A most excellent post, Nelson.
The wisest throughout history have always advised people to make the most of their lives and to treat each day as if it could be one's last. This attitude makes perfect sense because all we have with any certainty is the "now". What's that old saying about today being cash in the hand, while yesterday is a canceled check, and tomorrow is but a promissory note?
After you have been around for a few decades, you realize that religion is constantly evolving despite protests to the contrary. For example, when I was very young back in the 60s and 70s, the church taught that heaven and hell were real places. Now there's a movement to reinterpret them as states of mind that you find yourself in here on earth. It was Vatican II that first introduced this interpretation a few decades ago. Now some mainstream Protestant churches are adopting this viewpoint as all. For support, they point to the recent discovery that the Aramaic word which was originally translated as "hell" was actually referring to a physical dump site outside of Jerusalem.
More interestingly, the word "sin" has been reinterpreted as meaning "to miss one's mark" in life. To miss one's mark is to not make the most of your life, to not use your talents to their fullest, and to not appreciate your time here, if I understand correctly.
On a gut level, this interpretation rings true for me.
This is why I find the saddest people on earth to be the ones impatiently waiting for the rapture or second coming to arrive and end it all. Writer David Korten tells of hearing a fundamentalist on a radio talk show describe her life as nothing more "than a brief layover in a cheap motel."
The people who have been hoodwinked into believing this are the ones guilty of the sin of "missing the mark."
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