A gospel song I like

One of my favorite gospel songs is one I was introduced to via Babylon 5.

Yes, really.

Sunday Thoughts

I've written before on my difficulties with reconciling the idea of a loving God with a God that would condemn people to eternal punishment for not saying the right words, and why it is I came to believe that the latter is wrong. It's an important topic for me, though, so I have some other thoughts on it.

It's not about a deterrent

More than once, I've seen someone basically ask this: "If there's no Hell, why would you bother? What would make you want to follow God's rules?"

Of course, the easy answer is: I still believe in Heaven. I believe the choices are between Heaven and nothingness, and I find Heaven more comforting than nothingness. That's a good reason right there, but it's the easy answer, and it's not, really, the important bit.

I imagine everyone reading this has someone they love—more than one someone, one presumes, since I don't mean just romantic love here. Someone who you care about a great deal, whose opinion is important to you.

I imagine that everyone reading this has, at some point, wondered how one of those people could possibly love you back. You may've gotten to that point from a different place and for different reasons than I have, but I'm sure it's fairly universal to wonder "Why does this person love me? How can they keep loving me the way I am? What if they stop loving me?"

I also would bet you've at least thought about being willing to change something about yourself to ensure that person keeps loving you. Maybe you didn't do it, but you probably find the idea familiar.

There's also a pretty good chance that at least once in your life, you've decided to to choose to not do something because it would hurt someone you love and who you know loves you.

And why? Not because that person threatened to do something bad to you. Not because you feared they would. (That's probably happened, too, but it's not the point of this wondering.) Because the idea of losing their regard, their love, and their presence in your life was sufficiently worrisome to you that you were willing to at least consider changing something, whether small or large, to ensure that didn't happen.

Now if you believe, as I do, that God loves you, wouldn't you think it would make sense to apply that to Him?

On the Edge of the Pit

So, that disposed of, I went merrily into life, never fearing again that I would someday find myself being punished...

Yeah, no. Not so much.

I still have doubts. I think most people do, regardless of their beliefs. However infrequently it may be, I think even the most fervent and devoted believers of any religion sometimes, late at night, think "Am I just screwing it all up?"

My doubts on this topic tend to be fairly specific. "Do I really believe? Or do I just want to say I do so I avoid punishment?" and "Am I wrong? I'm afraid I'm going to end up in That Place I swear I don't believe in..."

So let me tell you about a friend of mine who died a couple years ago, who is simultaneously a factor in those worries and a factor in my hopes.

Now, my friend was not a Christian. He was, if anything, a pagan. Spiritual, but not necessarily religious. And even if he'd been of a more traditional religion, it wouldn't have been Christianity, what with his parents being Jewish and all.

What he was was a good person.

Okay, he was capable of being extremely self-centered, snarky, sarcastic, a heck of a downer when he was in a mood... but he was also extremely generous. He said he didn't like people, but y'know, he acted like he did... and when it came to his friends, the people he loved, he would do just about anything for them that he could.

He didn't have a great life. In the overall scheme of things it was a lot better than a lot of the world's population has to deal with -- he had shelter, food, modern comforts, leisure time. He was also disabled, unhealthy in general, and extremely unhappy with the direction his life took. So when his health problems caught up to him, I guess he didn't try very hard to fight. He died in his sleep, after being sick enough that he should've seen a doctor (but too stubborn to do so).

Some people would say he's in Hell. After all, he wasn't a Christian. He never was.

Not long after I heard he died I had a dream. In my dream, he was healthy and happy. He was in a good place, reunited with the dog he'd recently lost, in a body that worked right, and smiling. And I woke up being sure that was how things were for him now. I felt—for the first time since I'd heard he died—a moment of joy.

See, while my doubts to tend towards "What if I go to Hell?", they're not always about me. Sometimes, it's more like this: "What if right now, even as we speak, my pagan friend whose life was totally crappy now has to deal with even worse just because he didn't ever become a Christian, even though he was, really, a wonderful guy?"

But sometimes, that dream and that joy is what makes me sure that he's not suffering. That God loved him as much as he loves the rest of us and that the dream is a message to me that my friend is past all the pain and now gets to have comfort. And that someday I'll get to see that myself, when my time comes (not too soon please).

It doesn't take the doubts away. I wish it did, but I admit it doesn't. But it does give me a focus for my hope.

The Pit of Doubt

There's a lot of reasons I had such a hard time for so long accepting what I wanted to believe about God and reconciling it with Christian beliefs (not just "stuff in the Bible", but "what Christians said it meant"). I think it's important to share how I did this, partly for myself, and partly because if there's someone else out there whose doubts are similar to mine, maybe it'll help them work through theirs.

So I'm going to start with the really really big one. I'm gonna start with Hell.