Originally Posted by davidsun
In disagreement with your statement: The 'issue' which you clearly raised was traditional Judeo-Christian notions about the "wrath" of "God".
This 'issue' cannot simply be re-solved by glibly ex-changing one 'label' (Hell) for another (Hades), IMO. From my treatise:
[indent]This final, because then absolutely irremediable, ‘loss’ is what is referenced as the ‘second death’ in The Book of Revelation, which, notwithstanding the**fact that the author distorts the truth by conflating the personage of Jesus with The Entity of Life (a/k/a*Christ) as well as by projecting all anti‑Christ ‘wrongdoing’ to be the work of a singularly evil, mythological Satan*–*alas, ‘channeled’ material cannot help but be conceptually ‘shaped’ and emotionally ‘colored’ by the belief-set of the ‘channeler’!*–*nevertheless appropriately, I think, places the phenomenon referenced in reincarnational perspective, to wit: “I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast [the ‘beast’, of course, just being gross self*ishness], neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand [obviously, designating more than a single lifetime of*] years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the ‘second death’ hath no power, but they shall be [i.e., they shall reincarnate as] priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. And when the thousand years are expired, Satan [to wit: the ‘spirit’ of unmitigated self*ishness] shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth*…*to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they [the huge number of grossly self*ish people you see running rampant all over the world today!] went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city.” (Revelation 20:4-9)
While I’m at it, in relation to the eschatological ‘vision’ described in said book, let me also add that, given the horribleness of the horrors and the miserableness of the miseries that ‘deceived’ (by self*ishness) people spawn, it is more than understandable why folks would reactively feel and fantasize that perpetrators in said regards should and will not just be annihilated but**additionally suffer the most hellish kinds of torture imaginable in retribution, by way of the above-referenced ‘second death’ (following their bodies’ physical one), as grimly portrayed for instance in: “And fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.*…*And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.” (Revelation 20:9-15)
An equally grotesque, clearly retribution projecting fantasy that grossly self*ish and consequently hateful deniers of their and others’ communality with all Life will suffer the worst imaginable fate*–*albeit in this case, with**said ‘fate’ continuing to spiral ‘downward’ without end, which leaves**the issue of what ultimately ‘happens’ to such souls schematically unresolved*–*is documented in Ch.16 of The*Bhagavad*Gita, to wit: “Puffed**up by power and inordinate conceit, swayed by lust and wrath, these wicked people hate Me Who am within them, as I am within all. Those who thus hate Me, who are cruel, the dregs of mankind, I condemn them to a continuous, miserable and godless rebirth. So reborn, they spend life after life, enveloped in delusion. And they never reach Me,*…*but degenerate into still lower forms of life.” Both this and the above-described ‘final judgment’ scenario are clearly negative‑emotion ‘loaded’ and thematically vengeful. Such negativity and punitiveness are not ‘in accord’ with Jesus’ vision and teaching (presented and discussed in the preceding chapter) that Love and**Joy constitute Life’s**universal Source ‘code’, to wit, that ‘God’ is a beneficently-inclined ‘Father’, from which all Life springs, however.[/indent[
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