Kind of a depressing subject today. I've been listening to bluegrass music all morning, which means I've heard a lot about the happy hereafter, where there is no pain or sorrow. Now, that's a comforting thing, if you believe it. People who believe in the hereafter generally tend to be happier and more contented with their lives.
And who can blame them? If you believe that after your life there is nothing, that would tend to make you a little down, since all you can say is, "Soldier on anyway." The problem is that there is no way to switch. A non-believer can't just decide, "From today on, I'll be a believer." The path to non-belief is a stony one, filled with intense examinations and hard decisions. I really think that anyone who is a non-believer would sincerely rather be a believer. But it's not to be. All that would happen would be the old prayer, "I believe Lord; help thou my unbelief."
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But have you noticed, Ron, that it seems to be those that most profess a belief in a great reward that resist going there?
Not only will they fight to remain in this life against all odds and taking all sorts of poisons to kill the cancers but they refuse to let anyone else go there too.
The great believers in the great beyond are against the right to die. They are against even the abortion of a highly deformed fetus. And heaven forbid we should even have conversations with our doctors about our options other than making ourselves miserable in our final days.
I have come to wonder if they do in fact believe or just profess to believe when asked.
Where do we fall wo are neither believers nor non-believers? I just have a wait-and-see attitude but don't spend my life as if the next one depended on it. I'm not rushing to the end, but I don't fear the end of this life either.
That's a very astute observation, Jacqui. I hadn't thought about it that way. It does sort of indicate that those who profess to know so much about the "next life" also fear it the most. Interesting.
They fear it because of the way in which they have lived this life!
But doesn't their faith, Bee, say that they have been redeemed once they come to Jesus?
Course I have always wondered if that one time redemption is on going for all the sins after they enter the church.
I think it is a sad commentary of our times that the Born again Christians or the religious right are the least likely to live what my mother used to call a "Christian Life" - you know the do unto others as you would like them to do unto you.
Give me a moral and ethical pagan or agnostic any day.
I have often felt that I don't particularly want to go to heaven because I don't like any of the people who know they are going there.
Mary who thought she was a 'saint' died and as she knew she would, went to heaven.
She was shocked to see people there she knew from life on earth. The miserable old man from two doors down who never spoke to her, the next door neighbour who cut down the trees outside her house, the village gossip, the friend who had slept with her husband, the man who had a wife and a mistress and a few others who she had always thought had not lived life as they should have done.
She noticed they were all looking at her. No one smiled. No one spoke to her. They just stared. "Nothing much has changed' she thought and turning to St Peter said:
"Why is everyone staring at me?"
St Peter replied: "They're in shock. You're the last person they expected to see up here!"!!
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