Freethought & Rationalism Archive

rainbow walking · 07-12-2003, 07:00 AM

Heaven doesn't seem to be all that different from earth if war can break out there:

Revelation 12:7 _And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,

joedad · 07-12-2003, 08:32 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by rainbow walking
Heaven doesn't seem to be all that different from earth if war can break out there:

Revelation 12:7 _And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,

Many people find war and conflict pleasurable. Why should such things be excluded in heaven, especially when included in Bible stories?

Speaking as an excatholic, heaven is a kind of grand and ultimate hedonism. It's the final payola for a job believed well done. Catholics supposedly get there by living a life of faithful obedience and sacrifice. The flaw in that reasoning, however, is that there hasn't been any sacrifice if in the end one still gets the big payola. Hell doesn't involve any payola, so anyone truly sacrificing, and not deal-making, must be headed for a hell, not a heaven. Or heaven and hell are simply one and the same.

Ispikes · 07-14-2003, 02:02 AM

There may not be sex in heaven but at least it's Christmas every day

Ispikes · 07-14-2003, 02:02 AM

oops double post

mike_decock · 07-14-2003, 09:00 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by EstherRose
You don't get to do the sinful "fun" things, you burn in the lake of fire. But suit yourselves. If you want to believe that, okay by me.

The callousness of that attitude just makes my skin crawl. When I still believed in Hell, the thought of good people suffering for all eternity deeply saddened me. How someone could hold that belief and simply say "okay by me" is beyond my comprehension.

-Mike...

mark9950 · 07-18-2003, 02:52 PM

Quote:

Yawn, whatever you say. Call me whatever you want, its meaningless - I know what my faith is and don't need your approval of it.

You can believe what you want but if it is not true your belief is in vain and you wasted all that energy believeing a possible lie without proof.

Belief without proof is a waste,I guess the God of the bible forgot this statement.

Opera Nut · 07-18-2003, 07:03 PM

Here it is straight from the mouth of Satan:

Letters from the Earth:

SATAN'S LETTER

"The people are all insane, the other animals are all insane, the earth is insane, Nature itself is insane, Man is a marvelous curiosity. When he is at his very very best he is sort of a low grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all time he is a sarcasm. yet he blandly and in all sincerity calls himself the "noblest work of God." THis is hte truth I am telling you. ...

Moreover, if I may put another strain upon you -- he thinks he is the Creator's pet. He believes the Creator is proud of him; he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes, and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to Him, and thinks He listens.

Isn't it a quaint idea? Fills his prayers with crude and bald and florid flatteries of Him, and thinks He sits and purrs over those extravagancies and enjoys them. He prays for help,
and favor, and protection,every day; and does it with hopefulness and confidence, too, although no prayer of his has ever been answered. The daily affront, the daily defeat, do not discourage him, he goeso on praying just the same.

There is something almost fine about this perseverance. I must put one more strain upon you: He thinks he is going to heaven!!

He has salaried teachers who tell him that. They also tell him there is a hell, of everlasting fire, and that he will go to it if he doesn't keep the Commandments. What are the Commandments? They are a curiosity. I will tell you about them by and by.

LETTER II

"I have told you nothing about man that is not true." You must pardon me if I repeat that remark now and then in these letters. I want you to take seriously the things I am telling you, and I feel that if I were in your place and you in mine, I should need that reminder from time to time, to keep my credulity from flagging.

...

He has imagined a heaven, and has left entirely out of it the supremest of all his delights, the one ecstacy that stands first and foremost in the heart of every individual of his race -- and of ours -- sexual intercourse!

It is as if a lost and perishing person in a roasting desert should be told by a rescuer he might choose and have all longed-for things but one and he should elect to leave out water!

His heaven is like himself:Strange, interesting, astonishing, grotesque. I give you my word, it has not a single feature in it that he actually values. It consists -- utterly and entirely -- of diversions which he cares next to nothing about, here in the earth, yet is quite sure he will like in heaven.

Isn't it curious? Isn't it interesting? You must not think I am exaggerating, for it is not so. I will give you details.

Most men do not sing, most men cannot sign, most men will not stay where others are singing if it be continued more than two hours. Note that.

Only about two men in a hundred can play upon a musical instrument, and not four in a hundred have any wish to learn how. Set that down.

Many men pray, not many of them like to do it. A few pray long, the others make a short cut.

More men go to church than want to.

To 49 men in 50 the Sabbath Day is a dreary, dreary bore.

Of all the men in a chuch on a Sunday, 2/3rds are tired when the service is half over, and the rest before it is finished.

The gladdest moment for all of them is when the preacher uplifts his hands for the benediction. You can hear the soft rustle of relief that sweeps the house, and you recognize that it is eloquent with gratitude.

All nations look down upon all other nations.

All nations dislike all other nations.

All white nations despise all colored nations, of whatever hue, and oppress them when they can.

White men will not associate with "niggers," [sic] nor marry them.

They will not allow them in their schools and churches.

All the world hates the Jew, and will not endure him except when he is rich.

I ask you to note all those particulars.

Further. All sane people detest noise.

All people, sane or insane, like to have variety in their life. Monotony quickly wearies them.

Every man, according to the mental equipment that has fallen to his share, exercises his intellect constantly, ceaselessly, and this exercise makes up a vast and valued and essential part of his life.

The lowest intellect, like the highest, possesses a skill of some kind and takes a keen pleasure in testing it, proving it, perfecting it.

The urchin who is his comrade's superior in games is as diligent and as enthusiastic in his practice as are the sculptor, the painter, the pianist, the mathematician and the rest. Not one of them could be happy if his talent were put under an interdict.

Now then, you have the facts. you know what the human race enjoys and what it doesn't enjoy. It has invented a heaven out of its own head, all by itself:guess what it is like! In 1500 eternities you couldn't do it. The ablest mind known to you or me in fifth million aeons couldn't do it. Very well, I will tell you about it.

1. First of all, I recall to your attention the extraordinary fact with which I began. To wit, that the human being, like the immortals, naturally places sexual intercourse far and away above all other joys -- yet he has left it out of his heaven! The very thought of it excites him; opportunity sets him wild; in this state he will risk life, reputation, everything -- even his queer heaven itself --- to make good that opportunity and ride it to the overwhelming climax. From youth to middle age all men and all women prize copulation above all other pleasures combined, yet it is actually as I have said: It is not in their heaven; prayer takes its place.

...
2. In man's heaven everybody sings! The man who did not sing on earth sings there; the man who could not sing on earth is able to do it there. This universal singing is not casual, not occasional and not relieved by intervals of quiet; it goes on, all day long, and every day, during a stretch of twelve hours. And everybody stays; whereas in the earth the place would be empty in two hours. The singing is of hymns alone. Nay, it is of one hyman alone. The words are always the same, in number they are only about a dozen, there is no rhyme, there is no poetry: "Hosannah, hosannah, hosannah, Lord God of Sabaoth, 'rah, 'rah, 'rah! siss!--boom!......a-a-ahh!"

3. Meantime every person is playing on a harp -- those millions and millions!--whereas not more than twenty in the thousand of them could play an instrument in the earth, or every watned to.

Consider the deafening hurricane of sound--millions and millions of voices screaming at once and milions and millions of harps gritting their teeth at the same time! I ask yoU: is it hideous, is it odious, is it horrible??

Consider further: It is a praise service; a service of compliment, of flattery, of adulation! Do you ask who it is that is willing to endure this strange compliment, this insane compliment; and who not noly endures it but likes it, enjoys it, requires it, COMMANDS IT?

Hold your breath!

It is God! This race's God, I mean. He sits on his throne, alttended by his four and twenty elders and some other dignitaries pertaining to his court, and looks out over his miles and miels of tempestuous worshipers, and smiles, and purrs and nods his satisfaction northward, eastward, southward; as quaint and naive a spectacle as has been yet imagined in this universe, I take it.

It is easy to see that the inventor of the heavens did not originate the idea but copied it from the show ceremonies of some sorry little sovereign State up in the back settlements of the Orient somewhere.

All sane white people hate noise; yet they have tranquilly accepted this kind of a heaven -- without thinking, without reflection, without examination and they actually want to go to it!

Profoundly devout old gray headed men put in a large part of their time dreaming of the happy day when they will lay down the cares of this life and enter into the joys of that place. Yet you can see how unreal it is to them, and how little it takes a grip upon them as being fact; for they make no practical preparation for the great change, you never seen one of them with a harp, you never hear one of them sing.

[discusses how tiresome an hour of church one day a week is -- how it is tolerated and not looked forward to]

They quickly weary of this brief hebdomadal Sabbath here, yet they long for that eternal one; they dream of it and they talk about it, they think they are going to enjoy it, with all their simple hearts they think they are oging to be happy in it!

It is because they do not think at all; they only think they think. Whereas they can't think; not two human beings in ten thousand have anything to think with; and as to imagination-- oh well, look at their heaven! They accept it; they approve it; they admire it. That gives you their intellectual measure.

4. The inventor of their heaven emties into it all the nations of the earth in one common jummble. They have to mix together, pray together, harp together, hosannah together -- whites, niggers[sic], Jews, everybody -- there's no distinction. Here in the earth all nations hate each other and every one of them hates the Jew. Yet every pious person adores that heaven and wants to get into it. He really does. And when he is in a holy rapture he thinks he thinks that if he were only there he would take all the populace to his heart, and hug, and hug and hug!!

5. Every man in the earth possesses some share if intellect, large or small, he takes a pride in it. ...
And then he contrives a heaven that hasn't a rag of intellectuality in it anywhere!

Is it odd, is it curious, is it puzzling? It is exactly as I have said, incredible as it may sound. This sincere adorer of intellect and prodigal rewarder of its mighty services here in the earth has invented a religion and a heaven which pay no compliments to intellect, offer it no distinctions, fling to it no largess: in fact, never even mention it.

By this time you will have noticed that the human being's heaven has been thought out and constructed upon an absolutely definite plan; and that this plan is, that it shall contain, in labored detail, each and every imaginable thing that is repulsive to a man, and not a single thing he likes!

Very well, the further we proceed the more this curious fact will be apparent.

Make a note of it: in man's heaven there are no exercises for the intellect, nothing for it to live upon. It would rot there in a year -- rot and stink. Rot and stink -- and at that stage become holy. A blessed thing: for only the holy can stand the joys of that bedlam."
(End of Letter II)

-----Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain),
Letters from the Earth

:notworthy :notworthy :notworthy

I wish I had written this, but it was written long before I got here!

lpetrich · 07-19-2003, 10:53 PM

I hope I don't seem like a broken record, but I really do have to wonder how much of a consolation the idea of Heaven is.

Where are those who make their last words "See you in Heaven"?

Or otherwise calmly expect to wake up somewhere after their deaths?

07-18-2003, 07:03 PM	#57
Opera Nut Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Houston TX Posts: 1,671	Straight from the mouth of Satan Here it is straight from the mouth of Satan: Letters from the Earth: SATAN'S LETTER "The people are all insane, the other animals are all insane, the earth is insane, Nature itself is insane, Man is a marvelous curiosity. When he is at his very very best he is sort of a low grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all time he is a sarcasm. yet he blandly and in all sincerity calls himself the "noblest work of God." THis is hte truth I am telling you. ... Moreover, if I may put another strain upon you -- he thinks he is the Creator's pet. He believes the Creator is proud of him; he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes, and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to Him, and thinks He listens. Isn't it a quaint idea? Fills his prayers with crude and bald and florid flatteries of Him, and thinks He sits and purrs over those extravagancies and enjoys them. He prays for help, and favor, and protection,every day; and does it with hopefulness and confidence, too, although no prayer of his has ever been answered. The daily affront, the daily defeat, do not discourage him, he goeso on praying just the same. There is something almost fine about this perseverance. I must put one more strain upon you: He thinks he is going to heaven!! He has salaried teachers who tell him that. They also tell him there is a hell, of everlasting fire, and that he will go to it if he doesn't keep the Commandments. What are the Commandments? They are a curiosity. I will tell you about them by and by. LETTER II "I have told you nothing about man that is not true." You must pardon me if I repeat that remark now and then in these letters. I want you to take seriously the things I am telling you, and I feel that if I were in your place and you in mine, I should need that reminder from time to time, to keep my credulity from flagging. ... He has imagined a heaven, and has left entirely out of it the supremest of all his delights, the one ecstacy that stands first and foremost in the heart of every individual of his race -- and of ours -- sexual intercourse! It is as if a lost and perishing person in a roasting desert should be told by a rescuer he might choose and have all longed-for things but one and he should elect to leave out water! His heaven is like himself:Strange, interesting, astonishing, grotesque. I give you my word, it has not a single feature in it that he actually values. It consists -- utterly and entirely -- of diversions which he cares next to nothing about, here in the earth, yet is quite sure he will like in heaven. Isn't it curious? Isn't it interesting? You must not think I am exaggerating, for it is not so. I will give you details. Most men do not sing, most men cannot sign, most men will not stay where others are singing if it be continued more than two hours. Note that. Only about two men in a hundred can play upon a musical instrument, and not four in a hundred have any wish to learn how. Set that down. Many men pray, not many of them like to do it. A few pray long, the others make a short cut. More men go to church than want to. To 49 men in 50 the Sabbath Day is a dreary, dreary bore. Of all the men in a chuch on a Sunday, 2/3rds are tired when the service is half over, and the rest before it is finished. The gladdest moment for all of them is when the preacher uplifts his hands for the benediction. You can hear the soft rustle of relief that sweeps the house, and you recognize that it is eloquent with gratitude. All nations look down upon all other nations. All nations dislike all other nations. All white nations despise all colored nations, of whatever hue, and oppress them when they can. White men will not associate with "niggers," [sic] nor marry them. They will not allow them in their schools and churches. All the world hates the Jew, and will not endure him except when he is rich. I ask you to note all those particulars. Further. All sane people detest noise. All people, sane or insane, like to have variety in their life. Monotony quickly wearies them. Every man, according to the mental equipment that has fallen to his share, exercises his intellect constantly, ceaselessly, and this exercise makes up a vast and valued and essential part of his life. The lowest intellect, like the highest, possesses a skill of some kind and takes a keen pleasure in testing it, proving it, perfecting it. The urchin who is his comrade's superior in games is as diligent and as enthusiastic in his practice as are the sculptor, the painter, the pianist, the mathematician and the rest. Not one of them could be happy if his talent were put under an interdict. Now then, you have the facts. you know what the human race enjoys and what it doesn't enjoy. It has invented a heaven out of its own head, all by itself:guess what it is like! In 1500 eternities you couldn't do it. The ablest mind known to you or me in fifth million aeons couldn't do it. Very well, I will tell you about it. 1. First of all, I recall to your attention the extraordinary fact with which I began. To wit, that the human being, like the immortals, naturally places sexual intercourse far and away above all other joys -- yet he has left it out of his heaven! The very thought of it excites him; opportunity sets him wild; in this state he will risk life, reputation, everything -- even his queer heaven itself --- to make good that opportunity and ride it to the overwhelming climax. From youth to middle age all men and all women prize copulation above all other pleasures combined, yet it is actually as I have said: It is not in their heaven; prayer takes its place. ... 2. In man's heaven everybody sings! The man who did not sing on earth sings there; the man who could not sing on earth is able to do it there. This universal singing is not casual, not occasional and not relieved by intervals of quiet; it goes on, all day long, and every day, during a stretch of twelve hours. And everybody stays; whereas in the earth the place would be empty in two hours. The singing is of hymns alone. Nay, it is of one hyman alone. The words are always the same, in number they are only about a dozen, there is no rhyme, there is no poetry: "Hosannah, hosannah, hosannah, Lord God of Sabaoth, 'rah, 'rah, 'rah! siss!--boom!......a-a-ahh!" 3. Meantime every person is playing on a harp -- those millions and millions!--whereas not more than twenty in the thousand of them could play an instrument in the earth, or every watned to. Consider the deafening hurricane of sound--millions and millions of voices screaming at once and milions and millions of harps gritting their teeth at the same time! I ask yoU: is it hideous, is it odious, is it horrible?? Consider further: It is a praise service; a service of compliment, of flattery, of adulation! Do you ask who it is that is willing to endure this strange compliment, this insane compliment; and who not noly endures it but likes it, enjoys it, requires it, COMMANDS IT? Hold your breath! It is God! This race's God, I mean. He sits on his throne, alttended by his four and twenty elders and some other dignitaries pertaining to his court, and looks out over his miles and miels of tempestuous worshipers, and smiles, and purrs and nods his satisfaction northward, eastward, southward; as quaint and naive a spectacle as has been yet imagined in this universe, I take it. It is easy to see that the inventor of the heavens did not originate the idea but copied it from the show ceremonies of some sorry little sovereign State up in the back settlements of the Orient somewhere. All sane white people hate noise; yet they have tranquilly accepted this kind of a heaven -- without thinking, without reflection, without examination and they actually want to go to it! Profoundly devout old gray headed men put in a large part of their time dreaming of the happy day when they will lay down the cares of this life and enter into the joys of that place. Yet you can see how unreal it is to them, and how little it takes a grip upon them as being fact; for they make no practical preparation for the great change, you never seen one of them with a harp, you never hear one of them sing. [discusses how tiresome an hour of church one day a week is -- how it is tolerated and not looked forward to] They quickly weary of this brief hebdomadal Sabbath here, yet they long for that eternal one; they dream of it and they talk about it, they think they are going to enjoy it, with all their simple hearts they think they are oging to be happy in it! It is because they do not think at all; they only think they think. Whereas they can't think; not two human beings in ten thousand have anything to think with; and as to imagination-- oh well, look at their heaven! They accept it; they approve it; they admire it. That gives you their intellectual measure. 4. The inventor of their heaven emties into it all the nations of the earth in one common jummble. They have to mix together, pray together, harp together, hosannah together -- whites, niggers[sic], Jews, everybody -- there's no distinction. Here in the earth all nations hate each other and every one of them hates the Jew. Yet every pious person adores that heaven and wants to get into it. He really does. And when he is in a holy rapture he thinks he thinks that if he were only there he would take all the populace to his heart, and hug, and hug and hug!! 5. Every man in the earth possesses some share if intellect, large or small, he takes a pride in it. ... And then he contrives a heaven that hasn't a rag of intellectuality in it anywhere! Is it odd, is it curious, is it puzzling? It is exactly as I have said, incredible as it may sound. This sincere adorer of intellect and prodigal rewarder of its mighty services here in the earth has invented a religion and a heaven which pay no compliments to intellect, offer it no distinctions, fling to it no largess: in fact, never even mention it. By this time you will have noticed that the human being's heaven has been thought out and constructed upon an absolutely definite plan; and that this plan is, that it shall contain, in labored detail, each and every imaginable thing that is repulsive to a man, and not a single thing he likes! Very well, the further we proceed the more this curious fact will be apparent. Make a note of it: in man's heaven there are no exercises for the intellect, nothing for it to live upon. It would rot there in a year -- rot and stink. Rot and stink -- and at that stage become holy. A blessed thing: for only the holy can stand the joys of that bedlam." (End of Letter II) -----Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain), Letters from the Earth :notworthy :notworthy :notworthy I wish I had written this, but it was written long before I got here!

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07-12-2003, 07:00 AM	#51
rainbow walking Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Erewhon Posts: 2,608	Heaven doesn't seem to be all that different from earth if war can break out there: Revelation 12:7 _And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,

07-14-2003, 02:02 AM	#53
Ispikes Regular Member Join Date: May 2003 Location: Nowhere interesting Posts: 164	There may not be sex in heaven but at least it's Christmas every day

07-19-2003, 10:53 PM	#58
lpetrich Contributor Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Lebanon, OR, USA Posts: 16,829	I hope I don't seem like a broken record, but I really do have to wonder how much of a consolation the idea of Heaven is. Where are those who make their last words "See you in Heaven"? Or otherwise calmly expect to wake up somewhere after their deaths?

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