Is heaven boring?

Great Debates
1

This may sound weird but here goes…

Regardless of your religious affiliation…

Heaven(or whatever you call it, you get the idea…) is supposed to be an eternal paradise right? Where there are no wrongs, no suffering, no sin, but eternal bliss and happiness. That said, wouldn’t you get bored of it after a while?

Let me clarify, I’m not trying to imply that life without sin is boring, but rather, an eternity of doing anything would become overly redundant wouldn’t it? Even burning in Hell would cease to be frightening after the first 1000 years, or first 1,000,000 for that matter.

So, how can heaven, being an eternal state of happiness, truly be “heaven” if it get’s boring?

When I think of an eternity of anything, anything at all- happiness, pain, whatever, I get frightened because life (or afterlife) would be pointless.

What are your thoughts on the subject?

2

Boredom is a physical concept. It’s a product of the structure and activity in your brain.

Since you will presumably not be limited by physical constructs in a perfect afterlife, you can’t possibly get bored. You are proceeding from the false assumption that the manner in which you experience things NOW has any application to a Christian Heaven, when it obviously does not. The manner in which you sense and perceive things now is limited by biology; that won’t be the case if you make it through the Pearly Gates. Since God is omnipotent, there is no reason He cannot make you eternally happy without getting bored; He merely has to will it to be so, and it will be so. Physical laws don’t apply to things outside the known universe.

3

But how do you know that? I mean, I’m not disputing Christianity, but I don’t recall a discription of heaven in the Bible- granted I haven’t read every page.

How do you know it’s a false assumption? Especially considering that my experiences now directly effect my afterlife. If I live a “good” life (ie: whatever it takes to get into a heaven-like afterlife) that sends me to heaven, but it also forms my consciousness, so if God strips me of part of my consiousness (the part that generates my restlessness for example- but any other part as well, including the part that leads me to sin) then I am no longer “myself” but merely an automaton. How can that be heaven?

They say ignorance is bliss, so does that mean nonexistence is the closest bliss a man can reach?

4

Seems to me that what RickJay is promising you is the proverbial Pie in the Sky. He says that you can’t know it, so why is he so sure?

5

Because physical laws only apply inside the universe. Come on, you know your physics; outside of the universe the physical laws that govern it have no meaning. “Boredom” is a product of physical law.

Of course, we may all find out that the afterlife really SUCKS. Maybe God is not all-loving and He plans to have us spend all of eternity at a Menudo concert. However, that’s not the question that was asked, was it? Lobotomy specifically asked if HEAVEN, e.g. paradise, would get boring - an eternal Menudo concert is not paradise. If Heaven is a paradise beyond the boundaries of the physical universe, then, by definition, there is no reason it would ever be boring. But that’s assuming there is a Christian God and that you get to go to Heaven in the first place. If there is no God, the OP’s unanswerable.

If you aren’t assuming there is a God and that He grants us paradise in Heaven, there’s no point in asking. But if we assume there is a God and a Heaven, why would it be anything less than perfect? No reason it shouldn’t be; God can just make it perfect, right? I suppose that’s one of the central appeals of Christianity - it’s a no-lose proposition.

6

I have never heard of a better description of Hell than an eternal Menudo concert…

I guess RickJay you do have a very valid point, that I’ve essentially created a “If God is so powerful, let him create a stone so heavy he can’t lift it” hypothesis.

Assuming that there is a God and that Heaven does exist then by definition eternity must be completely blissful.

That being said, does it say somewhere in the Bible (or any omnipotent being) that God is perfect? Or that Heaven is perfect? Is there a section somewhere in the Bible that describes Heaven? I don’t mean to limit the discussion to one religion, so please if you follow something else, please speak up.

7

After St. Peter gives you your complimentary “Welcome to Heaven” lobotomy, you’ll never be bored by anything ever again…

8

As funny as that sounds, that’s the fear I have… that I’ll cease to be who I feel I am.

9

My $.02:
My religion teaches the concept of eternal progression; that is, that it is possible for us to keep learning and improving and progressing after we die. This sounds pretty interesting to me (but hey, maybe I just have a lot to learn :slight_smile: ).

We also believe that your personality/character/whatever will not be changed much by death. You won’t, for example, suddenly become a generous, loving person as soon as you die, if you didn’t cultivate those traits during life. So according to us, you still get to be you.

10

**
According to The Bible, trying to describe Heaven in terms our earthly consciousnesses can understand is rather futile.

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” (I Corinthians 2:9)

I’ve always vaguely thought of Heaven as becoming one with God (i.e., the Universe). The overwhelming, eternally rewarding goodness of Total Understanding, Perfect Empathy. Even eternity, as unimaginable as it is, is an earthly concept, tied to our earthly understanding of time.

This kind of a view helps deal with those dicey questions such as, “A guy’s wife dies, and he remarries. When all three are dead and in heaven, who is he with?”

Jesus answered a similar question from the Sadducees in Luke 20 by saying, “But those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die any more, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.” (Luke 20:35-36)

It’s hard to ponder. Because people in heaven do seem to maintain their individuality, if you look at the words carefully. And yet earthly concerns such as, “Which wife is he with, or both?” become insignificant, in some way.

Hebrews 12:22-23, again, indicates there are individuals in heaven (bolding mine): "But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, **and to an innumerable company of angels,

To the general assembly** and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,"

So to answer, “What’s heaven like?” and look to the Bible, the Bible it seems to me tells us, “Sorry; we don’t have the words to describe it to you.”

However, if you are looking for a more pat answer, this guy on AOL seems to have one. :slight_smile:

11

If you don’t remain who you are then what is the purpose of this life? genie what religion teaches the concept of eternal progression? Leslie Weatherhead talks about something like that in his book The Christian agnostic.

12

I concur (although I have to admit that my thoughts on this subject are based more on ‘intuition’ than scripture); my reasoning(accepting, for the moment, as given that God is real etc.) is centred around the idea that there is a purpose to our corporeal existence and therefore, however brief our span here in the context of eternity, it makes no sense whatever to scrap all of the experience and achievement.

Rather than Heaven being some sort of continuation of an earthly mode of existence, I’d say that physical existence is an expression of what we are spiritually and eternally.
(just don’t ask me for a cite on any of that).

13

That seems sort of silly to me. Please explain this.
It seems that boredom is most definitely a psychological concept.

**

I think his intent is pretty clear. He means “What if the place Good Christians (or whatever religion you want) go to when they die is really boring?”

I doubt he meant “What if eternal paradise, which, by definition, can’t be boring, is boring?”, since it doesn’t really make sense.

**

What does God really care if we get bored after 9 billion years?

Anyway, when I was a kid, I assumed heaven was some place where you drastically changed your perceptions and basically became a different type of being. If you stay even nearly the same as you are now… sure, the first thousand, million, or even billion years might be a blast. But it gets boring a bit after that.

I always figured the best way to run a heaven, if you “had” to keep people going for eternity, would be to allow them all the wonders of heaven for a few weeks, months, years, whatever - and then completely wipe their memories and make them start from zero. Like they’d just entered heaven for the first time. Then experience all the wonders of heaven. At least that way, you wouldn’t get bored after a billion years.

14

[Calvin]

“Maybe heaven is a place where you’re allowed to be bad!”

[/Calvin]

15

kniz, I’m LDS.

16

“Psychology” is the study of behaviour and cognition - functions of your brain, which is a physical instrument.

**

What “years”? There’s no time outside the universe; time is a physical construct of THIS universe. It’s a physical thing. You can’t translate physical, scientific realities to the Christian Heaven, which by definition lies outside the universe.

17

According to George Bernard Shaw’s “Don Juan in Hell” segment of Man and Superman, it is if you’re not prepared for it.
Mark Twain sort of implies that it is in “Captain Stormfield’ Visit to Heaven”. In “Letters From the Earth” he notes that one of the features missng from the popular conception of Heaven is Sex! He implies Heaven would be pretty dull without it.

On the other hand, C.S. Lewis in The Great Divorce criticizes both Shaw and Milton (and maybe Twain), and thinks Heaven is a lot of fun. It’s not clear why.
One of my High School English teachers noted that the Supreme Joy of Heaven was supposed to be the ability to See and Be With God. To him, this suggested that Heaven is sort of ike a big fotball stadium, with everyone lining the walls, and God sitting on the fifty-yard line. He thought this sounded boring. I think C.S. Lewis would have had something to criticize here, too.

18

Well, Milton has that weird passage on angelic sex in Paradise Lost. The setup: the archangel Raphael stops by Adam and Eve’s place for dinner, and after telling them about the war in Heaven (a really entertaining passage) and about the Creation (a tough read), Adam (who’s thinking about his passionate love for Eve) asks, “Hey, so do you have sex up in Heaven?” (This is not, of course, a direct quote. ;)) Raphael answers:

“Let it suffice thee that thou know’st
Us happy, and without Love no happiness.
Whatever pure thou in the body enjoy’st
(And pure thou wert created) we enjoy
In eminence, and obstacle find none
Of membrane, joint, or limb, exclusive bars;
Easier than air with air, if Spirits embrace,
Total they mix, union of pure with pure
Desiring, nor restrained conveyance need
As flesh to mix with flesh, or soul with soul.”

In other words (since Milton’s syntax is pretty difficult), “yes, we have sex, and it’s even better than human sex because we don’t have those bodies that tend to get in the way…”

Of course, PL is an epic, not a theology book, and Milton’s angels spend more time throwing mountains at one another than having celestial sex…but I thought I’d get that on the table anyway. :slight_smile:

19

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by RickJay *
**

Actually if you take the theory that time is movement, then it exists everywhere, it is a constant. Without movement there can be no time…etc. It’s a spin off of the theory of relativity.

And two, how do we know that “Christian Heaven” lies outside the universe? Is that in the Bible? Then again, if Heaven were a part of the universe then presumably we could physically travel there far into the future… unless of course you buy into multi-diminsional theory, but assuming Heaven lies inside another dimision has pitfalls too.

My head is going to explode.

20

Some quotes that seemed appropriate:

“There is no humor in heaven.”-Mark Twain

“Let us swear while we may, for in heaven it will not be allowed.”-Mark Twain

“Men have feverishly conceived a heaven only to find it insipid, and a hell to find it ridiculous.”-George Santayana

sounds pretty dull to me.