Believe the earth is flat, or I'll kill you. Are you able to ignore the evidence that says otherwise?

Eternal bliss or eternal suffering, each at a level so profound that we cannot begin to imagine the plenary ecstasy of heaven or the relentless horror of hell. This,  Christians contend, is what is at stake as we try to decide whether or not to believe in Jesus as God.

But even this “choice” misunderstands the concept of belief. Belief is not a decision, but rather an intellectual position to which we are taken by evidence (evidence which can include, I am told, personal revelations from God, a courtesy not yet extended to me). We can’t believe the earth is flat, even if threatened with death for that disbelief, because the evidence tells us it’s spherical.

Yet according to the Christian proposition, we must believe certain things to avoid damnation. What are they? Besides the…

Ooh, baby, do you know what that’s worth?
Ooh heaven is a place on earth
They say in heaven love comes first
We’ll make heaven a place on earth
Ooh heaven is a place on earth

- 80’s pop sensation (and inadvertent theologian) Belinda Carlisle.

So I’m listening to this show on the radio the other day, and people are fighting about Heaven.

Heaven's Rays. Image courtesy of wallpaper-s.org

Go ahead, let that one sink in for a minute.

The panel that was discussing had gotten worked up and heated, all because they disagreed on some of the finer points about what Heaven looked like and what the Bible means when it talks about the new Heaven and new Earth.

Did I mention this was a Christian radio program?

Sigh.

Personally, my vision of Heaven does not include sitting on clouds playing harps or honest to goodness streets of gold - But I’ll be the first to admit that I have no idea…

Post-Dispatch scribbler Kevin Horrigan wrote Sunday, 4/19, about William Lobdell, a former religion reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Lobdell, recently bought out by the paper, is making the rounds these days hawking his book, “Losing My Religion” (Collins, $24.99). Seems he found out about one too many perverted priests and chucked in the whole thing, not just Christianity but God as well.

Don’t think I’ll be buying the book. If someone doesn’t settle into some serious questioning about faith and the existence of evil, by, say, the fifth grade, then he’s not been paying attention in history class.

While Lobdell is leaving his faith behind, England’s well-known A. N. Wilson is rediscovering his.

Wilson’s return, in part, is due to his weariness with the easy mocking and sneering that is so much a part of contemporary Britain. Watch this recent Susan Boyle youtube clip – if you haven’t already — a telling example.)

Wilson says,

For much…