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Blog Entry 92 of 182 Bad Mom
I call myself Bad Mom because at the time I came up with it, I was learning about the assumptions we put behind our words. I was following the pattern of not believing that my kids are okay, and speaking to them from that basis. I changed that, and it made a big difference. I am from Utah and my people are still living there. My husband was in the Air Force and we rattled around until we saw Colorado, and we stuck.

Blog Url: http://denver.yourhub.com/~Huh

What's the purpose of eternal damnation?
Contributed by: Lisa Arata   on 6/26/2008

Having concluded that it's too risky to write about people, I've turned back to the world of ideas and been reading about neuroscience. Right now I'm reading The Tangled Wing by Melvin Konner. Here will be my latest and greatest fixation. I'll try to make it interesting.

This book was published in 1982, the year I graduated from high school.

On the overleaf is this quote from William Blake:

All bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following errors:
1. That man has two real existing principles: viz: a body & a soul.
2. That energy, called evil, is alone from the body: & that reason, called good, is alone from the soul.
3. That God will torment man in eternity for following his energies.

But the following contraries to these are true:
1. Man has no body distinct from his soul; for that called body is a portion of soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlets of soul in this age.
2. Energy is the only life, and is from the body; and reason is the bound or outward circumference of energy.
3. Energy is eternal delight.

--"The Marriage of Heaven and Hell," 1790

My Gosh, this is just the overleaf.

I've always wondered what was the point of hell. I mean, I suppose that if it's so that the earth is going to come to a stop someday and all human souls will be called to judgment day and some people will go to heaven and others hell, then the point of hell is to pay you back for being willfully mean and ignorant.

But, what in this world comes from nothing and turns to nothing? If this world and life are some kind of a transaction that starts with shopping, has bringing home the groceries in the middle, and eating them as the end, then I suppose hell is the heartburn.

Actually, you had to get the money from somewhere, the money goes somewhere when it gets out of your hand, and the food helps you go out and work for more money. Whether you enjoy your dinner or not is up to you. And then you poop. Poop is not evil--it's just got to happen or you'll die.

I think I better get back to my idea here: I don't believe in heaven and hell. I think they are primitive stories intended to teach people to behave right and keep the world as pleasant as possible. Otherwise, the concepts of heaven and hell could only be considered authoritarian and coercive--and we don't want that. We don't want good done in the name of avoiding a possible eternal punishment, do we?

But people do believe in eternal reward and eternal damnation. I had a conversation just last Friday with a girl who'd converted to Christianity. We talked about the purpose of life. I took a shot at it and said, "I believe it's to use your gifts to make the world a better place." She said she believed there's no inherent point to life except to glorify God." I asked her what hell was, and she shrugged and said, "Where God isn't."

I have only just now come to think that maybe what I experience as my soul is really a part of my whole constitution and my body is the solid version--the part that gives me feedback about my thoughts and choices. Qabalistically that makes sense. Like, you could say that your spirit, soul and body are like steam, water and ice.

So, Blake says "Energy is eternal delight."

This, I accept because I think there isn't good energy and negative energy. It just depends on the situation.

There's abundant, flowing energy, and then there's choked-off energy.

There's energy flowing to do something enjoyable and beneficial, and there's energy employed to do something destructive.

And what I learned from my Qabalistic studies is that there are two kinds of destructive energy or evil.

There's destructive energy for things that have to happen, like the way volcanoes have to erupt and tectonic plates have to shift, and people have to grow old, and we have to spend money or we'll starve. Money is a physical form of energy.

And then there's destructive energy that's used purely out of indifference to another person, like when a drug addict wants another hit of meth and leaves her baby lying in a crib for two days. Or when a political leader wants to glorify his own ethnic group and destroys another one. Or when a religious faith is so excited to teach that its people are God's chosen ones, it advocates killing people of other faiths. There are certain dark satisfactions that people pursue.

I'm thinking now that my former faith, which taught that the gift of a healthy soul is much more important than that of a healthy body, now might be off a little. It could be that our goal in life is to integrate our souls and bodies--to stop pretending that even if I look a little fat, my profession of faith is what matters. Instead, maybe it's better to be honest in thought and deed, even if the honest thought is not sweet to behold. I'm a little fat because I have a weak spot in me that allows greed.

If we could be honest about who we like and dislike, then when we are in conflict with someone we could just say it. I feel angry when you try to give me advice because what I really need is not advice, but a hug and an acknowledgment that we are together in our struggles.

If we could be honest about the truth within us, then we could stop hiding. I feel afraid when I look at you and you're not what I ever expected.

Of course, I am being naive. I have an individual in my life who feels very antipathetic toward me, and I feel the same toward her. There's really no point in us telling each other how much we hate how the other acts and talks, unless we could talk it all the way through to the love that hides underneath. That kind of reworking is unheard of in this world of instant judgment.

The hell in this situation is not imposed by God. It's just in the nature of the choked off energy between us. We don't need eternal damnation to pay for the things we've said and done to one another over the years. We've got it right here in our hearts.

So, what should we do?

There's no advice for it. We have to do whatever we want to do, but just make sure to seek the good energy and get to a place where we get to enjoy it, in whatever form we can visualize it.


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Showing 1-2 of 2 comments
Submitted By: Bing Van Gorden
posted on 6/30/2008 @ 10:54:10 AM
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Wow, thanks for offering this to the conversation. A step above the standard fair of yourhub.
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Submitted By: Michael Rule
posted on 6/26/2008 @ 11:52:15 PM
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Back in the civil war, opponents would trade coffee and sugar at night and shoot each other during the day. Figure that one out.....
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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Lisa Arata

Greeley , CO

Lisa Arata has posted 182 blog entries and 282 comments since joining on 4/18/2007. Lisa Arata 's average blog rating is 4.74.
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