i've been reading a lot about the whole heaven/hell thing recently.  also, with the easter holidays now just past, i have been thinking about what Jesus' main goal was.  i think at some point we have missed the point of Jesus life, death, and ressurection.  do you really think that the biggest reason for Jesus was for our eternal life?  i'm not thinking that anymore, although i've never really been taught differently.  i am beginning to think that Jesus was a lot more about the here and now than the then and there.  for me, Jesus was more about teaching us how to live the way we were originally meant to live--in complete harmony with one another.  if you look back to Genesis and take a look at the first few chapters, you will see the transformation of human interaction (i.e. the fall).  sin, to me, has become something so much more than just an offense against God.  i think the reason that we are seperated from God is because we are seperated from one another. 

when christians talk about being born again or about being saved, i think they need to remember just what they are being born again too and being saved from.  it isn't about the heaven/hell debate, its about how you live.  sin seperates us even when it is the littlest thing imaginable.  every sin has a negative to how it affects yourself or you and someone else.  maybe when we talk about being born again we should be talking about what it means to have a new viewpoint on life--one that is no longer self-centered but others-centered.  maybe when we talk about salvation and being saved we need to talk about the healing of ourselves from our own transgressions--not about being saved from the fires of hell. 

Jesus, to me, was a lot more about getting us to see that we should be making earth a place where heaven can be.  he wasn't about getting out of here to go to heaven.  i think we have missed the point completely, or maybe i have.  but i feel that i know God in such a better way when i think of Him this way rather than in the way of getting souls into His heaven.