Heaven?

[pasithea]

You know. Just thinking about the whole religion thing some more and it occurred to me... All these people who are trying to get into heaven... What are they going to do when they get there? I've never heard a single religious person mention their post-heaven-arrival plans. You're going to be happy for all eternity? How, exactly? Eating from the tree of knowledge is a sin, so you probably won't get to catch up on your reading. Likewise, adultery, sloth, gluttony, etc... So.. How exactly are you going to be 'happy'?

Comments

[schlake.livejournal.com]

You are using human problems and values to describe heaven, which doesn't work. Heaven is a different place, with different rules. Things here don't map to there.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

I understand transcendence. I wrote an essay about the singularity a while back and how it wouldn't map to anything we could understand. Cited some examples like hearing every packet of data on the internet all at once as a symphony or transformed into a light show. If you're a god, regardless of the scope of your universe, the experiences are limitless and dazzling and nothing anyone on a physical plane could really comprehend.

Therein lies the rub. How do we know it's 'good'? The next plane is so radically different from this one, there's nothing to compare it to. Most people also fear loss of their individualism or self and those things would surely have to be shed to transcend. I'm skeptical that most christians are really ready to make that kind of sacrifice, even if by becoming part of god, they could play out every version of their life across all possible times and dimensions. Really, I just don't think the majority of christians have really thought about what happens after at all.

The other problem, of course is that eating from the tree of knowledge was man's original sin. Why would God make their mortal life difficult because they'd tasted godhood only to give them godhood when they died, when in theory, godhood was the one thing he told man they couldn't have?

If you see yourself as part of a larger world, you and I are already part of this whole god identity. My thread is exploring a somewhat cynical and philosophical lifetime while you're clipping through a spleeny existence. Of course, other God-particles are exploring what it's like to be a godless serial killer, which is paradoxically completely acceptable in the grander transcended scheme of things. concepts like good and evil really only exist on our plane of existence. They're meaningless to a god.

[schlake.livejournal.com]

I'll just fixate on one little bit of what you said.

How do we know it's 'good'?

The answer is faith. The whole God thing falls apart if faith is removed.

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

More often than not 'faith' seems to be a codeword for 'incurious'. Contemplating the vastness of what transcendence actually is really fascinating and 'faith' is just an off switch. Worse than that, it lets people feel like they're suffering now for some reward in the future. In my view, suffering now could _BE_ the reward. Twisted as it is, it's a fascinating thought to contemplate.

[tracerj.livejournal.com]

To be fair, we're all incurious about some things most of the time. There are assumptions we simply work with – gravity, human thought, states of matter, mathematics, animals, whatever – and we remain curious only in brief moments or, if we are specialists in a fiend, intensely curious about that field and safely uninterested in others, just to keep ourselves from spiralling off into a zillion different directions while never accomplishing anything. I guess some are just more incurious than others.

Of course, that reminds me of a quote regarding gods. "We're all atheists; I simply believe in one less god than most." It's all in the framing of it!

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

I think if that disable switch is normal for people, there is probably something seriously wrong with me. I'm obsessively curious about almost everything all the time. Various things come to the forefront, of course, but my mind is always racing. It's a very frustrating, even maddening thing being trapped in this pathetic body which can barely do any multi-tasking at all and is so high maintenance with its needs for sleep, shelter, and food. If I could spend every second studying, I likely would. That's what I do with nearly all of my free time. Even when I walk places, I'm constantly studying the plants, animals, mushrooms, shapes and textures of things, composition and colors of the world around me. Every moment is precious and it drives me mad to waste any of them. :/

[yetanotherbob.livejournal.com]

It's only wrong if it significantly hinders. But you've never had a time where it's 'Fuck it, I don't want to deal with this.' or 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!'? Anyways, my best guess is that it's something that's internally consistent just as long as it's a closed system. That is, there are some who don't care, and they don't care that they don't care. Their endgame is to bring about the end of the world, so that they can get a spiritual lobotomy. Thus their distrust of intelligence. Scary, innit?

Although it should be said, it's more that we're biased in a long-standing debate. What's better? What's truely good? A happy pig, or an unhappy socrates? You, I, and our friends side with Socrates, but others make the argument for the pig, since it's not suffering.