On Dec 6, 2004, at 8:09 PM, Andrew Paul wrote:
From: Dan Minette [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
I think that you miss the Christian perspective here: it is impossibletogame the system, dealing with someone who knows you better than youdo:God. It has to be more than an admission of sin, it has to be anhonestrepentance. Being sorry you did wrong because you might go to hellfor itdoesn't cut it. One must honestly repent.
Umm... I will think upon how the meaning of repent differs from being sorry, it's an interesting question.
The difference lies, to my understanding, in what corrections types call intent to re-offend. Recidivism. Repentance implies a lot more than just being sorry; it implies actively seeking to expunge from oneself the source of the misdeed and a commitment to not do that thing again.
From a nontheistic point of view, if you stole a loaf of bread and were feeling legitimate remorse for it, you might fess up to the store owner and tell her you're sorry; or you might instead offer to work off the debt *in addition* to the confession *and* consider getting counseling (if you were constantly plagued by urges to steal more bread). The former is being sorry; the latter is more in the spirit of repentance.
This may sound a silly question, but are there multiple heavens, or are
those who have honestly accepted the love of another god, repented truly
in his/her/its eyes, doomed. Or can you swap horses? Does one have to be
sorry for things done while one believed in another god, when they
weren't sins?
That depends on whom you ask. The Mormons believe in three heavens: The telestial, terrestrial and celestial kingdoms. The third listed is the "highest" heaven reserved, essentially, for good Mormons only. The second is a middle kingdom for those who fell short of ultimate grace; the third is for those who were Christian but not Mormon. Everyone else goes to OD (outer darkness), the Mormon hell, which has no fire or such -- they define it as a state of total isolation from everything, and being also cut off from the presence of any god. To them this is the worst state of torment into which a soul can descend.
The Catholics, IIRC, have purgatory, which is where decent folks can go and eventually get out of to make it into heaven.
As for cross-repenting ... I'd think you'd trade up, wouldn't you? I mean, start dealing with the Unitarian god after the RC version, so you wouldn't have to worry about too many ejaculations (double entendre!) from your teenage years. That is, you'd get wrapped into a faith that takes it easier.
If not, you may end up baptized as part of your conversion into another faith, which should purge you of all your prior sins.
Of course when you get outside the Christian idiom things get different, If you abandon all the Abrahamic faiths (Christianity, Judaism and Islam), you'll find yourself in a place where the idea of sin is wildly at variance from the Western idea. There are some that don't even recognize sin at all, and more than a few that will tell you that the whole idea of heaven is wrong-headed.
When I was shifting into agnosticism, I likened the idea to a mountain top. There are many ways up the mountain, but only one peak. Doesn't matter, in the long run, how you got there.
Now I'm more inclined to look at the idea of journey rather than destination; rather than looking ahead to some abstract goal that may or may not exist, it makes more sense to focus on how one is now, today, right this moment. In a somewhat Buddhist way of saying it, the path is the goal. After all we don't exist except in the present, do we?
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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