Sure they’d want to. Logically, if they want to harm others and are allowed to leave Hell, I’d expect them to try to invade Heaven and burn it to the ground. Probably with a God apologizing “sorry, Free Will you know” as they chase the denizens of Heaven around with axes.
He doesn’t have any traction with us lily-livered agnostic Zen Buddhists, either.
Look, RedRain. I used to actually have a belief somewhat structurally similar to yours when I was leaving Catholicism but not yet comfortable with the idea that I didn’t believe wholeheartedly in God.
I came up with it all by myself, I didn’t have some whackjob of a old-school philosopher to crib from, but basically my logic went like this:
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God is omnibenevolent–he’s obviously NOT omnipotent, or else there wouldn’t be suffering in the first place. (there was a digression, heavily influenced by D&D, that God was probably technically what D&D would call Lawful Good, and part of that in my little private theology required a universe with rules that were discoverable by science and that God also followed, therefore neutering his ability to intervene even if he might want to.)
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Individual human freedom to believe or not believe in God is sufficiently important to his own appraisal of his omnibenevolence that he cannot just reveal himself or one set of correct doctrines.
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Therefore, some individual humans will sin.
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Any given sin will be, due to the nature of humanity, finite (because our lives are finite).
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Infinite punishment for finite sin is marvelously, ridiculously unjust.
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Therefore, eternal hell doesn’t exist, because God is omnibenevolent.
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Knowing you did wrong and being in the presence of someone whom you wronged and whose approval you care about is uncomfortable.
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Therefore, someplace like Hell exists, but you can leave when you’ve worked through your own guilt.
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Knowing you did wrong and being in the presence of someone whom you wronged and whose approval you don’t care about is pointless–you don’t hang around after you bust someone you don’t like in the chops.
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Therefore, someplace like limbo or the circle of the virtuous pagans exists, so people who don’t feel guilt about their sins but who think God’s a tosser can continue to exercise their individual freedom to do so.
Not terrible for a guy coming out of 17 years of smalltown rural Catholicism, I think, but obviously unsophisticated and unsupported by any observation.
My point is, you can dress it up all you like, and so can Swedenborg, but it’s a pretty unsophisticated theology and not really compelling to anyone who isn’t already predisposed to believe in a single omnibenevolent but not omnipotent God.
I need, NEED, NEED one of those!
Anyone know where I can get one?
It’s like I won the lottery.
You don’t feel confirmation bias is likely?
You have a point here. Swedenborg actually describes at one point how they did invade heaven and how they wish to kill the Lord and things like that. I don’t know how to reconcile the two ideas. Perhaps since they aren’t allowed to do those things they then like to be with their own kind.
That’s probably true, but if the world already ended and nobody can tell the difference, who cares if it ended or not? Doesn’t that indicate this is all a bunch of mythological nonsense?
This is not the kind of argument you win on volume.
Swedenborg was a scientist and I believe that’s why his writings are so appealing to me. He writes in a methodical and scientific way. No other religion I’ve encountered seems so consistent. He explains how anyone who lives according to their religion can get into heaven no matter what their faith.
I guess for me the only alternative would be atheism, but I just can’t resign myself to such a belief after having spent so much time absorbing these fantastical ideas of absolute beauty and pure innocence. Life would seem so hollow if I let go of it. I don’t even know if I could survive the switch. I think I would literally die.
The whole world ending thing was symbolic and not literal. It was actually speaking of the end of the Christian church and the beginning of the New Church.
In heaven, will the people there be happy? Will they have true freedom?
The problem is that Swedenborg and the Spiritualists who followed him were basically credulous dupes even though they tried to approach their subject matter in a scientific way. Applying a scientific approach doesn’t guarantee a scientific conclusion. If the best you can say about Swedenborg is that his nonsense isn’t any more implausible than a bunch of other nonsense and that he gets credit for trying to make his stuff sound scientific, that’s not high praise.
Being led by the Lord is true freedom and the source of happiness.
No, God doesn’t look that good with his clothes off. Don’t ask me how I know, but it involved a paper towel tube. :eek:
And people have fulfilled that deep need by not reading it for 240 years.
I never thought I’d meet a real Swedenborgian.
What does what you feel have to do with what exists?
…without a Ouija board, anyway.
Flying trumpets and a rising table would do.
There’s more I could say about what he writes, but I just find it sort of a waste of time with people who are only half listening and waiting to tear it to pieces.
The stuff he writes is so much deeper than any of the other Christian sects. But I guess that’s subjective. It’s amazing the things he writes about, but that’s also subjective.
I’m probably just banging my head against a wall posting about it here, but I have nothing else to do.
What I feel is all that exists.
Given how much he wrote it would be sort of a problem if you couldn’t.
It is- and from here it’s not very impressive.
You could tilt a table or ask Swedenborg to take control of your computer or something.