Standing up for Honest, Inquisitive Christians who have Issues with the  Literal, Calvinistic Hell.

 Do you vindictively or sadistically wish to see your enemies burn in hell? If you were knowledgeable about all the people you love being burned to crisp in hell, would you selfishly accept paradise for yourself? In many ways, if you are a highly sensitive or emotive person, you are bound to question hell. Furthermore, if you are honest then you will  voice those concerns to others. It is a burden to carry the alarming images that the Christian hell conjures.


*Click the picture above to access the article I'm responding to*

   Recently, Chad Holtz lost his post as a pastor at a church for something very moral. Instead of blindly abiding by the binding rules of his church, he honestly voiced his concerns about the literal depiction of hell. His congregation, being unloving hypocrites, denounced him. With condescension, they scorned him for holding such views within the domain of his mind. To them, the pastor should be the epitome of Christlike perfection. We should ignore our pressing human limitations and dishonestly strive towards shedding every last piece of our precious inhumanity. Instead of supporting Chad's doubts, the church devalued him and treated him as a common criminal instead of using his charge as a way of opening up a constructive, theological conversation.


  Truthfully, this bubonic plague of fundamental Christianity plagues the church with the toxic sin of pride and lying. In effect, church members are not promoted to be neither honest or meek. Instead, they are promoted to strictly, inhumanly follow and believe a litany of beliefs about the metaphysical world. Again, the metaphysical world naturally is beyond our human senses therefore everything we decree about hell or heaven is pure conjecture. Yet, humans are savvy about constructing unwieldy  structures of decisive, untruthful beliefs about God. When really, the believer should be humble when trying to respond to something that supersedes the senses. We should grasp God as an explorer who feels blinded by earthly sense. In reality, our sense of heaven or hell is greatly distorted. Therefore, the entire notion of these planes of existence being lucid in our minds is merely an illusion or lie.

  The mainstream church revels in their Tower of Babels where God is downsized through limiting speech. Actually, Jesus was rather simple when he explained that belief in him does not come from belief within the superficial idea of him. Some Christians simply believe within Jesus' existence and then forgo the application of  Jesus' virtues within their life. Leeching Jesus of humanity and depth, Christians begin to believe only in Jesus' masculinity or his existence. None of these Christians strive to live the difficult life of compassion. Instead, they gloss over the compassion bit and make their church lives insular. They focus instead on the superiority of men due to Jesus' gender. Due to that wrongful emphasis, women are denied the opportunity to become spiritual leaders.   True morals become trivialized then and Christian belief becomes a list of irrational rules of dehumanizing yourself rather than expanding yourself through the belief of living selflessly.


  The church reaction to Chad Holtz's position is disillusioning to me. It makes me wonder whether Christianity as a whole has taken the Bible as an excuse to augment the basest aspects of humanity. In many ways, the Crusades were justified solely on Biblical belief as a way of assuaging the sadistic urges of some medieval warriors. Interestingly, the focus on the symbol of the cross used in Jesus' sacrifice was reinforced during the Crusades as if to indicate to the heathen enemies that they were exempt from Jesus' offer of salvation.

  Metaphorically, Chad Holtz's congregation treated him in much the same way once he honestly expressed himself. Within some churches, the practice of craftily concocting lies to appease your fellow church member is seen as more important than acting charitably. In Sunday school, the curious questions of younger children are sharply dismissed. We are taught through the wrongful depiction of the Garden of Eden story that questioning God is akin to betrayal or denial of him. But, in reality, part of seeking something wholly unknown to us requires questions. Therefore, this church restriction of    intellectual extrapolation is both foolish and highly ridiculous. Even more preposterous, it wrongfully elevates us to the throne of God because we think we know his entire being perfectly.

    As a doubtful Christian who has questioned the existence and idea of hell more times than I can count, I am saddened by this church's persnickety attitude in response to Chad Holtz's honesty. Furthermore, I pray that Chad Holtz finds a more suitable post at another church where he will be accepted as an imperfect, humble human being. To me, this recent news from this church and the response to Rob Bell's book is very illuminating; it clearly shows the pride and dishonesty that blossoms within some Christian communities. Moreover, it shows that we haven't sought to understand Jesus or God by first accepting that we truly do not know with full certainty any aspect of their being. Certainly, atheists, agnostics, and apostates do have valid reasons for leaving Christianity which seems far too obsessed with bullying inquisitive individuals. Additionally, some Christians have an unhealthy addiction to fulfilling gender stereotypes rather than living a selfless life.

 Death Seer Prologue.

Click the above image to access the Death Seer Prologue. It is a rarity for me or any author to display this type of story content. But, I only plan to show the first chapter and prologue elusively on the blog designed specifically the novel. Also, be sure to be mindful that this story content is not meant to be shared on any other sites or plagiarized in any form by anyone. Thanks for respecting my creative property.

 

Are you prepared to go Faster, and Faster, and Faster for the next week on A Bibliophile's Reverie?

    Within Temptation's newest album is preparing to be released. For the United States, the album will see its release on March 29th which is a bit less than two weeks at this moment. Knowing me, I cannot contain my excitement. I have an insatiable need to hear this album and concentrate upon the surface level of the music. Ultimately, I'll fracture the surface level of the sound of the music once my own emotional self begins to pair off with some parts of the music that resonates with me. In doing so, I am developing an addiction to the music.


  Within Temptation has never failed to succeed in creating meaningful, dynamic music experiences that impacts you. Within the music, you are practically "within temptation," to some extent. The music has a cinematic, epic allure that traps you unfailingly. Once you're caught within the net of their sound, you'll always be returning to that sound to receive that same euphoric high that Within Temptation injects into your brain.

    Somewhere within your brain,    Sharon's beautiful voice is tempting you once more to listen to one track then the entire album. Forgo life's demands for once and allow the music to plunge you into musical nirvana.

   For the next week, I'll be playing psychologist and be psychoanalyzing my  unhealthy addiction to this bombastic, Dutch-metal band. What are the elements of this music that prove to make it irresistible to the music lover? Why do you need to listen to it repetitively without end to be sated partially. The need for Within Temptation just never vanishes. For me, just one recall of a specific string of notes or lyrics creates this desire to listen to the real thing. Hearing the endless, remembered echo within my mind just does not do it for me.

So prepare yourself blog readers: By March 29th, you'll want to become one of "The Unforgiving," that are drafted by Mother Maiden to eliminate obnoxious Within Temptation fanboys.

Until then,you will be stalked by the most insanely obsessive blog posts about Within Temptation Muahahahaha.....


By the way, for the uninitiated: Check out Within Temptation's first promotional video for their new album:

     It is totally unconventional in that there is a comic book being written specifically for the album. Therefore, the short film that precedes the actual video for the song relates with the story that will be completely unveiled within comic books that are planning to be released. In my short life, Ive never seen any band tried their hands at doing this sort of concept. Hopefully, you'll enjoy this!!

Prayer for Japan

 Dear Lord,

   If you are as empathetic as you appear, I'm sure that your cries of sadness proceed along with the anguished cries of so many within Japan. Surely, if my neurons are not deceiving me in this  perilous moment, you have some plan orchestrated. Nobody can ascertain if that means that this nightmarish cycle of destruction will immediately cease. If anything, the situation within Japan could potentially worsen which might cause the world to struggle even harder to grasp you. I mean, How can any conjure you within their minds when the sadness within all of us destroys any hope within order and meaning to this world?

   At this point, I'm praying to you as though you are a nonentity. My mortal senses are failing and I cannot lucidly see your glory or majesty within the chaos that blinds me. In this solemn hour as the whole world gasps nervously and expects the worst for Japan, we are collectively atheists. We are far too burdened by the madness that seems to dominate Japan's situation.


  Please Lord, make me believe that you are omnipotent. I don't want to believe that everything about my self is not a devised accident. At this point, I'm crying with every bereaved soul within Japan and all across the world.Even from a distance, I feel their pain and they need reassurance that their situation will not free fall into some nihilistic nightmare.

I plead with you now to have mercy on this world of ours. There may be a high possibility, I'm only pleading with myself since you might not exist. But at least this deranged illusion of mine that presents order to this world offers some hope within a world that defies it.

Amen

Stream of Consciousness Exercise :Thoughts about Religion

  Historically, God has always been featured in the dreams of the most malicious human individuals. God becomes a militaristic, stoic individual when that person allows their psyche to feature that specific vision of God. This vision of God becomes our promoter for our most immoral activities. If we are truly fortunate, we can even extend this God to interfere with other people's freedoms. We can take our twisted rendition of the world and allow it to trespass upon the dreams of the innocent. In the eyes of the impressionable, we can even take their religious truths for granted and make "our" God "their" God who justifies our absolute rule over these people.

Our religion becomes their religion: their vision of God becomes our infallible interpretation of God. The people no longer are attuned to their subjective interpretation of a unwieldy God. God soon transforms into that one supreme human ruler. He becomes something believable, definitive. Soon God is frustratingly intangible: we must view God as this high ruler. We abandon our interpretations of God and abandon our person scruples. Every one is informing us that we must emulate this ruler's depiction of God. We must read the Bible in the same manner that this ruler reads it. In some sense, our religion becomes the worship of that person's idea of God.

   It always strikes me as ironic that all throughout the Bible, there are a myriad number of images of human pride.Many Christians understand these images of pride. But some of them misinterpret pride to mean breaking away from the status-quo.Some Christian leaders have upraised this interpretation because it greatly permits an autocrat to take over effectively. With this, any leader can easily persuade a whole mass of people to follow these false interpretations by fiddling with these Biblical images. They become God within the eyes of the deluded. Their interpretations of Biblical scripture are mumbled in rhythm with the leader's dictation of them. When these followers read their own Bible, the main fixture within their minds is the ideas of this leader. Our minds are hijacked our emotive truths because we are informed that emotions dissuade us from easily accessing the methods of perfecting emulating this human figure of God.

In our modern world, this false reading of the Bible has essentially led people to remaining encamped in their egos. We're all soon sharing the apple that the leader passes around. In order to receive some sense of transcendence, we indulge in the leader's idea of God and pattern ourselves after him. Groups that do not conform to these interpretations are seen as threatening. The leader thus tactfully uses scripture to pick out certain troublesome verses and uses those to villify certain key minority groups.

Historically, the mistreatment of Jews, Africans, Arabs, and other groups was promoted by fallacious interpretations of scripture. It was far easier then for Christian leaders to have dominion over their people: a high majority of the population were illiterate. Therefore, it was easy for those people to mime their leaders and follow their commandments with ease. In reality, these groups were mistreated because they were economic threats. The Christians leaders feared that these groups might compete for a share of wealth or power. Therefore, these leaders felt they had to deftly create some full-proof myths surrounding these groups. They had to be incriminated of some terrible sin. Every single member of this group has to be painted with these terrible sins. Casting certain groups as being homogeneously evil allows for a greater ability to kill people without recognition of their humanity. People had to be dehumanized in order to allow for war to be doled out with effectiveness.

  Why is this underlying elitism still existent within nearly all religions or human institutions? Strangely, this credible method is even utilized by some atheists. Within the atheist groups, there are certain key representatives who skillfully weave bundles of misinformation that allow for a large number of people to effectively hate and denounce religion. I've read the books of some of these atheists and have always been disheartened by their mistreatment of history. When religion is represented, every example becomes the most odious of examples. Every single religious person is demeaned. They are portrayed as being delusional or being plagued by mental retardation.

Using mental retardation as an insulting comment has been commonplace in human speech. Atheists sometimes believe themselves to be intellectually enlightened by science. Yet, some of them misuse the wonders of science that reflect a wondrously diverse world and use it to scoff at people who have authentic searches for something transcendent. Science is truly something beautiful when it enhances the mystery of the world. Yet, often it loses its theoretical side and becomes regurgitated, indisputable facts used to berate religious believers.  Some of these atheists also  use their supposed "High IQ's" to create the visage of being indomitable. Because, they have a certain IQ number, their theories are no longer unbalanced theories. They are inerrant scientific truths that cannot be disputed with. People with lower IQ's cannot question it. Individuals with the lowest IQ's or those who have the insulting condition of "mental retardation," are severely disillusioned by religious belief or artful imagination to understand science.

Strangely, these same people chastise Christians for being condescending. Yet, when someone wields their high IQ as proof of their supremacy, they are identically speaking in a very condescending manner. Weirdly, the wonderful world of art has been met with ire from many religious figures. But, some atheists have also undermined the genius of art by discrediting it as the product of mental instability. To a greater extent, the world of art is threatened not only by fundamentalist religions but also by some atheists.

Supposedly, certain regions of our brain are where emotion is produced. Within, the artist's brain, there is a surplus of these emotive thoughts. They are extremely disorienting to the artists and in order to make sense of them: artists unconsciously allow for some of their logical thoughts to help in creating some semblance of order. This semblance of order and structure amongst the chaos of art is never something definite. By result, the artist's manifestation of their idea of the ordering of these thoughts appears indecisive. Science demands order therefore anything without order is seen as a product of delusion. Only delusion perceives disorder  within a world.


Delusion and chaos are commonly enemies to the egotistical figures within religious groups or scientific groups. Therefore, art can only be accepted if it aligns itself with the various forms of order within these groups. Perhaps, if art debunks any notion of God, it would be acceptable to atheists. In either case, it is acceptable by religious figures or atheistic ones when the order does not lend to ambiguity. If art portrays God as possibly not existing or completely beyond the grasp of our five senses, then this art is deplored by many religious figures.

Overall, we dwell within a world that feels threatened by liberated thinkers. The world that basks in the illusion of structure and limits feels that the liberal thinkers will fracture that illusion. This strain of hatred towards the artful, inquisitive individuals seems to worsen today. Predictably, there are still many people who believe that the forces of music, art, and literature are antiquated. They oppose progress within a world that strives towards order. Art completely deconstructs this order and shows that we cannot reach this proposed apex of structure with mortal limitations.

Commonly, music becomes steadier and more bombastic as it tries to reach the defined end of the song. At the end of the song, it ends pathetically and stumbles occasionally. Because, human reasoning cannot lengthen the song further to form a continuation past the end of our lifetime. The end within art is  something truly inestimable. Therefore, music really just spontaneously ends in order to allow for people not to be bored by the unfathomable region that exists beyond the end of the song. Though, the song might realistically end. The song is continued hypothetically through the imagination of the listeners.


Within this scheme of music, there lies the truth of our mortal limitations. Even within mythology, we are shown the error of having grandiose ideals that we believe are conclusive. In this accelerate age, some people really do believe that their separate orchestrations of the universe purpose is definite. Or, we believe that in the future, we will eventually have firm understanding of the mechanics of our world. Religious individuals depict this as being swept away from the world before the time of the apocalypse. During this period, we will be informed of the world's purpose. Therefore, we should embrace the pining we have for the imagined infinity of music. Beyond the end of a musical score, our imagined continuation of that score is the world of the metaphysical. The first bridge of that music initially allowed us to enter state where everything is ephemeral. 
Weirdly, some religious believers seem to made the idea of infinity superficial to the extent where we've already mapped out the mechanics of God through a literalistic reading of something that describes something intangible.

Some scientists believe that we will find that the only real aspect of our world is the material. Our minds are wholly material and they only imagine the immaterial to offer us consolation for a world that really is one large accident. Essentially, science will ultimately reach some point where all our questions about our existence can be answered. Basically, we all are productions of a spastic universe that remains the only unquestioned element of the world.

Every piece of the universe will be interrogated for truth but the universe just remains the inexplicable universe. Religious belief or whimsical art just consoles us and assuages our terror about a universe that seems as maddened as the way science believes art to be.  From the atheist perspective, we are no longer accepting death to embrace the enigma of it. We are embracing the actuality that nothing lies beyond it: Art and religions are cowardice ways of shying away from this truth.

In order to be proficient scientists or members of a modern world, we supposedly should not cleave to art as a method of trying to understand it. We must unanimously agree that we are to move through our miraculous, improbable existence apathetically. With our destined roles, we are to tritely live life to the fullest then die and become a part of the expanding fossils of a universe that happens to exist without cause. But everything else from the universe exists as a part of causation.

Will we reach a point where we acknowledge that we characterize the universe as God? Does this not show that atheists might still pine after mystery? Could the universe be more than just some gaping hole which should not be questioned? Many atheists inform people to find out how everything works within the planetary products but we should accept that the universe is beyond us. The universe becomes that same enigma that God is. It is bestowed with those same unquestionable aspects which cannot be rationalized. In the end, maybe we'll see that the notion of God cannot entirely be abandoned. As long as the element of mystery overwhelms our sense, we will still rationally be trying to grasp God. Even if we have become atheists that have futilely tried to repress that inclination to behold the universe as something that truly defies human rationale.  With all our scriptures, religious sects, philosophical extrapolations, or scientific reasoning, the idea of God remains indestructible and  stretched out beyond our earthly senses.