“Heaven, darling. Heaven. At least get the zip code right.” – The Prophecy
If all dogs go to Heaven, I expect cats go to Purr-gatory?
Life has often been seen by me as a series of delayed gratification games. It’s like an “If – Then” statement. Something like:
- If I go to work and work really hard and save money in my 401k, then when I retire I can have fun.
This first one is one that we’re told from when we’re little. Work hard now, and get the rewards later. And, for the most part, it’s true. Like the old Chinese proverb, “Try the crunchy bat! It’s tasty, if a bit undercooked!” “The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The next best time is today.”
Over time, hard work really does pay dividends. But the downside of that fairy tale is that you’re going to have far more fun when you’re thirty than when you’re ninety. I’m not saying I don’t want to live as long as possible, but understanding that if all you do is work until you’re used up, you never did learn to have fun.
Oops.
I also know a lumberjack who logs a lot of hours.
- If I work hard now, I can make money now, and go back later and get in better shape.
This is one I fell for. I can put in a 3,000 hour year for two years in a row, right? Well, I could. But if I spent all the rest of my time with family, then when was there time for me? This is a tradeoff that looks a lot like the first, but probably has a more significant health toll, since the reason you’re working 3,000 hours in the first place isn’t because the work is stress-free.
Strangely, the healthcare program was also the retirement program.
- If I’m good on Earth, and have faith, when I die I can go to Heaven.
Now, I’m going to start off with this: I know that there are atheists and agnostics that are here. Bear with me. I’m not. But the nice thing about all of the atheists that comment here is that none of them are atheists because they hate God, it’s because they don’t believe. Those kinds of atheists roll their eyes because to them we folks who believe are goofy.
That’s okay.
I asked my atheist friend why he celebrated Christmas. He looked at me and said, “Well, you celebrate Valentine’s day and no one likes you.”
It’s my theory that atheists that hate God hate Him because they think He gave them a raw deal. But that’s based on a sample size of two. My theory may suck, but for the two atheists who hated God that I knew, well, they were constantly angry at Him because of the way that their lives had turned out. For whatever reason, I haven’t seen the haters show up here often.
But the point I’m going to make is a new point to me, because just like points one and two, I believed point three until I really thought about it. Then I realized:
- I was being really stupid. I believe I had Help in this realization.
My realization was simple. To the extent that I structure my life for a reward that only occurs after my heart stops beating, well, that’s goofy. Sure, I have faith. But why am I waiting when I can have all of the benefits now.
The inventor of AutoCorrect was an atheist. He’ll go to he’ll.
This is where I pick the atheists back up. From their standpoint, that they live a mayfly existence, a one-shot of being born, getting a driver’s license, getting a job, retiring, and then ceasing to be. They have to get meaning, as much meaning as they can out of life, now.
But even if you have faith that there’s an afterlife, you can have the benefits that most people think about being tied to Heaven, now.
- Peace
- Love
- Calmness
- Virtue
- Certainty
- Hope
It was my own (very bad) If-Then thinking that said to suffer now for bliss later.
Nope. Now, you still have to be as good as you can. You can’t actually get the benefits listed on the label if you’re not good. For instance, if you know you’re doing something wrong, say juggling kittens, you’ll never be at peace. Likewise, if your primary focus is pursuing, um, “physical affection,” you’ll never know actual love until you start looking for actual love.
The Tibetan monk was shocked when he saw Jesus’ face in a tub of margarine – “I can’t believe it’s not Buddha!”
Is life still hard work? Yes. Enjoy it. It’s making you better.
Does life still involve pain? Yes. Embrace it. It gives you a contrast, and often a lesson so you’ll learn.
Does life still involve sadness? Certainly. Use it to mourn for those who have left us.
Does life still involve difficulty? Every day. Be calm. See the beauty and hope that come from avoiding fear.
And, if you’re not an atheist, use every moment that you can to get closer to God, because, after all, what is Heaven, anyway?
John,
I am not Christian, per se, although I was thankfully raised that way. The thing that got me, is the degree to which the central tenets of the Bible show up in every faith we have a name for, including various versions of the Ten Commandments (which, by the way, according to my analysis devolve to ten ways to say ‘don’t be a dick’).
In spite of the fact that many of the Christians I know meet the standards of the stereotype, the message of Christianity is the best thing about it. The wisdom of what seems to be a guidebook concerning ‘how to not bugger things up’, is breathtaking.
It is also worth preserving, fighting for, and if necessary, dying for. After all, what is death, anyway?
Thanks for the Friday rumination.
Christianity is nearly unique in that it holds the Golden Rule as a central tenet. Most other religions don’t have anything resembling that. (Islam certainly has nothing like it, and advocates “Do unto others, first.”)
Christianity is unique in that it requires thought. Most other religions offer fixed lists of “good” and “bad”. (Zen is a philosophy, not a religion. It is completely compatible with Christianity.)
Christianity is nearly unique in that it requires believers to be good, especially when nobody is watching. Other religions hold that the only thing that matters is what you are seen to have done.
It is also the only religion where the dirtiest [tax collector], filthiest ho, and lowest Untouchable, can “thee” and “thou” the Creator of the Universe, and call Him “Daddy”.
If they’re willing to take His hand and come home.
Repent, the the Kingdom of Heaven is
at hand. Right there. Literally next to you! You cannot miss it.Don’t forget, lower than tax collector?
Humor bloggers.
And thank you – the correlation of “Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” is not one I thought of.
THNK YOU!!!
And, again, the message is this: you can be close to Heaven, right now.
It is worth preserving. How many have died for it in the past?
There are very, very few real atheists in the sense of not believing in and utterly rejecting the very idea of God. Likewise there is a very large gap between rejecting organized religion, especially in the institutional forms, and rejecting God. Unfortunately like so much of our world today, the choices are binary: either believe in one of the major, recognized world organized religions or you are an atheist but even in the most religious eras of Western civilization I don’t think most people were True Believers. Anyway, that is the subject of a future, rather lengthy series of posts I will get to some day.
I agree. And every one of the true atheists that I personally met? They are okay. Not irrational or even evil. The ones that hate God are the ones to worry about.
I think in human history the natural progression of religious belief has been animism, polytheism, monotheism to atheism. It’s basically been reductionism from infinite spirits, to many spirits, to one spirit to no spirit. And it’s all been an attempt to explain the animate rising from the inanimate. A very natural focal point for human curiosity, that has ultimately led to the rise of science, and that to the rise of technology, which I would submit is the God of Today.
Tithe at the Temple of Apple and get The Black Slab that will Guide your Life.
I recently read American Gods (alas, twenty years late/after its initial publication) as a beach novel, which I recommend as an entertaining fantasy story detailing how this natural progression has disturbed not only Established Religions but also The Gods Themselves.
Religion will always stand by static and unchanging religious dogma. That’s what it does.
Science will always find and discover something new. That’s what it does.
Today it is a challenge to find a balance between these two methods of explaining the world in which we find ourselves. Many don’t strike a balance but migrate to one extreme or the other. Me included. Sigh.
As a science geek I am really big on what the Hubble Telescope and especially the Planck satellite out of hundreds of other probes have told us about What’s Out There. It blows the mind. And sadly diverts from comforting the soul. The universe in which science says we live is a very cold place, both literally and figuratively.
That’s why, even tho I have left my upbringing behind and currently am not a religious person, I have enormous respect for people who are and who do have a strong religious faith. They have found a warmth and purpose to their lives. This is special and this is good. It is to be protected and nurtured by all, believers and non-believers. I personally wish I could set aside my cynicism and doubts and find that peace for myself. Maybe someday. God works in mysterious ways, so they say.
You’ve got the progression wrong at the end.
animism, polytheism, monotheism, satanism
All people have a faith. Religion is part of the human condition. Those who believe in nothing will fall for anything. Making people think he doesn’t exist was the devil’s greatest trick.
An interesting observation. I would personally say that Satanism is either a reversion to polytheism (if a choice between good and evil gods) or merely a variation form of monotheism (if the only existing god is an evil one). Atheism still remains an endpoint. Along these lines, I think Christianity is a mystic fusion of Jewish monotheism and The Holy Trinity as polytheism. I greatly admire the moral teachings of Christianity and wish that God had seen fit to leave eternally hovering yet physically immovable sheets of Element 302 at Calvary that displayed magically in the written language of the viewer that memorial story of what transpired there. Instead, we’ve got P52.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rylands_Library_Papyrus_P52
How is atheism a valid endpoint for either scenario? If a god or gods exist, whether good or evil, how is sticking your head under the covers and saying “I don’t believe in any of them!” going to help you in dealing with them post-mortality?
If you read my words as carefully as I try to write them, you will note that I have never claimed that atheism is a “valid” endpoint AS THE TRUE STATE OF OUR SHARED REALITY, only an undeniable HISTORICAL one purely from a mathematical progression point of view.
When it comes to religion, there are literally only four possibilities: animism, polytheism, monotheism and atheism. Everybody picks one of these as their own philosophical choice. You’ve got a one in four chance of being wrong. Now if you pick monotheism, you have to keep going and decide if you want to wash the feet of others or fly jetliners into their skyscrapers. Again, a personal choice.
To me the whole question of “cosmically infinite being(s) or not” is a completely different one from “what happens to ***me*** personally when my body stops functioning”. Others have made a connection between those two questions, not me, and if they’re right and if I pick wrong I acknowledge I may miss out on some time with virgins. Wouldn’t be the first time.
D’oh. Shoulda said “one in four chance of being RIGHT” above. Assuming of course that the Big Bang and subsequent quantum decoherence started with equal probabilities of outcome.
When you wrote above “Atheism remains an endpoint” I didn’t realize you meant “academically”.
You equate “philosophy” with “spirituality”? I don’t. They are different. Philosophy might inform how to live in the material world, but it says nothing of how to deal with the afterlife. With this in mind, atheism is the one choice that cannot, logically, be made, for the atheist does not believe in an afterlife at all. It is the one choice that literally doesn’t matter in the spiritual sense.
I agree there is a difference between philosophy and spirituality and will stand by my belief that selection of a personal religion is a philosophical choice made by each individual to provide guidance and support on how to live their life in the material world. A philosophical choice of religion (including the choice of atheism) during life is thus a necessity since there is obviously life to be lived.
Spirituality is not the same since there is not obviously an afterlife where you will retain your memories and see Grandpa once more in a rejuvenated body – both his and yours. Organized religions are the entities that tie spirituality to an afterlife, usually as a “reward chit”. Spirituality can stand alone by itself as a possibility without religion or God(s). There are certainly many variations on spirituality (usually among early / “primitive” societies) like animism, reincarnation, ancestor worship, etc that don’t include God(s) enforcing consequences and don’t include any possibility of input to “choose” one’s fate after one’s death. The philosophical choice to choose a religion that includes an afterlife as a dessert after the main course of life requires additional mental gymnastics to accommodate correspondingly greater levels of “faith” and “belief”.
Just as spirituality can theoretically stand alone without being part of a religion, so too can religion be a deep and meaningful part of atheism and the lives of atheists. Being atheist does not preclude having a staunch moral code to live by. Being atheist does not exclude appreciating the many admirable components of other religions such as Christianity. Being atheist does not exclude belief in religion. Being atheist just means that your chosen philosophy and even religion does not include spirit God(s). Period.
After reading my comments above over again, let me “pull together” my rambling thoughts to summarize my conclusions and beliefs somewhat more clearly. IMHO:
Religion is a formalized group of beliefs and precepts that, once chosen by a follower, provide guidance and support in how to live one’s life in the material world. The precepts of a religion are followed by an adherent during life to change both the individual and the world in a direction that is closer to what that person chooses and believes to be ideal.
Whether a religion and its ideals are “good” (example:Christianity) or “evil” (example:Satanism) is ultimately a group judgement, not an individual one. Groups can have different opinions on that judgement and so religions seen as “good” by one group can be seen as “evil” by another. But a religion itself is neither good nor evil – it is just a set of life rules chosen by a follower striving for what they perceive as ideal.
Spirituality is something completely separate from religions that provide rules of how to live a life. It is instead a historically evolving set of possible explanations for observed phenomena in our world that are dynamic rather than static: earth, fire, water, air, volcanos, lightning, rain, wind, and most importantly – life. Spirituality postulates the existence of various forces that exist outside of space and time and can somehow bind and interact with objects in the material world to animate them. These animating forces are known as spirits, which can be anthropomorphic to animate human bodies and non-anthropomorphic to animate everything else. Hypothetical anthropomorphic spirits having no physical bodies but possessing large and even infinite levels of power have come to be known as gods.
Historically, new religions have increasingly incorporated spirituality concepts into their belief structures. Typically one or more all-powerful spirit gods add a sense of authority to the religion’s rules on how to live a life. Also frequently incorporated is the concept of individual spirits inhabiting the bodies of adherents as outlasting life itself and continuing to exist in an afterlife. Note that an “afterlife” that retains individual identity is only one of many spirituality possibilities, including recycling and reincarnation of one’s spirit into another regular life or a merging of the spirit back into some pool of cosmic energy. Of these possibilities, only an afterlife preserving individual existence can be presented by a spirit-based religion as an extremely desirable reward granted for following the religion’s rules and precepts during life. Indeed, the promise of a blissful afterlife can become the primary goal of following a religion. Following the religion’s rules during life can become merely a means to achieve the end of a blissful afterlife rather than something having intrinsic value of its own.
What spirituality concepts are incorporated (or not) in a personal belief system can (often as a side-effect rather than as deliberate defiance) define one as being an atheist – specifically, by the singular omission not incorporating the existence of a spirit god into that belief system. There are many factors that cause this single omission. Science is one. Biochemistry is a convincing alternative to anthropomorphic spirits in explaining both the animation of human life and its death, leading to an overall rejection of the entire anthropomorphic spirit hypothesis – infinitely powerful or otherwise. The static nature of spirit-based religions is another, with only centuries-old ink marks on tiny sheepskin fragments like P52 as evidence ultimately underlying claims of omnipotent spirit gods. (Res ipsa loquitur – a Latin double-entendre in this context). Independent of “the existence of gods” is the entire lack of any evidence whatsoever of “existence for an afterlife” as only one spirituality option among many – technically not a factor in being an atheist, but relevant.
But finally the main factor leading many atheists to leave a spirit god (and afterlife) out of their belief system is the realization that one is not necessary for a religion, but is in fact a (possibly distracting?) spirituality add-on. Atheists can and often do believe in a religion, and follow that religion to make themselves and the world better. Religion is a formalized group of beliefs and precepts that, once chosen by a follower, provide guidance and support in how to live one’s life in the material world.
Which is I think pretty much the whole point of John’s article here today.
https://www.pewforum.org/2012/10/09/nones-on-the-rise/
https://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-unaffiliated/
Neither “religion” nor “science” is suitable to explain the world. Try looking at it in terms of “evil exists” and “good exists” instead.
I personally find good and evil to be somewhat slippery concepts to comtemplate, when one can get either a Congressional Medal of Honor or The Death Penalty for the simple action of pulling the trigger on a gun.
To expound upon this with another example:
Some call him a good young man. Some call him an evil young man. I call him Kyle Rittenhouse.
Some call him a good man. Some call him an evil man. I call him Michael Reinoehl.
I personally believe there are no good men, there are no evil men, there are only men, and men can do and be anything they choose to be. Others judge.
“Don’t be so open minded that your brains fall out.”
See? You have partially proven my thesis. The devil’s greatest trick was in convincing people that he doesn’t exist, and that there are no such things as good and evil.
I’ve said to a friend, the Bible isn’t a geological textbook.
And the geological textbook isn’t a Bible . . .
Yeah, and I’m on the believer side. It’s, for me, faith and experience. YMMV.
Phenomenal post!!!
I think being able to live in a “high-trust” society is the closest thing we have to being able to live in heaven this side of death. I concur that living life well provides its own reward.
I also think Christianity is a very solid template for being able to maintain a high-trust society. That is in large part because Christianity makes virtue a personal responsibility and doesn’t rely on neighbors ratting out bad-thinkers.
As always, your mileage will vary.
Thank you, Joe. Like I said, I had Help.
It’s always bee of great interest to me the way that one’s approach to faith is so. Very. Individual.
It took me a long time to figure out why. We all are at different parts of our paths, and we come to conclusions or epiphany at different times (this is one of the reasons, think I, that consensus is so difficult to achieve. Anyone who says different is selling something).
My point is that, each of us comes to the Lord in their own time. At some point, the physical and the spiritual must merge, else progress cannot continue. This is one of the things holding physics back (I know, these are very complex ideas being compressed into literary soundbites. Forgive me my lack of space).
We are all singing from the same song sheet, just with different lyrics. For the most part. Some of us aren’t singing, some of us would like it if everyone sang as they did, others will kill you for singing at all or not at all….
We are still arguing about what church everyone should attend, two thousand years after nailing one guy to a tree for daring to suggest how great it would be if people were nice to each other.
Sometimes, just sometimes, I despair for my species.
When I was baptized, my brother (John Wilder) asked if they were dunkers or splashers.
(shaking head)
I’ve met atheists who simply don’t want to give up a vice or sin. Atheists who hate God (in my experience that’s 90% of them) are pretty easy to debunk.
Online: “You’re spending a lot of energy hating something that doesn’t exist.” That’s for the benefit of the onlookers, btw. The online atheist will mostly go into a rage, which I find rather funny.
Meat-space: Same phrase, but body language and tone make this a loving statement that hopefully makes them think about why that is.
Vice and sin are just like it says on the label: Temptation. But when overly done? They become the punishments they are.
There are no atheists on the battlefield. Your enemy is a religious zealot. That’s what Marxism/Socialism/Communism is.
Get over the fear of some Fedgov hologram staffed by 80 IQ diversity hires.
Only Americans fear the best government that money can buy. The rest of the world sees it as a laughingstock.
How will you win the WAR if you too scared to post up on certain platforms or afraid some oddball will get loose in the comments?
Worried about the house, the mortgage, the happy motoring mobile? You have already lost.
On the topic of religion, I always have to begin by saying “I speak only for myself” because people inevitably assume I’m attacking their deeply held beliefs. I’m not. I respect and admire those who have religion and a spiritual side, even though I myself do not.
Is a meaningful life possible without religion or belief in God? I’m certain of it. Although it may lack the element of hope that an afterlife provides, that lack needn’t stop one from doing the best they can right now, nor following the rule of delayed gratification outlined in your post. After all, the story of the ant and the grasshopper isn’t about religion, though it may apply to it as well.
This is one of those basic things kids need to learn before they hit double digits (earlier is better). If not, they may never learn it at all, and society will suffer.
I agree. And here is where the Christians can learn from the atheists: don’t wait for Heaven. Live a meaningful life now.
Thanks for the great message. It is nice to have someone to tie things together.
The comments seem stuck on the religion part of the message. I got religion, but appreciate the reinforcement.
I have the issue with the first part of today’s message about basically work-life balance. I started work during the Carter decade long recession, which impacted my concerns about work stability. I am really over-working to try and avoid the layoff. Others have provided examples of what happens when an inadequate amount is put into work.
I guess there is no magic formula for the life-work balance, unless you somehow get into the boss’s head. And I guarantee that his thoughts are you’re a lazy idiot ;>) but then, that comment probably applies to God as well.
The comments go where they go! I don’t think there is a magic balance number, but you have to know that it exists. And, like you, I’ve gone more toward the long hours than the other side.
Yup. One of my favorite bumper stickers:
“Jesus is coming. Look busy.”
(a/the/ist: a = without, the = god, ist = person-who-is) atheists are people who don’t believe in God. So, anyone who hates God isn’t an atheist, he’s an angry believer.
If your epistemology allows you to believe in a monster in the sky without evidence, what else do you believe without evidence? Anthropomorphic Global Warming? Russians materially altered our last presidential election results by unspecified means? Government can create wealth by printing currency?
Arthur Sido writes: There are very, very few real atheists in the sense of not believing in and utterly rejecting the very idea of God.
I’m one. High energy particle physicists have never turned on a machine, which opened a window into another dimension, revealing a big eyeball looking back. And if it did, why would you automatically assume it was benevolent?
McChuck writes: All people have a faith. Religion is part of the human condition. Those who believe in nothing will fall for anything. Making people think he doesn’t exist was the devil’s greatest trick.
Circular argument.
“Reality is real” is also a circular argument, but one that still needs to be made. And is also true.
The foundational principles of mathematics cannot be proven, they must be assumed.
The fundamental constants of nature cannot be derived, they must be measured.
And, in other news, scholars have studied the plays attributed to “William Shakespeare” for centuries, without ever having found any character named William Shakespeare therein. So much for the antiquated notion of those plays having been the creation of the mythical sky-monster William Shakespeare. Much more likely, they came about through the random typing of a million monkeys for a million years, although the flaw there is that the monkeys aren’t in the plays either.
Why would you expect the Creator to be a part of His creation? Does a container hold itself?
Try again.
Mcchuck wrote: “Reality is real” is also a circular argument, but one that still needs to be made. And is also true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy
The motte-and-bailey fallacy (named after the motte-and-bailey castle) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy where an arguer conflates two positions which share similarities, one modest and easy to defend (the “motte”) and one much more controversial (the “bailey”). The arguer advances the controversial position, but when challenged, they insist that they are only advancing the more modest position. Upon retreating to the motte, the arguer can claim that the bailey has not been refuted (because the critic refused to attack the motte) or that the critic is unreasonable (by equating an attack on the bailey with an attack on the motte).
James wrote: Why would you expect the Creator to be a part of His creation? Does a container hold itself?
What created the Creator; who is the Creator’s Creator? Is there a Creator’s Creator’s Creator? A millionth level? Where does it end? Can you point to any evidence which makes this infinite stack of Creators more likely than any other arrangement? If you’re making a map, and you haven’t visited a place, leave the map blank there; don’t draw a fantastical sea monster.
Never said I didn’t have evidence.
I consider myself to be a Frisbitarian. We believe life ends when someone throws you up onto the roof and you get stuck in the rain gutter.
Is there a chapter where the wind or a ladder leads to a resurrection?
Perfesser Wilder,
In the name of everything good and just and true, I offer my sincere appreciation for single-sentence paragraphs.
And two-sentence paragraphs with each sentence starting at the left margin.
Some say love
It is a river
I say love
It is a margin
Whose name is ‘Brevity’
[many thanks to Amanda McBroom via the incomparable Conway Twitty]
I try. One time I was editing one of The Mrs. books, and in the margin I noted that one of her sentences was longer than the Preamble to the Constitution. She laughed.
But seriously, I counted words.