On Heaven.

[Mycroft]

You're a carpenter. And, for your entire life, all you've cared about is creating the most beautiful works of carpentry that you're capable of. You love seeing the happiness and warmth your work brings to people who buy your work, and are constantly striving to create something bigger and better. You never mind splinters. You always take opportunity to talk about carpentry whenever you can.

Carpentry is a part of your identity. It's who you are.

Then you die.

You get to heaven but, disturbingly, discover there's no carpenters there. There is no need for carpentry in heaven. And even if there were carpenters, it would be impossible to create something new and unique, for everything is already known in heaven.

So you spend your days rejoicing and worshipping and suchlike instead. But you're not sad about not being a carpenter. You don't miss it anymore. You don't think about it - all of that anxiety has been washed away by the glory of god, freeing you to worship and sing and, well, do whatever.

Question is: If all the best parts of what made you are stripped away, is it still really you?

 

[Sunstone]

Interesting question, although it does assume some things about what makes us us.

I wonder sometimes what it takes to imagine heaven as a place where people would be eternally content to worship?

 

[Deidre]

I happen to think it's a place where there's no more hurt, pain, suffering, questions, etc. This doesn't mean it's boring, it might just be a type of existence we have never imagined. Heaven is supposed to be all about light, it would seem rather surreal to exist in a place where there is no darkness. (metaphorical darkness)

 

[Nietzsche]

I'd say that this question becomes even more poignant if you switch out "carpenter" for "warrior". Martial conflict is what makes you happy. It's why you exist. There is nothing in the Christian Heaven for warriors & fighters. Not everyone fights for "peace" nor do we all seek it.

 

[Politesse]

Maybe don't think of heaven as a place where identity is erased, so much as a place where your voice finds the rest of the choir; the kingdom of heaven is within you, it's on the outside that it hasn't been realized yet. Any artist could tell you that the song on the inside never quite makes it out; and in works where it does, there is a certain kind of universality to what has been accomplished. Artists understand other artists. So perhaps heaven, if heaven there is, is where everyone undertands artists.

 

[Thana]

You're a carpenter. And, for your entire life, all you've cared about is creating the most beautiful works of carpentry that you're capable of. You love seeing the happiness and warmth your work brings to people who buy your work, and are constantly striving to create something bigger and better. You never mind splinters. You always take opportunity to talk about carpentry whenever you can.

Carpentry is a part of your identity. It's who you are.

Then you die.

You get to heaven but, disturbingly, discover there's no carpenters there. There is no need for carpentry in heaven. And even if there were carpenters, it would be impossible to create something new and unique, for everything is already known in heaven.

So you spend your days rejoicing and worshipping and suchlike instead. But you're not sad about not being a carpenter. You don't miss it anymore. You don't think about it - all of that anxiety has been washed away by the glory of god, freeing you to worship and sing and, well, do whatever.

Question is: If all the best parts of what made you are stripped away, is it still really you?

Are people really so great, in your eyes?
Is the enjoyment of say, being a carpenter, really what makes up your soul?

 

[LuisDantas]

I think the OP has raised a pretty good argument for the logical incoherence of heaven concepts.

 

[George-ananda]

My idea of heaven is a little different than the one described in the OP. I think there is continual growth and change until realization of the Oneness and the illusion of separateness dispels. For a time though on a limited heavenly plane, carpenters, musicians, artists, etc., will actually continue such things with a palate of possibilities that dwarf those of earth.

 

[Valjean]

The carpentry skills might translate to the construction and repair of harps.

 

[DawudTalut]

You're a carpenter. .....Carpentry is a part of your identity. It's who you are....Then you die... There is no need for carpentry in heaven. ....So you spend your days rejoicing and worshipping and suchlike instead. But you're not sad about not being a carpenter. You don't miss it anymore. You don't think about it - all of that anxiety has been washed away by the glory of god, freeing you to worship and sing and, well, do whatever.
Question is: If all the best parts of what made you are stripped away, is it still really you?

Peace be on you.
1=I was not carpentering at night and many other times in earth.
2=I was not born carpenter.
3=I always wanted meet The Beloved, that was real me.
4=I am actually now real in heaven.

 

[Skwim]

I've always felt that if heaven is suppose to be the bliss I've heard it described as it would be a complete disassociation from all those elements that make living here on earth worthwhile, and instead be an existence of complete drug-like euphoria. An unending state of silly-grin, perhaps only taking time to nod in passing to other heavenly silly-grin entities.

 

[Mycroft]

I happen to think it's a place where there's no more hurt, pain, suffering, questions, etc.

And yet all of these things are necessary, if even sometimes unpleasant, for our self-development.

 

[Mycroft]

Are people really so great, in your eyes?

People's greatest joy can come from creativity. From the feeling that they have been able to identify certain aspects of human nature, and capture and crystallise that in a carving, or a painting, in a song, or in prose, or a sculpture.

Is the enjoyment of say, being a carpenter, really what makes up your soul?

Have you nothing in life you feel passionately about? That makes up part of who you are?

 

[Mycroft]

Interesting question, although it does assume some things about what makes us us.

I wonder sometimes what it takes to imagine heaven as a place where people would be eternally content to worship?

A very poor understanding of what eternity actually entails.

 

[Politesse]

And yet all of these things are necessary, if even sometimes unpleasant, for our self-development.

Why? Is that necessarily true, or just something we tell ourselves because pain is inevitable, and we want that fact to seem less depressing?

 

[Mycroft]

Why? Is that necessarily true, or just something we tell ourselves because pain is inevitable, and we want that fact to seem less depressing?

Because from all of these things we learn lessons, ask new questions, find new ways of overcoming problems. In their different ways (for example), art and philosophy help us, in Schopenhauer's words, to turn pain into knowledge.

The most fulfilling human projects appeared inseparable from a degree of torment, the sources of our greatest joys lying awkwardly close to those of our greatest pains…

Why? Because no one is able to produce a great work of art without experience, nor achieve a worldly position immediately, nor be a great lover at the first attempt; and in the interval between initial failure and subsequent success, in the gap between who we wish one day to be and who we are at present, must come pain, anxiety, envy and humiliation. We suffer because we cannot spontaneously master the ingredients of fulfillment.

 

[Iti oj]

Are people really so great, in your eyes?
Is the enjoyment of say, being a carpenter, really what makes up your soul?

Are people really so great, in your eyes?
Is the enjoyment of say, being a carpenter, really what makes up your soul?

yes people really are great .

yes some people really are carpenters at heart. others are not.

 

[Mycroft]

My idea of heaven is a little different than the one described in the OP. I think there is continual growth and change until realization of the Oneness and the illusion of separateness dispels. For a time though on a limited heavenly plane, carpenters, musicians, artists, etc., will actually continue such things with a palate of possibilities that dwarf those of earth.

But how? A lot of what drives creativity is eliminated in heaven. A bigger palate is nothing when creativity is reduced.

 

[Politesse]

Because from all of these things we learn lessons, ask new questions, find new ways of overcoming problems. In their different ways (for example), art and philosophy help us, in Schopenhauer's words, to turn pain into knowledge.

But if you live in a world without any pain at all, isn't that knowledge sort of useless? It seems to me that what you chiefly learn from failure is what to avoid next time, an irrelevant consideration in heaven. If you are suggesting that the beauty of a Caravaggio comes from the pain rather than in spite of it, I disagree. Plenty of people suffer without ever creating beauty, and some manage to create beauty in moments of relative peace and calm. Indeed, thinking back on my most successful artistic endeavors, I was seized with utter elation or at least absorption while creating them. Not despair and agony.

 

[Mycroft]

But if you live in a world without any pain at all, isn't that knowledge sort of useless? It seems to me that what you chiefly learn from failure is what to avoid next time, an irrelevant consideration in heaven. If you are suggesting that the beauty of a Caravaggio comes from the pain rather than in spite of it, I disagree. Plenty of people suffer without ever creating beauty, and some manage to create beauty in moments of relative peace and calm. Indeed, thinking back on my most successful artistic endeavors, I was seized with utter elation or at least absorption while creating them. Not despair and agony.

Take note of my expanded reply, just in case you missed it.

 

[Thana]

yes people really are great .

yes some people really are carpenters at heart. others are not.

Well I guess we live in different worlds then.

People's greatest joy can come from creativity. From the feeling that they have been able to identify certain aspects of human nature, and capture and crystallise that in a carving, or a painting, in a song, or in prose, or a sculpture.

Have you nothing in life you feel passionately about? That makes up part of who you are?

Sure, I feel passionate about things. But they don't define me.
I'd feel sorry for anyone who's entire identity was in their work or their 'passion'.