What vision comes to your mind when you think about Heaven?

Post Reply New Topic

I grew up Christian/Catholic and told that if I was a good believer that I was going to Heaven when I died here or when Christ returns to earth, and that in Heaven I could do anything possible that I enjoyed. Later, I reckoned from what the Bible actually says and from clergy and laypeople that it is not necessarily true and there is a catch - they believe it won't matter to us anyway because it is much better than we can ever imagine, even though they can't really describe what this thing is. It sounds like an excuse or platitude to dismiss what other people might hope to do.

God could do everything the impossible and he is all-powerful, so he can't or is unwilling to say "Okay, I can give you X and you can do that in my eternity". I just can't imagine why it would be so great to be a disembodied non-sensual spirit, not being able to eat, have sex, etc. There is also truth to the stereotype that Christians believe sex is inherently sinful and corrupt, even married sex.

What is more annoying and frustrating is that Christians claim that they are the most empathetic, yet when I want to talk about things that might challenge God, I only get these few same canned responses. I feel kind of alone here, like the only Christian on the planet that has my sentiment.

I have come to think Heaven must look like the most strict childhood one can imagine. I also want to be a warrior, I want excitement. The mainstream vision of Heaven sounds more like a bore. Islamic paradise sounds like a party, and those of the other mythologies out there.

I don't know where to go or what to do about this. Is there anyone else, especially from a Christian background, who feels similar frustration? I want to tell you that I'm also not an atheist and I'm sure God exists, but I am questioning the justness of it all watching life and other people with trials.

Claudia Schiffer.

and

Then having read what it actually says you know that by the ultimate end of this existence of Earth all people, Christian and not, will not remain disembodied spirits forever and will eventually have their bodies and spirits reunited and those who accepted Christ will have a eternal life in/on a new Heaven and a new Earth.

And you know that there will be eating both before and after that: before at the marriage supper of the lamb; and after that from the trees of life which bear fruits with the seasons, "On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, bearing its fruit every month".
Wait, what, there will be months, implying seasons?, in the eternal state?


Some Christians go to that illogical extreme; illogical because if God designed your human body to have sex & sex is corrupt, then God designed you corrupt; corruption has indeed come in to life and bodies and sexual relations though not by that route.

As for being a warrior, that's probably not going to happen in eternity since that new Heaven and new Earth will be totally and eternally free of corruption, sin, and their effects. So, yes, you will probably be something other than that.
It would seem likely that an infinite, omniscient, God would have plenty of ways to provide satisfying adventures for eternity.

Portraying Heaven, eternity, as dull and boring is a tactic in the spiritual war which is taking place with the eternal destiny of each and every individual human as the consequence. If people can be convinced that eternity with God is boring then they will most likely decide against Jesus.

But there is still no more ability to have sex or a partner like I could have done in this life, in Heaven:
https://www.gotquestions.org/sex-heaven.html
There are those here who can't find that because they are physically or socially awkward, or because of some other reasons. But they longed for the experience regardless.

I have to admit, saying that you can choose either Heaven or eternal damnation sounds more like in the sense of saying you can either live or be shot dead.

Yes, I've seen a number of people make those inferences. My attitude is that since scripture doesn't directly say yes or no, we don't actually know whether or not.

But that bit, "The appetites and desires of this world will give way to higher and infinitely more gratifying delights in the world to come." Yes, that generalization is supportable from what is written.

The end result in your life in the here and now is that there is an issue you have to reconcile.
Perhaps there is a place to see whether a believer's prayers for God to take control of their life and of their needs and desires ever actually get answered.


The funny thing is, the number of people who are all in favor of being free to make choices in this life but do not want to take personal responsibility for That specific choice after they learn of it.
Odd.
How very odd.

---

SMiLes, i Don't Need to Imagine Heaven
As i Experience it Almost Always
Eternally NoW As Most 'Eastern'
More Mystical Religions And

Philosophies Describe
The Experience of one to
Seek and Find and Experience Within;

And Even Better Yet Luke 17:12, in Even
The New Testament Clearly Relates, "Neither shall
they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you."

Yeah, Baby, Cross Cultural Metaphors Include Samadhi, Satori, Nirvana, Bliss,
Tao, Kundalini Rising Yoga, Prana; And Science Relates The Experience As Autotelic
Flow With Even 'Fancier Terms' Like Generating One's Own Neurochemicals Now And
Neurohormones Through A Bio-Feedback That Comes From A Transient Hypo-Frontality

Escape From Illusions of Time, Distance, Space, And Matter as Let's Not Forget That Our Minds
Individually Co-Create Reality; Got 16 Sweet Bunnies in a Room; Got 16 Rabbit Views of Individual
Multi-Uni-Verses; And With Humans, We Have the Gift of iMaGiNaTioN And CReaTiViTY to Co-Create
Amazing Dreams or Nightmares into Fruition of Our Individual and Mutually And Consensually Understood

Realities to
Some Degree
At Least Now of

Affective Empathy,
Cognitive Empathy,
And Compassion of Love
We May Share to Actually LiVE
Again An Autotelic Meditating
Contemplating Flow of Bliss and
Nirvana; And Unlimited Other Metaphors
To Describe The Essence of the Kingdom of
God; Yes, the Experience of Heaven Within; That

Yes Takes Some Kind
of Autotelic Meditative Flow
iN Practice to Achieve Eternally

Now; Like These Fumes, These
Words That Are only Left-Overs
of the Heaven i Am Experiencing
Eternally Now Within While Dancing And Singing
These Words Through my Fingers in Effortless Ease

Now Sweet
Spot 'Tween
Anxiety And
Apathy Ever Greater
Complexity Every Greater
"CoLoRinG New Connections" in Flow
Feeling and Sensing Experience Within

Like Keeping A Christmas Tree Up Year-Round;
Adding New Colors With Every Word of Song And
Every Real Move of Dance Free That Comes Eternally Now;

In Other Words, Heaven is Not A Word in a Book; Heaven is the
Experience Now
or Not As
Now is
All THeRE
Ever is to Experience Now...

Best 'Thing' of All; Naked, Enough,
Whole, Complete; A Free Meditating
Contemplating Dance in Autotelic Flow

Doesn't Cost
A God Damned
Penny; Just What

We aRe Born With
Leaving Nothing Yet
Foot Prints of Heaven on A Beach...
And Hell No, Not Even A Word in A Book
Required to Seek and Find Heaven ThiS WaY

Again, Just a Naked Free Dance in Flow on a Beach Will Work

For Those, Who Actually Do it; And Don't Only Set Old Words In
Stone Turning Into Dead Statues (Words) in A Book Never Arriving
in the Actual Experience Eternally NoW iN Flow Always Beginning Now New Within..

---

Last edited by aghogday on 28 Feb 2022, 12:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

Incredibly empty, because no one is up there. Everyone is in hell instead because all humans are demons.

To me, it's inconceivable. I don't quite see how a person could experience or do anything once their brain has stopped working and turned to pulp. No sensory input, no thinking, no emotions, no pleasure, no pain, no actions. Neither good nor bad, just nothing.

Get outta here.
Don't be so, errr, rational.

I picture a giant rain forest. We all live in houses with no locks on the door. I also picture everyone walking around naked, but unashamed.

Nothing scares me more than the prospect of spending eternity with the Motherf***er who made me, if such a thing were to unfortunately exist. The illogic of even wanting that is the antidote for Christian brainwashing.

Two millennia old tales are showing their age. People, even mediocre ones, are better...less evil...than the Christian god.

I picture being lied to by people I trusted as a child. Thankfully their indoctrination attempts failed.

I did say once that Heaven is basically a ghost town. Because standards are too high, no one is good enough to actually get into Heaven. It's just Jesus all alone playing fetch with Old Yeller.

A terrifying scenario: What if there is no Heaven, period?

It was an empty promise by God to make us behave on Earth. All humans go to Hell no matter what good they've accomplished. The original sin was a permanent mark for damnation.

brazilian psychic chico xavier maintained, in his "nosso lar" [our world] series of psychically channeled books, that there was indeed a heaven for the decent and a purgatory for the wicked. there was a movie made of his books called "the astral city" which depicted a kind of "club med" heaven as well as a ghastly purgatory. this movie comes the closest to all the heavenly visions i've had.