Jun 21

Episode 2: Accepting Jesus After You Die

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A brief exploration of Christian Salvation – and why you can’t choose
to accept Jesus after you die.

Transcript:
Believers spend enormous amounts of time and energy in attempts to save unbelievers from eternal damnation. They are usually trying to help you out of genuine concern for your wellbeing. because if you are not “saved” before you die, then you will spend an eternity in hell. Right?

Recently I put some thought into this. And the glaring question that keeps circling back to mind is this: why is it so important to be right with God before you die?

If you are a Christian, then what would you think if someone told you that she will choose to worship God if he turns out to be real after she dies? That’s not how it works, right? She’s going to go to hell if she tries that!

Let’s take a look at Pascal’s wager. Remember this one? If God is real and you choose to serve him, then you spend eternity worshiping him in heaven. If God is real and you do not choose to serve him, then you spend eternity in unimaginable agony. Of course, if God is not real, then you will rest peacefully when you die either which way. So you may as well just be a Christian. Right?

I’ll get to a point about Pascal’s wager, but we have to make a quick diversion first. Because I can’t bring up Pascal’s wager without mentioning it’s gaping hole – that is that there are many religions to choose from and serving the wrong God means certain doom. Those poor Muslims who grew up in Iraq are going to be in for a horrible shock when they see St. Peter at the pearly gates. Or perhaps it will be the poor American kids who are in for a shock when Allah sends them to hell because they poured their hearts into worshiping Jesus instead of him. Pascal was a smart mathematician – so the fallacy of his wager highlights how faith (and fear) can fog up the mental process.

But that’s not the point I wanted to make about Pascal. The real issue is this: Why should there have to be a wager? Where was God when he was making this decision? What kind of God hides in mystery while the people he created poke around in the darkness desperately trying to not to piss him off?

So back to my question – why is it so important to be right with God before you die?

This life is immensely short compared to eternity (in heaven or hell). Wouldn’t God prefer that you served him for eternity when you know he is real, rather than serve him for a brief 70 years on earth when you weren’t sure? Nope! Well, not according to Christianity. You have to worship him without evidence, and you can’t change your mind once you see him and you know that he exists! And of course, no-one gets to see him until after they die. Convenient, isn’t it?

Cut From Script:
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I once considered signing up for a bartending class. It was a one week course and the tuition was $1200. The owner of the school told me that he had a list of jobs in local bars that were exclusively available to his graduates. I asked if I could see the list and he declined. He said that he only shows the list to his graduates. Later that day I asked around and found a friend who had graduated from that same bartending class. He didn’t get a job afterward – in fact the school manager didn’t have any job leads for him when he graduated. The difference between this and Christianity is that I was able to ask around and find someone who had been there. You can’t validate heaven or hell because no-one comes back from the dead to speak from experience.
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Without the faith goggles, the answer is blatantly obvious. You have to worship him before you see him because you never will see him – he does not exist. The concept of Heaven and Hell is nothing more than a crude reward and punishment system that is impossible to validate and that’s how religious ideas evolve to lock people into the beliefs they were indoctrinated into.

Personally, if there was a God and he really punished good people for not believing in him without evidence – then I would rather fight him than join him.

The purpose of this channel is to get you to ask yourself these two questions. 1) How strong is your faith? 2) Why?