What if I don't want eternal life? Any Christians about?

[EmancipateYourself]

I don't want to eternal life, nor do I want to be saved. When my time comes, I just want to die and go to ashes, with there being no further consciousness.

I feel I have always had God's presence with me, and that at the end of the day judgement can/will only ever come from God. I'm a good person, I believe in the lessons of Christ Jesus, I live by the ten commandments.

Does this make me any less of a Christian than others who have asked for salvation/redemption? Why should I go to hell because I do not want eternal life?

What does this make me? Agnostic?

Find another church OP, I was in a very similar position to you, my Anglo Catholic with liberal leanings church changed with new vicar and the people he brought with him to an evangelical C of E church - literal bible interpretation, depressing sermons about making sure you were saved each and every week plus other views I was not comfortable with. Now I'm at the local liberal leaning Roman Catholic church and so much happier!

I think you need to ask God for help to unpick what it is you find troubling about the idea of eternal life. And find a church which is a bit more flexible!

From what you have said I would certainly welcome you as a fellow Christian and consider that you had been 'saved', though I'm not a big subscriber to the whole born again theology.

I'm not a theologian or Biblical language scholar but I recall reading somewhere that the word which is translated as 'Hell' in the Bible actually means 'grave'. So to me, Hell is eternal separation from God through death, Heaven is being forevermore in His presence, which frankly sounds amazing. But as has been said, different denominations interpret it differently - what matters is the shared belief that God is our Father, Jesus was both God and man and rose from the dead and our sins are forgiven through Him.