Thank you so much for this! I'd love a link to the rest. It's very much what i think--surely if we are loved by God, we are loved as ourselves. I've met Christians who feel they have to deny their individuality as it's somehow selfish; that they should be copies of Jesus.

I remember saying as a child that when I'm dead, I want a guided tour of the universe from God. My mother said that I wouldn't want it any more, and I said that if I'm no longer me, what's the point of eternal life? So Vila and Avon are still themselves.

About the same time, I also really hated the idea of the death-bed confessions I encountered in several books. I said to an adult Christian, "You mean someone can do wrong all their life and get out of it by saying sorry before they die?" and they said, "Only if they really are." That hit me. I thought of the most evil person I knew and imagined just how much pain Hitler would feel if he truly was sorry, extrapolating from how much I wished I'd not done some of the bad things I'd done.