Near Death Experiences and Universalism

I just watched a video by Sean McDowell (a Christian apologist) and near-death experiences. You can watch the video here. In it, he attempts to debunk universalism, or the idea that everyone will be saved.

Nothing frosts my Fritos more than this claim. For the life of me, I can't figure out why Christians are so quick to condemn people who don't think like them. Well, actually, I have a guess. They've been raised with the idea that the Bible is the primary source of truth about God. Not just the Bible itself, but their specific interpretation of the Bible. And in it, they think God sends most people to hell because they don't believe.

Christians are very reluctant to think critically about their own beliefs because the stakes are so high. Churches teach that if you question their views, you'll end up outside the love of God. You'll question yourself right into hell.

If you do any study about cults, you'll find this is the standard operation of high-control groups. If you question orthodoxy, you'll be kicked out of the group. And we have a very primal drive to remain in a group because that was tantamount to survival. Getting kicked out of the tribe was a death sentence. So, cults weaponize this basic instinct to stop differentiation and consolidate power to those who determine orthodoxy.

Let's look at the claim that not all people go to heaven. From the Bible, I can make a case that God saves all people. See John 12:31‭-‬32, , Romans 5:18‭-‬19, 1 Corinthians 15:21‭-‬22, 2 Corinthians 5:17‭-‬19 , Philippians 2:9‭-‬11, 1 Timothy 2:3‭-‬6, Titus 2:11‭-‬13, Hebrews 2:9, 2 Peter 3:9, 1 Timothy 4:10.

I've presented these verses to Christians and they come back with their own scriptures that talk about hell. And thus begins what I call "Bible ping-pong," where no one listens to each other. We just try to one-up the other person, using the Bible as a club to beat each other up with.

Christians will say they have the truth because they are doing the most plain reading of the Bible. I don't think this is the case, but even it were true and I had to chose between trusting a book or trusting my gut feel that God loves everyone unconditionally and will never abandon anyone, I say "to hell with the Bible." It was written by religious leaders and I've been around enough of those to know they don't deserve my unquestioning loyalty.

For me, I view this belief as one of desire. If you want everyone to be saved, you'll find reasons to believe it. If you don't want everyone to be saved, you'll find those reasons, too. I think a good question to ask is why we feel the way we feel. I believe every human contains a spark or light of God that can never be extinguished. To me, it makes sense that God would never stop trying to bring back those sparks home. If I hold the story of Jesus to be true, he gave up heaven to live and die as a human to rescue humans from being alone. If he went to that length, why would he stop pursuing that purpose just because people were born into another faith or had a bad experience with Christianity and reject the pain it caused?

Every fiber in my being says that God loves all people, wants relationship with all people and has the patience and wisdom to make it happen. That makes the most sense to me.

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