This line from the article reminded me of an opposing view held by a friend of mine:

"… Jesus emphasized a belief in heaven, and [used] that belief to motivate people to behave morally."

As to my friend's view (which I have come to appreciate quite a bit), he once said something along the lines of this: "The thing is, that I don't very much like the concept of an afterlife; whether one exists or not is sort of a moot idea if you embrace morality. Because, if you embrace morality and always seek to do the moral thing then you don't really need to concern yourself with where God will put you for your decisions; and, on the contrary, if you are more concerned with the afterlife and are making your decisions in this life based on the notion of getting some sort of reward or punishment — then you really aren't a very moral person to begin with."

In a nutshell, my friend argues that one should actually not use the afterlife as a motivation to be moral — nor promote that pattern of behavior. In reality you should choose to be moral for no other reason than being moral; if you live like that, the afterlife will take care of itself.

I had never thought about it like that; in my opinion it was an extremely wise thing to say. In the end I think I have to agree with him. If Jesus really did use the afterlife to promote morality, then I think Jesus was wrong. However, I can just as easily see Jesus making the same argument my friend did.

In the end, I'm not being critical of Jesus — b/c I really don't know his view on this issue — but I think that the concept that the afterlife being used to motivate people into being moral is a flawed concept. If people can't be moral on their own accord (we all make mistakes, but moral people learn from them and strive to do better) then no amount of future reward is going to suddenly cleanse their soul. I'm sure Jesus would agree with that when he said (paraphrasing): "A good vessel is cleaned from the inside-out."