Today, I feel led to speak on a personal note. Please bear with me.

If I should suffer heart failure as I write this sermon, and if I should die, there are a number of people who believe that Someone will torture me by putting me in a fire where I will be burned forever. Some of the people who believe this are among my closest friends and loved ones.

I find this belief odd, and it saddens me that these people believe these things. If I believed the same about them, I would be very sad. At the same time, I would be weighing my options. I would be finding out everything I could about this Someone, and about the events that happen after death.

While I weighed my options, I would also be weighing my personal courage. Would I attempt to hide my loved one away? Would I band together with others and attempt to fight and defeat the Someone? What if, by intervening, I would bring risk of a similar fate upon myself? I hope that I would have the courage to fight for my loved ones.

But, what if I didn't find that courage? What if, instead of fighting, I joined forces with that Someone? What if I openly praised that someone, and banded together with his followers each week to have communion with that Someone? Could I then face the people that I believed he was planning to burn forever? Could I call them "friend" or "loved one"? I cannot imagine ever allying myself with such a Someone, but if I did, I do not believe I could honestly face the people who he is set to torture and pretend to care for them.

So it is that I, an atheist, find myself surrounded by friends and loved ones who treat me with as much devotion and care as I could hope for, except that many of them admit to conspiring with an entity they believe is going to do some very hideous things to me (and other people no more deserving of torture than I).

In defense of some of these folks, I have a few things to say. Not all of them believe I will be tortured forever. Some believe I'll just be unhappy forever because I won't be near their Someone. Others among them don't accept that view because it isn't to be found in their "Holy Book", which is where they go to learn about things that cannot be known in the conventional way.

Some of them believe, absurdly, that I will choose the torture. No. If there is to be torture, I will be dragged there, kicking and screaming. Or, perhaps I will be tricked into going unwittingly. After the first burn, I will be attempting escape, so even if I had made an unwitting choice for the first few seconds of torture, I would soon be making a much more forceful and well-informed choice against it.

Some people believe that their Someone has especially designed the toture room so that it cannot be escaped - so that someone who arrives there by making uninformed choices will never be able to correct their mistakes. They believe this because of the "Holy Book". Such a "choice", is of course, no choice at all. The designer of this torture room is perhaps even more devious than the one who merely drags us, kicking and screaming, to the eternal fire.

Some people cannot confront their own belief. They put off the moment of judgment indefinitely, claiming that something will change between now and the Afterlife, so that their beloved Someone will not torture their beloved me. If we must use the Rules of the Holy Book, though, that viewpoint is most improbable. Besides, according to the Rules of that Holy Book, the vast majority of people (and therefore people's loved ones) will be tortured forever.

By now, you may wonder why I do not disown the loved ones who ally themselves with my torturer. While it is true that I do not believe in their Torturing friend, that isn't the only reason I forgive them their treachery. After all, it is very much their intention to ally with the person they believe to be my arch enemy, even if their beliefs are unfounded. No, it is because of the extent of their confusion that I am able to overlook their treacherous impulses and embrace them as friends and loved ones. It is because I know that they do not feel treacherous in their alliance, and they are completely and absurdly convinced that there is absolutely nothing wrong with siding with the Torturing One.

So I forgive. In any case, it would be a lonely world for me, if I had to take my friends and loved ones only from amongst those who disebelieve in the Torturer, and his plans for me. And even while I have wonderful relationships with the Torturer's Friends, I cannot help but feel a pang of loneliness when I hear my family and friends singing praises to my Torturer.