@lizzie I saw reference to the harrowing in first peter and thought of you.

@georgia :)

@lizzie are you a christian universalist

@georgia yeag

@georgia im so harrowingpilled bc i see it less as a oneoff incident and more of something always happening everywhere

@lizzie based!!!!

@lizzie what do you think of jesus casting the demons into the swine? do you think it was an act of compassion for the demons even though it killed the pigs? this part of the gospels bothered me more than any other, except of course "his blood be upon us and upon our children" lol

@georgia tbh i find the part with the pigs to be entirely incomprehensible. i cant answer that one lmao. it does seem to me to be compassionate to the demons though

@lizzie do you think the writings of paul are divinely inspired? I prefer first peter and james myself, and the Johannine epistles (or letters?). I guess its that Jew in me.

@georgia yeah i think theyre divinely inspired. i agree with your preferences though. especially the johannine books

@patchuun @georgia im still a little cringe bc im a purgatorial universalist lol. not like “proportional punishment” i dont believe in retribution. more that heaven is a state of being rather than a place, and so finding oneself in it is a difficult process in the next life as it is in this one.

@patchuun @georgia i like the phrase “hell is or will be empty” but i dont think it exists inside of time as we inhabit it so its probably not technically accurate lol

@lizzie I knew you'd like them cause love plays such a role in the johannine literature

@georgia theyre why im christian lol

@lizzie I like luke-acts

@lizzie @patchuun I think hell is a real physical place of great suffering some people who live lives very far from goodness go to, a place where the presence of God is much harder to feel than earth-like planes. I believe in a countably infinite multitude of varied existences and universes some better and some worse, where we are (re)born into account of our karma. however I think all achieve liberation eventually through karma yoga, jnana yoga, bhakti yoga or a meditation discipline like raja/laya/etc yoga. (or some combination of them) all the illumined mystics of the earth pretty much agree: the ultimate goal is union of the soul with God, and the easiest way to do this is through pure selfless love. thus all become one in Him, no one is left behind to suffer forever.

@georgia @patchuun i do think it involves a lot of real suffering, just as a more metaphysical place than physical. father of fathers st gregory of nyssa describes it as a ‘refining fire’. in a sense it does gain a proportionality imo, since clinging to one’s injustice brings suffering.

oddly a lot of the other church fathers seem to had a similar perspective that it was purification bc obv God doesnt do retribution, but unlike st gregory they thought that those in it would be claimed forever.

“the ultimate goal is union of the soul with God, and the easiest way to do this is through pure selfless love. thus all become one in Him, no one is left behind to suffer forever” trvke trvke trvke

@georgia @patchuun i also think sin makes hell present in this world, though what of hell stretches beyond this world doesn’t lead to others bearing your violence except in that the suffering of one is always the suffering of all

@georgia @patchuun i think the single biggest motivating factor in my universalism is that id rather be in a place of suffering than leave anyone behind in it

@georgia @patchuun like im not enlightened and ready to face any pain for the sake of love. thats really scary. the issue is just that any “heaven” in an ect scenario tortured my conscience when i was little and made me really afraid of dying and going anywhere at all.

@georgia @patchuun i remember being in church and singing along about “no more tears.” most of the people i care about are supposedly being tortured forever and im not allowed to be sad about that?

@lizzie @georgia @patchuun still unable to unsee the speculation (first encountered in sunday school at age 12, not something on a sketchy forum as an adult) of how the minds of the believers will be changed so that they see things the way God sees them and they will understand and rejoice that the sinners are suffering

i identify as an atheist for everyone's safety

@patchuun @lizzie @georgia "what if my red wan't your red" but it's good and evil but also what if your evil was the good for something you could never hope to fight, only helplessly protest in torment forever to the delight of the laughing children under that thing's total and absolute control...

@apophis @georgia @patchuun its kinda crazy to me bc it seems clear to me that God has a preference that people be saved, so why would God’s perspective be one of being pleased by people in hell??

am i even me if my perception of the world is being messed with so thoroughly?

@apophis @georgia @patchuun a thought i think more than i would like to admit is “if your conception of God is less loving and less forgiving than chief from path to nowhere, youre doing something very wrong” which i first thought bc someone i know really wants people to burn in hell and was projecting that onto God.

but this is even worse than that. if your conception of God is less loving and less forgiving than even you are, wtf.

@patchuun @lizzie @georgia
"am i even me if my perception of the world is being messed with so thoroughly?" exactly!

hence my "what if my red" comparison in the other reply...

@patchuun @georgia @lizzie on the other hand, this:

> but this is even worse than that. if your conception of God is less loving and less forgiving than even you are, wtf.

can describe a lot of people i've met in churches over the years

often exacerbated by people who've reasoned out that a person's willingness to forgive and be gentle with people is actually a weakness and sin caused by their corrupt nature and that true piety would help them overcome it...

@apophis @georgia @patchuun pastor at my church last week gave a sermon that basically boiled down to “people often use ‘jesus is God’ to project the tyranny they associate with God onto Jesus, and treat his kindness as a temporary aberration for while he was on earth. we need to remember that it works both ways. ‘God is jesus’. the goodness we witnessed in jesus’s actions is the clearest image of Gods character we have. read that into how we see God, not the other way around”

@apophis @lizzie @patchuun this is fucked up, God is the most loving being. this is why mystics/Buddhas/yogis look on all with equal compassion and see equal inner divinity, seeing themselves in everyone and everyone in themselves and sharing their suffering in perfect empathy.

@lizzie @apophis @patchuun this is such a truth nuke