Little background here; First off I’m an athiest, so please go easy on me if the below mentioned details are a little vague.
I remeber my ex-wife ( a Christian) used to tell me that she believed that when you die that’s pretty much it. Because somewhere in the bible it states that humans were ment to walk the Earth and not only were they ment to walk the Earth but they we’re also ment to work. So in her opinion heaven isn’t just some place you goto after you die and float around all day thinking about how great the Lord isor whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing in heaven. (Actually, I’m interjecting on the part of my ex-wife here. So please forgive the wording if it seems a little biased)
I remeber I asked her once “So what’s the point of it all if you’re not going to heaven anyway?” Aside from the obvious “It’s just the right thing to do anyway” she also told me that “We (the people of the world) want to contiue to love and spread the word of god so one day we’ll reach a point that there is no more famine no more disease, (insert anything bad here) ect…” "in her opinion that was what was ment by “heaven” – heaven here on Earth. She also reiterated the fact that we would still have to work. Which I thought THAT part kind of sucked.
So basically I’m just wondering if there are any more Christians out there who believe something similar to that. I’ve never really heard of a Christian who didn’t believe in heaven.Like I said I’m an athiest myself, but if I somehow DID believe, I think I’d propbably somehow subscride to this mentality myself.
And for the record: As much as my ex-wife isn’t one of my favorite people; one thing that could NEVER be said about her is that she’s stupid. The women litteraly has a genius IQ. Really, you should see this woman watch Jeopardy, it’s freaking amazing…(Not trying to imply that being good at Jeopardy qualifies one at being a genious.)
Well, since being a Christian consists mainly of believing what Jesus taught (yes, yes I know we can argue about that, but it’s mostly true), and since Jesus taught that if you believed in him, you’d enjoy life in heaven after death, it sort of stands to reason that the vast majority of Christians will believe in life after death. And of those who don’t, the vast majority of them were probably not paying attention back in Sunday School.
It’s a safe bet that you can find self-proclaimed Christians who believe in anything and everything. But since Jesus proclaimed that there IS life after death, it’s hard for me to imagine why any orthodox Christian would choose to dismiss that.
Maybe if you expand the definition of “Christian” to include people who think Jesus was a swell guy but not divine…
Well, I used to consider myself a Christian, and I never really believed in heaven, at least not as a place. If you’d pressed me on it, I would have said something about its being symbolic, and that we remain connected with people after we’re after we’re dead. (If you’d really pressed me, I might have explained that I meant through memories, the impact our actions still have after we’re gone, etc., but I would have gotten a bit uncomfortable at this point.) Eventually, I became convinced that not believing in heaven (among other things) wasn’t really compatible with calling myself a Christian, and that I’d never really paid attention in Sunday school, as Qadgop put it.
There are certainly some theologians in the liberal Protestant school who still want to “demythologize” beliefs like the afterlife, making them primarily symbolic and basically making literal truth a non-issue. I get the sense this is becoming less influential in theological circles, but people like Bishop Spong still popularize their ideas and some very liberal congregations buy into it, but it would be rare to find a Christian who will admit to actually disbelieving in heaven, rather than reinterpreting the doctrine into something that can neither be believed nor disbelieved in any meaningful way.
Yeah, I rember the bit about Jesus saying there being an afterlife but what I don’t rember is how straighforward he or the bible was about this. I’m basically going along the lines of how the bible has a reputation of being rather ambiguous at times.
“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believeth in me, though he be dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.”
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.” John 14:1-4
Jesus was (is) pretty clear on the fact of Heaven.
