August 28, 2009

Forgiveness 101- Part Two- How Could A Loving God Allow This?

If you have read the first part of this series, we have reached to a difficult juncture in the process.

For many, the dilemma of human suffering despite an All Knowing, Loving Creator is a serious spiritual obstacle. It was once for me (to the point where I was once agnostic), in my youth. Even if you have resolved the question by believing there is no God, I still ask you to read on. Not because I want to convince you there IS a God (I humbly admit I can’t) but so that you know there is another option to resolve this spiritual roadblock. Your candle won’t burn any less just because I light another but rather our shared space will only get brighter.

There is a third option between Option A. God is a sadistic asshole or apathetic being who wills that people suffer to fulfill his master plan and Option C. There is no God.




One of the many "Lost Boys" of Sudan.



I saw a NBC Dateline documentary on Hell and they interviewed three people who experienced so much hell on earth that they have changed their views about the existence of hell in the afterlife. One was a young Sudanese boy made to watch his sister and mother gang raped and killed before being forced into the militia at eight and subjected to beatings, torture, starvation until running away and becoming one of the many refugees (Called Lost Boys of Sudan), before being later adopted by an American family. The last was a nun who was in Guatemala during the military uprising. She was captured and falsely accused of being a spy; gang raped; burnt all over her body with lit cigarettes.

They now believe that there is no need for any hell in the afterlife because (1) we humans create our own hell right now and (2) despite being subjected to unspeakable tortures, all three have forgiven their tormentors and are at a place of deep inner peace and unconditional love. The nun even returned to Guatemala to help those who suffered like her. They said, if they puny humans are capable of forgiving so much, a Higher Divine Being could do no less to miniscule creatures that cannot actually harm It. Why would it need to hold an everlasting grudge against Its own children and torture them forever in hell? It brought tears to my eyes.



Sister Ortiz, who is a Roman Catholic Ursuline nun, was teaching Mayan children in the Guatemala highlands when she was abducted and gang-raped repeatedly. She also received 111 cigarette burns on her back according to a doctor whom she said examined her afterward. She is now an outspoken voice against torture internationally.


The ability to forgive must first start with a Creator who is capable of forgiving all and/or at least the premise that nothing is unforgivable. When people place limits (and no one can place limits) on an Almighty God’s ability to forgive or the possibilities of an infinite Universe we place limits on our ability as well. Remember the “unforgiveable sin” is also an “inconceivable sin”. Once someone has been given true proof of God by God, there is no way they can deny it.

Achieving the Forgiveness Power Up is actually also a matter of being able to understand WHY God can forgive us, yes even Hitler, so unconditionally and eternally. Does God know something vital to the process that we don’t? Only way to figure it out is to return to the Laws, that “game programming” that governs our existence.


Torment inflicted without purpose or the ability to choose before, during or after the fact is a deliberate contravention of Universal Laws. Thanks to Freewill and Consequence, the same laws that make suffering possible make redemption possible, even after the fact. What PURPOSE does his eternal suffering serve? The answer is none.


We covered the Law of Consequence (Attraction) in Part 1. We also have the ability, to do anything we so choose! Even kill ourselves and others. This is called The Law of Freewill. No supernatural force will come and prevent you from standing in front of a bus if that is what you want to do. However, you will face the consequences…being squashed flat and leaving this existence because of the Law of Consequence (Attraction). Now, if The Grand Architect of these two laws, is truly just and benevolent. some provision must be made so that that Freewill and Consequence are also kept in check and nobody is ever made to suffer needlessly.

What is needless suffering?

It is torment inflicted without purpose or the ability to choose before, during or after the fact. In order for needless, endless torment to exist, there would have to be deliberate contravention of Universal Laws. Let me explain:

Let us imagine if Hitler, thanks to the Law of Consequence has to experience equal reprisal for his actions. Let us say he is made to live out the suffering of every single person his master plan touched. For thousands of years, he is put through every single tragic loss, torture, hunger, fear, rejection, inhumane indignity and what resulted from it. What next? You want more? Why? Other than satisfy the Law of Consequence: Action = Equal Reaction, what PURPOSE does his eternal suffering serve? The answer is none.

The reason so many have such a deep spiritual crisis with God and human suffering because they are taught we only have THIS LIFETIME to exercise our free will, learn, grow and get it right. So when human suffering happens in this split second of a life or unfortunate circumstances that make us waste this small amount of time we have on this earth, it is very hard to excuse those we hold responsible for it, ourselves, others and God.




Eternal torment as a result of no choice is a childish, base and unnatural premise. It is clear it was created from the darkest regions of the human brain in order to threaten others with its inhumane and abnormal premise. What makes it all the more ridiculous is that we are living entities. The very essence of life is to learn, adapt, grow and change. The very same Freewill that allows us to do bad things, allows us to respond to pain and suffering differently if we so choose. We are perfectly free to choose to learn, grow and change from pain or perceived punishment. This in turn because of the Law of Consequence will attract a different and more positive outcome. Therefore, the drug dealer who because of the Law of Consequence ends up in jail does not have to exist in a “punished state” and become more of a monster. He still has a choice! He can choose instead to empower himself with education, leadership and making amends to his community. This in turn, will result in different consequences, positive ones not just for himself but others too. Isn’t the ingenuity of our Grand Architect wonderful! Thanks to the Laws of Freewill and Consequence, the same laws that make suffering possible make redemption possible.

If they puny humans are capable of forgiving so much suffering a Higher Divine Being could do no less to miniscule creatures that cannot actually harm It. Why would it need to hold an everlasting grudge against Its own children and torture them forever in hell?


It is entirely your choice how you react to a situation, even after the fact. You always have total control, despite attracting a bad outcome. It’s true! It is your choice how a situation is perceived and what you will allow the resulting outcome to be. This further reinforces so clearly why nobody is a victim. Even if it means facing up to the final bullet to end your life with acceptance instead of fearful, helpless protests. The beauty of our existence is that we can co-create a bright new reality before, during and after the fact. In that light, it makes the suffering we experience take on a whole other shape and form. But that is just the beginning.

I promise what I am going to tell you next will blow your mind!



Time is not linear. Everything in time is happening as we speak, past, present and future.


Exercising your right to use the Power of Freewill actually re-creates events perhaps not scientifically but certainly in your own time-thread/perception. If you want, we can go all Einstein and look at it from a scientific point of view. In quantum physics time is not linear. There is no actual past, present or future, everything is happening all at the same time, just like the Back To The Future movies. Let me explain with something personal.

Today, when speak about being abused as child, it often feels like I speak of someone else. Why? Through lots of on-going hard work have literally reversed the effects of the abuse I experienced, so it is almost like if it never really happened to me. I do not feel like victim. I do not act like victim. For this reason I am not a victim. It simply is not a major aspect of my reality. If instead I were to act like an abused victim today, then I am making the abuse by that young man in Mrs. Sealy’s house 21 years ago more real. The only way we’ll know for sure is of course, if we invent a time machine.

Is that really tripping you out? Yup, it tripped me out too.

I am not talking about ignoring the pain or suppressing hidden anger. I am talking about allowing yourself to feel all those things and still come out of it on the other side saying,“In the scope of my ability to influence my imprint on eternal time what is this really?”


But then again, the reverse is also true. Have you ever met someone who always blames their past? You hear them say things like,
“Well because my mother did this to me that is why I am a failure today” and they keep saying this way into adulthood, long past the age of personal responsibility. Sometimes when you find out exactly what their mother actually did, it is so trivial you want to burst out laughing at them. But in their mind space and time space they have created this HUGE problem the size of the Rwandan genocide. In their own mind they have actually made past events worse. Once again, the only way we’ll know for sure is, if we invent a time machine.



Exercise your freewill to change one thing now and you change both the past and the future.



Now I am not talking about ignoring the pain or suppressing hidden anger. I am talking about allowing yourself to feel all those things and still come out of it on the other side saying,

“In the scope of my ability to influence my imprint on time what is this really?”

This brings us to the other thing that puts human suffering into perspective- the infinite nature of time.

The reason so many have such a deep spiritual crisis with God and human suffering because they are taught we only have THIS LIFETIME to exercise our free will, learn, grow and get it right. So when human suffering happens in this split second of a life or unfortunate circumstances that make us waste this small amount of time we have on this earth, it is very hard to excuse those we hold responsible for it, ourselves, others and God.

It is downright depressing to believe billions were created just to suffer and that’s all! Which is probably why more than ever, people are accepting that a conscious part of ourselves exists infinitely longer after this bodily shell is dust, even the non-religious for purely scientific reasons- END or “Energy Never Dies” (like the Black Eye Peas new album title). Even Einstein himself believed something essential of us must live on.



Those who believe in eternity of existence can say, "Suffering is perception" or "Fear not those who can kill your body but not destroy your soul," This ultimately makes endless compassion and forgiveness possible.




If we do live on eternally, a severe beating is no more damaging than a paper cut. God becomes less like a villain and more like the mother who allows her child to practice and fall down from their bike and get painful cuts, scraps and even sprains. She loves the child and knows that is part of the learning process. More importantly, in light of the long years of that child’s life, a scrape or sprain is nothing. In just five years, the child will not even remember it. The only difference is how much YOU make of it. Knowing we in fact have eternity to exercise our freewill, learn, grow and perfect our souls, changes things a lot.

So let us assess all of this: 1.We are not victims and it ourselves we actually need to forgive 2. We have total power to affect change before, during and even after an event 3. Exercising this power actually bends and re-shapes how we perceive the event perhaps (when we get a time machine) even altering the event itself. 4. We have an eternity to live and nothing can really scar or destroy us in an infinite millennia of life experiences, with time we can heal from anything if we so choose.

Absorb these four principles and you are ready to access the Power Up of Forgiveness! You will be ready to finally, fully appreciate why spiritual teachers have been trying so hard to help us understand we can forgive indefinitely and “love our enemies” and “fear not those who cannot kill your soul” and just lay down thei r lives and turn the other cheek and go on hunger strikes and live so fearlessly. This is only possible when you can say:

“I am not victim. I always have a choice. I choose to take responsibility. I choose to react to this pain with positivity and I can because I know for certain I have lost nothing in the grand scheme of things. I know for certain I am a powerful and eternal being and this person has not and cannot really hurt or destroy me or my loved ones. I know for certain I am still unconditionally loved and so I still love myself unconditionally and forgive unconditionally, it takes nothing from me to do it but offers everything to the person who receives it because it allows them the chance to also take responsibility.”

And MEAN it!

Only people who can do this can go and embrace the killer of their child without feeling emotionally compromised. Those who have perfected it (I sure ain’t one of them! Still just a work in progress) can actually lay down their life for someone who did nothing but hate and seek to harm them.



This part, believe it or not is the easy one because academically, philosophically and theologically it fits. Still, when that drunk driver paralyzes your wife from the neck down, these Laws do not necessarily make the pain of it easy to process! In fact, in that moment if someone were to come preaching this, you are more likely to break their nose with your fist… justifiably so.

So, why does bitch ass pain have to exist in the first place?

Hang tight! That's coming next!

3 comments:

Rick Lannoye said...

That was an awesome essay, clearly laying out the many reasons why the doctrine of Hell is so ludicrous.

I've actually written an entire book on this topic--"Hell? No! Why You Can Be Certain There's No Such Place As Hell," (for anyone interested, you can get a free Ecopy of my book at my website: www.ricklannoye.com), but if I may, let me add one more point to the many good ones you have already made.

If one is willing to look, there's substantial evidence contained in the gospels to show that Jesus opposed the idea of Hell. For example, in Luke 9:51-56, is a story about his great disappointment with his disciples when they actually suggested imploring God to rain FIRE on a village just because they had rejected him. His response: "You don't know what spirit is inspiring this kind of talk!" Presumably, it was NOT the Holy Spirit. He went on, trying to explain how he had come to save, heal and relieve suffering, not be the CAUSE of it.

So it only stands to reason that this same Jesus, who was appalled at the very idea of burning a few people, for a few horrific minutes until they were dead, could never, ever burn BILLIONS of people for an ETERNITY!

True, there are a few statements that made their way into the gospels which place Hell on Jesus lips, but these adulterations came along many decades after his death, most likely due to the Church filling up with Greeks who imported their belief in Hades with them when they converted.

Jessica Joseph said...

Thank you Rick for your comment and I definitely will check out your book and let you know what I think of it.


Isn't it great more and more people are coming to the realization that the traditional Christian hell doctrine is inconsistent with so many Divine and Universal principles?

In fact, the traditional Christian heaven is too, for it involves no longer having freewill (as it means you can choose to do wrong and heaven is supposed to be bliss and light ONLY).

But we'll get to into why dark and pain are not evils in the next installment. Stay tuned ;)

Guanaguanare said...

Beautiful! These posts are bringing to mind these verses from the Bhagavad Gita:

"Know that which pervades the entire body is indestructible. No one is able to destroy the imperishable soul."

"For the soul there is never birth nor death. Nor, having once been, does he ever cease to be. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, undying and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain."

"As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, similarly, the soul accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones."

"The soul can never be cut into pieces by any weapon, nor can he be burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind."

"This individual soul is unbreakable and insoluble, and can be neither burned nor dried. He is everlasting, all-pervading, unchangeable, immovable and eternally the same."

"It is said that the soul is invisible, inconceivable, immutable, and unchangeable. Knowing this, you should not grieve for the body."

"All created beings are unmanifest in their beginning, manifest in their interim state, and unmanifest again when they are annihilated. So what need is there for lamentation?"

Source: Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Texts 17, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25 and 28

And on to the third post....!
Blessings