# What's to stop me sinning in heaven? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 24, 2005, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-to-stop-me-sinning-in-heaven/327667 "2005-10-24T15:43:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-to-stop-me-sinning-in-heaven/327667/21 "2005-10-25T01:33:33Z")
> [@Futile Gesture](#): > > Let say, for the sake of discussion, I get to heaven. What’s stopping me turning to the dark side and spending the rest of eternity as a sinner? > > The way I see it there’s only two answers to this; > > 1/ I won’t want to. Everything will be so blissful in heaven I’ll never sin again. > 2/ If I do I’ll be evicted to the bad fire down below. 1. If you do God will slap you upside your head. On earth, it was up to your parents to discipline you. In heaven, you’re on the big-guy-in-the-sky’s turf and he can be more of a hands-on disciplinarian. (In a booming Charlton Heston voice): Thou de-tune thy harpists strings?! (slap, slap, slap). Or maybe he is a less vengeful supreme being and you will only get time-out. Food for thought: If, perchance, you can get away with sinning in heaven, and you really enjoy being bad, it would make sense to be good on Earth (mere decades to be bored), slip into heaven as a “good” soul, then sin your butt off for the rest of eternity. The bumper sticker on the back of my wings will read, “Only suckers go to hell”. Mr. Tibbs 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Black\_Train\_Song](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4da419/32.png) [@Black\_Train\_Song](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Black_Train_Song)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-to-stop-me-sinning-in-heaven/327667/22 "2005-10-25T02:10:42Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > My answer might not have been wonderful, but it was certainly serious. Sin in heaven is as undefined as division by zero, because heaven is a sinless state. If there were sin, it wouldn’t _be_ heaven. It’s interesting to see heaven compared to something that by definition has no value at all. I’ll go with that. ---
**Author:** ![Trust](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b38774/32.png) [@Trust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trust)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-to-stop-me-sinning-in-heaven/327667/23 "2005-10-25T02:33:34Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > It seems as if you are describing sin as some sort of palpable force that infects us, whereas I see sin as something we do that breaks the rules that are set up. When you say that there is no sin in heaven, are you saying that free will is eliminated and that we will be incapable of breaking rules anymore, or are you saying that, no matter what we do in Heaven, we cannot get in trouble because there are no rules to break? I find the former to be totally unacceptable and the latter to be disturbing at the very least. Sin is simply what blinds us from experiencing and seeing God. When that blindfold is taken off, you are seeing God for what God is and will probably have no recollection of what it even means to not see God. You are focusing too much on the rules. It has never been about a report card. We love our children that we have even when they screw up; and we’re evil. Our perfect Father will show unimaginably more love for his children. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-to-stop-me-sinning-in-heaven/327667/24 "2005-10-25T10:15:03Z")
> [@Rooves](#): > > It’s interesting to see heaven compared to something that by definition has no value at all. I’ll go with that. It’s also interesting to see a mutilated interpretation of an analogy. It is not the case that “heaven” was compared to “division by zero”, but that “sinning in heaven” was compared to “division by zero”. Good luck on those SATs. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-to-stop-me-sinning-in-heaven/327667/25 "2005-10-25T10:17:20Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > It seems as if you are describing sin as some sort of palpable force that infects us, whereas I see sin as something we do that breaks the rules that are set up. When you say that there is no sin in heaven, are you saying that free will is eliminated and that we will be incapable of breaking rules anymore, or are you saying that, no matter what we do in Heaven, we cannot get in trouble because there are no rules to break? I find the former to be totally unacceptable and the latter to be disturbing at the very least. For the first time in, well, maybe forever, I actually understand what you’re saying. And if I thought of faith as an ethics based system, I would agree with you. But I don’t. See the discussions in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=341106). ---
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-to-stop-me-sinning-in-heaven/327667/26 "2005-10-25T10:24:27Z")
> [@smiling bandit](#): > > Think about it - if the men of this world were wholly willing to do good (and I do not mean “lose their individuality”), or even noticably more so, do you think all wars would cease tommorow? What tyrant can rule without an army of men willing to kill for him? If men could trust one another more fully, could we not eliminate corruption overnight? if we could eliminate corruption, could poverty or want live long? Things might become perfect overnight, but we would surely become far better, and would progress towards perfection much faster. But why wouldn’t God create this world? You noted above that failure to do good often results from a lack of caring. Why wouldn’t God create us to care more about the good, and create the world you describe? I know that people will argue that it is an issue of free will. But as I have argued before on these boards, free will does not require the ability to do evil. I _could not possibly_ bring myself to detonate a bomb in a group of innocent civilians. Does my inability mean that I am somehow unfree, some robot lacking in free will? No, it just means that I am not evil. So why didn’t God make everyone so that they could not possibly perform such an action, so that they recoil in horror from the prospect of inflicting such evil? It’s not a question of making us unfree; it is a question of making us morally better. The important point is we would still be free–but we would be morally good. So the theist would have us believe that it was somehow valuable or important for God to create us free but not morally good. But here is the question I ask every theist to take seriously: is this value sufficient to justify the evil that has resulted? You really need to take this question seriously. Is creating us without good character really so important that it fully justifies all the evil that humans do? Is this goal sufficiently important to justify the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, the rape of Nanking, King Leopold’s atrocities in the Congo, the Rwandan genocide, etc., etc., etc., etc. Hundreds of millions of people have been horribly slaughtered because God decided not to make us morally good. Ask yourself seriously: _was it really worth it?_ I cannot believe that it was. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-to-stop-me-sinning-in-heaven/327667/27 "2005-10-25T12:14:29Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > For the first time in, well, maybe forever, I actually understand what you’re saying. And if I thought of faith as an ethics based system, I would agree with you. But I don’t. See the discussions in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=341106). _sigh_ Maybe one of these days you’ll find it in your heart to respond to my inquiries without a knee-jerk insult. I read the other thread. Did you notice that most of the responses were people trying to figure out what you are saying? Perhaps you could define “sin” for us in one simple sentence just for the benefit of _this_ discussion. ---
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-to-stop-me-sinning-in-heaven/327667/28 "2005-10-25T13:37:13Z")
I usually refrain from posting in GD because greater minds than mine are at work in here, and I hate to disturb them when they’re going so strong. But I thought I’d pop in to give a Baha’i perspective to the OP: the Baha’i ideal of heaven is to attain the presence of the Creator. In order to do this, I must be spiritually pure and perfect. This is not acheived immediately upon death, but takes time. After I die, I will continue my journey towards perfecting myself spiritually. The further along I get in that aim in this life, the further along I’ll begin my journey on the next path. In the next life, I’ll keep doing everything I can to perfect myself, but it will be easier because I will be unrestrained by this human, fallible body of mine. When I can perfectly mirror the attributes of God, I will attain His presence. When I’m perfect spiritually, it won’t even occur to me to _want_ to sin. If I sin before I attain the presence of God, well, it’ll just take me that much longer to attain His presence. As to what heaven’s like, Abdul-Baha (the son of Baha’u’llah, the Prophet/founder of our faith), all of the Manifestations of God on earth (Buddha, Mohammed, Jesus, Zoroaster, Moses, etc.) knew what heaven is like, but wouldn’t tell us because if we knew, we’d be in too much of a hurry to get there. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-to-stop-me-sinning-in-heaven/327667/29 "2005-10-25T14:58:14Z")
> [@](#): > > by **Homebrew** > So ants don’t herd aphids? Actually, I was thinking of that very example in my post. Ants do herd aphids. But do they ever think about herding other things? Or building pens for improved efficiency? No. They merely follow a pre-programmed group of instructions. Humans are the only species thus far whjich seems capable of thinking in abstract terms and then applying those ideas to other situations. > [@](#): > > by **Sophistry and Illusion** > But why wouldn’t God create this world? You noted above that failure to do good often results from a lack of caring. Why wouldn’t God create us to care more about the good, and create the world you describe? Here’s where our idea diverge. I see men as possessing all the caring they need. Even the most wicked men are capable of great acts of self-sacrifice and mercy. A most wicked man can defy his own cowardice to save his friends andf family. And at the risk of Godwinization to illustrate the reverse, witness Hitler. He was apparently a decent man in his early life. He fought for what he believed was a just war, and for his king. He was nearly crippled on the battlefield. Only later did he begin to indulge in hatred. No, I don’t believe it is for any lack of caring that men act as they do. Rather, in our lives we too often nurse cruelty and wickedness. It does not rule us from the beginning. We nurse good or evil ourselves, and feed it until it becomes a terror that consumes us and stalks us. Foolishness, of course, but we do it to ourselves. > [@](#): > > I could not possibly bring myself to detonate a bomb in a group of innocent civilians. Does my inability mean that I am somehow unfree, some robot lacking in free will? No, it just means that I am not evil. Without intending any insult, you _do_ have the capacity. That does not mean you will, but you can. It’s easy. All you need is a finger and a button, and I do not mean that at all facetiously. Killing is _easy_. The most savage butchery is and was commonplace, deeds done by ordinary men. You can match any horror ever seen in history or the most vicious movies. All that evil is there, inside you, waiting. That does not mean you will do it. I fully believe you when you say you cannot; or rather, you cannot comprehend wishing to do so. That is a good thing. It means you have starved hatred instead of feeding it. Standing here today, neither of us can see the future, and the past only dimly. But if your words are true, and we could look at the past, I say that we would see your choices laid out clearly. Your good-will today is the work of a lifetime, crafting a fortress of morality to cage the evil. [quote] Hundreds of millions of people have been horribly slaughtered because God decided not to make us morally good. Ask yourself seriously: was it really worth it? [quote] And why not? God gave us everything we could ask for. If we spurn his gifts and choose a different road, can we blame Him for our failings? It would be worth it, if only that we may learn humility to match our pride. I disagree here with your use of the word evil. These things were not evil; they were collections of evil deeds done by men who chose to do evil. And again, all the things of this life shall pass away. Pain? Pain is a electro-chemical signal derived from nerve endings transmitted to the brain. It can be understood, controlled, and mastered. Sorrow? What need have we of sorrow? My ultimate answer, however, is that I believe it is a contradiction within good. Good does not seek to rule over others; the desire for power over others flows from wickedness. Good, instead, respects others’ choices, though recognizing they may not be what we would choose, may be unwise choices, or even evil choices. Indeed, see that men could have lived the life you describe, save that we rejected God’s guidance. And, though he was displeased, God protects us still. More quietly, perhaps, since we no longer desire his intervention, but protect us he does. I disagree with Baha’i, but I also do believe that our work of perfection is not finished with our earthly demise. AFter dying, we have a long road to travel, hence Purgatory. It has often been described as a place of pain, and no doubt this is partly correct, though rather limited in imagination. The human creature has a hard time letting go. We must come to accept that much of what we considered valuable and worthy is really trash, and much of that which we considered “ourselves” was really put there y others, or by the Evil One to distract us. But as we accept that these things are but flase impressions, we can become greater than before, and allow our true light to shine forth. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-to-stop-me-sinning-in-heaven/327667/30 "2005-10-25T15:13:39Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > _sigh_ Maybe one of these days you’ll find it in your heart to respond to my inquiries without a knee-jerk insult. The hell? I was positively conciliatory. I might have insulted my own history of comprehension, but I acknowledged how utterly sensible you were being. I suppose I should have known it was a freak accident. > [@](#): > > I read the other thread. Did you notice that most of the responses were people trying to figure out what you are saying? Did you miss [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6719828&postcount=19)? “This last post corralled several loose pieces floating around in my brain and snapped them together with an audible click! I have a much clearer picture of what you’re saying now.” — Otherwise > [@](#): > > Perhaps you could define “sin” for us in one simple sentence just for the benefit of _this_ discussion. My definition has not changed over the years: sin is the obstruction of goodness — i.e., the opposite of love, which is the facilitation of goodness. ---
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-to-stop-me-sinning-in-heaven/327667/31 "2005-10-25T16:04:26Z")
**smiling bandit** –Thank you for your reply. I am sorry for being obtuse. But here is what I can’t figure out: You seem to claim that humans choose to do wicked deeds, and do so because there is evil and hatred within them. God could have created us without this evil and hatred within us (or at least with a lot less of it). Why didn’t He? He knew that if He created us with hatred and evil within us, wicked actions would result. So God must have had an excellent reason for creating us with this hatred in us, hatred which can grow or diminish–a reason good enough to outweigh the wickedness God knew would result from His decision. He could have made us with more love and less hatred, but He chose not to. What was God’s reason? I guess that is really my question, distilled out from all of my ramblings: Why did God make us with hatred and evil in us? ---
**Author:** ![BarnOwl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e95f7d/32.png) [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-to-stop-me-sinning-in-heaven/327667/32 "2005-10-25T16:35:25Z")
Years ago, I asked a priest in confession: Me: In heaven, everyone lives happily for eternity, correct? Priest: Yes. Me: Then how do we explain Lucifer? Priest: (He couldn’t, and fumbled around for a reply. Any reply. It was embarrassing for both of us.) I didn’t mean this as a trap. In fact I still look uponthis encounter with some curiosity. Surely someone asked him that before I did, or it was discussed in one of his theology classes, a book, a tract, anywhere. This priest is no dope. He’s a very smart, very savvy guy. **Oh for those who don’t know, Lucifer was an angel in Heaven who rebelled against God, who then threw him into hell. Lucifer is now Satan.** ---
**Author:** ![Black\_Train\_Song](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4da419/32.png) [@Black\_Train\_Song](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Black_Train_Song)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-to-stop-me-sinning-in-heaven/327667/33 "2005-10-25T19:11:37Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > It’s also interesting to see a mutilated interpretation of an analogy. It is not the case that “heaven” was compared to “division by zero”, but that “sinning in heaven” was compared to “division by zero”. Good luck on those SATs. You said that if there was sin in Heaven it wouldn’t be Heaven, which makes me believe that sinning in heaven (which you compared to zero) is a key factor in making it Heaven. Since you’re insulting my intelligence, how about dumbing down your responses for the little people like me. I’d hate for God to see you act that way. It’s so ugly. ---
**Author:** ![Black\_Train\_Song](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4da419/32.png) [@Black\_Train\_Song](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Black_Train_Song)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-to-stop-me-sinning-in-heaven/327667/34 "2005-10-25T19:12:46Z")
Or…make that the **inabilty** to sin in heaven makes it heaven. There I go again. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2005, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-to-stop-me-sinning-in-heaven/327667/35 "2005-10-25T22:16:59Z")
> [@Rooves](#): > > You said that if there was sin in Heaven it wouldn’t be Heaven, which makes me believe that sinning in heaven (which you compared to zero) is a key factor in making it Heaven. I don’t suppose that correcting the record a second time will make a difference, and doing so might mean that I’m insane. But just in case, I did not compare sinning in heaven to zero. > [@](#): > > Since you’re insulting my intelligence, how about dumbing down your responses for the little people like me. I’d hate for God to see you act that way. It’s so ugly. To me, what is ugly is saying that a man has written one thing when the record shows clearly that he has written something else. I do not attempt to hide how I act from God. That would be rather stupid. If I may ask, for what reason have you lit into me this way? Why did you feel it necessary to respond to a post of mine, misrepresenting it deliberately — you knew very well that I was not saying that Heaven “has no value at all” — and then feigning all this concern about being insulted and what God might think of me? If you thought my meaning was unclear, why didn’t you just ask, instead of making something up and attributing it to me? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2005, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-to-stop-me-sinning-in-heaven/327667/36 "2005-10-26T01:16:06Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > The hell? I was positively conciliatory. I might have insulted my own history of comprehension, but I acknowledged how utterly sensible you were being. I suppose I should have known it was a freak accident. Thank you ever so much for this compliment: > [@Liberal](#): > > For the first time in, well, maybe forever, I actually understand what you’re saying. _I’m_ not the one that has had threads about people not understanding me. > [@Liberal](#): > > Did you miss [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6719828&postcount=19)? > > “This last post corralled several loose pieces floating around in my brain and snapped them together with an audible click! I have a much clearer picture of what you’re saying now.” — Otherwise No, I didn’t miss that post. Did you miss my use of the word “most”? Did you miss the _other_ posts in that thread trying to figure out what you were saying? > [@Liberal](#): > > My definition has not changed over the years: sin is the obstruction of goodness — i.e., the opposite of love, which is the facilitation of goodness. Fine. Sin is the obstruction of Goodness. If, in Heaven, Goodness cannot be obstructed, can any action done in Heaven be called a sin? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2005, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-to-stop-me-sinning-in-heaven/327667/37 "2005-10-26T01:20:11Z")
BTW, **Liberal** , I know I’ve said this before but…it is possible for me to understand you and yet still disagree with your premise and/or conclusion. It neither makes me stupid or crazy. It _simply_ means that we disagree. ---
**Author:** ![Black\_Train\_Song](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4da419/32.png) [@Black\_Train\_Song](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Black_Train_Song)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2005, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-to-stop-me-sinning-in-heaven/327667/38 "2005-10-26T04:33:08Z")
**Liberal** , I haven’t lit into you in any way. I’m just having trouble drawing the analogy. Any number can be divided by zero as long as you’re ok with zero being the answer. I don’t see how sinning in heaven can be compared to math class. I just thought that was snide. To give a response like that to someone who’s looking for a legitimate answer seems disingenuous. Instead explain why it can’t occur. Am I allowed to sin in heaven or does heaven forbid anyone who would sin from entering? Or is heaven a vegetable like state where rules aren’t needed? I can see how I might have offended you. sorry ---
**Author:** ![sciurophobic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2005, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-to-stop-me-sinning-in-heaven/327667/39 "2005-10-26T13:50:59Z")
I have two opinions: 1. Everyone can sin in heaven as much as they want to, but nobody wants to. At that level of spiritual development we would know the difference between right and wrong so well that choosing wrong would make no sense, although we could still recognize it as a choice. 2. Sin is a result of want (power, money, fame, women, etc.). Since we will not desire anything more in heaven than what we will have there there is no opportunity to sin. ---
**Author:** ![FlyingRamenMonster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@FlyingRamenMonster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingRamenMonster)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2005, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-to-stop-me-sinning-in-heaven/327667/40 "2005-10-26T16:03:30Z")
> [@Rooves](#): > > **Liberal** , > > I haven’t lit into you in any way. I’m just having trouble drawing the analogy. Any number can be divided by zero as long as you’re ok with zero being the answer. No, no, zero divided _by_ any number is zero. Any number divided by zero is undefined. It’s like the old apple analogy - if you have 0 apples and 4 people, each person gets 0 apples. But if you have 4 apples and no people, how many apples does each (non-existant) person get? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-to-stop-me-sinning-in-heaven/327667.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-to-stop-me-sinning-in-heaven/327667.md?page=3)