Where does the idea of a place, a paradise called heaven, fit in my argument that a wise God would not guarantee life, if He in fact does so in an afterlife?
Skeptics often ask why God would have made a world full of perils that cause suffering and death in which we are forced to live and a paradise in which those things don’t happen.
To me, the existence of heaven only makes sense as an afterlife – as a reward for those who’ve lived, or as a goal of life. If we were simply born into it, we would live in a paradise for which we had no appreciation, in which we had no incentives and where little or nothing would come of our existence. Perhaps that’s why in the story of Adam and Eve, the couple were kicked out of the Garden of Eden before they had children.
It makes far more sense that we live on Earth as mortals where we’re compelled to survive, to nurture life and to gain a deeper communion with God that builds for generations before passing on to an immortal afterlife without responsibilities.