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Watching a show a preacher said “the most loving thing that God can do is send you to Hell.” It struck me in a strange way. We cannot know true happiness without also understanding misery. The applications are infinite, obviously.
Thoughts?
For some people, I can buy that; for others, it would be the most hateful, hurtful, damaging thing God could do. That’s a good point Ray. The statement didn’t strike me as “to Hell for eternity with no hope of redemption” …it struck me as “to give the gift of understanding of what hell can be like”, which hits me as a profound gift. Not in the sense of understanding the eternal punishment and living in a way to avoid it — but more simply to define joy today, that we may experience it in a way that we otherwise couldn’t. I recently saw a quote from George Bernard Shaw that said that this world would be hell if we only ever enjoyed ourselves. I’ll post it here some time. Maybe he was a closet Mormon. What I mean is that pain can teach and refine or it can hurt and destroy. Some people can handle great pain, but others can’t. It’s why I share selectively and carefully my heterodox views. I want to help those who will be helped without hurting those who would be hurt.
Hell is (gospel according to MnG) nothing more than the expulsion from Eden – the Fall – and subjection to the unmitigated consequences of our own choices. It’s merciful because we have to be cast out in order to know the joy of our redemption.
I think we all have to experience this to some degree in order to progress. We have to taste the bitter in order to know the sweet.
A friend recently pointed out to me that in order to get to the tree of life, Lehi had to wander in the dark and dreary waste. This led him to cry out for mercy. Immediately thereafter, Lehi is partaking of the fruit.
The way I see it, hell is useful for softening hard hearts by allowing us to see how powerless we are to effectuate our own redemption.
Obviously most of mankind isn’t going to come unto Christ through baptism into the LDS church, but as we adopt Christlike attributes – compassion, selflessness, service, mercy, charity – we can be released from the ‘bright recollection of all our guilt’. I think this is why LDS theology presents a spirit world which is divided to include a spirit prison from which men (the uninitiated) are released as fast as they acquire requisite knowledge and hell a place of torment for the unrepentant.
Sorry – rambling again
I do not think a loving God would do any such thing. He would protect us and keep us from harm. We do not let our children play in the street to learn the benefit of cars. Hi Cadence. I guess I see some difference between “harm” or “misery” and “death/destruction.” For the purpose of this post I am not talking about the death/destruction version of hell. True, loving parents would not permit their children to play on a highway. Would they also eliminate all running play so the children would not have the chance of falling and skinning their knee? Would they try to always eliminate all pain — and by association much learning? Would they try to take away growing experiences …even if temporarily painful?
I know I don’t try to shield my children from such learning. And I believe it’s because I love them enough to care about their growth and their future. …Their ability to find joy.
What if hell is coming back to this earth and doing it over and over again until you get it right? Kind of like repeating a grade. But I don’t think God sends us here. I think we choose to come and sometimes are drawn back to pay a debt we owe. Orson wrote:Hi Cadence. I guess I see some difference between “harm” or “misery” and “death/destruction.” For the purpose of this post I am not talking about the death/destruction version of hell.
True, loving parents would not permit their children to play on a highway. Would they also eliminate all running play so the children would not have the chance of falling and skinning their knee? Would they try to always eliminate all pain — and by association much learning? Would they try to take away growing experiences …even if temporarily painful?
I know I don’t try to shield my children from such learning. And I believe it’s because I love them enough to care about their growth and their future. …Their ability to find joy.
Perhaps we can learn from our mistakes I know I certainly have. But I sometimes think religions use this as concept to explain all the crap that goes on in the world. Maybe they are right, but it just seems mean of God sometimes.
Cadence wrote:I do not think a loving God would do any such thing. He would protect us and keep us from harm. We do not let our children play in the street to learn the benefit of cars.
I read this and LOL’ed because my first thought was “No… we don’t let the play in the street. We wait until they turn 16 and then give them car keys so they can do real damage!”Increasingly, I believe progress could come no other way. Maturation through experience is the natural order of progress. Opposition. Trial and error. If you raised your child inside a padded room, they would be safe but they wouldn’t mature as they should. At some point we have to wander out on our own beyond the protective reach of our parents. God lets us leave and even promises that He’ll save us after it’s all said and done. I believe it was Mother Teresa who said (Could be wrong though) that one welcome home kiss from the Lord would make all our travails on earth seem like a single night in a bad hotel. So it’s all about perspective.
Cadence wrote:Perhaps we can learn from our mistakes I know I certainly have. But I sometimes think religions use this as concept to explain all the crap that goes on in the world. Maybe they are right, but it just seems mean of God sometimes.
I agree it can look mean of God if we imagine God as a micro-manager or some kind of puppet master. If however, we view God more like a parent that sits back and allows his children to experience life — the implication becomes much more complex.
A loving God may have to at times do things that some feel are not loving, but it might still be the most loving thing. IOW, what I think is loving, might not be what a loving God does for me. The part I have a hard time with is how things like sex crimes (especially on children), starvation, torture and other unspeakable things can be part of the plan. I understand having to deal with a job loss can be character building, but how can being born into the family of an abusive monster be part of growth? Hi Brown, Let me start by saying I don’t think a loving God places children in a home like that for some twisted purpose. I would say it’s more like a lottery, and they definitely get robbed of many good normal life experiences. It torments, twists, and shatters so many hearts; there is no way to say “In the end it’s for your good” …and I think that’s the point.
Such harsh conditions are clearly “Hell on earth” …but having said that I also can’t help but feel that much learning does come out of such horrid circumstances. Yes, the individuals would be MUCH better off in a different home. As insanely obvious as that is — that is part of what is learned. True, we don’t need all these examples to learn the realities of evil. But at the same time if there were absolutely no examples of this kind our comprehension of the depths of hell would be missing an element.
It is a VERY tough line, I recognize that.
The simple summary: God IS what is. Life is the classroom – AND the reward banquet. There is something to be learned from every life experience (even if some lessons are horribly abusive and WAY too repetitive).
The place where it all gets twisted is the idea that “If God really cared he would ease some of this extreme suffering!” That is exactly why I don’t believe in the “meddling” God concept. For example I pray daily for the health of my family, my child still comes down with a serious life-altering disease. My non-believing neighbors don’t pray at all, their children live full healthy and fulfilling lives. You could say my prayers didn’t really have any effect, and in one sense I would agree. But on the other hand my sense of comfort is fulfilling enough to make my prayers worthwhile. Not comfort that everything will work out the way I want it to — but comfort that God IS what is, that someday I will have a fuller perspective, that I cherish each day to the fullest, that I have lived and experienced love…
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