Susan

Every time I eat macadamia nuts, my tongue and soft palate feel very sore and sensitive for hours afterward. What causes this?

After the Haitian earthquake, he was quick to blame the Haitian people -- or, specifically, their ancestors of two centuries earlier -- for the disaster, claiming (inaccurately, btw) that they had "made a pact to {sic} the devil".

Now it's been a full week since the terrible earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and Robertson has -- incredibly, for him -- not yet blamed the deaths of thousands of people on Shinto or Buddhism.

Is this some sort of record?

Every single post he makes consists almost entirely of the same tedious boilerplate pseudo-argument (the Lord/Liar/Lunatic trilemma ... yawn), stolen from C. S. Lewis. When will he come up with some arguments of his own? And when will he stop posting this nonsense to questions where it's completely irrelevant?

Let's assume you've made it: you've accepted-Jesus-as-your-savior, or died in a state of grace, or repented your sins, or whatever criteria your own faith requires you to meet. You're in Heaven.

But someone you love didn't make the cut: that person is in Hell. Damned to eternal torment.

What's your reaction? How do you feel, how do you act?

Some say you will be required to rejoice in your loved one's damnation. Some say you won't be able to help it. "Saint" Thomas Aquinas wrote that "In order that nothing may be wanting to the felicity of the blessed spirits in heaven, a perfect view is granted to them of the tortures of the damned" -- so watching people suffer in hell is *part of what makes heaven enjoyable*. Similarly, "Saint" Bernardino of Siena wrote that without "due admixture of groans from the damned", heaven wouldn't be perfect. Heaven, it was thought, had only two great pleasures: being with God, and looking down at the shrieking agony of Hell.

Lately other opinions have arisen. Johnny Hart, the creator of the "B.C." comic strip, sometime worried that his beloved mother might not make it to heaven (as he was certain he would), but consoled himself with the assurance that if she was damned, God would erase his memory of her.

How about you? What would your reaction be in this situation?

I mean, it's long since been established that there is no such thing. The notion originated with anti-Semites and white nationalists, and has spread to right-wingers who whine endlessly that they're being picked on if anyone has the temerity to point out that theirs is not the only point of view in the world. Why are they clinging in such squealing frenzy to this long-discredited myth?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/200...