Point of View and Frustration
I’m fortunate enough to know many thoughtful individuals who are commited to living value-filled lives. As is the way with these things, some of them are fervent Christians (for the record, some are Muslims, some are atheist, some have no faith position, etc.).
I was chatting away to one such person the other day about the nature of heaven. She asked me what I thought heaven was like, and as I commonly do, I first stated that non-existent was the first quality that came to mind. I agreed to put that slightly to one side, and discuss, should such a place exist, what the criteria for determining who got in might be.
In a typical vague style I said that if I were God, then I’d start by saying that all the ‘good’ people would be in and the ‘bad’ people would be out, and that since I’m clearly not God, I can leave both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ as not well-defined, but something along the lines of “living a thoughtful and value-filled life, being nice to people whether you agree with them or not”.
Apparently, this is not the definition of who gets in to heaven. Anyone (of any religious belief or none) can get into heaven if they have followed God’s plan for their life. I did point out the difficulties for an atheist of knowing God’s will for my life (I imagine that non-existent beings, pretty much can’t plan things). But she insisted that I couldn’t argue against this.
This argument rests entirely on the belief that the Bible is an authoritative source for things. Whilst I have a copy of the Bible that I do in fact read occasionally, to me, it is just another book. Having a difference like this in a conversation is absolutely fine.
What is deeply frustrating is that it never really occurred to her that I might have such a different view of the Bible.
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