586: What We Get Wrong About Heaven (Hint: Almost Everything) with Skye Jethani

You know, you can't laugh at the Babylon Bee because you're sympathetic to Progressive ideas and ways of seeing reality. That doesn't mean you aren't a Christian or anything like that, necessarily, but it does mean that, like almost all people experiencing leftiness, you're unable to see what is funny about your own ways and means. That is part of what makes people whose thinking is like what yours appears to be so brittle, and, paradoxically, funny. It's just that you'll never be able to laugh along, and that's sad. As a humor critic and political observer, you were a truly brilliant Bob the Tomato, and one of a kind. As a proggish Christian influencer fundy-disparaging type, you're just one…

As for why people imagine Heaven as a place where everyone is just having a never-ending worship service, one can think they're wrong (I certainly think so) without assuming some cynical reason. People can be mistaken without it being nefarious. I don't think that people have that rather bogus/childish image of Heaven because pastors are being self-promoting any more than I think that the idea of sitting on clouds all day in white robes playing harps (possibly with wings and halos--the souls, I mean, not the harps, which would be weird) is because meteorologists are trying to promote clouds. I think some of this might be the approach to Scripture as (1) literal in virtually every passage and (2…

Regarding the notion that there is something wrong with Greek philosophy being part of how Christianity has approached some things--you say that like it's a bad thing. ;) Seriously, I don't see a reason to think that's a problem. I also really don't think that the traditions and theology of the Christian church, particularly the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic end of the spectrum (in which I include Anglican and to some degree Lutheran, etc.), from basically the beginning and for two thousand years since, are a problem for developing a more complex understanding of the passages in both the Old and New Testament. This applies to Jesus saying He will prepare a place for us, that there are …