First off, this is not a thread to discuss whether or not there is a heaven or anything else about beliefs. It is as the Topic line asks. When you first heard about heaven - at 5 or 6 or 7 or whenever - what did your little brain conjure up?
I thought it was a bunch of cubicles (yeah, I know, that’s actually hell) with walls of clouds full of all the cool stuff you wanted but your parents couldn’t/didn’t get you. And, naturally, at that age, all the stuff was toys and games. Family members who had already died didn’t figure into it - just fun stuff.
I’m not sure what gave rise to that. I went to a Catholic school and I can’t imagine the nuns said anything about cloud cubicles. But at 6, heaven was a bunch of toys!
The cultural tradition I grew up in doesn’t really have a concept of the afterlife, so other than absorbing the majority culture’s directional information (heaven is skyward, hell is earthward), I didn’t especially think about it. I couldn’t say when I was exposed to the symbols of old white male god with beard and white on throne, St. Peter at gates, souls in robes on clouds with gold harps, but it’s never seemed real to me. I did get told I’d burn in hell because I wasn’t baptized by the older girl who walked me to school when I was 5, so I had the idea of fire, but I just thought it was weird to think anything happened after you were dead.
I figured the set-up with heaven was, on arrival, you meet God, who looks ageless and golden and regal (which is to say, that one King Tut image) and then you go socialize with the white-clad folks who hang out in an area suffused with a mild but unearthly light (which is to say, Krypton in the SUPERMAN movie).
When I heard people talk about heaven, I wondered how they could possibly believe there were people walking around on the clouds. I knew clouds were just wispy nothingness that planes could fly through.
In my pediatrician’s waiting room, in addition to the obligatory Highlights magazines, there were several religious kids’ books. One illustration that made a big impression on me was a pastoral scene in a meadow-like setting, willow trees in the background, wildflowers in bloom all around, with Jesus hanging out on a lawn (not overgrown, so clearly enough landscapers made it) surrounded by a bunch of kids. So that became my conception of Heaven.
Why all the kids you might wonder, if it was Heaven? Well, they may have represented unborn souls waiting for their time on Earth. Or…my religious exposure as a kid made it clear that anyone could shuffle off the mortal coil at anytime, including plenty of children. Not that my parents, moderately religious at best, instilled this, but it was kind of baked in. There was the “if I should die before I wake / I pray the Lord my soul to take” line in the child’s prayer. And in one of those religious kids’ book in the doc’s waiting room, when I was old enough to read, I read a story of a kid who had terminal cancer. His brother helped him prop up his arm with his bedsheets while he was sleeping so he had his hand up to say “take me, Jesus”. He passed overnight. After that I was afraid to accidentally somehow have my hand sticking up while I was sleeping, giving Jesus the wrong idea, so before falling asleep I made sure my arms were down under the sheets, flat against the bed.
Generally, the iconography was based on the illustrations of the bible stories I was exposed to in summer church school as a child. So, I imagined 2000 year old whitewashed Greek/middle-eastern architecture with clouds mixed in somehow. Everyone wore the long dress styles, and sandals.
When I visited Santorini I thought, yeah like this!
For me, it was kind of an amorphous void, for lack of better term. It was white if I remember right, but there was no ground or ceiling or walls or up or down or anything like that. It was just floating in an empty 3D space. I imagined souls more as glowing balls of energy than beings with human form. Overall, just very abstract.
I don’t think I ever thought of people heaven before the pop culture concept of clouds and angels and such got in my brain. But when a bird died on our lawn, and I asked what would happen to it and was told it went to birdie heaven, I distinctly remember imagining a gritty urban building with neon signs in the windows, like a bar or diner might have. The basic concept of the building must have been from TV, but I don’t know why I’d associate it with heaven or birds. Maybe because I’d already seen the bird go into the trash can, I figured its ultimate destination must have been kind of a downscale joint.
The first time I ever gave it any thought, since the Bible doesn’t have much in the way of “daily” activities, no pun intended, but it actually scared the hell out of me. There wouldn’t be any night, since there wouldn’t be a Sun or Moon, so it would just be one long endless day. And no sleep, either, since we would be spirits. And it would be like that for all eternity. One long endless day. The only consolation I could find in it was, “Well, at least I’m not the only one having to suffer like this.” Assuming that’s where I ended up.
Honestly, it was too vague a notion for me to have any thoughts on it. Or at least I have no memory of it, if I did. I grew up in a distinctly un-religious environment, so there’s that.
I was (and still am) of the notion that we are in heaven now and that we were sent here as a break from the dullness of an existence without much stimulation other that constantly singing praise to God. Like the “other” place has no colors, no music, no art and no sex. A rather dull place where one was just satisfied to be in God’s presence but no individuality.
Something kind of like the Halo game universe, a marvelous space-scape but with everything beautiful and where injury was not possible, and you could explore a world that was endless and infinite in size, yet familiar. In fact, I would picture Heaven when I was playing Halo.
All I remember as a kid I was a bit fixated on purgatory as a mandatory stop before reaching the gates of heaven. And that stop was filled with pod people waiting, stacked up like traffic waiting for their guardian angel to give the signal it was time to ascend forth into the brightness of heaven.
I took my early catechism lessons really seriously I also remember hearing the nuns say you had to press your hands ever so tightly together when praying so the devil could not my get between them and put a negative spin on your intentions to god.
Have you read any Terry Pratchett? Your beliefs fall in line with those of the Nac Mac Feegle.
From Wikipedia: The fearlessness of Nac Mac Feegle warriors in combat is derived from their religious belief that they cannot be killed, because they are already dead; they believe that they are in the afterlife, and that any Feegle who is killed has simply been reincarnated into the world where they have already lived before. They reason that Discworld, with the sunshine, flowers, birds, trees, things to steal and people to fight, must be some sort of heaven, because “a world that good couldn’t be open to just anybody”. They consider it a kind of Valhalla, where brave warriors go when they are dead. So, they reason, they have already been alive somewhere else, and then died and were allowed to come to the Discworld because they have been so good.
Wow, that’s a new one on me! But, yeah, I remember learning that purgatory was a waiting room of sorts but certain prayers could lessen your time there, or something.
