What about the afterdeath? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
In wrapping up this book, we are going to look at the afterdeath, which is what I prefer to call the afterlife seeing as one’s life never truly ends. That being said, at the start, Graffin says without the thought of an afterdeath, we would all act like spoiled infants. Kind of hard to deny that if you look at the world around you.
Unfortunately, I fear a lot of people will act worse if they have power as well. Look at the greatest atheist tyrants in history. No Heaven to gain or Hell to shun. No judgment to be given to them. Why should they care about anyone else?
Graffin says many naturalists care more about improving the world than theists do because theists are focused on the next one. The problem with this is history. Many of those people most focused on the next one, as Lewis said, made the most improvements here. They did so because Jesus taught them to change the world.
Graffin also says many religious people say without Heaven and Hell there is no incentive to live a good life. I would hope more of my fellow Christians would say we live a good one because Jesus commanded us to, but that is a further incentive. If naturalism is true, why should I be good if I can get away with otherwise? What does good even mean?
He also says none of us have a plan for our lives from an intelligent designer. If he means an individual will, I agree. He then says that because there is no designer, we can wake up each morning and say what’s done is done and what can I do today?
You can do that as a Christian.
In many ways, you should do that as a Christian. We should realize the old is gone and all things are new. We should realize the grace of forgiveness.
So now it’s time to wrap things up as this is how the chapter ends and overall, this has been a rare enjoyable book on atheism. Some chapters, like this one, are short because a lot of the material is also about Graffin’s own life. If you care about music, you will probably like that.
I also made sure to highlight for my studies in my PhD program I am hoping to get into the information about music and resonating that showed up in this chapter. Graffin says it is a delight to hear someone listen to music he did and call it “My song.” It’s amusing to hear of how sometimes he pulls up next to someone and he can hear them playing his music in their car.
As a writer, I consider it a great compliment to hear someone say that something I wrote touched them in a powerful way. I still remember having someone at a church I used to attend in Tennessee tell me how much he liked a sermon I gave. When I asked what he did in response he said “That’s why I’m teaching Sunday School now.”
So this is actually a book that’s worth reading in the atheist world. Definitely so if you have a keen interest in music.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
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