state whether your a guy or girl. And it doesnt exclude deists. I want to know what would be heaven to you too.
Okay we know what happens after death, - WE KINDA DECAY.
I would wish the conversation not to focus on a possiblility of life after death, lets assume for the benefit of this OP and accept as a mind exercise there is one second bit of the cherry, but it only lasts a coupla milion years, or how exactly it you want it to.
It could be well argued that who would want the hell of eternity, so for the benefit of this, you get your heaven and you get to decide how you want to enjoy it ( its bound by the current physical laws of the universe but has an added twist, whatever is left of your being is now sentient energy and can travel with the speed of lite. You can even end your participation in it at any time
Aologies if its a bit rambling and nuts but i want to know what my fellow athiests whould plan as a heaven if they had their mind put to it. Also I really hope the theists would contribute to defining their idea of heaven
full disclosure my idea of a reasonable post breathing manila existence would be to explore the millions of galaxies ( although the real time aspect would be awkward I could do it!)
I’d love to have there be an afterlife; I just don’t think that there is.
If I could choose, I’d pick a lot of things. I’d like to be able to find out all about the things I thought I’d never know. Basically, I’d love to be able to access all knowledge. Be invisible/invulnerable, but teleport instantly to any point in time in anywhere in the universe (or other universes, if they exist), and understand any language or communication forms. Omniscience, I guess.
Of course, I’d also like a holodeck that makes whatever reality I want when the universe – inevitably – gets boring, and to be able to get in contact and meet with people who I know and love, and so on and so forth.
And finally, I’d like the option to live again and forget it all, when even that gets to be old hat.
*If heaven ain’t a lot like Dixie
I don’t wanna go
If heaven ain’t a lot like Dixie
I’d just as soon stay home
If they don’t have a Grand Ole Opry
Like they do in Tennessee
Just send me to hell or New York City
It would be about the same to me *
Hank Williams, Jr.
It would be about 10,000 years of life existing in a heaven of pretty much Earth, but with limitless access to travel and food and music and vacations and reading and laughing and debating and internettting, and loving and fucking and travel and food and music and vacations…
I wouldn’t want any magical answers to any cosmic questions, but I would want full access to pursue truth in a ‘faux earthly’ fashion. Access to books and gurus and monks and scientists. Maybe a much better grasp on math and science, but only in the way a smart person on earth would grasp it…not something superhuman or whatever. I think that would be just peachy. Of course the full knowledge that my loved ones get to enjoy a similar paradise would be…heavenly.
Of course I’d want my family there, living and healthy again.
I’d like it to be just like it is now here on Earth, except people are nice to each other. They’re considerate and friendly and nobody’s scared of strangers. It would be limitless, so no worry about overpopulation or hunger. I wouldn’t mind a little sickness but no major suffering. People could feel physical pain and get hurt but they’d heal up right soon enough. There’d still be silly conflicts and rainy days and misbehaving children. We’d have lots to laugh about and think about. We still wouldn’t be handed all the answers to the mysteries of the universe so we’d still have that drive to explore.
I hadn’t read your post yet when I wrote mine, Nzinga, Seated. Looks like we think alike!
It wouldn’t be Hillbilly Heaven, but Will Rogers would be there, as well as Picasso, and Charlie Chaplin and Mae West, and various others both listed and overlooked on the cover of Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. Sinners welcome, but no dickheads.
Well, why you gotta put him on blast about it? I thought that was funny, and that he was quite original for thinking of it. Now you had to go and snitch him out.
Rushgeekgirl, I totally forgot to ease some of Earth’s suffering in my heaven! Good looking out, there.
The most important thing would not be what it was like being there, exactly, but rather that everybody we had lost through life came back to us. It would ease the grief we feel in life.
It’s way more realistic to fantasize about winning an enormous lottery jackpot. That really does happen, and there must be dozens or even hundreds of people living as proof. But that fantasy doesn’t have nearly the compelling power of heaven, because the grief about not being super wealthy just doesn’t cut that deep.
The power of heaven is what it feels like to be headed there, not what it feels like to be there.
Heaven would be to exist as long as I wished with:
1.) The Answeers in the Back of the Book – all those things you wanted to know, but nobody did – When did the Mediterranean Flood? How about the Black Sea? what’s the truth about the Impact Event that killed the Dinosaurs, and how many extinctions can we blame on impacts? What are the answers to apparent contradictions in conspiracy theories? What’s the real story on Akhenaton? and so on…
2.) The ability to learn all the stuff you wanted to know in life, without the restrictions of your existing mental blocks and dyslexia. And a place to go to for all the answers. Kinda like this Board, but without the Snark.
3.) something like this Board, *with * the Snark, for when you want it.
4.) places to tour and visit and exercise
5.) The Ability to Construct things, like infinite VR modelling and Holodecking – play interactive real-environment games. See how different physics scenarios work out (what if I make the Fine Structure Constant equal to 136?), or play out your sexual fantasies.
6.) the ineffable – if you can do anything, there are going to be things, situations, and scenarios infinitely beyond what you can experience and imagine in our limited plane of existence. When all things are possible, with completely different laws of physics and chemistry there will be inexpressably different ways of existing and relating. You could spend centuries playing with the differences between either Separate Consciousnesses engaged in Group Marriages, or Partially Separate Melded Consciousnesses Experiencing the World together while you’re a tenuous plasma organism cavorting in a newly-created universe shortly after its Big Bang. Or doing something even weirder.
