?
No other way?

Now I have one silly question…
and it has been bugging me for decades….
Please hear me out… eventhough it may be silly..
please believe me..I am not making a mockery of anything…
I just want to understand it all…
Probably it is out of fear this question came about and I just want to try to understand it.
WILL I BE THE SAME PERSON/SOUL (idolhunter) IN THE NEXT LIFE.
the same human kind of thinking… as in…
OK now bye bye…I m leaving to the next world…
I will see you guys later… and go to heaven…
WOW !!! I did the right thing.!! I believed in Christ and here I am
Oh, they have computers here too!! wow.. you earn it. you can do whatever you want from now on…
or
is it going to be… alright – 7:00am be in the hall and wait for further instruction from GOD, we have a new topic to learn, it’s not going to be easy,,, earth is only child play.. now you have been trained and selected for bigger task… so better learn and be prepared… it’s a whole new ball game here…
AND let say…
I didn’t follow Christ’s ways….
and I had to be in Hell…. sorry I don’t really know what to expect..
lets say “lake of fire” and I burn in it…
OOpss one more question… do I still have a body?
I guess not because it’s left out back in the previous world to rot or for autopsy so it will be only my soul will burn…
mmmmm….I wonder which part of it will be the pain?
Forever? pain? I cannot imagine it because I know down in earth, when I cannot stand the pain…it auto-shuts off either I faint or I die so I cannot make that connection about pain.
I have experienced pain before and it came to a point when I was to say unbearable, I fainted so I learn and experienced the word “unbearable” don’t exist there is a certain degree to it.
Now if I let my mind to wonder further. I will have endless questions..and assumptions.. so I will just cut it short..
Let’s come to the main topic,
WILL I BE THE SAME IDOLHUNTER on EARTH AND IN HEAVEN OR HELL?
answer A:
If it is the same Idolhunter…then I have another question.
Is earth the first place idolhunter starts his “life” journey?
I suppose it should be because I have no knowledge of any previous existence and if earth is not then I should know my previous existence which I don’t so it has to be first..
and then idolhunter died and go to hell and burn there forever..period
come on GOD – first round of life.. you penalty me forever.. come on… you tell me you love me but first round, I don’t know what you want.. it so so messy on earth how am I to know. give me another chance..you should have told me while I was on earth, I will sure follow you..
or idolhunter goes to heaven and continue his journey?
Answer B:
NO… idolhunter only exist when he is on earth…
when your soul goes to heaven or hell…you (idolhunter) no longer exist. You have no knowledge of your existence… you are totally a different entity.
If the truth is Answer A -
I am going to beg GOD for a chance again as you know why.. he is the god of love and what good will come out of it idolhunter to burn forever? and furthermore its the first time..
If the truth is Answer B -
thank you GOD !
Heaven or Hell… It’s no concern of mine
BELIEVE ME I AM NOT TRYING TO MAKE FUN OF THIS..I AM SERIOUS!!!
Is there any other answers to this?
Please advise… I really truly want to know…
Thank you for reading it all..
Idolhunter

I think that most religions were created for reasons of political and moral control of the masses. The Abrahamic religions in particular deal with the polarities of good vs. evil, God vs. Satan and create a polarized reality of living in the societies they dominate.
In ancient Greece and Rome there were a multiplicity of Godheads–Gods who combined good qualities often with negative or vengeful qualities. The good thing about this pantheon of gods was that no one god was really “in charge”. So you had Hades, who was in charge of the netherworld, Poseidon, who was god over the waters, Athena, who was the goddess of justice, etc. If a person had a particular problem in life, there were many ways of resolving that problem, many gods to pray to. If you had a conflict with one god, there was probably another god who would help you out. I mean, isn’t that a more reasonable kind of approach?
In our Christian religion (and I call myself Christian because I love and respect Jesus of Nazareth), the threat of hell and damnation has been held over peoples’ heads for many centuries as a means of political control. It was a way that Rome was able to get control over at that time tyrannical kingdoms and make them be subservient to Roman authority. However, in my opinion, this has little or nothing to do with the real message of Jesus, who was trying to introduce a more humane approach to the hebraeic tradition of his time.
Mohammed was able to unify vast numbers of Arab peoples through a common idea that punishment would be meted out to everybody who opposed Allah, including Christians and Jews who didn’t accept the new gospel of Islam. And one has to remember, that every written record is as fallible as the human being who wrote it, including the Bible and every other religious text.
When I was younger, I often wondered which infernal deity Jehovah God represented. I held him to be one of the lesser deities of antiquity, and most likely a repressive and evil-minded one. Perhaps we have been calling the wrong personality “God” for several thousand years. Perhaps the classical view of a multiplicity of deities is a more realistic and generous view of the totality of creative energies in our universe.
Thanks for the mail, Neale. God Bless!

Turk182 wrote:
dolhunter, let me ask you a question. It will seem strange at first, but believe me there is a method to my madness.
Do you work for someone besides yourself?
Turk182
Yes, I use to work for someone.. but now I work for myself..
I run my own company.
go ahead.. I m listening..

Who said God condemned or is punishing him? Is it possible that he is part of a process that which is God experiencing it’s own greatness by being compassionate and forgiving toward the person that did the supposed wrong? (or humanity forgiving Hitler, which doesn’t mean it makes it okay to kill 1 or a million. Though i think it’s a good idea not to repeat that experience.)
A belief is just a mental idol of worship, something to justify our reasoning and actions. Too much thinking brings on judgment in most cases and too much of that can lead to a lot of detrimental beliefs. Every Belief is valid to the beholder until he or she decides to change it.
I thought about the LOVE and FEAR polarities. When i thought in linear terms i can see that love and fear are polarities, but when i changed my thinking to a continuum like a circle or cycle, it appeared to me that love and fear are like the same thing, they can both appear to be constructive and destructive, depending on how we decide to experience it. A person in love with his country or people can destroy another or a person in love can inspire others. A person can choose to live when fearful about a perceived threat, like a drug addict deciding to change his or her habits or a person can be so fearful and decide to kill another. Love and Fear is just a flip side of the same coin so to say. Only you know which side you are deciding, choosing from or observing from or reacting from.
I believe that man or soul chose to love from the positive aspect of himself or chose from a place of being fearful of becoming that which he was judged from. That which you do onto another you do onto yourself.
Concerning God, through thoughts I’m limited to my understanding, but when i love i am free.

Hi Neale,
First, I wanted to say that I’ve enjoyed your books and your blog here on Beliefnet.
Second, you mentioned here on one of your recent blogs that you’ve been trying to get a dialogue going here on Beliefnet with some of the other bloggers on the subject of What God Wants, but without much success.
In reading some of the other blogs here it seems to me that beliefs about God, and beliefs about What God Wants underlie many blog entries here on Beliefnet. There are certainly many opportunities to start a dialogue here.
As a suggestion, instead of posting broad invitations to other bloggers to respond to your own blog, what about taking a more proactive approach to dialogue and respond directly to blog entries of others in your own, addressing your comments to others by name, and focusing on the stated and unstated assumptions about God and What God Wants that you see.
By the way, I loved your book on this subject — especially chapter 13

Great! You run your own company, that is good stuff. Let me ask you:
Do you embezzle funds from your company? Do you falsify your expense reports? Bill clients for hours you didn’t really work? Do you cook the books to make your company seem more profitable than it is?
And personally, do you walk down the aisles of the store stuffing things you don’t plan on paying for in your shirt? Do you pump and run at the gas station? Do you run red lights at busy intersections, or step on the gas when you see a cop parked on the highway?
I hope you answered no to all of the above! And the reason that most of us don’t break the laws, rules, and so forth is fear of getting caught and/or fear of the consequences. Because if we were all totally honest with ourselves, the urge to break laws and get what we could for ourselves strikes us all. I’ve had the urge to run stopsigns at intersections because no one was waiting, no one was coming, and who would know? What would it hurt, and I would be spared the inconvenience of slowing down and stopping. If you got caught cooking the books of your company, the financial fines would probably be significant, you might see some jail time, and you and your family would be humiliated. Why ride the edge of the abyss and take that chance?
You see, idolhunter, fear is a motivation that governments and businesses use every day to influence our behavior. Don’t cut in line, or you will be asked to leave the amusement park. Don’t roughhouse, or you will be kicked out of the pool. In all areas of our lives, we face rules and regulations stipulating that we act in a civil way or there will be consequences. And of course, rulers throughout history used fear to control their populaces and make them work for them, pay them tributes and taxes, and serve them. Fear has always been a motivating factor for the way we humans have lived and behaved.
Is this the way things should be? Not in a perfect world, no. But we all know and can agree that this world is by no means perfect. We wish that everyone would act with the best interests of the government or the business in mind. Would you hire someone to work for you knowing he or she would do everything they could to cheat, lie, and steal from you? Of course not! But in reality, some people don’t act with our best interests at heart. And sometimes its the leaders themselves who are the problem. People are always trying to cut corners, trim the truth a bit, and manipulate circumstances to make their own lives come out a little better. And that is why you have to have some fear.
God knows this better than anyone. He does not rule through fear, but He does make a point to examine what happens when you accept Him AND what happens when you reject Him. It’s like CS Lewis wrote in his Chronicles of Narnia about Aslan the lion, who was the embodiment of Christ, “He’s not a tame lion”. God wants to live in our hearts, pouring out His love and His blessings upon us, sheltering us and lifting us up when we go through the storms of life, and ushering us into His reward when this life is done. But there was a cost to be paid for our redemption (Christ’s death on the cross), and we have to accept that payment by choice. And we fear God because He is God, holy, awesome, majestic, and so far above us in deed and in thought.
Unfortunately, idolhunter, we humans function better when we have a clear picture not only of the blessings we can get from this life, but also of the consequences. And sometimes even those consequences don’t stop us from trying to beat the system and get ahead. It’s the idea of the carrot and the stick. We would all rather be led by the carrot, but sometimes God has to use the stick to get our attention and turn us from our wicked ways. I know that other people on this blog will say, oh we’re all one and love and happiness is the rule and let’s all have a group hug and sing kumbayah. The reality is, this world does it’s best to turn us away from God. I’m a man, and every day I have to navigate down streets that are filled with billboards picturing Hooters girls and advertising the popular “gentlemen’s club” and I walk past the magazine racks that say I can’t be cool unless I have this car and this look and these gadgets, and look, girls in bikinis sell cars! And I sit through meetings with other guys who judge people on the kind of house they live in and what neighborhood they live in and how much money you make, and you are not a good employee unless you come in early, work through lunch, and go home late. Sorry, family! And you go to the movies and are assaulted with gore and profanity and sex, and you turn on the TV and it’s more of the same and here, you need this and you can get it with no money down and no payments for six months!
No wonder God has to use fear sometimes. It’s the only way he can remove our heads from our rectums and remind us about what’s really important in this world.
Turk182

what about Christians who go to church but break the law, lie, cheat, are abusive, etc etc
apparently God’s use of fear doesn’t work including the threat of hell
hmmm . . .

I too love and respect Jesus Christ but I am not a Christian. From what I have inferred from CwG is that we are all the Son. Jesus just knew that people would never believe in themselves enough and gave himself so that they would. Jesus remembered all that God taught him. I believe that Jesus did feed the masses, did walk on water and did heal the sick. He did not know that he couldn’t. He lived between the worlds, here and there, conciousness and sub-conciousness. He walked in heaven and on earth, just like we all CAN and will. I don’t accept him as my “Savior” but I do love him. Am I still going to hell?
I have known my entire life, in the deepest recesses of my soul, beyond a shadow of a doubt that God does not judge and punish. Only six years of frantic searching for “the right path” and immense religious study led me to believe otherwise.
I also have this feeling that the literalness of the Bible is outdated. When the Torah was given to mankind, mankind needed those rules and laws to evolve itself, passages referring to stoning non-virgin daughters on their fathers doorstep and stoning children who do not listen, we don’t need that crap anymore. We are evolving.
In CwG it states that there will always be those who cannot accept the real truth. There are always those who will feel it is too good to be true, who would rather run to the shelter of someone who died for their sins than to take the responsibility of just believing in themselves.
Thank you, Neale, for providing such a real tool to help me remember. I wish I had picked it up in 2001 instead of 2008.
Man, what a difference that would have made.

“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
How is it that people are so certain they are correct, and ready to pass judgment on their fellow man? Does ego step in and assure their ‘rightness’? There is so much evidence that much of the bible is not of God. Is it so frightening to look at the truth?

What I hear in Mr. Walsch’s comments are what I hear from many people today. I hear doubt about God and who he really is, and I hear this because of the way he’s portrayed in Christian churches every Sunday morning. God, is portrayed as a vengeful, task master who has laid down rules and regulations that no human could ever perfectly obey. Salvation, itself, is portrayed as, “You better accept this offer before you die or you’re going to hell.” Why wouldn’t Mr. Walsch believe that this man is more forgiving than God? Oh yes, I know grace and forgiveness are also preached on Sunday mornings, but through the warped lense of man’s religious vision of God’s grace, forgiveness and love.
The book of Hebrews says, “Christ died once, and for all,” it doesn’t say this for the few who will accept him, now, it says, “…once, for all.” “It is finished,” Christ’s sacrifice is complete, and no further sacrifice is called for or expected by God. The bible also says that God will draw all of mankind to himself at the consummation. It is religion, which is of man, that has altered the truth to fit a religious agenda. God, is more forgiving than any of his creation, and unfortunately, Christianity is not. Mr. Green, evidently understands God and his grace, which is evident in his forgiveness of the man responsible for his incarceration!

I’ll say at the outset that I am a Christian. But I am not an evangelical, nor a Pentecostal nor any of the other dogmatic groups of Christians who so often claim their “literal” beliefs about the Bible as absolute Truth. That said, I do believe that Jesus was the Christ, the chosen one, the unique son of God who had the very spirit of God so completely as to be divine. His death on the cross did open a conduit in the universe that allowed all of us direct access to God, thereby enabling us to be “saved” from the ugly grip of worldly and unhealthy desires that kept us separated from God. Your troubling question about God’s apparent lack of forgiveness for those who do not accept Jesus as Savior, bothers me a lot too. I don’t believe my faith is any less than anyone else’s just because I long to believe that everyone who believes in and trusts God, whatever their religion, will go to God when they die. I just don’t know. (Since heaven is the Presence of God, it does follow that one must at least believe in God to find it.) I do believe the Gospels, and Jesus said that “no one can come to the Father but by me.” (John 14:6) But how do we know what happens at the moment of death? How do we know whether Jesus appears to each of us at that moment and extends his arms and invites us one last time: “Come to me.” C.S. Lewis (in ‘Mere Christianity’) makes this surprising statement: “We do know that no man can be saved except through Christ; we do not know that only those who know Him can be saved through Him.”
I do know that forgiveness is at the basis not only of Jesus Christ’s teaching, but of his very nature. And Jesus was the nature of God.

Hel said:
“what about Christians who go to church but break the law, lie, cheat, are abusive, etc etc
apparently God’s use of fear doesn’t work including the threat of hell
hmmm . . . ”
Do you mean preachers as Jimmy Swaggart or others who were found in very ungodly business…?
I’ll give you the fundamentalist answer:
“The sin is in me”, said Paul in Romans, so even you accept Christ, you have to struggle against sin all your life…
So, if you are a ‘reborn again’, but even so, you sin -and you will…- God will punish you, absolutely, but at least, you won’t go to hell, because you accepted Christ…
BUT, if you are a lovely person, with godly and very enlightened behavior, but you didn’t accept Jesus Christ, as your Saviour, you’ll go straignt to hell… As Gandhi, for example…
‘That’s what God wants and states in his Word…’
So, here you have the ‘logic’ of fundamentalism: “if you are right, no matter what you do, you’re saved… if you’re wrong, no matter what you do, you’re lost…”
‘AND ONLY US ARE RIGHT…’
Yes; mmmmmm…

I started a spiritual blog a couple of months ago with the first post discussing the Church of Oprah YouTube phenomenon. My original intention was to comment on something she said, “God is a feeling experience not a believing experience, if your religion is a believing experience, if God for you is still about a belief, then it’s not truly God.” I thought it was offensive regardless of what faith you were.
It didn’t stop there because these words then came to me, “The Feeling is come to by The Believing, but it is The Believing that is being attacked here. In response to this, The Believing is being used to support The Feeling because as a general rule, The Believing was and continues to be the source used to acquire The Feeling. It is as simple as “Seek and ye shall find” or “Knock and it is answered”. God is only hidden from those that do not seek God for without that seeking there would not be the quest for knowing which eventually flourishes The Feeling. It is the resulting Feeling that keeps you coming back to The Believing, from which you strive to learn more about The Believing for when you do The Feeling intensifies. The more you come to Know God, the more you come to Love God and thus begins the Love Affair of and for God. If either of these is attacked for what ever reason, they will be vehemently defended.”
I’ve noticed that this is what’s going on here because the longest comments are in support of the Christian ideologies. Hence The Believing as they have come to know it is under attack which in turn affects The Feeling which then affects their personal relationship with God.
I believe this is where the answer to Neale’s questions lie. From my experiences over the past 15 years of my Spiritual Journey I’ve personally witnessed people of different faiths experiencing The Feeling and it was always the same even though many of them had different Believing. Therefore The Feeling is The Feeling and it is The Believing that then separates us and hence our biggest obstacle to unifying into The Collective known as Humanity. It is in the Core of The Feeling that The Truth lives Eternal. This is the Calling of The Still Small Voice within, so when The Believing doesn’t align with that Calling, then other Believing is being sought out for those who have left their religion of origin. Those that remain allow The Believing to direct The Feeling and as a result defend The Feeling from The Believing.
Before there was organized religion there were our pre-human ancestors. There is consistent evidence that they had some kind of connection to The Spiritual, but there was no John 14:6, so did these people go to hell? Were they damned for all time because they arrived here long before there was a Jesus to save them from their sins? What about the eons of pre-Jesus civilizations? Did they all go to hell because they got here too early? We seem to forget this and only focus on what supports The Believing we have been told. When you allow another to direct The Believing for you then you allow another to direct The Feeling for you which in turn you call a personal relationship to God, but is it if you’ve been told how to feel?
It is a know fact that it was forbidden to challenge the Bible until the early 1900’s. As a result, this book could be altered in whatever way that the people in charge desired in order to suit their own personal agendas and then continue to profess it as the undeniable Word of God to get the masses to respond accordingly. If you think I’m full of crap seek out this information for yourself.
I first learned about the editing of the Bible over 10 years ago and was flabbergasted. It went against everything I had been told. Now the undisputable was disputable and thus began my Journey to discover the Truth. There is plenty of evidence to support this. Seek and find it. eSword is a great place to start. Then pay attention to the Easter and Christmas programming for stations like Discovery and The History Channel but be prepared to be shocked. A close friend of mine certainly was.
The problem is that many will not seek these broader Truths just like Neale’s friend who refused to admit that the books of the New Testament were not actually written by these apostles of Jesus but many years later. There is evidence for this also. Seek and find it. Most will not. Why? Because it will challenge The Believing which in turn challenges The Feeling which in turn affects their personal relationship with God and that is a frightening concept because of the way we depend on God being there for us.
Ponder this for a moment; if God is All Knowing, All Seeing and in All Places then it’s not a stretch to say that God is The Infinite. If you put The Infinite in a box and keep it there is it still infinite? Absolutely not, we The Limited have reduced The Unlimited to where we can conceive it but in doing so rob it of its essence and then continue to fool ourselves that we know God. By opening up The Believing to its infinite possibilities you then open up The Feeling to be an ever expanding experience and by doing so your relationship to God is always expanding, the feeling of which is Unbounded Joy. Isn’t that worth the risk? I know it has been for me.

What Marcy said, show us that not all in christian faith is seen in a fundamentalistit way…
For me, since I was a boy, the sentence: “”no one can come to the Father but by me.”, was, or not literally well translated from Jesus words -was an unaccuracy-, or meant, that everybody that goes to the ‘Father’ – Mother, for me…- goes through his example: LOVE.
Love for everybody, jews, samaritans, sinners, prostitutes, romans, ills, etc. Anyone is excluded… To understand and live that “thou are brothers”, is all the law and the prophets.
So, anybody that Loves is in Jesus, here on Earth, and after the Earth. no matter if he didn’t know Jesus at all…
This was clear from me in my heart since my early youth.
But then there were who claimed an absolutely different kind of God and Jesus: the exclusivist, sectarian, ungodly ones…
All the pain, injustice, crime, and wars in the world, come from not understanding this…
And moreover, come from understanding and living the Separation Theology.
For me, dear Marcy, what Jesus said was: “no one can come to the Father, but by me: my example, my life, my teachings: Love one another as I have loved you. That’s the Father. Everyone who Loves is in the Father and Me in Him. Because I and the Father are One. One in Love. Love is One. Love is Oneness. Everyone who experiencies Love, experiences God, and Experiences Christ; who says that Loves the Father, but hates his neighbor, is in the Truth.” If you are in Love, Is Me, Christ who is in you, no matter what earthly name you give it…
And I know that this is True, Marcy, don’t you…?
Blessings, and thanks

Nobody is excluded.
We are All One

I couldnt agree with Victor more…
I find this blog a real healthy forum for sharing, and for exposing what Neale, through the CWG writings have been saying all along–that fear has so separated man from a real, heartfelt knowing of his true relationship with God, with himself and his fellow man. It exposes, too, how eons of disbelief in the very natural impulses that tell us that we are loved unconditionally, have conditioned the way we view God’s mercy and compassion to this day.
As the revered Deepak Chopra said ‘though God created man in His image and likeness…man returned the favor by creating God in his own image and likeness’….very much like what we continue to do today. |)
Cheer up brothers…Love is all there is.
Joel
Philippines

Mr. Walsch asks, why would God condemn good people simply for failing to become members of the Christian religion? The actual answer, of course, is that He wouldn’t, He doesn’t, He won’t. So the real question is, why do some people insist that God is that cruel?
The most problematic aspect of inter-faith dialogue is that there are members of certain denominations of American Protestantism who sincerely believe they are mandated to persuade non-members to subscribe to their formulaic theology. The agenda they adhere to is never about understanding or even tolerating the faiths of others, but rather to propagandize and recruit, using fear and threats. First, they establish the idea that “salvation” is necessary, because the God they believe in is angry, jealous, vengeful, etc.
A dear friend once explained to me that in the dark ages, the church was allied with the powerful warlords and land barons, who demanded that the serfs obey and serve. The serf asks, “What if I don’t?” The baron’s henchmen say, “We’ll kill you.” The serf says, “Please. Go ahead and kill me, ’cause this [miserable existence in poverty and servitude] ain’t living.” The baron complains to the bishop, “Make those serfs work for me!” So the clergymen tell the serfs, “You must obey your lord, and your king, to whom God has given authority, and you must obey the church. Failure to do these things will result in a punishment much worse than death: everlasting torment in the fiery pits of Hell.” Now THAT’s a threat! It was never about following Jesus, it was about social order and control.
Such concepts as sin, condemnation, and the resulting need for salvation are all convenient myths in service of fear-mongering orthodoxies. It seems to me that anyone who knows the history of the church and how the so-called “Holy” Bible was compiled will have serious doubts about the purported inerrancy of those texts. And when did they start calling it “God’s Word?” That’s not what it is. God didn’t write it, edit it, translate it, re-translate and mis-translate it, put some stuff in it and take other stuff out of it for political reasons, etc. Fallible human beings did that. Corrupt, power-mad early Popes did that. To accept every sentence as if it were dictated by God is not faith, it’s capitulation to a preposterous and unsupportable premise that disallows the real work of spiritual discovery and discernment.
I expect to be accused of being anti-Christian for saying these things, but these are not attacks, they are counter-arguments or rebuttals in response to dogmatic, intolerant, and untrue statements directed at non-Christians, made by people who don’t even understand their own religion very well. I respect their right to believe whatever they choose (for themselves), but there are limits on the propriety of using threats (of fates worse than death, no less) for those who follow a different religion (or none at all). If they didn’t do that foul sort of proselytizing, counter-arguments such as these would never be necessary.

You know this few days of reading and postings here, I have unloaded a mountain of rubbish from my shoulders that I have carried since childhood with one reason…
Yes one reason only…. FEAR
and now I have a glimpse of pure & true love of GOD
that all my life was not actually wasted but have somehow perfectly experienced and guided. And that I realised that it’s because I SEEK, though I still have a million and one questions to ask but now I seem to have a Pencil(pure love) to objectively tick it off of the list when I encounter them.
Neale, Turk182, Chief, Victor and many others here, I thank you…
You don’t know how much all your postings have meant to me..
I don’t have to agree or disagree with what you have all said…
but in all the madness and debate, it was me who somehow saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I have led myself openmindedly to be swayed by your words and judgements from one corner to the other and turning back again and forth again as the points in the postings pulls me, without fear or love, I imagine and try to feel every sentence. For the past weeks, my wife have questioned me… “are you alright?, you seem engrossed in something.. is our business okay”
to her I said, yes, my dear everything is just fine…just fine..
Eventhough I don’t have all the answers but it didn’t matter much anymore. With the mountain of rubbish off my shoulders, I can walk on water literally, I can climb the highest mountain if I want to.
With tears in my eyes and pure love to you all … I thank you all…
idolhunter

We don’t condemn. We just say, unless you are baptized in the Church you shall not enter heaven. Or, unless one accepts Jesus as his Lord and Savior, he cannot be saved. Or, Allah, bless His holy name, created jinns and man that they might worship Him.
Was Gandhi baptized? No. Did he accept Jesus? No. Did he worship Allah, bless His holy name? No. Then, he goes straight to hell. Did God condemn him? No. He condemned himself. He was given free will, but failed to use it correctly. Not so with LDS. He still gets a chance to a free economy suite, at least, in a 10-star hotel. I do not search for logic nor justice here. I just wanted to know whether the loving God blinks or goes out for lunch too.
Nice job Victor. Keep it up. So too with you Deb and the rest of us. I learn from all the posts. I love the people who are in. Also those who are out. Not to worry Chief, smile. Rejoice. Hell’s a place without God. Therefore, it doesn’t exist. Unless we say so.

Joshua Clement Good,
Before I burn all the Bibles that clog my room, let me just save a bit or two from its pages: You see God in all His creations. You reap what you sow. By their fruits you shall know them. Whatever you do to the least of your brethren, you also do unto me. Greater things I have done, you shall do also. Love your neighbor as yourself. Faith can move mountains. Oh, it could fill at least a page.
Just kidding. My dear wife reads the Bible daily. She believes hell’s real. And I think she’s more than eager for a chance to prove it, by giving me a taste.

Turk182 wrote:
No wonder God has to use fear sometimes. It’s the only way he can remove our heads from our rectums and remind us about what’s really important in this world.
***
No offences but…
remove our heads from our rectums?
Gosh is that what you have been thinking of me all along?
Sounds abit desperate, don’t you think so?
Yes, in my country, we do call stupid people as such.
“your brain growing out from the backside” when an angry man would say to the other when they do foolish things.
so am I really foolish or stupid? because I couldn’t see Jesus’s way
but please forgive me, I was unfairly born into a Taoist family and unfairly raise in a muslim environment, I failed my exams and did not qualify to enter government school and I had to attend a methodist schoool where I was expose to christianity for awhile and later into a buddhist community because of my business. Did I chose to be born this way? No.. because I have no knowledge of that before I was born.
Today I am here…speaking to you right now…
If I were to avenge my anger, it would sound like this
Victor & Chief – God loved you 2 more then me…
He gave you all the previleges to learn from young, so indept into your words while I was thrown in the dump to search high and low and it took me 50 over years to realise, GOD how could you be so unfair to me, how could you let Turk so well versed with your words and call me names of what a foolish man I have been, put me beside him in the same position and see how I can challenge. GOD – its just not fair that you gave Victor and Chief only one Satan, while I have to deal with a few Satans and led me thru’ 5 versions of hell to find your way.
but you know what? my inner self just told me this…
My son… how was your journey so far? Thank you my father (GOD), thank you for all the hell you put me thru’, for now I realise why, if you had told me your reasons why when I was born, the whole journey would be meaningless, yet I still don’t know the way but now at least I see the light at the end of the tunnel and I know now if I walk in that direction of the light with a clear thought,nothing else matters.
and the glimpse of light for me came when I began to seek the truth from all the postings here. I was able to see thru’ Chief’s, Turks, victor’s and all the others… I was able to penetrate them all, without seeing any fault in their postings…I was able to see the perfection of their postings without fear or anger.
Turk’s rectum comments would have created anger for me but somehow it just doesn’t matter anymore but instead I see the hurt in Turk’s heart the second he types those words.
I am beginning to love you all more and more…

Great, great, great, great points, Neale.
This blog should be on the front page of every newspaper everywhere.

Thank you, Joel, Josh, Tax, IdolHunter and you All…
We’ve All been doing this…
All of us…
As We are All One.
Blessings and Love for All and EveryOne…

After posting my previous comment last night, I felt compelled to return to this page and read all of the comments – from around the world and from all forms of thoughts and beliefs. Two things strike me, and they are both good; First, other than some ernest and sincere rebuttal here and there, I find no real ill will or overt anger in this discussion. And second, I am pleased to find that I myself am not angry at any of the things I have read. This is especially joyful to me because there was a time when I would have become defensive and angry to read or hear about theories or beliefs contrary to my nearly fundamentalist Christian beliefs. This only proves to me that I have grown stronger in my faith, not weaker. My former feelings of defensiveness were a sign of weak faith. In other words, if one of the bricks in my belief system were attacked, the whole structure was in danger in collapsing. No more. I have nothing but feelings of love for all here who obviously seek Love and understanding of Truth. And let’s face it, when it comes to the idea of heaven and hell, we may each have our individual beliefs, but there is only one Truth. We just don’t know what it is. There cannot be many answers to this question, only one. Either there is or there isn’t a heaven and hell. Again, we can surmise and use logic and claim divine inspiration about the subject but we still don’t really know.
But we can hope. And Hope is perhaps God’s greatest gift to mankind.
Whatever it is that you hope for, God Bless You.
-Marcy

Turk 182 wrote:
“God wants to live in our hearts, pouring out His love and His blessings upon us, sheltering us and lifting us up when we go through the storms of life, and ushering us into His reward when this life is done. But there was a cost to be paid for our redemption (Christ’s death on the cross), and we have to accept that payment by choice. And we fear God because He is God, holy, awesome, majestic, and so far above us in deed and in thought.
Unfortunately, idolhunter, we humans function better when we have a clear picture not only of the blessings we can get from this life, but also of the consequences. And sometimes even those consequences don’t stop us from trying to beat the system and get ahead. It’s the idea of the carrot and the stick. We would all rather be led by the carrot, but sometimes God has to use the stick to get our attention and turn us from our wicked ways.”
Turk, some of the things you have said in your comments have made sense to me, but this I feel warrants a comment of my own. I do not believe God uses any sort of carrot and stick on us. Many of us responsible individuals do not need to be afraid of Hell in order to do the “right” thing. I myself have never believed in Hell, and have always thought the idea was absurd. I have never needed to be afraid of God’s judgements in order to do what I know in my heart is “right.” In life, there are many cosequences to our actions that we experience while on this planet. What would be the point of experiencing these consequences, only to be punished once again after we have died? I know many might ask, “What about the rapists and the murderers? Don’t they deserve to burn forever?” I have read many near-death experiences (www.near-death.com), and nearly all who have had one of these report watching their entire life unfold before their eyes, seeing how their actions have affected others, and judging themselves (No one, lease of all God, is judging them during this process, but they indeed judge themselves) rather harshly, afterward learning a great deal about compassion and self awareness. All who have reported experiencing this have lived the rest of their life doing all that they can to affect those around them in positive ways.
You see, we do not need to be afraid of burning in Hell for all eternity to know that our actions indeed have consequences while we are alive as well as after we die. Frankly, I think that knowing how your actions have hurt others and being able to feel what they felt after you have died is punishment enough for the “sins” that you commit. You will never be judged by God for anything, as God knows and understand why we do everything that we do, but you will indeed judge yourself (as we all do every day of our lives), and you will learn from your experience. You may not remember it completely in the next life, but you will want to treat others fairly. You will feel it every time you do something “wrong” to somebody else. I know this because I feel it every moment of every day, that I have learned something very important that I do not remember, but the feeling is still there.
-Tamara

Idolhunter, I think you misunderstood my last sentence. I was not calling you names; I was pointing out the fact that we all tend to mess things up when we try to do it ourselves and not with God’s help. That is why God says, “In all your ways acknowledge me, and I will make your paths straight”.
We all get caught up in the busyness of life sometimes and forget to concentrate on those things that matter most. In the cosmic scheme of things, there are things that are important and things we should just let go of. Are you really going to argue with the umpire of your 10-year girl’s softball game over a questionable call? Does that have any eternal significance whatsoever? Do the things we watch or listen to lift us up or bring us down? Are the places we are going and the company we keep encouraging us in our spiritual lives, or are they taking us to dark places in our soul that bear no good fruit?
That was my point, idolhunter. Humans, especially in today’s fast-paced, immediate gratification society, have notoriously short attention spans. God occasionally has to whack us upside the head to get our attention off of things that do not profit us at all and back onto things that have spiritual significance.
Turk182

Thank you Turk, I understand too that you don’t mean it personally to me and I know you were implying in general on people who do foolish things…:)
There are alot of people in the world who get easily insulted, worse still if they are Asians, you wouldn’t believe it if I told you, when someone greets you and you don’t return the greeting gesture, it could lead to a gun-fight or a gang-fight for that matter. Showing respect in Asian culture is very deep rooted and serious affair, very touchy..
I am sure most of you have seen Japanese & Chinese movies, you can see how touchy they are when it comes to showing of respects. Respect is a life and death matter and revenge is a family affair and that blood is thicker then water, though much of it has eroded thru’ the centuries but the strong feelings of it still remains in us Asians.
Turk, I just want you to know, when I read your postings, I may not see or feel what your postings maybe intended for but I see and feel what my feelings feed back to me according to our asian culture. When you quote the bible, I just read the words, but I don’t get the feelings like you think I would feel because my exposure to Christianity is at a different level then yours. If I ask you take 3 joss-sticks and pray to my ancestors, you do it out of respect but a silly empty feeling inside you.. right?
Just want to set the record straight… that’s all..
No hard feelings turks, you have assisted my understand more then you know…

Tax wrote:
Before I burn all the Bibles that clog my room, let me just save a bit or two from its pages: You see God in all His creations. You reap what you sow. By their fruits you shall know them. Whatever you do to the least of your brethren, you also do unto me. Greater things I have done, you shall do also. Love your neighbor as yourself. Faith can move mountains. Oh, it could fill at least a page.
***
You may have a funny feeling when I say this or maybe not.
Keep the Bibles and read more them more often for every word is the word of god but move your level of understanding higher and try to see the perfection of why it is written as it was written and not judge them as right or wrong and without fear but true love, and god’s message will be return to you. You seek not why the rock blocks the mountain streams in its rightful path to the sea but seek to admire the beauty of the rocks that makes the sreams wind down the mountain before it reaches the sea.
God bless everyone here.
Thank you Neale, at last I could see it… at long last.

Yes, the Bible’s the word of God. So too is everything we say. This is why I enjoy and respect all comments here. The challenge is for us to see what works. I mind the rocks because a slip could send me tumbling downwards. Then, how could I savor the beauty of the majestic scenery?
All of Christianity speaks of a Ten Commandments. Can we see it anywhere in the Bible? No! They use edited versions. The unexpurgated text has objectionable features and is too verbose for a document that was supposed to be written by God Himself on two stone tablets. It accepts slavery and punishes generation of forebears for the sins of their father, something that no sect would dare espouse. Oops, sorry. I forgot about the Original Sin.
If you find comfort and solace in the Bible, fine with me. All of us in the family were baptized Catholics. In my country, who wasn’t? Now, my wife’s a born-again Christian who reads the Bible daily as I used to. One of my three sons is a devout Catholic, one is a Messianic of sorts and the youngest has no religion just like his only sister, the eldest. Don’t ever think that the latter two, and me, are one in our beliefs! However, this has never caused any friction between us nor with anybody else, except for one thing: the Messianic doesn’t eat pork. I wish though that he’s always around so we all couldn’t eat the dirty stuff. Thank God. Man has made religions and the religious better, and continues to do so. We are one. Peace and blessings. Thanks to the Hindus for an enriched word, and world. Namaste, and Aloha.

Tax wrote:
I mind the rocks because a slip could send me tumbling downwards. Then, how could I savor the beauty of the majestic scenery?
****
Well said and its perfectly true… and every word of it, every alphabet is in the right place to describe what you feel.
The answers will not be in this one posting, it took me 50 over years to realise that.
You may not see what I see, you may not feel what I feel for we are at different plain or level of understanding.
What we all here have been saying and saying and kept saying….
Take the FEAR factor out of your vocabulary and you will see paradise
Take the FEAR out and you will see true love…
Take the FEAR out of yourself and you will see GOD.
it will be endless to put everything here…
“a slip could send me tumbling” – This is what we call FEAR
You cannot see the beauty of the majestic scenery because “FEAR” was in your heart the moment you type those sentence. It may sound crazy to you and many of you here…I don’t know about Neale.
But if Neale said, I am wrong, I have misunderstood it, then in my eyes, Neale is no better then the fundamentalist here debating about the FEAR factor that must rule in our lifes. Then to me, Neale is more interested in his sales of books to preach to us all the fake truths that We have to take the fear away from us will never be achieved. It will never happen.
A simple word – FEAR and its so complicated.
Every image, every word that is thought out.. out of FEAR, God disappears from you the very instant.
I wonder how many of you truly know the word – surrender
Even to me now, FEAR is still in me, but then I know if I take FEAR out, everything will be perfect as it should and would BE.
As I have said, the answers to you will not be in this posting.
Buddhism & Taoism for centuries have been telling its members,
Detach yourself..
Detachment is the way to enlightenment.
Detachment is the way to enlightenment.
Detachment is the way to enlightenment.
How many of us have actually see it?
To me, detachment is the way to take FEAR out… so long as there is an I and a YOU
The FEAR will be there…
So long as there is a good and evil,
the FEAR will be there.
so long as there are 2 sides to everything…the fear will be there.
What is YOUr NAME – My name is Mr. GOOD
what if I call you Mr. EVIL, will it change YOU?
NO, SO THAT MEANS YOU ARE NOT MR. GOOD AND NOT MR.EVIL, RIGHT?
YES!!!
I WILL BE WHO I AM NO MATTER WHAT NAME YOU GIVE ME.
NOW I AM DETACHED…I AM NOT EVIL NOR GOOD…
once you can understand this level – there is no FEAR
You did not slip and tumble down…. TAX did.
In all the madness in my mind…
now I could see Jesus died for all our FEARs(sin) and it is thru’ Jesus (Detachment) that you can reach our Father GOD (truth). Yes,, its true.. there is only ONE way to GOD – Jesus (Detachment)
If it doesn’t ring a bell, it doesn’t matter
It took me half a century to learn about Buddhism thru’ christianity and it was Jesus who showed me the way.
It was Chief who quote the bible and opened my mind to see that FEAR was actualy SIN and that Jesus was actually detachment, Jesus has been asking everyone to detach and give him all the FEARS (sins) and only then, only then can we all see the glory of our father (GOD)
God bless everyone…
I know it’s a scary story… and it doesn’t make much sense to you…
but it did for me…

Some Christians do believe that all people will go to Heaven. Check out: http://www.Tentmaker.org

There is Unity Church, too…
http://www.unity.org

Idolhunter,
Fear keeps us alive. It makes us watch our steps. Fish is good, but fear tells us to eat with care lest a stray bone find its way to our throat. Remove fear and indeed we’ll see God sooner, albeit reluctantly and unexpectedly.
Truly I slipped, and found myself in Chief’s world. Fear kept me there for so long. Now I’m out of it. That fear’s gone but I’m more careful lest I slip again. You’re entering a domain which I left behind but I feel no sense of superiority. I too could be retracing your path. We’re all travelers and we’re free to go anywhere we want to. However, some persons take advantage of our fears, and tell us that there’s only one way.
Yoga, meditation or temporary detachment is about remembering or paying home a visit. Total detachment is pure enlightenment. It’s being back where we came from permanently, unless we decide otherwise. Jesus showed us the way, as others before and after Him did. We are their followers, whether we like it or not. Mabuhay!

Tax… well said. I love to read your postings… somehow I could feel the connection with you.. generally…
I guess the word fear is a very complex assumption and definition…
You know when I say FEAR is sin… now I get a different message..as I learn and digest what I have said….
I was watching TV and there was a show on about people riding the roller-coster. Then I saw the screaming girls in the ride, I could see their intense fear in their faces, their eyes showed terror and fear but then they are giggling at the same time and suddenly it struck me… Presto !!! when the ride ended…the fear from their eyes were totally gone and they are laughing and shouting what a great ride while some are crying and swearing that they will never to take the ride again.
Suddenly, I could feel that this is what I was trying to say and feel.
When you know that at the end, it is alright, it is safe, you enjoy the ride but if your mind is still thinking what if the rails broked and send us tumbling down to death, you hated the ride. Your fear of death was real and scary while those who feels that it is just a ride and it is perfectly safe, their fear was temporary and they enjoyed it.
FEAR and SIN doesn’t seem to be the same entity here
I was too quick to judge and quote SIN…:(
but I know deep in me, it’s the uncertainty of our mind of what lies after death makes me hate the scary ride.
What I want is to feel the enjoyable yet fearful ride.
I must believe that the ride is harmless and will end perfectly as intended.
I guess I have to keep searching to establish a firm belief of the end inorder to enjoy the journey of my life and later to look back and see how silly our fears were and laugh about it…:)

The scriptures make it plain that all will eventually be saved,
regardless of what CS Lewis says.
“In Adam ALL die, In Christ ALL shall be made alive.
As for choice and free will.Let me ask you this
“If you were created Judas and Judas was created you, would there have been an atonement”?
If god had switched your persons, believe me nothing would have changed.
The truth of the matter is that we have free will and we dont have it at the same time. read Phillipeans chapt 2:12-13