We Are Already There

How many of you here have had your doubts? I have. To tell the truth, it was doubts, severe doubts, dark doubts that led me to whatever sort of faith I have. If you are like me and you are in a room with someone that is 100% sure of everything and has no doubts at all, you will join me in edging toward the door.

On the other hand, the people who really know things know how much they don’t know, and they admit it. So I have a lot of respect for folks who are a bit skeptical, have questioning, curious minds, and need some convincing before they go off believing in something.

I have considerable appreciation for folks that don’t go in for a lot of speculation about so-called “spiritual” things. Things that can’t be proven: the immortality of the soul, that there is such a thing as a soul, angels, ghosts, evil spirits, fate, or things that go bump in the night. I like down-to-earth, healthy skeptics.

The earliest evidence of any human religion is a burial, in which the bones and objects have been neatly arranged. Before this, human remains were simply cast aside. Human religion has its roots in a fascination with death. And as with so many things, when we don’t know something for sure, we tend to make things up. So we have always speculated about an afterlife, another world, a place called heaven.

Way back in the 60's, we had these things called “Teen death songs”. Really, it was a whole genre of music: Songs like “Leader of the Pack” with motorcycle death. “Dead Man’s Curve” with drag racing death. Finally “Last Kiss” about dating death. A couple gets in a car accident. The girl dies in the boys arms, but not before they have their “last kiss”.

Here is the chorus:

Oh where Oh where can my baby be?
The Lord took her away from me.

She’s gone to heaven so I got to be good.

So I can see my baby when I leave this world.*

I once spoke with the writer of that song, Wayne Cochran (The White Knight of Soul) who is now a pastor in Florida. He agreed that it was lousy theology.

Most of what we believe about death, heaven, and the afterlife is from the Greeks, the Romans, and the Persians. Stuff like heaven as the place where “the Lord” lives and where you go if you are good. It is pretty much like here, only better, with clouds and harps and such. Plus, you can see your baby.

A couple of years ago my best friend died. I took it pretty hard. So did another friend of mine. After the funeral, he asked me: “Do you think that he can see us from where he is right now?”

Now remember, I am a skeptic, and I am careful about things I know nothing about. But here is what I said: “We are already there.” One of those people that really knows things, Albert Einstein, would probably agree with me.

Because, what was I saying? I was saying that these things must transcend space and time. And if there is a God, God transcends space and time. That is what would make God God. God would not have to stay in a particular place and time. God would not just live in heaven with dead folks. In fact, God wouldn’t have to wait until we die to be with you and you shouldn’t have to die to be with God. Which is a great thing. No waiting! In that case, it probably doesn’t matter what you believe or don’t believe, or even whether or not you are good, but whether God believes in you.