Is Love Subjective: Religion

     Religion, namely Catholicism, each specifies their boundaries to what they qualify to be a marriage. Much of the rejection regarding homosexual marriage in the Church stems from the original love between Adam and Eve. The idea being that God intended a marriage to symbolize the union between the original idea of love he displayed in Genesis. Pope Benedict discussed the issue of homosexuality in the church during his office.

He stated that the inclination toward homosexuality is not necessarily a sin, it can be considered a "tendency toward an intrinsic moral evil, and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder." He continued, "A person engaging in homosexual behavior therefore acts immorally," because he feels that sex is only good if framed in the stance of being for procreation between a married man and woman.

Therefore, the Church is not against homosexuality, but an official Catholic Marriage is sacred and symbolic, and must be heterosexual.

Is Love Subjective: Love

     Love is a powerful emotion. Specifically, love is defined as an intense feeling of deep affection. One can love their country, their job, or even their family. However, many find a single entity who they love more than anything else they come across in life. By nature, most of the time, this experience of true love takes place between a man and a woman. But can one break the presented pattern and still qualify as being in love? Cardinal Timothy Dolan spoke to ABC defending the stance of the Church on gays:

     When asked what he would tell a gay couple who said they loved Jesus, loved the church and loved each other, he replied: “Well, the first thing I’d say to them is, ‘I love you, too. And God loves you. And you are made in God’s image and likeness. And we want your happiness. And you’re entitled to friendship.’ “But we also know that God has told us that the way to happiness, especially when it comes to sexual love - that is intended only for a man and woman in marriage, where children can come about naturally.”

     To clarify, the Church does not regulate who is allowed to love one another. However, the Church does require marriage to be between a man and a woman. The point being, love is not subjective, but there is more to love than the emotion itself.

Purgatory

     Purgatory is not for the damned, nor is it a second chance to be saved; it is the final stage of purification. Purgatory is not another place between earth and Heaven. Nor is "time" experienced in Purgatory like it is on Earth. That is, time in the afterlife does not work the same as it does here on earth. Time spent in Purgatory helps people reach perfection and come to be in full union with God. Purgatory is the final state of purification before reaching heaven. Through Purgatory our souls are purged of evil and our conscience is cleared.

Heaven (aka. Spaceland)

Scared of Hell? Good, you should be. That's why it exists after all. Still, God makes Hell a bad place for a purpose: he wants us to realize the importance of achieving an eternity with him, which can't happen unless we strive to be close with him. If you spend your entire life resenting God because he didn't birth you into a billionaire family, you're missing the point of life. You see, the afterlife is just the final exam of your entire life. You can choose to spend your time studying for it, or you can procrastinate and cram the night before on your deathbed. Either way, you really don't want to fail.
The truth is: since people can't contact us from beyond the grave, (Sorry John Edwards, but its true.) we don't know exactly what Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory is. All we have to go off of is a general consensus of Catholics as well as what Jesus has chosen to reveal to us. 'Zog Blaster', top contributor on Yahoo! answers goes into further detail:
"When people say that Heaven can be understood more as a situation than as a physical place, they do not mean it is not a real place. They mean it is a real place, but that it isn't fluffy cloud Heaven as seen in cartoons, or somewhere that you can fly to in a rocket, or something that we can understand in terms of our current physical reality.
For example, when the Pharisees asked Jesus who a remarried widow would be married to in Heaven, Jesus explained that they were trying to understand Heaven as something too physical and too like Earthly life. But Jesus didn't mean it wasn't a real place: just that it's a different sort of thing."
This is a perfect description. When we ask what is heaven like, we expect a Priest or a Monk or a super-religious relative to tell us what Heaven looks like. This isn't how we should think of heaven at all.
For example, think about the book (I doubt you'll know what it is.) called Flatland. Flatland is a story about a two-dimensional world called Flatland, in which everyone is just two-dimensional shapes. There is a square who lives here, and all he has ever known is two dimensions. Then, he is visited by a sphere from Spaceland who tries to convince him of a third dimension, but he is incapable of understanding what it could possibly mean. Finally, after much denial, he is convinced of its existence. He then asks the sphere if since he had not known about a third dimension, yet it existed, could there also be a 4th, 5th, or 6th dimension that the sphere just didn't know about yet. Upon being asked this, the sphere rejects the idea and calls it foolish—just as the square had done about the third.
Personally, this is what I think of Earth and Heaven. Since all we have ever known is a physical state of being, we will never fully comprehend Heaven or what it entails. All we know is leading a holy life will allow us to arrive at a 'Paradise' as Jesus describes it to us. So keep praying and do all you can to achieve salvation.

Hell

When it comes to the world down under (not to be confused with Australia, which people do often), people generally don't want to talk about it, which makes Hell the perfect place to start.

For the seventh and eighth grade, I went to a Catholic School in Indiana named St. Luke. The school itself was designed like the branches of a tree, with small, winding corridors branching off of the Narthex leading to more corridors which eventually reached a cluster of classrooms. Kids who went there throughout grade school said the Church was built first, and the basement was expanded greatly and converted to a school, and the winding hallways were due to the builders avoiding gas lines. I still remember how blinding the sun was at the end of the day, as my eyes adjusted to the lack of natural light.

Now I know what you're thinking, and no, I am not comparing my school to Hell. Despite the dreariness of the school, the one thing I will never forget is a priest named Father Joe. He was a part of the Church for only three years before he left for D.C. to study Canon Law in 2011, the year I graduated. Near the end of the year, he went to our religion class to do an omnibus Q&A session on Catholicism. It was then I thought of something I had never really wondered before: what is Hell like?

Upon asking this, Father Joe smiled and replied: "We don't know much about what Hell looks like, but all you need to know is its the complete absence of God. If you can imagine what an eternity without God is like, its all you need to know to not want to go there."

The entire class was silent. An eternity without God... its the worst thing to endure in all of existence. Period. This begs the question, one I wish I asked Father Joe before the bell rang: "What kind of person is sinister and unforgivable enough to deserve an eternity without God? Who is so sinister that they deserve to go to Hell?"

This question isn't intended to be taken hypothetically: post your thoughts in the comments.



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Когда речь заходит о мире вниз под (не путать с Австралии, где люди часто), народ в целом не хотите говорить, что делает Hell идеальное место для запуска. Седьмой и восьмой класс, я пошел к католической школы в штате Индиана с именем Св. Луки. Школа сама по себе была разработана как ветвей дерева, с маленькими, ветвях коридоров в притворе ведет к более коридоров, которые в конечном итоге достигнутого кластер из классных комнат. Дети, уехал во всей начальной школы говорит, что Церковь была построена первая, и цокольном этаже был расширен и преобразованы в школу, и обмотки коридоры были из-за строителей избежать газопроводов. Я до сих пор помню как ослепляющего солнца был в конце дня, в качестве моего глаза на отсутствие естественного освещения. Теперь я знаю, что вы, и нет, я не сравнение моей школы в ад. Несмотря на dreariness от школы, то я никогда не забуду - священника с именем отца Джо.