Mom writes "goodbye" letter to baby she is about to abort
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IMJerusha
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alwight
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(Sorry for the delay btw).
For my part that is true, I don't see any overarching purpose to this life so I try to make my own. But it doesn't particularly worry me if this is all there is. I don't think I deserve eternal agony if I'm wrong though.
IMJerusha
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I don't know too many parents who ask the child's permission prior to punishing them. Provide an explanation, perhaps, but not ask permission. Scripture is our explanation and it's the only explanation we're going to get.
alwight
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Parents don't usually hide from their children or apparently relish the idea that punishment itself is an end.
IMJerusha
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God's not hiding from you. Turn around.
Usually, human parents do hope that punishment is a deterrent to repeat performance. Since we only have one life allotted to us, when we breath our last, the gig is up. God doesn't punish until that time so do overs aren't an option and punishment or reward is the end.
alwight
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I would have poured God a beer had He had been there, we could have had a nice chat, I have a few questions I would like to ask.
lain:
IMJerusha
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I would have poured God a beer had He had been there, we could have had a nice chat, I have a few questions I would like to ask.
If Moses couldn't go there, what makes you think you could? We all have a lot of questions. You can ask them now but you have to turn around and try doing it with a little less "flip". I've had a lot of my questions answered. It took cooperation on my part, however.
alwight
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If I believed as you do then I might think that many things in life were only possible through God, but I don't.
I don't think that Moses would have needed to climb a mountain and probably didn't, it's just an OT allegorical tale for dramatic effect, as much of it is.
If God does nevertheless exist then He can come to me, I don't bite.
IMJerusha
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God doesn't need dramatic effect. Have you ever asked Him to come to you? I mean just your basic, "please show yourself to me" request.
alwight
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God may not go for dramatic effect but the OT writers probably did.
Not being a believer I rather baulk at talking to possibly imaginary beings, so I don't really know how sincere I can be, but I have tried to no avail.
IMJerusha
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To no avail? Why am I sitting here posting to you right now? Every heard the rowboat joke? Come on dude, if He knocks on your door and you never open it...you're the one at fault, not Him.
A very religious man was once caught in rising floodwaters. He climbed onto the roof of his house and trusted God to rescue him. A neighbour came by in a canoe and said, “The waters will soon be above your house. Hop in and we’ll paddle to safety.”
“No thanks” replied the religious man. “I’ve prayed to God and I’m sure he will save me”
A short time later the police came by in a boat. “The waters will soon be above your house. Hop in and we’ll take you to safety.”
“No thanks” replied the religious man. “I’ve prayed to God and I’m sure he will save me”
A little time later a rescue services helicopter hovered overhead, let down a rope ladder and said. “The waters will soon be above your house. Climb the ladder and we’ll fly you to safety.”
“No thanks” replied the religious man. “I’ve prayed to God and I’m sure he will save me”
All this time the floodwaters continued to rise, until soon they reached above the roof and the religious man drowned. When he arrived at heaven he demanded an audience with God. Ushered into God’s throne room he said, “Lord, why am I here in heaven? I prayed for you to save me, I trusted you to save me from that flood.”
“Yes you did my child” replied the Lord. “And I sent you a canoe, a boat and a helicopter. But you never got in.”
Source unknown.
alwight
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I can tell you are running out of things to say.
lain: Someone's just been to Platitudes R Us?
lain:Very droll, but I'm not religious and would have gladly accepted the first practical aid that turned up.
But you seem to think that God would send aid if asked for but wouldn't have simply prevented the flood in the first place? mmm :think:
I agree, very droll and telling....a prescription IMJ can easily take for herself.
Dear colleague of forum,
If that's how you understand God, than I can see why you prefer to make a living for your own, a living outside of a God who only loves you IF you love Him back, if not, He gives you eternal punishment.
However, in reality, things are way more complex than this simplistic view of God.
An eastern orthodox monk from Romania (my country) said to christians: "Never think that after death you will inherit the kingdom (of God) that you never lived and experienced while still on earth, while still in this life."
Asymmetrically, also on earth (while still in this life), we can experience, in an anticipate way, the hell (understood as separation, isolation). We can be selfish, careless, indifferent, impassive, auto-suffiecients, we can live closed in our world of daily mediocre satisfactions, we can REFUSE LOVE (or post-pone it, like the mom of this thread did), we can make idols out of our spontaneous impulses and desires (and these mental idols induce us the illusion of freedom, autonomy and accomplishment).
Even today, while still in these bodies and while the option of passing on the other side (heaven) is very handy (very reachable), we turn our backs to our nearest neighbor (in this thread: our own baby, flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood) because he affects our commodity, he is (according to some people on this forum) a "transgression for your own body" (interesting choice of words, in my opinion) and he is a menace for the illusory safety zone in which we placed our entire living built upon solipsist ideas and other beautiful, comfortable lies.
As long as we live our lives in the way described above, we are, in fact, already in hell, although we are not, yet, aware of it.
I am sorry that I wrote so much, I just noticed that most people here (both christians and atheists, or theists or whatever) have a false impression of hell (and subsequently of God) and I thought you deserve a correct understanding of God, and not "eternal agony".
alwight
New member
Hello.
Actually I have no particular understanding of any god since I don't believe there are such entities, but my understanding is of what many Christians believe and what they seem to think ultimately happens to non-believers comes from them, not from anything I think is a likely possibility.
I see no reason to expect to inherit anything after my death.
lain: I don't think it's entirely clear how this particular woman anyway regarded her foetus other than as a "Little Thing" that she may or may not have assigned a specific personality to. Since we do generally and routinely organise the more mundane practicalities of our own lives to our advantage then imo it's a matter of opinion, on the specific circumstances, if and when special consideration or deference is due to others before our own wishes.
I can understand how this life might be seen as a kind of hell but only if it can be compared to someplace else, equally real, which is a far better place. If otoh someplace else exist, equally real, which is a far worse place than this, then we perhaps already live in heaven.
No problem, but I'm suggesting that heaven and hell are both imaginary places and relative ideas that exist only in people's minds. The idea of eternal agony in a lake of fire say is imo simply too absurd to be true. Yet some people do seem to believe it only because it says so in an ancient holy text. They may also believe by the same method that life as we know it was created 6000 years ago out if thin air.I am sorry that I wrote so much, I just noticed that most people here (both christians and atheists, or theists or whatever) have a false impression of hell (and subsequently of God) and I thought you deserve a correct understanding of God, and not "eternal agony".
I would like to disavow them of that particular methodology and turn them to something more rational instead.
lain:Precisely! I remembered the good Samaritan who took care of the man who fell under the attack of thieves. No where in the parable does it say that the Samaritan had more time and more money than the two other men (who were Jews, just like the wounded man) who decided to pass by the victim, to ignore the victim, to close their eyes and ...and simply mind their own business.
The good Samaritan was good, not because he wrote to the victim a letter where he would tell him that maybe, in another life, he will have time to love him. No! The good Samaritan was good and loving because he had the capacity to get out of himself, out of his OWN, PERSONAL and URGENT problems and reach to his neighbor, RIGHT NOW! I mean real love is only in present time. It is now that he needed help, not tomorrow, not in another life, but right now.
The good Samaritan was good because he made the suffering and pain of a completely stranger, his own suffering and pain, his concern number 1.
Friend, you completely misunderstood everything what I said. Hell and heaven are not so much places, as they are states of being. "The kingdom of God is within us", and so can be hell (!).
You only corroborate what I already said: which is that hell is (in this life), indeed, a comfortable state (like a grave!), a safe living built upon the lies with which we surround ourselves, built upon the impressions (good impressions, of course) that we have about ourselves. Hell in this life is comfortable because it doesn't require to love anyone else, but yourself (we are not, yet, aware, of the tragic consequences of this comfortable hell).
However, in the hell of the after-life, we can no longer fool ourselves that we are what we think we are, but we are faced with the harsh reality of the truth about us. Who will be there (in hell, in the prison he built in his life), will "live" eternally with the one and only person that he loved most in his earthly existence: HIMSELF.
And also, in the real hell, man will discover with surprise that when he thought he loved God, he was, in fact, loving himself; when he thought he loved another person, he was, actually, passionately in love with himself. Basically, man will meet,- at the end of every deep feeling that he had -, with himself. All the other people surrounding him were used as simple catalysts of this self-love that man had.
Whether absurd or not, it's your own personal decision and right to have an opinion. What got my attention was the fact that you said this:
"I don't think I deserve eternal agony if I'm wrong though."
You seem to say that even if God existed than you don't deserve to get hell only because you were wrong about God, or only because you chose to be an atheist. What I tried to do (unsuccessfully, maybe because of my bad English) was to give you a warning about what hell is. I tried to tell you that whenever someone chooses NOT to love, the person says no to God, who is LOVE and LIFE. Love and life are not mere attributes of God, but the very essence of God. When you chose love, you make yourself alive, you resurrect your fallen nature. When you reject love, you die, little by little; you dry yourself. you built your own hell.
That's how it is in Christianity.
To get back on the topic, I will only say this: someone who gives death to her baby (instead of life) is someone who doesn't love (anyone else but herself) and therefore, isn't alive. I say this based on what Christ says over and over again to His apostles and to the crowd that loved to hear Him teaching (it's not for nothing that He is called the Word).
I am also aware that just because I write about love on a public forum it doesn't mean that I am more alive than the woman we're talking about.
That's all I had to say on this thread. I leave you people continue your endless debates about whether the foetus is a valuable human being or just "something" that can be torn in pieces and thrown into the trash because he dared to transgress our bodies (which are graves instead of shelter for the little one).
Also, abortion, like any other sin, is not so much about choosing between right or wrong as it is, ultimately, about choosing between life and death.
For the sake of clarity, I want to add that when I say abortion is a matter of life and death, I don't mean it only for the baby (this is clear for everybody, right?), but the mother's life and death, too.
alwight
New member
Well initially anyway my comments were because some people do have very fixed specific ideas of heaven and hell, but not you or me perhaps?
You seem to be suggesting that to love others is an uncomfortable but necessary duty? But I'm more of the opinion that actually we don't have to love anyone unless it just happens that we do. Reactive rather than pro-active love, but then I'm not trying to follow any Christian-esc doctrine.
Maybe you think I'm in hell already?
I don't believe in afterlives, instead I believe it will be just as it once was before any of us existed, which didn't seem bother me at all then.
Projecting this life, with all its baggage, into a never ending future seems to me rather more akin to how a real hell without escape would be.
You seem to think that you know that "real hell" is a real place and what it amounts to, but I don't think you do or that you have any better idea than anyone else does, i.e, nothing. You may as well be claiming to know that a lake of fire and eternal agony awaits.
I think you should try to understand that someone like me simply has no belief in any god, not that your particular God entity is being personally rejected or opposed.
That is why I don't feel that any eternal dire consequences are justifiable by anyone's doctrine, since it is only that doctrine I am rejecting not, in my opinion, a real state of being.
I don't consider myself to be a bad or evil person and simply and honestly don't accept the concept of any god entity mainly as proposed by human man-made religions.
Btw I did not choose to be an atheist the word simply explains something about me and my disbelief, that I am not convinced by religious claims nor of their particular deities. I am also an agnostic if that doesn't confuse things for you.
That all rather hinges on the thorny issue of abortion. Should any pregnancy ever be aborted for any reason?
Should pregnancy be prevented in the first place?
Is it a human "person" from conception or else when?
Is it always wrong to plan your own life or simply accept what you get?
You tell me.
But my own position here FTR is that those with perhaps a rigid doctrinal opinion or rejection of any abortion at all should not get to impose that opinion on those who would honestly want to choose otherwise for whatever reason, medical or personal.
Shame, since it seems that you may have had something to say that extant human people should not meddle with natural things to improve our own lot?
Perhaps you'd welcome the return of smallpox and polio because it was wrong of people to meddle with the natural order of things by eradicating such diseases?
No doubt some will now say I'm comparing babies to diseases, which I'm not, only that extant human persons, and their lives, matter more than potential ones, imo. :doh:
Yes but we already do that routinely by using contraception, maybe you'd want to make a stand on that too perhaps? :think: