What is Heaven like?
I want to know what I’ll be missing while I languish in eternal torment. I’m really curious. Because I’ve never seen a description which makes it sound like any place I would want to be (especially for eternity).
- Does everyone like you there? Do you like everyone else? That’s hard to imagine, since there are perfectly nice, virtuous people on earth who nevertheless are completely boring and/or annoying, and I can’t imagine why you would suddenly want to hang out with them. Especially since, in heaven, you would think you would finally be free of all the boring/annoying people you had to deal with on Earth.
- If you get brain-damaged on Earth, do you get your mental faculties back in Heaven?
- Do you get your dead pets back? If so, does that mean they have souls?
- What if you really loved someone who didn’t make it? How could you really enjoy Heaven if the ones you cared most about couldn’t be there? That seems like a kind of torment.
- Do you get to talk to Jesus much? Seems like he would be really popular and incredibly busy. Maybe he could be everywhere at once so we could all hang out with Jesus all the time, but then you would never have anything to talk to him about, because he would already know about it, because he was there.
- Is it possible to commit a sin once there? Is it possible to even contemplate sinning? If not, does that mean that God’s precious gift of free will was only temporary?
- Do you have a physical sense of self? Arms, legs etc? Can you eat? Eating’s a pretty fabulous thing, it would seem pretty crummy if we couldn’t do it any more. If you can eat there, does that mean you would shit as well?
- Like eating, sex is a pretty big deal here on Earth, would there be sex in heaven? Between heterosexual married couples only? Could you get married in heaven?
- What about sleep? That’s nice too. I would miss it if I couldn’t sleep.
- Are there property rights in heaven? Would you stake a claim in a particular spot? Would a spot be allocated for you?
Pets don’t have souls, and loved ones (including pets) who don’t make whose absence would cause you grief are just wiped from your memory. That seems to be the official explanation.
And desiring sex (even heterosexual married sex) makes you sinful, so if you wanted it in the afterlife you wouldn’t end up in Heaven anyway~
My guess is that you get turned into one of those very “Christian” people who tell us that they (and god) love everyone equally and fully, and who completely annoy and bore the rest of us to tears – “one of us”.
That sounds like hell to me.
It seems like the solution to most of these questions is massive amounts of selective memory manipulation, to the point where you have the intellectual capacity of a small child.
One of my favorite descriptions/parables for the Jewish “afterlife” goes something like this:
If you are good, when you die you will find yourself studying Torah all day. If you are bad, when you die…you will find yourself studying Torah all day. :P
“Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.”
– Mark Twain, a Biography
Well obviously sex is allowed. Why else would you be granted 72 virgins?
Ahem JR, but why do you think virgins are in such plentiful supply? If you get 72 virgins then I’m guessing there’s some sort of rule about de-virgining… might be like being given a box of “Quality Street Chocolates” no-one seriously expects you to eat them [or even like them].
I bet at Christmas time in heaven everyone’s opening their pressies and going “Oh virgins… thanks… no really, they’re great… I was almost out and they are so nice to just have around the house… no socks then?
who wants virgins? i want experienced hussies!
Well obviously, it being heaven and all, they’re magic, experienced, chocolate, pure wool virgins that the god of your choice turns out from a factory (farm? plantation?) somewhere in a non-residential backlot of paradise!
No self or sense of self. Exact oblivion or everything at once… there’d be no marking a difference. Great truths are those whose opposites are also true.