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Nutshell Kingdom: Theological Questions Answered
2007
I'm good spiritually. I believe that and will not hesitate to say so if the question arises. Once, a friend asked me "what happens to us when we die?" I replied truthfully, "I don't know." She responded with a look of being cheated and said, "I thought you were all spiritual and stuff." To which I replied, "I am. I'm just not dead."
Big questions are a destructive force in the pursuit of anything deeper. A waste of time and energy. For one thing (and it's a big thing), they can't be answered. A person who claims to know that there's a heaven is lying. They believe that there's a heaven and then pretend that this faith is the most important aspect of their soul, which, by the way, is another Big concept that can't be accounted for except through belief and hearsay and let's face it, fiction. A person may as well believe that they go to the Land of Oz after death as cloudy old Heaven - both are fictions from books, neither has been seen by the living. And even if they were proved (soul, heaven, Oz), what difference would it make to you, still alive and stuck here on earth?
Faith and belief are important tools, so why would you waste them on speculative concepts? Why would you care? The answer will come whether you ask the questions or not. Better to exercise your energy directly on yourself and those around you. Smile. Shut up. Rent a kayak. Pet a dog. Submit your resume for a different job.
Angry? Fine. Angry at the Christians? Who isn't. But let's not get on their case about whether animals go anywhere when they die. That would be like getting a chance to tell off President Bush and rather than saying anything substantive, you blurt out that you think the decor that he chose for his study is horrendously ugly. It may even be true, but it misses the point. We're angry at Christians for politicizing religion and turning it into an organized capitalist microcosm of our society at large.
Theoretically, we like to think of church as a refuge from social and class distinctions and we're mad at the Christians because it isn't. If you go to church, look to who sits in the front row, look at your non-clerical officers. Odds are good they're the owners, the executives, the heirs and heiresses of immodest fortune. They are the donors, in other words. And their donations buy influence, even in the church, which is no surprise to any of us, but sad and frustrating nonetheless.
I'm just saying, if you're going to attack Christianity, don't go for their mythology. That's jut air and imagination anyway. Rather, follow the money and go for their throat.
