Seriously? You really think so?
People are interesting. The different things we’ve all come up with are amazing. I admit I’m biased because I a. majored in cultural anthropology and think humans are endlessly fascinating and b. used to live in a former communist country and have utter disdain for the people who think conformity > individualism, but I’ll take our crazy, interesting, unpredictable (and yes, violent) world every time over a bland, gray, passionless, peaceful world.
Well, I think you and I have gotten different ideas out of the song. All I know is that every time I hear I want to punch the music playing device.
So go tend to your garden. I will be happily living in the civilization with medicine and technology and refrigeration. In five years, when you die a terrible death of starvation weakening your parasite-ridden body and you work yourself to the bone, I’ll buy your garden aat probate auction. 
I don’t hate it, but it leaves me cold. I also feel so shallow every time I listen to it, not because I want a world with religion, but because I kind of like…well, material possessions. And I’m not big on brotherhood. On day two of Lennon’s Imagine world, I’d be that person going, “Did you see Brother Lennon’s beige tunic? What was he thinking?”
Where does the song say a single word about no diversity or differences?
Where does the song say anything about no medicine or technology or refrigeration?
Friend, IMO, religion (I forget, is it Jesus or Allah you’re willing to martyr yourself for?) doesn’t sound like it’s been a good influence on your young mind.
Your life can have meaning, even though there’s no God. Dedication to something outside yourself doesn’t require martyrdom. Before you do anything rash, talk to an atheist if you need help understanding this.
And turn off that hippie crap.
Actually, Lennon spoke out AGAINST Mao – listen to Revolution. 
Lennon also spoke very cynically about the possibility of a utopia actually happening. He did not think humans would change.
That was in reference to “there would be no reason to care about anyone, at least not outside your own tiny tribe.”
I think that Lennon intended that it be subject to interpretation first as repulsive, then as hopeful and lastly as nihilism. He was no slouch on lyric writing and not above jokes in his work. So I would agree that dystopia is in there somewhere.
Since the OP apparently believes in an afterlife, I would ask him what he thinks heaven would be like?
Are there countries? Are there stores to stock up on the latest consumer electronics and fine clothes? Do people worship different gods in heaven?
I gotta know, dude, are we supposed to be killing ourselves or not? Make up your mind.
You are welcome to wait for some fictional heaven if you prefer, but some of us are of the opinion that enjoying life IS the point of it.
I think **Diogenes **has it right here, although I would go more with a vision of what Buddhism teaches. That would jibe better with the first verse.
For me, though, it’s like saying: Imagine humans weren’t human. Interesting thought, but completely out of touch with reality.
You know, while it’s not a board rule that all the truly stupid hypothetical statements are to issue from my keyboard, it’s certainly board custom. I’ll thank you to remember that.
Yeah! I mean for one thing, I’ve got your change…
Lennon was a very bright man and this is almost certainly a more complex and multi-layered work than it first appears.
Humans are not suited for utopia; not even the Nowhere Man is suited for such a Nowhere Land.
To me, the “society” in “Imagine” sounds like a utopia rather than a distopia, but it’s a very negative one, defined by what has been eliminated, by what there is not rather than by what there is. As such, I agree that it sounds more Buddhist than Christian to me.
But I don’t think you can “imagine there’s no heaven” and still have Jesus’s message. (“Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”). When I think of the times Jesus spoke of giving up possessions, for example, they explicitly involved the context or reason or motivation of heaven.
For Jesus, things like abandoning possessions and being passive in the face of hostility were means to an end, not an end in themselves.
To Lennon, if “no possessions,” “nothing to kill or die for,” etc. are means to an end, what is Lennon’s end, his Ultimate Good? From the song, it sounds like “peace and brotherhood.” I think peace and brotherhood are very good things, but I don’t think they’re the only good things, nor do I think “no possessions” and “no heaven” are the means to achieve them.
Cut the dude some slack, it’s not easy to make a coherent philosophy rhyme.