Heaven? Why bother?

In my last post, I mentioned my old Pentacostal friend, and how we would often get into intense theological arguments. I recently made contact with this friend, and he shared some more thoughts about Christianity with me. He told me that from his Christian standpoint, the only way to truly guarantee you will get to heaven is to accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior, and to love God unconditionally. I want to stress right here that this is by no means the ONLY view that ALL Christians take.

Whether I agree with this or not seems fairly moot. I have no substantial grounding in Christian theology, so how can I really make any informed decision on the truth of his words? I certainly don't even know if there is a heaven, let alone if accepting Jesus as your personal savior will get you there. I haven't a leg to stand on, so I should probably keep my mouth shut on that point. But, knowing me, I probably won't. I would like to believe that people can get to heaven (if they believe in a heaven) simply by virtue of positive deeds performed...deeds that arise naturally from a compassionate state of mind.

What I do have a fractionally better understanding of are Buddhism and Buddhist philosophy. The goal of Buddhists is certainly not going to heaven. There are six realms that one can be reborn in. From the lowest to the higest, they are: the hell realms (there are several), the hungry ghost realm, the animal realm, the human realm, the demi-god realm and the god realm. To clarify, the demi-gods have a nice, posh lifestyle, but it's not quite as nice as the gods, so they're always warring with them, trying to get what they have. The hungry ghosts are beings consumed with their desires and wants, usually depicted with huge mouths, huge bellies and tiny tiny throats. It is said that there is no amount of water to quench their thirst, and no food to quell their hunger.

I suppose that the word 'heaven' would most easily translate to the god realm, but even that is a stretch, I think. And here's the rub: if you get to the demi-god or god realms, chances are in the next rebirth, you'll have a pretty lousy time in the hells or hungry ghost realms. Because there are no needs or wants in the god realm, there is no opportunity to practice the teachings of the Buddha (Dharma). No one suffers, no one feels pain, no problems arise and subsequently, no one can perform acts of good will and merit. The beings in the god realm burn off their positive karma, and then head straight into the lower realms to burn off their negative karma so they can be reborn in a higher realm. That is why the human realm is said to be the best realm for practicing the Dharma. In this realm, we have the most potential for attaining Enlightenment, and getting out of the ocean of cyclic rebirth.

So...all that is going a long way to say that for Buddhism, heaven is not the main goal. Heaven is a nice haitus with a bad reentry, at best. I've even encountered Tibetan Buddhist monks who say they don't want to attain Enlightenment...they just want to keep being reborn as a human. So, my friend's statements about Jesus being THE WAY to getting into heaven...well...it's like comparing apples to oranges in some instances; his argument simply doesn't apply in the Buddhist context.

But...

In other contexts, like in religions where heaven IS the goal, I can imagine that my friend's comment would be fairly insulting. What are the theological ramifications of such a statement? They'd probably be something along the lines of, "You can't get to heaven in your non-Jesus religion, even if it is your goal...so...your efforts are wasted until you accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior." Something like that?

Well, that sounds pretty rough. And inconsiderate.

I'm not sure if he'd agree with that (I should ask him), but I'd say this is pretty well in line with the Canon of Westminster's approach.

Yikes.