From: gpalo@digi.lonestar.org (Gerry Palo)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Separation of Church and State, A Myth
Date: 13 Nov 92 18:21:52 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: DSC Communications Corp, Plano, TX

In article <kmr4.183.721609701@po.CWRU.edu> kmr4@po.CWRU.edu (Keith M. Ryan) writes:
>In article <nyikos.721601879@milo.math.scarolina.edu> nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:
>
>>> 	How much would it cost to get your soul out of hell, if you raped 
>>>the Pope?
>>
>>It doesn't take a Catholic to give the answer: Nothing, if you repent.
>
>
>	So, I can rape all the women and young girls I want- I can kill as 
>many people as I want, as brutally as I want to- I can steal all that I want,
>And, I only have to honestly repent before I die to go to heaven- and yet, 
>if I was a honorable native american, who's culture never even heard of 
>Jesus, I would go to hell?
>
>	So, when can I sign up and start the killing and raping?
>
>( Hey, I think I understand why so many Christians kill! )

In the life between death and a new birth you will see your
deeds in a different light.  Having received the forgiveness
of Christ, your debt to the world for doing them is forgiven,
but there will remain the ghastly imperfection that your
violence has impressed upon your soul.  This you will strive
to correct by creating, with divine help, the conditions
in your next incarnation under which you can correct these
imperfections.  You will also have to face those whom you
did wrong, and the interchange between you and them will be
difficult, unless out of insight the new encounter can lead
to an act of forgiveness.  Then, with the aid of Christ you
will be able to transform what may have been an act of retri-
bution into an act of transforming love.  A lot would depend
on whether your victim forgave you.  However, if you have
received the forgiveness and salvation of Christ, it will
help you to accept your destiny as the right adjustment for
what you have done wrong.  That destiny may take the form of
encounters with others, or illness, or other life circumstances
that will help you to put things right.

The process of working out that destiny will begin shortly after
you die, in what in Catholic terminology is called Purgatory.
There you will encounter the deeds that you did to others
from their point of view.  If you hit someone, you will feel
the pain as if you were hit, only much more intensely.  With
these experiences, which are not punishments, you become
aware through intense experience of the objective reality of
what you were.  You will experience this whether you accept
Christ or not.  What he gives you is first not only a chance
for compensation and retribution, but also healing of your
being.  Greater than that, the world debt that you owe but
cannot possibly pay, is taken on his shoulders.  This is grace,
and if you recognize it then, your soul will be filled with
astonished loving gratitude for the greatness of his redeeming
deed on Golgotha.  With this knowledge imbedded in your being,
your next life will take you further on the path of salvation
and wholeness.  You will have seen the meaning of the Lamb of God
who takes away the sin of the world.

If you do not find a connection to Christ in this life, the time
after death will be more difficult. And the next life will be
different too.  But he will still seek you and help you to grow
and do what you need to do to one day be able to receive him,
to grasp who he is and what he has done for you and for the world.
He will not judge you, he only saves you from the judgement that
you, that fallen humanity, has already heaped upon itself.

A time will come, however, when there are no more chances to
return to earth to do what must be done.  This will be due to
the deterioration of the earth itself. At this time, you will
be what you have become and will have to carry that onwards.
This will be the last Judgement.

Gerry (73237.2006@compuserve.com)