Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Joan of Bark · 12-25-2007, 09:56 PM

So what are you saying, Chili? That if you commit suicide, you don't go to heaven?

Chili · 12-25-2007, 11:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joan of Bark

So what are you saying, Chili? That if you commit suicide, you don't go to heaven?

Suicide may be an intuit urge for many people but it is always the wrong solution because you don't go nowhere if they bury you.

DCHindley · 12-26-2007, 08:57 AM

One reason is because the concept of the afterlife changed over time. The earliest (Jewish) Christian view was that there would be a literal kingdom of God established on a superabundant earth. Everyone would be a gentleman farmer. Since one of the products would be vines producing 100 measures of wine per cluster, drinking was definitely included.

You can find varieties of opinions about the nature of this earthly kingdom in the Revelation, 2 Baruch, and 4th (Latin Apocalypse of) Ezra, ect. Gentiles may or may not get to participate, either as subject peoples or as diect participants. That means it could include war and strife. For some it was to last 1,000 years (maybe a figure of speech for "eternal" like Hitler's "1,000 year Reich"), others 400 years, etc. Sometimes a concept of a completely new, non-material kingdom/earth is also entertained, which is probably of Greek origin. The Revelation actually has both.

In Jewish thought those who die before this is manifested are generally thought to exist in limbo or a non-conscious or even a completely non-existant state, although these ghosts are occasionally conjured up by soothsayers.

This new kingdom is often preceeded by a resurrection of the dead. Sometimes these are only the saints, so they can enjoy the inheritance given by God, with the sinners remaining eternally "cut off" (in limbo or non-existance). Alternately, there is a general resurrection of everyone followed by a big judgement before God. One version has the vindicated saints judged first, and they then get to judge the sinners. Of course, there is punishment for the sinners. It is hard to tell if the lake of fire in Revelation is supposed to be a place of punishment or simply a consignmet to oblivion.

Papias was a "chiliast", or a believer in a 1,000/yr kingdom, for which Eusebius faults him. By Eusebius' time, as Alcorn indicated below, Christians had Platonized Christian theology to the pont where the kingdom of God was seen as an immateial spiritual existance. However, it was to be established in the future. The idea of a Heaven where souls go immediately after death developed into the form we know it now in the middle ages, I believe, but does have roots in pagan concept of the Elysean fields, etc.

DCH

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

An LA Times columnist, Joel Stein, has written a humorous column about a quote of his that made it to a Starbucks cup about heaven. While the column is generally not serious, there is one point that might deserve discussion, involving the thoughts of Randy C. Alcorn. author of "Heaven (or via: amazon.co.uk)":

Quote:

"...The Christian church has communicated an extremely boring view of heaven. I think it's wrongheaded and flat unbiblical."

The clouds-and-harp version came about for two reasons, Alcorn told me. One is Satan. The other is the early church fathers who tried to blend the Bible with Greek philosophy and wound up with a Platonic version of the afterlife stripped of the physical. In the heaven in Alcorn's book, he imagines we'll be riding on the backs of brontosauruses and throwing baseballs with Andy Pettitte. This does not sound like it will be heaven for brontosauruses or Andy Pettitte.

But that's actually the heaven on Earth that only gets going after the return of Christ. Until then, our souls are hanging out in intermediate heaven -- a place a lot less physical and awesome -- and much of our time is spent watching events on Earth. . . .

It does seem that the concept of heaven in the Bible is rather confused, at best. Jesus seems to be oriented towards some sort of establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth, after his second coming, when the dead awaken.

Your thoughts? Is any of this coherent? William Lane Craig feels that heaven must be located in some 4th quantum dimension, since it can't be in outer space.

Chili · 12-26-2007, 06:52 PM

Quote:

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

And notice please that in the rapture parables there were always 2 men or 2 women either on the roof or in the kitchen but never one on the roof and the other in the kitchen so the ego could rapture into oblivion . . . which is possible only since it was created by conjecture in Gen.3 after the body was formed by Lord God in the created image of God . . . and therefore is God. It is in the ego consciousness (read self awareness) that we wanted to be 'like god' in addition to being God so we could be co-creator with God-in-the-image-of-man for the purpose of adaptation to make evolution possible that we may survive and prosper wherever we go . . . which, then, is how the Intelligent Design is built into the species.

Nothing magical, nothing sacred, just pure essence precedes existence and therefore the ego is good and our persona very important for the preservation of the tribe.

Chili · 12-26-2007, 06:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xaxxat

[
Don't forget about being able to watch all the sinners burn hell for eternity. What fun that will be...

Let's just hope that nobody is watching us burn now.

Malachi151 · 12-27-2007, 01:31 AM

Quote:

It does seem that the concept of heaven in the Bible is rather confused, at best. Jesus seems to be oriented towards some sort of establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth, after his second coming, when the dead awaken.

Your thoughts? Is any of this coherent? William Lane Craig feels that heaven must be located in some 4th quantum dimension, since it can't be in outer space.

I disagree. I think that the concept of Heaven in the New Testament is pretty clear, though there are contradictions.

The New Testament is mostly not about a Kingdom of God on Earth, ever. The New Testament says that Earth MUST be destroyed to create a "new Jerusalem", according to most books, this new Jerusalem will be IN HEAVEN, though others like Revelation imply otherwise.

It is also very clear in the New Testament that people don't actually go to Heaven AT ALL until AFTER the coming (second) of Jesus, after he destroys the world.

This is all very confused in Christian tradition because the entire New Testament, except for 2 Peter, is written with the idea that the coming of Christ from heaven (second coming in the later books, 1st coming in the works of Paul) will happen within the lifetime of the writers, and will thus happen BEFORE they die.

Since it is written with the idea that Jesus will come before they die, there is no consideration given to some heaven that is in between death and the coming of Jesus.

According to what most of the New Testament says, when Jesus comes the dead in the earth shall rise and the living will be taken directly to heaven. This all builds on existing Jewish concepts in the Jewish scritpures, none of which contain a concept of heaven, but do contain concepts of resurrection.

I've posted on this before actually. According to the New Testament the only beings in Heaven now are the angels, the people that Jesus saved from Hades who died during the flood, God, Jesus, and perhaps various "demons" Belair and such, though that can't exactly be fully filled in wihtout using non-cannon works, though Paul does mention Belair

Everyone else, according to the Bible, is simply dead and rotting in the earth waiting for the day when Jesus comes to destroy the world and resurrect everyone to take them to Heaven.

Here is the Platonic view, which you can see is closer to the traditional Christian view than what you find in the Bible:

Quote:

These things being thus constituted, when the dead arrive at the place to which their demon leads them severally, first of all they are judged, as well those who have lived well and piously, as those who have not. And those who appear to have passed a middle kind of life, proceeding to Acheron, and embarking in the vessels they have, on these arrive at the lake, and there dwell; and when they are purified, and have suffered punishment for the iniquities they may have committed, they are set free, and each receives the reward of his good deeds, according to his deserts. But those who appear to be incurable, through the magnitude of their offenses, either from having committed many and great sacrileges, or many unjust and lawless murders, or other similar crimes, these a suitable destiny hurls into Tartarus, whence they never come forth. But those who appear to have been guilty of curable yet great offenses--such as those who, through anger, have committed any violence against father or mother, and have lived the remainder of their life in a state of penitence, or they who have become homicides in a similar manner--these must, of necessity, fall into Tartarus. But after they have fallen, and have been there for a year, the wave casts them forth, the homicides into Cocytus, but the parricides and matricides into Pyriphlegethon. But when, being borne along, they arrive at the Acherusian lake, there they cry out to and invoke, some those whom they slew, others those whom they injured, and, invoking them, they entreat and implore them to suffer them to go out into the lake, and to receive them, and if they persuade them, they go out, and are freed from their sufferings, but if not, they are borne back to Tartarus, and thence again to the rivers. And they do not cease from suffering this until they have persuaded those whom they have injured, for this sentence was imposed on them by the judges. But those who are found to have lived an eminently holy life, these are they who, being freed and set at large from these regions in the earth as from a prison, arrive at the pure abode above, and dwell on the upper parts of the earth. And among these, they who have sufficiently purified themselves by philosophy shall live without bodies, throughout all future time, and shall arrive at habitations yet more beautiful than these which it is neither easy to describe, nor at present is there sufficient time for the purpose.
- PHÆDO; Plato, 4th century BCE

Roger Pearse · 12-27-2007, 04:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by whichphilosophy

Heaven, a life without sin and nothing to tell others about what happened.
Must be extremely boring

I agree. What else do men have to talk about except how they swindled the poor and vulnerable? Such people have no function, after all, except to provide amusement for the rest of us.

This is particularly true for those of us who are terribly wealthy and privileged, and so have few other things to think about. I can only count my bank accounts so many times a day, after all.

So I went out and kicked a blind beggar yesterday. How we laughed about it at the club!

Later old 'Biffy' Saunders was telling us how he broke into a house, raped the daughter and stole the granny's pension money. We enjoyed the spirited way in which he described the girl screaming, although some felt that he should have rebuked her for her selfishness -- that *was* a £100 shirt she was crying on, after all. I think that all of us found this hilarious story a welcome diversion, since, as you say, otherwise we would have found very little to discuss.

All the best,

Adam Rake

Minnesota Joe · 12-27-2007, 04:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Your thoughts? Is any of this coherent? William Lane Craig feels that heaven must be located in some 4th quantum dimension, since it can't be in outer space.

Interestingly, that is also where Craig is located and for precisely the same reason.

GakuseiDon · 12-27-2007, 05:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by whichphilosophy

Heaven, a life without sin and nothing to tell others about what happened.
Must be extremely boring

As Death says in Terry Pratchett's "Hogfather":

"Human beings make life so interesting. Do you know, that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom."

-Jay- · 01-14-2008, 04:59 AM

I finally got a chance to dig out the A Beka text I referenced earlier. All quotes to follow come from "Bible Doctrines for Today", 1996 edition, by Michael C. Bere. (Don't bother trying to Amazonize the book. It ain't there in any meaningful way...A Beka apparently doesn't want the heathen masses getting hold of their material.)

This book is a 10^th grade high-school brainwashing manual textbook, used in a lot of Fundamentalist Homeschool programs and Christian schools.

From Lesson 50: The Reality of Heaven (bold in original):

Regarding the definition of heaven:

Quote:

The Bible uses the word heaven to designate three different locations. The specific meaning must be understood by the context. If this is not understood, the Biblical use of the word could be confusing.

1. The first "heaven" is the atmosphere above us.
...
2. The second "heaven" is the universe,or outer space.
...
3. The third "heaven" is the place of God's abode.

OK, looks to me like some equivocation to resolve some conflicts stemming from an ancient Hebrew worldview. Section 1 makes the interesting observation that Satan currently rules here. (Satan gets a lot of press in this book...)

Regarding the size of Heaven (now capitalized...)

Quote:

The new Jerusalem, which is the heavenly city described in Revelation 21:9-23, is the eternal dwelling place for all the saved of all the ages. It is described as being foursquare, that is, 12,000 furlongs long, 12,000 furlongs wide, and 12,000 furlongs high.
...
It is interesting to note that the entire city travels through space, for John saw it "coming down from God out of heaven"; it is indeed a space city. (Rev. 21:2, 10)

This translates to a cube roughly 1500 miles on a side. A space city. I couldn't make this up.

From the same book, a section entitled "What Are They Now Doing in Heaven?", excerpts from famous(?) sermons by T. Dewitt Talmage (1832-1902) (What is it with the 100 year old sources, anyway?)

Quote:

In heaven we will be just as different from each other as we are now different, and hence there will be at least as many different employments in the celestial world as there are employments here. Christ is to be the great love, the great joy, the great rapture, the great worship of heaven; but will that abolish employment? No more than loves on earth - paternal, filial, fraternal, conjugal love - abolish earthly occupation."

You mean I've gotta go to work? Dammit.

The chilling thing is that A Beka is one of the biggies in Fundamentalist Christian "education". A space city! And this is a curriculum that starts in pre-school and runs all the way through 12^th grade. By the time the kids that go through this crap get out into the real world, the damage done is tremendous. (The heaven discussion is, by far, not the most...interesting...discussion in the book, by the way. There are sections on the nature of Angels, the reality of Hell, and all kinds of other things.)

regards,

NinJay

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12-25-2007, 09:56 PM	#21
Joan of Bark Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Pua, in northern Thailand Posts: 2,823	So what are you saying, Chili? That if you commit suicide, you don't go to heaven?

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