If you like church and worshipping god, that’s what heaven will be like. A church service that never ends. To me that would be hell…but several different churchies have told me that heaven is Everlasting Worship [of God]. So since I think even an hour of church is boring…I think any multiple of hours that eternity comprises would multiply the bordom by that number. Hence, Heaven is infinately boring.
I’m going slightly off-topic here, but it’s a bit of a shame that people think that heaven will just be one indefinite church service; not that I don’t like the services at my church, but I consider that worship is a far broader concept than “face front and sing”. Polycarp, where are you?
To each his own; I’ve only ever managed to sit through one complete football game in my life without losing interest.
I’ll admit that I do find beer slightly interesting though.
But there’s no particular reason why church (or heaven for that matter) must be boring.
An English writer named Adrian Plass said that God would have to make heaven at least as interesting as your favourite things, or you simply wouldn’t want to go. (yes, I know that proves nothing, but this thread is more IMHO than anything else really)
My understanding is that, should you find yourself in heaven, then this is pretty much what heaven will be like for you- author Adrian Plass described his expectation of heaven as like going in to bat for England at Lord’s. But then he’s a Brit…
This is how I have thought about the question of animals in heaven - if heaven wouldn’t be heaven without Muffie/Rover/etc, then I wouldn’t be too surprised to find them there for you…
I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but this is exactly what one of the Future Religions depicted in Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land actually does. After services a screen slides down and people (men especially) stay in the pews to watch the game. I don’t recall if they get beer, too, but I think so. Not surprisingly, this religion is phenomenally popular.
It’s supposed to be “a state of total joy and fulfillment.” Obviously, for a “my life is my churchmanship” junkie, it’d be a time when the most satisfying church service you ever attended extended to infinity. But for most of us, that would not be adequate.
Glory in one’s presence before the Godhead? Yeah. But in a way gratifying to the individual.
For JAB or David B., for example, a time when one’s quest for the truth is always fulfilled and never satiated, coupled with a personal inner satisfaction (similar to the pleasuere many people get from time with family and/or friends) would be the ticket.
I think the last reward God would consider adequate is something that is, in and of itself, no reward to the people receiving it – kind of entering a contest and finding out that “you’re a winner – your prize is two weeks in beautiful Grand Forks, North Dakota!!”
Consider:[ul][li]According to Christian tradition, mankind was able to sin because God gave mankind free will. Without free will, it is impossible to sin.[/li][li]With free will, it is inevitable that, given an infinite amount of time, someone somewhere will sin.[/li]Heaven is supposed to be 100% sin-free for all eternity. Not 95% sin-free, not 99.99999999999% sin-free, 100% sin-free. God, in His omniscience and perfect knowledge of the future, has ordained that there will never be so much as one eensy-weensy sin committed in heaven, ever.[/ul]Since eternity is an infinite amount of time, then if free will existed in heaven, someone somewhere in heaven would eventually sin. But we already know that no sins will ever transpire in heaven. Therefore, heaven has no free will. Q.E.D…
A possibly flawed assumption - quite a few people seem to be saying that eternity is quite different from ‘an infinite amount of time’ in that it exists outside the context of space and time.
However, that doesn’t detract much from the rest of your point about free will, which I can’t personally refute.
I don’t know if Heaven is boring, but I do know this: If the anti-abortion types are right, and life begins at conception, then Heaven is knee-deep in the sludge of the 7 out of 10 fertilized eggs that fail to anchor themselves to the uterine wall and get flushed out as waste.
No, no, no, Cervaise – hell is knee-deep in the sludge of the 7 out of 10 fertilized eggs that fail to anchor themselves to the uterine wall and get flushed out as waste. Remember, those blastocysts were never Baptized.
Everyone is trying to get to the bar.
The name of the bar, the bar is called Heaven.
The band in Heaven plays my favorite song.
They play it once again, they play it all night long.
…
It’s hard to imagine that nothing at all
could be so exciting, could be so much fun.
Heaven is a place where nothing every happens.
Heaven is a place where nothing every happens
TRACER SAID ------
IN HEAVEN, THERE IS NO FREE WILL!
Consider:
According to Christian tradition, mankind was able to sin because God gave mankind free will. Without free will, it is impossible to sin.
With free will, it is inevitable that, given an infinite amount of time, someone somewhere will sin.
Heaven is supposed to be 100% sin-free for all eternity. Not 95% sin-free, not 99.99999999999% sin-free, 100% sin-free. God, in His omniscience and perfect knowledge of the future, has ordained that there will never be so much as one eensy-weensy sin committed in heaven, ever.
Since eternity is an infinite amount of time, then if free will existed in heaven, someone somewhere in heaven would eventually sin. But we already know that no sins will ever transpire in heaven. Therefore, heaven has no free will. Q.E.D…
Seems you left out some possibilities;
a)it could be that all sins are repealed so that there is no sin. After all, Laws are the cause of crime! (without laws there would be no crime)
b)we fail to exist in heaven (or anywhere after death–a strong contender!) can’t sin without existing!
c)It’s really a buncha bullshit made up to keep you inline in this life by autocratic religious folks throughout the ages