pleasureforHim
Posts: 171
Joined: 7/2/2005
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Well, as long as Lam's happy...ROFLMAO.
Good grief. Once again..i ask the question..do You guys always sit around thinking of ways to annoy one another by announcing/trashing one another's beliefs?
Seems to me it sorta goes like this: the atheist, for whom what you see is what you get.
The religious zealot, for whom there is no satisfaction in his own beliefs, only in the conquest of another person's belief system.
The believer, for whom a measure of peace and tranquility has been achieved, and for whom a system of morality is drawn from sources beyond his own life experience.
i still wanted to know the orthodox jewish answer, which nobody gave, so here it is:
In Judaism, there is reward and punishment--but, as mentioned above, generally beyond our understanding of how it works. Sometime, it may be obvious, but sometimes not. And in Judaism, there are two planes of existence: the physical, and the spiritual. The physical existence is this universe. And the spiritual existence is called the World to Come. The World to Come is where you are before you're born, and where you go after you die. If you're good or evil, G-d may reward or punish you here, or He may reward or punish you there--in the World to Come. What is the World to Come? Indescribable. Beyond time. Beyond place. Beyond dimension. Dispose of Heaven and Hell and planets and science fiction--they are false. The World to Come is not physical or dimensional at all. Images of angels, clouds, and 70 virgins for every martyr are complete nonsense--the World to Come is just totally beyond our imagination. And neither is it borrowed from another religion. The prophets refrained from descriptions because words couldn't possibly paint the full picture. But it's a place, if it can be called that at all, a form of existence, where you're washed in a "cosmic washing machine" before you may absorb good incomparably beyond the greatest pleasures of physical existence. The washing erases all traces of physical existence and restores you to your pristine, pre-birth state of spiritual existence. Once restored, you reconnect with G-d at the level of spirituality attained during physical existence. The washing is your "punishment," and the reconnecting is your "reward." Both are good--no "Hell" here! However great the World to Come may be, it should not be one's goal. Maimonides describes this as serving G-d out of fear of consequences or anticipation of benefits, thus ultimately, self-concern. Rather, the great sage elaborates, one's relationship with G-d should be built on love--and love is giving, not getting, selflessness, not selfishness.
http://www.askmoses.com/qa_detail.html?h=239&o=214&pg=2
This makes the most sense to me. Catholics have an very stylisized view of Heaven, with different levels of angels and St. Peter at the Gate, etc., etc., and are somewhat encouraged to do good so as to attain a place in Heaven..and likewise to avoid a place in Hell, which seems to have been best described in Dante's Inferno. The false note here is the self-centeredness of it all. Rather than to reach out to an abused child for the sake of the child, one does it as an on-going effort to maintain one's "assets and liabilities" in good form. (Then throw in the Act of Confession and Absolution for even greater confusion.)
From what i gather, Jews are not motivated by a desire to see themselves at a closer place to God in the after-life, but rather because to do good is IT"S OWN REWARD. i seriously question the mental health of anyone who has reached age 14 and cannot grasp the inherent charm of the Ten Commandments. Healthly human beings are self-aware and are supposed to develop empathy and a conscience. We may differ in gray areas, such as pre-marital sex, but we should be capable of agreeing in rather broad ones, such as child murder.
pleasureforHim
< Message edited by pleasureforHim -- 7/15/2005 7:16:08 PM >
_____________________________
Bonitas non est pessimis esse meliorem
It is not goodness to be better than the worst.
Seneca the Younger (L. Annaeus Seneca)
"Est-ce difficile trouver une cravate plus odieuse que vous?"
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RE: "Acts of God" Riddle - 
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