So some time in the indeterminate future you shuffle off this mortal coil and find yourself in heaven. Yes it turns out the afterlife is real and heaven really is a paradise.
You’re being shown around and everything seems wonderful until you start to notice a few people you knew during your earthly life and they were, well jerks, to a greater or lesser degree. Some of the more famous people you recognise were downright evil.
Your guide explains that God is merciful and benign, the afterlife isn’t a place of punishment and everyone makes it to heaven. The most unpleasant thing that happens is a ‘life review’ where everything you did is examined and analysed but this is an educational and instructive experience rather than anything else. In fact mortal life is considered something of a school and learning experience for the subsequent life in heaven.
For those who just can’t play well with others they’re sent to a realm which is basically like heaven in every way except its full of people like themselves. They can come back to heaven proper usually at any time on the understanding that they do their best to get on with others. For the really difficult cases they’re sent to the other realm for more lengthy periods before being allowed back, but this is entirely self-inflicted.
For those who want it they can be removed from existence, if they don’t want to continue with the afterlife.
So, would it bother you that those who are in your opinion undeserving make it to paradise, sinners just as much as saints? That everyone gets the same reward?
For the purposes of this thread the above scenario is reality, and there is no way to communicate your findings back to the mortal world.
That’s pretty much what I believe, though I don’t think that there will be the walking around a physical place and seeing other people and stuff. The best way I can describe it is that it’ll be entirely spiritual.
If I believed in heaven and hell, then I would question the morality of determining where you would spend the next googleplex raised to the googleplex googleplex eons (for a start) based on what you did fir a few infintesmially-short decades. And I can’t grasp holding lasting grudges over anything that happened in that irrelevant flash of an instant. So I’d be fine with absolutely everyone–up to and including old Adolph himself–being there.
Forgive me, I just had to chime in, with interesting terms that may be relevant to this discussion.
Universalism is the belief we will all ultimately go to heaven. I read an encyclopedia article on it while I was still in high school. It said, modern Universalists (they usually belong to the Unitarian Universalist Church BTW) believe after a brief punishment for earthly misdeeds, all will eventually get to heaven. But interestingly the historic Universalists believed there was no punishment, except what you receive in this lifetime. Maybe this is what you meant too, huh?
Also, FWIW there is the theological term antinomianism. I don’t know if it is related to this discussion. But it literally means, if you have faith, you don’t need good deeds to get to heaven. In other words, if you don’t sin, Jesus died for nothing. (I think people who practice this, generally only do sexual immoralities. They don’t necessarily hurt anyone, I don’t think.) I think there is some justification for this in the Bible, believe it or not. I don’t know just where at the moment, though. Sorry.
Also, I still believe in God and some of what religion teaches. But I don’t believe in an afterlife anymore. Although, for a brief period in my life, I myself was actually a Universalist. First the ‘modern’ one, then the ‘historic’ one, then as I am now.
I don’t know if your question was purely hypothetical. But I felt compelled to add all this:).
No one on earth will know whether or not they ended up in heaven so it isn’t an effective deterrent, or education aspect nor will it provide any **restoration **to their victims.
Presumably they can’t do bad things in heaven so there is no incapacitation or societal protection aspect of keeping them out.
I suppose its possible that hell or purgatory might have some Rehabilitative aspects but again if they can’t do bad things, what’s the point.
So the only possible purpose is Retribution. Which as a utilitarian I reject as increasing the suffering of the universe to no benefit. So I would actually prefer they be let in.
I assume you mean that they are no longer evil now (in heaven). I’m fine with them being there, and I’m fine with the notion that the only way to make things heavenly in real life involves not blaming any culprits for the existing nonheavenly state of affairs. I’m all for justice when it means ending unjust situations but considerably less so when justice means getting even.
This is basically what I believe. I believe that everyone goes to heaven, and that the people who were really evil during their lives on earth understand that what they did was wrong and no longer have the same feelings and beliefs. It is more comforting to me to think of those people no longer being evil than it is to think of them suffering eternal damnation. It’s the ultimate endpoint of “hate the sin, not the sinner.”
Sounds like mind control to me. If I do not care about family, friends(or even total strangers) that are possibly suffering for all eternity, if the part of me that has empathy has been excised so that I will fit in, then I have been done harm.
Heaven is the place where believers in God are forever in His presence.(Hell is the opposite) One gets to Heaven by believing that Jesus Christ died for us, to redeem us from our sinful nature.
So an “evil person” could be saved at the last moment of their life, by accepting what I’ve stated above. It might surprise me*****, but I’d be pleased, and I hope I’d realize that if they had come to that belief and NOT died, they wouldn’t be evil anymore.
****** One night I dreamed death came for me.
Heaven’s gates opened wide.
With Kindly grace an angel came
And ushered me inside.
And there to my astonishment
Stood folks I’d known on Earth.
Some I’d judged not good enough
Unfit, of little worh.
Indignant words rose to my lips
But never were set free.
For every face showed stunned surprise.
No one expected me!*
I always thought the meaning of that passage referred to people coming to God late in life still receiving ‘full benefits’.
In which case, they had quit being evil, albeit not until later than others had.
That seems different than people who are *still *evil getting into heaven, which would make me question the judgement of God, and the justness of the rules that religion told me to live by.
Um, I’d say I wouldn’t care if Beezelbub himself were in heaven if heaven were real and I get to go. Eternity of paradise but got to share with Hitler vs oblivion and sharing with Hitler ? I’m not so vindictive that I want to deprive my soul of paradise.
