Skip to main content

THE STORY OF MY LIFE: Will there be an Afterlife?

On Friday I posted part 3 of The Story of My Life.  This is the fourth and concluding portion, delving into what will come after I die.

I am 99+% certain that death will bring me eternal gloom, or peace, depending on how I will end up feeling.  But I could be wrong, and most of my acquaintances have the belief that they will see me in Heaven.  Yet, with my current attitude, will this be possible?

Let's begin with Christianity, which for two millennia has been convinced that no one who refuses to believe in God and The Bible can go to heaven.  But eight years ago Pope Francis wrote an open letter with an ambiguous passage leading to speculation about the requirement of faith.

Do only Christians go to Heaven?

Classical evangelical doctrine holds that salvation comes only through faith in Jesus Christ, and that those without such faith will be condemned to hell. A number of texts are typically cited in support of this position.

But only 31% of the world population is Christian.  An argument can be made that most religions support some cosmological supernatural place.  Then, there is a higher belief that an axis mundi or world tree connects the assorted heavens.

As you have long realized, one can rationalize and imagine almost anything, but logic further fails when other questions crop up.  As for example, whether a Christian infant will be allowed to advance.  Incidentally, The Bible  throughout does specify that pets will be found in Heaven.  But as animals don't have faith, like that baby, there must be some allowance for escape clauses.  I'm trying to build a case for how those without obvious faith can still be admitted.

In any case, here is an interesting comparison of what percent of various religious disciplines believe in life after death:

Clear from this poll that more believe in an afterlife than not. 

Finally, you would think that the more schooling you have, the less you would believe in life after death.  While this is true, only barely so.

So to answer my question at the top.  No Afterlife for me, and, as best as I can tell, no life after death for you either, no matter what you believe.  A particularly smart guy, Stephen Hawking, said:

     There is no heaven; it's a fairy story.

The overriding proof is that there is no proof of a Heaven.  Unfortunately, you or I will never know.  Unless there is a Heaven.

With that bit of hope, here is some cute glee, to Good Golly Miss Molly:

- 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota.  Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north.  Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge.  If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic.  Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing.  The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University.  Caught a bus. Was called the  Century 21 Exposition .  Also the Seattle World's Fair.  10 million joined me on a six-month run.  My first. These a...

WHY YOU SHOULD CONVERT TO A JAPANESE HIGH TECH TOILET

Did you know that   Oktoberfest   in Germany is mostly in September?  The very first day of Oktoberfest 2021 was supposed to be today, September 18, extending into October 3.  Well, as in 2020, Oktoberfest was cancelled. So why is it called by that month when it is held mostly in September?  The first celebration in 1810 was in October. Did you also know that Oktoberfest is held only in Munich?  These days seven million drink more than a liter ( about three typical cans ) of beer each, costing around $11.  Except for my wife and I when we followed the crowd to board the S-Bahn to the fairgrounds near Old Town.  It was drizzling a bit.  We bought a large pretzel outside of a typical barn where beer is served.  We did not know that you needed to get this inside the hall.  So no one came to serve us beer.  After a while we decided to have lunch, and the restaurant we settled on only served wine.  Thus, we might have been the ...

THE FIRST 84 YEARS OF MY LIFE

The first half of my life was spent preparing myself for my final 42 years.  This was a mostly trying and stressful period involving a less than ideal youth, then struggles to get through school, my first few jobs and accompanying life, ending two months later on a Sunday with  Part 15E , so it was a spiritual conclusion to my final transition.  I never did count the number of actual postings, but I suspect it was around 25 parts.  The ending had to do with golf, the disappearance and re-appearance of an  8-iron cover.  That was the final clue to whether the beyond after death would be eternal gloom or Heaven. Today, I provide only one transition, but hint about a final one, for this, after all, is Sunday.  I'm 84 years old, so let me summarize what happened during the first phase, from 0-42, and follow with the years 42-84.  As this is 2024, that key transition year was 1982. I can't seem to find this photo, but as a one-year old baby, I was fat....