Eternal Life? YUK!

[blü 2]

I’ve just come across a poem I wrote years ago –

Heaven

One hundred
billion
years on
what will you say
to your true love ?​

Seriously, there’s a great deal wrong with heaven:

No disclosures of the real nature of heaven. It could be like Belsen for all you know.
No life map
No glands, no sex urges, no joy or terror, no emotions at all
Not even desires, not even likes and dislikes
No meaning, goals, problem solving, point to anything
Compulsory adoration of the administration
No voting out the administration to improve things
Nothing left to talk about
When the universe expires, nothing to look at

Just the promise of trillions of years then quadrillions then .... all of them the same.

I’m not a volunteer,

Are you? Why?

 

[Thief]

after this life.....and I am assuming the same for everyone else....
there will be 7billion (and maybe more)
souls

and if I spend one year of time getting to know each one
I will be busy for the next 7billion years

by then I will lose track of time and just keep on going

and likely to start over

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I think a lot of people are under the false impression that eternity is just a really long time.

 

[bobhikes]

Not a volunteer for heaven but I do like reincarnation eternally. Each life with some of the stuff you learned in the last one as instinct.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I think a lot of people are under the false impression that eternity is just a really long time.

As Woody Allen noted, "Eternity is really long, especially near the end."

 

[The Holy Bottom Burp]

Yes, it is not an appealing prospect if it is anything like I've heard it described by some preachers. An eternity worshipping god, being continually and perpetually bowled over by his brilliance, apparently not bothered about the people I love in hell or (depending on your flavour of religion) the people who have been annihilated. If that is what I am to become when I die, that "thing" wont be me anymore so why should I care?

I'd welcome any thoughts on this, but I see the human life experience for most people to be largely just "chugging along", interspersed with moments of great happiness and moments of great sadness. However, most the time I'm just "chugging along", neither joyous or miserable, getting on with life and that is how I like it. Being continually "joyous" conjures up a picture of an eternal grinning idiot, a being who has had his brain replaced with a squeaky toy. I think I prefer the thoughtful "me", not the heavenly idiot programmed to jump and clap for god for ever and ever...not amen to that!

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I’ve just come across a poem I wrote years ago –

Heaven

One hundred
billion
years on
what will you say
to your true love ?​

Seriously, there’s a great deal wrong with heaven:

No disclosures of the real nature of heaven. It could be like Belsen for all you know.
No life map
No glands, no sex urges, no joy or terror, no emotions at all
Not even desires, not even likes and dislikes
No meaning, goals, problem solving, point to anything
Compulsory adoration of the administration
No voting out the administration to improve things
Nothing left to talk about
When the universe expires, nothing to look at

Just the promise of trillions of years then quadrillions then .... all of them the same.

I’m not a volunteer,

Are you? Why?

Agree completely. The thought that there was no way out of eternal wakefulness brings on the shiver of an existential crisis in the extreme.

If we had the choice at death to opt for either eternal sleep or eternal wakefulness, and neither choice was reversible, some might choose the latter, but it would be a very dangerous and in my opinion foolish choice.

 

[JJ50]

There is absolutely nothing appealing about eternal life, especially the one in which Christians believe.

 

[George-ananda]

I’m not a volunteer,

Are you? Why?

This is actually a pretty good criticism of the most conservative Christian afterlife view.

I personally see the afterlife differently than our conservative Christian friends. I believe in things like afterlife planes and reincarnation. I believe we are in a continually changing and growing experience until we realize the illusion of separateness and return to the Oneness from where it started.

 

[blü 2]

George-ananda

I personally see the afterlife differently than our conservative Christian friends. I believe in things like afterlife planes and reincarnation. I believe we are in a continually changing and growing experience until we realize the illusion of separateness and return to the Oneness from where it started.​

That doesn't sound too bad at all. Good luck!

(But returning to the One would mean identity wasn't eternal, no?)

 

[Akivah]

No disclosures of the real nature of heaven.

That's true, we don't have any specifics.

No glands, no sex urges, no joy or terror, no emotions at all
Not even desires, not even likes and dislikes

These are all attributes of a body, it is only our souls that are in Heaven.

No meaning, goals, problem solving, point to anything

I disagree. I think Heaven is what you make it. I picture a yeshiva in which I will be discussing and debating with G-d. If I get resurrected, then I could get a body again. There's no way to say that my soul hasn't been resurrected already.

 

[blü 2]

Akivah

Good luck with that!

But is eternal life involved? If so, what will you say in the yeshiva ten septillion years from now? (And if it's eternal life then that figure isn't a joke.)

 

[VioletVortex]

If we are subject to eternal life, it seems to work out quite well.

 

[Skwim]

I think a lot of people are under the false impression that eternity is just a really long time.

Yeah, when it's really only this long.

.​

 

[Skwim]

Not a volunteer for heaven but I do like reincarnation eternally. Each life with some of the stuff you learned in the last one as instinct.

So You'd hope.

Bobhikes in his 3rd reincarnation.

.

 

[Skwim]

There is absolutely nothing appealing about eternal life, especially the one in which Christians believe.

Hey! There's a lot to do. Every day you'll get to rejoice. . . . . . . . .Well . . . at least every week or so.

Ain't we got fun

.​

 

[bobhikes]

So You'd hope.

Bobhikes in his 3rd reincarnation.

.

As a gardener and fisherman that was probably one of my best reincarnations.

 

[Hawkins]

I’ve just come across a poem I wrote years ago –

Heaven

One hundred
billion
years on
what will you say
to your true love ?​

Seriously, there’s a great deal wrong with heaven:

No disclosures of the real nature of heaven. It could be like Belsen for all you know.
No life map
No glands, no sex urges, no joy or terror, no emotions at all
Not even desires, not even likes and dislikes
No meaning, goals, problem solving, point to anything
Compulsory adoration of the administration
No voting out the administration to improve things
Nothing left to talk about
When the universe expires, nothing to look at

Just the promise of trillions of years then quadrillions then .... all of them the same.

I’m not a volunteer,

Are you? Why?

How are you so sure that heaven is like that? The Bible doesn't describe heaven in much details as Jesus said that if you don't believe earthly things it's no point to tell you heavenly things.

It's more like fabricated something you don't like and to call it heaven.

We on the other hand trust that if God exist and have create earth (from which you tried fabricate your imagination), He can create a better place.

 

[FunctionalAtheist]

How are you so sure that heaven is like that? The Bible doesn't describe heaven in much details as Jesus said that if you don't believe earthly things it's no point to tell you heavenly things.

It's more like fabricated something you don't like and to call it heaven.

We on the other hand trust that if God exist and have create earth (from which you tried fabricate your imagination), He can create a better place.

My question is if he could create a better place, why didn't he do it? Why create a sloppy broken world in order to see who gets into the really cool world?

 

[blü 2]

Hawkins

How are you so sure that heaven is like that?​

The promise is eternal life, is it not?

More than external existence, conscious being,

So it's got to be something like that.

And I'm right about not being allowed to vote the administration out, no?
.