So then I’ll start having sex with anything that moves; I’ll start drinking daily, cursing my grandmother, tell people that all of metal music is extremely satanic and that if you listen to it you’re automatically rejecting any and every good thing in life. I’ll go out and set fire to homes, I’ll steal candy from babies, I’ll flip the elderly my middle fingers, and I’ll start punching my parents, all because the two of you say I’m damned to hell because I don’t believe in your deity.
My grandmother was a strongly devout Catholic when she was alive. But if she was alive, she’d give you a verbal lashing that you’d both remember for the rest of your lives.
Who are either of you to tell me I’m doomed because I don’t believe as the two of you do? I suffer more internal turmoil at age 26 than the two of you will probably understand for as long as you live. My parents put me through hell when I was younger, I can’t find a job, people stare at me, there’s a history of alcoholism on both sides of my family, and I have no idea how I’m going to make it to 30, nevermind 80. To top it all off, my endocrine system is screwed up with a condition that few “experts” understand, let alone friends and family that forget I haven’t slept well for the last 13 years.
To be honest, worrying about eternal damnation is the last thing I’m worried about. I’m more worried about how I’m going to live my life successfully. That doesn’t mean I’m going to drop my morals because you two tell me that I’ll be subject to fire.
Maybe I should just kill myself and end up in purgatory to escape what you two tell me is going to happen to me. Maybe you ought to speculate about people’s lives before you personally pass judgement on them. Not you, a deacon I’ve known for a long time, my favorite local priest, any cardinal, bishop or even Pope Benedict XVI himself can tell me that I’m doomed to hell because I don’t accept Jesus Christ.
I judge people for the wrong things they’ve done. I don’t judge people for the things they believe in. Somebody believes in satan? That’s fine. Don’t try to sacrifice me. Somebody believes the Earth is really flat? That’s fine, but there’s a mountain of evidence against it. Somebody doesn’t believe in God? It’s understandable when God cannot be sensed with any of the 5 senses.
I do believe in a higher power. I’m trying to figure out what it is. It may be the God that you believe in, or may be my own craziness.
Then let’s look at it logically. There’s all these monotheistic religions that say their God is the one true God. Well, which one should I believe? Hinduism? Buddhism? Judaism?
I could go to the retired priest in my parish and ask him if I’m doomed because I seem to have lost my way. Wanna know what he’ll say? Odds are, a simple “no.”
You asked the question, we gave you the answers. You asked the question..”Who are we to say..thus and thus?” Why we are nobody in particular...just voices in the desert crying “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, Make HIS way straight!” You want to listen and give heed...fine, if you don’t well that is your choice. It is good you want to live a moral life, at least I don’t have to fear you robbing my house. Yet, with no God that you feel particularly accountable to, you have no logical reason to live a Godly life other than fear of the law enforcement officials and of censoring attitudes by your friends, family and neighbors.
You asked Christians about the way of salvation and of the consequences of rejecting Christ, we told you. But first ask yourself...are you living a moral life of your own accord, or is there a force you are only dimly aware of attempting to console you thru all of your troubles, trying to use your troubles to bring you to himself? It’s only a question you can answer yourself. Many folks in our nation have decided there is no Christ and no moral force to keep them in check, thus we have the evils that are befalling our nation. For them, there is no resurrection of the dead and thus they have given themselves over to any evil imaginable; our nation has reached a tipping point where the numbers of such people threaten our nation’s existence.
Yet something is keeping you in check; it’s not just your “choice” in the matter. You need to become an ally of that “something” that is keeping you from falling headlong into total lawlessness... because that “something” may be the Holy Spirit and it varies how long he strives with a person. Psalms 2 says to “kiss the Son, lest a man perish before He has even begun to get a little angry”.
We are all sinners...that is the hard cold fact of the matter and Hell is our deserved destination...there is no sugar coating it. Even the best of men, even Christians may occaisionally think thoughts that would cause angels to lose their light should they think them; not to mention the evil deeds that men do. We are evil to the core, salvageable only by the grace of God!
“(”God? I didn’t know he was signed onto the system.”) “
God as the “logos” undergirds and provides the operating system of the universe and of men’s souls; Satan tried to hack creation and rewrite the operating system with a SIN virus. The cross and resurrection were the antivirus scan and cleaner of the system and of men’s souls as well. Soon the “good data files known as Christians.dll” will be preserved and the system wiped, rewritten and rebooted!
From the “Computer Nerd’s guide to Christianity... binary volumes 0 and 1.( a pseudo book but I would like to see it written)