Blog 170 – 11.25.15

I know that many of my beliefs are disturbing to my Christian friends but I feel compelled to spell out just why I have discarded beliefs that no longer serve me. First let me remind everyone that after forty plus years in Fundamentalist Christianity that I tried to chuck it all and be an atheist for twenty plus years and when I finally came back to a belief in a higher power it was not the God of Christianity but a bigger all inclusive God. Not the tribal God of the Jews, nor the Allah of the Muslims nor the God of a thousand other religions but the God described in Bible language as, “God is all in all, world without end, Amen.” I prefer to refer to this God as the Universe because there is nothing that exists outside of Him.

I can no longer conceive of this most wise, loving, and powerful God having created a place to burn the trash forever. Nor do I believe than anyone or anything created by God is trash or worthy of such a sentence. Only the ego of man could have imagined such a place. And only this false god, ego, could hate anyone enough to doom them to such a torment.

I have often used the expressions, “As cold as hell, and as sure as hell.” Both to me are nonsensical now. I believe that hell was imagined in the heart of man as a place of punishment for those things he cannot accept about himself and so projects on to others that he may judge and condemn them. A man so directed by his false nature, ego, can conceived of God as Judge, Jury, and Executor of eternal punishment for evil doers. This to me is totally inconsistent with the picture of a God who is Love and Light and in whom is no darkness at all. Judgement and condemnation are all about crime and punishment and not about Love nor the God of Love.

I am reminded of a joke one of my Bible College buddies came up with to answer The Four Spiritual Laws first question. The Four Spiritual Laws was a popular Christian evangelism tool in the nineteen seventies. The first question you asked was, “If you were to die tonight, would you go to heaven or hell? My buddy’s somewhat funny answer to the question was, “Hell no, heaven yes.” We sheltered Bible College students had a pretty stunted sense of humor. There was a song by the Doors that came out a few years before that time that went, “I’m not scared of dying and I don’t really care. I swear there ain’t no heaven and I pray there ain’t no hell.” I do believe in heaven but not in the harps and angel choruses that so many picture. Tomorrow I will tell you what I think heaven is but for today let me say again the I believe hell was invented by man to scare small children in to behaving and to have a place to send his enemies. The God I believe in loves all His children even the wayward ones and patiently waits till all his prodigals come to themselves, the knowledge of Who and Whose they are, and come Home to Him.

Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White