girl-aflame's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Designer Hell I found this link, to design your own hell. Pretty neat, really. So I tried it out, except, you have to have 9 levels of hell and thus you have to "condemn" at least nine people/things/groups. I couldn't come up with 9 groups of people I would send to hell. I only hold one grudge in my life, and that's against Crystal. I have people that I dislike, strongly, but I wouldn't want to send anyone to hell. I struggle a lot with the concept of hell. My former religion is adament on it and its existence. In a modern scheme of things, it's just not popular or practical or scientific to believe in hell, or so everyone says. Well I don't buy any of those reasons for not believing in it. If it existed, it would exist regardless of pleasantness, practicality, or scientific explanation. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than is dreamt of in your philosophy." Rather, I struggle with the idea of hell because from what I know of the nature of love, and I believe God is pure love, such a punishment could not be justified. Love is doing what is best for the person in the long run, and sometimes that means doing something that the person is going to be hurt by or find unfair; but if hell is eternal, there is nothing the person could benefit from it, because there would be no chance to learn from it. No chance at redemption. And love is always, always, always the possibility of redemption. Sometimes human love isn't, but we haven't perfected the concept. God's love is always redemptive, to a perfect degree. On the other hand, there has to be a system of "punishment". Except I don't look at it like punishment. To me it's more like the natural consequence of actions. I think that energy is instrinsicly tied to every action, every thought, every word. Some energes are of a nourishing nature, some are of a depleting nature. When you deal totally in depletion, you invite depleting events into your life. When you deal in nourishment, you invite nourishing events. They are self adhering; while nourishment and depletion must inevitably co-exist, they are repelling forces of each other. You cannot act with both simultaneously. Karma makes so much sense to me. And karma is an equal handed punishment. Burning in eternal misery for one sin, no matter how horrible it seems at the moment, is just not feasible. With God being so much bigger than the universe, so much above all the petty judgments of mortals, how could he rationalize such a thing? But karma is equal consequence for equal action. You get back what you give out; no less, but no more. The universe runs on principles of equality and balance, surely this fits in with the cosmic scheme of things. I can't condemn people. I know myself too well for that. "The better we know ourselves, the less we criticize other people." I have done things, made mistakes, that I never thought I was capable of. I have hurt people that were good to me; I have purposefully gone against what I knew the right answer to be, out of petty desire and weakness. How can I call someone an evil person for doing these things? I can't. I have an idea of what hell might be, but it isn't burning eternal torture. Rather, it is self created; it is becoming stuck in a karmic loop and not being able to escape it. You can escape it, of course, but the deeper you dig yourself into a rut the further you have to climb out. Hell doesn't exist because God is vengeful and bloodlusty. Hell exists because of human nature, and likewise, human beings could eliminate hell if they wished. But they won't, at least not in the time of our conscious awarenesses, because human beings are the creatures that they are. Someday we will evolve past what we are, but until then, we will continue to be like burning super novas: gorgeous, awe inspiring, and hopelessly ill fated. Written for Pieces of You, inspired by inkdragon 12:08 a.m. - Sunday, Aug. 24, 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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