Heaven for all or for some?
By Dr. Harold A. Black
blackh@knoxfocus.com
haroldblackphd.com
I love Christian principles and strive to live by them. I firmly believe that those principles that helped mold Western civilization have led to a better world than one that would exist in its absence. I admit to being prejudiced. I would rather live under Western Christian values than under any other that exist anywhere in the world. However, even as a child, organized religion puzzled me. As a close friend of mine once said when he asked if he prayed, he answered yes, but he did not need the middleman.
I asked my Bible school teacher why was there a hell. She said it was for sinners. I then asked her if anyone was in heaven.
I later asked my pastor why was there a heaven. He said it was a reward for being virtuous. Again I asked if anyone was in heaven.
I loved my parents for encouraging us to read, learn and think for ourselves, even if it was out of the box. My mother used to just shake her head in wonder and dismay with some of the questions I asked. I once asked her when she had become especially vexed by me, “Why did you have me?” She said “We didn’t know it was going to be you.”
In one of our discussions I asked my parents (Dad was a good Baptist while Mother was AME) if only Christians go to heaven and Dad answered that Christian heaven was for Christians and other religions had their own heavens. I said “You mean heaven is segregated?” My parents then told me to go talk to the pastor.
My pastor essentially confirmed that each religion has its own view of the after death uniting with God. I then asked if Christianity was the only correct view and all the rest of the non-Christian world would go to hell. He demurred.
Of all the major religions only Buddhism does not have a concept of an afterlife where the soul leaves the body after death and transitions into another existence. So are the 600 million Buddhists condemned to Christian hell? Actually what the Buddhists in Myanmar are doing to the Rohingya Muslim minority makes me want those Buddhists to go to Jahannam, the hell of the Muslims.
I came to the opinion while in high school that each person would enter into whatever they believed since it seemed presumptuous to assume that only an enlightened few know the Truth. I remember seeing a woman with a t-shirt on that said “The Bible said it. I believe it.” I asked which one of the 50 or so versions of the Bible did she believe and she got totally confused. But if you believe in a heaven with angels, harps and cherubs strewing flowers, then that will be your heaven. If you believe in a hell with a lake of fire and sulfur and a red devil beating you with cat-o-nine tails, then that will be your hell.
My mother would always make me blow leaves and weed eat several acres of land at the farm. I hated it, so one of my hells will be to be greeted by St. Peter who will have a weed eater in one hand and a leaf blower in another and condemn me to blowing leaves and whacking weeds for all eternity.
My second hell will be to have St. Peter say, “Welcome. You love dark beers so let me take you to my favorite brew pub.” Inside we see 38 taps of IPAs and I say, “You would think in heaven there would be at least one stout” and St. Peter would say, “What makes you think you are in heaven?”
My third hell is that I hate sailboats. I love powerboats and have owned one continuously since 1971. It is that when sailboats tilt, it is time for me to get on shore. So my last hell would be stuck for eternity on a sailboat with Al Sharpton and Chuck Schumer.
But anyway, Merry Christmas.