If we are inclined to pick our favorite mythological afterlife then I’ll choose hell.
I sorta agree but if you’ve ever had a drop of burning sulphur fall on your skin it’s attractions pale a little. But as heaven would be as boring as hell (well, you know what I mean) I am almost glad the issue won’t arise. (Actually if you compare the Biblical description of heaven to the Paradise of the Koran there is no doubt dead Muslims get a much better deal than dead Christians, almost as good as dead Vikings).
Anyway, I think the best thing about death is that from them on everything becomes someone else’s problem to sort out. Can hardly wait.
[ Edited: 29 September 2011 09:17 AM by keithprosser2 ]
22:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.
22:30 For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.
I think that implies there are no angel-angel relationships in heaven. As an angel your job is to praise and glorify god, and that’s it. For ever. That’s billions and billions of years of doing nothing except worshipping god with psalms and harps.
I also think it doesn’t make sense to say God just erases your memory of your unsaved loved ones when you get to heaven. Can you erase a memory of a person when he or she is so interconnected with your other memories? The memories you had left wouldn’t make sense. They would have unexplainable gaps. For example, how could you remember a conversation over coffee with three friends if one friend is left out?
i guess a large part of the answer to the question “are there tears in heaven” starts with exactly what you expect heaven to be.
If you look at the facts as recorded, Satan wasn’t the only angel to fall; he brought a full THIRD of the angels with him. So it seems that dissension most definitely exists in the heavenly realms. The ancient jewish texts state the angels rebelled twice; once for pride, and once for lust. The bible states unequivocally that angels are “higher beings” than humans. If “higher beings” rebelled twice, what’s to say that we won’t do the same? Or will we become “stepford people?” As long as free will is involved, there will always be arguments, factions, and politics ... and yes, rebellion.
Remember that god is omniscient, when god created satan, he had to know EXACTLY what he was creating, and what his creation would do. (If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be very omniscient.)
However, if one desires to create a fabric, one needs both a warp and a woof. Polar opposites are a requisite for testing free will. If anything, god and satan seem to be working together. Then there’s always the book of job. i believe they made a movie about that called “trading places” with eddie murphy. it’s a wonderful movie, as well as a perfect demonstration of how two very powerful beings make a $1 bet in order to test several people – just for the hell of it. (pardon the pun).
The word “alien” simply describes a life-form that is not of this earth. In that respect, god, angels, fallen angels, demons, and ETs; all fit in the same box. Everything is in the minutiae, the tiny little details that are included – those are really what lend credence to many of the things that i’ve studied. especially when the minutiae describe well-known and easily recognizable details through the eyes of a 21st century being.
The God of the bible is not omniscient: “Yaweh (God) is wise but not omniscient and makes use of councilors (1 Kings 22:20-23; Isa. 6:3; Jer. 23:18; Ps. 82:1; 98:5; Job 1:6; etc.) and intelligence services to spy on the subjects in order to ascertain their loyalty (Job 1-2; Zech. 3; 1 Chron 21; etc.)” Jaco Gericke in Can God Exist if Yahweh Doesn’t ?
I wonder if you are religious, and your wife (and one true love) is an atheist, and if you get into heaven and your wife doesn’t, whether you spend eternity crying in heaven because you miss your wife?
1. I am religious and my wife is an atheist. We are both religious atheists.
2. If there is a heaven, I presume that everyone will get into it. If heaven is a natural state of affairs, there is no reason that I can see why one’s beliefs should make any difference in its attainment. If heaven is by the will of a god, a loving god would not deny it to his/her children for a sincere but incorrect belief. I don’t accept the assumptions theists make, even about their own fantasies.
3. Since I cannot know what life in heaven would be like, I cannot know whether people in heaven would miss anyone.
I also think it doesn’t make sense to say God just erases your memory of your unsaved loved ones when you get to heaven. Can you erase a memory of a person when he or she is so interconnected with your other memories? The memories you had left wouldn’t make sense. They would have unexplainable gaps. For example, how could you remember a conversation over coffee with three friends if one friend is left out?
Actually it does make sense that god would erase temporary memories and return you back into pure energy. A blank canvas for a new soul. Of course, this would not require a god at all.
Actually it does make sense that god would erase temporary memories and return you back into pure energy.
Why does God bother to have us live all? Why not just make angels off the bat? As far as I can tell, life is a sort of ‘quality control’ test for souls.
It made more sense in the old days when God was concerned with earthly things like famine and droughts and who conquered and enslaved who. In OT times, your life on earth was the important thing because death was the end of you. Moses did not believe in eternal souls. It was only much later (I’d say inter-testamentary times) when the originally very un-Judaic idea of resurrection was imported and subsequently found its way into Christianity that life was relegated to a preliminary test before the main event. As it is, it is hard to think why God bothers having souls go through a ‘life before death’ phase at all.
I wonder if you are religious, and your wife (and one true love) is an atheist, and if you get into heaven and your wife doesn’t, whether you spend eternity crying in heaven because you miss your wife?
1. I am religious and my wife is an atheist. We are both religious atheists.
2. If there is a heaven, I presume that everyone will get into it. If heaven is a natural state of affairs, there is no reason that I can see why one’s beliefs should make any difference in its attainment. If heaven is by the will of a god, a loving god would not deny it to his/her children for a sincere but incorrect belief. I don’t accept the assumptions theists make, even about their own fantasies.
3. Since I cannot know what life in heaven would be like, I cannot know whether people in heaven would miss anyone.
It’s not really a theological problem. The bible says our memories will be erased of our earthly lives:
The Bible makes two general statements in this regard.
The first is in Isaiah 65:17 which reads,
“Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.”
And the second is the one from Rev. 21:4,
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.
The point is most believers aren’t aware that the bible teaches their memories will be erased after they die.
I wonder if you are religious, and your wife (and one true love) is an atheist, and if you get into heaven and your wife doesn’t, whether you spend eternity crying in heaven because you miss your wife?
I would, and I’d miss my mistress and my dog. Not to mention all the other pleasures I had on earth.
What is there to do in heaven?
See Mark Twain’s “Captain Stromfield goes to Heaven”
[ Edited: 01 October 2011 09:23 AM by garythehuman ]
On the other hand, there are universalist Christians who point to verses like Luke 3:6 (And all flesh will see God’s salvation) and argue there is no hell.
