Heaven is the place where you want to be. 
Lately, I’ve had the sneaking suspicion that we’ve misunderstood the whole “Heaven/Hell” thing. What if:
Heaven is the place for those who, for lack of a better term, are the “corny religious”. You know, the teens in the gospel rock band, or that guy in your neighborhood who hates halloween. Basically, your Flanderses. They love it up there. Constant chorals of Kumbayah (sp?) and weenie roasts for Jesus.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) there is no hell. Everybody goes up to heaven. But really, if you’ve spent your whole life as a badass rocknroller who mainlines Jack and cokes, who thinks Parousia is a former soviet republic, and wgo has a nice working knowledge of Aliester Crowley, can you really enjoy such a heaven?
People, become a corny christian, if only to make your afterlife somewhat endurable. And that’s my 2/10ths of a cent.
jb
Not being a very religious person, I have my doubts about the existence of a “heaven”, but it would be wonderful if there was. I think that heaven would be whatever you wanted it to be.
I picture it as infinite experiences stretched across all of eternity. Fly like a bird, watch galaxies collide, view all of history at your leisure, and know that everyone that you loved and who loved you are with you once again. You would understand your enemies and learn that they were not so different from you once, and gather peace in the knowledge that they now understand you as well.
I also understand that I am probably totally wrong about all of the above–but it’s nice to dream about once in awhile.
“I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints. The sinners are much more fun.” --Billy Joel, Only The Good Die Young
I don’t know if anyone else has seen the Japanese movie “After Life” by Kore-eda, but I thought that was a nice idea for the afterlife. When you die, you appear in this building, where the helpful staff give you a week to choose a single memory from your life. Then, you spend eternity in that memory, experiencing what would (presumably) be the happiest or most significant moment of your life.
I think were missing the point of my OP.
A great memory eternaly… Thinkn of the logistics of such an eternal loop. I know it was just a movie and you didnt say you buy the idea so this isnt direced at you. Many of us think life is short, and many of us, like myself, think it is way too long. To expearience anything forever is way too long. Its bad enough in our 80+ years of life we think we have a concept of what “our whole life” means entirely. (ie: marrage, carrer choice, etc…) What im saying is that nothing we can comprihend will make us happy forever. Heaven seems like a place that is never thought of realisticaly…
Maybe its just a figure of speech, that we’ve all begun to take too seriously…I mean, why should we have to sacrifice life to get it?
Or even if you don’t get it. Life is a limited-time-offer. Everybody dies eventually.
So what sacrifice are you talking about anyway?
~~Baloo
In heaven, there can be NO FREE WILL.
According to conventional Christian doctrine, free will carries with it the capacity for sin. Everybody who can sin eventually will sin. Yet, heaven is supposed to be completely without sin. The only way that heaven could be sin-free would be if its inhabitants had no free will. Q.E.D.
Wrong.
Oh man. How come the arguments with the thinnest logic always end with QED? You can have free will and just not sin. What possible sin could you even commit after you are dead? Theft? There is nothing to steal. Murder? No more available than suicide at that point. Etc. Cetaintly a completely unencumbered soul would have a rather dull existence. But, hey, if you don’t like the afterlife, don’t die.
How about blasphemy? I can blaspheme after I’m dead, can’t I?
Remember, according to Christian tradition, heaven is gonna be filled with all kinds of low-lifes who got into heaven just because they believed in Jesus as their savior. They didn’t stop sinning after they “found Jesus” while they were still alive, did they? What makes you think they’re gonna stop sinning once they’re dead? Unless they have no free will?!
Oh, and: QED. 
What if one is not Christian, what happens then? For one who does not believe in the Christian god, is that blasphemous? And what kind of blasphemy are you talking about?
And…about this not having free will…its kind of scary. If, that is, you simply do as you are told and are always happy. Sort of a negative utopia. Like in that book This Perfect Day. I mean, can you be happy if you’re forced to feel that way?
Don’t know much about theology, but to me Heaven would be:
An isolated house in a pretty woods
A hot tub containg Cindy Crawford, Sherilynn Fenn and myself
Jimi Hendrix, Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington on the stereo
A well-stocked bar
A hookah containing some Columbian gold I once smoked in 1978.
P.S. Polycarp, I would venture to guess that Robert A. Heinlein, Spider Robinson and Arthur C. Clarke (or L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt) (or Lord Dunsany) are among your favorite authors.
I cannot believe the direction this discussion has taken.
Let’s assume that a deific power exists somewhat along the lines of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim God and allows people into Heaven. Works for me.
If you’re in heaven, you are no longer limited by the constraints of the material world. Concepts like boredom, physical pleasure, or even the most fundamental concepts of cause and effect are a product of your physical being. You get “bored” because your brain and body can only take so much of a given stimulus before greater or different stimuli are needed to evoke equivalent feelings. That’s obviously not a limit that can exist if you don’t have a body anymore. In fact, time itself wouldn’t exist. Time is a property of matter and space.
Hey Tracer I think you are not understanding one point of being saved that when you do go to Heaven your sinful nature is no more as it says in thessalonians you will be changed from what is mortal to what is immortal in a twinkling of an eye {Paraphrasing} the old nature will be gone and all that will be left is the new nature. Why those who are saved still sin is because they still have the old nature while on earth and won’t be rid of it until they go to Heaven either by dying or flying {rapture}. Right now those who are saved and still sin are under grace and have an advocate in Heaven who continously interceeds for the believers.
Say I don’t repent my sins, and upon death get sent to hell. If the soul is unbounded by time, doesn’t that mean my soul was in hell before I was born?
Being new here, I have taken to looking through old threads to see what I have missed. When I saw this, I just had to bump it and reply:
The first two are Heinlein, “The Man Who Traveled in Elephants” (a rarity) and “Job: A Comedy of Justice”.
I am pretty sure the other two are Spider Robinson, from what was it? “Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon”? Is that right?
According to Talking Heads:
My idea of heaven is a huge library with a Thai/Korean/Japanese restaurant and a hot tub with Ken Ryker and Ty Fox asking me to rub their backs.
As a pantheist (God is everywhere) I don’t believe in a traditional heaven.
However, I agree with the OP that the traditional heaven would be a letdown after awhile - if you experienced things the same way as you do on Earth.
Don’t forget: you don’t have senses anymore after you die; no brain either… just your spirit is left over. The spirit requires different stimuli to feel happy than your brain. That’s why heaven is less like a theme park and more like a warm, relaxing, transcendental, soapy-bubble bath for your spirit. Think of the times when your spirit and “peace of mind” have been most at ease, I believe that would most-accurately describe heaven. No sights, no sounds, no faces, just little balls of magic floating around. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh…
But since I believe in reincarnation and that a little chunk of God is in everything, every spirit is just recycled, and heaven - is where you find it.
It was nice to read what I wrote 6 months ago. I forgot how smart I am 
I love me