NationStates Jolt Archive

Yes this might seem like another religion topic, but this is a question that never made any sense to me. I have break the whole larger qestion into 3 smaller ones, followed by the mental debate that I been having over them. This is a topic of philosophy and not an atheism vs religion debate, so please don't turn this post into one.

1. How is the biblical version of heaven, or any version of heaven, a reward?

I ask this because it involve eternality, the infiniteness of time. I mean sure I can picture myself taking a week, or maybe 100 years of vacation in heaven or something. But when we look at 10 thousand years, 10 billion years, eternality, the concept of heaven becomes very diluted. How can one experience bliss through nothingness? How can bliss be everlasting without turning into numbness? How can human resist committing sin in the face of such numbness and boredom in the infiniteness of time?

2. Instead of asking for the impossible, such as eternality, I challenge anyone of any religion (or no religion) to conceptualize an ideal heaven that can withstand say 10 billion years or so, without you going into complete madness and agony.

Onto the concept of hell, which follows the same concept as heaven.

Does that mean that all being who goes to heaven will eventually end up in hell due to the infiniteness of time? And when a living being exist for 10 billion years or so would hell actually become more enjoyable than heaven simply because there are more stimulation going on in there, even if that stimulation is burning and pain? Would hell then be the same as heaven after 20 billion years when every stimulus in both heaven and hell becomes nothing but numbness?

3. The same question can then be ask here as well, is it possible to conceptualize a hell that will actually feel different than heaven after the process of 20 billions years?

Heaven is undressing your girlfriend / partner.

And that doesn't take all that long.

The Christian, Judaic and Islamic descriptions of hell aren't in the least pleasant. All that is explained about heaven is that it's constant praise and constant perfect servitude to this 'Almighty' dictator like figure whom we are supposed to love AND fear simultaneously.

Sounds like hell to me.

In my version of heaven I'm the only guy, with thousands upon thousands of hot model-like girls walking around naked and willing to do anything, and I have free beer for eternity and free food ... and pretty much impossible.

An ideal world where there is no hatred, suffering or conflict, and the people work together in peace and harmony to pursue knowledge, and occasionally party like rock stars.

Since people are constantly pursuing more and more knowledge, they'd never get bored. Without hatred, suffering, and conflict, there go most of the bad things in this world. The occasional party and relaxation means people don't burn out (though the lack of suffering helps too.) The best heaven is the one we make ourselves.

The Christian, Judaic and Islamic descriptions of hell aren't in the least pleasant. All that is explained about heaven is that it's constant praise and constant perfect servitude to this 'Almighty' dictator like figure whom we are supposed to love AND fear simultaneously.

Sounds like hell to me.
Note to self: North Korea is heaven.

Note to self: North Korea is heaven.

Well, to be fair, if you're brainwashed then whether it's a brutal dictatorship or not doesn't really matter, amirite? :p

Yes this might seem like another religion topic, but this is a question that never made any sense to me. I have break the whole larger qestion into 3 smaller ones, followed by the mental debate that I been having over them. This is a topic of philosophy and not an atheism vs religion debate, so please don't turn this post into one.

1. How is the biblical version of heaven, or any version of heaven, a reward?

what is the BIBLICAL version of heaven? i dont think the bible spells it out at all.

in some parts we are told that on the last day jesus comes and raises all the righteous from the dead. then they live forever on a perfected earth. the unrighteous dead would stay in the grave. this made much better sense 2000 years ago when the resurrection wouldnt bring back all that many people.

what IS hell in the bible? there is a place where satan lives. i dont recall verses saying that we will join him there. jesus says that the unrighteous will be thrown into gehenna--which was a burning garbage dump. that doesnt seem like eternal torture to me but complete consumption and destruction.

other christian writers through the ages have given their descriptions of heaven and hell. they are only the beliefs/concepts of those that wrote them. there is no reason for anyone but the writers themselves to justify their words.

Well, to be fair, if you're brainwashed then whether it's a brutal dictatorship or not doesn't really matter, amirite? :p

Actually, consider the following.

God: Claims to have created everything.
Kim Jung il: Claims to be responsible for everything in NK.

God: Demands unwavering obedience, or he'll condemn you to an eternity of torment
Kim Jung il: Demands unwavering obedience, or he'll condemn you to an apparent eternity of torment, then shoot you

God: Proclaims all other faiths to be false, and will punish those who stray.
Kim Jung il: Proclaims all other governments to be anathema, and will punish those who stray.

Heaven according to God (bible): A paradise for all good Christians who bask in God's presence.
North Korea according to Kim Jung il: A paradise for all good communists who basks in Kim Jung il's presence.

Coincidence? :p

So, Kim Jung Il is God after all? And, if so, Jesus was neither white, Semetic, black nor Latino, or Irish ... he was Korean.

So, Kim Jung Il is God after all? And, if so, Jesus was neither white, Semetic, black nor Latino, or Irish ... he was Korean.

You're getting it wrong. God is a franchise. Yahweh was just one of the earlier ones who set up shop under the god franchise. Kim Jung Il is a latecomer. :p

Yes this might seem like another religion topic, but this is a question that never made any sense to me. I have break the whole larger qestion into 3 smaller ones, followed by the mental debate that I been having over them. This is a topic of philosophy and not an atheism vs religion debate, so please don't turn this post into one.

1. How is the biblical version of heaven, or any version of heaven, a reward?

I ask this because it involve eternality, the infiniteness of time. I mean sure I can picture myself taking a week, or maybe 100 years of vacation in heaven or something. But when we look at 10 thousand years, 10 billion years, eternality, the concept of heaven becomes very diluted. How can one experience bliss through nothingness? How can bliss be everlasting without turning into numbness? How can human resist committing sin in the face of such numbness and boredom in the infiniteness of time?

2. Instead of asking for the impossible, such as eternality, I challenge anyone of any religion (or no religion) to conceptualize an ideal heaven that can withstand say 10 billion years or so, without you going into complete madness and agony.

Onto the concept of hell, which follows the same concept as heaven.

Does that mean that all being who goes to heaven will eventually end up in hell due to the infiniteness of time? And when a living being exist for 10 billion years or so would hell actually become more enjoyable than heaven simply because there are more stimulation going on in there, even if that stimulation is burning and pain? Would hell then be the same as heaven after 20 billion years when every stimulus in both heaven and hell becomes nothing but numbness?

3. The same question can then be ask here as well, is it possible to conceptualize a hell that will actually feel different than heaven after the process of 20 billions years?

Spot on mate.

Heaven and hell are illogical constructions because they rely on the dichtonomy of bliss/suffering. Now these two concepts are interdependent (are defined in terms of each other, and each is understood as the opposite of the other), and having either in infinity implies the other is inexistent, yet the first is defined in relation the the latter, which being non-existent, makes the whole matter absurd.

It doesn't have to take billions of years. Once you remove one of the terms the other ceases to exist too, by logical necessity.

I've wondered the same thing, and never managed to figure out an answer.

Well... there's always Valhalla I suppose.

In my version of heaven I'm the only guy, with thousands upon thousands of hot model-like girls walking around naked and willing to do anything, and I have free beer for eternity and free food ... and pretty much impossible.
Althought it sounds pretty damned impossible, I bét that gets boring after a (pretty long) while. After a while, the titties start to look the same, the pussies feel the same, the beer starts to taste like water since you're so used to it. Doesn't that sound scaaaaary :P Having everything you ever dreamed of, and then it starts to get bóring. Yup, biggest hell there is :D

Althought it sounds pretty damned impossible, I bét that gets boring after a (pretty long) while. After a while, the titties start to look the same, the pussies feel the same, the beer starts to taste like water since you're so used to it. Doesn't that sound scaaaaary :P Having everything you ever dreamed of, and then it starts to get bóring. Yup, biggest hell there is :D

The downside of eternity, is that your body adapts to the sensations and you stop noticing it. I suppose if you got a daily memory wipe, everything would look fresh and new, but really, all you'll be getting is the same old, same old.

The Christian, Judaic and Islamic descriptions of hell aren't in the least pleasant. All that is explained about heaven is that it's constant praise and constant perfect servitude to this 'Almighty' dictator like figure whom we are supposed to love AND fear simultaneously.

Sounds like hell to me.

Ya, Hell doesn't sound like the place to go, but Heaven is. God is almighty, there's no reason for putting quotes around it, and to a truly God-fearing person, serving and worshiping him is perfect bliss. And as for the terminology behind using the word "fear," it's because fear in that sense is used as "respect." Thus the phrase "Love and fear him" is the same thing as saying "love and respect him."

And for anyone who doesn't believe something happens when we die, listen to this. If I die believing in Christ as my savior, I'll go to heaven, and if I'm wrong, I'll die happy.

God is all powerful. Just because your feeble mind finds contradictions in questions such as "Can god make a rock so heavy he can't move it?", or "how can eternal bliss work?" doesn't mean it is impossible.

God defies all logic. God defies all laws and boundaries. He can make eternal bliss, without sorrow as a reference point. How. Because he can. All powerful. Those 2 words say it all.

I'm actually an atheist and think the concept of heaven and an all powerful god is irrational, but if you believe in god, then there is no problem believing in heaven.

The Christian, Judaic and Islamic descriptions of hell aren't in the least pleasant. All that is explained about heaven is that it's constant praise and constant perfect servitude to this 'Almighty' dictator like figure whom we are supposed to love AND fear simultaneously.

Sounds like hell to me.

Judaism doesn't have a hell. It barely even has a heaven.

My version of the afterlife is the Necropolis. A place where one goes after they live and die. The problem with most afterlives is they require an eternity of one thing or another. People think paradise is a place of one eternity of happiness.... only... paradise is sensation. Constant sensation, not one sensation or another but contstant sesnsations. Pleasure and pain and hate and anger and love and fear without the bounds of mortality to inhibit them.

This is the best concept of a perfect afterlife one can find. Eventually you would have felt everything.. but think of this... if you go along time with one sensation or another. You will forget certain sensations and when you feel them again they'll feel brand new.

Hah. So I win. What do I get?

(1) Easy, you get to hang out with the world's most well-known narcissist.

(2a) Everyone is kind, nothing bad happens, AOL doesn't exist, and video games are both free and awesome.

(2b) Everyone's an ass, Fred Phelps makes all the decisions, AOL is the only ISP, and the only entertainment is near-identical Shaq Fu sequels....played on the N-Gage.

(3) Probably. Of course, this assumes that you stay in heaven/hell instead of being reincarnated....

1. How is the biblical version of heaven, or any version of heaven, a reward?

It's better than the alternative, ergo it's a reward. There is a clear differentiation between one and the other.

2. Instead of asking for the impossible, such as eternality, I challenge anyone of any religion (or no religion) to conceptualize an ideal heaven that can withstand say 10 billion years or so, without you going into complete madness and agony.

I don't conceptualise perfect, for as an imperfect person how can I? I don't envisage an absolute paradise, just a better, more perfected, existence in a realm nearer to the gods. You are trying to conceive of a quasi-immortal world with a mortal consciousness. Whatever happens when we die, whatever state of self may or may not exist, there is no way it's going to be like you as a living person, so your perception of things like time will be completely different.

Does that mean that all being who goes to heaven will eventually end up in hell due to the infiniteness of time?

No, because I don't believe in hell. In my view, you either get allowed to exist ("heaven") or you don't (end of). Ergo the two can't really be confused. There is actually more to it than that, but for simplicities sake I'll leave it at that otherwise we'll be here all night.

3. The same question can then be ask here as well, is it possible to conceptualize a hell that will actually feel different than heaven after the process of 20 billions years?

No, see above.

Yes this might seem like another religion topic, but this is a question that never made any sense to me. I have break the whole larger qestion into 3 smaller ones, followed by the mental debate that I been having over them. This is a topic of philosophy and not an atheism vs religion debate, so please don't turn this post into one.

1. How is the biblical version of heaven, or any version of heaven, a reward?

I ask this because it involve eternality, the infiniteness of time. I mean sure I can picture myself taking a week, or maybe 100 years of vacation in heaven or something. But when we look at 10 thousand years, 10 billion years, eternality, the concept of heaven becomes very diluted. How can one experience bliss through nothingness? How can bliss be everlasting without turning into numbness? How can human resist committing sin in the face of such numbness and boredom in the infiniteness of time?

2. Instead of asking for the impossible, such as eternality, I challenge anyone of any religion (or no religion) to conceptualize an ideal heaven that can withstand say 10 billion years or so, without you going into complete madness and agony.

Onto the concept of hell, which follows the same concept as heaven.


I think you should stop right there. You have a point, but you throw it away.

You start, quite rightly, by identifying a dualism (heaven and earth) and questioning whether one side of the dualism can be infinite, the other finite, and the dualism be valid. That is, with our experience of bliss which is dependent on circumstances, our experience of life based in CHANGE, are we equipped at all to ponder or bargain for a contrasting state: unconditional bliss, heaven?

I would say we are not. It IS a false dualism. Our experience and our human capacities do not equip us to build a full impression of what heaven is. We may as well say "when you die, you get a big party which is fun" for all our ability to imagine an eternity of bliss.

But you don't need to introduce the idea of hell. If anything, this weakens your enquiry: here is a more reputable dualism, that of heaven and hell. Furthermore, many of the people who might answer this question implicitly believe in heaven, but not in hell. Keep hell out of it, if you really want to question the idea of heaven.

Yes this might seem like another religion topic, but this is a question that never made any sense to me. I have break the whole larger qestion into 3 smaller ones, followed by the mental debate that I been having over them. This is a topic of philosophy and not an atheism vs religion debate, so please don't turn this post into one.

1. How is the biblical version of heaven, or any version of heaven, a reward?

I ask this because it involve eternality, the infiniteness of time. I mean sure I can picture myself taking a week, or maybe 100 years of vacation in heaven or something. But when we look at 10 thousand years, 10 billion years, eternality, the concept of heaven becomes very diluted. How can one experience bliss through nothingness? How can bliss be everlasting without turning into numbness? How can human resist committing sin in the face of such numbness and boredom in the infiniteness of time?

2. Instead of asking for the impossible, such as eternality, I challenge anyone of any religion (or no religion) to conceptualize an ideal heaven that can withstand say 10 billion years or so, without you going into complete madness and agony.

Onto the concept of hell, which follows the same concept as heaven.

Does that mean that all being who goes to heaven will eventually end up in hell due to the infiniteness of time? And when a living being exist for 10 billion years or so would hell actually become more enjoyable than heaven simply because there are more stimulation going on in there, even if that stimulation is burning and pain? Would hell then be the same as heaven after 20 billion years when every stimulus in both heaven and hell becomes nothing but numbness?

3. The same question can then be ask here as well, is it possible to conceptualize a hell that will actually feel different than heaven after the process of 20 billions years?

The afterlife is in your mind. At your moment of death, as perception of external stimuli and the passage of time fades, your perception of both internalizes. Time stretches and your remaining synaptic consciousness along with your subconscious take over your subjective reality, shaping it into a construct entirely of your own making. More specifically, your afterlife is exactly what you know you deserve and is constructed from your own life experiences. How long this lasts really depends on you. I suspect that to those with the 'resources' to do so may find that their last thoughts in this universe might just be the beginning of life in another.

As for me, I have high expectations for my afterlife. If you'd care to join me, I'm sure we could use a few more for mud football. :)

An ideal world where there is no hatred, suffering or conflict, and the people work together in peace and harmony to pursue knowledge, and occasionally party like rock stars.

Since people are constantly pursuing more and more knowledge, they'd never get bored. Without hatred, suffering, and conflict, there go most of the bad things in this world. The occasional party and relaxation means people don't burn out (though the lack of suffering helps too.) The best heaven is the one we make ourselves.

if these parties come without hangovers i'm not sure there's going to be much pursuit of knowledge going on.

People aren't ever taught about what heaven as a place is. They hear about heaven, though: "That'd be like heaven", "Your grandma went to heaven", etc. Is it any wonder that people like the OP have trouble formulating a concrete definition of heaven when the idea largely isn't even used that way? We don't have such a definition, and what's more - we don't need one!

My fiance tells me something very beautiful, and perhaps some of you have heard something similar, but he tells me, looking at me in the eye and caressing my cheeks that I am his Heaven. Isn´t that precious?:) So, to him, I fulfill the concept of heaven he has.

Spot on mate.

Heaven and hell are illogical constructions because they rely on the dichtonomy of bliss/suffering. Now these two concepts are interdependent (are defined in terms of each other, and each is understood as the opposite of the other), and having either in infinity implies the other is inexistent, yet the first is defined in relation the the latter, which being non-existent, makes the whole matter absurd.

It doesn't have to take billions of years. Once you remove one of the terms the other ceases to exist too, by logical necessity.

Well I figure since we did live in this world we can understand the concept of duality without it being present in the immediate moment. It's like saying I can be sitting in my quiet room now and still be able to conceptualize noise from past experience. Now granted it probably wouldn't take anywhere near 10 billion years but I just feel like using a number that seems very big to us but is nothing in relate to infinity.

Heaven's a place where I can finally stop thinking.

I think you should stop right there. You have a point, but you throw it away.

You start, quite rightly, by identifying a dualism (heaven and earth) and questioning whether one side of the dualism can be infinite, the other finite, and the dualism be valid. That is, with our experience of bliss which is dependent on circumstances, our experience of life based in CHANGE, are we equipped at all to ponder or bargain for a contrasting state: unconditional bliss, heaven?

I would say we are not. It IS a false dualism. Our experience and our human capacities do not equip us to build a full impression of what heaven is. We may as well say "when you die, you get a big party which is fun" for all our ability to imagine an eternity of bliss.

But you don't need to introduce the idea of hell. If anything, this weakens your enquiry: here is a more reputable dualism, that of heaven and hell. Furthermore, many of the people who might answer this question implicitly believe in heaven, but not in hell. Keep hell out of it, if you really want to question the idea of heaven.

What I was really aiming at is that no desires, even the most perfect heaven, can hold in the face of eternality. Any eternal consciousness will inevitably face the horror of every sensation growing dull in this universe. That is to say, even if we make up a heaven that retain the duality of this world, would that be enough to keep anyone from going into madness in the face of time?

Then again since I made the title "the concept of heaven" rather than "the horror of eternal life", I agree that the hell part should be taken out. Though it would seem that it's a bit too late to do so.

My version of the afterlife is the Necropolis. A place where one goes after they live and die. The problem with most afterlives is they require an eternity of one thing or another. People think paradise is a place of one eternity of happiness.... only... paradise is sensation. Constant sensation, not one sensation or another but contstant sesnsations. Pleasure and pain and hate and anger and love and fear without the bounds of mortality to inhibit them.

This is the best concept of a perfect afterlife one can find. Eventually you would have felt everything.. but think of this... if you go along time with one sensation or another. You will forget certain sensations and when you feel them again they'll feel brand new.

Hah. So I win. What do I get?

So the only workable heaven is one which people forgets? Would that make reincarnation the greatest form of eternal heaven since you got to start brand new and experience everything all over again?

Yes this might seem like another religion topic, but this is a question that never made any sense to me. I have break the whole larger qestion into 3 smaller ones, followed by the mental debate that I been having over them. This is a topic of philosophy and not an atheism vs religion debate, so please don't turn this post into one.

1. How is the biblical version of heaven, or any version of heaven, a reward?

I ask this because it involve eternality, the infiniteness of time. I mean sure I can picture myself taking a week, or maybe 100 years of vacation in heaven or something. But when we look at 10 thousand years, 10 billion years, eternality, the concept of heaven becomes very diluted. How can one experience bliss through nothingness? How can bliss be everlasting without turning into numbness? How can human resist committing sin in the face of such numbness and boredom in the infiniteness of time?

2. Instead of asking for the impossible, such as eternality, I challenge anyone of any religion (or no religion) to conceptualize an ideal heaven that can withstand say 10 billion years or so, without you going into complete madness and agony.

Onto the concept of hell, which follows the same concept as heaven.

Does that mean that all being who goes to heaven will eventually end up in hell due to the infiniteness of time? And when a living being exist for 10 billion years or so would hell actually become more enjoyable than heaven simply because there are more stimulation going on in there, even if that stimulation is burning and pain? Would hell then be the same as heaven after 20 billion years when every stimulus in both heaven and hell becomes nothing but numbness?

3. The same question can then be ask here as well, is it possible to conceptualize a hell that will actually feel different than heaven after the process of 20 billions years?

i like these questions, and i like their being asked of people.

what i see a heavin as, is a kind of rest and relaxation vacation between tangable material lives. there may be other possibilities of course. and the question of what would keep people from turning any place into a hell for each other is good one too. one at the very heart of the matter. for if we can conceive of a way for people to do that, we could do so right here on this earth. and i really and sincerely belive that we can.

what is heaving to me, begins with what is gratification, real gratification, and for me that means creating and exploring, the abscence of any sort of manufactured obsticals to doing so. like building codes or keep out signs.

of course it also means a degree of ease and comfort, but ease and comfort without isolation from the simulation of endless diversity. and above all, without causing harm to that diversity, or suffering to each other.

heavin and hell could very well be the same 'place', differing in the eyes of its beholders entirely on the basis of thier own natures and inclinations.

knowledge is of course limited to science, but existence is by no means limited to knowledge.

how would people keep from turning an heavin, any heavin into a hell for each other. well there would just about have to be no fanatics, chauvanism, belligerance, aggressiveness, or prejudice of any kind, at least as far as people are concerned. i think there would also have to be a lot of perceived space, where no one would ever have to run into, or deal with anyone, any time they weren't up for feeling like doing so.

my heavin is like a parallel universe, where forest and mountains go on in all directions for ever. there may even be a few cities scattered about, but no one is compelled by anything to live in them. indeed no one is compelled by any incentive outside of themselves, to do or not do anything. no pain and no neccessities of survival.

the one rule is don't hurt each other and clean up your mess. like the note on the kindergarten wall.

i think the one other thing, other then the presence of what i enjoy without it harming the environment, everything being considerate of everything else in that reguard, yet creative and imaginative at the same time, would be for each and every one of us, to have the same god-like ability we have in our dreams, to play leggo blox with the very substance of its universe.

to be able to build wild sculptural constructions, simply by thinking and imagining them. to live in them. to even appear like them to each other.

another thing we all need to understand about any such place, is that the awairnessess there, would be from all over this, and perhapse many other, entire universe, not just one planet earth orbiting one sun in one solar system, but uncountable gabillions of worlds, each with the people of them looking entirely different from the people of each and every other one of them.

to me that would be wonderful BECAUSE it would be so wild. and speaking of wild, of course the forests would not be dead silent and empty either, but everyplace there would be small furry creatures of every kind. and again, not just the kinds known to any one world.

i don't think anyone would be able to stay there for ever, but i do think, that everyone would be more or less imortal as long as they were there.

it would be, is, after all, only a rest stop, between other forms of existence, but then again, it could, might be, one where one COULD stay as long as one might like, just as long, as they didn't knowingly and intentionally make it less pleasant, for anyone else.

how that would be delt with, i see as the miscreants themselves getting tired of it, and going to stand on the lines of those waiting to be born, physically and tangably, onto any one of those billions of tangable material worlds, such as our own earth in our own present universe.

everyone, in short, would see it, as the heavin or hell, their own inclinations and behaviour would otherwise make of it, for each other.

=^^=
.../\...

1. How is the biblical version of heaven, or any version of heaven, a reward?

I ask this because it involve eternality, the infiniteness of time.


As St.Agustin stated when asked about "what was before the Universe": time is a property of the Universe (or of the Creation) itself. It has no meaning without the Universe; since the biblical version of heaven is outside the Universe/Creation, "eternity" isn't "infinite amount of time" here: it's "no time".
By the way, confront St.Agustin's notion with the concept of Minkovskij's space-time.


2. Instead of asking for the impossible, such as eternality, I challenge anyone of any religion (or no religion) to conceptualize an ideal heaven that can withstand say 10 billion years or so, without you going into complete madness and agony.
Onto the concept of hell, which follows the same concept as heaven.

3. The same question can then be ask here as well, is it possible to conceptualize a hell that will actually feel different than heaven after the process of 20 billions years?

See above: or, if you want a really puzzling answer, ask the Jesuites - they're real geniuses when it comes to such questions.

God is all powerful. Just because your feeble mind finds contradictions in questions such as "Can god make a rock so heavy he can't move it?", or "how can eternal bliss work?" doesn't mean it is impossible.

God defies all logic. God defies all laws and boundaries. He can make eternal bliss, without sorrow as a reference point. How. Because he can. All powerful. Those 2 words say it all.

I'm actually an atheist and think the concept of heaven and an all powerful god is irrational, but if you believe in god, then there is no problem believing in heaven.

Atheist? You? When did you convert?

Well I figure since we did live in this world we can understand the concept of duality without it being present in the immediate moment. It's like saying I can be sitting in my quiet room now and still be able to conceptualize noise from past experience. Now granted it probably wouldn't take anywhere near 10 billion years but I just feel like using a number that seems very big to us but is nothing in relate to infinity.

Presumably an infinity of one sensation would completely erase any conception of the other from your mind, instantly, otherwise it is not infinite. If you get my meaning.

Also, my conception of heaven is that it simply does not exist. It has no reason to. There is absolutely no indication that there is an afterlife, but there is plenty evidence to the contrary. Death is death, and it is a necessity of life. We should embrace it as such and live our lives knowing that they are finite, and it is precisely that that makes life scarce and precious. Meta-physical escapism is life-denying.

Humans, believe it or not, are highly unintelligent. We know so little and trying to understand what we don't know - and are not yet meant to know - is just a waste of time.

Sure, by nature we are curious and yearn for knowledge, but our knowledge is restricted to within our physical universe, anything beyond that is out of our control. It doesn't matter whether you're Stephen Hawkings or the Pope, this is one thing that will always remain mostly an unknown :headbang:

I don't believe that heaven and anything Godly consists in our physical realm, nor obeys the laws of our universe, therefore we cannot apply human logic towards it to try and understand it. It's a matter of faith, not science, though it is fun to try and apply science to it :)

The concept of heaven as an eternal drug high does sound more like hell. If there is a God who is capable of creating a suitable environment for human souls then heaven is surely nothing like that.

It is perfect memory and not eternity that would be boring. If you experienced everything you have done in the past just as vividly now as back when you did it then it would be pointless to do something you have already done once. After eating ice cream probably over a thousand times I still like ice cream and think I always will. With perfect memory on the other hand there would be no more new pleasure from ice cream after trying all flavors. It would take less than a lifetime to be bored to death.

If you go through eternity with your current memory capacity I doubt you could remember what you did 10 billion years ago. If you eat too much ice cream and become bored of it there are other kinds of food to eat until your memory has faded enough to make ice cream enjoyable again, which I bet would take less than 10 years.

Besides God is not locked into our universe and space time. Our universe is a book God reads, the reader exists outside of the timeline in the book. So perhaps heaven is outside of time too.

Our universe is a book God reads

which raises interesting questions about:

1.has that book already entirely written, or hasn't it?
2.who (insert here the proper time and aspect of "write") that book?
3.are they necessarily the same person? (of course, they are from the christian point of view, but the difference between a demiourgos and a kybernetes might apply, eheheh)

Humans, believe it or not, are highly unintelligent. We know so little and trying to understand what we don't know - and are not yet meant to know - is just a waste of time.

Meh. I just want to congratulate you on making your ZERO-eth post.

:eek:

which raises interesting questions about:

1.has that book already entirely written, or hasn't it?
Both yes and no and that is the point of the book analogy. The universe seems like a finished book to God who is everywhere, including everywhere in our timeline and outside our timeline at the same time. But for the characters in the book only the story so far has been written since we only exist in the present moment.
2.who (insert here the proper time and aspect of "write") that book?
Everyone writes their own part of the tale.

Atheist? You? When did you convert?

I've been an atheist as long as I can remember. You may be mistaking me for someone else.

I am well read on the more common religions, and have a very leftist, compassionate view point, but that's a personal belief system, with no religion underpinning it. I've always been strongly atheist on this forum. :confused:

Yes this might seem like another religion topic, but this is a question that never made any sense to me. I have break the whole larger qestion into 3 smaller ones, followed by the mental debate that I been having over them. This is a topic of philosophy and not an atheism vs religion debate, so please don't turn this post into one.

1. How is the biblical version of heaven, or any version of heaven, a reward?

I ask this because it involve eternality, the infiniteness of time. I mean sure I can picture myself taking a week, or maybe 100 years of vacation in heaven or something. But when we look at 10 thousand years, 10 billion years, eternality, the concept of heaven becomes very diluted. How can one experience bliss through nothingness? How can bliss be everlasting without turning into numbness? How can human resist committing sin in the face of such numbness and boredom in the infiniteness of time?

2. Instead of asking for the impossible, such as eternality, I challenge anyone of any religion (or no religion) to conceptualize an ideal heaven that can withstand say 10 billion years or so, without you going into complete madness and agony.

Onto the concept of hell, which follows the same concept as heaven.

Does that mean that all being who goes to heaven will eventually end up in hell due to the infiniteness of time? And when a living being exist for 10 billion years or so would hell actually become more enjoyable than heaven simply because there are more stimulation going on in there, even if that stimulation is burning and pain? Would hell then be the same as heaven after 20 billion years when every stimulus in both heaven and hell becomes nothing but numbness?

3. The same question can then be ask here as well, is it possible to conceptualize a hell that will actually feel different than heaven after the process of 20 billions years?

I've had the same questions. The idea of the apparently stagnant afterlife was a cause for concern in my mind during my Catholic days.

What I have since learned is that in Heaven, the opportunity exists to continue learning, developing and growing for all time. One need never remain stagnant. THAT is what I call a reward.

1. How is the biblical version of heaven, or any version of heaven, a reward?

I ask this because it involve eternality, the infiniteness of time. I mean sure I can picture myself taking a week, or maybe 100 years of vacation in heaven or something. But when we look at 10 thousand years, 10 billion years, eternality, the concept of heaven becomes very diluted. How can one experience bliss through nothingness? How can bliss be everlasting without turning into numbness? How can human resist committing sin in the face of such numbness and boredom in the infiniteness of time?

2. Instead of asking for the impossible, such as eternality, I challenge anyone of any religion (or no religion) to conceptualize an ideal heaven that can withstand say 10 billion years or so, without you going into complete madness and agony.

Onto the concept of hell, which follows the same concept as heaven.

Does that mean that all being who goes to heaven will eventually end up in hell due to the infiniteness of time? And when a living being exist for 10 billion years or so would hell actually become more enjoyable than heaven simply because there are more stimulation going on in there, even if that stimulation is burning and pain? Would hell then be the same as heaven after 20 billion years when every stimulus in both heaven and hell becomes nothing but numbness?

3. The same question can then be ask here as well, is it possible to conceptualize a hell that will actually feel different than heaven after the process of 20 billions years?

Why would you think heaven would be a vacation? In the bible, it says that it will be paradise...but there will be the forming of the new heaven and new earth. And we will all have roles, jobs if you like.
And if we're talking of becoming eternal beings, then wouldn't we be outside of time? Since eternity is outside of time?
I honestly don't know if there will be the temptation to sin in heaven. I would be saying no, because the bible indicates that our salvation becomes complete in heaven, meaning we become the true image of God.
And with hell, again i think its outside of time. The biblical hell involves fire and sulfur and burning. I think being burned alive is probably the worst death I could think up. Could you get used to being burned alive after a few billion years? Or do you think it would be designed so that you would never again know anything but pain? Sorry.....thats gruesome....

The biblical hell involves fire and sulfur and burning. I think being burned alive is probably the worst death I could think up. Could you get used to being burned alive after a few billion years? Or do you think it would be designed so that you would never again know anything but pain? Sorry.....thats gruesome....

Indeed, makes you wonder why an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, god would allow it?

That such a person would spend his time creating a world where people have to make the choice between loving Him or heading down to sulfur land is amazing.

Sounds the personification of evil to me.

Indeed, makes you wonder why an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, god would allow it?

That such a person would spend his time creating a world where people have to make the choice between loving Him or heading down to sulfur land is amazing.

Sounds the personification of evil to me.

except that it was never created for mankind....
But if we were to be judged to perfection based purely on our own virtue, then you think we'd deserve anything less than hell? perhaps God isn't offering an ultimatum, but offering grace...

except that it was never created for mankind....
But if we were to be judged to perfection based purely on our own virtue, then you think we'd deserve anything less than hell?

Yeah, because certainly, a reasonable punishment for imperfection is horrible unending cruelty and torture. Oh yeah, that's proportionate....

perhaps God isn't offering an ultimatum, but offering grace...

Yeah, that conditional grace, where forgiveness is evidently only possible if you symbolically wash yourself in the blood of an innocent torture volunteer...yeah, that's real grace.

I once met a guy who was able to forgive people without anybody having to be brutally killed to appease the need for human blood sacrifice. He just forgave for its own sake, accepted that people were imperfect, didn't want any pain or suffering for or from anybody. What a weirdo.

Both yes and no and that is the point of the book analogy. The universe seems like a finished book to God who is everywhere, including everywhere in our timeline and outside our timeline at the same time. But for the characters in the book only the story so far has been written since we only exist in the present moment.

Everyone writes their own part of the tale.

Sort of like "Choose Your Own Adventure", but only God gets to go in the Cave of Time.

I've had the same questions. The idea of the apparently stagnant afterlife was a cause for concern in my mind during my Catholic days.

What I have since learned is that in Heaven, the opportunity exists to continue learning, developing and growing for all time. One need never remain stagnant. THAT is what I call a reward.

NOT having to endure stagnation is a REWARD?

I was thinking it would be something more positive than that. Something definitively better, an experience NOT comparable to mortal experience.

My image of death is one of lack. I can define what it is NOT.

==========

except that it was never created for mankind....
But if we were to be judged to perfection based purely on our own virtue, then you think we'd deserve anything less than hell? perhaps God isn't offering an ultimatum, but offering grace...

Oh, great. Grace: no matter how much good you do, no matter how perfectly you live, you owe it all to God.

I just want to rot. I want to no longer be. I want my body to be food for worms, and the worms food for birds. A heaven defined as "lack of bad things" I count as already my due when I finally fuck up and fail to continue living.

except that it was never created for mankind....
But if we were to be judged to perfection based purely on our own virtue, then you think we'd deserve anything less than hell? perhaps God isn't offering an ultimatum, but offering grace...

Ah, so it's like a PS3, where it's not created for the characters in the game but for the kid playing it - except the consequences are a little more real of course?

I guess reincarnation is merely respawning then.

Ah, so it's like a PS3, where it's not created for the characters in the game but for the kid playing it - except the consequences are a little more real of course?

I guess reincarnation is merely respawning then.

Except for one little problem.

God's ex-girlfriend, this total freak of a bitch named Kayla, one of those girls that could be pretty if she didn't talk like she was trying to bite her own face and if her personality wasn't pretty much exactly like that really acidy puke that makes your teeth all gritty, and sort of makes the back of your nose burn, well, she had way too much weed and some kind of mexican beer that wasn't XX's, and wasn't Corono, I don't know what it was, but she had too much, and she threw God's PS3 across the room at this other girl who pissed her off about something, I don't remember, its hard to understand anything that **** says anyway.

Anyway, God is really bad at breaking up with girls, so he reincarnated her as another girl who was less of a turbobitch.

Anyway, God is really bad at breaking up with girls, so he reincarnated her as another girl who was less of a turbobitch.

That's reassuring. Even if I was omnipotent and omniscient, I'd still be really bad at breaking up with girls. :)

That's reassuring. Even if I was omnipotent and omniscient, I'd still be really bad at breaking up with girls. :)

Yeah...God is particularly hobbled in the matter, as he can't use the old "Its not you, its me" line.

Yeah...God is particularly hobbled in the matter, as he can't use the old "Its not you, its me" line.

"It's not you, baby, and it's not me. It's Satan, clutching at your heart-strings!"
"Satan? I hate that fucker. You should kick his arse!"
"Yeah, but I'm wuss."
"You're dumped. I'm gonna call Satan, right now!" *dials*