Simple question?

Quote: FrGamble

After death there is purgatory where the attachments to sin that still cling to us are removed and we enter into Heaven incapable of sin because our will and God's is perfectly attuned.

Here it is.

Why do we have to wait to enter Heaven to be incapable of sin?

What mechanism in purgatory removes attachments to sin?

Why can't we have that now?

Related, why should we be capable of sinning, when being capable of sinning isn't necessary for free will?

All god has to do is to attune us to him, as assuredly an all powerful being can do, which allows us to live without sin, and as you say, retain our free will as the saints in heaven are.

It brings into question why adam and eve were not attuned to him in the garden of eden and were allowed to sin, and were capable of sin. If god allowed them to be attuned to him, they would have had no desire to sin, and would not have fallen to temptation.

Quote: FrGamble

It is. There are many places where

"Where is there any verse in the Bible that clearly announced the creation or purpose of "hell"? There are no such verses anywhere in the Bible."

Really good thoughtful questions.

Quote: Dalex64

Here it is.

Why do we have to wait to enter Heaven to be incapable of sin?

Technically we don't. Its just really hard in a broken world full of temptation and wrong thinking to follow God super closely.

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What mechanism in purgatory removes attachments to sin?

A lot of ink has been spilled on this question. Traditionally some of the saints have seen Purgatory as a purgation akin to how we purge metals by melting them to remove impurities. There are examples of this analogy in Scripture. The problem is that because of this Purgatory has gotten a bad rap. It is not a unhappy place. Purgatory is the waiting room to Heaven and you know once you get there that you are definitely getting in. So any purgation is quenched by the joy of knowing your destination awaits.

Some have thought that purgatory is a place of perfect earthly pleasures that eventually lose their ability to attract us like eating a couple dozen chocolate chip cookies swears us off them for a while. Say someone loved golf more than helping the poor in life. In Purgatory maybe there is a perfect golf course that you always play well until one day, maybe after quite some time, you throw down your sticks and say there has to more than this. I am tired of the creation I want now and always only the creator. Others might say that in Purgatory you have perfect knowledge and are able to see in ways humanly impossible on earth the real repercussions of your sin and how it reverberates through time and others. This leading to a perfect contrition and renunciation of the sin.

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Why can't we have that now?

Related, why should we be capable of sinning, when being capable of sinning isn't necessary for free will?

All god has to do is to attune us to him, as assuredly an all powerful being can do, which allows us to live without sin, and as you say, retain our free will as the saints in heaven are.

It brings into question why adam and eve were not attuned to him in the garden of eden and were allowed to sin, and were capable of sin. If god allowed them to be attuned to him, they would have had no desire to sin, and would not have fallen to temptation.

Related to all of this is the earlier question of the devil and demons. Adam and Eve were indeed perfectly attune to God in the garden. However, there is the ancient serpent, the tempter, the devil. He is what leads us to disobey to make ourselves into gods to be selfish. He is not found in Heaven so once we are purified there is no way we can be tempted to go against what we now perfectly enjoy as happiness with God.

Quote: FrGamble

The place called Sheol in the Old Testament is not Hell, but rather an abode of the dead where the just and unjust went.

That's in line with most afterlife beliefs in the Mediterranean area at the time.

The sole exception would be Egypt, where the idea of the afterlife was rather pleasant. Eventually. First one's ba had to deal with gods, perils of many types, and finally be judged by some god (in some depictions it's Osiris, in some it's Thoth, in some Thoth is merely involved, etc.) One's heart would be weighed against a feather on a balance. If it was lighter, one could enter.

If not, a monster stood ready to devour the ba in question. If this happened to you, then you'd simply cease to exist.

BTW, that's the reason Egyptians removed all internal organs from the dead when they were mummified, except the heart. The heart was paramount for the afterlife and had to remain with the body.

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Later on in Judaism teachings developed that separated places in Sheol between these two groups.

Later on Cyrus the Great, referred in the Bible as "Messiah," and his successors, conquered much of the Mediterranean from Anatolia to Egypt, including Israel. Persian ideas spread through these lands. As Cyrus was seen by many as a liberator from Assyrian tyranny (and the Assyrians were brutal by ancient standards), Persian ideas carried a great deal of influence.

So latter on Judaism adopted the Persian notions of the good god Ahura Mazda and the bad god Ahriman, and other Zoroastrian notions like heaven and hell.

Quote: Evenbob

"Where is there any verse in the Bible that clearly announced the creation or purpose of "hell"? There are no such verses anywhere in the Bible."

I assume you mean the Old Testament because the NT has many references to the hell. Here is one verse from the Prophet Daniel that I think will satisfy you:

"And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." (Daniel 12:2)

Quote: FrGamble

Related to all of this is the earlier question of the devil and demons. Adam and Eve were indeed perfectly attune to God in the garden. However, there is the ancient serpent, the tempter, the devil. He is what leads us to disobey to make ourselves into gods to be selfish. He is not found in Heaven so once we are purified there is no way we can be tempted to go against what we now perfectly enjoy as happiness with God.

That is either a contradiction or a flaw in the plan.

Or, we have to modify the statement about saints in heaven to say that they are incapable of sin because they are not presented with temptation.

If adam and eve were incapable of sin and lacked any desire to do so because of being attuned to god's will, then no amount of temptation should be able to change that.

If instead all it takes is temptation, then it is clearly a flaw in the plan to allow temptation to be present. If we can have no desire for sin and still have free will, what is the purpose of temptation if not to CAUSE us to fall?

You can see from this scenario that god must have put the conditions in place to allow us to have the desire to sin and to act on that desire. As he knows all that will happen, by allowing temptation he caused our fall from grace. He has the ability and desire to provide us with an environment without temptation - and has done so with heaven - so why is the world of the living different?

Why are the devil and demons allowed to interact with us? If this world is ours, why isn't it ours without outside interference?

These, and some of the other things I brought up before, are the sort of simple questions which lead me to philosophically question the existence of god. These are inconsistencies, maybe even contradictions, and if all this is a part of the plan, the desire to keep the plan secret from us is almost, if not entirely, unfathomable.

Remove temptation, share the plan, be in communion with us, heaven on earth.

Quote: FrGamble

"And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." (Daniel 12:2)

Heaven or hell not mentioned. Shame and
contempt is hardly burning in hell. The modern
hell is a Christian amusement park meant to
scare children and control adults. It's laughable
at best, a cruelty to children at worst.

Quote: Evenbob

Heaven or hell not mentioned.

Do you want the Hebrew Scriptures to have the English words Heaven or Hell in them? Why can't you see the concept of this place of everlasting shame exists in the OT and even existed in many other religions even older than Judaism. Um, by the way there is nothing laughable about hell. We all implicitly know even children that doing bad things leads to punishment.

The burning in hell image you have is again an analogy. Why do you do this? God is painted as an old man with a beard and you think the Vatican thinks that is an exact self portrait of God?!? You hear that the Church and its saints have used flames to represent hell and you think that it must be exactly that. Anyway, in the case of hell you are again closer to being correct because Jesus describes hell as a place, "where the flame is not quenched" (Mk. 9:44)

Quote: Dalex64

the desire to keep the plan secret from us is almost, if not entirely, unfathomable.

Yahweh is a trickster god, like Loki. Yahweh
plays games with people's heads, he's never
what he seems to be. So goes the myth, anyway.

Quote: FrGamble

Say someone loved golf more than helping the poor in life. In Purgatory maybe there is a perfect golf course that you always play well until one day, maybe after quite some time, you throw down your sticks and say there has to more than this.

See, I can't read such horrible, awful, terrible interpretation of life and pleasure and not feel revulsion at whatever the hell it is that twists a human mind that way.