What if I don't WANT eternal life?

Great Debates
1

It seems to me that a lot of the Christian literature* I see uses the promise of “eternal life” as the primary carrot for evangelization. “Repent and you will have eternal life,” “If you accept Christ you will never perish…” That kind of stuff.

Now this is a promise that doesn’t do much for me. Frankly, I would find eternal life rather boring after a while. I’ve decided I don’t want eternal life. When I die, I just want to rot. I don’t want to go to Heaven. I want no surviving consciousness of any kind. I want to just wink out like a candle.

However, I also want to be a good person while I’m alive. I don’t want to do anything bad or hurt anybody just so I don’t have to go to Heaven. I want to be as good of a husband, father and citizen as I can, and then just be extinguished.

So here’s my question: If I’m a good person, do I have to go to Heaven, or can I arrange it with God to just get snuffed out instead? If so, how do I go about doing it?

*by “Christian literature” I don’t mean Thomas Aquinas or John Shelby Spong, I’m talking about the crap that gets jammed under my windshield wipers or handed out on college campuses.

2

Well, I don’t think I ever read about, or heard about Jesus putting tracts under peoples windshield wipers. You are probably getting those from someone else. There are a lot of assholes in the world. Some of them are Christians. Actually, one of them is me. But that’s a whole other story.

I don’t think the Lord intends to drag you, kicking and screaming down the endless halls of eternity. I think that if you are truly weary beyond respite of the existence you have that the Lord will allow you to pass out of it. But remember also that what wearies you now will also have passed away. So, give it a look, before you decide on oblivion. Nothing is not a hard act to top.

He will miss you. So will I.

Tris

3

An excellent question. Personally, I don’t think you have a thing to worry about, D the C- the data that makes up “you” doesn’t go anywhere once the electrical stimuli is gone, any more than does that Word document when there’s a power outage.

However, I see the point: The “carrot”, as DtC put it, is an eternal life… doing what? “Basking in the Light of the Lord”? This sounds terribly, terribly boring.

Yes, yes, I’ve heard it all before- Holy Bliss, it’s somehow exciting just to be there, yadda yadda. Horsepucky. The human mind requires both input mand some extent of variation, new experiences. An “eternity” means what, hundreds of billions of years? A trillion aeon? Until whenever Big Daddy God decides he’s tired of the Universe and allows it to collapse and implode again?

Just what do you do in Heaven for eight hundred quintillion millennia? That’s enough time to play every possible permutation of chess a dozen times over. Presumably there’s no TV in Heaven, so that’s out (an eternity of Friends?) and I can’t imagine BDG allowing them poor saved souls to watch the goings-on back down here on Earth. I mean, what if Dad sees how his kids are squandering their inheritance for which he worked so hard for 45 back-breaking years? He wouldn’t want anyone, just out of curiosity you understand, peeking into a few bedrooms or catching a little of the unscrambled Jiggling Naked Flesh Channel.

Fundies tell us that video games are the tools of the Devil, so presumably there’s no Playstations, Xboxes or Game Boys- besides, you think Heaven gets regular deliveries of the latest cartridges and game CDs?

One presumes Big Daddy doesn’t allow, er, foolin’ around either, so that’s out.

So what are we left with? That image from The Far Side with the guy sitting on a cloud wishing he’d brought a magazine?

Yes, I’m sure it’s incredibly exciting being in Heaven, but even pure excitement gets boring after a while. Sage words from a comic strip:

4

Diogenes wrote:

If you are “good”, it means that you love, or facilitate goodness, and are therefore already “in Heaven”.

Just close your heart to goodness.

5

I understand what you’re saying, Lib, but I guess I’m trying to make a point about a more literalist view of Heaven. Actually, Doc Nickel just expressed my point better than I did. An eternity of anything would be a Hell eventually, even Heaven.

6

So a good person goes to heaven, whether he wants to or not? Is it impossible to conceive of a good person who does not want to spend eternity with God? I want to be a good person, and I want to cease to exist when I die. Is there any room for me in your cosmology, Lib?

7

So Libertarian, are you saying Diogenes’s best option is to turn evil on his deathbed? Are you saying life after death is pure metaphor(i.e heaven is merely the state of “loving”)?

8

Don’t worry about it. When you die, God will “fix” you so that such bad thoughts can never happen, and you will want to spend eternity thanking Him.

9

A couple of quotes:

Mark Twain’s best friend for many years was a respected cleric, with whom he enjoyed jousting verbally over Christian doctrine. He posed a similar question.

“Well, I shouldn’t worry too much about that, Sam, if I had your chances.”

Salvador Dali: “Heaven is located precisely in the center of the chest of the man who has faith.”

10

I Want To Be With My Wife In Hell!!!

11

I knew you would understand, my friend. But I assure you that eternal goodness is no Hell. Not if it is the yearning of your heart.

12

So are you saying that Heaven is nothing more than a metaphor for facilitating goodness? That’s it?

JZ

13

I would first like to know more about this Heaven before I could determine if I really didn‘t want to be there. I don‘t want to go there, if Jehovah will be present. He has too shitty a disposition for my taste. Nor would I want to be there if loved ones couldn’t be there with me too. Not too crazy about listening to Jesus‘ wacko teachings either or hearing about how he fed the thousands or walked on water. I’d rather listen to Twain spin a yarn instead. The Bible is almost silent about Heaven with only a few hints gracing it’s pages. It was the one thing I was wanting to know the most about if it really existed, after all eternity is a long time, and I would like to know what I will be doing for all this time. What little it does say about it doesn’t impress me much. And although I don’t have the appropriate verse–I believe it is in Matthew–I’ve been told by some believers that you will not have your genitals when you enter into a Christian Heaven. Nor does it elaborate either on how one will facilitate going to the bathroom either. Judging from the way women were often treated in the Bible, I wonder if they even make it to heaven? I understand their will be streets paved with gold. Ho-hum…Maybe there will be some harp music playing, I dunno. Prefer some good Rock & Roll myself, although I’d hate to think any of those Christian Rock bands made it there. If so, eternal nothingness is looking much better to me. I don’t recall it saying anything about what we will look like when we arrive at heaven. I would like to know how good the food is or has that been taken away too? May I have the youthful appearance of a young man of 20 again, but the wisdom of a much older man? Will my parents? Will my grandfather be and old man of 84 when I remember him, or will everyone have the same youthful appearance? Imagine that: infants, children, parents, grandparents great-grandparents, great-great grandparents, and so on, all looking the same age. Would I truly be happy there, if other loved ones were sent to a fiery hell? For the divorcees, how will that be all sorted out? If you don’t believe in Hell, then at least tell me more about your Heaven, so I could determine if it is even worthy of a visit.

JZ

14

No, love is the facilitation of goodness. Heaven is a network of love.

15

Am I correct in understanding that if I go to Heaven but my wife suffers in Hell for all eternity, God “fixes” it so that I don’t care anymore? Please, no vague “Heaven is what you make of it here on Earth so it really doesn’t matter” statements, otherwise I’ll just have to counter with “God is just a state of mind, so She/He/It/Them doesn’t really matter.” I am looking for a response from a “After-you-die-you-go-to-Heaven-or-Hell” kind of poster.

16

Okay. Well, I’m out of that one. (Whew! :D)

17

No offense, Lib. It’s just that when you want a ruling on whether a certain food is kosher, you don’t go down to St. Swizzins Cathedral and question Father Murphy. :slight_smile:

18

:smiley: Fair enough!

19

Unless it’s been saved?

20

In my worldview, this is exactly what heaven is.