Two Latter Day Saints missionaries told me their church’s doctrine teaches that the biblical ‘lake of fire’ meant for the ‘wicked’ actually represents an eternal spiritual burning of guilt over one’s corporeal misdeeds. Bemused, I said: “That’s it? An afterlife guilty conscience?”
During the many years since then, however, I’ve discovered just how formidable ‘burning guilt’ can be. I’ve also considered and decided that our brain's structural/chemical flaws are what we basically are while our soul is confined within our physical, bodily form. The human soul may be inherently good, on its own; but trapped within the physical body, notably the corruptible brain, oftentimes the soul’s purity may not be able to shine through.
To be clear, the more dysfunctional or physiologically flawed the brain that the soul happens to be born thus confined with (call it the luck of the draw), the worse the corporeal behavior. Once again, the soul's purity remains the same. The soul is the same before and after the corporeal existence; its purity would not diminish, regardless of what the brain has us do.
Therefore, upon the physical death of a ‘wicked’ person (Hitler being a good example), not only would he be 100 percent liberated from the monstrous thoughts and emotions that blighted his physical life and essentially resulted in his atrocious actions — his soul or post-death consciousness would also exist with an unwanted awareness of the immense amount of needless suffering he had deliberately caused. He may then be left wondering, ‘Why was I so angry, so much of the time? Oh, the horrible things I did!'
Then again, maybe the human soul goes where it belongs or where it feels comfortable and right — be it ‘hell’, ‘heaven’, somewhere in between. This concept was suggested in a very interesting 1987 radio-broadcast sermon titled “A Bird’s Eye View of Hell”, given by a renowned preacher. I wrote a piece of fiction titled Not What It Was Supposed to Be [originally called That Other Place] that's largely themed on this premise.
Two Latter Day Saints missionaries told me their church’s doctrine teaches that the biblical ‘lake of fire’ meant for the ‘wicked’ actually represents an eternal spiritual burning of guilt over one’s corporeal misdeeds. Bemused, I said: “That’s it? An afterlife guilty conscience?”
During the many years since then, however, I’ve discovered just how formidable ‘burning guilt’ can be. I’ve also considered and decided that our brain's structural/chemical flaws are what we basically are while our soul is confined within our physical, bodily form. The human soul may be inherently good, on its own; but trapped within the physical body, notably the corruptible brain, oftentimes the soul’s purity may not be able to shine through.
To be clear, the more dysfunctional or physiologically flawed the brain that the soul happens to be born thus confined with (call it the luck of the draw), the worse the corporeal behavior. Once again, the soul's purity remains the same. The soul is the same before and after the corporeal existence; its purity would not diminish, regardless of what the brain has us do.
Therefore, upon the physical death of a ‘wicked’ person (Hitler being a good example), not only would he be 100 percent liberated from the monstrous thoughts and emotions that blighted his physical life and essentially resulted in his atrocious actions — his soul or post-death consciousness would also exist with an unwanted awareness of the immense amount of needless suffering he had deliberately caused. He may then be left wondering, ‘Why was I so angry, so much of the time? Oh, the horrible things I did!'
Then again, maybe the human soul goes where it belongs or where it feels comfortable and right — be it ‘hell’, ‘heaven’, somewhere in between. This concept was suggested in a very interesting 1987 radio-broadcast sermon titled “A Bird’s Eye View of Hell”, given by a renowned preacher. I wrote a piece of fiction titled Not What It Was Supposed to Be [originally called That Other Place] that's largely themed on this premise.
Interesting things for me to ponder!