What's Heaven Like?

Great Debates
1

Title says it all.

I love playing poker. Texas Hold’em especially. Yes, I was playing before it became a national fad. For those of you who play, you know that you can’t play poker without money on the line. If there’s no money on the line, then there’s no point in betting rounds. If you’re playing with chips, but no actual money, then there’s no thrill. I personally will go “all in” on almost every hand before the flop. But when money is on the line, it can be very nerve-wracking and fun as hell.

Can I play poker in heaven? Will there be currency? If so, will there be rich and poor? You see where I"m going with this.

I’ve heard that heaven is more like a state of being. You are in a state of eternal bliss, and you exist like this forever and ever (and ever and ever). Apparently it’s so great that I can’t possibly comprehend it now. Neat, but a little dull. Some philosopher out there stated that man is better than God in some respects. We can experience courage, God never can. We can experience the thrill of betting in a casino, God can’t. Our falliability and vulnerability (and non-omnipotence/omniscience) allows us to experience some very great things.

On to the point… what’s heaven like? Is it a community where people live like they do today? Are all the houses alike? Are some houses bigger than others? Are there competitions or sports? Are some people better than others? I just don’t get how to imagine the perfect place. Is there really such a place where everyone there can live perfectly happy? How is this so without sacrificing free will or personal preference? I don’t know… I’ve heard plenty of descriptions of hell, but what’s heaven like?

Art

2

“Heaven, n.: A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own.” Ambrose Bierce

Christian author Adrian Plass described heaven as “like going in to bat for England at Lords” - in other words (for non cricket fans) the best feeling and highest honour imaginable. If that for you involves poker, then ante up!!

Grim

3

“You will do greater things than I.” — Jesus (paraphrased)

4

Just to address this part in the context of my religious belief: Right now we have free will to choose any path and the right choice is obscured by living in this imperfect world. We will still have free will but since everything has been revealed to us we would see the right choice (God’s will) and know that that is the way to go. Just as Jesus could have sinned but never did because His will was so “in tune” with God’s.

Personally, I think heaven is like that rare feeling you get sometimes, that feeling of everything being right and beautiful and you are SO happy in that fleeting moment. But forever, and you never get tired of it.

5

Poker in heaven? I don’t see why not.

Currency? Nah. We won’t need it.

On to the point… what’s heaven like? Is it a community where people live like they do today?

Hmm.

I envision it as somewhat like the earth. You know how you’d have to get on a plane to get to Hawaii? Well, I think there are actual places in heaven. When you get there maybe you’ll live in Section 777, but you’d be able to go see Moses in Section 10 by teleporting yourself. In earthly terms, it’d be like you living in the US and Moses living in, say, Fiji.

I think we’ll know everyone, even those we never met while on earth. I imagine I’ll know my husband was my husband on earth, but since the Bible says we won’t be married in heaven, I assume we’ll have a different kind of relationship.

Are all the houses alike?

I’m thinking no. God gave us all different personalities for a reason. The house He’s building for you is probably quite different from the log cabin sitting on a tiny white-sand island that He’s building for me. (My place will also have sapphire trees. They’ll be blue and all but you’ll be able to pluck them off the tree and eat them. They taste like chocolate.)

God’s creative. Look at the diversity we see just in the relatively small number of countries here on earth: and it only took Him 6 days to make this. He’s been working on heaven quite a bit longer.

Are some houses bigger than others?

Probably so. The book says to lay up treasures for yourself in heaven. I’m assuming that our actions here on Earth dictate how much stuff we get, so those who are more faithful, do more good stuff, etc., would probably have a bigger mansion or whatnot.

The point isn’t about the stuff, though, because it’s all about being able to see God face to face and hang out. I won’t have a cardboard box in heaven, but I’d take that any day over the best house in hell.

Are there competitions or sports?

I don’t see why not. I hope there’s basketball.

Are some people better than others?

Hmm. Better how? As in, God likes them more? No. Better as in given more honor? Yes. The Bible refers to certain crowns that believers will receive in heaven: the crown of life, righteousness, joy, the incorruptible crown and glory.

The crown of life goes to the martyrs. When Stephen was stoned and saw Jesus standing in heaven waiting for him, that was a pretty darn big deal. Jesus doesn’t have to get off the throne for anyone, yet He stood up as Stephen was dying to welcome him home.

I am not a Bible scholar, there are several verses that talk about the persecuted receiving a great reward in heaven, so I imagine those who lose their lives for the Gospel will have a special reputation.

Another reason I think some will receive more honor than others is the elders around the throne passage. Who are they? We don’t know, but apparently God is very, very pleased with them to give them such a significant seat. Does He love them more than everyone else? Of course not. But they apparently laid it all on the line while they were alive, and they’ve been rewarded.

6

:smiley:

7

I went to a Christian highschool, and every morning, we had “chapel”, which basically means an hour-long sermon on which we had to take notes.

The principal (and the one doing the preaching) must have overheard some kids complaining about having to go to church on Sunday, and then having to go to chapel on Monday. She said something I will never forget: “What do you think Heaven will be like? The Bible says we’ll praise God for all eternity-- like you do in church. That’s what Heaven is, kids, and if you don’t like church, you won’t like Heaven-- and if that’s the case, there must be something wrong with you and your spirituality.”

Eternity in church. I could tell by the faces of my fellow students that the idea held no more appeal for them than it did for me. It sounded like the afterlife sucked no matter which direction you went-- the only difference was that one had a more temperate climate.

8

But my point was that you can’t have one without the other. Will I feel shame for living in my box while my parents look down on me from their mansion? Will I be jealous of your log cabin? Is everyone in the prime of their lives in heaven? If I accidentally cut my arm off, will it come back? If I purposefully cut my arm off, will it come back? Will there be porn in heaven? Heh, I dunno… just rambling…

I can see having free will but knowing the true path, but it would have to be some kind of great personality change for us humans to not just know the right path, but to walk it. It’s hard enough to do the right thing on Earth, surely it’s equally hard in heaven, unless God just ZAPS my brain and suddenly I am in tune with him, which is kind of altering our minds, which is kind of taking away free will, no? I dunno…

Art

9

You won’t be jealous of my log cabin because your place in heaven will be uniquely yours, made just for you. Your parents wouldn’t look down on your place because I think we’ll all know that our individual places are just for us, made by God and not subject to anyone else’s approval/disapproval.

The prime of lives question … I guess so. It’s not like we’re gonna age, because we’ll be living outside of time, but I’d assume we’ll be the “ideal” age, whatever that is.

10

In Heaven there is no beer.
That’s why we drink it here.
-Ernst Neubach, polka musician

11

It may be a completely different state of being making all your questions moot. Just because our reality and experience operates in one fashion now doesn’t mean that it is the best, most fun, or pleasurable way.

12

I think that the David Byrne of the talking heads summed up what heaven is really like in the first verse of the song, the song called heaven.

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.

Heaven is a place where nothing, nothing ever happens.
Heaven is a place where nothing, nothing ever happens

13

The afterlife is not a world “set up” by God. Rather, it is an organic and real world just like our own.

14

Cite?

15

Well, according to the movie What Dreams May Come, your heaven looks like whatever you most deeply want it to—so if, say, the place that would be paradise to you would look like a cel-rendered Banff national park, you’d get that.

I don’t know what’d happen if your idea of paradise would be something like nirvana, or fusing yourself to god, or the feeling of getting electroshock after a cocaine overdose.

That might make social interactions difficult—what if all your buddies (or the love of your life :eek:) would just rather stay in their own facets of paradise than spend time with other humans, or if they were so out of it (like if they were having an eternal “godgasm” like some christians, like the ones that Lissa mentions, hope for) that they were essentially “dead” to the other souls who prefered a more “earthly” paradise.

For the matter…what would masochists get rewarded with? What would they be punished with?

Heaven’s hard to plan—I guess it really is a Utopia, in the true sense of the word.

16

Doing you the courtesy of assuming you don’t mean “eutopia”, that would bring it fairly close to the Buddhist Nirvana, which depending on which translation you believe means either “oneness” or “nothingness”.

Me, I fancy something with scarlet E-Type Jags that never break down, long winding country roads with great straights, and comfy leather armchairs, Wild Turkey, Marlboro’s and friends to chat with after.

17

Isn’t that like the rock so heavy that God couldn’t lift it?

18

If people in heavens care about having a bigger mansion (or whatnot), then it means that they’ll have desires, that will or won’t be fulfilled. In this case, people who won’t have their desires fulfilled won’t be perfectly happy. Actually, one could argue that an eternal frustration (even only about the size of one’s mansion) sounds more like hell than like heaven.

On the other hand, if people don’t care about having a bigger mansion, it would be pointless that some of them would have a bigger one. So such an assumption doesn’t make much sense.

More generally, assuming that people will have desires in heaven lead to all sort of questions.

And by the way, stating that people will keep a free will but won’t ever use it to do any sinful action is contradictory. Eternal life is well…eternal, infinite. If a given event can’t happen given an infinite time, then this event is impossible. If it’s impossible to sin in heavens, then either there’s no free will in heavens, either there’s no sin (for instance if revolting against god isn’t a sin in heavens, then you can keep free will. But you can’t have both).

19

That would make sense if you had not wrote :

IOW, you’re stating that some people will get a bigger reward than others. Which isn’t the case if your log cabin is just the perfect thing for you. You get exactly the same reward as someone else living in a big castle that is exactly the perfect thing for him. Whether or not one of you did more good actions than the other.

As soon as someone get "more stuff"as a reward, it implies that some desires will be fulfilled in heavens and others won’t.

By the way, it always mystifies me when people describes heavens as a place with “stuff”, like a mansion. Even back then when I wasn’t an atheist, I never conceived heavens as anything material, let alone materialistic.

20

I was hinting at “outopia,” one of the (as I understand it) root words for “Utopia,” and meaning “nowhere.” The point (or the pun) being the inability of a completely ideal and “perfect” place to exist.