Answering Atheist Arguments: The Bible is Unreliable, it Was Written by Christians!

The Reason Rally has inspired me to write a new section on my blog.   Every Tuesday I plan on looking at a common atheist argument and responding to it in a quick paragraph to show why it doesn’t work in the argument against Christianity.  Atheists, especially the ones I met at the Reason Rally, use a lot of strong and angry rhetoric.  Quite often it is just to score a rhetorical point, but can be easily refuted.  Here is the inaugural edition of Answering Atheist Arguments.    (Nice alliteration there huh?)    These are not arguments for Christianity, these are just simple refutations of arguments against Jesus.

At the Rally on Saturday, I found myself talking to someone about the evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus.   As I begun to explain why I think the gospel books in the Bible are reliable he interrupted and asserted, “You can’t trust what it says in those books of the Bible because they were written by Christians!”

Really?

Why does that mean they are unreliable?   Can I get away with such poor reasoning? 

Imagine if I was talking to someone about why I don’t believe global warming was real and I said, “Well you can’t trust the scientists who report on global warming, they all believe global warming is real!”  Certainly you would tell me that this is a silly reason to not believe in global warming, and you would be right.  The fact that the people recording the historical events of the resurrection were Christians does nothing to show its reliability or unreliability.

Further, let’s just imagine that the resurrection did happen and YOU witnessed it.  You knew Jesus before, you saw him get murdered, and then you saw him again alive.   Wouldn’t you follow Jesus and be a Christian at that point?  Would the fact that you became a Christian mean that you were now unreliable in the question of whether or not he did resurrect?  The authors of the Bible didn’t start out as Christians.  They only became so after they saw the evidence for the resurrected Christ.

As you can see, this argument against Christianity fails right out of the gate.

Reason Rally Review

As some of you are aware, I attended the Reason Rally yesterday in Washington DC.  My goal was to observe the event, and talk with some of the attendees about why I think Christianity is far more reasonable than atheism, secular humanism and other non-theistic worldviews.   I talked to a good amount of people, most of them very willing to discuss the issues.   For the most part, the attendees I met were quite cordial, which is what I was expecting.   What was surprising was the content of the speakers.   Logic, reason, and just overall manners were in short supply.   The speakers were generally pretty weak from a rhetorical perspective, not to mention their arguments were all extremely shallow.  Standard fare for the run of the mill, popular atheist thinkers.

The typical straw men that you usually hear atheists argue against were knocked around like piñatas.  “Christians are flat earthers!  Christians don’t let their kids get medical attention!  Christians are responsible for the atheistic Hitler killing the Jews!”   I guess that kind of thing is a lot easier than say, debating a real scholar like William Lane Craig eh Dawkins?   But again, all this went down exactly as I expected.

There were a few things that surprised me.

First, the people I spoke with all have an irrational, illogical and almost religious blind faith in the ability of science to answer all of life’s questions.   In one conversation, we eventually got to questions about objective morality.  The man I spoke with agreed with me and said that objective morality does exist.   I asked him,

“So how could morality be objective, without a transcendent moral law, something outside of ourselves,  in which to ground it.”

He folded his arms and grinned as he assured me, “We don’t know right now, but don’t worry, science will figure it out.  We’ll know one day.”

Talk about blind faith.  This statement is illogical and impossible.  It’s like saying, “Don’t worry, one day I’ll learn to smell with my eyes.”  It’s a nonsense statement.  Science will NEVER be able to give you morality.    It is not a scientific question.   Science tells you how things work.   It will never tell you if you if a certain act is moral or not.   Consider this disgusting yet truthful admission from Reason Rally headliner himself, Richard Dawkins:
“….there was a well-known television chef who did a stunt recently by cooking human placenta and serving it up as a pate, fried with shallots, garlic, lime juice and everything. Everybody said it was delicious. The father had 17 helpings. A scientist can point out, as I have done, that this is actually an act of cannibalism. Worse, since cloning is such a live issue at the moment, because the placenta is a true genetic clone of the baby, the father was actually eating his own baby’s clone. Science can’t tell you if it’s right or wrong to eat your own baby’s clone, but it can tell you that’s what you’re doing. Then you can decide for yourself whether you think it’s right or wrong.”

Classy Dawkins, classy.  But at least he is being consistent.  Science cannot and will not ever be able to show you the moral content of anything.

It baffled me that atheist after atheist was paraded out on stage, with no basis to ground the existence of morality, and proceeded to tell me all the things that I “ought” to do and, How I “should” treat people.  ...Huh?

There was one lady in particular, Greta Christina.  Her entire speech was all the reasons she was angry as an atheist.   This list included all the typical complaints:  “I am angry because of 911, I am angry because Catholic priests have molested children, I am angry because women in Arab countries live in bondage.”

I wanted to say, “Lady, I am right there with you. That stuff makes me angry too!  But as an atheist what right do you have to be angry about it?  Isn’t it just your opinion versus theirs?  Further, how do you know you’re right?”   I asked someone in the crowd about this, her response was:

“I don’t need a book to tell me that I shouldn’t hurt a child.”

Bingo!  I agree 100%.  Everyone, including atheists, knows right from wrong.  Just because they deny they were created in the image of a moral God, doesn’t do anything to change the fact that they were.   The moral law has been hard-wired into our brains.   What is the atheist explanation for this?

I actually heard atheists on stage saying that we should live by the code:  “Treat others, as you want to be treated.”    This statement was followed by raucous applause as if it was some amazing insight that only atheists truly understand.    I am all about this morality, but let’s get real here…..these are the words straight out of Jesus’ mouth.  They weren’t even rewritten for effect.   Yes, JESUS CHRIST was quoted and promoted at the “largest gathering of seculars” in the history of the world.

A major theme at the Reason Rally involved promoting Christian morality while disparaging Christianity itself.   This is non-reason at its very best. 

One of the stated goals of the Reason Rally was to change the way people view atheists in America. Honestly, I truly did come away from the Reason Rally with a new viewpoint on atheism.   Atheism, at its core, is a religion.   Just another in a long line of false religion. The only unique thing about this religion is that there is no god to worship…instead they worship a system of study, namely, science.  False religions all inevitably have one or more of the following hallmarks:   They are either (1) unlivable in a consistent way (2) historically untenable (3) intellectually dishonest or (4) inherently based on blind faith.   Atheism is all of these.   To be an atheist, you must consciously ignore much about the human experience, for example, the existence of good or evil in the world.   Either that or you must live inconsistently, for example, acknowledging good and evil for what it is, yet not acknowledging any way to objectively distinguish between the two.

One goal of the Reason Rally, that I heard when I went there but was not stated on the website, is that they want to eradicate religion, including Christianity.  Fortunately, with as weak an alternative as they have offered, we don’t really have much a reason to worry any time soon.

An Inconvenient Truth: Reason Rally Edition

I will be traveling to the Reason Rally in Washington DC this Saturday to minister to the people that attend.  Our group intends to give out free water, books, and other materials to anyone who wants them.   We don’t intend to demonstrate against the rally.  We do intend to have reasonable discussions with whoever is willing (if anyone is willing) about the reason for the hope that we have in Jesus.

The ironic truth is that the group that decided to put this rally on, and everyone who publicized it, and the speakers, and all the attendees, have unintentionally drawn attention to a major evidence that suggests that atheism is false, and God in fact exists!   Everyone is talking about it, though not everyone has examined it.  The Reason Rally is promoting the existence, and importance of… well, reason.  Without even knowing it by acknowledging the existence of reason they have given up tremendous  ground to those who believe that God does exist.   There is no way to sufficiently explain the existence of reason, without first acknowledging a transcendent, self existent, rational Mind, God.

I realize this is quite the claim, but lets think about it for a moment.   How does rationality come from non rationality?  In other words, most atheist would argue that there is nothing super-natural in the universe, that everything can be explained by natural/physical causes.   How then, can rationality be explained? 

Now before you say, “It evolved” think for a second about what the universe was like in the beginning.   If you believe in science, like I do, you believe that the universe came into existence before biological life came into existence.  So the belief is that before this point reason did not exist, but that the lifeless chemicals of the universe somehow reacted with each other and evolved and eventually created reason in humans.  Here’s where I no longer agree.  I have a few questions:

1. What is the chemical composition of reason?
2. How much does reason weigh?
3. What does reason smell like?

These are obviously all nonsense questions in the real world  because reason does exist, but is IMMATERIAL.  It has no chemical composition, mass, or smell because it is not physical, and yet it exists.  Its very existence violates the worldview of the majority of the speakers, organizers and attendees of the Reason Rally.  Furthermore, chemicals cannot analyze things to establish if they are true or not, all they do is react to each other.   That’s clearly not what’s going on when we reason.

So the atheist, if he is to be consistent, must reject the existence of reason.   He cannot do that, because then why should I believe an argument that does not stand to reason?   So instead, the atheist must intentionally choose to be inconsistent and irrational.  They must assume God exists, to argue that He does not exist.  They take a seat in His lap, in order to slap Him in the face.

Now Christians do have a way to ground the existence of reason in a consistent way.   The God who is there is the Mind that is self-existent.  He is eternal.  He is the architect of reason, logic and truth.  This is the God we believe in.  We are able to reason because we are specially created in the very image of this  Great Mind, God. (Borrowed from Frank Turek)

So you can see that promotion of the Reason Rally inadvertently promotes a good reason to affirm the existence of God.    No matter what Dawkins, PZ Myers or Bill Maher say they believe, they continue to use and promote a tool that can only be explained by the existence of God.  It is by definition an irrational position.

Now as far as the stated goals for the event itself, as a Christian, I can and do stand in solidarity with my secular countrymen.   The stated goals being:

1.   To encourage secular Americans to “come out of the closet”. 

2.    To dispel stereotypes.

3.    Legislative Equality.

I can affirm each one of these, even though I don’t really think they are big problems. (The possible exception being  goal #2. I do think the word atheist does have a certain stereotype attached to it.)   I want to know who the atheists around me are and I want to reason with them.  I want them to have legislative equality and I want to love them as neighbors.   I also want them to meet Jesus.  All of these are consistent for a Christian.

I want to take the organizers at their word that these in fact are their goals, though I do have my suspicions.  The Reason Rally, in my opinion, tipped their hand when they invited the Westboro Baptist Church, (the “god hates f-gs” nuts) to the event.   The ugly truth was revealed.  This isn’t about reason at all.  This is about the speakers and organizers of the event just wanting a forum to bash religion in a public and loud manner.

I do not believe that the attendees share this same agenda.  I think they truly are going to be there for the stated goals.  It is these people that I am interested in and stand in solidarity with, even as I try to get them to see the truth that can be found in Jesus Christ.

Please pray for me this Saturday.   And please pray over the Reason Rally.

“Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.”      - Colossians 4 : 5-6

http://www.truereason.org/

Jesus' Greatest Hits: Before Abraham was, I am.

So I have been thinking a lot about how best to continue my blog series on the evidence for Jesus.  It seems like forever since I last posted on the subject.   I decided that instead of summarizing the rest of the classical evidence for Jesus, that I would take a different approach.   Besides, many have written long and extremely scholarly books on the subject, and I am no scholar.  

My approach will be to comment on certain things Jesus does and says in the Bible (specifically, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John).   Not everything of course, but rather things that in my opinion are so unique, weird, or outrageous that they hint to the fact that there was something supernatural going on with this man.  These are passages that when I first read them, I had to put the book down and just contemplate the question.  It is the most important question.   “Who on earth is this Jesus?”   For the sake of this series, I am going to call these passages, Jesus’ Greatest Hits.

The first Greatest Hit I want to explore is found John, Chapter 8.   As per usual, the Pharisees are confronting Jesus, because they hate that people are following him instead of them.   The Pharisees were the most devout Jews of the time; they were the strictest of the strict, super religious, and corrupt to the core.  They start insulting Jesus, claiming that he has a demon and is crazy.   Eventually it comes to a head, and they ask him point blank, “Who do you make yourself out to be?”

The Pharisees took great pride in being direct descendants of Abraham, the ancient man who the whole nation of Israel descended from….so Jesus responds:

⁵⁶ Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”

⁵⁷ So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”

⁵⁸ Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

Wow.  What a strange sentence.  Before Abraham was, I am.   It is truly unbelievable what he is implying here.  There are three amazing implications.

1.       He is implying that he existed before Abraham, despite obviously being in his thirties.  To give you some perspective, according to Jewish genealogies, at the time Jesus said this, Abraham had been dead about 2000 years.  Roughly the same amount of time between now and when Jesus said this.  So obviously this is quite the claim.

2.       Why didn’t he just say, "I existed before Abraham", or "Before Abraham was, I was".   The sentence he actually says, instantly sounds strange to us when we read it.   What’s going on here is remarkable.  He is the only person that can utter a sentence like this, because he is claiming to be eternal.  He has no cause, he never came into being the way Abraham did or all of us did.  He is making a claim that he simply exists without beginning, without end.   It’s a mind bending concept.   Think about it for a second.   Before, Abraham was, I am.

3.       Lastly, he is claiming to be God.   Way back in the book of the Exodus, when Moses asks God what his name is, He responds: “ I AM WHO I AM, Say this to the people of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.” Exodus 3:14   Again, he could’ve just said, I’m God.  Instead, he amazingly just says I AM.  He simply exists.  He necessarily exists.   He is the God who is there. 

The Jews he was talking to knew exactly what he meant…because the next verse says that they all picked up stones to kill him as a blasphemer.

Maybe it’s just me.  I just love that verse.  It’s a supernatural claim.  He could’ve said it another way, but he said it this way.  He said it in a way that frankly, is too ridiculous for a human to make up.   This is the kind of verse that makes me believe that the incident happened exactly as it was written.  It makes the story more reliable.   This is the kind of verse that just makes me stop and think, Wow, it really is true.

Let me know what you guys think of it?   If you want to read the story, it’s in the second half of John 8.

Friday Thoughts

Two quick thoughts today.

Lent

Last night I had dinner (Drunken Man Noodles, delicious) with  two of my friends who knew me before I became a Christian.  I really do miss hanging out with them (I had not yet seen them in 2012) and I had a great time.  Whenever we get together these days they’ll  typically ask me a few questions about how the “Jesus game” is going.   Last night I got a question that I wasn’t ready to answer and I think I missed out on an opportunity to share the message of Jesus.

The question was simply, “What are you giving up for lent?”   

My answer was an abrupt, “I don’t do that.”  

The conversation continued, and I missed out on sharing a truth with my friends.   The idea of “giving up something for lent”  is not a bad one.   It is, however, a religious ritual that does not show up in the Bible.    In other words, it’s a practice created by humans as a way to honor God.  

I don’t have a problem with Christians who do it, so long as it is not looked at as a requirement to please God, or to be a good Christian.   The reason why I do not take part in the practice is because, for me, it is already a struggle to separate the idea of the grace of God saving me just because he loves me and wants to, and the idea of me trying to earn God loves through good behavior.  I see no reason to further complicate and blur these two totally opposed ideas in my life by partaking in rituals like these.

I cannot stress this enough.  The Bible teaches that there is NOTHING you can do to earn favor in God’s eyes.    Living a “good” life is worthless when held to the standard of perfection….the requirement for heaven.  Faith  in Jesus, the real Jesus who lived and died and rose from the dead, is the only way to God.  Lent has nothing to do with it at all.   Not even a tiny bit.

That’s the answer I wish I had last night.

Calvinism Debate

Lately I have been reading some books about the theological merits of Calvinism and Arminianism.   In the interest of full disclosure, I tend towards the Calvinist side of the debate and as I read Arminian theology I tend to aggressively question everything in my mind to the point where sometimes I find myself physically shaking my head  involuntarily at the more vexing statements. 

This morning after a particularly confusing reading session I was transferring  at the subway station from Union Square from the N/R line to the 4/5 to Grand Central, all the while trying to make sense of what I had just read, and there was a street preacher.    He was ranting and raving in the usual street preacher style, but this morning he had a message that seemed directed at me.  His voice reached an urgent and forceful pitch:

“What’s there to argue about?   What is there?    There is one message people!   The message is that Jesus Christ died for you sins.  He died and rose again, for you and me.   Why are we dividing our churches…what’s left to argue about?”

Now I do think theology is worth talking about.   After all, if you ask Mormons if Christ died for our sins, they would say yes, and they are not Christians.  Theological distinctions are important to hash out.  At the same time  I think this guy has a good point.   There’s no sense in getting worked up about so many things that that Bible doesn’t speak of as essential.   Lets instead spend our energy and emotion on figuring out how to spread the true message of salvation to a world that desperately needs to hear it. 

That message is Jesus.  Jesus is God.   He lived among us and he died on a cross as payment for the sins of the world.   He resurrected  (he physically came back to life) on the third day.  He did this that whoever believes in him will not die in their sins….but will live forever in heaven.    Let’s use our time spreading this message and arguing against messages that deviate from this. 

Besides, it is this point that is everything.   What’s left to argue about?

El Salvador, Fear and Loathing, and the Body of Christ

I’m finally back home after an extremely busy couple of weeks.    I spent time in La Libertad, El Salvador and Las Vegas, Nevada.  Two places that could not be more of a contrast in lifestyle.  For those who are interested here is a brief summary of my thoughts on both trips.

El Salvador was a successful trip.   It was different from Ethiopia in many ways.  For one, the country as a whole is nowhere near as poor as Ethiopia and it’s obvious.  Some sections of the country looked like they were right out of suburbia here in the states.  NOTHING about Ethiopia is even close to the states (except the obnoxiously pristine US Embassy/fortress).  All that said, there are still many people in extreme poverty in El Salvador.

Movement as a group took on three separate projects while we were in La Libertad.  First, the team of women and I visited Remar Orphanage and painted the inside of one of the boys dorms.   The children of Remar were fantastic.  We loved every moment we were there.   Second, the men on the team spent the week building ramps for a brand new skate park for the city.  Third, the whole group helped a pastor in San Diego, who runs a feeding program out of his own pocket, for the poorest of the poor children in his area.   The week we were there, he had run out of food and would have had nothing to give had we not shown up.  He is an amazing man.  Truly a man going all out for Christ.  Check out a short video of what we did there here.

More about the trip later.  When I got back I had one day in NYC to recover with my wife, and then I was immediately off to Las Vegas where my office was celebrating our business success in the second half of 2011.

Vegas bills itself as Sin City, and this is true.  But really its not really about sin in general, its specifically about  glorifying yourself.   It’s about living like a king, if only for a short time.  Money in Vegas can literally buy you anything fairly easily: rooms like palaces, women, entertainment, the highest of quality in food, clothes and art.  All the things the Preacher in Ecclesiastes tried until he could try no more and eventually found no pleasure in.  Seriously read Ecclesiastes…you’ll be surprised its in the Bible.

The thing about Vegas is that the activities  that you do there seem fun and even harmless while you are there.   This is also my experience as a person who lived the Vegas lifestyle for most of my life.  Try living that way for extended period.  Try never being able to experience the difference between a stripper being all over your for a tip, and the touch of woman who truly loves you.  Try never being able to tell the difference between your friends, and those who like you because you’re rich.   Or worst of all, try training yourself to drink to contentment long enough, until you see your life as figuring out how to pass the time between nights of drunkenness that you only partially remember.  

These are all the paths I was on before I met Christ.   If you would have asked me before, I would have told you I was having fun.   When I got a chance to look back on that lifestyle now, it broke my heart.   It all seemed so silly.  People in deep fear and loathing.  People all around who refuse to  face life as it truly is and would rather pretend they live in Caesar’s Palace, or in a land of Pirates.  It’s a childish existence, ironically called “Adult Entertainment”.  This lifestyle is vanity, it’s a striving after wind.   In other words, if this is how you live, you will constantly be chasing something that you will never, ever get in this way.  Whether that something is contentment in sex, money, alcohol or drugs is irrelevant.    Its hopeless for you if you keep trying like this.

Life is better than what most 20 something’s in NYC think it is.   As a Christian, my job is to get that message out, and show people how much more rich, pleasurable and fun life really is.  Getting wasted on the weekends, when you really step back and think about it, is not fun.  Its childish.

Lastly, I wanted to just give a quick shout to my brothers and sisters who went to El Salvador with me.  I have honestly never met a group of people like this before.  Everyone was just so humble, encouraging, loving and just flat out hilarious.   I’ve never seen a group so ready to spend themselves for others.  

The men on the team all fought off an awful stomach bug, while working in 90 degree, super humid heat for a whole week to eventually deliver, what we were told, were the best ramps in the entire country.   I didn’t hear a single complaint the entire time, except that we wished we had more time to build even more.   The results of the skate park build?   God used our work, and he saved dozens of young El Salvadorean skateboarders.  My brothers are solid men, it was awesome working with them.

I spent most of my time with our team of women. I cannot put into words how amazing this group of ladies is.  People these days try to caricature Christian women in two ways.  1) The GCB woman, pretty much a hypocritical woman, more promiscuous than average, while at the same time leveling harsh judgments on everyone else.  Or 2) The uptight, old fashioned nerd, who thinks holding hands is dirty.

The women that were on our team are nothing like either of these ridiculous caricatures.   They are beautiful, stylish, funny and warm.   Most importantly, they too were willing to work hard, in intense heat, fighting stomach problems and with no complaints.  Not a SINGLE one.

In a time where many women choose to  emulate the outlandish and  unattractive behavior showcased on reality shows or Chelsea Handler, these women courageously stand apart.  Each of them truly personifies the  Proverbs 31 woman.  Especially my lovely wife Brittany.   (No offense ladies)  I have grown to love my sisters.  All them are special and I was honored to get to know them better over the course of this trip.

Where in the world did these people come from?   Why are they willing to spend their time, their money and their bodies for people they’ve never met.  The Lord taught me what the church is on this trip.   The bible teaches that we (believers) are the body of Christ.   That’s what these people have in common.   That’s why they act the way they do.  They come at life from a different perspective than unbelievers.   Left to our own, the men and women of our team would be just like everyone I saw in Vegas. They would be chasing contentment in various worthless things, just like I did. 

Instead, they have Jesus.  Through them, Jesus works to meet the needs of the poor and widowed and the orphans.  Through them Jesus works to draw others to himself.  Through him they get to participate in Jesus’ mission to change hearts.

Thank you so much to my Movement family.  Thanks for making me feel at home and for teaching me so much on this trip.

Thoughts on Death

I have been meaning to write a post for just about two weeks but I have been putting it off.  Even though my delays have been unintentional, it is a really good illustration of the attitude I hope to explore about my topic today.  My topic is death.  This topic is one that most refuse to dwell on for very long.  This is a topic that most people try not to think about, even though its reality cannot be denied.  I came face to face with this reality a few weeks ago.   My grandmother died after a long period of suffering various illnesses.

We are all born into an impossible predicament.  When we are first conceived, we are conceived with a built-in terminal illness.   Every single day that passes, is a day we come closer to succumbing to that illness.  The weirdest part of this is that we don’t know if we have a few years, a few days, or a few minutes left.  The best scientists and doctors are absolutely helpless to do anything about this universal death sentence.  Death cannot be avoided.

Yet somehow, for the majority of my life, I did a great job avoiding death as an issue.   I rarely thought about it.  My friends as far as I know never thought about it, and I never really knew anyone close who had died.  I think most of you, if you’re honest, rarely think about the implications of death, and what death really is.  But the truth is, that what we think or don’t think about the reality of death has a profound impact on the way we conduct our lives day to day.

There are really only two basic choices about what happens when we die:

1.       Nothing.   This is the view of someone who believes that there is no self, besides the physical self.   (This view, in my opinion, is obviously false.  Though this is a debate for another time)

2.       The soul lives on in some other capacity.  (I think that the existence of a soul is obvious upon careful self-reflection, but see a good argument for dualism here. )

If there is no “self” separate from the body, then when we die we are gone.  This may seem obvious, but I challenge you to do some careful reflection on this fact.   What does this mean?   Honestly, it’s hard to wrap your head around this idea.  The last scene of the Soprano’s, debatably, tried to capture the essence of this.   One moment, you’re with your family, about to order some onion rings, listening to Journey, the next minute… silence and black.   Only silence and black doesn’t explain it at all.  You have to be able to perceive silence and black.  Dead flesh doesn’t perceive anything.   Again, I challenge you to reflect on this.  It’s a mind bending concept to imagine what oblivion is like. 

It’s also really depressing.  If oblivion is what awaits us, what in the world are we doing here?  Why do we feel the need to do anything?  Why are you going to work, going to the gym, loving our families, trying to eat right?   What’s the point?   The atheist says, “There is no point!”, then simultaneously tries to convince us to stand up against evil, or to care about global warming, or some cause.  Why should I?

I love that scene in Seinfeld.   The group is reflecting on death, after Jerry’s infamous “Pony Remark” kills his aunt Manya:

GEORGE: [Funerals] always make me take stock of my life and how I've pretty much wasted all of it, and how I plan to continue wasting it.

JERRY: I know, and then you say to yourself, "From this moment on, I'm not going to waste any more of it." But then you go, "How? What can I do that's not wasting it?"
ELAINE: Is this a waste of time? What should we be doing? Can't you have coffee with people?

They then go on with their conversation, but this is so true.  If death is just death, then we’re all just killing time.   If death is meaningless, life is meaningless.  Most atheists don’t live like this though and most people in general do believe in an immaterial “self”/soul, and life after death.   Most people are willing to trust their instincts that life does have meaning.

As I have stated before, I have good reason to believe that Christianity is true.  So what does the Bible say about the prospect of death?

The Bible teaches that the human soul, once created, never dies.  There are very good reasons to believe that this is true.  But it has a lot to say about carnal death.   There is a lot of this in the Bible.   I won’t go into too much detail but I have noticed an interesting feature in the stories.

When major players in the Bible story die, besides Jesus, it really just moves the story along right away.  There is no pomp, there is no circumstance.  It’s just over, and the story continues.  I think this is intentional.  God wants us to know, no matter how great and powerful we think we are, when we die on this earth, the earthly power and wealth we have, utterly meaningless and totally worthless.  Check out some classic biblical eulogies:

Abraham, father of the Israelites:

Abraham breathed his last and died in a ripe old age, an old man and satisfied with life; and he was gathered to his people.

Samuel the Prophet: 

Then Samuel died; and all Israel gathered together and mourned for him, and buried him at his house in Ramah.

And the famous King David:

Then David slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of David.

These guys were majors.  They got a sentence each.  The bible teaches that our life on this earth, while meaningful, is fleeting.  It comes and it goes like the snap of a finger.  We are often compared to grass.  Here today gone tomorrow.  But the Bible also teaches that we were created for a home that is NOT this earth.   We were created for heaven.

Many of you who are reading this probably believe that the Bible teaches that good people go to heaven.   Most believe that in the end if your good deeds outweigh the bad deeds, a good God will have to let you in.  This doesn’t really make any sense.   How would you gauge it?  Would you have to be a 51%er,  in the top 50% of goodness?  How could you possibly know that you would make that cut?   Furthermore, would it be “good” of God to turn someone away in the 49%ers (49% good deeds and 51% bad)?  And what would he do for the 50%ers, with equal amounts of good and bad?

The truth is that the qualification for heaven is not about being good, it’s about being perfect.   You get in through perfection.  This is really really good news.  The perfection of Jesus is good enough for all of us.    The 90%ers, the 50%ers, even the 10%ers can all tap into the free gift of God that is Jesus.    Believe on Jesus, and your soul (the real “you”) will spend forever with him in heaven.

As I stood in front of my grandmother’s lifeless body a few weeks ago, I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic about her.  I knew her through that body.  It was how I recognized her as child, but was it that body that I loved?   Impossible.  The love I had for my grandmother had nothing to do with her physical body….it was her soul that I loved…the real her. 

But the real “her” is still very much alive.   She was a powerful woman of God, with a strong faith in the Lord.  She held on to the reality of his promises until the very end, and faced her own death with courage, fearlessness and confidence.  She prayed to God unceasingly for me, that He would soften my hard heart.  That he would remove whatever it was that kept me rebelling so hard against him.  I found this out at the funeral.   I thank God that he answered that prayer. 

My prayer is the same for you.  I pray for whoever is reading this… come to Christ.  If you don’t know what this means or how to do this, email me, or I’d be glad to talk this out over the phone.   I will leave you with this.  You are not going to die.  I mean the real you, the you that is separate from your body.  You will go on living forever.  I urge you to accept the gift of heaven.    Living forever with God is going to be better than we can possibly imagine.