{"id":13541,"date":"2025-10-30T18:11:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T00:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theway.davisinterests.com\/wp\/?p=13541"},"modified":"2025-12-02T04:44:44","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T10:44:44","slug":"eternal-life-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theway.davisinterests.com\/wp\/eternal-life-why\/","title":{"rendered":"Eternal life – why?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This page contains the significant statements by members of SBA to the post Eternal life – why?<\/a> The conversation has many good insights about an “afterlife”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandra Snook<\/a> – Opening Post<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve pondered a lot about what seems to be a very human goal, and often the primary goal of being a Christian, attaining eternal life. It seems most just accept that this is an end (or not end, literally) that everyone would want. But really? My mere existence of 6 \u00bd decades on this earthly realm cannot remotely prepare me for the concept of eternity. I don\u2019t think there is anything I would want out of an eternal existence. Even more so if it were in a spiritual body. I think I\u2019d spend eternity seeking out the experience of feeling a breeze on my skin, the touch of a loved one, the soft fur of my cat, the lick of my dog, the aroma of fresh baked cinnamon rolls. So much of life\u2019s pleasures are wrapped up in our sensory experiences. And who to spend it with? I don\u2019t think there is anyone (including myself) that I would want to spend eternity with. What is the appeal? I\u2019ve asked Christians this, and I\u2019ve yet to ask anyone who seems to have thought about it even a little bit. There is just a knee-jerk reaction that, of course, everyone wants eternal life. While I\u2019m not ready to leave yet, I have no interest in experiencing eternity. That honestly feels like hell whether there is fire and brimstone or harps and clouds. Does anyone else think about this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Responses<\/a><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

O V<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amen. The Christian heaven is the second least desirable destination, with the Christian hell being the only thing worse. I\u2019d rather have oblivion than either of these two options. I think the best would be reincarnation with a limited life span and time between lives to contemplate the soul\u2019s progress. Hopefully on the next planet not everybody will be a brainless sheep.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael Waddell<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Personally, I do wish for immortality, even though I know I can\u2019t attain it. I\u2019m an organism \u2014 as such, I have a very strong innate impulse to not die<\/em>. You must admit that, objectively speaking, it\u2019s a certainly an adaptive impulse. And I feel it in my bones. It\u2019s the tragedy of conscious creatures like ourselves to know that we will never have that which we want the most: immortality. There is a time in the future \u2014 a real time that can be measured on a calendar \u2014 when I will not exist. I will be entirely gone. If anything in the world bothers me, that bothers me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I see so many ways people try to convince themselves that it isn\u2019t true! People believe in heaven, or reincarnation, or that fame will allow them to live on somehow, or that so long as they\u2019re remembered they\u2019re not really gone, or a million other specious rationalizations. When I look out at the history of religion and literature and art, I see people all over the globe going to extreme lengths to try to convince themselves that there\u2019s some way they can avoid their own inevitable end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet when you ask people, many people claim that it doesn\u2019t bother them. That immortality would be a burden anyway. That even though they would give anything in the world to not have to die today<\/em>, that there will still be a day in the future when they believe they will be content to fade away. I honestly don\u2019t know \u2014 maybe they\u2019re fooling themselves, or maybe they\u2019ve discovered something I haven\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best essay I\u2019ve found on the topic is this video from Tale Foundry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CuVsq9nlNJ0?rel=0<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael Waddell<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ruth D. Everything ends. I don\u2019t believe in an afterlife, but even if I did, it couldn\u2019t last forever, just by the nature of existence. For something to be truly eternal, it would have to be unchanging, and that doesn\u2019t describe any part of me that I\u2019d recognize as \u201cme\u201d.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ruth D.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael Waddell Thanks for answering me Michael. I think I wasn\u2019t hearing your point until you offered that, for you, to be truly eternal you would have to be unchanging, otherwise it would not be describing a \u2018you\u2019 that you would recognize. May I offer another viewpoint I have thought about?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was teaching Respiratory Care, as part of the lab that went along with understanding the different ways we take in\/change (convert)\/make therapeutic use of, etc., fluids, we needed to cover Changing States of Matter. For example water (liquid) can evaporate, changing to a gas, where it may also condense back into a fluid. Outside the body water as fluid can change to a solid (ice). There is also the peculiar ability of dry ice to go through sublimation, going from solid directly to a gas without experiencing the fluid state. The point is that at no point in any of those states was it ever other than H2O – the waterness<\/em> , in some sense, was always recognizable as itself. That was phase one of an Aha moment I had right in the middle of lab (students often have no idea what\u2019s going on in the teacher\u2019s head!) The other thought I had in a reverie once was to ask if we must always contemplate eternity as a function of time? <\/strong>Could the broader meaning encompass \u2018limitlessness\u2019? It opened up the possibility that corporal death may make possible the release of a force, or potential, that changes state while retaining some identity, experiencing limitlessness. I\u2019m admittedly getting off into the weeds here, but God has been described as limitless consciousness<\/strong>. I can understand several of Jesus\u2019 teachings through a perspective of being able to move through an altered state, to directly have my \u2018presence\u2019 at release experience the collective presence of Supreme Consciousness, to both still be recognizable and yet merged. It let me read the mythic truth within Genesis of God\u2019s breath enlivening the most basic of materials – dirt- into a living being. Which is more the us? The dirt or the breath? <\/span><\/strong><\/mark><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandra Snook<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a paradox that one can be afraid of dying, yet also reject a desire for immortality. I share your desire to not die NOW – or in the foreseeable future, please. Yet, I have been with people transitioning to death (my mother comes foremost to mind) and when it can happen in a secure, safe environment, with time to \u201cget your affairs in order,\u201d many people are ready to go. I think many people just avoid thinking deeply about what eternity really means. Forever and ever, amen.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teresa M<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandra Snook Oh, I think I disagree, Sandra. There are people I would spend an eternity with, definitely! I agree that most of our humanly pleasures are wrapped up in sensory experiences, but I think if there is another plane of existence after this one, it\u2019s entirely different from what we experience now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t suppose I believe in a traditional concept of heaven and hell, especially not hell. But I do have to say (without sounding New Age) that the topic of near death experiences has been fascinating to me. I find myself believing that our consciousness evolves in ways we cannot comprehend. I think there are mysteries that we cannot even begin to answer. You pose some very interesting questions!<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandra Snook<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teresa M Teresa – https:\/\/youtu.be\/JKkiPVpbOEc?si=HVYkWuJm9ciz4YNE<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robert Draper<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teresa M I too find the near-death experiences concept fascinating. Serious scientists at the University of Virginia\u2019s Division of Perceptual Studies have been investigating the phenomena and collecting data for years. There are numerous documented examples of people emerging from these experiences aware of events that took place while they were \u201cgone,\u201d events that they could not possibly have known about absent something \u201cparanormal\u201d involved. The suggestion is that perhaps consciousness exists apart from the physical brain. If so, does this \u201cconsciousness\u201d persist following death of the physical body? Is that what eternal life is all about? Darned if I know but the studies are compelling.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barbara B. Robertson<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, I have thought about it. I really don\u2019t expect an afterlife. But the idea of reward is even unrealistic to me. I feel like our rewards are in this life and usually because we have achieved some good thing. We can reflect on the value of that accomplishment or relish the completion of a difficult task!<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charles Bledsoe<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, one can take the biological reductionist, evolutionary reductionist tack and explain the desire for immortality in terms of a biological aversion to death, and instinct for survival ingrained in our genome by evolution. To my mind that\u2019s bit superficial. Freud used the term \u201cEros\u201d to describe a drive not merely to live, to maintain one\u2019s survival, but to be creative, through sexual reproduction, and socially, the social creation of our existence. And Freud\u2019s colleague Otto Rank posited what he termed the urge to immortality, a desire to permanently remain a part of life, often expressed through creativity. I think that Freud and Rank were on the right track here, but didn\u2019t go deep enough, shall we say.

I subscribe to a pancreativist and panexperientialist (the more familiar term is panpsychist) conception of life and reality as fundamentally a creative, experiential, relational, teleological, axiologically purposive, lively process. Hegel called this process Spirit (Geist<\/em>), and Whitehead called it creativity. Along with Hegel and Whitehead I conceive it to be ultimate reality. By \u201cultimate reality\u201d I don\u2019t at all mean something supernatural. Rather, on my understanding it\u2019s the ultimate ground and nature of nature, and of our biological lives. It\u2019s nature\u2019s ontologically fundamental process and drive toward creativity, experience, value-experience, and actuality. Freud\u2019s Eros, I would argue, is fundamentally this ontological process and nisus. And the urge to immortality stems from it, from an ontological instinct, as it were, to participate and embody its endless striving. That is, the instinctual desire to live is the natural universe\u2019s own striving and activity toward actualization in our individual entity.

Human beings then give form to this ontological drive and desire to be a part of the infinite, endless creativity and vitality of a creative and lively universe by imagining an afterlife where they\u2019ll continue to persist incorporeally forever. The urge for immortality finds its conceptual expression in religion\u2019s notions of eschatology, and heaven. Of course this hasn\u2019t always been the case. Religions in antiquity weren\u2019t concerned with an afterlife, they were more interested in this-earthly well-being and flourishing. Rather than being focused on postmortem salvation, antique religions consisted of rituals to obtain the favor of the gods that were the mechanism for ensuring the welfare of one\u2019s community. This focus on flourishing lives in the here and now rather than pie in the sky when we die was another expression of the same life instinct, an instinct that goes down all the way to nature\u2019s depth dimension, its fundamental creative and experiential process. Religion is essentially a way of consciously engaging this ultimate reality, but often with beliefs, such as the belief in immortality, that get it wrong.

In short, on the view I\u2019ve just articulated the idea of, and desire for immortality is metaphysically ultimate, not merely a construct of religions unconsciously motivated by an evolutionary life instinct. Evolution, and the life instinct it\u2019s programmed into us are a biological expression of the experiential creativity at the base of nature. Eros, the lust for life, infinite life, is something inherent in the very ontology of the world.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandra Snook<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lust for life I get, but as you state, the focus on an afterlife\/eternal existence, that is a relatively new concept relative to the overall timeline of human evolution. To me, wanting to see \u201chow the story ends”,\u201d may be a natural feeling, but immortal existence? I just don\u2019t desire it.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

O V<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandra Snook I agree. I think the big driving force is hell not heaven. Church had to invent hell because \u201ccome hang out with us for eternity\u201d was a marketing failure.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charles Bledsoe<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandra Snook I don\u2019t fancy an immortal postmortem existence either. And although I think that the idea has an ontological basis, I view it as a misconception, an instance of an erroneous understanding inspired by a veridical intuition. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schaun Wheeler<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s worth noting that attainment of some God-given future state is not unanimously considered a primary goal among Christians, and it\u2019s very possible that it was hardly on the radar for very early Christians. In the Gospels, phrases like \u201ceternal life\u201d or \u201ckingdom of God\u201d often don\u2019t mean \u201cgoing to heaven when you die.\u201d They\u2019re more about living in the reality of God\u2019s rule right now \u2014 a kind of life that starts in the present, not after death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Jesus talks about or models the kingdom, it\u2019s often tied to tangible, human experiences: shared meals (the parable of the great banquet in Luke 14:15\u201324), physical touch and healing (Jesus touching and cleansing the leper in Mark 1:40\u201342), forgiveness (the anointing of Jesus by the sinful woman in Luke 7:36\u201350), and restored community (Jesus dining with Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1\u201310). In those moments, people are already experiencing what \u201clife in God\u2019s reign\u201d looks like \u2014 it\u2019s not abstract or otherworldly, it\u2019s embodied and social.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s mostly later, especially in Paul\u2019s letters and then in early Christian thought, that \u201ceternal life\u201d becomes more about a future existence. That shift probably came from a mix of apocalyptic expectation and Hellenistic philosophical influence, which made spiritualized, otherworldly hope more appealing and intelligible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So your discomfort isn\u2019t strange \u2014 it\u2019s arguably closer to the outlook of Jesus\u2019 earliest followers, who seemed to imagine life with God not as endless time, but as fully renewed life, with all its embodied goodness, made whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Incidentally, I\u2019m currently reading The God We Never Knew by Marcus J. Borg (recommended to me by Ruth D. on this forum), and he’s primarily concerned with this exact tension, between the (now) traditional idea of believing in the present for the sake of some future heaven, versus entering into God\u2019s presence and life now \u2014 a transformation of awareness and relationship in the present world, not an escape to another one later. I’m only about a fourth of the way through the book, but I’m finding it well worth the read – reminds me a lot of Robert Farrar Capon’s book on the Parables of the Kingdom (Capon’s argument being that the Kingdom is present, not future).<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charles Bledsoe<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schaun Wheeler Early Jesus-followers quite fundamentally entertained the hope of immortality. But not a disembodied immortality; rather, they had notions of bodily transformation and resurrection, they believed that they and the resurrected dead who were \u201csaved\u201d would receive immortal spiritual bodies. This belief had already developed before Paul converted. And recall that Jesus taught that the resurrected would be \u201clike the angels\u201d. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandra Snook<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks for the book recommendation, Schaun (and Ruth D). I think this topic rose to the top of my pondering this week because I just reread John straight through, preparing to read Mendez\u2019s book, and that Gospil certainly seems to focus on eternal life as the goal. And all the evangelicals I know, thats all they talk about to be honest – getting saved so you can be raptured and live forever.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schaun Wheeler<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandra Snook I find it\u2019s often worth reminding myself that evangelicalism (particularly the U.S. flavor) is among the newest of all renegotiations of Christianity out there. The very concept of a rapture isn\u2019t even 200 years old yet – it\u2019s not biblical in the slightest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regarding John – many of the \u201ceternal life\u201d passages in that text look like talk of a future state because that has become the common assumption, but that doesn’t mean those passages hit their original readers the way they hit us. Even if we take the poster-child scripture for belief in a future heaven – \u201cFor God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.\u201d (John 3:16) – we can see that the future view isn’t necessarily the view intended by the text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The key phrase is pas ho pisteu\u014dn eis auton echei z\u014d\u0113n ai\u014dnion<\/em>, which – as far as I understand – literally reads \u201ceveryone who believes in him has eternal life.\u201d The verb echei<\/em> is present tense, indicating possession now, not a future event. So even in this verse, John frames eternal life as something believers already possess through faith in Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you place this alongside John 3:36 (\u201cWhoever believes in the Son has eternal life\u201d) and John 5:24 (\u201cwhoever hears my word and believes\u2026 has eternal life\u201d), the pattern is pretty clear: the Gospel repeatedly presents eternal life as a present, participatory reality \u2014 not merely a postmortem reward. It’s the life of the age to come breaking into the present: a transformed participation in God\u2019s reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, yes, \u201ceternal life\u201d can be read as \u201clife that lasts forever\u201d, but it can also be read as \u201clife that is of a quality or nature that exists (past, present, and future) forever\u201d – in other words, the kind of life God offers. At the risk of making the idea too pithy: \u201ceternal\u201d can be seen as a sort of name or designation for God – \u201ceternal life\u201d is \u201cGod\u2019s life\u201d\u2026or, at least, the kind of life that God has to offer.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandra Snook<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks for these thoughts – I\u2019ll have to ponder them. I do wish I knew Greek, but it\u2019s sure nice to be around all these new friends who do!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Charles Bledsoe<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandra Snook Of course early Christ-believers were not monolithic, they held a variety of convictions about salvation and eschatology, but one can generalize that they were apocalypticists who, contra Schaun, did in fact think that the full fruits of their faith, their immortality, would be realized in the future, at the eschaton; and the proto-orthodox, folks like Paul, certainly believed that salvation is not an instantly done-deal after conversion, that it\u2019s a journey that won\u2019t be completed until Jesus returns and the faithful receive their imperishable glorified bodies (and Paul\u2019s beliefs weren\u2019t original, they\u2019re beliefs that Christians had already developed early on, well before his conversion, and that he took up and promoted).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Schaun Wheeler<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charles Bledsoe Yes, I wouldn\u2019t presume to generalize the beliefs of so many people from so long ago. My comments were restricted to pointing out that while many specific passages in the gospels are commonly interpreted today as saying something about about a future state, there is no reason to assume that that same interpretation would have been imposed nearly as often or as consistently by the people who were first writing and reading those passages. There were certainly many beliefs at the time about a future state. I don\u2019t think we have the evidence to make the case that the specific passages in the gospels – even the ones in John – were talking about that future state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Charles Bledsoe<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schaun Wheeler Some early Christ-believers apparently didn\u2019t look forward to a future resurrection, but that was because they were Gentiles who believed in a Platonic eschatology, in which we possess immortal souls that when we die continue to exist in a discarnate way. These Christ-believers then were not looking forward to being raised to immortality in the future, but they were still looking forward to future disembodied immortality as Platonic souls.

I would also argue that belief in immortality is always inherently forward and future-looking. Those who subscribe to the belief envision an unceasing future existence for their personality, either in resurrection bodies, or as incorporeal souls. Even if they believe that they already enjoy the state of immortality their expectation is still a future-oriented expectation of existing without end in the time ahead.

And if immortality was a real thing it would be diachronic, it would take place over time, reaching from the now into the future. Immortality is necessarily futurality. And the dream of immortality involves a hope or expectation for the future.

At any rate, even those early Christ-believers, such as the Corinthians with whom Paul had some issues, who believed that their present state was already a state of fully realized salvation, and that they had already been blessed with the full scope of the benefits of salvation, including immortality, likely were not in naive denial about their physical mortality and looked forward to a Platonic kind of athanasia<\/em> to be realized in a postmortem future.

But all of this is somewhat of a digression. The topic of the thread concerns belief in the reality, not the question of the futurality of immortality; and also the desirability of immortality. Although it\u2019s taken different forms, and undergone changes, there isn\u2019t really any question that Christianity, and its soteriology, has always featured a vision of human immortality. Personally, I find this to be one of the problems with Christianity. Like Sandra, I don\u2019t fancy the idea of living forever, especially in a disembodied form. I prefer the Whiteheadian idea of objective immortality, of only living on as an object of experience and memory in the mind of God, not as a continuing experiencing subject. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Derik Reed<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spending my time as I want now. I was a special education teacher at a high school in Helena, Montana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schaun Wheeler I have for more than half my life viewed heaven and hell as here-and-now choices, rather than an eternal reward or punishment. My life experience appears to demonstrate that. I don\u2019t worry about the reality of an afterlife, any more than I worry about a Rapture, or any of the other doctrines with little to no scriptural support, even if you take the Book literally.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Derik Reed<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandra Snook Yup. Goofiness, and a waste of time, imo. Jesus was talking about here and now transformation. I like that a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Phil PhuD (aka Phillip S. Kott)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think there are many world religions that don\u2019t promise eternal life. To a certain extent Christians invented and perfected the concept (although there may have been Jewish sects ahead of them on the invention part). Pascal\u2019s wager questions why anyone would not believe in God because if true, believing gives one eternal life in heaven and disbelieving eternal life in hell; if false, one simply disappears whether of not one believes. (Pascal was a brilliant mathematician, who gave up math for Catholic theology.) I was taught that the Jewish tradition gives a similar reason to believe in heaven: If you don\u2019t, you won\u2019t get in. Pious Jews are less likely to believe in hell than Christians. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sandra Snook<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, that\u2019s an approach I used to take, but I\u2019m now at a place in this life where prevaricating like that no longer matters. But it\u2019s a stand many still take, and I understand why. I just think if there was a real God who knows everyone\u2019s true heart, that would not be an effective strategy. As I don\u2019t believe in hell, I\u2019m not worried about ending up there either. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Charles Bledsoe<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another understanding of the desire for immortality that can be drawn from the Whiteheadian philosophical perspective I subscribe to is that our existence is fundamentally about value-realization, the embodiment of axiological possibilities, and so the idea that death is absolute extinction, that all of the value we\u2019ve come to embody in life will perish when we die is something we\u2019re deeply averse to, and that aversion is something people sometimes negotiate by entertaining wishful beliefs about an afterlife. The religious belief in immortality is a way of resolving the emotional distress that results from the thought that the value we represent isn\u2019t permanent.See lessLikedReply1 like<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Charles Bledsoe<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately I don\u2019t believe in the possibility of an afterlife (on ontological grounds), because if I did then I\u2019d have to entertain the disturbing question: Is it possible that the ancient Greeks and Israelites were right, and the afterlife resembles the dreadful fate experienced by the dead in Hades and Sheol; a static, bleak, gloomy state, an inactive and vegetative form of existence in a shadowy netherworld? Personally, I would prefer annihilation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Derik Reed<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the next five years are anything like the last five years, then my quality of life is likely to rapidly decline (though I think retirement is definitely slowing the progression of ageing). This is the source of my frenetic retirement activities; some of the things I wish to do may not be in reach in a relatively short period of time. I have no desire to leave, but I don\u2019t think I want to live forever, either. A group of us reading Borg\u2019s books got an opportunity to question him regarding his views of traditional Christian doctrine, including the afterlife. He asserted that he thought all of us would be resorbed back to the Creator in a massive unity, citing as evidence that the most holy times of his life were the times when he lost all sense of self and was completely in the moment and invested in others. I liked that, but I don\u2019t think he found it as humorous and ironic as I did that Borg seemed to be saying \u201cresistance is futile; you will be assimilated.\u201d He did not think distinct personalities in the afterlife were a thing, and I tended to agree with him. I like the vision of returning to the One, and it makes the ideas of the Gnostics look pretty palatable (except for the insane arrogance of \u201cknowing\u201d). So, I will live as if this is the only life I get, at least as an individual, and I will suck the marrow from it, clinging until my grip is loosened by age and infirmity, with no expectation of an eternity, but living with others as if there is one. It would be an interesting surprise to discover something on the other side of the veil. I tend to agree with Bart that the righteous are described as earning an afterlife, but the sinners are simply destroyed, in Jesus\u2019 vision. I should be good either way. I can say that I don\u2019t fear eternity any more than I desire it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sandra Snook<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Derik Reed Well said, \u201cSo, I will live as if this is the only life I get, at least as an individual, and I will suck the marrow from it, clinging until my grip is loosened by age and infirmity, with no expectation of an eternity, but living with others as if there is one. It would be an interesting surprise to discover something on the other side of the veil.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do believe my atoms will disperse into the universe and in that way I\u2019ll have eternity (so no embalming or vaults – need to let my atoms free, baby! Maybe a mushroom suit burial\u2026).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems more likely to me that there are some forms of parallel universes or states formed via quantum and other mechanisms we don\u2019t know about yet. It\u2019s cool, I think, that our atoms are not touching each other except via energy, yet we feel a corporal body. So much we don\u2019t understand. I\u2019m sad I won\u2019t be around to learn all the secrets of the universe, but, like you, I am focusing on enjoying the here and now.See lessLikeReply<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Derik Reed<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandra Snook love it. Hey, is the mushroom suit idea a reality? I like it. I’ve been thinking cremation with illegal, unmarked scatterings. I don’t want to tie up any ground with a physical memorial. LikeReply<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Glenn Siepert<\/a> – Content Creator for Bart Ehrman<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ah this is such an interesting thought. I\u2019ve spent a lot of time looking back on the \u201cEvangelical theology\u201d of my youth and have come away with similar wonderings – an eternity in what I was taught heaven would be like sounds like absolute hell. No Yankee baseball to watch in the Summer? No pets (\u201cthey don\u2019t have souls\u201d, I was taught!)? No pizza? Video Games? Punk bands? Just songs to Jesus all day and night \u2026 sounds like a lame party that I was supposed to be excited about, but secretly kind of dreaded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These days (and this is just where I\u2019m at) I see \u201cGod\u201d like an ocean and all of us like individual waves – all the waves are different and yet all the waves are the ocean. We are all connected and connected to or part of \u201cGod\u201d. And when the wave \u201cdies\u201d or \u201ccrashes upon the shore\u201d after old age or a battle with cancer, etc. it doesn\u2019t cease to exist as much as it just falls back into the greater ocean to support the other waves that are still roaming or have yet to be. And so in that way, when we fall back into the ocean we continue to exist and be connected in the same way we are now – just on a different plane of existence.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyways. That\u2019s a quick glimpse of the many thoughts your ponderings brought up for me. Thanks for sharing!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandra Snook<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Glenn Siepert I like that image – thanks for sharing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Derik Reed<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Glenn Siepert me too. Love that idea of being a part of the whole thing. What Is, is how I mostly name God nowadays, anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This page contains the significant statements by members of SBA to the post Eternal life – why? The conversation has many good insights about an “afterlife”. Sandra Snook – Opening Post I\u2019ve pondered a lot about what seems to be a very human goal, and often the primary goal of being a Christian, attaining eternal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[183],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theway.davisinterests.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theway.davisinterests.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theway.davisinterests.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theway.davisinterests.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theway.davisinterests.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13541"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theway.davisinterests.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14118,"href":"https:\/\/theway.davisinterests.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13541\/revisions\/14118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theway.davisinterests.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theway.davisinterests.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theway.davisinterests.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}