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On the Concept of Hell:
I have described “spiritual evolution” as the systematic obliteration of evil from the world through the process of repaying evil with good, much as has been exemplified in the life of Gandhi and in Leo Tolstoy’s work: “The Kingdom of God is Within You”. Clearly, this spiritual evolution will eventually annihilate all evil from the world, or from the realm occupied by adherents to “the good”.
But where will the annihilated evil go. Once it is deleted, will it descend into a sort of cosmic “recycle bin”? Scripture speaks of “hell” as a “place of outer darkness” and I see it as a place that is away and distant from God, perhaps in another dimension. Such a place is reserved for those who have completely extinguished the “good” spark within them to the extent that they are inherently evil, or those who have professed a desire for darkness and have embraced the expansion of evil.
The point here is that all evil will eventually be destroyed, or banished to a place where it can no longer corrupt “the good”. You possess the ability to change the corruptible matter that is yourself into spiritual goodness (light) or, alternatively, to allow it to decay for eventual annihilation.
To be in hell is to be separated from all that is good. Scripture describes a “weeping and gnashing of teeth”. Everything evil, even more grotesque than you can imagine, will characterize hell, which will be totally void of goodness. Perhaps the descriptive writers of the past, attempting to concoct the most expressive situation imaginable, painted the picture of being burned alive, but this picture could also be presented with any number of grotesque manifestations of evil.
The ultimate horror of being separated from all that is good is not fully evident until one has begun to achieve a successful expansion of “the good” within themselves. After being cognizant of the power of “the good” within, the sheer horror of the hellish condition is clearly understood, for only then can one truly see what a catastrophic condition it is to be separated from “the good”. This results in the apparition of our horrifying concept of hell.
posted by
telemachus
on April 15, 2004 at 3:24 PM
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can't argue with that, either....
posted by
Gheeghee
on April 15, 2004 at 3:16 PM
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I have had more than my share of being chased this way. Thing is, it seems like it's all of the Christinas becasue we only notice the overbearing and rude ones. The ones who truly follow the teachings of Christ respect others, no matter what their beliefs are, and mind their manners. I love what St. Francics of Assisi said: "Preach the Gosepel always, if necessary, use words," meaning, behave yourselves and treat people properly. I htink the way to respond to th is is to get back in their faces and say, "THIS IS NOT WORKING, I SUGGEST YOU TRY A DIFFERENT APPROACH." (Like St. Frank's. *snicker.*
posted by
Imijri
on April 15, 2004 at 3:07 PM
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no arguement here...it is a bad way to do it. Check out my comment on Kooka's last post.
posted by
Gheeghee
on April 15, 2004 at 3:00 PM
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