What’s your concept of heaven?

My idea of heaven is my cabin in the woods near Nelson Lake just north of Hayward, WI.

There is no heaven. This is just a myth which got started because people are complex enough to recoil at the idea that this life is all there is. Now good people keep the myth going because they are trying to do the right thing and faith, religion, and god are seen as good. Too bad that people live with a myth like this long after it is clear that it isn’t true. I wish there were a heaven like they told me in catholic school. It sounded good. Too bad for all of us–it’s just another myth.

Heaven is a good place, but only because God is there. That’s pretty much the only thing it has going for it. Pretty good deal if your greatest treasure is God, though.

To me, Heaven isn’t a place we go to when we die. I have an inner sense that it is more a state of mind which we can obtain, or strive for, while alive. The power of our thoughts, our free-will to choose those thoughts, and new mind-over matter evidence leads me to believe that experiencing Heaven on Earth is absolutely possible.

I absolutely believe in Heaven because of the death of a parent at a young age. But now my thought of heaven is not defined by a religion, but rather the thought that I will once again be with her after I die. I can’t imagine not being with her again because my time on earth with her was so short.

Richard

When my infant son died eight years ago, I was shown a clear vision of heaven and his place in it. It was not a dream, as I was not sleeping, but an image that came unbidden to mind. In this vision there was no physicality of space–no garden, no streams, no pearly gates–and no corporeal beings or angels with harps. What I first saw before me was a single flame. I knew it was a holy image, and came to understand that it was the light of my son’s soul. Next, the angle of vision changed, and that single flame was surrounded by a field of thousands, millions of flames. That is how I understand the afterlife or heaven: No individuals, no conversation, no consumption or indulgence, but a community of souls shining in silent understanding and bright, eternal peace.

before i was saved, i didnt give heaven or hell much thought. When I was 25, Jesus spoke to me and transformed me from the inside. the holy spirit did a work in me, and i am not the same person. i believe the bible is the infallible word of God, and rejecting God’s free gift has consequences. john the baptist, in revelation, is given a vision of neaven, and God told him to write it all down, what he saw, to give the children of God hope after they die. this life is only a preparation for the next. it is important not to be full of pride, saying that “my way is the only way”..on the contrary…it is only through Jesus, that we can be saved and when we die, unite with the trinity in heaven, which is an actually place…a city that is in the form of a perfect square. read in revelation the account john gives of heaven. it is very detailed and accurate. we were given the bible because it is how God speaks to us and tells us the truth and it is literally a life or death situation if you reject his love. good people don’t go to heaven. saved people do.

I’m a Star Wars fanatic. Seeing that movie inspired me to not only create my own space opera, but also a religion to go with it. What deserves mentioning in this instance is that when you are creating a religion you are not necessarily obligated to believe in, you can utilise your preferences, not the beliefs that have been handed down to you–in my case that would be Scandinavian Lutheran.

I was not impressed with my own nobility when I created my sci-fi religion, I came to some very clear conclusions about my flawed self. I was terrified that there was nothing after I die, yet I didn’t want to become immortal: I simply didn’t like myself enough to want to be in my own company for thousands of years. What intrigued me (and still intrigues me) is reincarnation. Thinking upon my life made me realize that I particularly didn’t deserve to go to Hell, but I didn’t particularly deserve to go to Heaven. I would assume some Catholic mystic came across the same dilemma, and thus Purgatory was born. Nor did I particularly want to go to Heaven. What I wanted was another chance. Another opportunity to see if I could do this life thing far better than I did it this time.

There are disadvantages to this system. Our cultural desire to see our loved ones at the Pearly Gates suffers under this system. Grandpa and grandma and dear auntie Rose are not going to be waiting for you at the Pearly Gates because they will be involved in their next lives.

There is another question that I’ve pondered for years: my sci-fi releigion was based on my preferences, not what I considered my beliefs. But I can’t help but wonder to what extent your preferences are your beliefs.

I used to believe in the heaven that I learned about in Catholic church and school. But once I realized that so much else that I was taught in the Catholic church consisted of lies it caused me to question the teachings on heaven too. I have no idea anymore. And to my surprise, it doesn’t bother me at all. I don’t need a heaven to motivate me to be a good person. My uncertainty sure bothers some friends who do believe though!

@Alison

That’s a very good point, Alison. It’s disconcerting to me that deeply religious people are convinced that human nature is to do evil. Just because I don’t believe in a higher power, or that if I do bad I’m not going to get into heaven, doesn’t mean I’m going to.

I don’t murder, rape, or steal because it goes against my religious beliefs – I don’t because I don’t want to.

I don’t need an old book to tell me what is right and what is wrong.

My concept of Heaven:

Heaven is a concept. It is used variously as a means of comfort (as when a loved one dies), hope (that one’s existence continues after death), and control (of others, through fear).

I don’t know whether it exists or not (how could I? how could anyone?), but I think the odds of its reality are infinitesimal. Even if it does exist, I would only be guessing about its qualities in such a way as to justify my own lifestyle and personality.

In the unlikely case that Heaven is real, I find it impossible to believe that it would be governed by someone like the character of “God” as portrayed in the Judeo-Christian bible; and if it were, I don’t think I’d want to be there. The character exhibits traits of severe psychological instability – perhaps most notably, borderline personality disorder. He is by turns perverted and prudish; he loves humans on the condition that they behave in very specific ways, but changes the rules as the mood strikes him. He apparently suffers from multiple personality disorder, viewing himself as 3 separate entities, and is likely bipolar as well. I just don’t think the universe is that poorly managed.

Heaven, for me, has always been about a thought, a feeling. I believe Heaven will encapsulate the feeling of laughing with your family, feeling the warmth of the sun on your cheek, cool, clear lake water on your toes, the taste of a freshly baked pie, and the scent of the most fragrant rose. A sense of the presence of God, loved ones, and a peaceful bliss that is beyond what we can actually imagine.

I came across the notion that heaven or the afterlife consists of one’s experiences during the 11 seconds of brain activity that occurs after the rest of a person’s body fails. Like in dreams, the subjectivity of experiencing ‘time’ could cause these 11 seconds to seem quite long.

It’s an elegant idea, but I am skeptical about whether heaven exists outside our lifetime.

There is Heaven and there is the Afterlife.

A personal Afterlife is a creative fiction that is being increasingly challenged by the expanding discoveries of science. Science is providing an ever-move-comprehensive understanding of the underpinnings behind our existence and morality, and it is providing us with this complete awareness of all experience without any allowance for any sort of life after death.

Heaven, however, is the ability to recognize and accept reality as it is in all its forms, while Hell is the clinging to illusions – especially those that lead to one’s own pain or the pain of others. Because life only exists for the living, both Heaven and Hell only exist for us while we are still alive.

In this equation God is equivalent to Reality/the Real World, where our abilty to recognize & accept His presence is effectively just our ability to recognize & accept the pain and beauty of Reality itself, including our own limited term of time to appreciate this all.