# Do these common criticisms of an eternal afterlife have merit? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 25, 2022, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-these-common-criticisms-of-an-eternal-afterlife-have-merit/966806 "2022-06-25T02:14:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2022, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-these-common-criticisms-of-an-eternal-afterlife-have-merit/966806/21 "2022-06-25T19:35:55Z")
> [@Cmyers1980](#): > > Mental continuity and individual identity are essential parts of personhood so I don’t see why they wouldn’t be retained indefinitely. I don’t really know that that is true, that’s true in our experience. Defining exactly what _we_ are, beyond a meat sack with a neurochemical processor in the skull, is thorny, but there is no reason to assume the limitations of our present condition are universal, or that some other form of consciousness couldn’t transcend them (as an atheist I don’t think in terms of God, but I do wonder in terms of far distant and strangely advanced lifeforms, products of potentially millions of years of scientific development into a type of existence we can’t really fathom.) ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2022, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-these-common-criticisms-of-an-eternal-afterlife-have-merit/966806/22 "2022-06-25T19:55:37Z")
> [@Cmyers1980](#): > > With all of this in mind it would be absolutely trivial for God to make it so people in Heaven (or whatever you want to call it) never got bored and retained their personalities and what makes them “them” even as their minds and bodies are improved and time went on. Part of my personality is that I get bored. I do something for a while, then lose interest and go do something else for a while, and then get bored with that and do a third thing and so on. If I was made so I could not get bored, then that would be a dramatic alteration to my personality and mental processes. God can make as many people as he likes who are happy just sitting there like a lump forever, but none of them will be me - or _could_ be me. It’s a logical impossibility. (And declaring “God is omnipotent and thus can do the logically impossible” just disproves the god.) ---
**Author:** ![Cmyers1980](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyers1980/32/11814_2.png) [@Cmyers1980](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cmyers1980)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2022, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-these-common-criticisms-of-an-eternal-afterlife-have-merit/966806/23 "2022-06-25T22:50:30Z")
There are different ways to address this (some of which I already included in the OP) but what would you say to the counter argument that you can get bored in Heaven (like on Earth but not quite the same) but not for long since there’ll always be something you can do to alleviate it whether it’s new or something you’ve already done before? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-these-common-criticisms-of-an-eternal-afterlife-have-merit/966806/24 "2022-06-26T00:12:49Z")
I’d say that that’s a different goalpost from what’s presented in the OP, where you proposed that we would literally be altered to be unable to be bored, while paradoxically also saying we would remain the same person we are now. I hope you can see that there’s a fundamental contradiction in _any_ argument that claims both “you will be altered so that X isn’t a problem” and “you will still be the same ‘you’ as you are now”. Given eternity, I think we can rule out finding new entertainments being a long-term solution; you would have to be content with the same entertainments over and over. Perhaps not the same thing every day, but perhaps cycling through a collection of possible pasttimes. Which is certainly possible - though it depends rather heavily on a fallible memory, at least if you’re talking about working your way through a library of books or movies or whatever it is you’re entertaining yourself with. I actually _do_ rewatch shows and reread books, here in mortal reality, but I tend not to enjoy reconsuming something if my previous consumption of a given item is fresh in my mind. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-these-common-criticisms-of-an-eternal-afterlife-have-merit/966806/25 "2022-06-26T03:27:29Z")
Why an eternity in heaven might not be all its cracked up to be. (The tall one is the devil.) [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/LmN1dTCRclU/maxresdefault.jpg "Bedazzled (1967): Lucifer On The Nature Of God") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmN1dTCRclU) ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-these-common-criticisms-of-an-eternal-afterlife-have-merit/966806/26 "2022-06-26T03:28:22Z")
Any afterlife you can dream up can have whatever attributes you want it to have. Nobody has ever gone there and come back with a detailed description of what it is, what it looks like, and how you feel when you get there because, spoiler alert, there’s no evidence there is one. It could be eternal bliss, or eternal torture, whatever you imagine it to be. One thing is for sure, it’s a pretty, pretty, pretty, big place since it contains the souls of every human that has ever lived, approximately 109 billion souls, minus a few that ended up in Hell. It’s funny how whenever somebody talks about a family member that’s died they always end up in Heaven and nobody ever ends up in Hell. I guess almost everyone is good, which is news to me.) ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-these-common-criticisms-of-an-eternal-afterlife-have-merit/966806/27 "2022-06-26T04:04:24Z")
I didn’t read all the responses. My initial take was that OP is saying, “You live, you die, you go to heaven.” A favorite film of mine takes the approach that you lived, you died…are you ready to go on to the next level? In that particular film, have you mastered your fear? If not, we’ll send you back to Earth and you can try again. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/oZEbLVD72hY/maxresdefault.jpg "Defending Your Life (1991) Official Trailer - Albert Brooks, Meryl Streep Movie HD") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZEbLVD72hY) If heaven is the big deal they say it is, I would expect it to take multiple attempts to attain. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-these-common-criticisms-of-an-eternal-afterlife-have-merit/966806/28 "2022-06-26T04:09:45Z")
If you want to put it that way. But I agree with **Chronos** ’ point, “eternity” is **not** linear time. Eternal means no beginning and no end: the so-called “presence of God” is a realm _outside of timespace_. The tricky bit is that Nicene Christianity then goes ahead and predicts _“the resurrection of the dead and life in the World that is to Come”_, and Revelation writes of _“a New Heaven and a New Earth”_. If you are bodily occupying physical real space, that’s gonna be one fine flex of omnipotence making you immune to time. The usual answer to that is that the physical part of you, and of the universe for that matter, will be transformed into a _perfected_ form, no longer subject to the afflictions or pitfalls of existence in the imperfect world we know today. By definition that means you will not suffer tedium or anomie. How in the heavens can the Big Guy make it so, well, that’s why He is The Big Guy to figure it out, isn’t it so? Now, some may say, if it is impossible for me to get bored, I were to become permanently perfectly satisfied, then “that is no longer me”. Well, that is kind of begging the question (by asserting that itis logically impossible) though I concede it’s fair turnabout to the other side’s assertion that “it will just happen, it’s a Mystery we humans can’t understand”. Now, let’s remind ourselves: there are afterlife constructs that are NOT about being in a state of perfect satisfaction while “still being you”. We’re just discussing one possible variation. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-these-common-criticisms-of-an-eternal-afterlife-have-merit/966806/29 "2022-06-26T04:26:37Z")
> [@Cmyers1980](#): > > I don’t understand the question. People wouldn’t have the same physical bodies that they do on Earth so age and physical appearance as we know it wouldn’t really be an issue. Many Christians (Catholics, in particular) believe in “the resurrection of the body,” which is, specifically, “the same physical bodies,” though the body is transformed into a “glorified state.” This is part of the reason why, until relatively recently, the Catholic Church forbid cremation (and still isn’t entirely comfortable with it). From the Catholic Answers website (tl;dr version: Catholics believe, with Biblical support, that part of eternal life specifically entails the actual resurrection of their actual physical bodies.) > [@](#): > > The Bible tells us that when [Jesus](https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/jesus-christ) returns to earth, he will physically raise all those who have died, giving them back the bodies they lost at death. > > These will be the same bodies people had in earthly life—but our resurrection bodies will not die and, for the righteous, they will be transformed into a glorified state, freed from suffering and pain, and enabled to do many of the amazing things Jesus could do with his glorified body (see 1 Cor. 15:35–44, 1 John 3:2). > > The [resurrection of the body](https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/resurrection) is an essential Christian doctrine, as the apostle Paul declares: “[I]f the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished” (1 Cor. 15:13–18). > > Because, as Paul tells us, the Christian faith cannot exist without this doctrine, it has been infallibly defined by the Church. It is included in the three infallible professions of faith—the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed—and has been solemnly, infallibly taught by ecumenical councils. > > The Fourth Lateran Council (1215), infallibly defined that at the second coming Jesus “will judge the living and the dead, to render to every person according to his works, both to the reprobate and to the elect. All of them will rise with their own bodies, which they now wear, so as to receive according to their deserts, whether these be good or bad [Rom. 2:6–11]” (constitution 1). > > Most recently, the _Catechism of the Catholic Church_ reiterated this long-defined teaching, stating, “‘We believe in the true resurrection of this flesh that we now possess’ (Council of Lyons II). We sow a corruptible body in the tomb, but he raises up an incorruptible body, a ‘spiritual body’ (cf. 1 Cor 15:42–44)” (CCC 1017). > **[What the Early Church Believed: Resurrection of the Body](https://www.catholic.com/tract/resurrection-of-the-body)** > > The resurrection of the body is an essential Christian doctrine. Find out what the early Christian writers taught and believed about this teaching. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-these-common-criticisms-of-an-eternal-afterlife-have-merit/966806/30 "2022-06-26T04:30:22Z")
I have a question. A hundred trillion years from now and I’m still floating around in heaven, am I gonna remember who my parents were? Who my friends were? Who my sons were? Or anything that happened in my 80 or so years of insignificant life? And even if I do, will I care? Would anyone care? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-these-common-criticisms-of-an-eternal-afterlife-have-merit/966806/31 "2022-06-26T04:30:24Z")
Ever hear the phrase “It is not the destination-It is the journey”? In some old video games it was possible, through cheating, to obtain “God Mode”. You could walk through walls, fly, become invulnerable, unlock all doors, max out all your attributes, destroy all enemies etc. just by hitting a few keys on your keyboard. You don’t hear about “God Mode” cheats very often any more for two reasons: 1. Game makers got a lot better about plugging those holes and 2. It made the game boring as fuck. You know it all-You see it all-You can’t improve. You have just described hell to me. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-these-common-criticisms-of-an-eternal-afterlife-have-merit/966806/32 "2022-06-26T04:38:21Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Given eternity, I think we can rule out finding new entertainments being a long-term solution I’m certainly not sold on the afterlife stuff, but as for the immortality stuff, that’s something that we\* may see. In that vein, I don’t see why finding new entertainment wouldn’t be possible. The people who make entertainment right now are also living forever, and you are presumably constantly bringing in new recruits. Forever is a long time, and I suppose at some point in an infinite timeline, you’ll have read all the books in the Library of Babel, and truly have nothing else to experience, but, you’d also have to be omniscient, which would change who you are, in order to remember them all. \*our species, not necessarily us. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-these-common-criticisms-of-an-eternal-afterlife-have-merit/966806/33 "2022-06-26T08:06:35Z")
There are only seven basic plots. The previous sentence is a lie, but there’s a fair dollop of truth in it - even given infinite time to make new content, eventually we’ll run out of materially different stories to tell and experiences to create. You can change the names and tweak the details but the story is the same - even with the massive differences The Force Awakens was seen as a being far too close to being retelling of A New Hope. And given _all_ the variations we’ll actually feel like there is _less_ variation; our pattern-matching-prone minds will start grouping the stories by their similar aspects and seeing them as being the same story with small or inconsequential variations which add first little and then nothing onto what was previously had. This is why boredom is a material problem given infinite time - it’s impossible to have materially new experiences forever, because eventually one sunrise will become like the previous one even if it’s unique in its own inconsequential way. We have to be able to enjoy it _despite_ it being more of the same. Which is rather implausible given _forever_ without modifying how our minds work. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-these-common-criticisms-of-an-eternal-afterlife-have-merit/966806/34 "2022-06-26T08:21:01Z")
The main problem with an eternal afterlife, where God can do whatever to make you whatever is it obviates the need for the regular life. Life would be an infinitesimally small period, in the mathematical sense of infinitesimal – what’s the point? Obviously, it makes no sense to reward or punish you infinitely for something you did in a moment smaller than fleeting, right? So, it can’t be to sort the good from the bad – He would know which is which anyway, before you’re born. What is life for, if the afterlife is eternal? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-these-common-criticisms-of-an-eternal-afterlife-have-merit/966806/35 "2022-06-26T14:38:34Z")
You might as well ask what point of the afterlife is too - why did God bother to create billions of minor creatures that are just going to clutter up the place forever? For his own entertainment? Why so many of us? What was his rationale? It’s pretty easy to come of with a theoretically reasonable explanation for both life and afterlife, but they usually require the deity in question to not be omnimax. (Heck, _allowing mortal life to happen at all_ pretty much requires the deity not to be omnimax.) ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-these-common-criticisms-of-an-eternal-afterlife-have-merit/966806/36 "2022-06-26T16:21:51Z")
Well, yeah, none of it makes sense when you think things through. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-these-common-criticisms-of-an-eternal-afterlife-have-merit/966806/37 "2022-06-26T19:12:39Z")
Either you have **[cross-posted this elsewhere](https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/13145/do-these-common-criticisms-of-an-eternal-afterlife-have-merit)** or you have plagiarized the question word-for-word. There are three flaws with your argument. 1. You are begging the question. I mean that in the formal sense in the context of a logical fallacy. You are assuming the conclusion to make your argument. You are arguing that Heaven is created so that people will never be bored and will retain their identity for eternity, therefore the argument is wrong that people will get bored and lose personal continuity. 2. The reason that you are tempted to beg the question is that there is zero objective information about what Heaven is like, or even that it exists. Therefore you can define Heaven any way you want to be able to make any point you want. This is an “angels dancing on the head of a pin” kind of question. I could say that in Heaven the form you would take would be incapable of ever being bored, Q.E.D., and there could be no counterargument. 3. You are arguing with a strawman. I would suggest you provide either a more complete argument about boredom and continuity than what your one sentence describes, or at least a cite to someone with some cred in this particular area. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-these-common-criticisms-of-an-eternal-afterlife-have-merit/966806/38 "2022-06-26T19:15:15Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > why did God bother to create billions of minor creatures that are just going to clutter up the place forever? For his own entertainment? Why so many of us? What was his rationale? IME the answer to this is along the lines of, “God works in mysterious ways”, “God has a master plan that we can never understand because He is so great”, blah, blah, blah. ---
**Author:** ![Cmyers1980](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyers1980/32/11814_2.png) [@Cmyers1980](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cmyers1980)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-these-common-criticisms-of-an-eternal-afterlife-have-merit/966806/39 "2022-06-26T19:47:08Z")
I’ll respond to each point you made separately. 1: I don’t think so. My basic argument is it’s nonsensical to say Heaven would be bad because you’d get bored or become a different person because if it was truly a supernatural place that God made for people to enjoy and spend eternity those issues wouldn’t arise since it’s explicitly supernatural and so doesn’t have to follow the “rules” we humans know in our current form in our physical universe. It isn’t logically impossible so there’s no reason to think God couldn’t easily do it considering he made the universe, Heaven and souls from nothing in the first place. He would hardly be all knowing, all loving and all powerful if he made an ostensibly perfect realm where the inhabitants quickly stopped enjoying themselves or became entirely different people than they were while alive. As I referenced in the OP it’s like someone accepting the existence of Dr. Strange from Marvel Comics for the sake of argument but then saying he wouldn’t be able to use his magic powers to teleport or turn lead into gold because that particular act doesn’t make sense to them. It’s magic naturally beyond current human understanding so of course it doesn’t have the same limits we associate with physics, biology etc. If you’re already suspending disbelief why does a particular feature (in Heaven’s case never getting bored for long and remaining the same person) break your suspension of disbelief when the initial concept is much grander and fantastical than any one of its facets? 2: I didn’t go into extreme detail in the OP but for the purpose of the discussion by Heaven I mean an eternal afterlife as commonly imagined and criticized by the public where it’s perfection and endless bliss, happiness, fulfillment, creativity, novelty, love etc. 3: Not true. I’ve seen the “Heaven would be bad because you’d get bored and would become a different person” argument seriously posited countless times online in the past and recently. It’s a real thing that atheists, skeptics and others say. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2022, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-these-common-criticisms-of-an-eternal-afterlife-have-merit/966806/40 "2022-06-26T20:47:49Z")
> [@Cmyers1980](#): > > My basic argument is it’s nonsensical to say Heaven would be bad because you’d get bored or become a different person because if it was truly a supernatural place that God made for people to enjoy and spend eternity those issues wouldn’t arise since it’s explicitly supernatural and so doesn’t have to follow the “rules” we humans know in our current form in our physical universe So, your argument explicitly is that if we accept your ex nihilo assumption that God can (somehow) change people into being non-boreable without changing people at all, then the argument “what about boredom” isn’t a solid argument against this theorized version of heaven. What part of that _isn’t_ assuming the conclusion? And my understanding of the “commonly imagined” heaven is that everyone is brainwashed into drooling, mindless bliss, halfheartedly strumming on a provided harp when they remember where its strings are. If somebody has a different notion of what their heaven is like, they have to state it clearly or I default to the standard definition. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-these-common-criticisms-of-an-eternal-afterlife-have-merit/966806.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-these-common-criticisms-of-an-eternal-afterlife-have-merit/966806.md?page=3)