A few years ago, a friend of mine was working in his front garden when he spotted what he was sure were a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses further down the street. He aimed to back inside before they reached his house, from where he could safely ignore them. But he timed it badly and before he knew it, the JWs were upon him.
My friend was under some stress at the time so when they asked him, ‘Wouldn’t you like to live forever?‘ he responded with, ‘Good God, no. This life’s bad enough. Why would I want it to go on forever?’ This took the wind out of their sail though didn’t divert them from their sales pitch for very long.
I’ve been in the same state of mind myself, and maybe you have, when life was so difficult I spent far too much time contemplating whether being dead might not be a better option. Thankfully, I couldn’t really contemplate doing anything about it, and was aware of the effect it would have on my loved ones if I did, but nonetheless I spent too much time considering – desiring even – my own non-existence.
I was pretty sure this was what awaited after death. I hadn’t, by this stage of my life, the conviction of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and mainstream Christians that a better life, one that would last forever, lay beyond this one. Instead, I made radical changes to my life in the here and now, to lift myself out of the slough of despond in which I found myself.
I love life now. It isn’t without its difficulties, not least the physical problems that come with older age, but I enjoy it to the full (apart from supermarket shopping). Having found my pearl of great price, I hope life will last for many years yet. I can’t guarantee it will, of course, so I make the most of every moment, surrounded by people I love and who love me.
Would I like my life to go on forever? Certainly, but I know it won’t. There is simply no evidence life continues after death. Assurances that it does in religious texts is no evidence at all. Even if it were, the type of eternal life suggested by the Bible, worshipping a needy, despotic God for evermore, is not the way I’d like to spend eternity.
Ask Christians how they know they will and the best that can come up with is that the Bible tells them so or that Jesus promises they will (which amounts to the same thing.) Ask them where this everlasting life will be lived and you’ll get one of two answers: in heaven or here on a restored Earth, once Jesus ‘returns’. The earliest writings in the New Testament support the here-on-Earth scenario. The later ones – perhaps because their authors had begun to realise Jesus wasn’t coming back any time soon – start, like John 14:2, to hint at a celestial existence.
No Christian – no non-believer either – has survived death to face eternal bliss or eternal damnation. Some will tell you that rising from the dead happens in an ethereal way immediately following death. The soul (or whatever) is resurrected either to be reunited with God outside of time and space or thrown to the demons in hell. The biblically savvy, like the JWs, will tell you the resurrection will not occur until Jesus’ return at some point in the future. Significantly, both expectations occur off-stage: the first in a undemonstrable plane of existence, the second in a future that never arrives. Both are wishful thinking, scenarios dreamt up by those frightened of their own non-existence.
The offer of everlasting life is one of the New Testament’s most pernicious lies. The idea is not to be found in the Jewish scriptures that make up the Christian Old Testament. It is a later development, dreamt up by extremists who convinced themselves, on the basis of a few visions, that God would ensure their continued survival, just as he had Jesus’s.
If this isn’t how the promise of living forever came about, then what is the evidence there is an existence beyond death? Empty assurances by first and second century cultists are not it.
- Show me someone other than Jesus – whose ‘resurrection’ is metaphorical at best – who has risen from the dead.
- Show me evidence that ordinary human Christians have already gone on to eternal life.
- Show me, if you don’t subscribe to this view of immortality, the souls who rest with God awaiting a future resurrection (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Revelation 6:9-11).
- Show me just one human, Christian or otherwise, who has gone on beyond death.
- Prove that the promise of eternal life is real.
rejectingjesus, 
If you get any argument at all, I predict hand waving, babble verses, circular reasoning, and bold assertions with no evidence whatsoever.
It is their only way. Oddly, these things actually make sense to them.
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You put out the question … “Would I like my life to go on forever?” and then answered it with “Certainly.”
My thinking may be totally of the wall, but I tend to think that as one ages (we’re talking 80+), this desire to live forever begins to fade. Certainly we all hope to live as long as possible but aging (and health issues) tend to somewhat modify the “forever” desires.
Putting that aside, the bible stories related to eternal life are nothing but fantasies. There simply is no other way to put it. And the fact that people believe they can be “saved” from death simply by uttering a “forgive me” prayer? Well, need I say more?
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The Witnesses used to come by our house about twice a year, every year. Generally, I would give a curt “Not interested” to send them on their way.
The last time they came by I told them, “This family has more gods than we know what to do with. Until we nail a couple to a tree we really don’t have room for any more.”
It’s been several years now and not a single visit since.
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On the eternal life thing, I think more life (in perfect health) would be awesome. However any eternal life needs an out. I don’t care how great paradise is, eventually you’ll get board of it. You need to be able to hit the annihilation button on your own existence.
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But eternity might offer an explanation for the Christian god. If Christian God spent an eternity prior to creation alone, he no doubt went batshit insane. With this info, the whole Bible suddenly makes sense!
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Show me just one human, Christian or otherwise, who has gone on beyond death.
Jesus
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I specifically said an ordinary human being and here you are offering a demi-god/mythical character. You’re really not very good at this, are you.
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Nice try, Neil. And you must do this if you are going to escape his gaze.
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No idea what you’re on about. I do know though that someone who died 2,000 years ago doesn’t have a gaze… or anything else for that matter.
I hope the nursing home is treating you nice.
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Your preacher says some interesting things:
“God said “let there be light, and light came out of the mouth of god traveling at 186,000 miles per second..”
Then, he quotes psalm 33…”by the word of the lord the heavens were made…god didn’t lift a finger when he made the universe..god just breathes out stars!”
Then, he says,
“It’s crazy to think about!”
He’s right! That’s CRAZY to think about.
So, is he a scientist?
Do I tell my students in science class that god just breathed out the stars in the night sky?
Is he speaking metaphorically here, or is he just full of shit?
What do we do with the pictures from the James Webb telescope that show stars being born from gas clouds?
Are they fake, and your preacher is correct?
The congregation sure thinks he’s right!
Why did you stick these stupid videos here?
We’re not your blind congregation, Don!
Ooh, you’re scaring me to worship your god out of fear of his “awesomeness”!
This is disgusting!
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He is speaking poetically.
He is not my preacher, but I did use his videos in my Bible classes 10 years ago or more.
His audience was primarily young people. He was not trying to scare them (or you) but to impress them with how incredible God. is.
Re: your last reply.
God made use for eternity. He made us to know him in a personal way. (See Gen 3)
He created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1) including all the stars, which we now know to be perhaps as many as a trillion galaxies multiplied by many billions of stars. Why? Just for fun? Probably not. He had a purpose.
God is a creator who desired to create being who could know him, enjoy him, and spend forever in the universe remade enjoying the world he made perfect (Rev. 21:1) and to be all he intended (Rom. 8:20-23). But being by nature creative, why stop with one small world?
No reason, really. So, “many worlds” is taking what we know about God and extrapolating how that may be more, much more than we imagine. Jesus did say “Other sheep I have who are not of this fold…” (John 10:16) Might that include beings he created on distant worlds? Why not?
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Don:
“Jesus did say “Other sheep I have who are not of this fold…” (John 10:16) Might that include beings he created on distant worlds? Why not?”
You’re right, Don…”why not?”
Here’s how the Mormons interpret that verse:
“During His mortal ministry in Palestine, Jesus taught His disciples, “other sheep I have, which are not of this fold” (John 10:16). When He appeared to the Nephites, He told them that they were among the “other sheep” that must be brought into the fold (3 Nephi 15:21). The Nephites were actually part of some of the tribes that were “lost.” Thus the “other sheep” referred to them, among others. However, the people of ancient Judea understood him “not, for they supposed it had been the Gentiles; for they understood not that the Gentiles should be converted through their preaching” (3 Nephi 15:22).”
Might that include beings he created on distant “continents”?
Why not?
So, Mormonism is true?
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Well, it did include men and women on distant continents, didn’t it? It included people living in the islands of the Pacific and in China and India, and so on. But could it also mean people beyond even that? God is not the God of this world alone. It does say that Jesus will bring together in Christ:
For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in the Son
and through him to reconcile all things to himself by making peace through the blood of his cross—through him, whether things on earth or things in heaven.</b> Colossians 1:19,20
That includes all of creation both on earth, even the distant islands, and maybe distant worlds as well as the heavenly beings, ONE CREATION!
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Don:
“ He is not my preacher, but I did use his videos in my Bible classes 10 years ago or more.
His audience was primarily young people. He was not trying to scare them (or you) but to impress them with how incredible God. is.”
Why would you post that video here?
Do you honestly think that it would change my mind about believing in god?
How stupid his words sound…
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Eternal life is about more than length. :”This is ternal life that they should know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you sent”
But eternal life is also about life the way God designed it to be on a new earth that will be as God planned it to be.
And in a new universe where in all likelihood if it has the trillion galaxies this one has will have trillions of worlds that we may well be home to even more beings God has made. What a blast to visit.
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What are you on?
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HAHAHA! Jesus Juice, of course!
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I am on the Bible
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You say that as if it’s a good thing.
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Don:
“ the trillion galaxies this one has will have trillions of worlds that we may well be home to even more beings God has made. What a blast to visit.”
What are you talking about here?
Visiting other worlds?
Where in the bible is that?
Chapter and verse, please!
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Goyo, you raised the question of others “not of this fold” being the people of the Americas. Living in the Puget Sound in Washington as I do, just to the west and up the sound is a graveyard on an Indian reservation. It is very simple but dotted with crosses. This indicated that the deceased American natives were believers in Jesus.
I was raised next to an Indian reservation in Central Washington and among the tribes represented there were the Nez Perce. I know from reading the history of the PNW that many of them were Christians as well. And their graveyards prove it. That can be multiplied many times over across the Americas. So, were they of the number “not of this fold?” Yes, I think so.
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Does this include those in Cloud Cuckoo Land?
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