Anyone afraid of heaven?

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I have lived a bit longer than most and experienced some gratifying successes and a few personal tragedies. I have found that the coin of pleasure has, like any other coin, two sides. Pleasure at success is not unconditional and is valuable only because it is mostly conferred under the threat of failure and the greater the threat of failure the greater the pleasure at overcoming it. A beautiful flower or a good meal gains its value because it is exceptional. A surfeit of roses or good meals without a break or possibility of not arriving or even the traditional insatiable seventy two virgins can become totally boring after even a short run.

Some time ago neurological scientists discovered a pleasure center in the brain that could be stimulated by a shot of electricity. They equipped a rat with a wire inserted in the rat’s brain which passed through a momentary switch which the rat could activate by pressing a button. The rat quickly learned the technique of pressing the button and eventually starved to death because it did not stop the stimulation even to eat.

The Matrix films depicts a future in which the human race is cocooned in individual pods and their brains are stimulated much in the manner of the rat to keep them quiescent.

The concept of Heaven in which God, in effect, inserts His theological wire into my brain’s pleasure center (assuming I qualify) strikes me more as a totally horrifying way to experience eternity than something to persuade me to behave.

All the fun folk would be missing.

I'm looking forward to it myself, though scripture is pretty clear on the fact that the overwhelming majority of people won't get to enter. I see paradise as a place with the same physical laws as our existence here, but with only righteous people inhabiting it. The problem with this world is that anyone can live here. With man's free will and the sinful nature of the majority of mankind, the world is transformed into something else than what it was intended to be. The judgement will solve this problem.

Revelation 21:8:

"But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. "

I see God as having given different traditions to different cultures to preserve their sovereignity and prevent the establishment of a one world government, since differences in language/culture/religion are natural borders, people won't submit to an authority that doesn't share their own banner. The key to getting to enter paradise is leading a righteous life through your actions.

I see the importance the religions put on their own belief system being the only way to salvation as a result of evolutionary mechanics, religions that didn't do that didn't grow big since their soil didn't nurture its own seed. Hence, I believe that it doesn't matter if you're a Christian, a Muslim, an Odinist or an Agnostic for example, you could still get to enter paradise. At the same time, I believe the overwhelming majority of any nation, culture or creed will never see paradise since they're of a sinful nature, mankind at large is predominantly evil. We all have a responsibility to preserve what was given to us by our ancestors and to practice solidarity within the social structure in which we've been placed.

Indeed.

And beauty and pleasure are such exactly because they are so fleeting.

If it involves singing hymns on uncomfortable pews all day long for eternity, its going to be pretty dull.

"Heaven" of choice? Valhalla.. carousing, quaffing, maidens and fighting with no ill effects. I'm up for that.

But you still come up with the problem of infinite time. You'll eventually have fought all possible fights, have seduced all the maidens and drank all the beer. You'll get bored eventually no matter how sweet Heaven is.

Maybe applying for a "haunting" position would be more fun. Wonder what the qualifications are?

The present conditions on Earth are rapidly moving to the dire and it is becoming questionable as to the survivability of the species in its present form. The appearance of ghosts of a species that no longer exists should be a rather odd phenomenon. If only adaptable bacteria remain om Earth I doubt of they would be worthwhile for a BOO! or two.

Heres a short educational film about ghosts:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y070jbJuVs[/youtube]

Take another look at the right hand paths definition of "happy". Then read my first post of this thread until you get it. Then take another look at what their definitions of "sin" is. Think really really hard about what they could possibly mean by "burning" in Hell, and just exactly how "spiritual" this belief is. The most conspicuous one however, is the myth of Adam and Eve, think about that one too. Are they just trying to scare you into believing something, or are they trying to HIDE something from you.. Just think about it, for once.
See, this is what I hate about the bible, its so misleading and subliminal. If that makes me a "sinner" then mote it be..

One shouldn't be angry at the Bible. It is only a very beautifully written collection of folk tales, imaginary encounters with strange beings, a good deal of morality that may or may not be reasonable and quite a lot of rather doubtful history. It is the living people today who would take some of the fantasy for reality which are the problem.

I understand that it is imaginary, but the point of it is for people to follow it. That is what the problem is.

When you deal with the supernatural and huge transformation of human nature I tend to not see the infinite time issue as necessarily holding. You extrapolate from the imperfect people that you know to talk about the nature of a perfect man that you do not and the same with imperfect places to the perfect. Assumptions of the need for novelty or even economic assumptions of diminishing marginal utility might not hold and there is no reason to say that they would have to given the very unknowability of the issues being discussed.

Even if diminishing utility were eliminated in Heaven. You'd still end up doing the same thing over and over in heaven. Even if it's still as enjoyable as the first time it'd be a pretty horrible way to spend eternity.

This is clearly a problem of laxity on the part of Jesus. This is his biggest selling point yet he completely failed to convince us that it was something worth striving for. Even if we do become perfect and omniscient, etc. once we die; it would still be insatisfactory to live in an Utopic state where nothing changes.

I personally would want to opt out. If you think about it logically the alternative given by atheism, namely, rotting in the ground and ceasing to exist; is simply a superior way to die. Only a huge egoist would find the idea of living forever appealing.

You're still thinking in terms of Earth. Heaven is on a completely different plane of consciousness and existence. It is simply beyond the human imagination. Perhaps there is simply no such thing as being "bored" in Heaven's terms. Perhaps there isn't even such a thing as "time".

Last edited by xyzyxx on 08 Oct 2007, 10:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Why? You'd love it. Just because you would have done it forever doesn't mean that it still wouldn't be wonderful. Also, why would doing something once or a million times really matter in terms of the goodness of the task anyway? I would argue that the horror would either be related to how the individual relates to the action, or be intrinsic with the action itself, but that time is arbitrary for analysis, meaning that either heaven is great or not existing now is ideal.

Not really, if Jesus were trying to sell himself he would have done a much better job. The fact of the matter is that Jesus didn't mind controversy or pissing people off, and I would think that most Christians would argue that some people are too enslaved by sin to respond to respond to Christian ideas or ideals. Why would it be unsatisfactory to live in a utopic state where nothing changes? Your state of mind would be defined as satisfied and not in the soma way either. Really, given that the alternative is a dystopic eternal state, heaven is the better option easily. Also given that existence is better than non-existence, heaven still wins as you have not made the logical case for living now and not wanting to live forever as doing the same things is a rather meaningless distinction as it does not relate to the individual or their desires.

Why? You have never been. Why is it a superior way to die though? Awesomeness for all eternity and the wisdom of the creator of the universe seems like a pretty good deal, nonexistence has less meaning to it. Really, I think you a priori dismiss all religious ideas and therefore feel compulsed to find reasons to dislike their ideas, besides, why would egoism even matter to you anyway? You defined ethics in an earlier conversation as acting upon your own ends, which is an egoist system of ethics by its nature.