There is a heaven!

Some of you know that although I've attended various churches in the past, I've never really believed that there was some kindly man/woman/father/mother/God/spirit watching over me. I strenuously "acted as if" and that worked for me for awhile but always at the back of my mind I knew that things just didn't add up. I didn't even think much of the "new age" metaphysical background of my childhood and had a sneaking suspicion that a therapist in my life was right when she identified my " spirituality" as magical thinking. No..my thoughts do not control anything except myself and my reactions to events in my life. But..that's a subject for a future post! It was particularly freeing for me when it began to dawn on me that my lack of belief was OK! But does mean that I am not spiritual? Why NO..it does not!

I'm not above using other's work to articulate my feeling about this. The following is a comment on a blog I read on Skepchic's " Wednesday's Afternoon Inquisition". The question asked of us was this:


I assume that most of the readers of SkepChick are, like me, atheists and have rejected the concept of heaven and hell and indeed any sort of afterlife. Suppose there were an afterlife. If it were up to *you* what would your afterlife be like?


There are quite a few irreverent and humorous responses, but Zapski's response moved me:


In seriousness, I as an atheist think that there is no soul in the dualistic sense. However, I think that what is essentially us leaves our bodies at all times, every time we interact with others. Like raindrops in a pond, the ripples we make affect all the other drops, and all the ripples that hit us, are changed by our ripples, etc.

Humanity has one giant soul-soup in which we all make bigger or smaller ripples. What I say shapes you, what you say shapes me. When I recall something you said or did, or if some action of yours consciously or unconsciously affects me or my actions or ideas, that is your “soul” having its effect.
Carl Sagan (for example) made a big splash in the soul-soup. Many of us are shaped by his words and actions.
Religion has it backwards: Your soul doesn’t leave your body at the moment of death, it stops leaving your body, and echos in the lives of others.


We are the heaven in which our dead reside."


From my heaven, PapaTim says " Buh!"