Why Would You Want To Go To Heaven?
Let's start with the basics of what Heaven is and then we can discuss why it would be Hell to go there.
Heaven isn't just a Biblical construct as all religions tend to have some form of afterlife but I want to stick with kind of the generic concept, with focus on the Christian idea. So Heaven is the afterlife in a place of bliss where you have no more needs, cares, troubles, pain, disappointment, hunger or physical imperfections. I'm thinking you probably don't need to sleep in your perfect new body so you are wide awake, and happy forever and ever. Let me say that again, happy forever, without end, perfect happiness for infinity. Before we talk about how that would work let's establish the line at death where one transitions from pain and suffering to eternal bliss. This means that all ties to temporal existence have to be severed. You could not look down upon people you care about still suffering and experience bliss. So there is no peeking, no watching, no going or looking back. You are a new creature in a new setting with a new set of rules and one of them is you can't get bummed out about anything. No pain. At the moment of your death do you go to Heaven? When you get there would you not notice that your children or your spouse or whomever you love the most is not there yet? What if they don't make it? Won't that harsh your mellow or do you no longer care, no longer think like that? Are you so transformed that you no longer love your children above all else and are you still you if that is true? Do you instead lie in your grave until everyone is taken in and then you aren't waiting for anyone to die 20 years later than you and finally show up? If that is the case where are you hanging out until that final day when all of the dead are raised up and judged?
Let's move on to forever, infinity, eternity. These are lovely abstract concepts for which we have zero practical experience. Add perfect to that as well. In all of our lives we have never witnessed nor experienced any of those things and yet we are assured that Heaven is all of them and we look forward to it, so much so that we fight wars and condemn others for not being in the going to Heaven club. What makes you want to experience those things? Let's start with perfection. If you are made perfect you don't need anything or anyone. You don't need help with anything. Everything you do will be done to perfection because anything less would be a flaw in your perfection and you don't have any. Why would I love you if you are perfect and so is everyone else? If I did what would it mean as I love every perfect person with the same perfect love? Nothing would make my love for you special and there would be no way for me to demonstrate it for you as there is nothing I could do for you that you couldn't do for yourself, perfectly. In point of fact our perfect thoughts would have to be perfectly the same. How and why would there be a difference? If we express different truths then one of us is objectively wrong and if we have perfect knowledge that could not happen. So what would we talk about? Why would we bother to talk?
This brings up my final point. What is there to do in Heaven? I'm a musician. I love to play guitar. If I am suddenly perfect at it what does that mean? If I can now write music and play perfectly how would that be different from what any other guitar player can do? What would I write and play that he or she could not? Given all of forever and ever without end won't they write the same song I did sooner or later? Will there be an infinite number of notes and arrangements to go with this infinite amount of time because a finite divided by an infinite equals nothing. The point is that regardless of the idea of perfect happiness having appeal in contrast to your current misery it is a form of stasis. It requires nothing bad ever happen and only good things forever but what is that? What good thing won't become boring and stale after a few hundred million years? What could you do forever without losing interest in it? If there is nothing you need to do for others or yourself what would you do? Just exist in perfect happiness, never moving or changing or seeing or doing anything new? Forever? Is that Heaven? That sounds awful. No thanks.
Heaven isn't just a Biblical construct as all religions tend to have some form of afterlife but I want to stick with kind of the generic concept, with focus on the Christian idea. So Heaven is the afterlife in a place of bliss where you have no more needs, cares, troubles, pain, disappointment, hunger or physical imperfections. I'm thinking you probably don't need to sleep in your perfect new body so you are wide awake, and happy forever and ever. Let me say that again, happy forever, without end, perfect happiness for infinity. Before we talk about how that would work let's establish the line at death where one transitions from pain and suffering to eternal bliss. This means that all ties to temporal existence have to be severed. You could not look down upon people you care about still suffering and experience bliss. So there is no peeking, no watching, no going or looking back. You are a new creature in a new setting with a new set of rules and one of them is you can't get bummed out about anything. No pain. At the moment of your death do you go to Heaven? When you get there would you not notice that your children or your spouse or whomever you love the most is not there yet? What if they don't make it? Won't that harsh your mellow or do you no longer care, no longer think like that? Are you so transformed that you no longer love your children above all else and are you still you if that is true? Do you instead lie in your grave until everyone is taken in and then you aren't waiting for anyone to die 20 years later than you and finally show up? If that is the case where are you hanging out until that final day when all of the dead are raised up and judged?
Let's move on to forever, infinity, eternity. These are lovely abstract concepts for which we have zero practical experience. Add perfect to that as well. In all of our lives we have never witnessed nor experienced any of those things and yet we are assured that Heaven is all of them and we look forward to it, so much so that we fight wars and condemn others for not being in the going to Heaven club. What makes you want to experience those things? Let's start with perfection. If you are made perfect you don't need anything or anyone. You don't need help with anything. Everything you do will be done to perfection because anything less would be a flaw in your perfection and you don't have any. Why would I love you if you are perfect and so is everyone else? If I did what would it mean as I love every perfect person with the same perfect love? Nothing would make my love for you special and there would be no way for me to demonstrate it for you as there is nothing I could do for you that you couldn't do for yourself, perfectly. In point of fact our perfect thoughts would have to be perfectly the same. How and why would there be a difference? If we express different truths then one of us is objectively wrong and if we have perfect knowledge that could not happen. So what would we talk about? Why would we bother to talk?
This brings up my final point. What is there to do in Heaven? I'm a musician. I love to play guitar. If I am suddenly perfect at it what does that mean? If I can now write music and play perfectly how would that be different from what any other guitar player can do? What would I write and play that he or she could not? Given all of forever and ever without end won't they write the same song I did sooner or later? Will there be an infinite number of notes and arrangements to go with this infinite amount of time because a finite divided by an infinite equals nothing. The point is that regardless of the idea of perfect happiness having appeal in contrast to your current misery it is a form of stasis. It requires nothing bad ever happen and only good things forever but what is that? What good thing won't become boring and stale after a few hundred million years? What could you do forever without losing interest in it? If there is nothing you need to do for others or yourself what would you do? Just exist in perfect happiness, never moving or changing or seeing or doing anything new? Forever? Is that Heaven? That sounds awful. No thanks.
Comments
Post a Comment