I cannot defend on rational grounds a belief in the afterlife.  Logically, either something will happen to me or nothing will happen to me—annihilation of all that I was.  If it’s the latter, I don’t need to worry.  If it’s is the former, the possibilities fork into rebirth into this existence or life in some kind of hereafter.  I hope reincarnation isn’t true, as I really don’t want to have to go through my dating experiences again!  With the exception of some ambiguous verses, the Bible appears to be silent on the idea or reincarnation.  Nancy takes the view that the hereafter may be a combination of heaven and reincarnation.  If in this world we finally “get it”, we go on to heaven, otherwise we return to this life, sometimes again and again.  Thus, this life would be hell.   Evidence beyond the anecdotal of this or any other theory seems also to be lacking, so your guess is as good as mine.  I am reminded of Shakespeare’s familiar cliché-quote:  “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt in your philosophy.”   The only evidence I can think of for the afterlife are these two slender reeds.  The first is the universality of the belief in a soul and some kind of afterlife.  This, in itself, doesn’t prove an afterlife.  We—and others in other cultures-- may be mistaken.  The second is the First Law of Thermodynamics that states that the total amount of energy in a closed system can be transformed but not created or destroyed.  While the soul, if it exists, may continue as energy elsewhere, science cannot tell us if the integrity of our personhood will be maintained after death.   Other evidence includes ghosts and near death experiences, but usually hard analysis melts these claims.  My belief that this life is a throughfare to another life must be a matter of faith based on what I read in the Bible, and I do so believe.  

     I don’t think heaven will be pearl-covered jasper walls, streets of gold, and nibbling foie gras to the sound of trumpets.  Nor will it be a celestial leisure village or Disney World, although that could very well be hell, especially those long lines and tiresome renditions of “It’s a Small World After All.”   The Bible promises that there won’t be giving or taking in marriage, which for some folks will be heaven enough.

         It occurred to me, while watching far too much television one day, that the geometry of heaven may be in front us—in our TV commercials.  The illusion is always the same not matter what is sold. The climate is tropical or spring, the music lilting, the children winsome and unobtrusive, time is meaningless, change is instantaneous, all wishes are granted, credit is unlimited, and freedom is pagan.  Animals consist mainly of collies, tabbies, and eagles. Anything that can evoke pain is banished.  Thus, there is no history, no trash, no sex, no insects, no thought, and no art.  Nobody is old, sick, crippled, unlikable, over-weight, ugly, unhappy, or dies.  What could be more like heaven to live forever more in a TV commercial?       

       Revelations 21 tells us what heaven will be like:  “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.  And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” 

       I take a page from Plato to suggest that heaven is here but only better and more real.  What ever we have here that is good, will last forever-- but it will be just more so.  What we see around us, I believe, is like a photocopy of a photocopy of what is real—which is heaven.  There are times when I dream of Ivyland—playing in the barn that has long since been destroyed, for example—and the dream is so lucid and three dimensional that that I can touch and smell and feel everything I did forty years ago—but more so.  That is what heaven will be like.  No clouds and choirs or cherubs strumming their harps.  Heaven will be this world—but only much more so.  In The Last Battle, C.S. Lewis has Aslan tell the children that they just died.  “There was a real railroad accident,” said Aslan.  “Your father and mother and all of you are—as you used to call it in the Shadow-Lands—dead.  The term is over: the holidays have begun.  The dream is ended: this is the morning.” 

         If there is a heaven, there must be a hell, just as if there is light, there must be darkness.  Hell—banishment from God--  is real in the same sense that heaven—in the presence of God-- is real.   Hell, for me, is what I don’t like forever.  Thus, it would be a place where I wear sheets, sing in choirs, and memorize scripture when I would much rather be reading books, traveling, and feeding my cats. The Old Testament describes hell as sheol, a vague limbo after death.  The New Testament is more graphic, describing Hell as “the lake that burns with fire and brimstone” and where sinner “weep and gnash their teeth.”   I look at this language as a picture that hell will be estrangement, isolation, and despair, denying as a lie that hope that “heaven is for climate and hell is for society.”   As to who is in hell and who is in heaven remains a mystery that we must leave to God.

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