You'll never get to Heaven with that attitude:

Discussion in 'Philosophy and Religion' started by Hoatzin, Oct 1, 2008.

  1. Hoatzin

    Hoatzin Senior Member

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    In order for eternity in paradise to be livable, we would have to be completely changed as people, our personalities rewritten so that we would neither jar with one another, nor grow tired of the world which we would inhabit.

    If this is true, would you still want to get into "Heaven"?
     
  2. kaminoishiki

    kaminoishiki Member

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    They say that in order to enter paradise you must first die. This includes your personality, and the one who would seek to enter paradise.
     
  3. Hoatzin

    Hoatzin Senior Member

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    So what would come back would be a severely modified version of one's self?

    I've been thinking this, and thinking that, certainly, if I was running Heaven, the sensible solution to everyone having to coexist for all eternity (minus the moderating effect of the impious majority, perhaps?) would be a swift, frontal lobotomy.
     
  4. snake_grass

    snake_grass Senior Member

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    i was looking at a national geographic book

    and it showed this picture

    one was death the other was a judgement ground and the other was someplace you would go after being judged
     
  5. neodude1212

    neodude1212 Senior Member

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    yeah man that's deep.
     
  6. mariecstasy

    mariecstasy Enchanted

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    heaven is a concept. live it daily.
     
  7. snake_grass

    snake_grass Senior Member

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    it wasnt about god either it was about egyptions beleifs
     
  8. DonGenaro

    DonGenaro off to another land

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    I think I may be to tired to answer this..what was the question?
    Firstly, why would you think you are going to heaven..are you a spirit creature? You were born a man, a man made for earth, not heaven..off of the top of my head Psalms 37:29 The righteous themselves will possess the earth,
    And they will reside forever upon it.


    on earth is where God created man to be..
     
  9. mariecstasy

    mariecstasy Enchanted

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    yep earth and man


    we'll see our next paradise and hopefully we will do better....whoever we are then
     
  10. neodude1212

    neodude1212 Senior Member

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    yes :)
     
  11. mariecstasy

    mariecstasy Enchanted

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    aren't we all!
     
  12. Hoatzin

    Hoatzin Senior Member

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    I use the name "heaven" for convenience, but it's not like the Bible is the only text that describes an eternal paradise in the afterlife.
     
  13. Hoatzin

    Hoatzin Senior Member

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    "A casino where I'm winning? I must be in Heaven! ...A casino where I always win?... that's boring, I must really be... IN HELL!"
     
  14. LanSLIde

    LanSLIde Member

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    It could be that "heaven" would be a state independent of other people. For one person heaven could be a nice big beach, or a metropolitan city for someone else, seeing as to how everyone has a different taste. I guess, then, that every heaven would have fake "perfect" versions of everyone for the person experiencing it. I don't really like the idea though, I don't think its nearly that material.
    Props
    The idea is that the "self" doesn't include the personality developed during life, as such personalities are responses to life anyway. If you want to take it to a certain level, I could say that one's psychological background relies heavily on what they experience in life. What good would it do souls if psychologically conditioned responses were conditioned in some other reality with much different rules?
    Which brings up yet another question...how are you sure you're not in heaven at this very moment?
     
  15. snake_grass

    snake_grass Senior Member

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    lol we all have to go through hell to get to heaven
     
  16. neodude1212

    neodude1212 Senior Member

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    Are you insinuating that souls are not affected by their time/experiences spent here at all?
     
  17. Hoatzin

    Hoatzin Senior Member

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    Sort of like the holodeck, right? I did think of that, but then you're in a simulation, and you still have the same problem - how would you not get bored of it within the first few thousand years? Not sure I can think of anywhere I'd want to be forever. I've always enjoyed experiencing new things and learning from them; could that really be replicated?

    And like you say, it's not very fulfilling as an idea. Why would fake people be a better idea than real people? Moreover, couldn't we just as easily get bored and frustrated with simulations? I did hear about a study into paranoia that found people are capable of projecting all kinds of emotions onto neutral, simulated people, believing in a VR simulation of a tube train that certain people were laughing at them or watching them when they really weren't.

    Again, people are people, and it seems to be that the only way to make them happy, without giving them some conflict or obstacle to overcome, is to stop them being people.

    What neodude said. And even if they aren't, surely they'd be affected by experiences in the afterlife? Unless there aren't any, but then we're back to being lobotomised, or perhaps fetuses in a womblike world. The latter makes some sense, since we don't have a sense of time until something like 7 months.

    I don't know though, is boredom a psychologically conditioned response?
     
  18. neodude1212

    neodude1212 Senior Member

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    why is everyone assuming the afterlife is anything like the present life?
     
  19. Hoatzin

    Hoatzin Senior Member

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    Why wouldn't it be?

    I guess it's because we know nobody has any insight into what it's really like. Unless we don't think that. Some religious text actually gives the exact dimensions of Heaven (a cube 27,000 furlongs along each side, which amounts to something like 3 million cubic feet for every person who has ever lived), so at least someone thinks it similar enough to our own reality that that would be worth knowing.

    To be honest, I was more interested in debunking the notion of eternal paradise than in speculating about the nature of Heaven. It could well be that we'd be completely different in the afterlife; what I'm saying is that, for eternal paradise to be possible, we'd pretty much have to be, and I'm not sure how much that appeals.
     
  20. neodude1212

    neodude1212 Senior Member

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    because then it wouldn't really be the afterlife. If the "afterlife" is exactly like life here on earth, then everyone in the afterlife would just be talking about some even greater and mysterious new afterlife.




    I suppose that may explain why some religions find their elitist God so selective huh? ;)
     

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