Sounds like someone is still mad, all these years later, that Mummsy and Pappa made him get out of bed and go to church. Did you pop in just to offer your august opinion on my response or were you going to actually answer the OP?
**Would it bother you if evil people made it into heaven?
**
When Good Things Happen to Bad People.
If heaven is real I don’t think it would have much connection to current physical reality either, but I thought it would be the most straightforward way to describe things.
Well they still have free will (yes, I know) so they can still choose to do evil actions if they want, but they’ll get sent to the naughty corner if they persist. I’m not sure how much evil you could do in paradise apart from being a jerk though. Its really hard to write this scenario without positing involuntary mind rewiring to make people behave.
Well other cultures have their idea of heaven/paradise. I’m a Catholic myself but in the scenario in the OP everyone gets in regardless of beliefs or actions in their mortal life. Its really just a maguffin to see how people would feel about sharing paradise with those they consider shouldn’t be there.
That’s a really nice poem btw!
It would bother me that some were allowed in and others weren’t because:
- One “bad” person might have a chance to repent before dying, while the next could be thinking about the subject but gets a bullet in the back of the head before she/he gets a chance to do anything about it.
- When it comes to getting into heaven, what is definitively “good”, and what is definitively “bad”? A “bad” person could be someone that thought the rules were being followed, but doesn’t make the cut because the wrong food was eaten, the wrong thoughts were thought…or the wrong people were loved.
As far as the scenario in the OP is concerned, I have no problems with it as written.
If someone hated people from a certain group during their life on earth, would existing with them in the afterlife make it more like hell (unless they saw the error of their ways?) I always thought it would be interesting if there was one place where everyone went, but those who had hate in their heart would find it excruciating to see members of the groups they hated there. That said, I’m an agnostic on the existence of an afterlife.
1 Cor 13:12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
IOW, I have no idea what I will think in heaven. If it exists. Which I really doubt. In fact, I will know all the lottery numbers now and in the future, but I will not be able to tell anyone. Are you sure it’s not hell?
Anyway, the theme of “God. Go figure.” is a recurring theme in the Bible.
It’s always struck me that this is the aspect (on a larger scale) that makes the whole concept of individual humans “going to heaven” irrelevant. In order to have the capacity to enjoy eternal bliss, in whatever form, I’d need to be so fundamentally altered from my highly limited and imperfect mortal state that it would become rather meaningless to say that that individual in heaven is “me” in any recognizable way.
Saying that a human can dwell forever in heaven after completing their minuscule period of human life is a bit like saying that a rabbit can survive 1-2 years in the wild but 50-60 years as part of a fur coat. From the rabbit’s point of view, those two phases of its existence are separated by such drastic alteration that they really don’t relate in any meaningful way. Same for me when it comes to turning from a living human being into some kind of immortal perfected spirit creature.
OK, so the OP postulates Purgatory plus Heaven. I can accept when the evil people I know manage to be decent human beings (even if sometimes it’s in a “broken clock” kind of way)… the idea of some of them actually managing to learn how to permanently-be decent human beings is hilarious, but hey, they’ve got an eternity to learn it so why not.
Ultimate Judgment is the job of the Ultimate Judge: I try to avoid telling God how to do His job.
So you’re completely incapable of enjoying a party if someone you know has had to miss it because he’s sick? There is a difference between “being worried about someone” and “being incapable of joy”.
I have been fundamentally altered throughout my entire life. I was far more limited when I was a toddler than I am now, yet both are still me. Regardless of how it appears on the outside, my conscious experience is that those were all me.
I see no reason this would change no matter how much I was altered. This is true whether I go to heaven, and experience eternal bliss, or I wind up augmenting my human body with cyberpunk technology.
I’m all about the continuity of consciousness. If you have it, no matter what else is true, you experience being the same person. And this is fundamentally true, yet cannot be measured.
I would be incapable of enjoying a party if once I got there I was told would never see or have contact with an untold number of family and friends again.
From my Catholic perspective, universal salvation cannot be ruled out. It is certainly to be hoped for. Mystics (for example, Julian of Norwich in the fourteenth century) and theologians (Karl Rahner in the twentieth century) have expressed a belief in universal salvation. I, personally, share this belief.
At the very least, the only souls not saved are those that knowingly and consciously refuse salvation. This might apply to Lucifer and other fallen angels – you know, “better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven.” But I don’t believe it can apply to any human.
So, no, it wouldn’t bother me that those who are “undeserving” make it to paradise. It would only confirm my belief in God’s infinite love for His creation.
That’s one of my biggest objections to Christian doctrine. You’re telling me that Jeffrey Dahmer is in heaven if he accepted Jesus five seconds before he was murderer, but an atheist who did nothing worse than taking home a pen from work. is in hell?
Get real, people.
Yeah, if I was bothered by an evil person being in heaven, that would definitionally mean it wasn’t heaven.
Well, speaking as a Christian, I’m telling you that I believe Jeffrey Dahmer is in heaven whether or not he “accepted Jesus” (whatever that means), along with the atheist pen-stealer.
As a universalist Christian, no, it wouldn’t bother me. I’d be bothered if it wasn’t the case.
As a Christian, I believe:
Romans 3:23
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
James 2:10
For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.
I am just as guilty of “being evil” as anyone else on earth. I don’t believe the extent of the evilness determines if one goes to Heaven.
I have extreme confidence in the ability of evil people to do evil, which means that my experience in heaven would have to include solidly locking doors so I could keep evil people (and innocent children) from wandering in and messing with me and my stuff - sure the baddie will be removed for a while afterward, but the damage will already have been done. And of course if I can lock my door then I’m really creating my own exclusionary heaven, all by myself.
What, you’re saying that in heaven I don’t get to have stuff of my own? That’s hell!
Of course the other way (the only other way) to prevent evil from doing evil to me would be to do a little involuntary mind rewiring to make it so I don’t mind insults, beatings, robbery, vandalism, imprisonment, or being cut off in traffic. And if you do do mind rewiring then I never get to go to heaven at all; instead there’ll just be some other dude in there stealing my identity.
Eventually, God will be left with a Heaven full of very, very dull people.
So, fundamentally you are proposing a Heaven where one can be in a bothered state?
He seems to dislike the idea of mind rewiring or brainwashing, which pretty much forces us to be capable of being displeased in heaven because we’re capable of being displeased here.
Besides making us into implacable automata incapable of varying emotions, the only other way to keep us always happy in heaven is to constantly surround us with pleasing stimuli (that we’re somehow never bored by). This is theoretically possible - but not if some irredeemable evil person comes and stands in the way of our sunlight. If others can screw with our environment the pleasantness of heaven can’t be assured.
Though of course there’s always the third option, where heaven is less “guaranteed happiness forever” and more “not guaranteed torture forever”. Given that heaven is often mentioned in the same breath as hell, I wouldn’t see that as an invalid definition of the term.