She lived a life of love and service unto others

[Zzyzx]

She lived a life of love and service unto others.

Aunt Rose never said an unkind word to or about anyone. She dedicated her life to helping others. Her own needs and desires were always secondary to making life a little bit better for those in need. She worked for modest wage in a charity hospital serving poor people, and did other charity work in her spare time. She lived frugally and gave generously when she knew it was needed. She helped those who were genuinely in need – not those looking for a handout – and she knew the difference.

She made it clear that her actions came from her own mind, by her own decisions – and not from any religious beliefs. She left no doubt that she had no use or time for religion. When religious people tried to “save” her, she told them to go practice what they preach and when they had done that as long as she had, come back and talk again. I never heard about anyone returning to “witness” to her.

Aunt Rose lived into her nineties, helping and caring and loving others as best she could right up to the end. She had no fear of death or the “damnation” that is commonly threatened as a “fate” of non-believers. She died in peace, loved and respected by many.

A Christian who had known her said that it was a real shame that such a good person had refused to “accept Christ as her savior” so her soul could go to heaven. I asked where that person thought her soul had gone and he said “She cannot have gone to heaven because she rejected Jesus Christ”. He would not say directly that she had gone to hell, but he did not identify an alternative between the two for special cases like hers. He left the question (and her soul’s location) hanging.

That made quite an impression on me – a very negative impression of that person’s version of Christianity. A person who had lived more wholesomely and graciously and lovingly than anyone I had ever known (religious or not) could not “go to heaven” because she didn’t meet the criteria??????

I have asked many religious people since what they believe about a case like Aunt Rose’s. I have gotten a lot of different answers from Christians of various denominations – and from Christians within the same denomination. I heard an even greater variety of answers from those who practice Non-Christian religions or other types of spiritualism.

What is your answer to where the soul of Aunt Rose resides? Why do you think so?

[Cathar1950]

There were codes and Laws at least 2000 years before the myth of Moses. All that does is help my point that there may be moral laws that are absolute.
We don't know what the laws of God are and any claim is dubious. Opinion stated as fact
It is humans that must make the choices and the laws.Opinion stated as fact. Did we make the laws that govern the Universe?
Moral or legal laws are not like natural laws or laws of science.Opinion stated as fact
Any claim to knowledge of God's laws are ethnocentric at best. Let's see you support that claim. It might be fun
They are a product of our cultures.

Opinion stated as fact

You were stating that God's laws irrevocable and immutable as fact.
That was my objection. You even compared it to the laws of gravity.
Let's see you support your claim.
Show me God's laws outside our culture and experiences.

I already did! Murder, theft, cruelty are all things most societies outlaw in one form or another. We can all see harmful effects of breaking these laws. The pain resulting from these actions is seen everyday all around the world.

If you noticed you did say societies out law.
We have those laws because they hurt others. But there is no need to make them God's laws. They are human and with human limitations and subject to human values. Personally I don't see why any god would want it different. There are some groups that don't know any laws and live fine with taboos that work for them.
There is not one of the laws you mention that do not seem odd to us given self interest and sympathy. In our distance past human made human sacrifices sometimes even the king or a substitute. Today we find that repugnate yet we send our children off to war and sacrifice their lives for our way of life.
We don't steal from each other but if the state wants to steal such as the Native Americans or land needed for public purposes it is done.
But saying they are God's laws is an opinion or belief and holding out for proof in the afterlife is not much of a deterrent or rational.
In some cultures they don't marry and have sex as they choose, it is not against god's laws. It is their culture.
I ask you to show me something outside out culture and you respond my agreeing by example.

[Metatron]

What difference does it make if it's callous or not.

So your saying that even if God is a psychopathic, blood thirsty tyrant, it is in your best interest to appease him so you don't get nuked. Quite practical, I must admit.

Gravity doesn't play favorites either. You jump off a building and you go splat. That's why reasonable people get a little nervous when they get too close to the edge. This is a fundamental problem with trying to think of God in human terms. God's law is irrevocable and as immutable as gravity. If you fail to recognize or obey His laws then bad things happen. Not because he wants to hurt you that's just the way it is. Asking it to be other wise is similar to asking God to make a four sided triangle, or a rock so big He can't lift it. You may not like it, but that's not going to change the results.

God's law is irrevocable and as immutable as gravity? Does God not have free will? He's just a force of nature instead of a thinking, moral being? He doesn't want to hurt us but he just can't help himself?