I hear a lot of Christians say they are looking forward to eternity in Heaven. Hindus say they want to become one with God and Buddhists say they want to reach Nirvana.
However the Gospel (Good news) is that people will spend eternity in a new body on earth.
Perhaps what God thinks is good is different from what people thing is good.
It's a good question. I've asked myself the same.
Let me give you a tidbit of background. I have had moments of grave doubt in my past, especially during times of deep depression, when all sense of the divine deadens. When I am in those times of pain of course it is hard not to wonder things like, if there is a loving God, why would he allow such unjust suffering. I have begun to doubt everything, from the afterlife to the very existence of God.
It seems that my doubts only reach that level of severity when I'm clinically depressed, thank goodness. But I do have to adjust my theology to account for the possibilities the get me to see.
For example, during one such episode, I took a formal vow that should it turn out that there is no God, I would still live my life as though God existed, since I saw that life to be the best of all possible lives.
In Judaism, I am taught that we obey God for the sake of our covenant. God is worthy to be obeyed simply because he is God.
But for me it is also tied up in this existential awareness that the moral religious life is the best of all possible lives, even should God turn out not to exist. So, most of the time, I believe in God, and obey out of love and awe. But even when my sense of the divine is deadened, I'm still right in there, observing my covenant.
