What do you expect to find if you go to heaven? Do you think you will see loved ones? WIll it matter? Will you see your pets?
Do you think God will anwser all your questions?
Smarmy Answer #1: I don’t speculate on the decor in imaginary places.
Smarmy Answer #2: Why do you care? What makes you think you’re going?
All answers ;), natch.
Cloudy.
I’m not particularly concerned. But good luck with it if it’s on your itinerary. Should you get there, I’d imagine it will be everything you’d hoped for.
[Pops up in Heaven]
God: “Hello there Rabid Squirrel, I’v-”
[Kicks God in the 'nads, runs back down to Hell giggling happily]
I tend to think of Heaven as a bit of R&R until you’re next in line to be reincarnated.
Dark and timeless.
Sort of like not existing. 
Behold, there will be ROOM SERVICE.
Heaven will be indistinguishable from being unconscious and buried in dirt forever.
Exert from a Steve Martin routine -
What if you died and found yourself in Heaven. Wouldn’t you feel stupid.
What. YOu mean I’m. No. In college they said this was all crap.
What, you’ve been keeping tabs on me? How many times did I say the Lord’s name in vain?
Oh. Million six. Jesus Chr…
That’s always what I thought Heaven would be like.
I imagine heaven as being a perfect place where you can hang out with your friends and family constantly and never run out of things to do. There are countless amusement parks, theaters, zoos, libraries, etc. There’s good food everywhere, and it doesn’t have any ill effects such as weight gain, gas, heartburn, etc. Also, if you get sick of your family and friends, you can go and find something else to do for awhile.
Isabelle, Speaking from a religious belief that there is a heaven, I think it will be everything that the Bible indicates it will be. Free from pain. No worries. No fears. No tears. Eternal peace.
I read * The Lovely Bones * recently and if you are unfamiliar with the book it is told from the perspective of a 14 year old girl who is brutally raped and murdered. She is narrating from heaven and still has an attachment to Earth. She can see her family and experience the things they are experiencing. She describes heaven as being exactly the way YOU want it to be. For some people in her heaven there are flowers and gardens, for some there are dogs playing happily with them, etc.
Basically, in this book, heaven is full of the things that made you happy or brought you joy on Earth. I think that is a nice interpretation.
Now, personally, I don’t believe when I am in heaven that I will still have an attachment to Earth. To me, that would bring sadness and pain and I feel there won’t be any of that in heaven.
YMMV
Whatever you think it will be like. Your heaven isn’t going to be anything like my heaven.
And as to pets…
The local PBS station here in Central VA has a program called “Virginia Currents.” It is a series of human interest reports from around the Commonwealth. A few months ago a program aired where the host interviewed a man in Charlottesville who claims to be able to contact the spirits of the dead. He isn’t “show business” at all - he’s very unpresupposing and non-descript. He doesn’t seem to be hyping his ability - it is just something he claims he can do.
As the show progressed they followed a woman from Richmond who learned of this guy and went to visit him. He asked her only one question: “Who is it you want to contact?” No personal information was conveyed, just “Who is it you want to contact?” The guy then proceeds to tell the woman that he’s contact her grandfather and instead of answering questions, just sort of riffs for awhile and tells her that he’s been around and with her all along, and tells her what she’s been doing the past few days. Needless to say, she’s flabbergasted. The last thing the “grandfather” says is , “Yes, dogs go to heaven.”
In the post script, the host relates that on the drive to Charlottesville from Richmond she and the woman had an off-hand conversation about whether dogs would go to heaven, but neither one of them mentioned anything about it to the “medium.”
Since no one has ever been able to definitively report about an afterlife or lack thereof we can’t say for sure whether it was setup or not. I tend to believe that some part of us exists in some state afte we die. What part and in what state I can’t say.
I think heaven is when you recognize the universe’s absolute, unchanging, eternal completeness and perfection, and nothing can distract you from it (because you’re dead). Also, you recognize that, as part of the universe, you are the universe, and all the unfathomably wonderful things that implies. All you can do is marvel at it, forever and ever.
I’ve been in many situations in dreams where I’ve done things that would normally result in my death, and, true to form, most of the time I wake up before I died.
But twice, I actually did die. And I had the feeling which cuau describes.
The first time, I just woke up after that. But the second time, I realized that I was waking up, and didnt want to, I wanted to stay dead (actually, primarily to see if I would, indeed, enter heaven, since not all those who “die” experience memorable sensations, and I wanted to have an answer to that question.) But the feeling of having my soul wrenched from me and placed back into my body unwillingly is the worst thing that’s happened to me as an adult.
Well, if heaven is filled with the things that I enjoy doing here on earth, then heaven would be filled with sin. Kinda paradoxical, no?
That is, until the big crunch.
Heaven, to me, is boring. I can’t do anything for eternity and expect to be entertained. However, this is purely from a finite perspective and the concept of infinite really just escapes me.
I don’t expect Heaven to exist, but I do expect to find out the punchline.
I expect mansions and lots of angels and singing. A very peaceful and loving place to be.
I can’t wait to get to heaven and ask God all the questions I have. There are so many why’s I want anwsers to?
Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.
Re: Reality Chuck’s post:
I’ve had several dreams where I went to Heaven. In one the angel showed me and several of my friends around. Heaven was nice but a bit on the dull side and I finally turned to the angel and asked “Does anything ever happen here?”
My sister once dreamed she went to Heaven and they had a caste system there. She became so angry she stormed out. She didn’t say where she went after she left Heaven.
I would hope my birds make it to Heaven, but given their natures they would probably spoil the tone of the place and get kicked out.