Is Heaven a Democracy?
61Enjoy Your Right to Vote Now Because It's Almost Over!
You Christians keep dying to go to heaven. You say you want to leave this tired, corrupt old world. You want to sit at the feet of Jesus for the rest of eternity. There will be no sin, no sorrow, no death. Sounds great.
Or does it?
If you understand the God of the Bible, you will also know that he is not a president; he is a dictator. He commands, we obey. He metes out nasty punishments when we break his laws, laws that were not set up in some kind of constitution. He isn’t much different as a New Testament Father. In fact, your punishment is permanent. You never get out of jail. And it’s not necessarily because you’re a bad person. It’s also because you’re a Muslim or a Jew or a Hindu. Good people burning forever at the behest of the Great Tyrant.
Was Jesus different? Well, read him carefully. He was quick to point out that he did not come to do away with the Law of the Tyrant but to fulfill it. He recognized that the old way would pass and the new way would be real freedom. He would place responsibility for adherence to the Law in the heart of the individual. He would, in essence, teach the infamous Law of Karma—what goes around, comes around. Do unto others, etc.
But St. Paul, kiss ass that he was, suggested—nay, demanded—that the new Christians should remain loyal to the Roman authorities, that to rebel against them was to rebel against Christ himself. He suggested that women should subjugate themselves to men, that they should shut up in church, stay home, be quiet, cover their heads in public. Then, over in the book of 2 Timothy, 2:11-13, you will find a most interesting passage. In essence, the Elect will reign (read rule) with Christ, that is, if they are willing to accept all the suffering he had suggested.
A question arises: The vast majority of humans will have been cast into hell after all the Armageddon nonsense has passed, so whom will the Elect rule over? Each other? That sounds a bit like a democracy to me. And if so, can the Elect elect a new leader or is Jesus like North Korean Kim Jong Il, Supreme Leader for Life, or perhaps the current Queen of England, monarch for life?*
Will the Elect ever truly be free or will they be in thrall to Jesus for the rest of eternity? Will they still have free will? Write a new world order constitution? A Declaration of Independence? Or will their brains have been programmed to be like children, worshipping the Great Deity for all time?
What do you think? I would like to know…
*Important note: The only character in the entire Bible that suggested real freedom from tyranny and actually set out to put it into practice was Lucifer. He chose to go his own way, to be his own person, to rebel against the Status Quo. The Great Dictator frowned upon that move and the rest is history.
Say Good-bye, Christian. This will soon no longer be your home.
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Neither you nor I ever met the man Paul. You have no real idea who or what he was. And those letters. What gives anyone the right to say that if I don't believe every word he says, I am off to hell? He was not holy, he was not divine, he was not God. He was a man who claimed to have a vision of Christ. So what? How do I know he actually had that vision and even if he did, how do I know that it was Jesus? His teachings were so different from Jesus that it almost seems he was led astray by a false spirit. And looking at the way Christians have acted in the world ever since, I would say he did the world no favors. All he wrote is merely hearsay, not truth. It matters not what anyone else says about it, be they clergy, scholar, or even you and me. Paul wrote letters, not scripture. As I said earlier, he would most likely be insulted to think that his words were handed down as Holy Writ. The nonsense of it all. I have every right, as a thinking being, to disagree with Paul on any subject. And he did indeed tell women and slaves to be in subjection. To masters, to husbands. And he's famous for telling the faithful to remain in subjugation to the State. If you don't know all that, we must be reading different Bibles. And as far as his being martyred, many were martyred before him and after him. He wasn't a great exception. In fact, he was in disagreement with both Peter and James. They were martyred as well. Paul had his opinions, Peter had a different one. Yeah, they tried to cover it over, but the tension remained throughout their lives. First denominations, perhaps?
OK, enough of the ranting.
Just so you know, I do not oppose Jesus. I oppose the false teachings spread in his name, especially that garbage about burning up or going off into some kind of eternal damnation, or... well, you get the picture. Those who teach fear are the false prophets.
As far as dying for what I wrote, let's just put it this way: I stand by what I have written in all of my hubs.
I hear you Beelzebub.
Thank you. The one you refer to is the only biblical character with enough balls to challenge the status quo. Dictators don't like that. Ask Galileo. And all he did was dare to suggest the world is round.
My suggestion to you is to reread the story of the Garden of Eden. Look at it from a different (Jewish) perspective. See it as midrash (a teaching story). If you can see beyond the brainwashing, you will find that the the serpent told the couple the truth while the creator lied to them. They did become as god; even god admitted it. They woke up to their humanity. God didn't like that. Then he kicked them out so they wouldn't eat from that other tree (Of Life) and live forever, thereby becoming his equal rather than his puppets. Original sin becomes original blessing.
It has been mostly the disobedient who have kept this world on track.
Just a thought.
Many blessings.
By the way, it's all a fairy tale. Don't take it so seriously.
The modern incorrect belief that medieval Christianity believed in a flat earth has been referred to as The Myth of the Flat Earth.[1] In 1945, it was listed by the Historical Association (of Britain) as the second of 20 in a pamphlet on common errors in history.[2] Recent scholarship, particularly since the 1990s,[3] has shown that with extraordinarily few exceptions "no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the earth was flat" and that the prevailing view was of a spherical earth.[1]
Jeffrey Russell states that the modern view that people of the Middle Ages believed that the Earth was flat is said to have entered the popular imagination in the 19th century, thanks largely to the publication of Washington Irving's fantasy The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus in 1828
The rest of your gnosticism makes as much sense as your flat earth theory. Utter nonsense.
Tell us all why Copernicus was cursed to hell even after death by the Catholic church for posthumously publishing his ideas about the solar centered universe. I do believe it was because the Church's view was that the earth was the center of the universe. Flat or not, earth-centric was still wrong, and based on the Bible.
All evangelicals refer to everything else as nonsense. Which, in itself is nonsensical. But I enjoy your comments.
Again, many blessings.
And my blessings to you, too.
On 1 November 1536, Archbishop of Capua Nicholas Schönberg wrote a letter to Copernicus from Rome:
"Some years ago word reached me concerning your proficiency, of which everybody constantly spoke. At that time I began to have a very high regard for you... For I had learned that you had not merely mastered the discoveries of the ancient astronomers uncommonly well but had also formulated a new cosmology. In it you maintain that the earth moves; that the sun occupies the lowest, and thus the central, place in the universe... Therefore with the utmost earnestness I entreat you, most learned sir, unless I inconvenience you, to communicate this discovery of yours to scholars, and at the earliest possible moment to send me your writings on the sphere of the universe together with the tables and whatever else you have that is relevant to this subject .."
I don't know where you get your information. Copernicus was Christian; dedicated his chief work to the Pope; was buried INSIDE a Cathedral—hardly where heretics were laid to rest.
The Earth IS the center of the Universe. I have written two Hubs about why this is so. Copernicus discovered that the Earth moves and not the sun. Well, actually they both move together.
It is well known that the letter to which you refer was written to entrap Copernicus. His works were not published until after his death for that reason. The Church knew that such ideas could topple their power. It was only in the 20th century that the Church finally absolved Galileo.
The earth is OUR center of the universe. But not necessarily THE center of the universe.
RIGHT ON Richard! I thoroughly enjoyed your erudite composition, and maintaining exquisite composure in the face of bitter and hateful comments. You've won a new fan :)
Thanks for the support. You and those like you are my true audience. The squawkers are a necessary evil. But, just so you know, I actually kind of like the negative nells because they keep me on my feet. There is often a diamond in the dunghill. Even a half wit has something to say, and all that. (Cliche-ish, but probably true.)
I read something somewhere once that said vision is not seeing the truth, but being the truth. You know how hard that is? If that's the case, I am an inch along the 2-mile journey.
So, having said more than I needed to, it comes down to recognizing that everyone who comments is my teacher. And I am grateful to all of them.
"Those who think they know, know nothing; those who know they know nothing, really know." The Old Philosopher
James A Watkins Level 8 Commenter 2 years ago
St. Paul is 100 times the man than you'll ever be. Are you kidding me? Kiss ass? He was martyred for God's sake! Are you man enough to die for what you wrote on this page? Didn't think so.
Paul did not preach the subjugation of women. Obviously, you have never read his writings but put yourself up as an expert on them.
There will be no need for any politics in Heaven.
Those who oppose Jesus, as you do presently, will not burn forever. They will be burned up and cease to exist.