When Israel and Judah turned away from God and began worshiping idols, God sent the prophet Jeremiah to warn them of the impending destruction of Jerusalem and captivity in Babylon. Jeremiah chapter 2 lays out God’s complaint against his chosen people. Here are verses 26-28:

“As a thief is disgraced when he is caught,
so the house of Israel is disgraced—
they, their kings and their officials,
their priests and their prophets.

They say to wood, ‘You are my father,’
and to stone, ‘You gave me birth.’
They have turned their backs to me
and not their faces;
yet when they are in trouble, they say,
‘Come and save us!’

Where then are the gods you made for yourselves?
Let them come if they can save you
when you are in trouble!
For you have as many gods
as you have towns, O Judah.

As crazy as it is, we live in a world where people say to the dust, “You gave me birth!” But would anyone be crazy enough to cry out to dust or stone for rescue? Rocks cannot see or hear or walk! Revelation 6:15-17 says:

Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”

Some atheists find comfort in the belief that there is no afterlife. All atheists find comfort in the belief that there is no wrathful face of God awaiting them. Instead of facing a wrathful God, they would prefer to have the rocks fall on them and hide them from His wrath. Revelation 9:6 says:

During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.

It’s forgivable for Dawkins to believe that the dust gave him birth, but he would surely change his mind when faced with such strong punishment, right? I wouldn’t be so sure. Revelation 9:20:

The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk.

Do you really want to say to the dust, “You gave me birth”?

Jeremiah is beautiful poetry. I have said before that Psalm 13 is my favorite Psalm. Jeremiah references this Psalm, in Jeremiah 3:1-5, right after condemning Israel and Judah:

“If a man divorces his wife
and she leaves him and marries another man,
should he return to her again?
Would not the land be completely defiled?
But you have lived as a prostitute with many lovers—
would you now return to me?”
declares the LORD.

“Look up to the barren heights and see.
Is there any place where you have not been ravished?
By the roadside you sat waiting for lovers,
sat like a nomad in the desert.
You have defiled the land
with your prostitution and wickedness.

Therefore the showers have been withheld,
and no spring rains have fallen.
Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute;
you refuse to blush with shame.

Have you not just called to me:
‘My Father, my friend from my youth,

will you always be angry?
Will your wrath continue forever?’
This is how you talk,
but you do all the evil you can.”

When afflicted by “love”, people are often jealous and possessive. When I was about 10 years old, a pair of local lovers formed a mutual suicide pact and committed suicide together. This sort of “commitment” is glorified by our culture. Tell your wife that you have found a way to freeze yourself and your wealth, and that you’ll come back to earth long after she is dead, and see how she responds. Are you really surprised that she doesn’t support your quest to be a celebrity caveman to some young ladies who won’t be born for centuries? You might as well tell her that she’s a temporary lover who will occupy an infinitesimal fraction of your love life, since your love life will extend immortally.

It should surprise nobody that Christ already dealt with the issue of possessive love among the resurrected, 2,000 years ago. Matthew 22:23-33 says:

That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. “Teacher,” they said, “Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and have children for him. Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. Finally, the woman died. Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?”

Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”

When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching.

It sounds like Mrs. Hanson has nothing to worry about, and should instead be demanding that her husband pay for her own cryogenic preservation. There is always the issue that the resurrection may not be cryogenic, but subscribing to a cryogenic service is certainly a good way to signal to the future your desire to be reborn.

Very early in Christian history, some gnostics began to claim that the spiritual is pure, while the physical is corrupt. They asserted that heaven is the place where people’s souls escape their bodies. This was condemned as heresy. Christians worship a God who was crucified and rose again — with a physical body, and scars that His disciples could touch. This is a central belief of Christianity. The Christian concept of bodily resurrection does not involve reanimation of corrupted cadavers, but instead involves people being given new bodies (or “bodies made new”).

Dualism asserts that the universe is made of two different types of substance: physical, which follows the laws of physics, and “immaterial” or “spirit”, which does not. I cannot say whether or not dualism is true. But Christianity does not say that the soul’s destiny is immaterial. We should remember this when discussing dualism vs. materialism.

“What constituency is there for pessimism? People believe optimism is necessary, an American right. The presumption of optimism is the problem. That’s what creates the debt we have now.”

This is exactly the point I was making in my post about “Eschatology and Epistemology: Christians and the Housing Bubble”.

This also explains one major beef I have with the defenders of Arminianism.  I’ve seen numerous people argue that “God is Love, so he’ll give every unbeliever numerous chances to be saved, even it that doesn’t involve acknowledging the supremacy of Christ.”  They take God’s love and throw out the fear of God.  They even argue, “What constituency is there for fear of God?  People won’t believe in God or feel good about God if he is fearsome.  Belief in our own innate goodness is an American right.”

This presumption of our own innate goodness, of our own entitlement to stand in judgment of God and accept him only if he is harmless and cuddly enough, is what creates the spiritual deficit we have now.

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 is instructive:

Now, brothers, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, "Peace and safety," destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.