"Heaven is not a place.  It is nearness to God.  Thus, "heaven" can be experienced both here and in the next world."

Speak for yourself.

IF biblegod exists and IF it is an described by believers and IF heaven is "nearness" to it - I want NO part of it.

STFU god and go a-a-away! Leave me in peace with my OWN thought flaws and foibles.

Apr 27, 2012 -- 12:41PM, Kwinters wrote:

Apr 27, 2012 -- 11:39AM, lope wrote:

Apr 27, 2012 -- 11:00AM, Kwinters wrote:

I think that my ideal heaven would be personal.  I don't think there is a one-size fits all heaven.

The problem is that the only joys I know are the joys I have experienced in life, and what I find enjoyable others do not.  Sometimes I find things joyful, and other times they cause suffering.  Generally I love learning, but sometimes I get tired of it, for instance.

I think the perfect heaven is one where people can experience what they want to experience.  Perhaps they want to work as angels for a while, so they can take on some human case work.  Maybe they can spend sometime helping people transition from life to death.

Othertimes is could be having a jam session with their favorite artist.  Or touring the universe with 'eyes' that could perceive things the way that artists translate the information from Hubble for those amazing images.

In an ideal heaven we would only interact with people we enjoy, never people who piss us off - unless we so chose.

So that is heaven to me.  But I would have to guess that even with that idealized experience, eventually I'd get fed up of everything and would wish myself into non-existence.

I don't think you and I are capable of creating or even imagining a state of existence in which we would be eternally content and happy.  I think God may be capable of doing that.

As I said, even unending bliss would eventually become tedious and boring.

You cannot know that.  Nothing in this life would enable you to know that or even reasonably conclude it.  You have not even come close to experiencing unending bliss in this life.

Apr 27, 2012 -- 10:13AM, SecondSonOfDavid wrote:

1. There is an afterlife following the life we know
2. For this discussion, you go to the "good" place.
3. This place is eternal, but in many ways can be experienced and described in terms similar to our earth.
4. Commonly accepted virtues of Charity, Compassion, Generosity, Justice, Freedom, Peace and Honor are pronounced here and universally accepted.

Given those assumptions, what would heaven (for a label) be like?  What would our bodies be like?   How will we interact with other people, including those who were opponents and enemies in the moral world?  What do you do in heaven?

I was taught that Heaven would be like monastic choir. In Heaven, one would have spiritual souls (since the Resurrection of the flesh has not yet happened). In Heaven, there would be no quarelling, just as there would be no marrying, sexuality, or pair bonding of any kind. People would sing all day, just like the angels do. So if you want a good idea of what Heaven would be like according to how I was taught, please spend a weekend at a Catholic or Orthodox monastery.

Now, when I was a child, I imagined Heaven as a great green forest where people lived much like the early monks who had no homes. People would spend their time wandering through the trees, singing, dancing, and meeting up with family and friends. And most importantly, which goes against the tradition of Heaven being one unending day, I imagined Heaven having the cycles of day and night just as on Earth. I also did not think that Heaven would be the urbanized City of God. So my personal idea of Heaven as a wilderness when I was a child was different from Heaven as a city and Heaven as a monastic cloister and monastic choir, and I suppose my idea of Heaven was a North American wilderness version of a Middle Eastern Eden-like oasis (such as the Heaven-as-Oasis described in the Islamic Koran). Though since the Discalced Carmelites refer to the area behind their monastery walls as a "garden," perhaps my idea of Heaven as a wilderness forest is not so off track. Yes, a pastoral garden is in many ways very different from a primeval wilderness, but they are both natural settings. And when one places monastery walls around them, one does, from a certain point of view, merge the idea of Heaven as a garden with the idea of Heaven as the City of God. So perhaps my childhood idea of Heaven as a wilderness is not so heterodox after all... 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE6vN9l3U0E

Apr 27, 2012 -- 11:01PM, Blü wrote:

Seefan

We are told in scripture that heaven can be experienced here and now but in a spiritual sense.

Where are we told this, exactly? 

In one place Matthew talks about it.  We call it the Lord's prayer - "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" ...  Thy kingdom is a spiritual one therefore heaven is spiritual and can be experienced here and now if we follow what the scriptures teach us ...

And while this is a Christian site to compliment what Matthew said from the Baha'i Writings: "... and to the powers He has released in this age, which will inevitably enable mankind to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth foretold by the Prophets of God in past Dispensations."