On Time

I think our approach to eternity is way off.

The afterlife gets so much damned mindshare with Christians and religious-types in general, and I don't see any good reason that it should be so. This happens largely because words like "forever" and "everlasting" are thrown about rather liberally in the Bible and a good chunk of other religious literature.

However, how do we use these words today? I would argue that almost every time we encounter them they are used for gross exaggeration of one kind or another, mostly as a habit of language, and often to emphasize a point. When you say you waited forever at the DMV, people KNOW that you weren't actually stuck in an infinite time loop with a ticket number that never got called (this is a good spot to shamelessly plug my next post - On Hell).

Why should we think it was any different in Biblical times? Exaggeration is so well-known that they've coined a term for it - rabbinical hyperbole. Teachers regularly used extreme examples to drive home a symbolic point.

I find it interesting to read statements about everlasting reward for the righteous and eternal suffering for the wicked as descriptive facts on the nature of righteousness and wickedness. This also makes more sense as a discussion topic for Jesus, rather than figuring that he was just crazy obsessed with death and wanted to give us the low-down on the next few eons.

Here's my plan: next time I read a passage that talks about infinite life, rather than thinking about sitting around in some quasi-physical state just being alive pretty much indefinitely, I'm going to think that the passage is saying that you get "life, every time". Reminds me of Sex Panther - 75% of the time, it works every time. Made with real bits of panther.