"The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, 'eternal fire.' The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs." (Catholic Catechism #1035)
Yep, they turn around and say stuff like that, too. All over the map,
as with any religion. It's a perfectly human tendency, I think.
The same can be found with scripture, where verses at times,
contradict one another.
This is where I think it's important to actually *think* about what one
believes, rather than just passively accept every wind of doctrine that
comes down the pike.
I don't think one has to toss the baby out with the bathwater, however,
and I'm sure others feel the same way, which is likely why not
everyone's views are going to matchwith cold, robotic
precisionwhatever icon they're wearing.
It also makes things simpler if one accepts that God is *God* and not
just another human with all the limitations that come with that. His
ways are *higher* than our waysnot lowerand I'm only going to
take on board those teachings which acknowledge this fact.
This is one of the reasons I appreciate the Nicene Creed. It proclaims
God as God and doesn't go off on dogmatic/doctrinal rabbit-trails
stemming from a subconscious fear that God's going to botch
something up somewhere along the line.
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