Talk about mental calisthenics! How far do some feel they have to go to excuse stupidity and evil?
Did Hitler escape hell because he loved(?) his dog-never mind all the people he exterminated?
As if our opinions matter. We can opine on what people do when alive-afterward, it’s God’s business.
And now they shed the tears of a clown.
A culture that worships and idealizes celebrities is decadent and in decline.
NO
I have no desire to spit on the man’s corpse. Where he ended up is between him and God.
ARE YOU ENTERTAINED???!!!!!
“Our present dark ages, seem to want anything that is the opposite of God.”
Fr Cyprian, Superior, Our Lady of Guadalupe Monastery
Although I agree with the writer that we no longer as a society discuss hell and damnation.. however, as a Christian.. I will not decide/point to and say that their soul should be in hell. That is between each and every individual soul and God. No one else. He is the judge.. not me. Only God knows truly what in in our hearts.
When God died, Hell took on new staff.
Let’s not forget there are mega-corporations that promote them. It’s crass commercialism at its finest/worst.
Old Russian folk tale which I also remember being the stone soup story although I may be getting them confused. Bitter old woman in a poor village, never did a decent thing in her life, recluse, miser. During a time of famine, a man goes out in the square in the dark and the cold and starts boiling water with a stone in it. Pretty soon people creep out of their huts (think the village in Babette’s Feast). They put maybe a mutton bone, or an old dried up potato or a pinch of salt. Finally the old woman comes out and begrudgingly throws an old dried up onion in there. The village had a big pot of soup to share. A few days later the old woman dies (not from eating the soup we hope) and as her soul is rocketing down to hell, she sees the stem of that onion and she grabs on to it and wow, gets up to heaven. Understand, even purgatory is heaven in a way because there is still a way to heaven. This is an old folk tale but I profoundly believe in hell but I also believe in God’s mercy. The Church can definitely say whether someone is a saint. She cannot definitely say whether someone went to hell. OK, maybe back in the old days a person wouldn’t be buried in hallowed ground if he/she committed suicide (read Hamlet) but it was not an official pronouncement of hell.
Also I’m an 8 year veteran of Al-Anon and I will tell you that it’s certainly not my job to judge this man. Thank God and I totally mean that respectfully.
I have not one iota of a clue who this dude is who cared more about getting off than about his family and no, he doesn’t get a pass for entertaining us
I think everyone who says, ‘You’re going to Hell!’ is going to get a little taste of it themselves.
This is a keeper.
Of course this is the ultimate destination of liberal Protestantism.
As theologian Richard Niebuhr put it when speaking about the church in America, “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.”
IOW, if hell makes the pew sitters uncomfortable, just don't mention it anymore.
Interesting question.
I suppose it is theoretically possible to be a drug user and also in the state of grace at the moment of death.
...as an aside I’d point out that after WWII there were many rapidly discharged GI’s who were addicted to morphine as a result of wounds received.
After the war jobs were plentiful, addicts could work, keep a low profile, pay taxes, and support their drug habit...until caught by the authorities.
Not that I am in any way supporting drug use.
Divinely inspired scripture has warned us against the danger of wine{=recreational drugs} but to my knowledge does not proscribe its use. I suppose the ‘everything thing in moderation’ rule might apply.
If we’re made in Gods image then our bodies are in a way, a temple, so abusing our bodies to the point of death is NOT good. But that can be applied over to many things.
Hell is an absolute reality but would the practicing Christian who is front loaded with grace, works and current in the partaking of all the available sacraments go to hell for some recreational drug use? NO!
We’re all sinners to some degree that’s why Jesus suffered and died.
E! News not discussing the whereabouts of dead celebrities eternal souls seems to be an odd thing to be concerned about.