You've captured a lot of the issues with how evangelicals think about the afterlife. Logically, I don't think I believe in an afterlife anymore, but emotionally, yes, I do see signs and feel the presence of my dead loved ones. My love for them is still so real, so it just doesn't feel possible that they're completely gone.
I had a real shock when I thought philosophically about the heaven I’d been taught about in church. Eternal life in a perfect place is a logical impossibly.
If it is perfect, then it must be by definition changeless, as any change from perfection will cease to be perfect. If it is changeless, then it isn’t life. If it is life, then it cannot be perfect, so how is it different from life on earth?
So what the church is offering as its prize for “winning through” is at the very best eternal lifeless stasis which sounds a lot like death to me.
Wow! Your remark here helps me sooooo much! Logic is my love language! And thanks to evangelical fundamentalist Protestantism, I've been traumatized by being bludgeoned over and over with ideas such as that ("moral") perfection is both possible and necessary for me to acheive to be spared from never ending torture in hell after death. Thank you so, so, so much for laying out this argument in your comment!
This seems to me to really be the crux of a lot of religious Christianity: "It feels good, especially when you’ve been conditioned to not have genuine empathy for people different than yourself, to rest on the laurels of your own self-righteousness..." Astute observation, Christine. To a naturally empathetic person, that attitude feels so incredibly anathematic. I know it's a side issue to what you are discussing, but it's a major flaw in American Christian religion (but not in Christ) that allows things like immigrant hatred and fascistic nationalism to arise in the church without church people ever recognizing their own hypocrisy. And of course it also allows the hypocrite to not care about the alleged fates of millions on the other side of the world or in the less desirable neighborhoods of their own town--except maybe in the ingenuine sense of duty to send some missionary to the poor errant heathens. The selfishness and superiority of it all revolts me.
But getting to faith and death, from various esoteric experiences, I have a personal sense that love is present throughout the universe, and whatever happens to our soul will bring us (all of us) into a peaceful loving and kind consciousness, whatever that may be, and that's enough to make me content.
You've captured a lot of the issues with how evangelicals think about the afterlife. Logically, I don't think I believe in an afterlife anymore, but emotionally, yes, I do see signs and feel the presence of my dead loved ones. My love for them is still so real, so it just doesn't feel possible that they're completely gone.
OK, so I didn't know what emetophobia was until this morning, and I'm quite sure I have that in my list of "conditions."
Ohhh I am sorry to hear that, and also, welcome to the club 😂🤪
I believe we are the normal ones 😂
I had a real shock when I thought philosophically about the heaven I’d been taught about in church. Eternal life in a perfect place is a logical impossibly.
If it is perfect, then it must be by definition changeless, as any change from perfection will cease to be perfect. If it is changeless, then it isn’t life. If it is life, then it cannot be perfect, so how is it different from life on earth?
So what the church is offering as its prize for “winning through” is at the very best eternal lifeless stasis which sounds a lot like death to me.
Wow! Your remark here helps me sooooo much! Logic is my love language! And thanks to evangelical fundamentalist Protestantism, I've been traumatized by being bludgeoned over and over with ideas such as that ("moral") perfection is both possible and necessary for me to acheive to be spared from never ending torture in hell after death. Thank you so, so, so much for laying out this argument in your comment!
This seems to me to really be the crux of a lot of religious Christianity: "It feels good, especially when you’ve been conditioned to not have genuine empathy for people different than yourself, to rest on the laurels of your own self-righteousness..." Astute observation, Christine. To a naturally empathetic person, that attitude feels so incredibly anathematic. I know it's a side issue to what you are discussing, but it's a major flaw in American Christian religion (but not in Christ) that allows things like immigrant hatred and fascistic nationalism to arise in the church without church people ever recognizing their own hypocrisy. And of course it also allows the hypocrite to not care about the alleged fates of millions on the other side of the world or in the less desirable neighborhoods of their own town--except maybe in the ingenuine sense of duty to send some missionary to the poor errant heathens. The selfishness and superiority of it all revolts me.
But getting to faith and death, from various esoteric experiences, I have a personal sense that love is present throughout the universe, and whatever happens to our soul will bring us (all of us) into a peaceful loving and kind consciousness, whatever that may be, and that's enough to make me content.