You know, I'm a believer. I believe in God, specifically. And I don't mean "Einstein's god" - I mean an infinite, eternal, personal, conscious, loving God. A God who believes, as I do, that to let us grow and live in a natural world whose reasonable laws we can probe and begin to understand, even though it follows that avalanches, meteors and tsunamis will hit whatever's in their path, rarely swerving - still, it benefits us, greatly, and it gives us the best possible place to grow - the heck or the freak, if you wish - up. To create ourselves - who we will be. To create a future for our species. To chose what the gift is, that we will become, to give back.
And I know there a lot of my fellow believers who feel very let down, who feel a knife, an ache, whenever they hear or find out that someone they love - or at least, have been greatly inspired by - is an atheist.
This makes sense to me. They believe that this person, in whom they'd placed much good, is going to hell.
I don't say anybody is or isn't going to hell myself. It is against my religion to presume to the throne of Christ's judgment. But let me tell you, of all the parade of people whose faces and names flash onscreen between segments of this video, there are so so many who I love. Kurt Vonnegut, I love you man. Stephen Jay Gould! Ayn Rand, okay she's kind of a sourpuss but come on. Douglas Adams, Bruce Lee, Jamie & Adam from Mythbusters, Carl Sagan, Paul Bettany, Stephen Fry, Isaac Asimov, Thomas Edison well ok - a bit of a thug. Hey, I'm not sainting any of these people here, I'm just saying that I'm not damning them. That's not out of any compassion on my part, but because I have not the authority to damn them.
For myself, for the light these folks have given into life, I would love them even if they were my enemies. And the call of whether the life they made is worth being saved, I leave that call to God. Of course As I must.
I confess I find I don't despair for their eternal souls. Though naturally as a Catholic, I worry, almost recreationally, for all souls - especially those of my fellow Catholics! Who surely pray as hard for mine as I do for theirs.
Hi there!
I don't despair of anyone's salvation. I don't despair for anyone who I know and love. I'm not sure I can defend or explain this refusal to despair, but I'll talk about how I feel at least. I find I can't despair, because I trust in the accuracy, in the truth, in the fairness of God's judgment above my own.
I believe in God. And so I tend to believe that God knows and loves better than I do. Knows a human being far better than I know, and to a deeper degree than I can see. God knows all of the best and the worst in each of us.
Including me. And I tell you I am certain I am worth less than Kurt Vonnegut. For Christ's sake, I must be certain of this. I leave it to Christ to overrule me, but do I expect him to?
Maybe I'm real conceited, maybe just hopeful, but I lean towards the hope I'll end up in heaven. If I don't, any good I can do is still worth doing. Is it for reward that good is done? Even King Solomon had times when he scoffed at the idea of an eternal life - while he lived and ruled and wrote his books. Such an attitude was common among devoutly-believing Jews of Solomon's time. Yet still he believed God was worth serving, and that good was worth doing, even without the ironclad certainty of an eternal treat. Still he chose wisdom first, over riches and worldly reward.
I don't have any special knowledge of the afterlife, any more than my own hope and faith - which comes from God, I believe, and which is admittedly, pretty cocksure. But I wouldn't presume to guarantee myself a spot in heaven, any more than I'd presume to damn you or any other person to hell. I tell you I feel a strong sure hope of salvation. I am collapsed in Christ's arms, I yield to Christ's judgment and accept the gift of salvation he freely gave, when he sacrificed himself for all. I believe I will be in heaven.
But I tell you, I'd be more surprised to meet Kurt Vonnegut in hell than to meet Hitler in heaven.
Mind you, that first scenario involves two huge surprises. The second only involves one huge surprise. And maybe a leeetle minor one.
Peace to my friends and love to their enemies.
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