Journal Entry # 27

March 19^th, 2010

I ran into a local pastor today who I have for the past 2 years been writing articles apposing his views. I don’t oppose him directly or attack him in any way I write about concepts that oppose religious doctrine. During our conversation he said something to me that made me give my head a shake. Please understand I am acquainted with this pastor and believe him to be a person who walks the path he has chosen. I can respect that even though I very much disagree with him and believe his views to be harmful especially since he affects a significant amount of people. What he said was this “I am more concerned about what happens after we die than I am with this life before we go to heaven.” This statement in my view is very dangerous. Let me explain.

When you open the doors that this statement represents I really don’t think most people think the consequences or questions through. The implications for this ideal are very dangerous and the result can be seen throughout the world. I do mean harmful results.

No one has a clue of what Heaven would be like so as long as you are going to be deluted you might as well make it fantatsic. If you are going to have Heaven you have to have HELL.

Let’s ask the basic questions. Where do you go when you die? Where is Heaven? Do you live there for eternity? What happens to those who don’t go to heaven? Who decides who goes where? Would I be me there or something else? What are the criteria for the decision to get in or not? Is everyone who ever lived or will live given this choice. What happens to all the other earthlings (all biological beings on this planet)? What happens if we discover life in the universe other than us, are they entitled to go there as well? What would my status be in heaven? How old would I be in Heaven? If I only live on this earth for about 75 years should I just kill myself and get into heaven as quick as possible? There are many more questions but we will stop here.

As you can see this chain of thinking brings about more questions than it answers.  First of all let me state this before we even begin to speculate. There is absolutely no credible evidence that a Heaven of any form even exists. There is very little mention of it in the bible so everything you have heard about it would be complete speculation. This is the end game for most religions. It is the reason you must do what the religion asks or demands of you. It would be the reason for most of the Dogma either the reward or punishment for following or not following the religion.  Yet there is no credible evidence for it. Take the reward or punishment away and there is now no incentive to follow the religion. Without this, I truly believe that most people would start to question why they are even religious in the first place. I could see it in the pastor’s eyes when I was talking with him that he believed this without doubt, that it was what he was waiting for, the reward for all his hard work.

This is the dangerous part. If you don’t value this life as the only one you have or that anyone else has you will have no problem abusing it in any number of ways. If you knew that you only had this life what would you do different? Let me tell you this, I don’t know 100% that this is it but the evidence certainly points to it. I guarantee you that all suicide bombers are absolutely convinced that they will live a better life in their heaven. Do you think they would blow themselves up if they thought different?

   For more pictures of Suicide bombers, http://www.geuzen.org/tracer_v1.7/suicide_bomber/index.html 

OK let’s say I buy that there is a Heaven and that I can go there if I follow the rules and I even know which Heaven is the right one what happens then? Will I still be human? Of course not I could not possibly have all those wonderful things and still feel pain, joy, heartbreak, love and any number of human emotions because they depend on living in this world. Will my great-grandmother be the same age I am? If all the family is there then of course the family dynamics would be very different. All the parameters would change. Would I really want to live forever? How can you ever feel truly alive if you knew you would never die?

We live in a world that has rules, the rules of nature. Without these rules where would that leave us? If everyone could be superman then no one can be superman. Think about it. All the pictures we create of heaven are only what our imagination would allow with the rules we follow. It really would have to be completely different there. Still the idea is this that forever you will be worshipping your god, forever.

Also when you think of the concept of a heaven you are talking about alternate realities or plains of existence. So far we have no evidence for this. When you think about this concept follow the thought all the way through to its conclusion. Ask all the questions you can think off and I will guarantee you that if you put aside your belifes while you are doing this if you are religious, you will see how little sense this makes. Now the problem for you is this, if this makes little sense then everything else within your chosen religion will make little sense as well. Therefore you will come to the conclusion that what you believe is probably not true. In conversations with religious people I have brought this subject up and most will not talk about it because once they do they will realize how silly it really is.

The concept of heaven is ridiculous and anyone that believes in it is just fooling themselves. Are we that arrogant that we think we can live forever? How selfish we truly are.

Value each moment as if it was your last. There really is no past, no future you only have this moment, don’t waste it.

 Seek the truth always

Gary David Currie