Monday, November 3, 2008

Nothing

by Hanno

Exhausted from a trip, so I got nothing today. Will try to have something tomorrow.

Why is it that everyone at funerals and in churches all refer to the people who have died as if everyone knows they are in Heaven, enjoying all of its glories?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Possible Answers

1. Because they just assume everyone else believes it/has been indoctrinated just as they have, and so the thought that someone there might not accept that assumption just does not occur to them.

2. Because it's easier that way. See: denial.

Honestly, in most cases I think it's #2. True believers are likely few and far between, but cop-outs, well those are easy.

Hanno said...

But aren't they indoctrinated to think the opposite? That no one deserves Heaven, only by the grace of God does anyone enter, and hence no one really knows whether they go up or down?

Anonymous said...

Maybe I was being too Catholic, where saying "mea culpa" equals a one way ticket to paradise. Of course, assuming God loves you, and thus His grace is more or less automatic, wouldn't that mean that almost no one goes to Hell except for those rare individuals God can't justify pardoning? Thus, perhaps the initial assumption is that we all are destined for Heaven with rare exception.

I don't know, really. In the end we're trying to make sense of theists, and with rare exception I'm not convinced that's a viable practice.

Anonymous said...

is it Gnosticism that said that Jesus secretly said that everyone in fact goes to Heaven, regardless of what they do?