Your life is the greatest possession you have. Life is indeed precious, but many do not treat it as such. So, how do we learn that life is precious? With all of our violence and ridiculous racial and religious hatreds, one might believe this to be a difficult learning process, but it isn't. Ironically, one does not learn that life is precious through their death. Once you are dead you know absolutely nothing:

No, you do not learn that life is precious by your death. You learn that life is precious when someone close to you dies! Someone you loved, knew, and spent time with. As you observe their face and body in their coffin, absolutely nothing moves, not even an eyelash. It is him or her, but in a sense it isn't him or her. Their thoughts, actions, and emotions are gone. It's too late to have that last conversation with them. They are dead and you feel their loss. It is true that funerals are for the living, not the dead. The good news is that Christians will live for eternity after being born again as spiritual beings, and their life will be a happy existence for eternity:

Human bodies have a maximum life expectancy of 120 years. When Jesus returns, dead and buried Christians will have life again when born a second time as spiritual bodies with a life expectancy of eternity. Eternity is infinitely more abundant than 120 years!

Man creates myths around his fears. Man fears things which he does not understand -- the unknown. Mankind's most obvious fear is death. Death is the one thing we cannot try out on a test basis. You are either dead or alive. Furthermore, you cannot discuss death with someone who has experienced it. Those who claim otherwise are charlatans! The scriptures state that the dead know absolutely nothing. Since the dead know knowing, they certainly do not know how to talk! Therefore, death is an unknown and we fear it.

As knowledge has progressed over the years we understand more about our physical death. We know that we die. We see decaying animals and know that our bodies end up likewise. The part we do not understand is our personalities, our thinking processes, our emotions, our non-physical processes. These are the processes which many believe separates us from the other animals. We even give it a name, calling it our "soul," and assigning to each soul eternal life. From The Random House College Dictionary, the noun soul is defined as follows:

So not only did Satan lie to mankind when he stated, "Ye shall not surely die," mankind still believes the lie and has a word defining that part of man which lives forever!

Possibly the largest group of people who do not fear death are those who have undergone what are called near death experiences. Approximately 15% of these are bad experiences in which they picture themselves in hell or other punishments. However, the vast majority report them as a total feeling of contentment, lack of worry, serenity, peace, etc. Having approached so close to death and found the experience very pleasant, many near death experiences have resulted in a person's change of lifestyle with less worry and fear. In other words, they exit the experience unafraid of death. Thus the worry over their future death is removed. I predict that in the near future, near death experiences will be induced as a treatment for the severely depressed. In the year 2000, approximately 13 million United States citizens claim to have had a near death experience.

So the false goal of those believing the immortal soul myth is where one will spend their eternity which is forced upon them as a consequence of being born a human being. If you are forced to live forever, you must live somewhere! The actual goal according to the Bible is to obtain eternal life. It is not something you are born with:

In general, mankind fears death. We treat our fear of death with the defense mechanism of denial. That is, we deny it. We say we will live forever, thus taking on godly characteristics. We are therefore the perfect victims for Satan's lie of, "Ye shall not surely die." It is what we want to believe.

If you believe the immortal soul myth, then the gift of eternal life is not a blessing, but a curse. It is an obvious curse to nonbelievers because the myth has them suffering in hell eternally. It is a curse for believers because of their fear and worry. It is a curse to the Christian religion by making it appear to be a religion of fear and hatred rather than what it truly is: a religion of love and forgiveness!

Few will gain membership in the Kingdom of God, but many will go through the wide gate leading to destruction. The immortal soul myth has the many burning in hell eternally. Therefore, according to this generally accepted "Christian" doctrine, the gift of eternal life is a curse to the majority. Is there any way to refuse this horrible gift?

The True Goal:

The true goal of mankind as defined in the Bible is to attain the gift of eternal life. It is not something we are born with. It is something we become heirs to under the New Testament covenant by believing in Jesus. The New Testament became the active covenant or will and the Old Testament vanished away as a covenant when Jesus Christ, the testator, died on the cross! The Old Testament has been superseded, and no one can now gain eternal life by being sinless. This includes infants. That avenue has been closed! The wages of sin are no longer necessarily death since someone else has paid the price for our sins. Man now has a choice. The only way to gain eternal life under the New Testament is to believe in Jesus Christ as one's Savior.

Therefore, the age of accountability doctrine which is based on being sinless is no longer valid! The only path to eternal life is believing in Jesus, and babies do not believe in Jesus. Andrea Yates should be extremely angry to learn that the "souls" of her five dead children are not presently in heaven with God, as virtually every Christian theologian professes! She has been deceived. The children have presently, or soon will return to dust:

Mrs. Yates has only succeeded in robbing them, and us, of their first human life on earth! Many other Christians are unhappy due to fear and worry generated by the immortal soul myth. They worry about Uncle Joe or Aunt Jane burning eternally in hell. Oh, what could I have done to save them? If these Christians knew what the Bible actually states about these nonbelievers, they would not have this unnecessary worry:

That truth is that these nonbelievers are not going to burn eternally in hell! Anyone who does not believe in Jesus will suffer the second death in hell and quickly perish. That is the end of them forever!

Man tends to worship the messengers. Pastors are supposedly trained to know and understand the Bible. Many of these pious, well-intentioned people have doctoral degrees so we will respect them even more. They do not mislead us intentionally. They truly believe the myth they teach. Thus, they are as ignorant of the truth as their congregations.

Man's true goal is the attainment of eternal life. It is presented throughout the Bible as a gift. All we have to do is accept or reject it. Eternal life is not forced upon all mankind as an accident of birth! It is a gift received after Jesus Christ's Second Coming:

All we have to do is accept or reject this gift of eternal life:

Every human who has ever lived or will live in the future will make his or her own personal choice to accept or reject Jesus as their Savior -- even children!