Two-fer Tuesday: Peace by Miz Pink

Normally, it’s been Deke talking about Hell ’round here. Damnation is something I just don’t feel comfortable talking about because I do have trouble trying to figure out where the love and forgiveness and eternal punishment intersect and make sense. I’m sure it does make sense and I believe there is a hell but I just don’t like to talk or think about it much.

Maybe that’s sticking my head in the sand. probably is. Oh well.

But I was thinking about some of what Deke has said about people choosing hell in most cases instead of them truly being sent there. And when he told me today’s topic was “peace” it got me to thinking.

I think a lot of people don’t really want or like peace.

I mean few and far between are the people who want constant bloddy horrible awful conflict and volatile relationships filled with hate. But I wonder if an awful lot of people just think existence is too boring when peace is involved.

Alot of people I think see heaven as some boring place with nothing but prayers and sitting around staring at clouds and learning to play the harp and crap. I think they assume that there is nothing pleasurable or fun in heaven. I think they expect that peace will mean a mind numbing eternity instead of contentment. I don’t think as many people as I would like to really think we’ll be doing anything productive in heaven.

So I can totally see people choosing to reject heaven because they are afraid of peace.

It sounds funny but human nature is a funny thing. We want moments of peace or long periods of peace, but I think most of us would cringe at a lifetime of peace. We would wonder where the spark is. We feed on conflict whether its personal or whether we see it on TV or whatever.

The fear of peace I think is what will drive at least some people to hell. And it makes me wonder how many other hangups we humans have that send us to hell, and not, as we assume, the will or desire of God.

15 thoughts on “Two-fer Tuesday: Peace by Miz Pink

  1. Her Side

    My fiance and I talk about the topic of “peace” with regard to relationships. Too many thrive on the spiteful strife that kills relationships. And since a relationship with God is the most important one in a believer’s life, I can see how dislike for peace can hinder in the same kind of way.

    Reply
  2. Deacon Blue

    Yeah, I agree with you…and with Miz Pink…it’s amazing how some people feed on stress. But we cling to so many things that are bad for us, even when they don’t give the illusion of comfort in return.

    Reply
  3. The First Domino

    “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”

    Does that statement mean the ONLY beginning, or that others also had a hand in fashioning the earth differently, after the original creation?

    Surely what the deity created, since God represents–among other attributes–Peace, was created without discord, and chaos.

    Either way, the potential for creating the earth the way that we see it now always existed from the earth’s inception, or it would have remained the way God created it.

    Yet, whence come All this discord we see in our world? The age-old question revisited.

    But who’s to say that it hasn’t remained the Way God created it? He did pronounce All that He Made to be Good, did he not?

    Who could possibly change that edict? Don’t tell me the devil! That would make the devil more powerful than God, if he could unfashion what God fashioned. And don’t tell me that God allowed the devil to undermine His creation, because that also makes no sense.

    Why would God give such deference to an entity which He presumably created, and still insist that He, God, is All Powerful, All Knowing, and All Present. Where the devil resides, God must not, as it seems clear that discord and evil displace God (Good), and hold sway, when evil is chosen over Good.

    But how can evil be chosen over Good, when God has pronounced All That He Made, including Man, to be Good?

    Only Good, then, may be chosen. Who are we to say otherwise? I’m not going to say that God lied about His creation, or that All is Not Good.

    And if God created the devil, my God, that would mean that the devil is also Good–since God creates only Good. Curiouser and Curiouser.

    Surely you’re not going to say that God created evil, in the person of the devil? No, I suspect that you’ll say that the devil willfully embraced evil, using his freedom of choice to choose one or the other.

    Then that means that the devil did not originate evil, but that evil predated him, before he became the personification of it. Curiouser and curiouser.

    Now the tension grows!

    I know, I’m sounding pretty heretical, today. Okay, let me go a step further and really descend into heresy.

    I contend that that the devil, really the personification of Fear, rather than evil, is not a real entity, but is a contrived one–one contrived for a purpose. And that purpose…so that you might experience God–Love, the opposite of Fear. Without Fear (the Devil), you can’t experience Fear’s opposite, Love. If Love is All There Is (omnipresent), you can’t experience it, unless that which is not Love shows up.

    It’s All Relative, which is why we’re here in the realm of relativity in the first place, so that we might experience That Which We Are, by also knowing That Which we’re Not.

    So that makes the devil (Fear) a good thing, not an evil thing.

    And if you grow tired of experiencing Hell in order to experience Heaven, you can always appeal to the Absolute, and the Sublime, where All Things remain Good and Perfect, even our supposedly imperfect and chaotic world.

    I honor God (Good), and His Perfection!

    I contend that All Is Perfect. There is No Imperfection in God, not in Heaven (His Throne) not on Earth (His Footstool), and that His Will is always being done. Why? Because God is Omnipresent, and Omnipotent. And He’s not for a moment going to give that up, for in that moment He would cease to be God.

    Don’t be fooled by appearances, they were designed to fool you.

    “I do have trouble trying to figure out where the love and forgiveness and eternal punishment intersect and make sense. I’m sure it does make sense….” Mz Pink.

    I like your honesty, Mz Pink, and I like you, but I’m sure that it doesn’t make sense. Love is Love is Love or She’s not. We can’t have it both ways.

    Namaste

    Reply
  4. Deacon Blue

    Your metaphysical judo is strong, First Domino…but so is my spiritual karate…
    😉

    It’s easy to get hung up on semantics and contradictions and such. It’s the nature of life, whether in things temporal or things spiritual.

    But we can’t say everything is good because it’s part of God’s creation. Surely, no one argues that a starving multitude of children in a third world nation is good. Beating one’s spouse bloody is not good. Sexual abuse is not good.

    All things have the potential to lead to good things, or even to reveal the glory and mercy of God, but that doesn’t make them inherently good…either to us or to God.

    Now, as for Satan, I do believe he is real. But his existence, and the creation of evil/sin as a counterpoint to good/faithfulness doesn’t make him more powerful than God nor even equal to him. It doesn’t undo God’s creation. Evil, hell, sin, etc. are shadowy things. They are, perhaps, less the opposite of God’s design than they are shadows of it.

    In our reality, a shadow has no substance. Yet it affects us. It can diminish or block light, thus adversely affecting our visibility. It is a place where the temperature is different. It can even frighten us when we don’t understand what is casting it. Evil is not more powerful than good, and Satan is not any kind of equal to God. They provide a choice, but they are still lesser things, insubstantial in comparison, to God’s creation, God’s will and God’s goodness.

    Reply
  5. The First Domino

    “All things have the potential to lead to good things, or even to reveal the glory and mercy of God, but that doesn’t make them inherently good…either to us or to God.”

    I agree that NOTHING is inherently good, or inherently evil. If things were inherently good or evil, then we would All be in agreement as to what those things are, and would act accordingly.

    And because THINGS aren’t inherently good or evil, we get to call anything in this world what we choose.

    Nothing in our world is real.
    The meaning of everything is the meaning we give it.

    Shakespeare stated it thusly:

    “There is nothing either good or bad,
    but thinking [it’s one way or the other] makes it so.”

    William Shakespeare, “Hamlet”

    I can add to your list of things “not good,” but let me do this. You say that, “Evil is not more powerful than good, and Satan is not any kind of equal to God….”

    Try and convince those who have suffered at the hands of evil, those that you have cited above:

    “Surely, no one argues that a starving multitude of children in a third world nation is good. Beating one’s spouse bloody is not good. Sexual abuse is not good.”

    You might have a difficult time convincing them that good is more powerful than evil.

    “Now, as for Satan, I do believe he is real. But his existence, and the creation of evil/sin as a counterpoint to good/faithfulness doesn’t make him more powerful than God nor even equal to him.”

    Now if Satan is real, then God created him. You’re saying, then, that God intentionally placed a flaw within his creation–a creation that He called good, by the way–for the sole purpose of giving Man the opportunity to choose Good over Evil.

    And if Man chooses evil, he will disobey his creator, who forbids it. But this Man, we’re told, was created in the Image and Likeness of God. Therefore, if Man can be tempted by evil, so can God, otherwise God is not the Source of Man.

    And here’s one for you, who created the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that Man was forbidden to eat from? It wasn’t the Serpent!

    The Serpent is not a creator.

    He who planted the Tree must take responsibility for placing the temptation within Man’s reach. The Serpent merely gave Adam and Eve information about the tree that later proved to be correct, and was born out by Lord God.

    By the way, eating the fruit from the Tree didn’t cause Adam and Eve to die. Being kicked out of the Garden of Eden caused them to die. When they were kicked out, they weren’t allowed to eat from the Tree of Life and live forever.

    “They provide a choice, but they are still lesser things, insubstantial in comparison, to God’s creation, God’s will and God’s goodness.”

    Again, if you believe scripture, you must agree that God was responsible for the choice that provided the Man with the opportunity for his fall. No choice, no potential for falling.

    Now, let me go down the road of those who believe in predestination, and reiterate their predicament–if God knows All, He knew which of us would fall and which of us who would not; and yet he created us anyway.

    Doesn’t seem fair to me!

    In either case, it’s not Satan I would be angry with, but God–He created the Tree, and the Tempter, and, by doing so, He put my eternal soul in jeopardy, by His own decree.

    Now, can you see why so many non-believers can’t accept that kind of God, and why they choose to ignore the teachings of the church?

    Namaste

    Reply
  6. Deacon Blue

    Certainly I see why people would question God’s goodness and fairness…but what’s the alternative?

    Are you saying it would be better that we have NO choice? No option but to obey? Is that “fair” to make us simply slaves or puppets? To make us in His image, and yet give us no room to be ourselves?

    All the people who say, “A loving God would fix this or that” miss the point. If He were always fixing our crap, we would never have consequences or responisbility.

    And those people certainly wouldn’t be happy with a God who moved them around like chess pieces.

    We can’t have free will and be denied an option counter to God’s will.

    It just isn’t possible.

    We are toys or we are empowered individuals.

    Reply
  7. The First Domino

    “Are you saying it would be better that we have NO choice? No option but to obey? Is that “fair” to make us simply slaves or puppets? To make us in His image, and yet give us no room to be ourselves?”

    “Your metaphysical judo is strong, First Domino…but so is my spiritual karate…”

    Good line. I’m still chuckling!

    Although I’m sure I’ll never change your point of view, or you mine, I do appreciate your point of view.

    Deacon, I’m beginning to think that there’s very little light between our positions. I’m thinking that you’re as much a mystic and metaphysician as I am.

    You’re right, of course, about the reason for the choices. God doesn’t wish for us to be automatons, but beings with free will. With free will we get to decide and choose to be the Image and likeness of God, rather than having it imposed upon us. Because of that, we get to create, and experience, That Which We Are.

    As God’s Image and Likeness, we get to create it, by choosing it. Although the choosing doesn’t change Who We Are, the Son’s of God, Children, if you prefer, we do get to exercise our creative ability through the act of choosing. Therefore, we do need a choice, and Fear (personified by Satan, the devil) becomes that avenue by which we are afforded that opportunity.

    Even with the ability to choose, we’re not really creators. God has already created all that has been created, and will be created, in the Holy Moment of Now. There’s really nothing left for us to create. But we can pretend that there is, that Everything hasn’t already been created, and set out to re-create That Which Is.

    This is why no one goes to hell. This is why there’s no such thing as eternal condemnation or punishment. The very act of making a choice is sufficient. At some point, we will choose to be That Which We Are. The outcome is inevitable. Choosing is a self-defining act, and God in His Great Mercy and Love is not going to punish us for choosing wrong, because that would be Self-defeating–in opposition to Her Purpose. Hence, there are no wrong choices, or right choices, just choices.

    Since no choice is really better than another, God is not going to punish us, if we make choices that we think are wrong. Otherwise, He wouldn’t put the possibility of making wrong choices in our grasp in the first place. As I’ve stated earlier, All Choices serve God’s Holy Purpose.

    Now back to your question. Let me take this discussion up a notch. What you’re not seeing is that God is One. “Hear O Israel the Lord thy God is One Lord.”

    There’s just Her. And in the Ultimate Scheme of things you have no choice, just the illusion of one. And we can’t help but obey. We’re always obeying, which is to say, God, at some level, is always having Her Will done. Since God is One, it can’t be otherwise.

    “We are toys or we are empowered individuals.”

    We’re “empowered individuals,” and, at the same time, One With The Whole. We can choose at any time to be One With The Whole, or step back and resume the illusion of separation (our individuality).

    “Evil, hell, sin, etc. are shadowy things. They are, perhaps, less the opposite of God’s design than they are shadows of it.”

    The Shadow metaphor is good. But rather than the “shadows” being real, I see them as illusions–that which pretends to be real.

    God is Light, and that Light is Omnipresent. God throws no shadows. There is No Place In the All upon which a Shadow may fall, that is Not The All. The shadows that we think we see did not originate with the Light, do not exist within the Light, and exist only as impostors.

    Because they’re illusions, they lack reality. Jesus called the appearance of evil, the devil, a liar and the father of the lie. Because the lie originated with the liar, both the lie and the liar lack substance, permanence, and reality.

    “All the people who say, ‘A loving God would fix this or that’ miss the point. If He were always fixing our crap, we would never have consequences or responsibility.”

    He sent His Son, didn’t He? A major “fix” for humanity. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son.”

    I know that you think that “consequences or responsibility” are necessary, but they’re not. We can always rise above them, at any moment. The blind can be made to see, the halt to walk, and the five thousand fed. It’s just a matter of what level of creation upon which we wish to dwell–the relative, or the absolute. Both are possible. Both are available.

    God is so forgiving, and so magnanimous that She gives us both options–consequences and responsibilities, or the opportunity to rise above them.

    A God of Love doesn’t have to “fix” anything. A loving God makes the “fixing” unnecessary by Her very presence. Therefore, God (Love) never says No. And She is always ready to lift us higher, above the consequences, or to permit us to experience them. Our choice.

    Remember that free will thing. We can have it anyway we choose!

    Namaste

    Reply
  8. Deacon Blue

    No, I’d agree that by and large there probably isn’t a huge gulf between you and me.

    I think you clearly trend more liberal than I do (and I’m more liberal than a lot of Christians are willing to stomach 😉 ), but nothing wrong with that.

    I think you also tend toward a much more metaphysical approach than I do. I tend to try to find the logic within what seems illogical, though I certainly have my metaphysical aspects too.

    You almost strike me as what the apostle John would have been if he were of a more liberal stripe, given that he wrote much more about spirituality than anyone else in the New Testament.

    Reply
  9. Her Side

    Wow. This is a FANTASTIC exchange between Deacon and Domino. This should be published somewhere. Really. Domino’s points represent some of the “doubtful curiosity” that non-Christians often exhibit towards all that “God and faith talk.”

    If not reprinted in their entirety, the nature of this exchange should maybe be summarized in a post.

    I consider myself a Christian, but I stopped with the “Holy Roller” blind faith a few years ago. I want to understand more, because literally, my life depends on it.

    Reply
  10. Deacon Blue

    First Domino is always good for discussions, even when he goes too far over my head for me to comprehend all his points.
    😉

    (I probably should have taken some philosophy classes in college…)

    By the way, First Domino, you ARE a guy, right? I seem to recall earlier discussions that made me think so…but if I have your gender wrong, please correct me.

    Reply
  11. The First Domino

    “By the way, First Domino, you ARE a guy, right?” DB

    Yes, Deac. I’m a guy. But I try daily to integrate and balance masculine Wisdom with feminine Love, so that I might fulfill the Creator’s vision:

    “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

    Namaste

    Reply
  12. The First Domino

    “I consider myself a Christian, but I stopped with the “Holy Roller” blind faith a few years ago. I want to understand more, because literally, my life depends on it.” Her Side.

    Her Side, it’s never my purpose to entice others directly to my blog while commenting on another.

    It smacks of dishonesty, and I ask ahead of time for Deacon Blue’s indulgence and understanding. However, if you’d like a non-judgmental ear upon which to air feelings and concerns, please stop by my blog, and either post there or send me an e-mail.

    http://www.blogger.com/profile/15538497651318887097

    Namaste

    Reply
  13. Deacon Blue

    Really, First Domino, not a problem. I don’t mind people inviting others over to their own spot when they actually read and/or comment here. It’s the spams comments and trolls that bother me, who come to a blog ONLY to generate traffic to their own space.

    And it matters not to me your gender in the end (I try to balance my own masculine/feminine stuff)…just hate to refer to someone by a gender other than their own. Seems rude to me to do so, so I just wanted to make sure my assumptions had been sound.
    :-)

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>