Reply #27: While I don't apply the label... [View All]

[DeSwiss]

...of atheist to myself (nor agnostic, but both are much closer to my own conceptions than any other designations), I would agree that in the grand scheme of things it would most likely be of little interest to many. Although I most certainly agree with your point about the idea of a "heaven" being nonsensical. Because I have concluded that this heaven idea is nothing more than another form of anthropomorphizing reality to "fit" what is known and comfortable. These ideas lie within the realm of most people's understanding since its what most have been taught, so they stick with it as much as they can.

However, from the standpoint of watching religionists grapple with their religion, and seeing how it rubs up against and irritates their own sense of modern morality and justice, it becomes interesting (at least to me) in the extreme. The reason being that I believe it will most likely be that just as Christianity was not wholly adopted and unequivocally accepted at its beginnings, it will very likely and slowly devolve and come apart in the face of rationality -- over time. I see this "inclusion" of atheists into heaven as a sign of this.

So maybe what I am seeing in these polling numbers of the 56%ers who believe that people of other faiths and even atheists will be in their heaven, is in fact an indication of the slow conversion of religionists over to reason -- while placing less and less emphasis on the place of religion as a moral guide in their lives. And yet, they can't totally separate themselves completely from it, and must have their rituals, and their icons and all the other familiar things that they've grown accustomed to over many, many years, with them as they travel through this new land called Rationality. A land where they must discover their answers for themselves. Rather than to simply accept the pre-packaged answers that they've been given since childhood.