Wow. I really like this man. He comes as close as any theologian to describing what I believe.
video
http://www.upworthy.com/a-bishop-describes-how-the-church-in...
A Bishop Describes How The Church Invented Hell To Control People

"Just when I thought religion was a lost cause, I ran into this video starring Bishop John Shelby Spong of the Episcopal Church. Not only does he cut through the crap that has plagued mainstream religion for centuries, but Spong finds a way to frame God and religion in a way that doesn't doom you to eternal, fiery, damnation-a-plenty hell for sleeping in on Sundays."

Spong has a series of interesting books debunking many of the more ridiculous aspects if Christianity.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3D...

Count Upp

Hmmmmm . . .

He recognizes that man created Hell to control the masses, but he comes short of making the obvious next step: Man created gawds to control the masses.

Of course the biblical story is that God created Hell to punish his fallen angel Lucifer and his followers - all of whom he also created. So Hell is nothing more than one aspect of God. It's his trash midden for all of his failures.

<<The Church Invented Hell To Control People>>


I would say that human beings have quite often done a very workmanlike job of creating Hell on earth.

No doubt "The Church" has done that from time to time, but I'd suggest that the most common creator of Hell on earth has been government.



Seattle Pioneer

lindytoes posts, "Wow. I really like this man. He comes as close as any theologian to describing what I believe.
video
http://www.upworthy.com/a-bishop-describes-how-the-church-in......
A Bishop Describes How The Church Invented Hell To Control People

"Just when I thought religion was a lost cause, I ran into this video starring Bishop John Shelby Spong of the Episcopal Church. Not only does he cut through the crap that has plagued mainstream religion for centuries, but Spong finds a way to frame God and religion in a way that doesn't doom you to eternal, fiery, damnation-a-plenty hell for sleeping in on Sundays."
---------------------------


That's pretty much what I believe and also I think some of it might be just how people react when talking to or dealing with non-believers. You know the old "Well... YOU CAN JUST GO TO HELL THEN!" I'm fairly certain how it got to be where it is. You get angry with someone because they are arguing with you and you get frustrated and you run out of things to say to convince them so you say "well if you don't believe me you're going to burn in hell."

It's because people couldn't think of a reason why we could be here other than as some kind of punishment. The idea of this life being some kind of school and where everyone learns what they are supposed to learn, holistically, and that the soul's lessons are embedded in our everyday lives and in actuality our whole Universe is little more than a holographic projection, which means it's an illusion, and so everything that happens here isn't much more real than a DVD of a movie or a play. We are actors playing our parts because the education of the soul is too important to leave up to chance and the lessons have to be emotional enough to evoke memories that will last forever.

We are simply spiritual beings having a physical experience. Here to experience time and space, duality and separation, and make memories of what it means and how it feels to live inside a physical body and live in a 3 dimensional and 1 time Universe.


Art

It's his trash midden for all of his failures.

Is "trash midden" a bit redundant?

CU

Is "trash midden" a bit redundant?

Not in Southwestern archaeology. A "trash midden" denotes something completely different than a "pack rat midden", for example. Other distinct middens are "shell middens", "kitchen middens" and even "privy middens". "Trash midden" makes it clear that it was diverse trash when it was originally thrown onto the pile.

One reason I stopped going to my church in my teens was they kept making up rules I couldnt find in my bible. Didn't think that was right. Can't dance, can't drink wine, can't play cards, can't go to movies. All fun is bad.

That, and the youth group was more into sex and drugs than my less-churched friends, and they quite frankly scared the heck outta me. One of the girls ended up knocked up about the time I left. I could have told her parents that was going to happen a year earlier, but they never would have believed me...

Denomination? Baptist.

I ended up marrying Catholic. Now I can drink, dance, gamble, play cards, go to movies...8D

I judge someone who claims to be "Christian" by how Christ-like they are. You know what He talked about? Love. Helping other people. The poor, the sick, even those in jail. Crazy long-haired liberal stuff. He hung out with tax collectors and sailors and prostitutes. The Pharasees refer to him as a "wine-bibber"...and had him crucified like good religious folk, the type who love money and power more than people...

I know what you mean, StockGoddess. I started out a Baptist, too.

My daughter joined a Unitarian Universalist church. She was telling me about her "Intro to UU" class. It turns out that I'm a universalist. Everyone is already going to heaven. (Art is right.) Although, maybe I'm already here. Life is good.

Vickifool