Friday, August 7, 2009

What if it turns out there is no Heaven.

You hear this uttered now and again. Some would even ask of any
one who has ever been there.Take a look at these scenarios.

You are at a friends party in another town late at night.You have
never been there before and its hot, so hot you feel like going
outside and maybe even taking a swim in the pool at the side
of the building. You want everyone to come along with you, and
you start heading out the door. Then someone offhandedly tells
you that he would prefer to sweat it out, indoors than to risk
loosing his life out there with those deadly insects.You stop dead
on your tracks.

He goes on to say that at this time of the year, insects as small
as mosquitoes but as deadly as bees fly about in large swarms
attacking any human who happens to be out at such late hours.
He tells you that several people have died already and he looks
very serious.

Now he could be lying. It might just be a joke, a stupid joke. But
would you take the chance? Would you risk it? Or would you rather
prefer to miss that badly needed dip in the pool. Would the risk
be too much to take for just a short period of fun, or would it be
worth it? You could take a hundred meters dash for the pool you
know, and then when you are through another hundred meters
dash back to the house. Would you risk it?

If it turned out to be a joke, what would you have lost if
you had stayed indoors? On the other hand, if it turned out to
be true, what would you not have lost if you had ventured
outside?

Or this,

(1) You live a good life, a very good life and then die, and it
turns out there is nothing after death...nothing at all; no heaven,
no hell, no eternal damnation, no existence, nothing. What 
would you  have lost? Nothing much I would say; You no longer
exist anyway.

(2) On the other hand, you live a terrible life, or maybe, a not
so good life, and eventually die, and it turns out there is a
Heaven after all, a life of bliss for ever and ever and ever; an
eternity of enjoyment in a place millions of times better than our
present world. WOW! And...there is, also an eternal gnashing of
teeth in hell or hades or anywhere, with recognition that at any
moment, there are others having a swell time , and that these
others also had the same opprtunities as yourself, the same
freedom of choice...aagh! What wouldn't you have lost?


Cheers

Oghenero.