RareBird

Heaven is "unsustainable". Most people believe that you'll be able to see lost loved ones or meet famous do-gooders. In order for that to happen, all of them will have to suspend their heavenly realizations of who they expect to see in order to take a role in fulfilling YOUR heavenly fantasy. Now, what if people keep dying and expecting YOU to show up in their heavenly realization. What if all the people who have gone to heaven and all the do-gooders all are having their expectations met at the same time? In essence this whole construct is an illustration of egoism--it falls apart when you start thinking about the fact that the world or the afterlife are not all about you and that there are equal other beings who can't be in many places at once to medicate each other's fantasies. It would take a god to create something like this--a place where people go and have to do nothing but have their dreams fulfilled with fake representations of people and things because all people in that realm have their own agendas and expectations. None are there to serve your fantasy and all are their to have their fantasy fulfilled. I, for one, wouldn't want any part of this preposterous artificial satisfaction and, since there have been billions of people who have died and continue to die, there would have to be an enormous resource somewhere to generate all these medicating fantasies just to keep the illusion of a life alive. We're aren't that important, nay? Is there a god whose job it is to serve us what we expect? Is it his price for "creating us" to be burdened to keeping our souls deluded that our heavenly experience is real and unique when it's not?

I believe this whole line of thought was covered in the movie "Star Trek: Generations". Captain Piccard and Captain Kirk were both challenged with having to choose to be in a virtual heaven called "the Nexus" where everything they wish to imagine could be fabricated for them completely transparently and instantaneously for eternity or returning to real reality to make a difference in the only realm of existence where their actions could sustain a lasting and tangible result. Both agreed it is rather sick to submit to a false "super-medication" if it is indeed false and meaningless to anyone else but themselves. They chose to go back into reality and face permanent death with no guaranteed afterlife reward because it's the only reality that matters. There's definitely a message there IMO. Heaven is a preposterous trick and not for keepers of the faith in the human experience.

gregor

Someone calculated the joules requires to sustain the Buybull's description of heaven's brightness and found it to be several orders of magnitude hotter than hell.

I'll take hell for the climate, conversation, and cocktails.

Smohg

So, what's the next discussion? How many angels fit on the head of a pin?

purple_kathryn

I was directly responding to the post above min.

That's your personal interpretation of what eternity is and clearly you know sweet f a about my past .

I just don't fancy existing forever. Even if it weren't in slavish devotion to some egomanical monster you'd still end up having been every and done everything. Perhaps you're realising that your fear of death really isn't worth that

Joan of Bark

I asked a Xtian about this 'boring' stuff once and he basically replied that because you will have no needs in heaven, you won't need the challenges that make life on Earth interesting. In other words, you won't be bored because the need for stimulation is gone.

Of course, this all begs the bigger question: why don't Christians simply commit suicide and thereby get to heaven that much faster? Why suffer on an imperfect Earth when a perfect heaven awaits?

mountainman

Does the question arise "Is heaven boring"
because the christian god had/has no sense
of humour?

Can we ask the question
"Is the sky boring?"
and if so what is the
relevance of the
questions and answers?


Best wishes,


Pete Brown

whichphilosophy

No needs in heaven? I think in reality we often look for what we need rather than what we want. :wave:

Yellum Notnef

Hopefully one of these "needs" won't be sexual as I recall reading in this very forum that somewhere on the voyage between here and heaven your genitals are removed.

We used to have much better wackos hanging around here than we do now.

Chili

But don't you know that there is no forever in eternity where life just is without an opposite in death. So how can fear of death be part of eternity if there is no [temporal] life left?

Chili

Except that with suicide the wrong life gets killed. It would be OK if we could just kill the ego to set the man free but it ususally is the case that the body takes the blame for the ego's fame.

A good image here is "when the ego raptures that which remains is in heaven."