LINK: this seems a little troublesome, depending on how much thought you put into what heaven will be like when you get there (true to my Christian existentialist ways, I never really think about it. I'm sure it will be nice, but I didn't get into Christianity for a desirous vacation spot in the afterlife, and I have plenty to think about in the meantime).
I really don't like this, though:
"By holding such populist visions at arm's length, the churches have tacitly admitted that heaven puts religious faith itself in a dubious light. Belief, it can easily seem, is just the quarter you put into the divine slot machine in order to win the jackpot of the afterlife."
Which really just seems like an adapted version of Pascal's Wager to me. As my Philosophy 202 GSI once put it, though, the willingness to be won over by this sort of argument (I'll believe in God just in case...) indicates the unseriousness of the person espousing the view. And, of course, I've never really been to a church that had a lot of problems with talking about the afterlife (or not talking about it, which seems to mostly indicate that it's not a particularly big problem), but then again, I've mostly kicked around Reformed-style churches, so maybe it's different elsewhere.
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
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