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lately, i have been having an odd feeling. i am a third generation atheist. i was raised with no faith, and also no feelings about faith. it’s just sort of a blank space for me. but as i’ve been watching what’s happened in minnesota, i’ve had this stirring feeling: we are going to heaven.

i’ve watched empathy and compassion and fellowship and i have seen cruelty and injustice. and i just feel so certain that if there is some sort of afterlife, we are on the right side of things. and that the other side…that the need some sort of retribution that is bigger than this lifetime

i still don’t feel any kind of divinity except the sort of humanist idea of the divinity of us, collectively it’s feeling/seeing what i imagine community could look like, in a just world. a slight bend towards that world. a small shift. while also seeing the worst. the classic good and evil.

maybe “we are going to heaven” means “we are making heaven” or “finally this feels more right” but it is such a certainty this is the way. this is the path of the good and righteous. the other side is lost in the darkness. they have lost their humanity. given it away, maybe. had it taken?

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there is also something so horrific about being actively oppressed in the name of a religion whose messiah taught so much about compassion to see the people who really most live out his teachings be torn down as sinners, you know? i can’t imagine how this feels to good people of faith

I was raised in faith (a Catholic altar boy, I wore the robes & everything). I walked away from it partly because a “heaven/hell” binary doesn’t sit well w me (the “hell” part is a guilt-trap). I lean a lot more toward Buddhist mindsets these days. Karma. We create our own heaven/hell here on 🌍.

One of the common beliefs in Judaism is that the Moshiach/Messiah will not show up into an unready world, but arrive in a world where we've fixed it already. Not a savior, really, just an indication that we've saved ourselves.

Yeah, pretty much! Nobody us descending on a cloud to save us, we have to do the work, and fortunately, we have a list of some Very Good Ideas for what is likely to help.

Someone said we are God’s hands in this world. If that’s true, what I’ve witnessed is God working through people to show love and kindness and striving to make this a better world. Protestors, legal observers, people delivering groceries, donating food and funds… That’s heavenly work.

In scripture, don’t remember exactly where, Jesus says a few times that “the kingdom of God is at hand.” Many read that as the promise of Jesus’ “return,” but a biblical scholar I heard once said it could be read “if you do what we do together here, the kingdom of God is right here in our midst.”