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God created each and all of us to be happy forever with each other in a perfect paradise, one that never ends, and where nothing ever goes wrong.

For it to be a paradise, it has to have other people in it. An empty world is sad and lonely, because you can never be happy unless someone else makes you happy out of genuine love.

And each person needs to be free to choose whether to love others or not. If someone is paid to pretend they love you, or threatened if they don’t, it means nothing and it’s empty.

This is enough to make a perfect paradise. It doesn’t matter where it is, or what’s in it, or what happens. As long as others freely love you and you love them, the rest is irrelevant.

But the moment someone does something seriously wrong at the expense of others, it ruins the paradise. By definition it is no longer a place where nothing ever goes wrong. And therefore it shouldn’t last forever.

So each person has to be tested with this question: will you still do the right thing, for the right reason, at all costs, even if everything is going wrong for you? Only the people who pass this test can enter the perfect paradise.

The problem is, people can lie about this answer, or not know themselves as well as they think. But actions speak louder than words. So, in order to know who belongs in the paradise, each person needs to be put to the test in action.

Which means, every person needs to have a life that ends, a demo version of paradise, where things can and do go wrong, so that they can answer the question through their decisions.

But if we fail during this test, and choose to do things wrong at the cost of others, we should be given another chance to learn from our mistakes. In fact, we should be given dozens, hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of chances.

This is why there are two lives: this life, which is temporary, and full of problems and bad things; and the second life, which will last forever, and where nothing ever goes wrong. This is why we wake up to a new chance every day.

At the time this test ends for each person, their final decision is made permanent. When the test ends for all humanity, all the wrongs and bad things that were part of the test are taken away, and the paradise begins for those who passed the test. This is the Resurrection.

So the point of this life is not to be happy, but to be good. This is why bad things happen in this life, even when it’s not our fault. This is why we have to keep doing the right thing, for the right reasons, even when everything is going wrong.

Two Paradises

Ever since Adam and Eve, there have been two paradises. The first and real paradise is the future Resurrection. The false paradise is the one that Adam and Eve created when they chose to listen to the beautiful dragon instead of God.

To this very day, every person still struggles this same war. We each have to choose whether to create a false paradise and live in a delusion like Adam and Eve initially did, or listen to the truth and do what’s right at all costs.

Those who want this life to be paradise draw the line of good and evil outside themselves, on every boundary the mind can imagine: age, gender, skin color, nationality, political party, wealth, income, intelligence, education, and so much more.

They draw it this way so that they can create their perfect paradise on earth, by converting people to their definition of good if possible, and casting the rest out of their company.

But the real line between good and evil is within each of us. Every single person has the capacity to do good or do evil. All our hearts are a mixture of good and evil. Our character means which side our heart is mostly on.

People can change sides in this battle. Most people change at least once in their lifetime, and usually a lot more often. It’s even possible to change sides many times within the same day.

Although we are on a side, we can’t be sure what side we are on, or how far on that side we are on. We can know our own thoughts, and recognize our own desires, but we cannot know our hearts as clearly as God does.

This is why we should not judge ourselves or others to be definitively on the side of good or evil. God will reveal that to each and all of us on the last day of this temporary life.

But although we don’t know for sure, we can have a good idea of what our character is, based on examining our desires and seeing whether it tends towards doing things God’s way or the dragon’s way.

In the meantime, we have to live with each other and with ourselves, even though we will all do wrong sometimes. We have to be patient and allow everyone, including ourselves, the opportunity to end up on the right side.

This can be frustrating, especially when it seems that someone is definitely bad based on their actions, and when they are legitimately causing harm to others, especially innocent people. We are tempted to hate them and wish they were gone.

But we don’t know their inner thoughts or their heart. There are many reasons they might have done what they did, and we can’t know for sure. And even if they do have evil hearts in the moment, there’s still time for them to change.

This is why, as soon as we wish they were gone, we immediately become unfit for paradise, because we have now become the kind of person who would cast someone out of paradise.

The only thing we really have complete control over in this life is our own free will or ability to choose. Even if we’re imprisoned or paralyzed, our heart can still accept or reject offers, even if our bodies can’t carry this decision out.

Everything else can be taken from us by others, by nature, or by God, including our money, career, property, physical freedom, family, and relationships.

We can even lose core parts of us. Our memory fades, our understanding grows weak, our intelligence diminishes, and our mood can change in a heartbeat.

So our only job is to use the resources we are given, whether inside of us or external, to choose to become good and avoid doing wrong, so that we can become fit for the eternal paradise.

We cannot make anyone else enter or leave, and no one else can make us enter or leave it. All we can do is convince and be convinced of reasons to enter or leave paradise.

At the time of the Resurrection, the two paradises will be separated out. Those who prefer to do things the right way will have all difficulties taken away, and live in the truth. The rest will forever live in the delusion of hoping that doing things the wrong way will somehow produce the right result.

Two Family Trees

God alone has the natural ability to do the right thing. This ability is called Grace. Adam and Eve originally had grace, so that they didn’t lean either towards good or evil. Their action was a completely free choice.

Because Adam did wrong, everyone in his family tree are born with a difficulty doing things the right way, and a sort of easiness or preference in doing things the wrong way.

This is caused by a lack of grace, and is sometimes called Original Sin. This is what’s meant by being born in sin. But in itself, this does not make us guilty of punishment. It’s just a leaning or tendency towards wrongdoing and delusion.

Actions affect character, and character influences actions. So when we have bad character, we are more likely to prefer to do wrong. And when we do wrong, we become worse.

Which means, being born with less grace, every person will invariably choose to do wrong almost immediately, just as Adam and Eve did. And the more they do wrong, the worse they will become.

The effect of this cycle compounds on a person’s character day after day, month after month, year after year, until by the time they are about twenty years old, they will knowingly and willingly do something seriously wrong.

Nobody imagines that a baby is culpable for wrongdoing, but we know that by the age of twenty, everyone is culpable. Somewhere between this, we become culpable. This is often called the age of reason, since it begins when we can reason about our fate in the same way an adult can.

This means that, without the help of the grace Adam and Eve lost, nobody would ever be able to choose right by the end of their lives, and all humanity would be doomed.

So the eternal Son of God took on human flesh, called the Incarnation, and became the new Adam. Then he competed according to the rules, lived a perfect life, and won the race.

Then he rose from the dead, went up to Heaven, was crowned victorious, and asked the eternal Father to share his prize with humanity, the prize being grace itself.

Because God is outside time and space, he gave extra grace to all people, from Adam and Eve after the fall, down to the last people just before the future Resurrection. This is why anyone can do anything right at all, ever.

But this grace given to all people is limited, and only just barely enough to do the right thing, for the right reasons, at all costs, albeit very painfully and with great difficulty.

There are now two family trees. Both were supposed to start with God, but Adam strayed from it and created the family tree where we do things the wrong way and create a false paradise. Jesus created a new family tree that restores God as its rightful Father, just as he obeyed God’s will perfectly. And he made a way for each of us to join and live in the new family tree.

Seven Sacraments

Spirit basically means principles. When we say God is spirit, we don’t mean a type of thing in another dimension, but a set of principles that drive or inspire us.

For example, God is eternal in the same way math is eternal. The Father eternally produces the Son through the Holy Spirit in the same way 1 + 2 = 3 without needing an event in history to become real, or space to become concrete. It just is.

Because the life of Adam is both physical and spiritual, all his children follow in his self-destructive principles. But Jesus created a way for us to live in his pure and holy principles.

There are seven events common to people in the family tree of Adam: we are born into the world; we need to eat; we reach adulthood; we have a government for the common good; we have a justice system; we get married and have children; and finally we get sick and take medicine.

All seven of these aspects of life are for our overall survival. Not everyone needs every one of these, but we all need all of them. For example, not everyone needs to be married, but if no one has children, our society will not survive.

Since Jesus created a new family tree, he also created seven mysterious replications of these common life events in society. Historically these have been called Sacraments.

We are both body and soul, naturally united. Our body and soul shares in all that we do, and therefore it’s right that both the body and soul share in all our rewards or punishments.

Therefore, the Sacraments involve a physical action that has a real effect on our soul and our character, and instills us with new principles based on Jesus and not Adam.