BELIEVERS, HEAVEN IS FOR GOOD PERSONS!

 

BELIEVERS, HEAVEN IS FOR GOOD PERSONS!

Dr M. D. Thomas

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Let us be like children for a while. Simply believe that there is a ‘heaven’ where one has to go after death, by all means. This is what all religions teach, though differently or in a more or less way. Currently, we do not debate this, no matter what the reason is.    

Our question here and now is ‘who will go to heaven’? The religionists will readily shout, ‘believers’ and ‘only believers’! They have to say that, obviously so. Otherwise, their ground will shake away. Believers have an all time license to heaven. That is the core of their belief, too. 

That would amount to state that ‘one who does not believe will never get an entry into heaven’. And naturally, one who does not believe is an ‘atheist’, non-theist, non-believer, or whatever. Non-believers are not eligible for a license to heaven, at any time, not at all. Believers will never tolerate this either.   

There is a highly telling episode around here. That will tell us what is what. It was the year 2018. Pope Francis was in a papal visit to the St Paul of the Cross parish outside Rome. There was a boy who was heartsick of having lost his dear father. He had a query. But, at the microphone he was almost frozen.

With good grace, Pope invited the sobbing boy, “come to me and whisper into my ears”. The boy mustered all his courage to reach the Pope. Pope took him in arms. Tears flowing down the cheek, the boy whispered.

“A little while ago my father passed away. He was a non-believer, but he had all four of his children baptized. Over and above, ‘he was a good man’. Is my dad in heaven”? The boy wanted to be sure of the fate of his father.

Having taken permission from the boy, the Pope shared the boy’s question with the small crowd present over there. He did not want to give an outright answer on his own. He asked the crowd whether God would ever abandon a ‘man with a good heart’, even though was not a professed believer.  

Right away, the children came up with a unanimous voice, “No”! The Pope affirmed, “There, Emmanuelle (a generic word), that is the answer”. To make it clearer, ‘the dad of the boy, who was an alleged ‘nonbeliever’ but a ‘good man’, is in heaven, the abode of God’. The boy was all smiles at heart.

Now, drama begins. The ‘unanimous voice of the children’, the ‘divinely charged verdict’ pronounced by the Pope and ‘the all-smiles son of the ‘good man’, all in one shot, would unsettle the cocksure mind of the believers, as if they were being insulted for the bothersome belief they rigorously lived for.

The question posed by the theist is simple. ‘Has all the belief I did in a battalion of things in the name of religion, from childhood onwards, so scrupulously, gone of no value? Is this the justice of God? I cannot believe this’. His belief is in shatters!       

‘We believers know how taxing it has been, from dawn to dusk, to bear the heat of the highly sophisticated theological abstractions, demanding legal stipulations and the tedious ritual exercises, along with financial burden, that were as if between life and death”.

‘There, the guy who never bothered about religion, belief, God, temple, pilgrimages, prayer, and the like, all throughout his life, is given a clean chit to heaven, without even making him fall in line for obtaining a certificate for heaven. This is indeed a mockery of all beliefs. How could this be?’

But, friend, will you believe if I tell you the truth? A lot of believers are not good human beings. Most people who commit crimes against one another, against humanity and divinity are not ‘non-believers’ but people who are highly charged with religion and beliefs. That is the irony of the fact of this world. 

In point of fact, ‘theist and atheist’ is a consideration of this world. I am in power. I believe in something. You do not believe what I believe in. Then, you are a ‘non-believer’. You are a ‘protestant’. You are an ‘anti-national’. Political overtones define belief, often so.

The boss is always right. Theology comes to his or her rescue. Theology interprets the mind of the chair. Theology defines who and what God is. Theology articulates who has the right to go to heaven and who does not have. Well, theology runs the show of religion, faith, belief, God, heaven, and the like.   

But, if truth be told, being a ‘good man’ at heart has to be the final outcome of the beliefs and all that goes with faith. Very often that is not the case. Dogmas, worship, fasts, pilgrimages, etc go in one way and life goes in another way. Well, parallel lines do not meet each other, as far as one can see. That is the tragedy.   

Further, who is God? Where does he dwell? What and where is heaven? Human being is created in the ‘image of God’. He or she is the ‘living temple of God’. That is the core dynamics of creation. Temple of God radiates the divine image. Human heart is supposed to be doing it.   

“Sabbath is for man and not man for the Sabbath”, states Jesus. Religion and belief is for the humans. Faith is the ‘quality’ of the life lived. It is the ‘spirit’ that keeps one’s life going, even against all possible odds. Belief is and has to be geared towards making human beings ‘good at heart’.

The human world has diverse system of beliefs, in the name of great persons, who were exceptionally tuned to the ‘divine power’. But, the systems of their disciples aren’t fail-safe enough to ensure the making of good persons, in spite of the fact that their custodians do not hesitate to make infallible claims.    

The litmus test of the usefulness of the beliefs is not the tightness of the theorization and its enactment. The ‘quality of the human being’ is the outcome of the beliefs. Beliefs often fail to make people good. Instead, there could always be persons who even without those beliefs are ‘naturally good before God’.     

“Good thoughts, good words and good deeds”, that is what religion is all about, as per the Zoroastrian tradition. Being good in mind, heart and spirit makes one think, speak and act in a good way. ‘Conscience’ is the seat of the ‘divine wisdom’ that governs ‘goodness’ of the humans.

‘Therefore, Oh, believer, cool down. Heaven is where God dwells. He dwells in good hearts. Be good, good-hearted, in one’s own self and in relation to others. When one is good within and good towards one and all, one is good to God, as well. Well, ‘heaven is for good persons’, positively and incredibly so!

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The author is Director, Institute of Harmony and Peace Studies, New Delhi, and has been committed to cross-cultural perspectives, cross-scriptural values, constitutional values, interfaith relations, communal harmony, national integration and social wellbeing, for the past over 40 years. He contributes to the above cause through lectures, articles, video messages, conferences, social interactions, views at TV channels, and the like.

He could be viewed, listened to and contacted at the following portals – websites ‘www.mdthomas.in’ (p), ‘https://mdthomas.academia.edu’ (p), ‘https://drmdthomas.blogspot.com’(p) and ‘www.ihpsindia.org’ (o); social media ‘https://www.youtube.com/InstituteofHarmonyandPeaceStudies’ (o), ‘https://twitter.com/mdthomas53’ (p), ‘https://www.facebook.com/mdthomas53’ (p); email ‘mdthomas53@gmail.com’ (p) and telephone 9810535378 (p).

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Published in ‘The Secular Citizen’ (Weekly Magazine), Mumbai, Vol. 30, Issue No. 28, p.06-07 – on 12-18 July 2021