If a Christian’s loved ones go to eternal bliss and happiness in heaven when they die, then why do Christians cry when a loved one dies? Shouldn’t they throw a party and celebrate? If I loved someone and I knew that they died and went to heaven where they were perfectly happy and healthy and blissful all of the time, for eternity, this would seem like cause for celebrating. Or are the Christian’s so greedy and selfish that they place their desire to be with their loved one on a suffering and imperfect earth above their desire for that person to be blissfully happy in heaven?
And why dont we just wait until a loved one has confessed and asked forgiveness, and then suddenly kill them without their knowledge? Wouldnt this guarantee that they would go to heaven, whereas if we let them grow up and live their life then there is a chance they will come to reject God and end up going to hell? If we care about them, shouldnt we make sure they get to eternal bliss in heaven by killing them after they accept Jesus and ask for the forgiveness of their sins, but before they have the chance to reject Jesus in their adult life and thus sin anew?
Or, are we all redeemed to heaven as soon as we accept Jesus and ask him for forgiveness, regardless of what we then do after this point? And if this is the case, then why do we try so hard to stay alive if we know we are going to heaven when we die? Why do we take medicine, wear seat-belts, look both ways before crossing the street? Shouldnt we be living our lives in constant desire to die so we can go to heaven?
When the enormous Juggernaut (“Universal Lord”) chariot, representing Krishna, rolled ritually on its gigantic wheels along the festive streets in Bharatam, devoted people would sometimes hurl themselves before it, in order to be crushed wholly under its wheels and attain salvation. There are many elaborate manifestations of genuine religious love, but I know of none that would equal this in its sheer immediacy, beauty and consumate affect. We lack the eyes today to see into the depth of it, both as a gesture and as a concept: we think immediately that the primitives believe (have the erroneous information) that being crushed by this chariot assures salvation. Profound mistake on our part! Rather, what the whole ritual and the whole world urges us to see is that the true devotees KNOW that to be subsumed completely in Lord Krishna assures salvation. The rest of their sacrifice follows, flows from that. The outward exstatic act is only the consequence of this inner certitude (the degree of its intensity), and in a sense is almost an afterthought only.
I enjoy questions brought up for discussion with good intent, curious and thoughtful, but even more I enjoy when they have simple and prosaic answers. For instance, is not common to grieve when a close friend or relative leaves us to go on an important journey? Perhaps to attend the university, or to study a rare plant species in the jungle, or to take measurements on the remaining Arctic ice. That grief of separation is a natural human feeling between intimates of every kind. However, what you describe (festivals and celebrations upon death) has always been done, and indeed is still done in many rural regions that have refused so far to become “civilized”. In certain regions within the world Aryan diaspora the folk wedding celebrations to this day are identical to those pertaining to death, and vice versa. This is certainly no arbitrary coincidence.
The sentiment is backwards if indeed one truly celebrates the death of the loved one. Happiness would be primary, grief only secondary. Yet this is the opposite of how it is - one suffers deeply and emotionally, and only secondarily, as a justification or rationalizing, “believes” that they are now in heaven, and thus, after the fact, gains a degree of comfort and mitigation of their own suffering.
We spent our lives in fear of death, and we suffer tremendously when a loved one dies - these are both inconsistent with a worldview that, if truly believed, states that upon death one enters into eternal bliss and happiness forever. In truth we ought to be looking forward to death, hoping for it (for ourselves and for our loved ones) at every corner, but of course it is just the opposite. The actions of those who kill themselves in order to attain this heaven or to be with a loved one who has previously attained it are of course consistent, but as this suicide is condemned by the Christian faith then Christians are left without this outlet of non-contradiction, and thus their beliefs must rationalize in contradiction, being as they are unable to even entertain the natural response mandated by their belief itself.
Unable to elevate itself into a primary status which commands the instincts, the belief is left where it originated, in self-contradiction and conditioned rationalization. Because of the mandate against suicide or murder the Christian belief cannot elevate and edify itself, as perhaps some of the eastern beliefs you mention do. While both beliefs begin in emotional reactivity, justification and rationalization of suffering and of the unknown, eastern beliefs have, at times, the possibility of edifying and completing themselves into a non-contradiction, ending of course with the natural suicide of oneself or the murder of a loved one. But the Christian belief cannot attain this logical maximum expression and thus must remain on the level of contradiction and rationalization. The consequence of this is that the Christian remains alive, but in a state of self-denial and repressed emotional pain - precisely where the institutional structure of their faith needs them to remain, alive and in repression and suffering. Its hard to control and manipulate someone who just kills themselves, after all.
Because we miss them and grieve their loss and we don’t know if they or we will go on. Sorry about the last part, but it is part of the whole equation. I know that’s dodging the question, to a degree, but what can I do, I’m not a Christian or anything like it.
Paine and Stump, yes I agree that there is a degree of happiness in believing that one’s dead loved ones are or are likely to be in heaven. But my point is that this is secondary to the suffering, which is initial and primary. If the Christian were consistent in their beliefs then their response would go something like, “Oh I just cant believe it, I am so happy that Johnny is dead and in heaven! How wonderful for him, I am so overjoyed that he finally died! Of course I am still sad and I miss him so much, but really it is just so wonderful isnt it?” Rather, their reaction is the opposite, terrible grief and pain of sadness, along with the lesser and secondary realization, “Well at least he is in a better place, that is comforting.” There is a difference in the affective response between these two reactions.
How many Christians do you know who literally rejoice and celebrate with joy when their loved one dies? How many are glad that their loved one dies, and look forward to it? None that I know of.
That said, trust me…there are a great many problems with Christian doctrine against what is life.
This…is hardly one worth hitting.
Primarily because people are going to be emotionally jealous of anyone they love and care for; ergo, they will not want to let them go out into never return to this life here; to have to live without them here.
This is cardinal, if nothing else, in human history consistently across the entire world regardless of religious perspective.
As such, it is evidentially, principle to being human.
As such can be easily deflected by any opposition to your position by simply stating that human fault is not a merit of the eternal.
Most take this position.
So your position is that people have a belief, but are not strong or consistent enough in their “human nature” to hold to that belief? That is certainly an option for dealing with the question I raise here.
But like I said, the affective response is different from what you would expect in someone who literally and completely believes that their loved one just went to eternal bliss and paradise. Those people who throw themselves in front of the chariots and kill themselves in order to get to heaven (or whatever the equivalent would be in their religion) that you mentioned would be what one would naturally expect from a genuine belief of this kind. And where Christians have prohibitions on suicide we of course would not expect this, but that same affective response would still be expected for others who have died.
Basically there is a significant difference between being mainly overjoyed and a little sad after-the-fact, and being mainly sad and a little overjoyed after-the-fact. While you can point to human nature and people’s “ego” in how they love others, this might mitigate some of the problem, but it does not completely address this crutial difference in affective response. One would not expect the first and most powerful emotional response to be grief, sadness, depression and pain given that person believes sincerely that their loved one just went to the most wonderful place in all of existence and is now happy and blissful and peaceful in ways that can never be achieved on earth. That would be a cause for, first and foremost, rejoycing and tears of happiness, not for pain and tears of sadness.
Is the core issue here whether Christians really believe the things they say? Because I have a problem with that, too. I know there are some interpretations of Christianity that don’t believe in hell, but for those that do, how is it possible to truly believe their non-christian friends and family members are going to hell for all eternity and not try, and I mean truly try, to convert them?
Imagine you knew and I mean KNEW that a loved one would be killed if they went ahead with their plans to go on vacation. Wouldn’t you try to stop them? Wouldn’t you do anything to stop them, even hold them hostage until the day passes if that’s what it took to get them to stop? You probably would. So if there’s some people out there that truly believe their loved ones are going to hell for all eternity (a fate considerably worse than simply dying) why don’t they do something about it? Any action whatsoever would be justified when an eternity of pain is at stake. The usual response I see from religious families that have someone who leaves the faith is anger, resentment, and in a lot of cases that family member is pushed out of the family. How does this make sense if these people believe heaven and hell are as certain as death?
Yes precisely, what I am implicitly calling into question is the actual belief itself, whether or not these Christians actually believe what they say they do.
Yes you are correct, most people seem far less zealous about it than this, however, I do know some people who are this obcessive about converting everyone they know, they do hound family and friends constantly with the zeal of religious fervor. These are people that present as extremely irrational, paranoid and disconnected from reality, usually unable to live their lives normally or keep things moving along, like paying bills or child support, and who alienate everyone they come into contact with. These people are the minority among Christians, sure, but they are a good example of the logically necessary conclusion of these beliefs, and seeing this really does a good job of exposing the contradiction at the heart of the belief itself - likely the fact that Christians do not normally act this way, despite that they ought to if indeed they believe what they profess to believe, amounts to their own realization, albeit mostly unconscious and repressed, that their beliefs are irrational, inconsistent and psychologically harmful.
I think that follows. If they were as certain of life after death as they are of death, and if they’re willing to go to extreme lengths to save the life of a loved one (and which Christian will say they aren’t), why wouldn’t they go to the same extreme lengths to save their soul from eternal hellfire? Why don’t they? Why is the mainstream Christian so passive? It’s not uncommon to be told from my christian friends that they are okay with me not believing what they do, yet how can I be okay with having these people as my friends unless they really don’t believe what they say they do. It’s the only way. If they do sincerely believe I’ll suffer an eternity of pain and torture, how could they be my friend and okay with my beliefs? Why, as you pointed out, are the people who do go to great lengths to save their loved ones from what they believe is a terrible fate, a minority? These are the only folks in whom God isn’t dead.
As far as I can see it is a good argument. I’m curious to see the reasons anyone would disagree with it.
You’re a man playing with symbols, with idols, with expressions that are removed in time and culture from what you know and thus it is understandable that you fail to understand grief.
It is not that people, and loved pets, just happen to die and go to heaven. When people die, they are placed in the ground, and their spirits sleeps (1 Corinthians 15) until the time of God’s Judgment. On the day of judgment perhaps we will rejoice, perhaps not, for we do not know the persons we love as God does. Who we think is saved might just end in hell, including ourselves. So what do we celebrate? What do we have to be joyful about? That someone went to sleep? When was the last time someone threw a party because you were going to sleep? When was the last time we celebrated someone’s comatose state?
— And why dont we just wait until a loved one has confessed and asked forgiveness, and then suddenly kill them without their knowledge? Wouldnt this guarantee that they would go to heaven, whereas if we let them grow up and live their life then there is a chance they will come to reject God and end up going to hell? If we care about them, shouldnt we make sure they get to eternal bliss in heaven by killing them after they accept Jesus and ask for the forgiveness of their sins, but before they have the chance to reject Jesus in their adult life and thus sin anew?
O- What? you think you can pull a fast one on God? Who is more deserving of heaven? The person who whose virtue coincided with them never getting a chance to sin, or the person who was virtuous given ample oportunity to sin?
— Or, are we all redeemed to heaven as soon as we accept Jesus and ask him for forgiveness, regardless of what we then do after this point?
O- You’re very transaction minded. What saves you is not caused by your repentance. Your repentance is just a symptom of that which causes your salvation.
— And if this is the case, then why do we try so hard to stay alive if we know we are going to heaven when we die?
O- No one knows.
— Why do we take medicine, wear seat-belts, look both ways before crossing the street? Shouldnt we be living our lives in constant desire to die so we can go to heaven?
O- No, because Jesus has given you a commission to pass on the blessing, the good news you’ve been given. That is how you show your love and salvation to God, not by killing yourself. You have to care for His children, not simply kill yourself in zealous rapture.