The Answer To All Things

When I was a kid, I attended Sunday School regularly. I always tell people about how I got kicked out of Sunday School. Actually, I wasn’t so much kicked out, as it was just pointed out to me that if I couldn’t stop asking questions, maybe I didn’t belong in Sunday School.

Now, if you ask me, I say that’s the person who does belong in Sunday School. But none of my Sunday School teachers saw it that way.

I asked questions like, Do animals go to Heaven? (The answer I was given: No. Animals do not have souls.) So there are no animals in Heaven? (No. None at all.) How do we know they don’t have souls? (Because the Bible says only humans have souls. Animals don’t have free will. They act on instinct.) Where does it say that? (In Genesis.) Where? I’d like to read that for myself. (It’s there.) Okay, but where? (It’s there.)

It’s just that, if we love our pets so much and they are family members to us, why wouldn’t God want them in Heaven with us? Why wouldn’t they also have souls? Animal souls, even? What about babies? Babies don’t really have free will. They act on their instincts, like animals. (Babies are people. People have souls.)

If people are there—people we don’t even know or people we don’t even like—why aren’t the animals we love there? Why wouldn’t part of our Heavenly reward be to be with friends who make us happy? (They can’t go to Heaven. Only people can go to Heaven. When you go to Heaven, you won’t even care about your pets any more. They will just be one of the Earthly things you left behind.)

How is that right? How can you just no longer care about something? If you are married to someone and they aren’t a Christian and you both die, then what? You’re there by yourself and you don’t care that your husband or wife isn’t there? (You shouldn’t be married to someone who’s not a Christian.) What if you were in love with them? (You can’t truly love someone who isn’t a Christian.) Like an animal? (Yes.)

Doesn’t God love people who aren’t Christians? (That’s different.) He loves non-Christians differently or it’s different because He’s God? (Both.) But doesn’t the Bible say that God loves the whole world? He made Jesus die because He loved the whole world, right? (So that people could go to Heaven.) Christians? (Yes.) But there weren’t any Christians before Jesus died. So what happened to all of those people in the Old Testament? (You’re being disruptive.)

So, if you don’t know the answer, will my questions be answered in Heaven? Will there be someone who will explain it then? (You won’t care about those Earthly things in Heaven.) I will. (No. You won’t.) I won’t care about all the things I want to know the answer to? (No.) Maybe the answer to everything will just be there, in my mind? (No. You’re being very disruptive.)

For the record, I have never tried to be disruptive. I would never be disruptive on purpose in church. But I did have a lot of questions about the nature of God, Heaven, and the Afterlife. (Also about Hell. I attended a Baptist church, remember? Hell plays a big part in how you feel about Heaven, if you’re a Baptist.) As an adult, I take a more Zen approach to it.

I’m not God. I don’t know what happens, for sure. Nobody does. But I feel God is good and just and fair. And I don’t think that He would discard our friends and then blank our minds so that we just didn’t care. And if the Apocalypse is the “Lifting of the Veil,” then isn’t it the answer to all things? I just don’t buy that it’s the Rufie of the spiritual world.

And it doesn’t make me a disruptive person for wanting to know.