I know alot of people avoid thees posts about GOD and Heaven but I just want to know peoples oppions about heaven.Do you belive there is a heaven and if you do what do you think its like?
LOL! Your God, according to your *Holy* books, is essentially a narcissistic kid who wants ever one to worship him, while he uses humans like lab rats. He torments people to eternal damnation for being *created* in a different social-economic environment. He intentionally throws people in to hell for the fun of it. He doesn't give you a choice in when and where you were born so you can be raised in the *correct* Christian environment.
I don't understand how you guys can say there's nothing left after life . What do you think everything will turn black for eternity and you'll just be sitting there ? I just don't get it ....
You know when you fall asleep at night or on a long car ride? Your brain is off there *minus your cerebellum that makes sure your heart keeps beating* You fall asleep and drift into unconsciousness.
I belive and KNOW there is a heaven. It whll be so magnificence that it will be uncomprehinsive do our minds.
Prove it. People used to think they knew heaven was in the clouds. Now that we can fly, poeple change what they "know". Thats how riligion survives. By making up stories then changing it.
Ill start , I do believe in heaven and the bible says that there are streets of gold and there is no sin whatsoever.
How do you know?
I KNOW there is no heaven.
Again how do you know.
We can say in all likely hood there is no heaven. So a more accurate way to put it would be to say there probability is not heaven.
Why is it probable there is not heaven?
Well first off we need a soul. We don't have any evidence a soul exists and even if it does we don't have a clear definition to work from. Second we can look at the way the human body functions and what happens to to it after death. How will we experience heaven? We have no eyes to see, nervous system to feel, sent glads to smell, ear drums to hear. The processes of our brain have stopped so it wouldn't be like a dream creating a hallucination in our brains, and no brain to interpret the data even if we had all these things.
Let's just say for a moment there is a heaven and hell. How is this a fair system? Some get tortured for all eternity while others are living in bliss for all eternity. What happens if one of your loved ones goes to hell? Can you really sit in your bliss forever knowing a person you care about is suffering unimaginable pain?
Let's just say for a moment there is a heaven and hell. How is this a fair system? Some get tortured for all eternity while others are living in bliss for all eternity. What happens if one of your loved ones goes to hell? Can you really sit in your bliss forever knowing a person you care about is suffering unimaginable pain?
First of all, I am an atheist, so I also don't believe in heaven. But I do love to explain things (even things I don't agree with), so here it goes: In order for Heaven to be HEAVEN, it would have to be perfect. Nothing on Earth is perfect; the most we can do is imagine the concept of perfection. You are placing Earthly attributes onto heaven. Our bodies (and therefore nervous system, brain, etc) are not perfect, and have no place in heaven. You would not need anything of that natre in heaven. As for your other point, heaven wouldn't be perrfect without loved ones, right? So, therefore, your loved ones make it to heaven if you do. They might actually go to hell, but you would still experiance them in heaven. Everything needed to make heaven perfect would exist there. Therefore, I imagine that there is no set definition of what heaven actually is because we have no idea what perfection is here on earth. Therefore, we don't really know what we want until we get there. All we can know is that there is better than here.
I agree with 90% of AKNerd's points, just that there's also the philosophy that everyone has a different interpretation of perfection, so heaven would also have to adjust to everyones' tastes. With this in mind, what if someone had the opposite tastes...? For example the guy is a masochist, so he enjoys pain and other peoples' pain and HE makes it into heaven for being a believer. Philosophy being true, his perfection would be pain everywhere he looks, in order to satisfy his tastes, even though Heaven is all characterized as a utopian paragon of bliss and happiness.
I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. In order for heaven to be perfect, you don't have to make it to heaven for me to see you there (assuming you were necesarry for perfection). I don't need to know about what is really going on (unless that is necesarry for perfection...), so therefore I can think I'm hurting people without people actually being hurt. I guess the best way to put it would be you are the only person who actually exists outside of what heaven created to please you. And even then, you might not. For instance, after entering heaven, you might be recreated in such that YOU conform to heaven, instead of the other way around. In which case, there would not be masochists in heaven. So problem solved. The thing about perfection is that by definition there cannot be problems with it. As freakenstein pointed out, this creates paradoxes. But the concept of heaven is self-correcting, so paradoxes would not be "allowed" to exist.
I don't need to know about what is really going on (unless that is necesarry for perfection...)
So you think if heaven was real it would basically be a delusional state for the most part?
The thing about perfection is that by definition there cannot be problems with it. As freakenstein pointed out, this creates paradoxes. But the concept of heaven is self-correcting, so paradoxes would not be "allowed" to exist.
We can say in all likely hood there is no heaven. So a more accurate way to put it would be to say there probability is not heaven.
By that logic we can not say that anything does not exist, only thats its unlikely to exit. Stories about heaven have been around for 2000+ years, if thats not enough time to show some evidence, I don't know why you should use 'unlikely to exist'.
Our bodies (and therefore nervous system, brain, etc) are not perfect, and have no place in heaven.
By that logic, we also do not belong in heaven in our entirety, as no part of us is perfect.
By that logic we can not say that anything does not exist, only thats its unlikely to exit.
Yes, exactly. We can't with 100% certainty say anything doesn't exist. We can only go with whats most likely based on the evidence. Since we have no evidence for heaven then it's reasonable to assume it doesn't exist.
By that logic, we also do not belong in heaven in our entirety, as no part of us is perfect.
Good point. For use to exist in heaven being perfect we would have to be fundamentally changed. This also goes for the whole sin thing. No sin in heaven according to religions such as Christianity we all have sin. So how do we remain ourselves and lose aspects of ourselves that make us, us?
By that logic, we also do not belong in heaven in our entirety, as no part of us is perfect
Heaven would not be perfect if we were not allowed to exist in it. However, we don't have to exist as we are here on Earth. Which brings me to:
So how do we remain ourselves and lose aspects of ourselves that make us, us?
An excellent question! For you are absolutely right; no one is perfect. And that imperfection is part of who we are, right? And I mean that in more than a physical way; our very way of thinking is flawed. To answer this, I'm going to have to reference the book WE, by Zamyatin (that's probably spelled wrong...). It has pretty much the same plot as 1984. Except the dytopian society in We is brainwashed and lobotimized to think that they are always happy, even though their society is horrible. Anyway, point is they have to lose part of themselves (in this case, a lobe of their brain) to be happy, just like we would have to lose something to experiance the perfection of heaven. And in both cases, we don't know what we are missing (or that we were ever different) because we no longer have that level of self-awareness. I honestly can't imagine how heaven would work without fundamentaly changing people.
Anyway seeing as this has been just a bunch of atheists hypothesizing on things we don't even believe exists in the first place, would any theists care to shed some light on any of these questions?
