No problem
I had an atheist friend who I’ve lost touch with, but one of our last conversations dealt with this subject.
To cut to the chase, I just said at the end of the conversation, If you’re right Mike, and I’m wrong, and there is nothing after this life, then there is no harm no foul. It’s just over. But if I’m right and you’re wrong, you’re screwed.
I admit it wasn’t said very eloquently but that’s what I said. And actually he laughed.
Yes, I once considered Pascal’s Wager (and even converted an atheist cousin with the reasoning), but the difficulty I ran into later in life was that taken to the extreme: it is possible that there may be no pleasing God, which makes each and every choice in life a series of such wagers. Let me try to explain:
My road to unbelief was through zealotry. As a zealot I sought extreme applications for God’s teachings and as a zealot I could not simply pause and step back and consider moderations of His message. Therefor when I was considering each step of how I should live my life I would first ponder how it might relate to the desires of an infinite being. I would consider that the greater one’s knowledge of God and His desires, the greater would be His expectations of perfection. In such a vein I would then frequently analyze any activity to ensure that it might best serve God’s aims. Here is one real example which occurred over the span of several months, but which lasted for over 7 years:
I derived a deep enjoyment of music and considered it a fine pass-time, but I realized that some of my music was less appropriate than other songs and so began removing them from my library. Paradoxically, many of my most favored songs were eliminated in this manner as my winnowing cut closer and closer. It was not that I was scrupulous, but simply reasoning that a song, which would sing about seeking someone to love was no longer appropriate given my married state or a song singing about partying seemed somewhat frivolous considering the state of the poor in the world. At the end I merely reasoned that I should give up music altogether for entertainment purposes for what would such a distraction serve when compared to how much time could be spent in prayer and spiritual reading? I restricted myself to Gregorian Chant and a handful of spiritually uplifting tunes.
The chief consideration was whether one truly believed that one was preparing on Earth to spend an eternity in worship of God. I reasoned that if one was, the purpose of life on Earth was to improve oneself in such an area by setting aside distractions in order to focus solely on God. I further reasoned that no sacrifice should be too great to show one’s love of their creator. For if one should choose music over God would not one’s true belief of mankind’s purpose be in jeopardy of being exposed as a falsehood? I considered the way of Thomas A Kempis in that all of life’s pursuits were mere vanity, a distraction in one’s life-long goal of focusing on God–and since one could not have more than a single great love, and that God should prove the greater in any choice, I abandoned all of my Earthly pursuits, focusing and refining so that all inspiration and light emanated from God rather than from things.
This progressed for 7 years, during which my young family was kept living in such austerity and single-minded purpose that naturally events such as Halloween was outlawed in our home as well as a discussion that there should be no Santa mixing with Christmas. Rosary, Pieta prayers, Cenacle, and penance were foremost.
One day, however, I awoke and realized that my life had been drained of all pleasure. In effect, I was bored–and boring to be with. To admit that one might be capable of being bored with God is a bit of a problem and it speaks to your wager because if one might even go to the ends of the Earth for God how is one ever certain that it might ever be enough? How is one certain where an infinite God might draw a firm line and disagree that keeping the Sabbath Holy might not mean feel free to relax and watch football, but instead mean alternately to do nothing Earthly minded and spend the entire day in prayer and works of mercy?
For is it truly good enough merely to have a belief in God? Must one not equally be quite certain of the requirements and limits of said belief?
For what purpose is there in believing in God without pleasing Him? Would one not still be open for punishment?
Regardless, please do not take the above as a reason to disregard the existence of God. I am not quite certain that such would be wise.
Once the soul is created by God at our conception, it is immortal. And since the soul is immortal, it doesn’t age.
Since we live in time and space, that’s how we think. And we use temporal measurement thinking in order to quantify things for purposes of being able to communicate ideas… We can’t get our head around eternity and eternal realities. But those realities in the next life really are there. The only reason we know this is becauise the one who created everything had to reveal it to us. Otherwise it’s all one big guess.
It is for certain.
I especially liked the quote from C.S. Lewis