Scientists have an idea called a Singularity. It is an event that is so drastic, so disruptive that we cannot see past it. We cannot measure what is on the other side. In a way the singularity obliterates any physical evidence of what lies beyond the singularity in time and space. It is possible that time and space as we know it don’t even exist on the other side.

The “big bang” is the classic example of a singularity. Ask any astrophysicist…….any cosmologist what things were like just before the big bang and they will tell you that they haven’t a clue. They will say that they just can’t see or measure what is on the other side of the singularity ……… what is on the other side of the wall.

For you and for me, death is also a singularity…….an event so drastic and disruptive that we just cannot see what is on the other side using the tools of science. Limited by science and secular humanism, we cannot know what lies beyond our own death. In this arena……..science is completely blind and that is terribly important.

So………how do we deal with death and what follows death when science leaves us complety blind?

1. Believe that because science is blind, there is nothing there….. when you die the lights just go out. This troubles me. The fact that you are blind is a poor reason for believing that there is nothing in your path.

2. Just ignore the problem………it will take care of itself. This also is surprisingly common. It may very well be the most commonly used strategy for dealing with………or not dealing with the other side of the wall. This plan is also a problem for me. If eternal life is real…….and because of the singularity problem you cannot say that it isn’t…….I think that not thinking about it, not preparing for it, is a bad strategy. At best it is shortsighted.

3. Make something up. Surprisingly, this too, is extremely common. If you ask a bunch of people what happens to them after they die, you will hear a lot of descriptions of a really nice place, a place that is a everything that they want this messed up world to be. In effect, this is a designer paradise that reflects the wants and needs of the person you are talking to…….a paradise created in their own image. This seems to me dishonest………..unless they happen to be God…… though it is a lot of fun. It is also very comforting for them because it is always a place that makes everybody else change but doesn’t require them to change anything about themself.

4. Choose a religion that describes the other side of the wall, the afterlife. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are the 3 most common. For me, this option makes the most sense. I choose Christianity because I believe that there is enough good evidence supporting the resurrection of Christ. You can read my post on the resurrection for more details.

So……. there it is. You live out your life…….and at the end of it, you face the wall……..and you cannot see past the wall. Science is completely blind. Secular humanism offers nothing. Darwin is silent. Do you deny the other side, ignore the other side, just make something up………..or do you accept the possibility that there is something more, make your best choice and try to prepare for life on the other side of the wall?

When I was young, I was a Boy Scout. I guess I still am. Our motto was “Be Prepared”…….. I’m going with option 4.

I try to operate at the place where secular humanism, atheism, and Christianity meet. I am a Christian, as you suspected. The two ideas that do the most to drive a wedge between Christians and non-Christians are: the age of the earth and the resurrection. Both are tough topics. I’ll save the age of the earth for later.

So what about the resurrection? Did it happen or is it a myth? Which side you choose is moderately important during your 80 years on this earth. But, considering the potential consequences, it is the most important choice you will ever make for the period after you die, which may be a very long time.

I’m not going to take the easy way out…….”because the Bible says so!” But, on the other hand, you cannot completely dismiss the Bible either. Most of the written history supporting the resurrection is collected in the Bible. To discard it out of hand would be like a judge at a trial telling the jury to disregard everything that the defense had said. There is no faster or less honest way to “win” an argument than to reject any evidence that opposes you.

So……here goes.

Point 1: the resurrection is physically, scientifically impossible.

It seems to me that this is the entire point. If a supernatural being (God) wanted to prove a point, boiling water or building a dam would not be a very compelling demonstration. What better way is there to show us that he operates outside of our rules, outside of our world, outside of current scientific understanding than to do something impossible. In a way you have to choose: either science has it all figured out and the resurrection is impossible…….or there are things that are beyond our current understanding. We call these the supernatural……including the resurrection.

Point 2: Jesus lived; he was an historical figure.

He lived and he was crucified. There are contemporary accounts outside of the bible that mention him.

Point 3: He died.

A Roman soldier was well trained to do one job…..to kill people. To botch a judicial execution would have probably cost the soldier his own life. At the end of the crucifixion a soldier drove his pilum (a spear with with an 18″ barbed metal point into Jesus’s chest). This was followed by 3 days without medical treatment. Jesus was dead.

Point 4: He was seen alive after the crucifixion.

On several occasions multiple witnesses spoke with him, saw him, touched him, and ate with him. These accounts are collected in the new testament.

Point 5: The execution of the disciples

At least 10 people suffered torture and a gruesome execution rather than deny that they had witnessed Jesus alive after the crucifixion. I can think of no instance in human history where 10 men in 10 separate events gave up their lives to promote a lie……..a lie that they did not benefit from in any way.

Point 6: Jesus said he was the son of God

He endured torture and crucifixion rather than recant. He was either telling the truth……or he was insane. There is no middle ground. Some say that he was a great man. Others say that he was a prophet. These positions ignore his unambiguous claim to divinity. He was either the son of God or he was insane. The written texts are more consistent with him telling the truth about his divinity. It is very hard to read his teaching and believe that he was insane.

Taken together, I think that these points prove the resurrection beyond a reasonable doubt. This is important because of the chain of logic that follows.

The resurrection happened.
Therefore, Jesus was devine.
Jesus endorsed the old testament.
Therefore, the old testament is true.
Jesus promised paradise to those who believe.
Therefore, the difference between spending eternity in paradise and spending it somewhere else is belief in Jesus.

And that is why this seemingly abstract choice is so important.
This is why this question deserves study and thought from you………a lot of it.

Death

I’ve been thinking about this a lot.

What is death like? My dad almost died once. He was working on a car and was overcome by carbon monoxide. He passed out. Somebody saw him and drug him out to fresh air and he recovered. When asked about it, he said it was really nice. He almost wanted to punch the guy who saved him. Otherwise, no details. I don’t think that my dad was a religious guy. I am not at all sure where he wound up.

All near death stories point to a destination…….a light. Most describe seeing family and friends. Most are pleasant and happy stories. A very few are terrifying. Watch the movie Ghost (Patrick Swayze) sometime.

The bible says that you will “sleep”. You will wake up when Christ returns. It will be just like sleeping at night…there will be no sense of the passage of time. At some point after that believers will be separated from non-believers. Non-believers will go someplace that ranges from unpleasant to horrible beyond understanding.

Believers will go to a perfected world with young healthy perfected bodies. Paradise will be a lot like the world that we know. You will have a young healthy physical body. You will have a job. I will probably be a carpenter………I don’t know what kind of job you should expect if you are a criminal. All of the things that are wrong in this world will be gone. All of the things that are wrong with you will be fixed. You will see and know God in a way that you cannot imagine now. You will understand things that just make no sense here.

Your questions will be answered. I believe that strangers will come up and tell you about how small kindnesses that you passed out……. things that you don’t even remember……..changed their lives.

You will experience a satisfaction unlike anything that you have ever known………. because you will be in exactly the place that you were created for…….you will be doing exactly the thing that you were created to do.

I think that many of the rules in the bible are there to prepare you for the way things will be in paradise. You will experience love in a way that you cannot imagine. You will experience generosity in a way that you cannot imagine. You will experience truth in a way that you cannot imagine.

The bible teaches that our earthly minds cannot fully comprehend what paradise will be like. I accept that I don’t fully understand what it will be like……I just know that I want to be there.

Death as a sailboat. (From Van Dyke……..abridged)

I imagine a beautiful large sailboat at a dock. It is strong, capable, graceful. It sails away and finally disappears over the horizon. Somebody says “Well, it’s gone” and they turn and walk away.

But the sailboat isn’t really gone…….it is just as real, just as strong, capable, and beautiful as it ever was. I just can’t see it from my limited perspective……..from where I’m standing right now.

It isn’t “gone”……..it’s just somewhere else.

My youngest son died just before last Christmas. But; he isn’t “gone”, he is just somewhere else. We will meet again…….and neither of us will need our glasses.

What is relationship with God?

Disclaimer:

I don’t presume to speak for God. This is my best analysis based on my reading of the bible.

God made us for relationship……to walk in the garden with him. But, why? Why does he want relationship with us…….with me? And, what does that relationship look like?

I believe that it is based on a parent/child model. In other words it is not a relationship of equals…..and it is certainly not a relationship where we get to pass judgement on God.

We can’t see it clearly from here.
We can’t understand it clearly from here.
And yet, we must actively seek it.
We must reach out.
We have to take the first step toward God.
Relationship is a gift from God…..not earned. …not deserved ….grace.
It completes us…..it fills a hole in us that we can sense……in our hearts, we know that something is missing.
It requires an act of faith. There is no other precondition.
It requires us to recognize our smallness, our weakness, and our dirtyness………..in a word, our failure. And if you don’t believe that we have failed………. just take a look around.

In the end it requires submission to a benevolent higher being…..and we hate this.

The main impediment to our relationship with God is our ego……our insistence that we are in charge in spite of overwhelming evidence that we have messed it all up.

Our contribution is small…….it mainly involves reaching out from our weakness and imperfection. We give up our position as the center of the universe. We humble ourselves. We touch the shadow of God’s enormous reservoir of love and realize the promise of knowing it more fully in paradise. We must accept on faith that God’s vision for us is better than our own and this goes against everything that our society tells us.

God’s contribution is hard for us to see. It is nonetheless always there and active…even when we lash out at him or ignore him. We cannot turn off God’s pursuit of relationship. We cannot turn off God…….no matter how hard we work at rejecting him.

I can only guess at God’s feeling…at his motivation. He is our ultimate and perfect parent. If he is like our earthly parents……..and I believe that he is. He wants us to be complete and happy. But on his terms…….not on ours. Because his plan is better for us than our own plans.

He knows that our vision and our goals are clouded and imperfect. At best our plan is short term………limited to 90 years, give or take……..in the tangible universe. His vision and plan extend far beyond the space and time that we can comprehend. He knows that his vision, his path for us, will lead us to a better place than the path we choose for ourselves. After all, how can we create and execute a plan when we know next to nothing about our destination? The best destination we can imagine is to either accept death as the ultimate end…….”the lights just go out” or to dream up a very nice version of our failed world. The first option is at least intellectually honest……..though it is depressingly bleak. The second option is appealing, though completely dishonest…..that is unless I actually am the creator of the universe….in that event it works out nicely. Unfortunately, my life experience, at least so far, clearly tells me that I am somewhere well below creator in the chain of command.

So……God loves us and lays out a plan for us……a plan to fulfill and satisfy us. He gives us free will. He then watches us reject his plan………and him. He sees us slip away from him and the paradise that he has built for us. He watches us slip away from the relationship that he knows will complete us. I can’t see into Gods heart. The best I can do is draw conclusions based on his actions and my experience as a parent. My experience tells me that this must break his heart. I think that God must be saddened to the point of tears at our rejection. I think that God probably spends more time shedding tears than hurling lightning bolts.

This is the God that I know.