highly unusual of me to post 3 times in one day, but here it is.
tonight i had a conversation with angie about religion, because she and chad are kind of at odds about their child and how it will be raised (oh yeah, for those of you who don’t know, angie’s pregnant) and specifically, when it will be baptised. angie’s religion, assembly of god, basically doesn’t baptize people as babies. they baptize when they feel they are ready to be saved. kind of more like confirmation in the catholic church. so, from the time you can be accountable for the things you do (i don’t know, age 5 or so?) and the time you decide to be saved, you are basically going to hell.
in the midst of the convo, she basically told me that if she died tomorrow, there was no doubt in her mind that she was going to hell.
now, here is my survey of the week.
do you believe in hell?
i don’t know if i do….if god is love, she would be awfully hard-pressed to send anyone to hell. unconditional love is god’s presence on earth, and if you have loved unconditionally, you have experienced god. in my mind, anyone who has loved completely unconditionally can’t go to hell. i do believe in purgatory – it makes sense to me that for all your misdeeds on earth, there should be some sort of penance period before heaven, but how could a god that is love embodied let anyone go to hell for eternity?
i think i’ve come to the conclusion that either there is no hell or it is very very very very hard to get there.