So I was walking about in Downtown Portland picking up a Bus Pass for school reasons, when I passed by a group of those religious protesters. The kind that hold up signs listing common "fun" things like Adultery and Gambling as sins that will send you to hell that also wear those boards strung up by rope across their shoulders front to back with similar motos on them. I get this is America and freedom of speech and whatnot, and public demonstration and such are totally fine. Nothing wrong with that.

One of them happened to be yelling across Pioneer Square to everyone a neat little speech about how we're all going to hell, and how only Christ can redeem us when Judgement Day comes, and such. Also nothing wrong, and in fact, I am a relatively devout catholic. I attend church each Sunday, I pray a rosary before going to bed, and I attend the Holy Sacrament of Reconciliation every month. I wear a cross and a rosary bracelet, attend Youth groups (I attend two), and I try quite hard to maintain a clean, good, and "holy" life.

But I am human. Which is also fine. God's forgiveness for mankind, his creation, is infinite (or technically indiscernible, since we as Humans can't comprehend his meaning or thoughts), which is why the holy sacrament of Reconciliation exists. I'm not saying "oh go ahead and sin as long as you reconcile at the end of the day" because that is truly not Reconciliation. Reconciliation is pure and genuine.

Anyways, moving on. Keeping the fact that Humanity is at base, sinful due to the original sin of Eve, and that sin is unavoidable thanks to that, even the most devout have sin, which is genuinely fine should they maintain a desire to wholly be with God. The Bible states that Hell is not only a place "of great suffering and gnashing of teeth" (I can't remember which passage of the bible this is from, or if I quoted it correctly, since I am typing this from my cell phone on a public transit train), but also a place that is supposedly devoid of God's love, where those who are completely severed from God's love are sent, due to mortal and venial sin. This man was telling us that we would all go to hell without God's mercy and love, because we all held doubt and sinned. Sinning was "an unforgivable violation of our holy covenant with God, and will be punished with the brimstone and torture of the devil." Note that he was shouting this out to a multitude of people, all of whom he had nearly no idea how they lived their life, all with different lives and choices more numerous than the grains of sand or stars in the sky.

Now in the New Testament, the Pharisees (spelling uncertain) are often seen as villains, and are antagonized because that they falsely condemned Jesus in the name of God, and because they were corrupt. Although one could argue that they were not antagonized and were simply misguided, for the most part they are seen as a hand of evil, who played a major role in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. At best they were Zealots who were blind to the true path of God, and at worst they were the hand of the Devil, seeking to destroy the Son of God.

Either way you put it, they were sinful for a number of things, but most certainly they were guilty of passing false Judgement in the name of God. Whether or not this is considered blasphemy, I'm not going to delve into, but it was certainly wrong.

What makes this man, who claimed we were all most certainly "condemned with no hope of mercy or pardon" any better than the Pharisees of the New Testament? According to the teaching of the Catholic Church, Jesus will be there to personally judge the Living and the Dead on the promised day, and likewise, St. Peter is the one who attends the gates of Heaven, who decides the fate of souls in the afterlife. Is it fair, or even sinful, for a human to claim judgement over human souls? Does this make him a Blasphemer, a Zealot, or a Harbinger of the day to come? While I waited for my train, listening to this man, I pondered his intentions and whether or not it was truly a good thing. Sure, he is warning the sinful of their fate, but to assert that he knows someone will go to hell is, I feel, a step over the line of acceptable Christian practice. Not even Priests, Bishops, and other members of the Clergy can judge an individual soul of its destination, and by what criteria God judges, man will not know, because God's intentions are uncertain and incomprehensible to humans.

Thanks for reading this vent, and I'm curious as to your thoughts on the matter.