Joel Pugh, Dallas, Texas:
Good essay. It is motivating. Dr King's "the urgency of now" should be the underlying topic of every sermon." Great stuff. As to your wish: "I wish to be assured that my beloved wife, my four children and five grandchildren would one day join me in a glorious, everlasting reunion" -- well, the Mormons will promise you that. As for me, it would be a disaster. My first wife didn't like me. So I hope that the Mormons are wrong.
Susan Hibbins Carroll, Pleasant Ridge, Michigan:
You told [the substance of your essay] to my sister and me nearly 20 years ago. I was taken aback and dismayed at the time but am now so grateful for your wisdom and how it has shaped the way I live my life.
Blayney Colmore, La Jolla, California:
I suppose it would be churlish of me to say I am not hoping for a posthumous reunion with my family, despite loving them. First of all, it has taken all of our patience and talents to make our affection for each other grow rather than diminish over a lifetime. I seriously doubt my patience could last for ever, nor theirs for me. Surely the hope for eternity is to soften our disappointments about our failed intimacies in this life. Suppose we consider that we have succeeded in those relationships beyond any reasonable expectation? The fictions that made us read novels and go to movies were never about real life. Our lives are. And, as Mary Oliver has written, "When the time comes to let them go, to let them go." The resurrection I long for is the happy sense of "enough."
Bradford Holmes, Toronto, Canada:
Bravo, sir, for calling out the Malarkeys and their publisher. But more curious yet, as you point out, are the millions of people who fall for all the heaven business. It seems as if the more astrophysics, biology and the sciences of the mind teach us, the more more people believe in things that those disciplines have shown are not possible.
Leonard Bosman, Rochester, Minnesota:
I realize that you are a priest, albeit retired. Did you tell your congregations about your doubts concerning heaven. And did they push back? Did you get fired? Were you put on trial for heresy? If so, it proves your point about "alacrity."
Bernice Holley, Annapolis, Maryland:
Please come and save us from stupidity at my parish church. Even bishops go on and on about heaven. I'm with you, but we must be in a minority. A fellow parishioner, knowing of my doubts, asks me every time the subject comes up why I bother to go to church. Nothing I could say would make a difference to her. But what I usually say is that "I love the music." Well, yes I do. As it is written, but seldom as it is rendered.
Lydia DeWaldt, San Gabriel, California:
You have certainly touched a nerve with your broadside on heaven. I can't wait to read next week's Readers Write section. Personally, I agree with your analysis, but many will not.
Harry Dyck, Elkhart, Indiana:
I had read about the young fellow that had fabricated the story re his going to heaven and subsequent return, and then confessed to his lie later. So pleased to read your article today to provide genuine counter to his/their lie in the first place. The biblicists all over the country who still promulgate such fabrications and who then instill fear of consequences for their non-belief continue to stand in the way of our children's intellectual growth and the application of science by which a better world might be promoted. Thank you so much for your insights. Take care of your health; your articles are an inspiration to us all. I look forward to each essay from you.
Louisa McCauley, London, W. 1, Great Britain:
I will be putting a copy of your essay on heaven in the post to our young vicar who laces every sermon with something about it. I have sometimes called his attention to your work. He thinks you are a heretic. Are you? I so devoutly hope so. My mother knew Bishop [John A.T.] Robinson and respected him and his writings so much. I'll bet you have read his books.
John Bennison, Walnut Creek, California:
I particularly appreciated this essay, thanks. Assessing the basic human hunger for immortality -- along with a place to park it -- is indeed a psychological question, not a theological one. Unfortunately, when it comes to such alluring malarkey as eternal streets paved with gold, there are far too many peddlers of religious fantasy posing as preachers. One of my late paternal grandmother's favorite phrases -- when describing some long-lost shirttail relative as "either grass or sod, I know not which" -- was a folksy paraphrase of your Second Isaiah quote. And the second half of your quote from Psalm 90 about "numbering our days" is a reminder I often use for birthday wishes: "that we apply our hearts to wisdom." The boy who claims to have crossed over to the other side and returned describes nothing more than what some might hope to see from this side. It is not only unhelpful but unwise. The operative word for anyone claiming a "near-death experience" is "near," not "death."
David N. Stewart, Huntington Woods, Michigan:
Laugh out loud, with a dead serious conclusion. Bravo!
Eunice Rose, Southfield, Michigan:
I can see both sides of the "heaven" question. Common sense tells me that "heaven" would be mighty crowded if all of humanity (the good, religious ones, of course) would leave this vale of tears and be in a glorious, unending place with all of their loved ones. I can, however, understand those who are frightened of a vast nothingness after death. To make it more complicated, how about those who believe in many lives lived before this one? Hmmm. Fodder for another piece.
Fred Fenton, Concord, California:
Of life after death you say, "No evidence exists that could possibly lead a rational person to hope for such a thing." Then why, one wonders, do so many Americans remain committed to the belief? Is it failure to think clearly, hope against hope, the false assurances of religion, the stigma attached to being an atheist, or what? Pope Francis is the most popular man on the planet because he puts the emphasis where it belongs, on living by the example and teachings of Jesus rather than indulging in wishful thinking about an unknown future.
Richard M. Schrader, Jacksonville, Florida:
I too am bothered by the obits which recite that 'the dearly beloved' have been called to eternal life by their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. But to give some slack. Is it not our inability to comprehend Consciousness? Modern physics has told us that even our perceived most inert objects are subject to intense activity at the sub atomic level. The mapping of the brain may show us how the brain works, but will it explain how we move from living to dead? What happens to our sub-atomic particles. Do they have limited lifetimes or do they transmit to other identities? Is the wisdom of old age an introduction or at least a touching of consciousness?
Sharon Tesner, Macomb, Michigan:
And yet, some people find great comfort by reading such stories.