Heavenly Deal-breaker

[Bravus]

In the loong alcohol thread, some people said that, if there's alcohol in heaven, it would spoil it for them.

That attitude seems odd to me: whatever God has planned for us in heaven is fine by me. He knows what is good for us better than I do.

But I dunno, maybe if there was slavery in heaven, that might be a bit of a deal-breaker for me, I guess. It seems deeply improbable, but...

How about you? Are there things (heh, or people!) that, if they are in heaven, you'd prefer not to be?

[phkrause]

I used to think that if a certain person was there I didn't want to be there, but than I thought about that for a while and told myself that would be pretty stupid. Now I just think that it would be great to have them as a neighbor. :)

[Liz]

I had this exact same thought!! Then I realized that if "that person" were there then they would have had to have confessed their sins--including how they had hurt me and others. That was actually how I was able to forgive that person, even though that person had been dead for quite some time.

So for me I don't think there are any deal-breakers, in fact, I would happily be a slave if I get to go to heaven.

[fccool]

Slave to whom and in which context? Would you happy mine diamonds in a mine, while suffer a degenerative conditions that barely allow for your survival?

[Liz]

Well we ARE talking about Heaven here, so I doubt if there are any degenerative conditions, but if my Heavenly master wants me to mine diamonds, then I'll mine diamonds. Not sure what we will use the diamonds for, but I suppose that is why I'm a slave and not a "master". <wink>

I seriously doubt we will be in Heaven and start pining for this earth, or be in the earth made new and start pining for the way things "used" to be.

[Woody]

I think it would be a cool job to be mining diamonds for our crowns. I volunteer.

[Bravus]

Please note that I wasn't saying *me* being a slave in Heaven would be a deal-breaker, it would be the fact that other people were slaves. I mean, I'm not going to second-guess omnipotence, but if Heaven means anything at all it means everyone is free.

[Ellen]

does wishing not to have ANY snow count?

[fccool]

... Sort of.

There are quite a few things that bother me about the presentation of Heaven. One of these things is the fact that it sort of looked at as this perfect place that's better than the original Earth. And humans ascribed all of the powers that original humans were never intended to have.

For example, there's a guy going around doing presentation for the churches, and he states that the heaven is in Orion Nebula, and that it will take people 2 hours to fly there (or something like that)... at the speed of thought, which seems to be 1000 times more than speed of light (perhaps million?). And all of that would happen without any space suits or etc. People will just be able to fly wherever they want to.

I likewise could say that there will not be a need to going to the bathroom because seemingly the sexual organs disappear.

This is sort of naive "whatever you say goes" approach to heaven.

The heaven of Judaism was having peaceful piece of land to live, where people died in peace. The heaven of Islam is ... well, you know... male oriented.

I sort of question why would God do any better the second time than the first. Wouldn't it imply that He sort of screwed up the first time? He did not do the best He could?

[Gail]

Hmm.... I look at it this way:

Heaven will be a place where something will happen that is God's will that is not mine. That is, a place where everyone lives to bless, lift up and benefit others and not live to serve self.

So in saying that, if I don't like beer and it's in heaven, then I will gladly give mine away to someone else.

:)

[Ellen]

The thing about heaven is that it will be a working vacation. We will be judging the dead and angels there I don't know how long that will take but we are only given 1000 years for that.

It's a lot easier to imagine what it will be like when we are back where we are supposed to be - in the NEW earth. The first humans were in the image of God, and we are promised to be back to that condition in the end.

[cardw]

I've kind of changed my mind about heaven being an eternal place of leisure and study as a good thing.

I don't think any being learns without being challenged in a real sense. I have observed with the very wealthy clients that I have that they are often disconnected from the risks that poor people have to face. And they often have a more difficult time finding meaning in their lives.

We have to face real suffering and suffering is an incredible teacher. I don't seek out suffering, but some of the best things I have come to know come out of the challenges that I have faced in the midst of suffering.

I think what Jesus meant about the difficulty of a rich man finding the kingdom of god isn't so much about the silliness of accepting Jesus as one's savior and all the sacrifice bit, but being rich takes one out of a certain awareness and challenge that helps us reset our values and experience things of real value.

I think Christians miss this mystical understanding of the kingdom of god within. Heaven isn't something in the future, it's a place one can dwell right now. To be free is to be unafraid of whatever comes into our lives.

I find myself awakened to the fact that I invest in external things that really have no value. And this awareness comes out of suffering and risk. So for me, the kingdom of god as Jesus puts it, is here already.

And this heaven of big mansions and flying around like we are on a ride at Disneyland and having all these magical powers seems more about ego than about true value. Even those things, when facing an eternity, will get boring.

[Tom Wetmore]

Yes, there comes a certain peace of mind in realizing that grasping the full reality of the here and now, whatever it is, good or bad, has deep meaning and value. One of my hardcore beliefs is the virtue that nothing is so bad, difficult, or stressful that some good cannot come of it. Carrying a burden makes you stronger. It is a quality of the God I believe in that has the ultimate ability to turn every sow's ear into a silk purse. The worst possible fate has a positive side, a redeeming value.

The worst possible fate for the ancients that they had no control over was death itself. It was a great unknown, a future that they could not see past. So heaven had to have some mystical quality in the far distance. When Jesus spoke of God's realm not being far off either in time or space, it put life in a whole new perspective. And he took on the final challenge of proving that the here and now kingdom of such a divine force or being also solves the riddle of death. Death brings life. There is then nothing left to fear if even death does not overwhelm us and defeat us.

If we do not have to fear death, we can indeed live at peace and are really free to live fully in the here and now. The kingdom of God has come to us, right here, right now. Living for the moment is heavenly.

[Tom Wetmore]

To bring my thoughts back around to the OP, I think it would be a deal breaker for me if there would be fear, or more precisely anything that would induce fear. I have spent my whole life confronting and attempting to overcome my fears. It would be paradise to me to have an end of anything to fear. Throughout time and across cultures, it seems that the most frequent description of heaven was paradise free of that which would cause us fear. Even the prevailing notion of some afterlife neutralized the fearful finality of death.

I think the ancients described heaven as the solution for whatever they feared most, death being at the top of that list. (The expression that something was a fate worse than death would almost seem oxymoronic.)

Of course, since I am somewhat of an adrenaline junkie, embracing fear has been a means of dealing with fear. It's knowing the rush of such things as diving with sharks, or better still, diving at night with sharks, or riding motorcycle. In a way, that sort of gives me the thrill of heaven in the here and now. It is no longer something I fear since I embrace the adventure of it.

That sort of leads me to think that heaven would not necessarily take away all of those things we now fear. I think they will no longer cause fear since the consequences will be different and not fatal. We will embrace the adventure of living life with no limits.

[cardw]

I find that often fear isn't based on what is happening outside myself, but how I interpret the events I'm observing.

I can understand the attraction of not having any worries, but I think one could attain a discipline of non-worry no matter what apparent threat is there.

In terms of heaven I think that unless their is real risk, life would become sort of like a dumbed down video game where there are no real lasting consequences good or bad from what happens.

I don't have any more fear of death than when I was a believer. I tend to believe that some part of me will continue on, but I don't really think I have any control over that.

And forcing myself to believe that I have eternal life because I have accepted Jesus as my Savior doesn't really help because there is no real evidence of that for me. And telling me to have faith doesn't really give me faith.

What I observe is the the lessons most people need to learn are built into the cause and effect nature of this existence. And the more honest and open one is to these lessons the less painful life is. In fact most of the time my life is quite wonderful.

I find the mainline Christian narrative unnecessary to this process. I observe that it often enables a lot of harmful behavior and silly reasoning. If I look at the cause and effect nature of Christianity in any sort of practical sense I would have to say that it has failed on this world at least.

Any sort of claim of triumph for some future world is imaginary at best and I don't believe that a Christian heaven would be all that safe when I observe the consequences of being a Christian today and the minimal entry requirements.