Hi TMC, and thanks for chiming in.
I’m assuming you believe you have something called a soul, and that this soul will experience a salvation/damnation in another “non earthly” existence. That said, I want to make sure that I am understanding you correctly. Are you in fact stating that this “earthly” existence is more important to you than that “non-earthly” one that is part of your religious beliefs?
Yes. I am Catholic and I would characterize my beliefs on the soul as in accord with Catholic teaching, although I don’t know if you are familiar with that.
I believe that there is an afterlife. I believe that our actions here effect the quality of that afterlife. I believe that the preferred outcome is an afterlife in the presence of God, or Heaven. I believe that instead of that outcome, our earthly actions and attitudes can result in an afterlife outside of His presence, or Hell.
I don’t mean to suggest that this life is the more important one. Because the next life is likely to be an eternal one, which one you get is obviously more important than the earthly existence. But I don’t really know anything about the next life. Are there only two states - Heaven and Hell? Are there other states - various “Limbos” or others? Are Heaven and Hell monolithic, or divided up somehow? What is each really like, beyond “Heaven - with God and good” and “Hell - seperated from God and bad”? I don’t know. Nobody really knows. The Church teaches there is Heaven, there is Hell, there is Purgatory, there may be a Limbo, maybe there are two Limbos. It can’t be known, so I don’t worry about it.
The more interesting question is how do we get assigned to one or the other. I think we do know something about that because Christ taught us some things and the Church has some teachings on it. But I don’t focus on that aspect of religion. To me that is the least important part of religion. To be frank, I think that being Christian in order to get into Heaven is a bad reason to be a Christian.
Let me give you a more wordly example. You know how when they interview some hero-type guy, say someone that ran into a burning building to get a baby? And now he is getting an award or being given some money or whatever. Now if he would have thought about it for a second while he was running through that building he probably could have predicted his actions would yield some award. But when interviewed, those people invariably say “I didn’t do it for recognition, I was just trying to do the right thing” or “my part” or whatever. If he said “Woohoo! I knew saving that little b@#$% would cash in for me! That’s the only reason I ran in there, was for this big fat check!!” What would you think of him, then?
To me Christianity is like that. It may be predictable that Christians will fare better in the next life. But if that is why you are doing it, you are missing the whole point. Personally, it would neither surprise no upset me if we learned that most people go to Heaven, or all but a tiny minority, or even everybody. But that doesn’t me I have been “cheated” or something. I am a Christian because that is the best way to be, it is the right way to be, its part of how I am trying to do my part.
So I will do my best and let God decide what happens next. Its not that what happens next is not important, but its not up to me. To the extent I can really effect it, I’m sure that I can’t do more than try my best anyway, and worrying about it is likely to make being a good Christian harder than it already is.
That’s why I say I’m not a Christian for the retirement program. I am Christian because its the right way to live this life, and this life is the only one I have been given to life, so far.
