sinful nature is sinful nature. What could be more evil than having casual sex and then murdering the baby. Probably only matched by paedophile priests.

Dear Not_Now.Soon,

We may have differences of terminology.

The heaven I was speaking about is where those of exceptionally good works go to reap the rewards for their merits. So long as one considers their small-self (as opposed to God, their true Self) to be the actor, the performer of all those good deeds, they reject God's grace by Whom alone all is made and thus remain separated from God.

In order to unite with God, one must renounce the sense of doership, the "I did it", no matter how great and good (and conversely, how evil) their actions are.

One who does renounce their sense of doership and allows in God's grace, can no longer be the enjoyer of any pleasures (and conversely the sufferer of any pains), then they abide with God, experiencing eternal bliss and joy in just being who they are, with no dependence on external stimuli - which I think is what heaven is in your terminology.

Being realistic about human nature, prodding through suffering is necessary for spiritual growth: some need more prodding, other less, but some is needed as in "Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me".

Eventually there will be no death and no suffering, we all will be there, but we get there each in our own good time, once we are ready to renounce our small doer-feeler-desirer-little-self and accept God's grace.

I already explained (using the boiling-water analogy) why there are no clear signs of improvement in the world over generations, only temporary ebbs and flows.

Thanks to all those who took the essay seriously. Perhaps I was a bit terse in saying the I have never had a message from on high. I have tried to live a 'good' life, and I set out what that might mean for me. I think I have done it without having had to 'believe' in Jesus or God, though of course there is a great deal of commonsense in the Ten Commandments (actually the Golden Rule does it best, and there is only one of it).

To Don Aitkin. Thankyou for writting this essay. It was honest and sincere, without also being disrespectful or rude.

The rule to treat others the way you want to be treated, is an awesome and insightful rule. But one issue that most people find is where to make exceptions to this rule. When it's OK to show favoritism to one person over another, or when their actions remove the rights of our good behavior to them. The problem with this is that most everyone sees themself as a good person, even when they perform murder or theft. Usually there is an excuse. The other person deserved it, they were just asking for it, or any other number of excuses. But several of the rules in the bible put a challenge to our standards of good. Christians as part of their belief that Jesus came to rescue us from our sins, often hold the ideal that no one is really that good. Even our best still has needs to be close to God to help us to be better people, and/or to rescue us from our sins.

That might be a unique viewpoint, or there might be other religions and philosophies that say to look at your faults and turn from them. But I don't know of many philosphies outside of Christianity that will say to look to God to make you into a better man or better woman along with the standard to turn from our sins and wrongs. Too often it's on our burden to deserve God's kindness, or His reward. Not that He will help us, if we seek Him.

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This dynamic of our behavior and our relationship is crafted in the 10 commandments also. With the first three being about our relationship with God.

1) Have no other Gods but Him. 2) make no idols to worship. And 3) To not take the name of God in vain.

Then the other 7 point to our behavior with each other.

4).Remember the Sabbath day (day of rest). 5) honor your father and mother. 6-8) to not commit murder, adultery or steal. 9) to not lie. And 10) (Possibly the hardest to live up to) to not covet you neighbor's stuff.

I hope you don't count my comments to you as disrespectful, or rude, (because .i've been accused of that before for just holding on to my Christian beliefs), but I hope very much that your search for God finds it's reward of finding Him. From my limited experience He's very much worth finding. (However it seems that that part of the bargain is still mostly on us. We still need to seek Him at the very least).

Thanks again for the essay and good luck. :)

Pell wants a return to roots. When Jesus spoke they got the hammer and nails and made him stop. Paul repeated it and was jailed like John. Romans spoke it and went to the lions and so on. The Cardinal would find that unspeakable.