Believing By Default

WE HAVE ALL HEARD religious devotees make the following argument; "I would rather live my life believing in God, then die and discover that there is no God, than live my whole life as an atheist, then die and find myself looking at God and Christ". And, truth be told so would I. Wouldn't everybody? There is a tendency to automatically agree with this statement, because it seems so beautifully, persuasively logical. Why not agree with it? It doesn't change the way I believe. We stipulate here that the proclaimer of faith is referring to the biblical, Judeo-Christian God. To live your entire life devoutly religious, devoutly believing in Almighty God and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,to be totally wrapped up in your church and your religion, as many people are, living your whole life, every part of it, defined by your Christian culture, then to die, and find out that it was all make believe, that there is no Christian God, and that the legend of Jesus Christ is merely that, a beautiful legend; wouldn't that be devastating, extremely disappointing, a huge let down? Wouldn't it? Or, perhaps, upon awakening after death, and beholding the lack of any God, one also becomes aware of the real nature of reality, of the universe, and sees a glorious, beautiful, intelligent design, and rejoices foreverafter in total joy and bliss. The second part of the proclamation, that under no circumstance do you want to go through life as an unbelieving atheist, only to discover upon death that you are standing in the presence of the Almighty Christian God and Jesus Christ your should have been but never was lord and savior - sounds rather ominous. It is supposed to sound ominous, like, "you sure as heck do not want to get caught in that situation". That's because the presumption is, as in the Bible and all traditional, basic Christian doctrine, that those who die unsaved are destined to spend an eternity suffering damnation in hell. To live your entire life as a God fearing, upright Christian entirely because of fear that not doing so will result in eternal damnation after death seems a hollow, fear based, unsatisfactory reason to be a believer, of anything. Surely there are far more beautiful, inspirational, logical reasons to embrace religious beliefs of any sort. Precisely what, if any evidence exists that such a vengeful,vindictive God, the biblical Judeo-Chriatian God, actually exists? The answer is none. I much prefer the latter option,of not believing, but with a considerably different scenario and outcome. I prefer believing that if you spend your entire life as an atheist, then die and find yourself standing before God and Jesus, or whomever, that you will in fact be welcomed with open arms, with love and acceptance by a loving, accepting God. Why not? This certainly seems no less believable or possibe than the harsh biblical narrative, a narrative which can have the effect of driving people away from the Christian faith. I embrace a religiosity which consists in humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit which reveals itself in what little we, with our weak and transitory understaiding, can comprehend of reality, as Einstein said. I like to think that upon death, if I confront anything which can be described as "God", I will be congratulated on a life well lived and I will be loved, not punished for using my brain and intellect trying to understanding reality during my short life. I do not believe in an almighty creator of the universe being so petty as to resent me and want to punish me forever for taking advantage of the intelligenc she gave me, looking at the universe, and quite reasonably concluding that there is no such thing as God.