I appreciate Duane and Dan’s persistence — and Stan and Eric’s. There are now 47 comments, I believe a record at DaytonOS, in an extended conversation that started with, “The Creation Museum’s Shocking Indoctrination Effort Reminds — Only The Authority Of Reason Can Save Us.” Duane and Dan, it is clear, are determined to believe the literal words of the Bible, regardless that such belief leads to such conclusions as the world is 6000 years old, dinosaurs and humans were at one time peaceful contemporaries, and that all of humanity was destroyed in 2500 BC — except a group of seven.

The “Young Earth” creationists demonstrate an astounding willingness to suspend the authority of their own reason — and give the control of their own reason to an outside authority. “Young Earth” creationists offer a breathtaking landscape of irrational, unscientific, impossible concepts — all derived, they say, from a literal reading of scripture. Wow. They give themselves willingly to indoctrination. Why?

Dan wrote yesterday, “Eric, what might this user’s manual for your immortal soul be? Is it the Bible that tells us God created the universe in 6 days, and also tells us how to live and get along with each other, and how to get to heaven? I wonder what the evolutionists think will happen to them after they die?”

Maybe it is true that how we deal with this question — what happens to us after we die? — determines a lot of our behaviors and beliefs. “Young earth” creationists are driven to advocate zany beliefs, in part, it seems, because they see holding the line concerning a literal understanding of Genesis as an important affirmation of a whole system of belief that assures them they know what will happen to them when they die. I’m thinking of a depressing book, I read some time ago, The Denial Of Death, that develops a theory, and makes a strong case, that human belief and human behavior, in general, is motivated by a denial of death.

Study of topics dealing with life after death and “end times,” I’m thinking, hold more interest for Bible literalists than topics dealing with Genesis. I imagine that Doug and Dan have some pretty specific ideas about what a literal reading of the Bible reveals about the “end times” — the return of Christ, Armageddon, etc. — and, I imagine, they are as uncompromising in their view of the “end times” as they are uncompromising in their view of the beginning time.

I’m bothered that some Biblical literalists, TV evangelists, — because they believe in a literal return of Christ — seem to glory in the prospect that the world soon might unravel into incredible chaos and war. A “Left Behind” world view has some amazing implications, but the idea is that, in the end, through a supernatural intervention, Jesus will save true believers and take them to heaven. The fact that there are religious fanatics in America, TV preachers, who seem gleeful about the notion of the “end times” is pretty disturbing. The emphasis of the teaching of such fanatics is not one that encourages Christians to work for peace and justice, but one that glories in the fact that Christians are ultimately “saved” and, as the world crumbles, they will be rescued from the mess and chaos of the world. Bad theology creates a mindset that can lead to horrendous consequences.

How we think about heaven, about “end times,” does matter, because our views of human destiny and human purpose have a profound effect on our behavior and choices in the present.

I found an old Time Magazine with an interesting article — Christians Wrong About Heaven, Says Bishop — in which Bishop N.T. “Tom” Wright explains his view of what the Bible actually teaches about heaven. The article says that Bishop Wright’s views are usually considered conservative and, as an example, cites Wright’s 2003 book, “The Resurrection of the Son of God,” in which Wright forcefully defends his belief in a literal Resurrection.

Wright believes that Jesus was resurrected from the dead, and Wright believes in immortality, but, as Wright understands the Bible, heaven is not what most Christians envision. Bishop Wright published an extensive essay on the topic in Christianity Today: “Heaven Is Not Our Home: The bodily resurrection is the good news of the gospel—and thus our social and political mandate.”

ABC News has a well produced video about Bishop Wright’s understanding of heaven and can be seen here.

This is from the Time Magazine article:

“Wright: If people think that our world, our cosmos, doesn’t matter much, who cares what we do with that? Much of “traditional” Christianity gives the impression that God has these rather arbitrary rules about how you have to behave, and if you disobey them you go to hell, rather than to heaven. What the New Testament really says is God wants you to be a renewed human being helping him to renew his creation, and his resurrection was the opening bell. And when he returns to fulfill the plan, you won’t be going up there to him, he’ll be coming down here.

“TIME: That’s very different from, say, the vision put out in the Left Behind books.

“Wright: Yes. If there’s going to be an Armageddon, and we’ll all be in heaven already or raptured up just in time, it really doesn’t matter if you have acid rain or greenhouse gases prior to that. Or, for that matter, whether you bombed civilians in Iraq. All that really matters is saving souls for that disembodied heaven.”