Are You Living Like You Want To Go To Hell?

something i read recently, a religious kind of thing has really lodged itself in my consciousness. just part actually. it went something like, "you talk about what a good christian you are while living like you want to go to hell. the exact quote isn't far off, but what I have is close.

it's not from scripture or something from some deciphered clay tablet. it sounds like it was said by someone who's maybe religious themselves, a regular churchgoer and active contributor to the community getting the big judgy. giving a little bit of salt. not a church lady, but someone who can joke about it. maybe a person in recovery whose addiction brought them to rock bottom. who's seen some things and reversed course and now has some perspective.

that's sort of secondary to what's caught my attention. i keep thinking about the part about living like you want to go to hell.

those words have meaning to this non-practicing catholic. in order to go to hell one must subscribe to a belief in it. for those words to be phrased as they were implies the reader will know what types of things one might do to land themselves in hell. that's where it gets religious for me.

the bible gives the reader a lot of instructions on how to live in the time in region of the author or by the author of whom or whatever they were transcribing. that would affect the dietary concerns. food storage before electricity and refrigeration would have dictated how to eat what and when.

i can't help but imagine that out of ignorance and fledgling understanding of science foodborne bacteria and other little tinys could have been misunderstood as evil spirit possession or the result of a curse. maybe.

thinking of egypt and how they made batteries to power light bulbs. they built megalithic structures and statuary. the wonders of the chambers inside the great pyramid are places of healing, the workings of which we are only recently beginning to understand. when i say we i mean modern science.

i did see i got my thinker activated by that quote it's made me take inventory of my life. the way to do it was easy to start with. what commandments have i broken? what golden rules have I not observed? easiest first. i have not murdered or adultered, to the best of my knowledge. i have almost certainly been guilty of committing most of the rest. to tell the truth, i'm not proud of that.

i have disrespected my parents, i have lied and stolen. i'm not sure i ever worshiped god nor anyone else. maybe mom. don't get me wrong, i'm only saying that until I reached adulthood, i don't think i grasped what worship was by the definition from the bible or a dictionary.

that's just as well. maybe other people understood the requirements of the faith early on. maybe they were more docile and accepting that i was.

i'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. i'm not saying i misbehaved, that wasn't until high school. what I understood was that i was being introduced to a lot of contradictory information. hypocrisy too in the church and in the grown-ups around, who almost all had been raised in the same way and conditioned the same. they were the second line of keepers of the flock. they also did some stuff that made me question adults and the church.

i had no horrific abuse of the type that involves troubled priests. my experience was from the bad old days when, at least in catholic schools in california, the instructors were allowed to hit you if they felt like you were out of line. a third line of controllers or degree of control from big church.

here's the thing though. not everything having to do with religion or the church is bad. christianity in any variety in some ways mirrors many other religions. they expouse many of the same kinds of behavioral strictures that help to provide guidelines on how to behave and maintain order, safety and morality of a massive population. civilization.

the fourth line, where we manage ourselves, and our families.

it's probably a great thing to instill a respect for our parents but also for the parents to have respect for the child as well. it makes a certain kind of sense. we're born needing love help and care for years and years, so it's only fair that the offspring return the favor. it's the best bet if you know your life and relationships are good. trusting strangers to elder care can be such a risk. you could end up with a bad egg. stress no one wants or needs safer to keep it in the family when possible. i do get not everyone's living that set up, i'm not.

another one that makes sense to me is, don't cheat on the spouse. if you are the marrying type, don't do it unless you mean it. we all understand the field of partnership is fraught. to take the steps to become married, i don't feel like should be g lightly. i have witnessed and experienced infidelity and it's full of disappointment and betrayal. there's a callowness, especially in youth, that makes us lose sight of the fact that using people to satisfy yourself and allow mates to build feelings you don't share are not to be like disposable cups. one use, then uncaringly tossed without concern for any aftermath that occurs. better to not lead people on. that's how I feel about it. it is on the involved parties to make good choices.

here's another one. theft. don't do it. it may be initially good, but the act will have aftermath and consequences. get your own stuff. legitimately, if you please.

it becomes more sticky the more doctrine i run into though. i have been seriously considering it, not because i fear of going to hell, but because some of it makes actual sense. as long as the other stuff keeps its distance.

it really has been on my mind, like a cockle burr stuck in my sock, I can't stop thinking about it until i resolve the situation and remove it, i guess.

the growing up in the catholic community and learning about hellfire and where sin gets you, i mean, just based on imagery alone and the imagination of mine, that shit sticks to you. it's kind of hard to dislodge. haaa, imagery.

i said many times i don't believe in the concept of hell as catholicism describes it necessarily. i guess if you really want that you can dream it up and make it pretty real, and you can also live that way. as if life is hell; we have the power to do that for ourselves.

the alternative is to not live that way. which leads me to something a little bit more complicated. something that i consider now part of my own personal doctrine, and i took it on willingly. it's not something I thought of myself, i came upon it, but there it goes, making a certain kind of sense. however, you also have to keep your thoughts on the non evil side.

i suppose you could say. speaking for myself that was a daunting prospect at first. police every thought that I have?wow. that was how i felt about it. first kind of overwhelmed, but after trying to institute it it wasn't actually that hard, and it again, makes a certain kind of sense. if you get ahead of your thoughts that are likely to leave you down a bad road, points. it's an excellent idea to be aware of them, so you can say, oh maybe i shouldn't do that and then heed yourself. i think that's a good way to keep yourself out of so-called hell.

at least the hell of my own personal understanding, because i think we can also build ourselves our own personal health. which means we've got to build our own personal ways the heck out of there.