Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who plays Luke Brunner in the newly released Netflix series FUBAR, recently shared his opinion that heaven is a fantasy.
Speaking with Danny DeVito for Interview Magazine, DeVito brought up how he’s worried about running out of water and whether or not humanity will last as a species.
He said, “The whole idea that we have to drink water out of bottles, I worry about what’s going on in the world with water, because we’re running out of it. Look at Lake Mead and what’s happening there. What’s in the future for us? What do you think, in terms of our species? Are we going to last? Tell me, oh great leader.”
Schwarzenegger responded, “It reminds me of Howard Stern’s question to me. ‘Tell me, governor, what happens to us when we die?’ I said, ‘Nothing. You’re 6 feet under. Anyone that tells you something else is a f***ing liar.’”
Back in 2019, Schwarzenegger discussed death with Stern telling the host, “I’m not afraid of death. I’m just pissed off about it. Because, I mean, especially when you have a life like we have and then one day it’s over. I mean, that really pisses me off.”
Stern then asked him, “Governor, where are we going to go when we die? Be honest with us.”
The Terminator actor answered, “Well, the truth is you go six feet under. You are going to rot there. That’s the reality.”
However, he did posit, “Hopefully, there is a life after this and we all know it’s going to be different if there is a life after this. I hope there is.”
Stern then pressed, “There isn’t one, is there?” Schwarzenegger responded, “It’s not going to be like this. I’m not going to sit after we are dead, we are not going to sit here like this and do interviews and have a great time and have laughs and have Robin giving us this beautiful smile all the time. So this will be different.”
He continued, “Maybe there will be angels sitting around. Maybe there will be God there smacking us every time we say something, a four letter word or something like that. We’ll say s**t or this or whatever.”
Schwarzenegger then concluded the discussion with Stern saying, “I mean I don’t know what it is, but it is upsetting and I cannot stand it. I’m so angry about it. I’m furious about it. That’s why you and I, we are so much alike because we want to be the only ones that will live forever.”
After referencing this interview with Stern, DeVito countered him and told him, “You don’t know.” Schwarzenegger replied, “I said, ‘We don’t know what happens with the soul and all this spiritual stuff that I’m not an expert in, but I know that the body as we see each other now, we will never see each other again like that.'”
DeVito responded, “We deteriorate.” Schwarzenegger then elaborated, “Except in some fantasy. When people talk about, ‘I will see them again in heaven,’ it sounds so good, but the reality is that we won’t see each other again after we’re gone. That’s the sad part. I know people feel comfortable with death, but I don’t.”
Schwarzenegger went on to reiterate much of his comments to Stern, “Because I will f***ing miss the shit out of everything. To sit with you here, that will one day be gone?”
He continued, “And to have fun and to go to the gym and to pump up, to ride my bike on the beach, to travel around, to see interesting things all over the world. What the f**k?”
Schwarzenegger went on, “I tell you, there’s someone that mixed up this whole thing. Think about it. Who can we blame?”
DeVito questioned, “You mean that we don’t live forever?” The Conan the Barbarian actor responded, “Yeah. That we have to die.” He added, “I don’t know what the deal is, but in any case, it’s a reality, and it truly pisses me off.”
When DeVito said, “You don’t want to die,” Schwarzenegger stated, “No. What the f**k? What kind of deal is that?”
RELATED: Arnold Schwarzenegger: “There’s Only One That’s Perfect — God”
Ironically, Schwarzenegger recently recognized the divinity of God in an interview in May. He told The Hollywood Reporter, ” “I think it’s very easy to understand. We are not perfect. We try to be, but there’s only one that’s perfect — God.”
“My mouth is great, but it gets me into trouble. My brain is great — it has the will to make a better world — but sometimes I f**k up,” the seven time Mr. Olympia winner said. “I make mistakes. I behaved badly. All of those things I’ve addressed in the past. I feel bad about it.”
“But I cannot roll the clock back. I have to be careful and be wiser. I’m smarter. I’m more sensitive about other people’s feelings,” he added.
Schwarzenegger’s opinion is contrary to the revelation provided by Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit through the tradition of the Catholic Church.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “Those who die in God’s grace and friendship and are perfectly purified live for ever with Christ. They are like God for ever, for they ‘see him as he is,’ face to face.”
From there, it quotes Pope Benedict XII from Benedictus Deus, “By virtue of our apostolic authority, we define the following: According to the general disposition of God, the souls of all the saints … and other faithful who died after receiving Christ’s holy Baptism (provided they were not in need of purification when they died, … or, if they then did need or will need some purification, when they have been purified after death,…) already before they take up their bodies again and before the general judgment—and this since the Ascension of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ into heaven—have been, are and will be in heaven, in the heavenly Kingdom and celestial paradise with Christ, joined to the company of the holy angels. Since the Passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, these souls have seen and do see the divine essence with an intuitive vision, and even face to face, without the mediation of any creature.”
The Catechism goes on to declare, “This perfect life with the Most Holy Trinity—this communion of life and love with the Trinity, with the Virgin Mary, the angels and all the blessed—is caleld ‘heaven.’ Heaven is the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness.”
“To live in heaven is ‘to be with Christ.’ The elect live ‘in Christ,’ but they retain, or rather find, their true identity, their own name,'” it instructs.
Furthermore it states, “This mystery of blessed communion with God and all who are in Christ is beyond all understanding and description. Scripture speaks of it in images: life, light, peace, wedding feast, wine of the kingdom, the Father’s house, the heavenly Jerusalem, paradise: ‘no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.'”
As for Schwarzenegger’s comments about our bodies simply rotting in the ground, this is also contrary to Church teaching.
The Catechism teaches, “The resurrection of all the dead, ‘of both the just and the unjust,’ will precede the Last Judgment. This will be ‘the hour when all who are in the tombs will hear [the Son of man’s] voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.’ Then Christ will come ‘in his glory, and all the angels with him….Before him will be gathered all nations, and he will separate them from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left…And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.'”
Later, the Catechism states, “The message of the Last Judgment calls men to conversion while God is still giving them ‘the acceptable time,…the day of salvation.’ It inspires a holy fear of God and commits them to the justice of the Kingdom of God. It proclaims the ‘blessed hope’ of the Lord’s return, when he will come ‘to be glorified in his saints, and to be marvelled at in all who have believed.”
This is a message that Schwarzenegger should heed as he clearly appears to be attached to earthly things as well as his lifestyle as noted by his comments to both Stern and DeVito.