We are all trapped inside this tiny little universe, born into a death sentence that we strive in every way imaginable to deny, and by attributing the property of eternity not to death, but "eternal life," by hoping that, after we die, we'll be magically transported to a heaven where we'll never have to go through this hell again.
That the "Creator" who is alleged to have put us all here in the first place, is the very same one we hope will save us from the one by "beaming" us to the other, is a paradox even the mighty minds of Augustine or Aquinas would have in reconciling with their views.
And we can expect such a possibility, however tentatively, for having been so happy to have suffered through a world where everyone and everything must, by its very nature, eventually die.
Some see this reality as the greatest threat to humanity, as if such a perspective would only induce the great majority of people in the world to immediately or eventually start acting like the roving packs of wild dogs, all of whom, so the Church wants us to believe, are tethered precariously by the invisible chains of their Christian "beliefs."
And whenever anyone points out that the Church has been as savage as a lunatic in its attempts to "protect" our souls and our societies from those "wild dogs," having out-heroded Herod well over a thousand times in the process, it claims ever so innocently to have only ever been trying to make sure "the gates of hell would not prevail agaisnt God's Church," but they didn't really trust God to do it.
But worst of all, most of them really believed in their hearts, especially people like Augustine and Aquinas, that if they didn't engage in the torture of those who opposed their God, their God was going to torture them for all of eternity.
So they thought, supposing Pascal's wager before he waged it, if there was no God, what was the harm in their willingness to believe there was one anyway?
And of course their had to be a God, for who else could replace in Augustine's heart, that lust that drove him insatiably into all of the brothels of Rome, with a passion for torturing people into accepting Christ as their savior?
That the "Creator" who is alleged to have put us all here in the first place, is the very same one we hope will save us from the one by "beaming" us to the other, is a paradox even the mighty minds of Augustine or Aquinas would have in reconciling with their views.
And we can expect such a possibility, however tentatively, for having been so happy to have suffered through a world where everyone and everything must, by its very nature, eventually die.
Some see this reality as the greatest threat to humanity, as if such a perspective would only induce the great majority of people in the world to immediately or eventually start acting like the roving packs of wild dogs, all of whom, so the Church wants us to believe, are tethered precariously by the invisible chains of their Christian "beliefs."
And whenever anyone points out that the Church has been as savage as a lunatic in its attempts to "protect" our souls and our societies from those "wild dogs," having out-heroded Herod well over a thousand times in the process, it claims ever so innocently to have only ever been trying to make sure "the gates of hell would not prevail agaisnt God's Church," but they didn't really trust God to do it.
But worst of all, most of them really believed in their hearts, especially people like Augustine and Aquinas, that if they didn't engage in the torture of those who opposed their God, their God was going to torture them for all of eternity.
So they thought, supposing Pascal's wager before he waged it, if there was no God, what was the harm in their willingness to believe there was one anyway?
And of course their had to be a God, for who else could replace in Augustine's heart, that lust that drove him insatiably into all of the brothels of Rome, with a passion for torturing people into accepting Christ as their savior?
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