Is Heaven subjective?

[jcook922]

Just a question I wanted to pose on anybody believing in the afterlife, Christian or not. What is your picture of heaven in your head?

I started to think about this after encountering someones description of heaven involving the loss of your mortal memories and just a sort of natural high, a state of bliss.

... Truth be told, I don't want that. I'm terrified of losing my memories, if anything, I would just want to continue to live life, get a fresh start of sorts. Who knows, maybe life on earth is just the first in many different tiers of a shared existence we call life, with multiple facets or reincarnations. Just a musing, everyone elses thoughts? (Got tired of all the damn homosexuality versus <Blank> threads, and figured this could be refreshing)

Rules of this thread: No bashing of eachothers beliefs or morals, no politics or ethics debates, just intelligent discussion out of interest for the opinions of others. Period.

 

[Spherical Time]

Is Heaven subjective? Not according to the big fantasy book . . .

Right now, my idea of Christian heaven is a golden cubical city in which billions of souls live without fear or pain but also without understanding of hope of happiness. They feel the presence of someone else so strongly that they can't identify with themselves and this leaves everything that they were stripped away. They're "loved" but not respected and the love is vague. They're loved as a group but not as an individual because what made them an individual is considered unworthy.

And in the middle, so bright that you can't look on it, is a throne from which nothing in the living world can been seen or heard.

 

[Verv]

Heaven will be established after judgment day. Heaven will be a place where we live where God rules the land and all people will clearly follow His Laws and live in a state of happiness for all of eternity, satisfied to be in His Presence and enjoying His Creation and His Gifts.

We will retain all of our memories. I do no tknow if we will have bodies like we do now in any sense.

I believe that the desire to sin will have been taken away from us and a degree of semi-omniscience will be given to us in the sense that we will be able to understand others and thus have no desire to quarrel or do other petty things.

It is described much as a city or a Kingdom over which God presides.

Is Heaven subjective? Not according to the big fantasy book . . .

Uhh, so why don't all Christians agree about exactly what heaven is?

 

[Spherical Time]

Uhh, so why don't all Christians agree about exactly what heaven is?

All True Christians do agree. So anyone who disagrees with a True Christian should be cast out and reviled.

2 Peter 1:20-21

(Wow, that was easy! I wonder if I can win a "talk like a True Christian" prize!)

 

[keith99]

Just a question I wanted to pose on anybody believing in the afterlife, Christian or not. What is your picture of heaven in your head?

I started to think about this after encountering someones description of heaven involving the loss of your mortal memories and just a sort of natural high, a state of bliss.

... Truth be told, I don't want that. I'm terrified of losing my memories, if anything, I would just want to continue to live life, get a fresh start of sorts. Who knows, maybe life on earth is just the first in many different tiers of a shared existence we call life, with multiple facets or reincarnations. Just a musing, everyone elses thoughts? (Got tired of all the damn homosexuality versus <Blank> threads, and figured this could be refreshing)

Rules of this thread: No bashing of eachothers beliefs or morals, no politics or ethics debates, just intelligent discussion out of interest for the opinions of others. Period.

Since I don't believe in Heaven I'll make some points about memories. Scripture and other sources seem to contradict themselfs about 'what is remembered'. My take on this is that you can remember things without calling them to mind. For many this would be a huge blessing. You don't forget the bad times or things that happened, but neither are you haunted by them.

Some wise men think any description man can make of heaven falls short. That Heaven includes good things beyond our experience.

 

[stan1980]

It doesn't really make much sense to me when someone says in heaven you will no longer have your memory... if you haven't got your memory, or you physical body, then what part of you exactly is really in heaven? I suppose someone will start talking about their soul and all that sort of mumbo jumbo, but it just gets sillier and sillier the more you hear someone speak about it.

 

[allhart]

It doesn't really make much sense to me when someone says in heaven you will no longer have your memory... if you haven't got your memory, or you physical body, then what part of you exactly is really in heaven? I suppose someone will start talking about their soul and all that sort of mumbo jumbo, but it just gets sillier and sillier the more you hear someone speak about it.

To love God with all your heart ,mind and strength in which equals your soul. I can't see in tangible evidence of your heart /felt, mind /thought or natural/ strength, but I can see the fruit of it? Can you see wind?, but you can see the effect of it... You may see to come to some understanding ,but not completely compered it all.

 

[jcook922]

To love God with all your heart ,mind and strength in which equals your soul. I can't see in tangible evidence of your heart /felt, mind /thought or natural/ strength, but I can see the fruit of it? Can you see wind?, but you can see the effect of it... You may see to come to some understanding ,but not completely compered it all.

I think the point was, for all that effort in your mortal lifetime to get into heaven your personality, which could be argued is YOU, "dies" when you lose all of your memories.

 

[stan1980]

I think the point was, for all that effort in your mortal lifetime to get into heaven your personality, which could be argued is YOU, "dies" when you lose all of your memories.

Yep, well put.

I believe when you die, you die, the lights go out and you have nothing to miss. If someone is telling me you lose all your memories and personality when you get to heaven anyway, then they're effectively saying the same thing as far as I'm concerned. Whatever it is that is in heaven isn't you anyway, something completely different.

 

[GeorgeWW]

Good question.
You all have some interesting thoughts.

For my money:

God is love (1 John 4:8,16) Therefore, being in the presence of God is being in the presence of pure love, which we don't experience while here on earth. I am definitely excited about this one!

God is light (John 1:4-9; Revelation 1:16) Therefore, being in the presence of God
is pure light. And since men love darkness better than light because their deeds are evil (John 3:19) in the presence of pure light, there will be no evil. And their will be no more night because of the light of the Lord God (Revelation 22:5)

In Heaven, "there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." (Revelation 21:4) We now live in the old order of things, so it is not possible to completely understand heaven.

But from what I read, I prefer it to hell and I prefer it to living on earth. I have found so much of the Bible to be true for my life. I have every reason to believe that what I do understand about heaven will also be true.

 

[Funny Fundie]

To love God with all your heart ,mind and strength in which equals your soul. I can't see in tangible evidence of your heart /felt, mind /thought or natural/ strength, but I can see the fruit of it? Can you see wind?, but you can see the effect of it... You may see to come to some understanding ,but not completely compered it all.

An excellent point, allhart, especially the part about seeing the effect of wind, even if the wind itself remains invisible.

 

[HighwayMan]

I don't think we'll forget our memories, but we will be freed from the negative aspects of life that hold us down.

As for what heaven is...yes, I suppose in a way it will be subjective, though I don't think such words will matter. The only thing I can say for certain I think is that it will be better than the best possible thing anyone can imagine - which is kind of the point of calling it "heaven", I think.

 

[Verv]

It doesn't really make much sense to me when someone says in heaven you will no longer have your memory... if you haven't got your memory, or you physical body, then what part of you exactly is really in heaven? I suppose someone will start talking about their soul and all that sort of mumbo jumbo, but it just gets sillier and sillier the more you hear someone speak about it.

Yeah, people do go off the deepend with their speculation.

It really isn't my place to speculate but I offer up a little bit of what I think could be there.

I appreciate your healthy cynicism on all the ways people make up these details.

 

[Oneofthediaspora]

In answer to th question in the title of the thread ... No. I think it will be much less subjective than this life. It will be the ultimate reality compared to which this life is a hazy dream.
Rather than losing personality (is there a scriptural basis for this?) we will be more truly ourselves.
We will be in some way "feasted" and there will pleasure compared with which our earthly pleasures would pale into insignificance.
We will have glory.
We will be in the prescence of God; which is basically what all the above things allude to.
In this prescence the aching desire will be fulfilled.

I don't think anyone could possibly describe properly how good it must be.


For more on this subject try C.S. Lewis' essay "The Weight of Glory".

YNWA
Mike.

 

[cantata]

In this prescence the aching desire will be fulfilled.

This is interesting actually.

I have been reading about neo-Freudian interpretations of universal sin. Freud saw everyone as having a sex drive and a death drive. The libido drives man (I use Freud's sexist language reluctantly) to desire sexual fulfilment through others, rather than desiring the others themselves. The sex drive leads to the death drive because he is so frustrated by his inability to fulfil his repressed libido that he desires his own annihilation.

I like the idea of salvation as freedom from desire.

 

[Oneofthediaspora]

Me too.
I don't mean the sexual desire particularly or exclusively though.
BTW I think Freud is rubbish, but then again he was a materialist, so what can you expect? ;-)

I'm talking more about the desire that some theologians call immortal longing (I think, you'd know better). This can have a sexual catalyst but it's certainly not satisfied by any amount of sex.

 

[tanzanos]

Since everything boils down to energy and energy transforms to matter matter transforms to energy, and energy cannot be destroyed. Then true death cannot exist.

Thus one cannot die and go to heaven. One simply ceases to exist as a sentient mass of matter in its combined form and is eventually reverted to its basic chemical and elemental state.

Now if the soul exists then it must be energy; and at the quantum level this energy must be confined within the universe and must belong to one of the 4 energy states. (gravity, nuclear (strong and weak), and electromagnetism. Which is the soul? Take your pick!

Democritus was right when he said "Nothing exists except atoms and the void"

 

[Oneofthediaspora]

I think Plato would have disagreed with Democritus there then.

 

[stan1980]

In answer to th question in the title of the thread ... No. I think it will be much less subjective than this life. It will be the ultimate reality compared to which this life is a hazy dream.
Rather than losing personality (is there a scriptural basis for this?) we will be more truly ourselves.
We will be in some way "feasted" and there will pleasure compared with which our earthly pleasures would pale into insignificance.
We will have glory.
We will be in the prescence of God; which is basically what all the above things allude to.
In this prescence the aching desire will be fulfilled.

I don't think anyone could possibly describe properly how good it must be.


For more on this subject try C.S. Lewis' essay "The Weight of Glory".

YNWA
Mike.

The problem I have with this, with the greatest respect, is it sounds like you've just made all of this up from thin air (or perhaps with a few prods from somewhere), it's no more than fantasy.

 

[Oneofthediaspora]

It would take a good 5000 word essay to begin to do it justice with the scriptural references and references to the works of theologians.
So, yeah, it's a bit cr*p; but in my defense I post here whilst waiting for my next patient to arrive.

For a much better treatment of what mainstream Christianity has to say on the matter, I'd have to point you in the direction of my superiors.
The essay I mentioned is not a bad start.
After that you try some of the writings of the mystics, St. John of the Cross, Catherine of Siena etc. These are people who claimed to have experienced some degree of unity with God whilst still mortal. Lots has been writtent about their experiences.
"Unity with God" is basically what heaven is. What this means in reality is what I suppose you are asking and I am not equipped to tell you.

YNWA
Mike.