oh, the mystery...

listening to: Ivan - The Father and the Sun

first, thank you AJ for this:
" For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."
-Colossians 1:9-14

since i copy/pasted that verse, i just spent like an hour doing a bunch of other stuff and i forgot about what i originally intended to write about. al i can think of is the metal version of the inspector gadget theme. so good!

ok, back on track.

recently, i interjected myself into a conversation on a blog that talks about Christianity and God and that good stuff. i asked a question about the nature of hell. after asking it and getting a response, i realized i don't really know where my own views on it came from. very interestingly enough, i read something fascinating that was a result of a link an anonymous poster provided to try make a point about God forcing people into a place of infinite pain and torture.
the original site i ended up at was http://what-the-hell-is-hell.com/. that then lead to http://www.tentmaker.org/articles/jesusteachingonhell.html

the second link is a long read. i'm not finished with it yet. but it posits that the common notion of hell is incorrect compared with what the Bible talks of. it claims that the hell as we tend to know it today was a concept put forth by the Roman Catholic church. it makes a case for most of the "proof" of hell's features/characteristics/nature come from a translation of the word "hell" that wasn't used the right way. i wish I knew where i first heard the word/term Gehenna used. it might have been in Velvet Elvis, but I'll have to go look. the idea i have of hell goes hand in hand with the idea i have of heaven. i think i'm taking my view mainly from what Velvet Elvis put forth about heaven. Heaven is not necessarily a place we will all be whisked away to once we die. Heaven is God coming to redeem the Earth, to be with those who choose and love Him. the story has always been God coming to His people. In Eden, God came and walked in the garden, calling for Adam and Eve. God had his people build a temple, the tabernacle, as a place for Him to live among them. God sent Jesus down to earth. Heaven is a place where things are how God intends them to be. Hell is opposite of that. It's a place devoid of joy and hope and peace. A place ruled my men, in their worst of fallen states. Or more yet, ruled by Satan and the angels that follow him. There would be torture, yes, there would be pain and suffering in a place like that. The image i get in my head is of an apocalyptic, war-torn, desolate place. scattered fires still burn, the sky is stained red. perhaps that's an image i have as a result of movies, but it's what i think of.

wether or not the view of hell's nature is correct as put forth in that website, it's still something that i'm finding incredibly fascinating to consider.

on a much less theological note. i bought groceries today and i couldn't be happier about that.
i ate delicious sandwhiches. i called my dad. i had class today. i need to buy books. i need to learn a song for church. i need to read. oh yes, i want to read.

farewell chillins.