M
mytruepower2
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However, there can be no treasures in Heaven unless there are actual treasures in Heaven. This is the central point I was addressing. I want to know how people answer this challenge.
Then let me clarify. These are my questions…
- In what sense is closeness to God better for human happiness?
(This means; what is the connection between closeness to God, and an increase in human happiness. What is it about closeness to God that makes human beings happier? Is it like brainwashing? Is it like a drug? Is there something about the closeness of God that effects the state of human beings? Is God like a theme park, and being close to him involves experiencing better things? What is the connection between these two things; “closeness to God” and “human happiness.” You did not answer this question.) - In what sense is this answer useful in conversion?
(This means, how are we supposed to make converts, if our conception of God is that he has nothing to offer them? What is there about God that should be appealing to the average man on the street? If I were a farmer, struggling to put bread on the table in the 15th century, what reason would I have for wanting to foster a relationship with God? If he sounds like just a dictator, out to coerce me into agreeing with his worldview for no benefit to me, how am I going to see anything good about that? Most importantly, if the mansions/treasures/pearls/lambs/etc of Heaven are all just metaphorical, rather than real, how am I justified in ever giving up anything, when all I’ll get in return is some will-o’-the-wisp about vision?)
As for the early Christian martyrs, I’m convinced they were willing to go to their deaths for God, because they genuinely believed it would lead to them living a better life in Heaven, in an actual mansion, with great wealth, rather than the poverty-stricken lives they’d lived up to that point. It’s the only way I can explain why so many were willing to sacrifice themselves in that earlier time.
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