How the "dead" are judged

[Scepcop]

http://metgat.gaia.com/blog/2009/8/how- ... are-judged

If my evangelical and fundamentalist friends are right, I face a pretty harsh judgment after I die. My interest in the "demonic" things discussed in this blog as well as my failure to accept the "faith" and atonement doctrines means I am headed straight into the fire and brimstone.

Here's how it should go, if they are correct. I will stand before God for my judgment. St. Peter will hand Him a scroll that covers my life history. God will review it and say:

"Ah, Michael, my boy, I see here you had some problems with pride, lust, envy, greed, sloth, wrath, and gluttony along your journey, but you seem to have overcome them quite well, except perhaps for the last one. You could have presented yourself at least 20 pounds lighter. Overall, though, it appears that you led a reasonably disciplined and decent life, selfish at times, but giving more than taking. I commend you for your efforts in confronting the challenges I put before you."

"Thanks, God. I know I could have done better, but I hope it was good enough to let me through those pearly gates."

"I'm sorry, son, I can't let you in."

"Oh, My God, why is that? Are You saying the Bible thumpers were right?"

"Exactly."

"But I accepted most of the Bible in a symbolic way. And Jesus has always been my role model, and I considered him the greatest prophet who ever lived and thought of him pretty much as chairman of the board in Your kingdom. I simply refused to believe that he was on a power trip like some dictator or ancient king, wanting us to sing Hosanna 24/7. Don't I get any points for shouldering the burden rather than placing it all on him?"

"Sorry to say that you don't. You should have listened to your ‘born again'

friends.

"Do you mean to say, God, that I could have really pigged out and presented myself at a perfect weight or 100 pounds overweight, instead of just 20, and it would not have made any difference?"

"What can I say? Yes."

"God, I gather I am going to have a lot of time to think about my mistakes, but just so I better understand, are you saying that I could have murdered, raped, pillaged, and done all kinds of nasty things but would have been allowed entry to Your kingdom if I had repented and been ‘born again' just before I died?"

"You've got it right there, son."

"And I could have been perfect in loving and serving my fellow man, but still not allowed entry simply because I didn't worship properly? That doesn't seem fair."

"Who are you to question my fairness, you disrespectful, arrogant, self-righteous, good-for-nothing, wicked, gluttonous devil worshipper? I've got a few million more people here to judge today. Move on! Begone!"

Gavel slams down and I am cast into hell to spend eternity as my ‘born again' friends look on and lament that I did not listen to them.


Within Christianity, there are varying views relative to when the judgment takes place. With some, it is immediately after dying, the soul moving on to heaven's staging area until a greater judgment at the time of the rapture, at which time there is admission to an even more glorious environment. With other denominations, there is no judgment of any kind until the moldering body is restored and raised from the dead with all others on that final day. In the mean time, we sleep in the grave. If your body has been been cremated, or vaporized in an atomic blast, tough luck.

Simon Tugwell, a Dominican priest and Oxford theologian, explains that Justin Martyr, an early Christian apologist and saint, taught that at death people go to "nice or nasty waiting-rooms, depending on their moral qualities," and there they await Judgment Day.

Referring to this double judgment - a particular judgment following death and a more universal one at end of time, Tugwell points out that church authorities are faced with a fundamental ambiguity in that it is not clear what is left to be judged at the time of the resurrection. Popes and scholars wrestled with the ambiguity and a popular compromise was that the soul is judged right after death and can experience heaven with only limited bliss. It is only when the soul and the resurrected body are combined at the final judgment that full bliss - an intensity of beatitude - can be realized. We can then see God in full light.

Tugwell suggests that the "embarrassment" of the time-lag between death and resurrection may be a time lag only as viewed by humans, who are unable to comprehend the timelessness of the afterlife. He seems to conclude that we do not know what happens to the dead immediately after death and until the resurrection, but "they are in God, so all is well."

According to Michael J. Taylor, S.J., professor emeritus of religious studies at Seattle University in Washington, a new theology of death has emerged. Instead of God passing judgment on how we lived as the person stands passively before Him, the dying person is allowed to make a final choice for or against God. "In this ‘moment' all the dying will have full consciousness and complete freedom," Taylor explains. "Their powers of decision-making will be totally clear and will be made with full awareness of all their important life choices up to that point. What may have been vague and uncertain choices in life will now be firmly made: the best of former options will be ratified in a final way."

In effect, the person chooses an eternity with or without God. Apparently, the person does not see the latter state as the horrific hell of orthodoxy, but rather as one of self-love. His decision is based upon what he has learned during his lifetime. If he does not opt for an eternity with God, then he probably is in for a rude awakening.

Modern revelation, coming to us primarily through mediumship and near-death experiences, offers us a much more sensible, rational, and fair judgment, if it can be called a "judgment," one consistent with a loving and just God. Many near-death experiencers have reported a "life review" in which they see definitive moments in their life flash before them during the experience. P. M. H. Atwater, whose NDE took place during 1977, reported that she saw every thought she had ever had, every word she had ever spoken, and every deed she had ever done during her life review. Moreover, she saw the effects of every thought, word, and deed on everyone who might have been affected by them. As she interpreted it, she was judging herself.

Tom Sawyer, who had an NDE in 1978 when his car fell on him while he was working under it, recalled reliving every thought and attitude connected with decisive moments in his life and seeing them through the eyes of those who were affected by his actions. He particularly recalled an incident that took place when he was driving his hot-rod pickup at age 19 and nearly hit a jaywalking pedestrian, who darted in front of him from behind another vehicle. When Sawyer engaged in a verbal exchange with the pedestrian, the man yelled some four-letter words at him, reached through the window, and hit him with his open hand. Sawyer responded by jumping out of his car and beating the man relentlessly. During his life review, Sawyer came to know everything about the man, including his age, the fact that his wife had recently died, and that he was in a drunken state because of his bereavement.

Sawyer came to see the attack from his victim's standpoint. "[I experienced] seeing Tom Sawyer's fist come directly into my face," he recalled. "And I felt the indignation, the rage, the embarrassment, the frustration, the physical pain...I felt my teeth going through my lower lip - in other words, I was in that man's eyes. I was in that man's body. I experienced everything of that inter-relationship between Tom Sawyer and that man that day. I experienced unbelievable things about that man that are of a very personal, confidential, and private nature."

Although he does not refer to it as a life review, Carl Gustav Jung, the eminent Swiss psychiatrist, writes of something very similar in describing a near-death experience he had in 1944 after breaking his foot and then having a heart attack. "It was as if I now carried along with me everything I had ever experienced or done, everything that had happened around me. I might also say: it was with me, and I was it. I consisted of all that, so to speak. I consisted of my own history, and I felt with great certainty: this is what I am. ‘I am this bundle of what has been, and what has been accomplished.'"

Jung went on to say that he had the certainty that he was about to enter an illuminated room and then understand the historical nexus of his life and what would come after. However, his vision ceased before he had such an experience.

After his death, pioneering psychical researcher Frederic W. H. Myers communicated extensively through the mediumship of Geraldine Cummins of Ireland. Myers referred to the period immediately after death as Hades and "The Play of the Shadow Show." He said that this period varies considerably from individual to individual, but generally after the soul is greeted by deceased loved ones it experiences a semi-suspended consciousness and sees fragmentary happenings the life just lived. "He watches this changing show as a man drowsily watches a shimmering sunny landscape on a midsummer day," Myers explained. "He is detached and apart, judging the individual who participates in these experiences, judging his own self with aid of the Light from Above.

Myers further explained that while this is taking place, the etheric body is loosening itself from the "husk" and when the judgment is completed, generally after three to four days, the soul takes flight, passes into the world of illusion, and resumes full consciousness.

he Rev. William Stainton Moses, an Anglican priest, developed into a medium and put many questions to an apparently advanced spirit called Imperator. One of the questions he asked was whether there is a general judgment. "No," was the response. "The judgment is complete when the spirit gravitates to the home which it has made for itself. There can be no error. It is placed by the eternal law of fitness. That judgment is complete, until the spirit is fitted to pass to a higher sphere, when the same process is repeated, and so on and on until the purgatorial spheres of work are done with, and the soul passes within the inner heaven of contemplation."

Imperator explained to Moses that the soul is the arbiter of its own destiny and that the "sentence" it imposes upon itself is based on the character it has built up by its earthly acts.

In 1853, Dr. Robert Hare, an emeritus professor of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania medical school, commenced an investigation of mediums with the intent of debunking them.. However, he was soon converted to Spiritualism and received many messages from the spirit world explaining how things operated on that side. As he came to see it, one's immediate place in the afterlife "is determined by a sort of moral specific gravity, in which merit is inversely as weight."

This moral specific gravity is apparently built up during a person's lifetime based on his or her good or works or lack thereof and manifests itself in the person's energy field, or aura. Hare called it a circumambient halo and was told that it passes from darkness to effulgence based on the degree of spirit advancement. Moreover, one cannot be dishonest with himself as the moral specific gravity allows him to tolerate only so much light. If he were to try to cheat and go to a higher sphere, he would not be able to tolerate the light there.

Seemingly consistent with this moral specific gravity idea is the explanation given to Frederick C. Schulthorp during his early 20th Century astral projections. Schulthorp was told that every thought generates an electrical impulse that is impressed upon the individual's energy field and is stored there. Every thought, he was informed by communicating spirits, has a specific rate of vibration. The combined vibrations over a lifetime determine the person's initial station in the afterlife environment. "Upon entry into spirit life, a person will naturally and automatically gravitate to his state in spirit which corresponds to his acts and thoughts throughout life as reproduced by his ‘personal tape record,'" Schulthorp explained his understanding at a time before computers made this comprehensible to the average person.

A moral specific gravity is an idea that appeals to reason and one that can be reconciled with a just and loving God. It is a plan of attainment and attunement, of gradual spiritual growth, of reaping what we sow.

[brett]

LOL - on the basis of your first part we ALL screwed then - great post

[NinjaPuppy]

Don't worry about it. I'll save you both a good seat.

[brett]

um did you hear about the believer who found himself outside the pearly gates ?? - no , well he was met by god himself , who said would you like something to eat after your journey ??, so the believer thanking god said yes , so god holds out a tin of tuna , well the believer looking down at hell says to god , look at all those skeptics down there , eating big stakes , lobsters , and having a feast , and you offer me tuna in a tin ???????????

well says god it makes cooking easier when there are only the 2 of us ...........................

fortunately i happen to like tuna