I just don’t understand why they feel they have to flaunt their religion. Like, we get it, you worship a zombie-corpse God and you really, really dont understand the concept of eternity but you don’t have to make it your whole personality.
As a Christian, I don’t believe the Bible because I agree with it and like it. I believe in it because I’m convinced it’s true. Kinda sounds like to me “pro vaccine are so hateful! Saying if I don’t take the vaccine I’ll get sick and die!”
Genuine question. What convinces you that Bible is true? And among Abrahamic religions, why is this particular book true? Why do you accept “update” to Torah (that is, the Christian Bible), but not “update” to the Christian Bible (Quran)? Or do I miss the point?
Glad you asked! I’ll start with the Torah. One of the central purposes of Judaism was and is waiting for the Messiah. It even makes its way into modern day Judaism. The likes of Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 are clearly about Jesus of Nazareth. The records we have about Jesus consistently show to Him being perfect, doing miracles, being a good teacher, claiming to be the messiah and even God, and then He was crucified in the most humiliating way, died, and was buried. But on the third day He rose again from the dead and was seen by quite a few, who were so convinced they ended up entering a world of persecution and difficulty, many died. Because they refused to renounce that they had seen Him risen.
As historical records go- the Bible is pretty comprehensive for records of its time. Most other people we know about have their records dating to hundreds of years after their existence. Jesus’ records were written within the lifetime of people who would have known Him. And they’re pretty consistent, unlike legends which rapidly evolve with time. The Bible has been pretty much the same. Give or take some less important passages, though.
Now, there are a load of problems with Islam and the Qur’an, but I’ll keep it concise to how the Qur’an disproves itself. The Qur’an makes these points:
The Gospel is the word of allah: 3:3-4
No one can change allah’s words: 18:27
Strongly implies that the Christians had the Gospel when the Qur’an was written: 7:157
Christians should judge by the Gospel: 5:47
The Qur’an also denies the death of Jesus and His divinity, which the Bible claims. So it’s in obvious contradiction. So judging by the Gospel, Islam is false. And the Gospel cannot be corrupted as the Qur’an recommends the Gospel and claims allah’s words cannot be corrupted.
Paul also gives us this warning:
Galatians 1:8
But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.
Considering the Qur’an apparently was revealed to Mohammed by an “angel”… Yeah…
Also possible that a good dude who preached love and kindness went into a coma when the tyrants put him on a cross, and then woke up a few days later, with no involvement whatsoever from the creator.
So you’re suggesting a guy who was ruthlessly beaten and crucified , then stabbed in the side revealing that his lung had collapsed, simply recovered after two nights in a tomb and pushed a boulder out of the way, without the armed guards noticing? And who were the dudes just chilling there? And how do you explain the ascension into heaven?
Pretty much. Also, we tend to accept facts like “Julius Caesar was born in Subaru” when our only source is some guy said that 200 years after he was born. So in terms of Historical records, the New Testament is actually pretty contemporary, being written mere decades after Jesus existed. My faith primarily hinges on Jesus’ and the New Testament
So ain’t that the reason to doubt that Caesar was born in Subaru and seek more evidence, as opposed to believe the New Testament? Also, given the supernatural claims about Jesus, shouldn’t it be supplied with extraordinary evidence?
We know for sure that Caesar did exist and was the Roman dictator, for example. We also have contemporary sources on his life - accounts of Cicero, for example, or Sallust.
Can we say for sure that Jesus did exist, and, especially important, has actually created any miracles?
And also, what about evidence for the existence of Buddha, for example? Did he never exist or he never attained nirvana, or he falsely believed he switched to some supernatural state while this was all mental? Or did it all exist in parralel?
There were several sources for Jesus doing miracles - not just the ones contained in the New Testament, but Celsus as well as the Talmud affirmed the miracles, but just put them down as sorcery.
What sort of extraordinary evidence are you looking for, exactly? Jesus didn’t lead an army or a nation so you’d be hard pressed to find coins with His face on them. He did leave a Church though which there is evidence from, and that it just spawned at a specific period of time. So something clearly happened
As for Buddha, Buddha is dead. Buddha didn’t even claim to be a god or a prophet. Buddhism appears to be more of a philosophy than a theistic religion.
They proselytize because of a prophecy, that has already been fulfilled. The prophecy said that once there were Christians world wide, Christ would return. Since they don’t recognize the guy that fit the bill, they assume that prophecy hasn’t been fulfilled, and they need more Christians everywhere.
It basically caused the 7th Day Adventists, and The Jehovah’s Witnesses to be founded. Funny thing was they got the year right, and then completely missed everything else.
The Báb and Baha’u’llah were born directly descended from David, and declared their missions in 1844 and 1863 respectively, having never actually met each other, but The Báb specifically named Baha’u’llah as his successor just before taking three regiments worth of lead to the face, for the second time that month.
There’s this spook in their religion that says everyone who’s not them will get tortured forever in hell so save as many as you can, but even the ones who don’t quite buy that aspect still have its lingering relative of “well if you’re gonna be a casual you ought to at least let them know how great it is”
“I love you more than you can understand, but I will use my unlimited cosmic power to hide from you, and I will never interact with you or help nudge all the diverging religions in the right direction. The fate of your immortal soul, your worth as a human being, and your relationship with me will depend on whether you think I exist and kiss my ass despite me using my aforementioned unlimited cosmic power to hide my very existence from you.”
Many humans: ooh I love a good mystery!
It’s like the ultimate rich deadbeat dad who you never get to see. The Elon Musk of the supernatural world, if you will.
Now, if you could step round all the Buddhists, Muslims etc. trying to appeal their fate because they “dedicated their lives to helping starving children” and “there’s no way we could have know ln about you” or whatever. Yeah, you should have thought about that before you became a sinner shouldn’t you! Yeah, thats what i thought…
No, no, I don’t care what you did. So long as you’re really sorry for not being perfect,
Like me
, acept me as your God and are willing to worship me forever and ever and ever, you can come right on in. Turns out, ultimately, I don’t care about good or bad that much. I want people who will worship me and tell me I’m good and kind, unlike like those disgusting sinners I’m torturing forever.
I mean, Christianity is the largest religion and varying properties and various concepts of a Jesus has infiltrated basically every main religion apart from Judaism. Which is a pretty big nudge. Anytime God does show Himself, people come up with all sorts of excuses not to believe. You also need to realise while God is infinitely merciful, He’s also infinitely just.
A question for you would be: how would you balance that out? Being infinitely merciful and infinitely just?
I don’t consider “a dude might have existed 2000 years ago and built an enduring reputation” to be very compelling. Especially not while living in a world where everybody around me has instant access to the whole of human knowledge and yet so many stay disconnected from reality.
I mean if he wanted to, he could materialize in front of every single one of us like Doctor Manhattan to give us reassurance and a taste of being in the presence of his light. He knows what each of us needs in order to be brought into the faith. Yet, he presents us with a world indistinguishable from one where he doesn’t exist, and he has gifted us with these incredible conscious intelligent minds, and his main rule of existence is that we don’t use that intelligence to explore the world he’s given us and instead rely on some ancient translated and edited texts.
The infinitely merciful and infinitely just thing seems to me like a simple logical contradiction along the lines of asking whether God can create a stone so big that he himself cannot lift it. Isn’t the whole point of showing mercy that you let somebody off the hook instead of making them submit to what would otherwise be just?
If God were to act like a door-to-door salesman, when would he show up? “Oh, I haven’t believed yet because he hasn’t shown up yet”. He showed up once for all. You say He gives us a world indistinguishable from one where He doesn’t exist- but this doesn’t make sense either and isn’t even scientific. What do you think the difference in the world would be? Also again, the vast majority of people on earth have heard about Jesus. It’s hardly an obscure secret.
He gives us free will and respects our decision.
Mercy isn’t the opposite of justice. Unjust is when you let people get away with things. God has mercy on those who are truly repentant and trust in His sacrifice as their salvation.
Good works aren’t exceptional. To do good is what’s expected of us. So when we do something wrong, we can’t undo it. A good driver is someone who follows all of the rules. If you go through a red stoplight, you can’t make it up by stopping at three more. Our sin required the perfect and infinite sacrifice - which is God Himself.
Sure. If you’ll indulge me, its best explained by a kind of story.
Say you got into heaven and you think “ok, I always wanted to play golf while I was alive.” So, you play golf every day for 10,000 years. Afterwhich, you can play an 18 hole game in 18 shots, one handed. Then you think "well, I always wanted to learn the piano. So you learn the piano for a million years. Afterwhich you can play every song ever written, perfectly, by heart and with your feet. Then you think “ok, well I always wanted to learn lots of things.” So, you read everything ever written. More so, you learn every language ever, so you can read everything ever written, in its original language. This keeps you occupied for a billion years (and I’m being very generous there).
Now, maybe not the first, maybe not the second or third but, by the 7th or 8th hundred, thousand billion septillion years, you might start getting a little bit bored. By the 9th, existence will be indistinguishable from hell and you still won’t be even 0.00000000000001% of the way through eternity.
So, you go to God and ask “hey, I’ve done everything ever. Time means nothing to me. Any amount I spend on something, I can always spend infinitely more on something else. Anything I do, I master. Whats the point? I don’t understand.”
God then replies, its not that you don’t understand. Its that you finally understand the meaning of heaven and now you’re able to accept your own death.
The other alternative is that its eternal worship of God which would be hell. Some claim God’s godness will make that all not true. However, the you that would be ok with eternity would be so far removed from you that it wouldn’t be you at all but something else entirely.
thank u for explaining that was a really good read!!! i agree that eternity in heaven would be psychological torture after a while and at least in hell you have the simulation of being burnt
As an ex-Christian I find it amusing that you chose to explain via parable. :)
However, I think there are some flaws to your story. You seem to assume that Heaven would be like getting permanently sealed into your own personal holodeck, alone, no contact with anyone but the entity that put you there, the computer loaded with complete records of everything that had existed up to the moment of your death but never updated beyond that. It’s all so very static. Of course you would eventually go mad; what you’re describing is just a more comfortable version of solitary confinement!
It’s also not how Heaven was described to me when I still went to church. Some claimed we would all be sitting on clouds singing praise songs, forever experiencing a state of mindless ecstasy. (Which doesn’t sound like much of an improvement.) Others claimed the Bible says we will be rulers in Heaven, and how can you be a ruler without something to rule over? (That seemed a little better, but I also don’t really want to be some kind of king imposing my will on others.)
The most appealing concept of Heaven I’ve encountered so far is the one portrayed in the Housepets! comic. It’s just another place, but one where everyone has agency and security and has been healed of whatever traumas ailed them in life. They are free to build, create, share, and grow as they like. You can still fuck off and become a hermit if you really want to, but most people choose to hang out in a big city. Some have jobs but there is no money or material needs; they work because they enjoy it or because they believe it’s worth doing. One of the characters even chose to open a free massage parlor because they like helping people relax and wanted more opportunities to do that. And the mortal world still exists, so there are always new people to meet and new stories to read (or write!)
I could maybe spend eternity in a place like that. And if I had to change to make eternal existence possible, well, I’m not the same person I was five years ago and I have no desire to still be the same person five years in the future. I think if Heaven did exist, then Purgatory must also. Not as a place of punishment, but of healing. This world will crush your soul, and even the purest of saints (perhaps especially the purest of saints) carries too much pain and trauma with them for any place they exist to be a paradise. I think you’re right that in order to be okay with eternity we would need to be changed into something unlike our current selves.
Sorry this got so long and rambley. I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what kind of hypothetical afterlife could possibly make this all worth it.
Oh, don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of time to catch up and hang out with whoever you like. In fact, you could spend at million years with everyone who ever existed, individually, and you would still have plenty of time left over…
because its eternity
Then what?
I didn’t mention all the things a person could do but that wasn’t meant to indicate that they couldn’t do other things with their time as, ultimately, they would end up at the same place. Please feel free to swap them out with anything you like.
Fair enough but neither of those match what bible says. It just says heaven is “where gods praise is eternal” which is pretty ominous, if taken literally.
If heaven existed, there’s no reason the presume purgatory must also exist. Especially as purgatory was just made up by medieval monks looking from a new revenue stream. There’s no purgatory mentioned in the bible and only one ruler in heaven.
To me, the version of us that would be ok with eternity would be so far removed from us as to make the line “you will go the heaven” a lie.
Mostly, people find problems with it as they can’t yet fully let go of eternalism.
I’m aware that Purgatory isn’t scriptural, and the community I was raised in believed a lot of stuff that wasn’t found in the Bible. (It’s one of the reasons I left.)
The point I was trying to make there is not “What is Heaven according to scripture?” I was speculating what heaven would need to be for me to consider it a paradise. And the answer I came to is that no place can be a paradise as long as I’m in it. Not because I think I’m a bad person, but because I have so much trauma and other mental baggage that I would be bringing with me. I would be too suspicious of a place with nothing bad in it to be able to enjoy it. I would unintentionally hurt those around me because of the pain I’m in. And those people would hurt me, and each other, because how many people actually manage to reach a state of complete emotional health before they die? No one is ready for paradise.
There would need to be a place and a time for healing the traumas of life before we could enter any kind of heaven. For this I borrowed the name Purgatory, because it seems to me a similar concept. And maybe the person who emerged from such a place would be so different that you couldn’t really say they were me anymore, but I think I’m okay with that. I don’t want to stay the person I am now; I want to become something better.
I guess that doesn’t have much to do with your original point about people not understanding eternity, other than being in agreement that it wouldn’t be a fun thing for humanity as we know it.
I just don’t understand why they feel they have to flaunt their religion. Like, we get it, you worship a zombie-corpse God and you really, really dont understand the concept of eternity but you don’t have to make it your whole personality.
Xians are so friendly especially the part where they believe that I am going to suffer for eternity in a lake of fire.
Feel the love.
No hate like Christian love.
As a Christian, I don’t believe the Bible because I agree with it and like it. I believe in it because I’m convinced it’s true. Kinda sounds like to me “pro vaccine are so hateful! Saying if I don’t take the vaccine I’ll get sick and die!”
Genuine question. What convinces you that Bible is true? And among Abrahamic religions, why is this particular book true? Why do you accept “update” to Torah (that is, the Christian Bible), but not “update” to the Christian Bible (Quran)? Or do I miss the point?
Glad you asked! I’ll start with the Torah. One of the central purposes of Judaism was and is waiting for the Messiah. It even makes its way into modern day Judaism. The likes of Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 are clearly about Jesus of Nazareth. The records we have about Jesus consistently show to Him being perfect, doing miracles, being a good teacher, claiming to be the messiah and even God, and then He was crucified in the most humiliating way, died, and was buried. But on the third day He rose again from the dead and was seen by quite a few, who were so convinced they ended up entering a world of persecution and difficulty, many died. Because they refused to renounce that they had seen Him risen.
As historical records go- the Bible is pretty comprehensive for records of its time. Most other people we know about have their records dating to hundreds of years after their existence. Jesus’ records were written within the lifetime of people who would have known Him. And they’re pretty consistent, unlike legends which rapidly evolve with time. The Bible has been pretty much the same. Give or take some less important passages, though.
Now, there are a load of problems with Islam and the Qur’an, but I’ll keep it concise to how the Qur’an disproves itself. The Qur’an makes these points: The Gospel is the word of allah: 3:3-4 No one can change allah’s words: 18:27 Strongly implies that the Christians had the Gospel when the Qur’an was written: 7:157 Christians should judge by the Gospel: 5:47
The Qur’an also denies the death of Jesus and His divinity, which the Bible claims. So it’s in obvious contradiction. So judging by the Gospel, Islam is false. And the Gospel cannot be corrupted as the Qur’an recommends the Gospel and claims allah’s words cannot be corrupted.
Paul also gives us this warning: Galatians 1:8
Considering the Qur’an apparently was revealed to Mohammed by an “angel”… Yeah…
The Islamic dilemma explained in a YouTube video
I hope this makes sense
Also possible that a good dude who preached love and kindness went into a coma when the tyrants put him on a cross, and then woke up a few days later, with no involvement whatsoever from the creator.
So you’re suggesting a guy who was ruthlessly beaten and crucified , then stabbed in the side revealing that his lung had collapsed, simply recovered after two nights in a tomb and pushed a boulder out of the way, without the armed guards noticing? And who were the dudes just chilling there? And how do you explain the ascension into heaven?
It is possible, but I’m not buying it
That’s fair, and you’re entitled to believe what you like.
My faith tells me that the possible (though unlikely) set of events must be true, as the alternative is impossible and just as unlikely.
How is it impossible?
Interesting - will read more about that Quran contradiction. Thanks!
Also, to clarify, the reason you believe that Bible holds actual historical value is that, unlike legends and stories, it is more or less consistent?
Pretty much. Also, we tend to accept facts like “Julius Caesar was born in Subaru” when our only source is some guy said that 200 years after he was born. So in terms of Historical records, the New Testament is actually pretty contemporary, being written mere decades after Jesus existed. My faith primarily hinges on Jesus’ and the New Testament
So ain’t that the reason to doubt that Caesar was born in Subaru and seek more evidence, as opposed to believe the New Testament? Also, given the supernatural claims about Jesus, shouldn’t it be supplied with extraordinary evidence?
We know for sure that Caesar did exist and was the Roman dictator, for example. We also have contemporary sources on his life - accounts of Cicero, for example, or Sallust.
Can we say for sure that Jesus did exist, and, especially important, has actually created any miracles?
And also, what about evidence for the existence of Buddha, for example? Did he never exist or he never attained nirvana, or he falsely believed he switched to some supernatural state while this was all mental? Or did it all exist in parralel?
There were several sources for Jesus doing miracles - not just the ones contained in the New Testament, but Celsus as well as the Talmud affirmed the miracles, but just put them down as sorcery.
What sort of extraordinary evidence are you looking for, exactly? Jesus didn’t lead an army or a nation so you’d be hard pressed to find coins with His face on them. He did leave a Church though which there is evidence from, and that it just spawned at a specific period of time. So something clearly happened
As for Buddha, Buddha is dead. Buddha didn’t even claim to be a god or a prophet. Buddhism appears to be more of a philosophy than a theistic religion.
“2000 year old goat herder fairytales are more real to me than consistently tested and verified modern scientific findings”
And what do modern scientific findings say?
Here is a very brief summary…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science
Nothing in that article about Christianity
Shocker.
So how is it relevant?
One of these things is not like the other…
They proselytize because of a prophecy, that has already been fulfilled. The prophecy said that once there were Christians world wide, Christ would return. Since they don’t recognize the guy that fit the bill, they assume that prophecy hasn’t been fulfilled, and they need more Christians everywhere.
It basically caused the 7th Day Adventists, and The Jehovah’s Witnesses to be founded. Funny thing was they got the year right, and then completely missed everything else.
Wait who’s the guy who fit the bill???
The Báb and Baha’u’llah were born directly descended from David, and declared their missions in 1844 and 1863 respectively, having never actually met each other, but The Báb specifically named Baha’u’llah as his successor just before taking three regiments worth of lead to the face, for the second time that month.
Fed up of all their “holy days” every year. When is it unholy day?
when i find my first weed dealer im celebrating that as my unholy day lmao
Every day because we’re all sinful
There’s this spook in their religion that says everyone who’s not them will get tortured forever in hell so save as many as you can, but even the ones who don’t quite buy that aspect still have its lingering relative of “well if you’re gonna be a casual you ought to at least let them know how great it is”
“Worship me as a god or ill have you tortured for all eternity.”
Christians: yep, I see no problem with this. Its definitely not an abusive relationship.
“I love you more than you can understand, but I will use my unlimited cosmic power to hide from you, and I will never interact with you or help nudge all the diverging religions in the right direction. The fate of your immortal soul, your worth as a human being, and your relationship with me will depend on whether you think I exist and kiss my ass despite me using my aforementioned unlimited cosmic power to hide my very existence from you.”
Many humans: ooh I love a good mystery!
It’s like the ultimate rich deadbeat dad who you never get to see. The Elon Musk of the supernatural world, if you will.
You know!
Now, if you could step round all the Buddhists, Muslims etc. trying to appeal their fate because they “dedicated their lives to helping starving children” and “there’s no way we could have know ln about you” or whatever. Yeah, you should have thought about that before you became a sinner shouldn’t you! Yeah, thats what i thought…
No, no, I don’t care what you did. So long as you’re really sorry for not being perfect,
Like me
, acept me as your God and are willing to worship me forever and ever and ever, you can come right on in. Turns out, ultimately, I don’t care about good or bad that much. I want people who will worship me and tell me I’m good and kind, unlike like those disgusting sinners I’m torturing forever.
Funny how God seems so much like a shitty human ruler personality, but combined with the ultimate power fantasy. Gee I wonder how that happened.
I mean, Christianity is the largest religion and varying properties and various concepts of a Jesus has infiltrated basically every main religion apart from Judaism. Which is a pretty big nudge. Anytime God does show Himself, people come up with all sorts of excuses not to believe. You also need to realise while God is infinitely merciful, He’s also infinitely just.
A question for you would be: how would you balance that out? Being infinitely merciful and infinitely just?
I don’t consider “a dude might have existed 2000 years ago and built an enduring reputation” to be very compelling. Especially not while living in a world where everybody around me has instant access to the whole of human knowledge and yet so many stay disconnected from reality.
I mean if he wanted to, he could materialize in front of every single one of us like Doctor Manhattan to give us reassurance and a taste of being in the presence of his light. He knows what each of us needs in order to be brought into the faith. Yet, he presents us with a world indistinguishable from one where he doesn’t exist, and he has gifted us with these incredible conscious intelligent minds, and his main rule of existence is that we don’t use that intelligence to explore the world he’s given us and instead rely on some ancient translated and edited texts.
The infinitely merciful and infinitely just thing seems to me like a simple logical contradiction along the lines of asking whether God can create a stone so big that he himself cannot lift it. Isn’t the whole point of showing mercy that you let somebody off the hook instead of making them submit to what would otherwise be just?
If God were to act like a door-to-door salesman, when would he show up? “Oh, I haven’t believed yet because he hasn’t shown up yet”. He showed up once for all. You say He gives us a world indistinguishable from one where He doesn’t exist- but this doesn’t make sense either and isn’t even scientific. What do you think the difference in the world would be? Also again, the vast majority of people on earth have heard about Jesus. It’s hardly an obscure secret.
He gives us free will and respects our decision.
Mercy isn’t the opposite of justice. Unjust is when you let people get away with things. God has mercy on those who are truly repentant and trust in His sacrifice as their salvation.
Good works aren’t exceptional. To do good is what’s expected of us. So when we do something wrong, we can’t undo it. A good driver is someone who follows all of the rules. If you go through a red stoplight, you can’t make it up by stopping at three more. Our sin required the perfect and infinite sacrifice - which is God Himself.
What do you mean when you say that God has shown himself?
Jesus.
🤨
Is Jesus in the room with you right now?
https://youtu.be/CZZOaXkLGMY
can you explain?
Sure. If you’ll indulge me, its best explained by a kind of story.
Say you got into heaven and you think “ok, I always wanted to play golf while I was alive.” So, you play golf every day for 10,000 years. Afterwhich, you can play an 18 hole game in 18 shots, one handed. Then you think "well, I always wanted to learn the piano. So you learn the piano for a million years. Afterwhich you can play every song ever written, perfectly, by heart and with your feet. Then you think “ok, well I always wanted to learn lots of things.” So, you read everything ever written. More so, you learn every language ever, so you can read everything ever written, in its original language. This keeps you occupied for a billion years (and I’m being very generous there).
Now, maybe not the first, maybe not the second or third but, by the 7th or 8th hundred, thousand billion septillion years, you might start getting a little bit bored. By the 9th, existence will be indistinguishable from hell and you still won’t be even 0.00000000000001% of the way through eternity.
So, you go to God and ask “hey, I’ve done everything ever. Time means nothing to me. Any amount I spend on something, I can always spend infinitely more on something else. Anything I do, I master. Whats the point? I don’t understand.”
God then replies, its not that you don’t understand. Its that you finally understand the meaning of heaven and now you’re able to accept your own death.
The other alternative is that its eternal worship of God which would be hell. Some claim God’s godness will make that all not true. However, the you that would be ok with eternity would be so far removed from you that it wouldn’t be you at all but something else entirely.
I hope i explained that well enough.
thank u for explaining that was a really good read!!! i agree that eternity in heaven would be psychological torture after a while and at least in hell you have the simulation of being burnt
As an ex-Christian I find it amusing that you chose to explain via parable. :)
However, I think there are some flaws to your story. You seem to assume that Heaven would be like getting permanently sealed into your own personal holodeck, alone, no contact with anyone but the entity that put you there, the computer loaded with complete records of everything that had existed up to the moment of your death but never updated beyond that. It’s all so very static. Of course you would eventually go mad; what you’re describing is just a more comfortable version of solitary confinement!
It’s also not how Heaven was described to me when I still went to church. Some claimed we would all be sitting on clouds singing praise songs, forever experiencing a state of mindless ecstasy. (Which doesn’t sound like much of an improvement.) Others claimed the Bible says we will be rulers in Heaven, and how can you be a ruler without something to rule over? (That seemed a little better, but I also don’t really want to be some kind of king imposing my will on others.)
The most appealing concept of Heaven I’ve encountered so far is the one portrayed in the Housepets! comic. It’s just another place, but one where everyone has agency and security and has been healed of whatever traumas ailed them in life. They are free to build, create, share, and grow as they like. You can still fuck off and become a hermit if you really want to, but most people choose to hang out in a big city. Some have jobs but there is no money or material needs; they work because they enjoy it or because they believe it’s worth doing. One of the characters even chose to open a free massage parlor because they like helping people relax and wanted more opportunities to do that. And the mortal world still exists, so there are always new people to meet and new stories to read (or write!)
I could maybe spend eternity in a place like that. And if I had to change to make eternal existence possible, well, I’m not the same person I was five years ago and I have no desire to still be the same person five years in the future. I think if Heaven did exist, then Purgatory must also. Not as a place of punishment, but of healing. This world will crush your soul, and even the purest of saints (perhaps especially the purest of saints) carries too much pain and trauma with them for any place they exist to be a paradise. I think you’re right that in order to be okay with eternity we would need to be changed into something unlike our current selves.
Sorry this got so long and rambley. I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what kind of hypothetical afterlife could possibly make this all worth it.
Ha, yeah, the format did feel very fitting.
Oh, don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of time to catch up and hang out with whoever you like. In fact, you could spend at million years with everyone who ever existed, individually, and you would still have plenty of time left over…
because its eternity
Then what?
I didn’t mention all the things a person could do but that wasn’t meant to indicate that they couldn’t do other things with their time as, ultimately, they would end up at the same place. Please feel free to swap them out with anything you like.
Fair enough but neither of those match what bible says. It just says heaven is “where gods praise is eternal” which is pretty ominous, if taken literally.
If heaven existed, there’s no reason the presume purgatory must also exist. Especially as purgatory was just made up by medieval monks looking from a new revenue stream. There’s no purgatory mentioned in the bible and only one ruler in heaven.
To me, the version of us that would be ok with eternity would be so far removed from us as to make the line “you will go the heaven” a lie.
Mostly, people find problems with it as they can’t yet fully let go of eternalism.
I’m aware that Purgatory isn’t scriptural, and the community I was raised in believed a lot of stuff that wasn’t found in the Bible. (It’s one of the reasons I left.)
The point I was trying to make there is not “What is Heaven according to scripture?” I was speculating what heaven would need to be for me to consider it a paradise. And the answer I came to is that no place can be a paradise as long as I’m in it. Not because I think I’m a bad person, but because I have so much trauma and other mental baggage that I would be bringing with me. I would be too suspicious of a place with nothing bad in it to be able to enjoy it. I would unintentionally hurt those around me because of the pain I’m in. And those people would hurt me, and each other, because how many people actually manage to reach a state of complete emotional health before they die? No one is ready for paradise.
There would need to be a place and a time for healing the traumas of life before we could enter any kind of heaven. For this I borrowed the name Purgatory, because it seems to me a similar concept. And maybe the person who emerged from such a place would be so different that you couldn’t really say they were me anymore, but I think I’m okay with that. I don’t want to stay the person I am now; I want to become something better.
I guess that doesn’t have much to do with your original point about people not understanding eternity, other than being in agreement that it wouldn’t be a fun thing for humanity as we know it.