On God Part V.I- Heaven, Hell and the Mind-Numbing Prospect of Eternity

Today I want to talk about what happens after we die. You might be wondering why I’m even talking about what happens after we die since On God Part III is all about the afterlife. Your question is noted and ignored. This post is ALSO about the afterlife, but totally different. Here I’ll concentrate on who makes it into heaven, who gets sent to hell, and the mind-numbing prospect of eternity.

The mind-numbing prospect of eternity section will have to wait for On God Part V.II because this post ballooned to over 5,000 words, so I decided to break it up. This is Part I of a two-part post, which is already Part V of a larger rabbit hole I’m taking from my usual topics, which already can best be described as rabbit holes. Thanks for being readers of my financial blog, you guys.

Obviously I couldn’t call this On God Part V Part I because, even by my standards, that’s confusing. So, welcome to On God Part V.I- Heaven, Hell and the mind-numbing concept of eternity.

Also, thank you to @OurTable4Two for giving me the V.I idea. For a while this post was called On God Part V(a), which doesn’t look nearly as pretty.

Teamwork makes the dream work.

Before we begin, for this thought experiment to work I want everyone to get on board with the idea that the Bible is 100% actually true. The reason for this is I don’t want to get bogged down in endless arguments about how it’s all null and void because people disagree with the starting premise.

I want to take the Bible at its word and go from there. So, this means the world is not 4.5 billion years old, it’s around 7,000 years old. Jesus was a real person who died for our sins, and he really was/is the Son of God. Also, God most definitely exists along with heaven and hell. Everyone caught up? Good. Now we can begin.

So, eternity. Woah.

One of my favorite things to think about is the enormous expanse of time that would be involved in eternity. Once we die we either go to heaven or hell, forever.

I feel like you may not have paused on the word FOREVER long enough. Eternity is a big deal.

Before we get into how problematic the idea of forever is, let’s back up and talk about where everyone will be going.

Picture yourself as God.

Congratulations, you’re the big man, or whatever, upstairs. You were terribly lonely so you decided to create the world. While creating the world you decided to give one of the animals anxiety and call it a human. Humans are special to you because they’re made in your image. You really care what they do with their time.

You hardwired instincts into all the other animals, so they pretty much run themselves on auto-pilot. To separate the humans from the instinct animals, you invented this very clever idea called free will. Humans won’t just react to stimuli, they’ll get to DECIDE how they want to act.

So you’re God, and you’re eternal, and you’re lonely. You’ve made a bunch of humans and given them sufficient anxiety, so you feel a little bit less bored with things.

Since it took you a very stressful week to make all this stuff, you really want the one animal that looks like you to give you some appreciation. You don’t really care what the other animals do.

In other words, you’re not losing any sleep over whether the lions and elephants are being dicks to each other.

You just don’t care. But you spend a lot of time wringing your hands over what the humans are doing.

Because these human animals are pretty smart, and really remind you of yourself, you decide to give them souls. That way, even after they die, they can live forever.

Well, so this is actually Plan B. You initially wanted all living things to live forever, but literally the first humans ever really messed that up for everyone. Despite being omniscient, you didn’t see that snafu coming, so your initial plan of allowing everyone to live in peace and harmony for eternity on earth was sunk pretty much right out of the gate.

Ever the optimist you decide to press on.

Instead of living forever on this paradise called earth, now everyone will die after a short while. Also, the world is going to be super hard and suck. BUT, because you’re a kind God, you will allow the humans* (jog on birds, giraffes, etc.) to live out eternity WITH YOU.

*Of course not all the humans. They do have to jump through a few well-articulated hoops. Shouldn’t be a big deal, you plan to leave clear instructions, but some of them might not make the cut.

Talk about the most awesome sweepstakes ever.

It’s unclear why you’re even bothering with the whole earth thing, to begin with. You could have just created humans already in heaven, and hung out with them there. But, you’re God, so I’m sure you have your reasons.

It’s also unclear how you planned to give humans free will, but assumed they would never get around to sinning. Which, man, talk about irony. Literally the second human ever ruined it for everyone.

Anyway.

Obviously not all humans can make it into heaven, that would be ridiculous. Some of the humans end up not really being heaven material. Conveniently, one of your former angels has started to really complain a lot lately, so you threw him out of heaven into a place that is just really not fun- called hell.

You decide that even though humans were initially supposed to live forever on earth- and because you’ve just made this very horrible place for your old angel buddy- why not just put some of the shitty humans in with your complaining angel, Satan? Win-win.

So it’s all very logical. Some people get to spend eternity with you in heaven, some spend eternity in hell with Satan.

The question is, how do you decide who gets to go where?

Okay. So now zoom back to modern-day. We’ve got a bunch of religions running around the world all claiming to know the truth. Some of the religions are really similar with only minor differences, while some of the religions are out in leftfield.

As God, you’re pretty impressed that the American Christians have managed to get things basically right. Hindus were way off, Muslims were at least using the right Bible for a while, Jews used half of the right Bible, Mormons used the entire right Bible, but then made another Bible, and Catholics are just kind of weird.

On top of all that confusion you sent your Son Jesus to straighten things out at one point, but accidentally did it before video cameras were invented, so now a large portion of the world doesn’t even think you exist. Those that DO believe you exist can’t seem to agree on anything about what you want them to do. Those little anxiety monkeys you created have made quite a mess of things on earth.

You’re starting to think maybe it would be easiest to come down, just real quick, and clear a few things up so that nobody accidentally ends up burning in hell for the next several trillion years, but you decide against it.

Considering how nobody seems to really know which religion to follow, it would make sense to divide the wheat from the chaff based on whether or not they were decent humans.

But, what really is decency, anyway? Probably better to just make it about choosing the right religion- and not about doing good works.

Christians are the closest, let’s follow them to eternal life.

Christians (for the most part) believe the only way to enter heaven is through faith in Jesus. The Bible is fairly clear in addressing the issue of good works vs. faith.

Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.”

[If you’re not familiar with the Bible, this is considered pretty clear.]

The point is you need to have faith in Jesus to punch your ticket to paradise. You can’t just be a really good person. Because of this, a lot of good people- who don’t believe in Jesus- are going to hell.

Using today’s numbers, we can immediately eliminate roughly 67% of the population, since only 33% of the people in the world are Christians. It’s nice to not have to worry about whether they were good people or not, we can just send them straight to hell because Jesus said he was the only way to the Father.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” – Jesus, John 14:6

Good. More room in heaven.

Then we somehow get into gray areas. Jesus was pretty clear that he’s the only way into heaven, which you would think sounds pretty open and shut. I wonder if this makes Christians feel like maybe it’s not an entirely fair process, so they feel the need to loosen up the guidelines just a tad. I know they SAY they’re not loosening up the guidelines, but just stick with me.

Jesus is the only way into heaven…but there are several additional gray areas worth exploring.

Age of Accountability

What about babies? Do babies get sent to hell simply because they died before accepting Jesus into their hearts? Most Christians believe babies are permitted access into heaven, along with those mentally unable to accept Jesus.

So, heaven gains a bunch of souls that way. The dark side of this deal is it means there will be a lot of babies and small children- born to a Hindu family- who die and wake up in the Christian heaven, eternally separated from their parents. But hey, that’s show business.

Another problematic issue with the age of accountability is knowing where the cutoff is. People don’t seem to agree exactly when you’re old enough to make a stand for Jesus, but I’ve always heard it explained as when you know right from wrong- so sometime around eight or nine.

It probably depends on the individual child. That’s why I always say, “It’s best to keep your children as dumb as possible, just in case they die.” We wouldn’t want them to be sent to hell for knowing too much.

At some point, a child is old enough to make a stand for Jesus. Let’s say that age is nine years old. This means a bunch of nine-year-old kids will find themselves in hell because they didn’t tell their Islamic parents that they feel the Christian God was the one true God. So, that’s upsetting.

It doesn’t really matter when the age of accountability is, at some point, you come up against the end of it. It’s obviously not realistic for God to expect a nine-year-old girl to have the wherewithal to tell her parents she’s no longer a Hindu- and the Christian God just makes more logical sense- but I also don’t know if it’s fair to expect that same girl to come to that conclusion when she’s twenty-seven and never had the chance to travel outside of India.

Let’s move on.

People who haven’t heard the gospel

Another group of folks that are generally given a free pass is those who have never heard of Jesus. God runs a pretty tight ship, but even he wouldn’t fault people who have never even heard the gospel, right? At least we kind of hope he just lets them into heaven.

What’s always fascinated me about this idea is WHY IN THE WORLD ARE PEOPLE SPREADING THE GOSPEL!?! If this is true- that people who haven’t heard the gospel make it into heaven- why would we go around ruining their free pass by telling them about Jesus?!

I’ve been asking this question for two decades and Christians always just laugh like it’s a funny, but rhetorical, question. They believe those who haven’t heard the gospel won’t be sent to hell, but they think it’s ridiculous to NOT tell them. Hello? Am I talking to myself again?

If 100% of people who haven’t heard about Jesus get to avoid spending the next 217 trillion years in hell why the f-word would we risk telling them? It’s like 2+2= donuts and I’m the only one asking what’s going on.

This is one of the biggest conundrums of the Christian faith. If we truly TRULY TRULY TRUUUUULY believe these two groups of people- those incapable of choosing Jesus and those who haven’t heard- make it into heaven, we should be running around killing all the babies and never spreading the gospel.  I mean, right?

So you rob the babies of maybe 90 years of living on earth, but you guarantee them an eternity in heaven. And what is the upside of telling a bunch of people—who were blissfully unaware they had a free ticket to heaven—that Jesus exists, and now the possibility that they’ll spend eternity in hell is something they need to consider?

Lukewarm Christians

Another gray area is lukewarm Christians. Let’s say you picked the right faith and believed all the right things, but you weren’t SUPER into it. Different generations as a whole have been much more/less invested in Christianity when compared to other generations.

What if you were one of the more committed followers of your day, but compared to a different time you’d be considered borderline not even saved? Does God grade on a curve?

In the 1700s they went to church three times a day, gave their life back to Jesus each evening, repented for having a sore back, and still didn’t feel saved. In 2019 people with tattoos and skinny jeans think they’re best friends with Jesus.

Side note: The idea of Jesus being your best friend has always really tickled me. It’s like the nerdy freshman kid running around school saying HIS best friend is the senior star quarterback. Jesus might be your best friend, but you’re probably not invited to his wedding. 

What about those who stop going to church during the hunting season? You’re on thin ice, Cletus.

Then there’s those who were super Christians at one point in there lives but ended up not keeping up with the religion at all. Can you lose your salvation?

What about me? I had surprisingly few qualms with my faith up until junior high when I learned I wasn’t allowed to masturbate and suddenly I had a lot of questions I needed answered.

Side note: A lot of Christians say masturbating is permitted, lusting, however, is not. So do what you need to do, just don’t think about anything while you do it.

What about people who were Christians, but then committed a sin right before they died?

Are they still in? Kicked out? Does it matter how naughty the sin was? What about if they commit mass murder AND THEN immediately die? Is that a big enough sin to take away their salvation?

Most Christians wouldn’t say doing a double-take of a good looking girl in a short skirt and then getting hit by a bus would be enough to lose you your salvation, but killing lots of people might be a large enough sin. Where is the line?

Gray area upon gray area.

People who believe in the Christian God, but got their theology wrong

Where exactly is the line on theology and getting that golden ticket into heaven? The Bible says Jesus is the only (plus those discussed above) way into heaven, but the Bible isn’t just one comprehensive book. It’s actually sixty-six separate books that make up the Old and New Testament. There were several additional gospels that didn’t make the cut, and lots of religions and time periods have added or subtracted parts of the Bible.

What if your religion doesn’t think the New Testament is valid?

The Jews don’t believe Jesus is/was the Messiah. They’re still waiting for the REAL Messiah to come. That’s why they don’t adhere to the New Testament. They’re Team Old Testament all the way. Are all Jews going to hell? Seems like a pretty big deal to NOT believe in Jesus, but wouldn’t that be the twist of all twists if 100% of God’s chosen people end up in hell? Man. I-Run-E.

What about Mormons?

Mormons are the best people any of us know, and they consider themselves Christians. BUT…they went ahead and added an entirely new book, the Book of Mormon. Is that okay to do? [Again, we’re assuming mainstream Christianity is right, and therefore the Book of Mormon was not divinely written.] If Joseph Smith actually was conning everyone, does that mean the Mormons are all off to hell for believing this extra mumbo-jumbo?

Here’s another twist: What if the freakin’ Mormons are right?!

Holy cow. I mean, right? What if Jesus really did come to America and used fourteen-year-old, known conman, Joseph Smith as his modern-day prophet? We’ve all been running around making fun of their underwear and not believing a good chunk of God’s writing to us.

What if the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the closest thing to truth AND God just happens to be really stringent on who gets into heaven? Out of 7.53 billion people on the planet, roughly 14.8 million are Mormons, and only 30% of them actively go to church. We’re all screwed.

So, there you have it. You’re God and you’ve got a lot to sort out about where everyone will be spending eternity.

Which brings me to what I really wanted to talk about in the first place- eternity.

Next: On God Part V.II- Heaven, Hell and the Mind-numbing Prospect of Eternity

If you enjoyed this article please share it with your friends and enemies

Also, read these while you’re waiting for the next one.

On God Part I- God Decides to Make Man

Forever Will Happen and Why It’s Incredibly Upsetting

You Might Not Exist- Simulation Theory