I hope for all to be saved - an unpopular view in the Church since Augustine, but it is my hope nevertheless. In effect, the Church got purgatory correct, but a permanent hell of everlasting damnation - no.
@Barry - That is a false dichotomy, based on a set of metaphysical assumptions I don't share.
The issue is whether free will is real; if it is real, and if our earthly experience has any validity - then it is surely obvious that, not just Some, but Many people would be expected to reject Heaven. And of these, Many (according to what they say and do, a higher proportion by far than at any time in history we know of) would embrace Hell.
The value inversion that is dominant in The West Now, is an active preference for, desire for, Hell. Such people express (and embody in law and regulations and public morality) an utter loathing for Christian ideals - why doubt that such people would therefore (unless they repent in the meantime) reject Jesus's gift of resurrected eternal life in Heaven; and voluntarily choose Hell?
8 August 2020 at 11:37
jonofthemeadowaustralis said...
Nailed it again Bruce, I would never have thought just 10 to 15 years ago that I would develop such disdain for the institutions that I once held in high regard, including the monarchy, judiciary, academia and law enforcement. I used to get irritated at certain grandstanding leftist "celebrities" refusing to accept honours. Now, bizarrely, I think they may have shown how to devalue the currency. What are the odds of any principled traditionalist conservative Christian doing the same, are they ever nominated to begin with and if they are do they have the courage?
"Why doubt that such people would therefore (unless they repent in the meantime) reject Jesus's gift of resurrected eternal life in Heaven; and voluntarily choose Hell?"
Because such people are hedonists, and hell is generally thought of as a hedonist's nightmare: a place of maximum suffering.
@Wm - That's an interesting point - but it is necessary to dig a bit deeper than the word hedonist. I would say that hedonism intrinsically moves towards the kind of short termism that becomes a matter of reducing immediate suffering; and this tends towards an incremental (and never ending) increase in long-term suffering.
In fact, I think we see this very clearly in action all around us, and accelerating, through 2020. People are very reluctant to do anything that would lead to an immediate increase in their suffering here-and-now; as a result their lives (and society) degenerate and degenrate in terms of the possibilities of happiness and the actuality of suffering.
So hedonists always make a Hell for themselves.
I should also clarify that while Heaven is social (familial) -- Hell is essentially solitary; each against all; a world of mutual manipulation - mutually attempted exploitation. Life is hell, but hell can always be even worse that at present - and thus the hedonist is self-trapped.
@jon - I agree that not only are the awards intriniscally devalued - there is little chance of them being rejected. In the old days, when the awards were given on objective criteria, they used to be rejected sometimes (for various reasons); now the awards are part of a single bureaucractic system, so they go to insiders for being insiders - so they never get rejected.
Maths was probably the last major of the activities to be assimilated into The System and to retain objectivity - and has the most recent example (I know of) where a top award was declined: Grigori Perelman declining the Fields Medal (the Nobel-equivalent for mathematics) in 2006. By not-a-coincidence, Perleman seems to be the only true genius (by historical standards) among contemporary mathemeticians. He also (apparently) rejected a Professorship offered by (the premier Maths university) Princeton - because they insisted on him going through the standard HR bureaucratic application process.
Hell is a place of spiritual suffering but it may start off being a place of material/ sensual pleasure though the law of diminishing returns would apply and the pleasure would turn to ashes. Imagine a drug fuelled rave party. Heaven for a certain sort of hedonist focused in the physical body. Hell for someone like me. Maybe we are given what our desires point to but the only desire that is never satiated is the spiritual desire for God. If we don't have that we don't get what that wants. Also, this desire indicates a certain type of mind and that is the only mind that can get to heaven.
I found that you didn't mention military medals somewhat conspicuous. Do you consider that in a different category than what you describe here? Do you feel they still represent heroic self sacrifice etc.?
@TYM. I believe that All institutions are assimilated into The System, including the military; and therefore that medals will inevitably be awarded corruptly.
8 August 2020 at 14:35
Gary said...
@William: that is a very interesting perspective and observation. The love of God (which is the love of eternal loving creation) is the only way to "open" yourself to participating in inexhaustible constructive activity eternally. Hell is finite, and I think might be a bit like Nietzsche's eternal recurrence in the sense that the same thing goes on and on meaninglessly, becoming more and more baseless and absurd with every repetition, and terrifying as the awareness of its eternal nature is inextinguishable. I would like to think that those who choose the precursor to this state of mind during mortal life might be able to repent, and either inherit a lesser glory or be able to "make amends" somehow. However in practice probably not many would do this after death even if given the chance. This mortal life really is the time to get your house in order, because it has certain characteristics which make these choices have a more powerful impact in eternity, after which you really are more trapped and limited, and not out of some wanton "punishment" of God's but because that is how law and justice is fulfilled for all things to work our for the best, eventually and over the long (really long) run.
Most Military awards are meaningless. There are still some exceptions for valor. Years later, my combat action and dive badges are special to me because of what I endured to earn them. The rest of the ribbons were merely for participating in campaigns that I now abhor.
"2020 is spiritual war, not an arena of political in-fighting; the true proximate measure of success is Goodness, not happiness; the true ultimate stakes are damnation, not death." Brilliant.
13 August 2020 at 22:30
As I was musing this morning, it struck me (but not for the first time) how all actual societal honours (prizes, awards, recognition) are now corrupted...
How it is a simple fact that those institutions which award honours - whether the monarch, government, NGO or supranational agency; in science, literature, arts, academia, medicine, churches or the socio-political realms - such as law and administration... all are corrupted beyond the point of having embraced net pursuit of evil.
Given this situation; I could not imagine any honour, from any organisation, that would be worth anything now. Quite the contrary! To receive an 'honour' from any actual modern institution is to be marked and tainted, since one has been 'recognised' as an exemplar of the values of an essentially-evil group-entity.
Honours - which are 'supposed' to encourage and enforce both societal cohesion and social teleology; are instead systematically-deployed to dissolve all Godly, natural, spontaneous and social bonds; to set each against all; to delete overall purpose, hence destroy genuine motivation.
The effect of this is an extreme form of abstract 'socially-distancing'. In our inverted world, to be 'honoured' is to be 'marked as his own' by a representative of Satan.
Simultaneously - the best are ignored, if not actively hurt. And thus the organising status structure of human association has been destroyed, and reconstituted against-itself.
It seems as if the world in 2020 is a reification, a materialist model, of Ahrimanic spiritual reality. Our public, bureaucratic, media-mediated world of dead-data explicitly represents its own demonic ideals. Our tokens of esteem have become injections of poison.
Hidden in plain sight... Hidden, to those on the inside of this ideology.
Incoherent chaos to those whose understanding is superficial and mechanistic.
Obvious to those who recognise the malign guiding intelligence, and its goals.
2020 is spiritual war, not an arena of political in-fighting; the true proximate measure of success is Goodness, not happiness; the true ultimate stakes are damnation, not death.
"Social-distancing is a reification of spiritual reality"
12 Comments -
Hmmm - damnation.
I hope for all to be saved - an unpopular view in the Church since Augustine, but it is my hope nevertheless. In effect, the Church got purgatory correct, but a permanent hell of everlasting damnation - no.
Barry
8 August 2020 at 10:34
@Barry - That is a false dichotomy, based on a set of metaphysical assumptions I don't share.
The issue is whether free will is real; if it is real, and if our earthly experience has any validity - then it is surely obvious that, not just Some, but Many people would be expected to reject Heaven. And of these, Many (according to what they say and do, a higher proportion by far than at any time in history we know of) would embrace Hell.
The value inversion that is dominant in The West Now, is an active preference for, desire for, Hell. Such people express (and embody in law and regulations and public morality) an utter loathing for Christian ideals - why doubt that such people would therefore (unless they repent in the meantime) reject Jesus's gift of resurrected eternal life in Heaven; and voluntarily choose Hell?
8 August 2020 at 11:37
Nailed it again Bruce, I would never have thought just 10 to 15 years ago that I would develop such disdain for the institutions that I once held in high regard, including the monarchy, judiciary, academia and law enforcement. I used to get irritated at certain grandstanding leftist "celebrities" refusing to accept honours. Now, bizarrely, I think they may have shown how to devalue the currency. What are the odds of any principled traditionalist conservative Christian doing the same, are they ever nominated to begin with and if they are do they have the courage?
8 August 2020 at 11:38
"Why doubt that such people would therefore (unless they repent in the meantime) reject Jesus's gift of resurrected eternal life in Heaven; and voluntarily choose Hell?"
Because such people are hedonists, and hell is generally thought of as a hedonist's nightmare: a place of maximum suffering.
8 August 2020 at 12:06
@Wm - That's an interesting point - but it is necessary to dig a bit deeper than the word hedonist. I would say that hedonism intrinsically moves towards the kind of short termism that becomes a matter of reducing immediate suffering; and this tends towards an incremental (and never ending) increase in long-term suffering.
In fact, I think we see this very clearly in action all around us, and accelerating, through 2020. People are very reluctant to do anything that would lead to an immediate increase in their suffering here-and-now; as a result their lives (and society) degenerate and degenrate in terms of the possibilities of happiness and the actuality of suffering.
So hedonists always make a Hell for themselves.
I should also clarify that while Heaven is social (familial) -- Hell is essentially solitary; each against all; a world of mutual manipulation - mutually attempted exploitation. Life is hell, but hell can always be even worse that at present - and thus the hedonist is self-trapped.
8 August 2020 at 12:20
@jon - I agree that not only are the awards intriniscally devalued - there is little chance of them being rejected. In the old days, when the awards were given on objective criteria, they used to be rejected sometimes (for various reasons); now the awards are part of a single bureaucractic system, so they go to insiders for being insiders - so they never get rejected.
Maths was probably the last major of the activities to be assimilated into The System and to retain objectivity - and has the most recent example (I know of) where a top award was declined: Grigori Perelman declining the Fields Medal (the Nobel-equivalent for mathematics) in 2006. By not-a-coincidence, Perleman seems to be the only true genius (by historical standards) among contemporary mathemeticians. He also (apparently) rejected a Professorship offered by (the premier Maths university) Princeton - because they insisted on him going through the standard HR bureaucratic application process.
8 August 2020 at 13:08
Hell is a place of spiritual suffering but it may start off being a place of material/ sensual pleasure though the law of diminishing returns would apply and the pleasure would turn to ashes.
Imagine a drug fuelled rave party. Heaven for a certain sort of hedonist focused in the physical body. Hell for someone like me. Maybe we are given what our desires point to but the only desire that is never satiated is the spiritual desire for God. If we don't have that we don't get what that wants. Also, this desire indicates a certain type of mind and that is the only mind that can get to heaven.
8 August 2020 at 13:14
I found that you didn't mention military medals somewhat conspicuous. Do you consider that in a different category than what you describe here? Do you feel they still represent heroic self sacrifice etc.?
8 August 2020 at 13:19
@TYM. I believe that All institutions are assimilated into The System, including the military; and therefore that medals will inevitably be awarded corruptly.
8 August 2020 at 14:35
@William: that is a very interesting perspective and observation.
The love of God (which is the love of eternal loving creation) is the only way to "open" yourself to participating in inexhaustible constructive activity eternally.
Hell is finite, and I think might be a bit like Nietzsche's eternal recurrence in the sense that the same thing goes on and on meaninglessly, becoming more and more baseless and absurd with every repetition, and terrifying as the awareness of its eternal nature is inextinguishable.
I would like to think that those who choose the precursor to this state of mind during mortal life might be able to repent, and either inherit a lesser glory or be able to "make amends" somehow. However in practice probably not many would do this after death even if given the chance.
This mortal life really is the time to get your house in order, because it has certain characteristics which make these choices have a more powerful impact in eternity, after which you really are more trapped and limited, and not out of some wanton "punishment" of God's but because that is how law and justice is fulfilled for all things to work our for the best, eventually and over the long (really long) run.
9 August 2020 at 01:39
Most Military awards are meaningless. There are still some exceptions for valor. Years later, my combat action and dive badges are special to me because of what I endured to earn them. The rest of the ribbons were merely for participating in campaigns that I now abhor.
9 August 2020 at 03:52
"2020 is spiritual war, not an arena of political in-fighting; the true proximate measure of success is Goodness, not happiness; the true ultimate stakes are damnation, not death."
Brilliant.
13 August 2020 at 22:30