God gave us Freewill to choose the best things for our health and happiness in this life because, like you say, the afterlife is not something you can logically know. If you bet on God only being important for afterlife then you will probably lose a lot of health and happiness in this life because you are, so to speak, waiting to die to go to Heaven.

If what we do in this life is out of harmony with God's Will (health and happiness) we suffer. And likewise if what we do in this life is in harmony with God's Will we prosper and live long. And my experience of being in harmony with God’s Will tells me that Jesus was demonstrating with His miracles what anyone can do when he or she is in complete harmony with God’s Will.

Matt,

With Easter 2009 arriving soon I feel inspired to elaborate on my previous comment to this post.

Deborah and you bring out the core/central Christian belief that Christ died on the cross as a scapegoat for our sins. On April 12th this year, hundreds of millions of Christians world wide will celebrate that the Heavenly Father sent His Son to be tortured and killed for their benefit.

One of my goals in life is to help Christians take just 3 steps back and put what they are celebrating in perspective to see how crazy an example that is for a parent to set.

I bet there are many Christians who have left Christianity feeling sure that if there is a God he would not be so stupid to send his child to be tortured and killed, let alone being tortured and killed for what someone else does wrong. And I know many parents feel justified about sending their children to participate in the insanity of war because of the precedent set by God, which also gives most parents reason to believe that suffering will make their children stronger, with more character.

God sent His Son to earth to demonstrate the opposite, that human beings are made in His image (Pure Happiness which can accomplish/create anything). All of Christ's miracles demonstrated the dignity of human life when one is living in God's image (Pure Happiness). Rising from the dead was Christ's climax miracle to show if one chooses to live in Pure Happiness not even the extreme process of crucifixion and death will hurt her or him.

Thus, the correct interpretation of Christ's crucifixion and therefore the correct meaning for Easter celebration is that Christ's resurrection demonstrated what it means for us to be made in the image of God (suffering is not necessary under any circumstances, human life is in fact Freedom from suffering if one justifies the dignity of human life).