Well, I'll say this- that's a departure again from the Old Testament. God was not philosophical, nor mysterious, nor sophisticated, nor what have you- he's pretty straight forward: "Here are the laws. Obey or don't obey, but you'll be sorry." Many times even if you obeyed him you would still be sorry.

Much of the mystery and grandiose doctrines of the religion came after the Bible, propagated by theologians and scholars who muck it up and wrote all kinds of stuff- anything they can fancy.

For the religious types:

Jesus cautions the enthusiastic-

"Not everyone who says to Me, "Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, "I never knew you; away from Me, evil doers!'

"Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?
Or how can you say to your brother, "Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

I thought at first you were a deist but that last line looks more like a form of pantheism- God is everything, or animism, everything is spiritual. It doesn't appear to be a tenant of religion in the formal sense, i.e., canonical doctrines.

In the end i'll be where i'm at and you'll be where you are.

One of us will be saying "Damn i'm F*cked" while the other will be laughing saying "Damn i'm glad i'm not that guy"

In the end, neither of us will be in the position to laugh or lament at all- not any more than we were doing these things before we were born.

Nah, we'll both be in the same place - decomposing - but I will not have lived in an imaginary world. Or have lived in fear of where I would end up if I didn't live in that imaginary world.

Better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven though

I have to admit that I felt that some of the responses about athiests weren't very diplomatic, and my responses weren't any better, but now I've got a couple of more serious items I'd like to bring up for discussion

One is, if hell is considered a place of eternal suffering, are satan and the demons suffering now? If not, why, and will they suffer after the end times when Jesus returns?

Just curious on what everyone thinks of that.

You have to look to religion to address that- that is its domain, just as biology is in the domain of science. Then again, and I have to stress- there is no Satan in Judaism. To see how arbitrary this all is:

The satan was a title, not a proper name, a prosecutor angel in God's court. The title means 'accuser' or 'opponent'. Over time, this simply became 'Satan' and evil personified; is it a coincidence that the popular image of the Devil is a satyr- from Greek mythology? No. Stormtrooper probably won't tell you that, but would sooner explain the Devil to you in real terms. It's funny, because Christianity is arguably not a monotheistic religion in a pure sense, since it has dual entities and hierarchies- arch devils and archangels, and so on.

Some theologians do not believe literally in a lake of fire and brimstone but the metaphor of hell is simply the seperation and isolation from God. I think the Mormons actually have several levels of heaven reserved for different levels of piety. Hell in Judaism and Islam is just transient- eventually it's possible to get out.

Finally, look to the context of many of these cultures in their depiction of Heaven and Hell- in desert climes, Heaven is a cool oasis, Hell is a hot inferno; in cold climates, hell is more of the same.

If I've learned anything, it is that South Park has taught me even Satan has Christmas time in Hell.

Of course, unless you're Mormon, you're going to hell.