Not Dead
One of the big aims of Christianity is to try and convince us that there is life after death and that if we live our pre-deaths well that our post-deaths will be good. To put that in their terminology: if we live lives substantially without sin, and then seek forgiveness for what sins we do commit, we will ascend into Heaven upon our deaths. That’s a pretty tall order to teach.
I mean look at what they’re up against. It’s Halloween season so it’s a pretty easy time to see what they’re up against. Just look at our horror movies. What are the perennial favorites, what are the monsters that just keep coming up again and again? Frankenstein’s monster, mummies, wolfmen, zombies, and most especially, vampires. These are all dead things that just won’t stay in their graves. Well, maybe not the wolfmen, but still, four out of five isn’t bad.
So there’s the Christians, beset on every side by the living dead, trying to convince us that those aren’t real, but Heaven is. Say you buy into it. You decide to do the Christian thing and read up on your Bible. You breeze on through the Old Testament, getting all worked up about what a righteous jerk God can be, but then you get past all that and move on in to the New Testament. God may be a bastard but he managed to turn out a pretty good son. Jesus is all “love your neighbor” and “turn the other cheek” and stuff. Then he goes and raises Lazarus from the dead. You think back to the last zombie flick you saw and you just know this can’t turn out good.
That’s what the Christians are up against.
And I haven’t even mentioned how much the Holy Spirit has in common with ghosts.
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