If you think heaven is real, why are you still here?

[Nakosis]

As the title says: If you think heaven is real, why are you still here? And I don't mean you should go kill yourself, I'm just wondering why you would work hard to extend your own life span if you think a perfect place is available to you after your life ends.

Here is an analogy to better explain the meaning behind my words:

You are living in a cardboard box. You have the clothes on your back, enough food to last until you gather your next meal, and every day you work hard to maintain the box you live in.

One day a man comes up to you and tells you that he lives in the golden palace at the end of the street. Everything in the palace is of the highest quality, every mod con is available to all that live there, the food is cooked by the best chefs, every vehicle is available to drive, ride, sail, and pilot, and the in house doctor knows all the best medical knowledge of every culture. There is even every pleasure you can enjoy, on tap, twenty four hours a day.

He offers you a place in the palace as soon as the box is no longer a viable living space and tells you that as soon as you walk up to the golden gates someone will take you to get you settled into your new home.

The question is this: Why would you continue to repair the cardboard box? Why would you resist the opportunity to live in the golden palace for even a second more?

Even if you can't actively destroy the box, just let it fail to be inhabitable as quick as is natural.

Any and all answers are welcome.

Because sometimes I'm not done with the cardboard box.
It's a challenge to see how long you can survive in that cardboard box. How you can make the best of it. Better your circumstances yourself, on your own. Without someone giving it all to you. Living in heaven doesn't seem like much of a challenge if it exists. Actually sounds kind of boring.

People challenge themselves all the time to live with less than they have to. You've accomplished something rather than have someone else give you everything that you need which doesn't actually sound very fulfilling to me.

 

[PearlSeeker]

As the title says: If you think heaven is real, why are you still here? And I don't mean you should go kill yourself, I'm just wondering why you would work hard to extend your own life span if you think a perfect place is available to you after your life ends.

Here is an analogy to better explain the meaning behind my words:

You are living in a cardboard box. You have the clothes on your back, enough food to last until you gather your next meal, and every day you work hard to maintain the box you live in.

One day a man comes up to you and tells you that he lives in the golden palace at the end of the street. Everything in the palace is of the highest quality, every mod con is available to all that live there, the food is cooked by the best chefs, every vehicle is available to drive, ride, sail, and pilot, and the in house doctor knows all the best medical knowledge of every culture. There is even every pleasure you can enjoy, on tap, twenty four hours a day.

He offers you a place in the palace as soon as the box is no longer a viable living space and tells you that as soon as you walk up to the golden gates someone will take you to get you settled into your new home.

The question is this: Why would you continue to repair the cardboard box? Why would you resist the opportunity to live in the golden palace for even a second more?

Even if you can't actively destroy the box, just let it fail to be inhabitable as quick as is natural.

Any and all answers are welcome.

You mean something like sallekhana?

Sallekhana - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[RestlessSoul]

There are religious people that are as certain as it is possible to be that there is a heaven, and that they are going there, and that no matter what they do they will only go to heaven when they die, that still try to do everything they can to extend their lives. This is a cognitive paradox, in my opinion.

Where there is paradox, there is truth. For no truths are absolute. That’s one of the things Einstein and Niels Bohr agreed on.

I doubt there are many among us, who are not afraid of dying. However strong a person’s faith, fear of death is perhaps equally strong, and moreover it’s innate. Every living thing wants to go on living.

From a Christian perspective, even Christ feared death, in the Garden of Gethsemene, and despaired on the cross.

 

[PureX]

I would argue that there are people with more certainty in many things that they have no warrant in having.

But the truth is that we have no idea, really, how certain anyone is of anything. Religions like to demand that adherents proclaim their certainty, but it's a safe bet that a great many of those people are not nearly so certain as they proclaim. And yet here you are proclaiming that a great many of them are certain. So what is your "certainty" in this regard really worth?

It's not the proclamations that define the certainty.

As for "playing god", there is no such thing. I think you are mistaking using intelligence to influence the world around us to what we, as individuals, desire.

Yep, we humans want nothing more than we want to be in control of our own fate, as though we were gods, ourselves.

 

[PureX]

There are religious people that are as certain as it is possible to be that there is a heaven, and that they are going there, and that no matter what they do they will only go to heaven when they die, that still try to do everything they can to extend their lives. This is a cognitive paradox, in my opinion.

Well, if you can find one, ask them about it. But my giess is that you will be very hard pressed to find anyone that certain, becuase you've mostly made them up in your own mind to justify wanting to disparage other people's religious faith as being an irrational or dishonest belief. And even if one were so certain, as you claim, there are still a number of very good reasons why one would choose to live out their time in this world, regardless of the wonder awaiting them in the next. So your premise is based on a false dichotomy.

There are a lot of people that have experienced wondrous near death experiences that are therefor convinced of a very pleasant afterlife, yet still believe they have a purpose to fulfill here in this world. And they want to fulfill it.

 

[Balthazzar]

As the title says: If you think heaven is real, why are you still here? And I don't mean you should go kill yourself, I'm just wondering why you would work hard to extend your own life span if you think a perfect place is available to you after your life ends.

Here is an analogy to better explain the meaning behind my words:

You are living in a cardboard box. You have the clothes on your back, enough food to last until you gather your next meal, and every day you work hard to maintain the box you live in.

One day a man comes up to you and tells you that he lives in the golden palace at the end of the street. Everything in the palace is of the highest quality, every mod con is available to all that live there, the food is cooked by the best chefs, every vehicle is available to drive, ride, sail, and pilot, and the in house doctor knows all the best medical knowledge of every culture. There is even every pleasure you can enjoy, on tap, twenty four hours a day.

He offers you a place in the palace as soon as the box is no longer a viable living space and tells you that as soon as you walk up to the golden gates someone will take you to get you settled into your new home.

The question is this: Why would you continue to repair the cardboard box? Why would you resist the opportunity to live in the golden palace for even a second more?

Even if you can't actively destroy the box, just let it fail to be inhabitable as quick as is natural.

Any and all answers are welcome.

Someone once made this comment to me: "Everyone wants to go the heaven, but nobody wants to go today." I wonder how anyone could possibly maintain heaven's appeal when most of us can't even get along here? Then, several people expect there to be nothing but perfection and happiness in heaven. I'm more of the mind that heaven could be right where we are, only there's too many can't get along'ers around to make it appear anything like heaven anymore. I guess that's life, so I figure we should just do the best we can with what we have and pursue happiness while we're here. Makes more sense than waiting.

 

[Wandering Monk]

We console ourselves that our loved one is in a better place after they have died. Isn't that just a suggestion that we are all better off dead?

 

[Mock Turtle]

To me death is more an annoyance rather than a fear (not now, please!) given that for so many it occurs when least expected (and/or least wanted) or when life is so prolonged as to making life at the time being pointless or worthless. Why would I fear the inevitable - given that this would seem such a curse on the very notion of life? After all, if one believes such, we had no life once, so why are we not mourning that?

As to Heaven or similar - nice carrot to entice believers is my view, and not enough evidence to support such a notion. But it might be nice for a suicide-bomber to believe in such perhaps, even if this is about as erroneous as Hell might be too.

 

[Wolf_Bloodbeard]

Where there is paradox, there is truth. For no truths are absolute. That’s one of the things Einstein and Niels Bohr agreed on.

I doubt there are many among us, who are not afraid of dying. However strong a person’s faith, fear of death is perhaps equally strong, and moreover it’s innate. Every living thing wants to go on living.

From a Christian perspective, even Christ feared death, in the Garden of Gethsemene, and despaired on the cross.

The cognitive paradox is believing one thing, but acting as if the opposite is true.

There are truths that are absolute: It is absolutely true that you exist. You may be exactly how you are in every day life, or you may be a brain in a jar experiencing an interactive computer simulation, but there is something there to experience what is being experienced. I think, therefore I am, is the simple phrase that describes this absolute truth.

Most people are afraid of dying, and this is despite the strength of someone's faith; and that is my point. There have been people that didn't fear death as they honestly believed they were going to heaven. A lot of cults that end in mass suicide are prime examples of this.

Personally, if I even thought there was a chance that heaven existed I doubt I would fear death, and I'd do everything I could to shorten my life as much as possible to get to heaven as soon as I could.

And yeah, Jesus was afraid to die, despite being god in human form. That's why christianity makes no sense to me; because of this kind of stupidity.

 

[Wolf_Bloodbeard]

But the truth is that we have no idea, really, how certain anyone is of anything. Religions like to demand that adherents proclaim their certainty, but it's a safe bet that a great many of those people are not nearly so certain as they proclaim. And yet here you are proclaiming that a great many of them are certain. So what is your "certainty" in this regard really worth?

It's not the proclamations that define the certainty.

Yep, we humans want nothing more than we want to be in control of our own fate, as though we were gods, ourselves.

My argument, as laid out in this question, is that those that profess to truly believe in heaven, yet do everything to avoid it for as long as possible, are not as convinced as they say they are.

 

[Wolf_Bloodbeard]

Well, if you can find one, ask them about it. But my giess is that you will be very hard pressed to find anyone that certain, becuase you've mostly made them up in your own mind to justify wanting to disparage other people's religious faith as being an irrational or dishonest belief. And even if one were so certain, as you claim, there are still a number of very good reasons why one would choose to live out their time in this world, regardless of the wonder awaiting them in the next. So your premise is based on a false dichotomy.

There are a lot of people that have experienced wondrous near death experiences that are therefor convinced of a very pleasant afterlife, yet still believe they have a purpose to fulfill here in this world. And they want to fulfill it.

How am I disparaging anyone's faith? Have I said anything that can be viewed as such? And you reading into my words what you want to read is not me saying anything disparaging; that's on you.

A false dichotomy would be an argument with two choices laid out when there are more than two, but I don't list them, and I have not done that. I asked a question, I did not make an argument. It's like asking which M&M's you like, the red or the blue. Yes there are more colours, but this doesn't mean I am saying there are only red and blue M&M's. The same goes for my question; I'm asking if people believe in heaven why do they try to postpone going there for as long as possible? Where is the false dichotomy?

 

[Wolf_Bloodbeard]

Someone once made this comment to me: "Everyone wants to go the heaven, but nobody wants to go today." I wonder how anyone could possibly maintain heaven's appeal when most of us can't even get along here? Then, several people expect there to be nothing but perfection and happiness in heaven. I'm more of the mind that heaven could be right where we are, only there's too many can't get along'ers around to make it appear anything like heaven anymore. I guess that's life, so I figure we should just do the best we can with what we have and pursue happiness while we're here. Makes more sense than waiting.

I agree with you on making this life as wonderous as possible.

 

[Wolf_Bloodbeard]

We console ourselves that our loved one is in a better place after they have died. Isn't that just a suggestion that we are all better off dead?

Exactly.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

You're basically asking why they don't just let themselves die or give up on life. I don't see the point of hurrying to death when we're all going to get there, anyway. It's not a race.

 

[Wolf_Bloodbeard]

To me death is more an annoyance rather than a fear (not now, please!) given that for so many it occurs when least expected (and/or least wanted) or when life is so prolonged as to making life at the time being pointless or worthless. Why would I fear the inevitable - given that this would seem such a curse on the very notion of life? After all, if one believes such, we had no life once, so why are we not mourning that?

As to Heaven or similar - nice carrot to entice believers is my view, and not enough evidence to support such a notion. But it might be nice for a suicide-bomber to believe in such perhaps, even if this is about as erroneous as Hell might be too.

I agree.

 

[Wandering Monk]

Exactly.

Not a very pro-life position, is it?

 

[Wolf_Bloodbeard]

You're basically asking why they don't just let themselves die or give up on life. I don't see the point of hurrying to death when we're all going to get there, anyway. It's not a race.

Yes, I am. And if I could live forever I would jump at the chance as I don't think there is anyway our conscience survives our brain's eventual demise.

 

[PureX]

My argument, as laid out in this question, is that those that profess to truly believe in heaven, yet do everything to avoid it for as long as possible, are not as convinced as they say they are.

Probably not. But I see nothing significant in that observation. We humans are constantly professing ideals that we don't fully grasp or adhere to.

Also, we are not one-dimensional beings. We humans are capable of holding and believing in opposing ideals simultaneously. In fact, I would assert that the closer we humans get to the "truth of things", the more paradoxcal the view becomes.

 

[Wolf_Bloodbeard]

Not a very pro-life position, is it?

It's not any position. I was agreeing with the poster that saying people are in a better place is the same as saying that we are all better off dead. I wasn't saying I agree with the statement, I was agreeing with what the conclusion of the statement means.

 

[anna.]

We console ourselves that our loved one is in a better place after they have died. Isn't that just a suggestion that we are all better off dead?

What's an alternate possibility? Consoling oneself with the thankfulness of knowing the departed will never experience an infinite happiness?