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Does Heaven Matter?

Public-opinion polls show that most Americans not only believe in God but also anticipate some kind of Heaven.  A Gallup survey conducted in June, 2016 indicates that about eight in ten say they believe in God and one in ten say they aren't sure.  About seven in ten say that they believe there’s a Heaven. Among those believers, three out of four rate their chances of getting there to be good or excellent.

 

In a Christianity Today article, author Phillip Yancey wrote, "Although [most] of us believe in an afterlife, no one much talks about it. Christians believe we will spend eternity in a splendid place called heaven, [but] isn't it a little bizarre that we simply ignore heaven, acting as if it doesn't matter?"

Does heaven matter?

A pagan philosopher once admonished his followers, "Look to the end." This seems like good advice, but the crucial question is this: To what end, or to what hope should we look?  Skeptics widely reject the Christian hope of a heavenly end. Bertrand Russell, the 1950 Nobel Prize winner for literature, wrote this in his autobiography: “There is darkness without, and when I die there will be darkness within. There is no splendour, no vastness anywhere, only triviality for a moment, and then nothing.  Why live in such a world?  Why even die?" A meaningless end to a meaningless existence.  A brief, powerless life followed by a slow, sure, pitiless, dark death.  Unmitigated despair.  That’s all that Bertrand Russell could find in life and in death.  But as an atheist, that was the only conclusion where he could logically arrive.

But Christianity leads to a different conclusion.  The end Christians contemplate is not nothingness but the blessedness of eternal life in the new heaven on earth with God. Christian philosopher Peter Kreeft observed that, "If life on earth is not a road to heaven, then it is a treadmill, a merry-go-round minus the merry."

The principle atheistic architects of the modern mind—Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche, were wrong when they argued that hope in a heaven inhibits us from enjoying or caring about earthly life.

On the contrary, those who believe in life after death lead happier lives and trust people more. Those who have assurance of an afterlife are more satisfied with the present life. The certainty of heaven helps us cope with the uncertainties of earth. Only those who are ready to die are prepared to live.