Eternity

I don't think hell exists. I think the concept is entirely at odds with the concept of a good God, and if God is not good, he doesn't exist in the form the Bible says he does and if he doesn't exist, it stands to reason hell doesn't exist either. After all, people have seen the light in near-death experiences, but I haven't heard of anybody feeling the flames.

I don't think heaven exists, either, but I'm actually far more afraid of being wrong about that. As humans, we do tend to have an inherent fear of dying. The solution to that seems to be the ability to live forever, but is that truly what we want? I know people who look forward to heaven as an extension of their lifelong love of learning. And while that's cool and I would love to learn everything there is to know about the universe, what happens after that? It might take a million years to learn everything (and if you managed that, wouldn't you be at least a lowercase god?), but what will you do in the million million million years after that?

The most spiritual of Christians (or at least the ones who want to appear so) tend to answer that with "you'll be praising God for all eternity." Leaving out what size ego God must have to need even a fraction of the 7 billion people currently living (forgetting all who've lived or will live) telling him how good he is constantly for eternity...is that really what you want? If so, why aren't you in church 24/7?

Anyway. The idea of eternity is terrifying to me. Even if I had the most perfect life, I wouldn't want to have it forever. No, the certainty that life ends is much more hopeful to me than the idea that it might continue indefinitely.