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Post by trentt on Aug 1, 2015 15:46:44 GMT 2
I am a closet atheist, but I do believe there's a lot more to life and reality than what we know or perceive.
My mom keeps telling me about a book she's reading describing Heaven. I treat her opinions with respect, but to me it sounds horrible. She stresses that there's no sex, but lots of banquets and gold and constant socialization. To me this would be Hell.
When my sister was in her final days, she tried to convince my brother to accept Christ as his Lord and Savior by telling him "I want to spend Eternity with you." I loved my sister, but Eternity with her didn't sound like Heaven either.
What do you think?
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Post by happytraveller on Aug 1, 2015 16:44:28 GMT 2
I guess i will find out. Not much point for me speculating about it as we simply don't know, no one has ever come back  |
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Post by OnlyMark on Aug 1, 2015 17:38:43 GMT 2
What do I think?
I think there is no heaven.
There is no hell.
There is no God.
There is no devil.
Chocolate exists and has been proven. So does ice cream. Beautiful women are a gift from nature and to be looked at with abandon.
There are truly evil people and there are truly good people, but more of the former than the latter.
When you are dead, you are dead. Nothing more than that. You don't come back, you don't go somewhere else, you haven't "passed on" or "passed over", you are dead. You died and cease to exist for evermore.
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Post by welle on Aug 1, 2015 19:00:19 GMT 2
Horses. Lots and lots of horses that you can ride like the wind. That's at least part of my heaven |
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Post by Tilly Star on Aug 1, 2015 23:02:17 GMT 2
I'm with Mark. It is an eternal snooze. You've got to do it all now, there is just this one chance to have a blast. And then you're gone.
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Post by Knarf on Aug 2, 2015 4:02:35 GMT 2
There's a good line in some Diskworld book - someone asks Death if it's true that your whole life passes before your eyes before you die. Death says (paraphrased), "Yes. It's called living."
(Death actually said it in capital letters.)
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Post by tiltedflipcurves on Aug 3, 2015 7:12:56 GMT 2
I'll go with the Talking Heads:
Everyone is trying to get to the bar.
The name of the bar, the bar is called Heaven.
The band in Heaven plays my favorite song.
They play it once again, they play it all night long.
Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.
Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.
There is a party, everyone is there.
Everyone will leave at exactly the same time.
Its hard to imagine that nothing at all
could be so exciting, and so much fun.
Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.
Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.
When this kiss is over it will start again.
It will not be any different, it will be exactly
the same.
It's hard to imagine that nothing at all
could be so exciting, could be so much fun.
Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.
Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.
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Post by outside cat @wino on Aug 3, 2015 9:05:23 GMT 2
Not sure about this heaven place but it seems interesting.
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Post by Knarf on Aug 3, 2015 9:47:18 GMT 2
I love that TH song.
Actually I love quite a few TH songs.
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Post by auntieannie on Aug 3, 2015 12:07:57 GMT 2
well, if heaven exists, surely it's different for everyone, right? But I'm not convinced there's a heaven.
Strangely enough, I could imagine people coming back but the bit in-between... I could imagine some kind of virtual link between lives, but the actual in-between bit ... some kind of state of unconsciousness/unawareness.
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Post by rikita on Aug 3, 2015 14:23:03 GMT 2
well i hope there is a heaven or something like that, because the idea of not existing is quite scary to me - but i don't think it will take any form that i can imagine now, or that can be described in terms of this existence.
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Post by pepecura on Aug 3, 2015 15:14:34 GMT 2
I think, the Hell and heaven is the reflection of the hypocrisy of human kind.
Think about Quran says, there will be rivers of wine which make no hangover, lovely unlimited fresh food, lots of shadows of trees, unlimited sex and power of sex with white girls (huri)with big eyes and newly developed breasts whom never touched by any other men before.....
*puke*
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Post by auntieannie on Aug 3, 2015 15:40:51 GMT 2
see, zibi, this is partly my point.
What the Quran seems to be describing is a male heaven.
I'm pretty sure the 'white girls with big eyes and newly developed breasts' have a different type of heaven than that. In fact, it's probably their worst nightmare.
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Post by pepecura on Aug 3, 2015 16:28:20 GMT 2
Yes, Annie....
Designed for not only a spesific gender, but also for those males living in a certain (desert kinda) geography, certainly.
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Post by missalaska on Aug 3, 2015 16:44:02 GMT 2
I'm with mark on this one.
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Post by slowcoach on Aug 3, 2015 16:58:35 GMT 2
I say that:
When you are dead, you aren't, you never were, and you never will be. An entirety of existence is not simply gone, it isn't even as much as that.
When young I read from the Divine Comedy, Inferno: was satirical, political, amusing Purgatorio: was by far the most interesting Paradiso: was too deathly boring to read.
Closest I will have ever been to Paradise, was in a converted church building in 1970's Amsterdam. |
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Post by pepecura on Aug 3, 2015 17:01:27 GMT 2
I'm with mark on this one. ...and I am with you on being with Mark  |
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Post by Netsuke on Aug 3, 2015 22:54:58 GMT 2
well i hope there is a heaven or something like that, because the idea of not existing is quite scary to me - but i don't think it will take any form that i can imagine now, or that can be described in terms of this existence. Rikita has echoed what I was trying to put into words. Dying and not being here anymore didn't really do anything, mean anything when I was younger, the thought might have flashed through my mind but was just as quickly gone. Now though, that I am older, I find myself thinking about death and the thought stays around a lot longer, the longer it stays, the worse I feel. And yes, it's sort of scary. I mean, I just can't imagine not being here any more 0 where will I be? I don't like the idea of being in a box (coffin) what if I was still alive? That would be a nightmare. What happens to us when we no longer exist? The idea of a Heaven is a comfort. So yes, Heaven will be a place where nothing bad happens, everybody is happy. Other than that, I've no idea. |
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Post by Tilly Star on Aug 3, 2015 23:11:30 GMT 2
The idea of existing for eternity in some always happy place gives me no comfort.
I don't know much about the science of decomposing bodies, but the thought of my body decomposing and feeding bugs and worms who feed birds and helping to nourishing the soil that feeds grass that feeds animals and on and on being part of the freaking amazing circle of life on this planet blows my mind. In a good way.
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Post by rikita on Aug 4, 2015 11:23:56 GMT 2
hm, i don't see my body as much as "me" as my awareness or mind or whatever you'd call it ...
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Post by pepecura on Aug 4, 2015 11:40:32 GMT 2
consciousness ?
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Post by rikita on Aug 4, 2015 22:51:27 GMT 2
maybe ...
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Post by Ria on Aug 5, 2015 6:08:33 GMT 2
What do I think? I think there is no heaven. There is no hell. There is no God. There is no devil. Chocolate exists and has been proven. So does ice cream. Beautiful women are a gift from nature and to be looked at with abandon. There are truly evil people and there are truly good people, but more of the former than the latter. When you are dead, you are dead. Nothing more than that. You don't come back, you don't go somewhere else, you haven't "passed on" or "passed over", you are dead. You died and cease to exist for evermore. This! But we live on in memories of others for a time, then we're gone forever. That's why it's important to live live to the fullest now instead of waiting for some reward after. Every version of heaven seems like hell to me. I don't understand why anyone would want it. Or Jehovahs who think god is about to kill all of us non-believers turn using us as fertiliser for the new world where they will live in the dullest sounding paradise. Why would anyone want 70 virgins? Sounds awful. The karma/reincarnation sounds horrific. You mess up now and could become a child victim of abuse as punishment in the next life. |
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Post by welle on Aug 5, 2015 7:26:43 GMT 2
Lots of horses that you can ride like the wind. Hot springs, oceans, lush grassy meadows to gallop over with tons of dandelion flowers. The sound of waves, birds singing, beautiful music (maybe not all together but you get the point). Smells of fresh cut grass or the smell of earth just after a rain. Waves to surf and the ability to ride them. No virgins for me please!
That starts to look like heaven for me.
For the bigger picture I go with Tibetan Buddhist beliefs.
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Post by trentt on Aug 7, 2015 14:25:02 GMT 2
Gosh, lots of interesting replies. I also do not like to think of non-existence, nor of doing the same thing forever (where nothing ever happens). I imagine everything recycles somehow, but that's not Heaven. I think my mom was trying to share something important with me, but it sounded like eternal boredom. I didn't dismiss it, just made non-committal noises.
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Post by Kate_R on Aug 7, 2015 14:54:12 GMT 2
I think of heaven as more of a state of being or mindfulness than an actual place where you do stuff etc. So to me it isn't a place you can describe, it is more a feeling.
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Post by trentt on Aug 7, 2015 15:02:49 GMT 2
Kate_R: do you have faith/belief/religion? I don't mean to connect the afterlife with any sect, but I just wonder how one affects the other.
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Post by Tilly Star on Aug 26, 2015 12:12:46 GMT 2
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Post by Kate_R on Sept 2, 2015 17:16:19 GMT 2
Kate_R: do you have faith/belief/religion? I don't mean to connect the afterlife with any sect, but I just wonder how one affects the other. Didn't see this earlier. I'd answer a sort of yes to your question. |
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Post by mapletree3 on Sept 2, 2015 17:52:21 GMT 2
We can create many versions of heaven and hell in our imaginations, but I believe the only reality we have is in the moment right now so I'm making the best of the present and the whatevers that do or don't come after can sort themselves out when the time comes.
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