Kryptonite Monkey (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kryptonitemonkey) wrote2005-01-23 12:41 pm
kryptonitemonkey) wrote2005-01-23 12:41 pm
Annoyance (vague, aren't I)
I frequent a few message boards from time to time, and often as not I inevitably find my way to viewing the threads and topics on religion. Of course, I should learn by now not to do that, as so many people just piss me off with their ridiculous and often blasphemous and derogatory ideas (something I need to learn to forgive more, but that's something wrong on my end), but anyway, I often see a common thought come up time and time again. It makes me a good number of things, including angry, sad, and mostly annoyed that people have this idea, which a bit more thinking would really make pointless.
This common idea that I see pop up again and again (accompanied by various states of mind, whether anger, amusement, detached, etc.) is how could God let/make so many people go to hell, or not let so many people into heaven, sometimes also with the idea that as long as someone's "good" things outweigh their "bad" things, then they should get into heaven. Their are a few permutations of this thought, but they all basically come down to this.
I do understand this thought, to an extent. I mean, we want to get in on our terms, and think that we're basically good, and that should be enough to get in (if this isn't the case, the fear is that we really are in trouble). There's just a few things wrong with this way thinking.
The first thing is that if we really could get into heaven by being good enough to outweigh the bad, there would be far, far fewer people getting into heaven then there are now, I can almost guarantee that. Most especially if our thoughts were weighed as well as our actions. We tend not to remember all the times that we've been cruel to people, done bad things, or we sort of remember them fondly as childhood stuff. But if we were to be truly weighed, we'd all basically be screwed. Think about it, how many times have you said something, yet have thought much, much worse, that had those around you heard it, would have made you run in shame? How many times have you absolutely hated someone in traffic, yet having done nothing "bad" about it, feel like that makes it okay?
The other thing is something that C.S. Lewis said, that I hope I can paraphrase well enough. Anyway, he said that the idea that if God just let most of us "good" people into heaven is bunk because it couldn't be heaven. Think about it this way, this here, our existence, it is not heaven. In fact, it can be pretty darn rotten at times. Letting everyone into heaven would not suddenly make everything perfect if people are not willing to let God change them so it can be heaven. You'd have heaven basically held hostage to the whims of everyone, for no one person's idea of heaven is the exact idea everyone else has. There are, really, only two possibilities for a true heaven to exist.
The first is, when we get there, God turns us all into puppets by taking away our free will, for it is our wills that cause all of our problems; it is our wills competing with him and everyone else that causes such chaos and pain here on earth. It is the will wanting to be above all else that causes selfishness, ego, lies, fighting, war, subjugation, you name it. The only way to let everyone into heaven and have it remain heaven would be to remove that, and God doesn't want that; it's why he created us with a will in the first place. He wants the love that can only come from something with a choice that chooses him of its own free will.
And this is the second possibility, we have a choice, and those who are truly willing to give into His will get in, and those who would forever refuse him, would choose themselves as their ruler, well, they get their choices fulfilled. I partly agree with Lewis when he said that the gates of hell are locked from the inside. In effect, there really is a very simple choice in regards to heaven, and in its simplicity it is also extremely important and hard. To give up one's self, that which our entire lives keeps saying "me first", and instead says, "you first, you only", and in doing so, we will end up being given our true selves, those who love only, those only who can be in heaven. And on the other hand, you have those who, even if they live a "nice" life will never, ever, give up control, never give in. They are entitled to nothing, and in demanding everything, get nothing, unlike those who ask for nothing but God, and are given everything.
This common idea that I see pop up again and again (accompanied by various states of mind, whether anger, amusement, detached, etc.) is how could God let/make so many people go to hell, or not let so many people into heaven, sometimes also with the idea that as long as someone's "good" things outweigh their "bad" things, then they should get into heaven. Their are a few permutations of this thought, but they all basically come down to this.
I do understand this thought, to an extent. I mean, we want to get in on our terms, and think that we're basically good, and that should be enough to get in (if this isn't the case, the fear is that we really are in trouble). There's just a few things wrong with this way thinking.
The first thing is that if we really could get into heaven by being good enough to outweigh the bad, there would be far, far fewer people getting into heaven then there are now, I can almost guarantee that. Most especially if our thoughts were weighed as well as our actions. We tend not to remember all the times that we've been cruel to people, done bad things, or we sort of remember them fondly as childhood stuff. But if we were to be truly weighed, we'd all basically be screwed. Think about it, how many times have you said something, yet have thought much, much worse, that had those around you heard it, would have made you run in shame? How many times have you absolutely hated someone in traffic, yet having done nothing "bad" about it, feel like that makes it okay?
The other thing is something that C.S. Lewis said, that I hope I can paraphrase well enough. Anyway, he said that the idea that if God just let most of us "good" people into heaven is bunk because it couldn't be heaven. Think about it this way, this here, our existence, it is not heaven. In fact, it can be pretty darn rotten at times. Letting everyone into heaven would not suddenly make everything perfect if people are not willing to let God change them so it can be heaven. You'd have heaven basically held hostage to the whims of everyone, for no one person's idea of heaven is the exact idea everyone else has. There are, really, only two possibilities for a true heaven to exist.
The first is, when we get there, God turns us all into puppets by taking away our free will, for it is our wills that cause all of our problems; it is our wills competing with him and everyone else that causes such chaos and pain here on earth. It is the will wanting to be above all else that causes selfishness, ego, lies, fighting, war, subjugation, you name it. The only way to let everyone into heaven and have it remain heaven would be to remove that, and God doesn't want that; it's why he created us with a will in the first place. He wants the love that can only come from something with a choice that chooses him of its own free will.
And this is the second possibility, we have a choice, and those who are truly willing to give into His will get in, and those who would forever refuse him, would choose themselves as their ruler, well, they get their choices fulfilled. I partly agree with Lewis when he said that the gates of hell are locked from the inside. In effect, there really is a very simple choice in regards to heaven, and in its simplicity it is also extremely important and hard. To give up one's self, that which our entire lives keeps saying "me first", and instead says, "you first, you only", and in doing so, we will end up being given our true selves, those who love only, those only who can be in heaven. And on the other hand, you have those who, even if they live a "nice" life will never, ever, give up control, never give in. They are entitled to nothing, and in demanding everything, get nothing, unlike those who ask for nothing but God, and are given everything.