>
> I don't believe in evil, I believe there is evil, distinction there.
Could it not be so 'evil' that you could get caught up in it without
even knowing?
Think of the 'boy soldiers' of Africa. Taught to indiscriminately
machine gun families.
> Jesus talked about the Devil so I believe there is an Evil One.
>Â Jesus
> also instructs us to pray for a change of heart in our enemies, so
> should we pray for a change of heart in the Devil? Â He actually
> doesn't have a heart, he's just a spirit with no body.
Ahhhh, I see. Spirit , as you describe, is...hang on, I dont see. What
do you mean?
>Â I've met many
> Christians who insist it's wrong to pray for a change of heart in the
> Devil and that puzzles me. Â It's a dilemna. Â The Saints are almost
> always portrayed in movies as emphasizing the forgiveness aspect of
> Christianity. Â In a movie about Saint Francis, "Brother Sun, Sister
> Moon" the Pope tells him to believe in original innocence and not
> original sin.
So how long does one go by what others tell them. At what age does
spiritual maturity come about.
Heaven and hell with the accompanying archytypes, are simply depicting
duel aspects of our individual nature. We 'evolve' spiritually, by our
own actions.I used to wonder why the principle of reaping and sowing
was so difficult for a Christian to recognise, but then I realized ,
thats where they needed to be to learn. Karma is the same obstacle for
all "undergraduates" to realize, from all cultures.
A child needs to have the fear of the negative depicted, until he is
old enough to develop his own power of discrimination.
>Yet many theologians and Christians believe Jesus is
> the Redeemer (some also believe Mary is Coredemptrix) and that
> wihthout His redeeming love and grace we would all be doomed.
Except the many millions of jungle dwelers, to say nothing about those
that pre dated 'the redeemer'.
>Â It is
> the biblical belief that we have original sin.
This is the language of the dogmatist. Correction. Many make such
interpretation. The power of the churches rely on that interpretation,
so they can sell you the solution.
> In  the Middle Ages,
> the Catholic culture was such that most believed there was a Hell and
> quite a few believed they were going there, but they also believed or
> knew there was a God and a Heaven.
Precisely, and gave a good portion of their produce for the privaledge
of being told of the solution, after being told of the problem.. Some
things do not change!
>Â Nowadays many people doubt there
> is a God, even to the point of Atheism, but they are not afriad of
> burning in Hell because they seriously doubt there is an Inferno.
Hard to live a life of fear, and accept many dont. They must have
'inferior beliefs".
On the spiritual scale , atheism is more advanced than religiosity.
>It
> seems that because so many people doubt there is really a Hell they
> are more likely to sin and less likely to be held accountable for
> their actions.
I dont often swear, but what fucking arrogance.Such people are more
likely to hold themselves responsible for their actions, and not rely
on some priestfor 'absolution' (until my next confession).
> If a priest delivers a sermon about Hell you always
> have the danger of the good parishoners fearing they will go there and
> the more evil listeners brushing the Hell theory off as though it were
> nonsense.
If they are listening, they are still working on their own self
realization.
> I've seen that it is very difficult to deliver a sermon that
> all will understand unless you talk in tongues of fire like the Holy
> Ghost at Pentecost.
And its all become much clearer since then !!!!. The best way to evoke
fear , is to present people with levels of reality that they are just
not equipped to handle.
> It's astounding that someone like LeFevre was
> excommunicated from the Catholic Church (id est Hell?) because he
> supported the Latin Tridentine Mass and yet someone like Ted Kennedy
> or John Kerry can still receive Holy Communion. The politics and
> communication of the Church are kind of a mess these days.
Sounds like you are starting to evolve, spiritually.
BOfL
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