Our nation trying to replace God’s Heaven

In 1990, 8 percent of our population declared themselves non-religious; today it's 15 percent. This represents the fastest-growing segment of our nation's religious landscape, according to a study published by U.S. News and World Report. If this trend continues, one in four of our children born today will in effect have no religious identity as an adult.

What is it about religion that has our younger generations drifting apart from previous generations? Isn't the core of religion still about incorporating forgiveness, justice and good faith as a guide to living a peaceful life despite its hardships - moreover, the promise of being resurrected into God's Kingdom upon death?

Is the notion of Heaven's existence and a life of eternal happiness fading with our children under the guise that we can acquire heaven's happiness right now here on Earth? Give your child money, materials and entertain them as proof of love, and heaven becomes an afterthought.

But, what will happen when the inevitable catastrophic hardship smacks America and historical reality hits? After the belief that love, humility and sacrifice that will someday see its reward in God's heaven has been replaced with apathy, self-pride and opulence?

Media contempt with religion and a government whose borrowing and redistribution policies reward voters with the (morally optional) American dream. What happens when time and the other 96 percent of our world's populous abandon religion and God's Heaven for the one fancied on the North American continent?

Michael Koch

Cedar Rapids