# When you were a kid, how did you envision heaven? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 25, 2024, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-were-a-kid-how-did-you-envision-heaven/1003318 "2024-06-25T12:52:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2024, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-were-a-kid-how-did-you-envision-heaven/1003318/41 "2024-06-26T21:15:39Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > But, I can imagine everyone in heaven with a Fender Strat and a Marshall stack. THAT would be something! Frankly, that’s the best depiction of heaven I’ve heard yet. ---
**Author:** ![SuntanLotion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suntanlotion/32/16165_2.png) [@SuntanLotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanLotion)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2024, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-were-a-kid-how-did-you-envision-heaven/1003318/42 "2024-06-26T21:47:00Z")
You know they’ve got a hell of a band! ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2024, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-were-a-kid-how-did-you-envision-heaven/1003318/43 "2024-06-26T22:07:54Z")
I thought you got to lounge around on clouds. I had no worries about falling through the clouds because I wouldn’t have a body. I also assumed that some sort of transformation would happen so you’d WANT to listen to harp music all the livelong day. Re: Purgatory, I went to a Catholic school. The nuns frequently told us that ejaculations like, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph” would get you X number of days out of Purgatory. My sister was the only person I knew who thought to ask how many days IN Purgatory each sin would get you. The nuns were stumped. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2024, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-were-a-kid-how-did-you-envision-heaven/1003318/44 "2024-06-26T22:19:40Z")
That would be a great spin on the Wilson cartoon. A bunch of older guys on harps and one dude with a sweet electric guitar. One of the old guys is saying to another “This place just hasn’t been the same since the rock stars started dying.” ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2024, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-were-a-kid-how-did-you-envision-heaven/1003318/45 "2024-06-26T22:26:03Z")
I had similar images to most of you when I first heard of heaven, but when I heard the only thing you got to do was praise god, I remember thinking “how boring.” And it made me think god was something of an a-hole. It started my very early split with religion…in spite of 9 years (includes kindergarten) of Catholic school. ---
**Author:** ![scareyfaerie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scareyfaerie/32/3135_2.png) [@scareyfaerie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scareyfaerie)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2024, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-were-a-kid-how-did-you-envision-heaven/1003318/46 "2024-06-27T08:30:55Z")
I didn’t have much concept of heaven/hell, apart from having to go to Sunday School where I was bored rigid and decided heaven must be similarly boring. Then I discovered Norse mythology where they have a god for absolutely everything, and Valhalla too. Sign me up! ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2024, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-were-a-kid-how-did-you-envision-heaven/1003318/47 "2024-06-27T11:29:29Z")
> [@SuntanLotion](#): > > You know they’ve got a hell of a band! There’s a great Stephen King short story with that name. > **[You Know They Got a Hell of a Band](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Know_They_Got_a_Hell_of_a_Band)** > > "You Know They Got a Hell of a Band" is a 1992 horror short story by American writer Stephen King. It was first published January 1992 in the horror anthology Shock Rock and later included in King's collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes. It concerns a young couple on a road trip in Oregon when they accidentally wander into a small town inhabited by dead rock and roll legends. > The title of the work, and the name of the town—Rock and Roll Heaven—both come from the chorus of "Rock and Roll Heaven", a... ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2024, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-were-a-kid-how-did-you-envision-heaven/1003318/48 "2024-06-27T11:36:44Z")
Greek architecture with lots of gold trim. The ground is covered with clouds which at time waft away to reveal a gold-leaf pavement. Everybody’s carrying a harp around but they never really play it. Having little to do all day except carry a harp around and sing God’s praises, people get incredibly bored, but nobody says anything openly, because they don’t want to get sent somewhere else. Now that I think of it, this is how I imagine being in middle management at a place like Amazon. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2024, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-were-a-kid-how-did-you-envision-heaven/1003318/49 "2024-06-27T11:56:33Z")
I don’t think I had a clear idea of any of it. None of it was properly described to me, and all I had to go by were single panel cartoons about angels with rings around their heads. We were never a very religious family. We went to church, because that’s what everyone did back then, but nobody really talked about what it was for or how the whole system worked, so my imaginings were so vague as to be meaningless. By the age of 10, after we stopped regularly doing any churchy things as a family, I had already decided it was nonsense, and never really thought about it as a real place after that time. Now it seems like whenever I hear someone talk about it like it’s real, each person will describe something different from one another. Also, eternity sounds boring. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2024, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-were-a-kid-how-did-you-envision-heaven/1003318/50 "2024-06-27T11:56:36Z")
> [@susan](#): > > 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. Ditto. But at some point i ran into the meme that Christians believe you stand around in flight white clouds wearing white robes and playing a harp. But i never really believed in it, or thought about it much. I was much more intrigued with the idea of reincarnation, when i ran into that. But i was older, then. Maybe 12. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2024, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-were-a-kid-how-did-you-envision-heaven/1003318/51 "2024-06-27T15:32:24Z")
> 23 On that day _some_ Sadducees (who say there is no resurrection) came to [[a](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2022%3A23-46&version=NASB#fen-NASB-23894a)]Jesus and questioned Him, 24 saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother as next of kin shall marry his wife, and raise up [[b](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2022%3A23-46&version=NASB#fen-NASB-23895b)]children for his brother.’ 25 Now there were seven brothers among us; and the first married and died, and having no [[c](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2022%3A23-46&version=NASB#fen-NASB-23896c)]children, he left his wife to his brother. 26 _It was_ the same also _with_ the second _brother_, and the third, down to the seventh. 27 Last of all, the woman died. 28 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had her _in marriage_.” > > 29 But Jesus answered and said to them, “You are mistaken, since you do not [[d](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2022%3A23-46&version=NASB#fen-NASB-23900d)]understand the Scriptures nor the power of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. Back from the dead, and ready to party! ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2024, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-were-a-kid-how-did-you-envision-heaven/1003318/52 "2024-06-27T17:50:49Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > One of the old guys is saying to another “This place just hasn’t been the same since the rock stars started dying.” A guy dies and finds himself in Heaven. Before long he hears a terrific guitar in the distance and realizes it must be Duane Allman. So he asks a nearby angel “Is that Duane Allman? I have to see him!” The angel answers “No, that’s God. He only THINKS he’s Duane Allman.” ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2024, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-were-a-kid-how-did-you-envision-heaven/1003318/53 "2024-06-28T01:34:00Z")
I basically imagined it as this vast, out-of-focus expanse of bright light and clouds. With no consideration of what it was actually like to _be_ there, outside of the vague idea being there was “good”. I would have probably fleshed the idea out eventually if I’d stayed a believer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-were-a-kid-how-did-you-envision-heaven/1003318.md?page=2)