What could top heaven?

[wearestardust]

The difficulty with this problem is that nothing would top heaven. If it existed. Comments like "reality tops heaven" are predicated on the prior belief (which I also happen to think is true) that thre is no heaven. Thus the attractions of heaven are substantially diminished.

In short: the problem is not whether or not, hypthetically, there is anything more attractive than heaven, but whether or not wishful thinking about heaven makes it so.

[Xeno]

Originally Posted by wearestardust

The difficulty with this problem is that nothing would top heaven. If it existed. Comments like "reality tops heaven" are predicated on the prior belief (which I also happen to think is true) that thre is no heaven.

That is exactly how I took it, comparing acceptance of reality with a belief in heaven.

Thus the attractions of heaven are substantially diminished.

You don't say.

[Dane]

Heaven isn't funny. Reality is absurd and fundamentally pointless. Why would I trade that for heaven?

[Dixie Chick]

That's pretty wild, Dane....I like it.

[Dane]

Originally Posted by Dixie Chick

That's pretty wild, Dane....I like it.

Reality is heaven to me: without the vicissitudes of life, this ever changing dynamic environment, the imperfections, the utter absurdity... it's not life. A "perfect" heaven would be so depressing in its static homogeneity. Games are fun if you have the occasional god mode cheat, but to have it 24/7...

I suppose it comes down to what makes one happy and what they value. I value reality and I can't stand unsubstantiated bullshit. I can't deny reality. To these other people, I suppose you can make the semantic argument that "god" is "reality", but yeah... if that's the only thing that keeps them going, I won't stop them... but they better not expect me or others to hold back.

That'd be the real insult, innit? "I know you think religion and god is bullshit, but now you're suddenly humoring me, lying to me that you think it exists while I'm on my deathbed. This isn't you, I'd rather you be a god-denying cunt than a lying cunt."

[A Monkey Shaved]

I just find any concept of a celestial fairy castle like heaven to be totally absurd and pointless. And of any model of an afterlife heaven and is opposite partner hell is the most preposterous IMHO. So on the scale of incredulous nonsense nothing could top heaven.

[Antitheist]

Originally Posted by A Monkey Shaved

I just find any concept of a celestial fairy castle like heaven to be totally absurd and pointless. And of any model of an afterlife heaven and is opposite partner hell is the most preposterous IMHO. So on the scale of incredulous nonsense nothing could top heaven.

The problem with Heaven is that eternity is an awful long time! Hell, I get easily bored waiting for the bus or train!

Now assuming we were finite entities in Heaven, then having infinite time would mean we would lose interest when there was nothing else to do. IMO, there would be an awful lot of interesting people as boring people in Heaven — all with "do-gooder" attitudes.

Clear there would be a lot of attempted suicides, even with God, for something to do. (Q. If You threatened suicide in Heaven, would you be immediately sent to Hell? [Actually impossible, because if the Bible were true, hell and Satan would have been destroyed!)

Bingo! Perhaps this is the exact reason why Satan became a "fallen angel" and mostly opposing God based on wanting something different to do!

[A Monkey Shaved]

Originally Posted by Antitheist

The problem with Heaven is that eternity is an awful long time! Hell, I get easily bored waiting for the bus or train!

Now assuming we were finite entities in Heaven, then having infinite time would mean we would lose interest when there was nothing else to do. IMO, there would be an awful lot of interesting people as boring people in Heaven — all with "do-gooder" attitudes.

Clear there would be a lot of attempted suicides, even with God, for something to do. (Q. If You threatened suicide in Heaven, would you be immediately sent to Hell? [Actually impossible, because if the Bible were true, hell and Satan would have been destroyed!)

Bingo! Perhaps this is the exact reason why Satan became a "fallen angel" and mostly opposing God based on wanting something different to do!

And many of those so called "Saints" which have been designated by the Catholic Church through their process of canonization to be in Heaven are pretty boring farts to begin with. Imagine spending an eternity with them.

[wibble]

Originally Posted by Antitheist

The problem with Heaven is that eternity is an awful long time! Hell, I get easily bored waiting for the bus or train!

Now assuming we were finite entities in Heaven, then having infinite time would mean we would lose interest when there was nothing else to do. IMO, there would be an awful lot of interesting people as boring people in Heaven — all with "do-gooder" attitudes.

Clear there would be a lot of attempted suicides, even with God, for something to do. (Q. If You threatened suicide in Heaven, would you be immediately sent to Hell? [Actually impossible, because if the Bible were true, hell and Satan would have been destroyed!)

Bingo! Perhaps this is the exact reason why Satan became a "fallen angel" and mostly opposing God based on wanting something different to do!

I suppose Philosophers greater than you or I have done this to death, but you've hit the poor head on the nail, Antitheist. I like Satan being bored to naughtiness! (Its a counterpoint to Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's funny vision in "Good Omens" of a Devil and Angel who find the Earth so interesting they have no wish to end it all in the prophesied Armageddon and work together to avoid having to go back to their boring divine/profane abodes).

Infinity does seem a rather long time (like space is big).

If we really have a "personal" heaven, and we are anything like we are now (else how could it be "personal"), it seems to me we would be so different in a few billion or trillion years that we are no longer effectively the same person. Just think how different you are from how you were 10 years ago, or from when you were a child. And think how much of that different self you even remember.

For us to not be "different" people in a few billion years (just a blink of the eye in the face of infinity) we would need to have enormous memories and vastly superior processing powers (making us different) or we would need to be static or frozen in some way. I guess the view that our personal lives will be remembered by an infinite God/Borg construct is one way our curent selves can be preserved, but it is not very personal. In some ways, this is the sort of (semi)immortal afterlife famous people have anyway (barring Shelley's brutal reminder about Ozymandias).

And if we are going to change so much that we are effectively different, killing off our current selves, then we are already able to access that heaven right now. We live, we die, someone else takes our place and lives and dies etc.

So unless someone can tell me another vision of heaven, we already have possible a type of "static" immortality (a sort of panentheists heaven), and we already live the cycle of life and death of personal selves that a dynamic immortality would entail in more regular heavens.

Of course, I'm discussing if some people's wild, half baked and poorly conceptualised visions of things that we know are effectively impossible come close to my wild, half baked and poorly conceptualised views of the world. Just as well I'm visiting fantasy island!

[A Monkey Shaved]

Heaven is the ultimate false hope and hell is the ultimate false fear.