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I'm even more certain than just imagining nobody knows. They DON'T, plain and simple. But I'm willing to go a tiny bit farther than you did. I suspect that when I die, I still won't know...because I'll be dead.
excellent observation, and an acceptable one-up to my own words!
Since it is impossible to know, why worry about something that is unknowable. I instead choose to focus my energy on trying to live a productive, happy and virtuous life.
I'll second that. I can't see us just going to heaven because few of us are ready for heaven. I'm thinking something else. Like maybe a Jonathan Livingston Seagull type reincarnation in either a higher plane or a world similar to this one depending on how much we grew during this life.
I think that, ultimately, there is a heaven. I just don't think you punch a ticket in this lifetime to get in. I think the soul has to grow into a being that will be happy in heaven first.
I hate the depictions of heaven as streets of gold and mansions. That is so materialistic and so this world. Why would gold have value to me in heaven and do I really want a mansion to myself? Sounds like a lonely existence. My idea of heaven is closer to the garden of eden. Sitting under a tree, eating apples and talking to those who went before me.
I don't believe in hell. I think hell was invented by a Baptist preacher to scare people into believing. I think there is a separation from God for the unbelieving but this world is a separation from God so this world could qualify as hell.
I wish I could erase my Baptist upbringing. I still can't shake the image of God as this angry, vengeful, sadistic creature that throws his children into the lake of fire for not doing what he told them to do. I'm sorry but eternal tomrment in a lake of fire is just torture for the sake of torture since you can't ever get out. Punishment is only punishment if there is the hope of redemption. With no redemption, it's just inflicting pain to inflict pain. It would be like me telling my daughter to repent by Friday and when she didn't, burning her every chance I walked by her forever and never giving her the chance to repent again. Just inflicting pain every chance I got. How fast I'd be arrested yet we're supposed to believe a "loving" God sentences his misbehaving children to eternal torment because they didn't repent in time.
I can't marry the image of a "loving" father with one that would even make a lake of fire with the intention of throwing misbehaving children into it. God seems kind of schizophrenic when you look at it that way.
I can't marry the image of a "loving" father with one that would even make a lake of fire with the intention of throwing misbehaving children into it. God seems kind of schizophrenic when you look at it that way.
It takes a process George Orwell called "doublethink" in his novel 1984; the ability to hold contradictory thoughts simultaneously.
In my opinion, there is no way of knowing. So much has been written, it boils down to what one chooses to believe. I would like to be able to say I know, but I don't.
Do you know for certain that there is no way to know?
It takes a process George Orwell called "doublethink" in his novel 1984; the ability to hold contradictory thoughts simultaneously.
I guess I flunked double think in college. I have to either elminate hell or eliminate the idea of God as a loving father. The latter scares me too much. So I'll just eliminate hell.
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and talking to those who went before me. 
I think there is a separation from God for the unbelieving but this world is a separation from God so this world could qualify as hell. 
