annj said:
no I am not basing it on the assumption they are all christians I am basing it on the fact they are all Gods children.. and I never said they were going to heaven I said they would be on earth
They are already in hell now which is the grave not some place of eternal torment, which I have debated about before on this forum and don't want to go into again
and God does not take everyone to be in heaven with him this is another wrong assumption that turns people away from God because it does seem cruel for a mother to give birth to a child then if it dies say God wanted it.. which is not the case at all.
like I said before death is Gods enemy which he promises to do away with..
they are sleeping in death in their graves till the resurrection until Gods goverment takes over ruling this planet which is what you are praying for in the first few lines of the Lords prayer Let your KINGDOM come let YOUR WILL be done on EARTH as well as in Heaven... it is actually Gods heavenly goverment which will rule over the earth doing away with all that troubles it has now.. including bringing back to life those who have died which was the whole point in Jesus raising the dead when he was on earth to prove he had this power, if they were meant to be in heaven an were happy why would he want to bring them back?
why would he weep over the death of his friend Lazerus before he brought him back from the dead if he thought he was in heaven happy?.. he felt the pain and loss just as much as we do
Jesus himself said that they were just sleeping ...death is just a state of complete unconscienceness which is what has happened to those poor people in this awful earthquake and other disasters
and atrocities that has happened, and God will bring them back to life no matter what religion they were
When it says a new earth or world it doesnt mean this planet is going to be destroyed to be replaced by another one, but rather a new earthly society only this time it will be God ruling it not men and those from any race creed or religion can be part of it if they wish, of course they will have to learn to live by Gods standards, just like you have to live under certain standards and laws of any goverment of the country you live in and if you don't well you will not be suffering in some burning torment, you will just not exist which what death is ..the opposite of life... non existence that is Gods ultimute punishment for those who still refuse to accept his righteous standards
it says the tent of god is with mankind not one particular religion so every one has that chance to turn to him he pushes no one away its up to every individual on this planet no matter where they come from or who they are if they want to accept his rulership it is open to all it is their choice to make
i mean you no disrespect, but this is exactly why i've fallen away from Christianity. standards, rulership, righteousness ... all are so beyond my experience here on earth that you might as well be writing in Aramaic. just what the fuck are you talking about? (and please don't take that personally, this is just a gut reaction coming across)
i work for a rather large cable network that all of you get in your homes, and i spent the day coordinating the movement of archived footage up to new york that will be sewn together to make a show on Tsunamis that will air next week. we're using this tragedy, and it's huge exposure, to hopefully get some big ratings. i have mixed feelings -- yes, human suffering sells, but also people want to learn from this tragedy, and what better way to learn than a 60 minute television documentary? i haven't yet shed a tear over this, but i have waves of pain and anguish, that pass, then return. all i can think about is that exquisite, anguished moment of death, the moment when the lungs fill with water and the cells scream and you want to breath but you take in salt water and dirt and sand and it burns and all you've got is blackness and bleakness and you're screaming like an animal who knows it's going to die but is thrashing its limbs against finality with all its might. like thousands of tons of burning steel and concrete falling and crushing a bunch of stockbrokers who committed the crime of getting up and coming to work on a beautiful Tuesday morning. i know these things are beyond human comprehension, and i don't know nearly enough about Karma to totally get where Martha is coming from, but i don't think it's beyond comprehension to question where, in the grand scheme of things, a supposedly loving God is when those who are supposedly made in his image are made to suffer and die, horribly, simply for being poor and living in the wrong place. i fully understand the nature of free will, and how things like genocide are man's doing, but this is something that is coming entirely God's on creation -- the Earth.
i return to the fact that all i can know is exactly what is. what is in front of me, what i hear, see, think, feel, and intuit. i see a sometimes vicious Earth filled with mostly innocents simply doing the best they can to get through each and every day, who get up each morning and hug their children and love their families and try in whatever way to simply survive and possibly improve their situation in some small way, each and every day. and for the earth to rise up and smash them like ants ... it's too horrible to contemplate, and i return to the alcholics anonymous phrase (not that i've ever been in AA): "What if not but for the Grace of God that were me." of course. i was vacationing in the Caribbean at the time. already a privileged American, my privileged status only increases, and i might love God more for sparing me, and helping me appreciate the incredible good fortune i have been born into, but that's because it wasn't me and it wasn't my children who are bloated, blue sacks of dead cells face down in a gutter in Sumatra. what this tragedy does, for me, is exacerbate the already unspeakable gap betweeen the West and the Rest, the haves and the have nothings, and for me to read this as anything other than pure, abject evil flowing either from an agnostic earth or an earth of a God who must be filled with some amount of evil, is to play into a self-justifying, feel-good, Western paradigm.
this is it, folks. the earth doesn't care. nor should it. in the end, we die alone, in our own arms, whether peacefully in our beds in a retirement community in St. Petersburg, FL, or screaming and choking on salt water in Sri Lanka. ashes to ashes, dust to dust. no better, no worse, than anyone else.
blankness. blackness. back to nothingness, on a small blue planet hurtling through a frozen universe.
