I wonder, if one accepts the J/C notion of the afterlife where the good & faithful will go to Heaven, presumably for eternity (according to most convention & orthadox Christians) if those spirits can ever be kicked out. It’s hard to imagine any afterlife that would appeal to a human soul for all eternity, barring some type of radical postmortem transmogrification. What if one tired of Heaven? Wouldn’t the ennui after countless billion millenia become unbearable? And if so, would one be free to leave?

Moreover, most religious education I’ve recieved posits our lives as a sort of “trial” meant to separate the wheat from the chaffe, so to speak. The implication is that if you “pass the test” in this life you get your ticket to Heaven punched for eternity. But does this mean we only have free will while we’re alive? It seems to me that to remain in Heaven we’d have to continually submit to God’s rule. If we can’t choose to disobey then we wouldn’t have free will.

What are the odds that a human soul will be better behaved in Heaven that it was on Earth? Or am I missing something fundamental?

yes,you see while i thoroughly commented on it here http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=151293

i’d like to ask you some simple questions. where did satan come from?
did god create an evil being to hurt us? or did an angle become rebellious and get cast out of heaven? the name devil means resister and satan means deceiver(that could be deciver,resister,but this is just out of mind).

so ,was satan or any of his demons actually humans transformed into angles?! no,these angles where created by god directly.

now a lot of this i’m just stating, but if anyone wants me to prove any of this,
i’ll post again after i look it up…

also,the title of this post is a trick question,a human(i’m sure)cannot survive in heaven, humans that go to heaven(a different topic i can still answer) are transformed into perfect spirit creatures that “inherit incorruptibility”. it’s in revelation… this definite number of people resurrected to immortal spirit heavenly life are a limited number,144000.
therefore,ALL that die,cannot go to heaven.

these orthodox dogmatic traditions of men also leave out the earth. is it just some evil proving ground to kill humans and swell heaven?! i think not. the earth was created with a purpose…

Interesting, Drift. But I wonder if your knowledge of the Bible is accurate. I’m not insinuating that you don’t know your Bible, and certainly I’m not expert, but I’d never seen an explicit numerical value placed on the amount that will go to Heaven. If it’s 144k then current Christians may as well concede they’re fucked and just quit; certainly that number would include the “best” souls of the billions who have already died. Your chances of reaching Heaven then would be far worse than winning the Powerball.

Beyond that, please describe how the spirits of humans are transfigured into incorruptible beings. If that were so, they essentially wouldn’t really be us anymore anyway, would they?

I realize that in J/C tradition Satan was an angel that rebelled against God; this makes me think that if we’re no more incorruptible than the angels there’s still some wiggle room for the possibility of arrogance or ennui.

Again, I’m not so much questioning your sincerity as the accuracy of your claims. I wish Bob would weigh in on this, but this conversation may be ‘beneath him’ in a theological sense.

well about what happens to the dead.i’m not sure if you read what i wrote on the first link i gave to a topic at ILP,but this article is important.

it is entitled:What is god’s purpose?
http://www.watchtower.org/library/g/1999/2/8/article_03.htm

it should essentially answer a lot of fundamental questions. but,you can ask me about any questions you might have.

i guess this article does not deal with the anointed(144000) as mentioned in revelation,but that is for later in my opinion.

woa. maybe i should have posted a link to this article first?

A Closer Look at Some Myths About Death
http://www.watchtower.org/library/w/2002/6/1/article_02.htm

If I was in heaven
And It was fine
Then got kicked out
I’d be shaking.

I’d have withdrawl symptems.

But I’d be happy that I was removed from that bliss.
I could then spend my time on earth,
Trying to make my own heaven here.

well, the idea that God created the angels, and that Satan was one who went his own way, would make sense. thus, he holds everyone to their own decisions. Satan, having practically everything, as an angel, decided to revolt in some way and God granted his wants. He cast him out.

I’m not quoting any of this from any book, I’m simply proposing it as a reasonable explanation that fits with God’s “design” - for lack of a better term/idea

Just a clarification: the link you posted Drift is not consistent with traditional Christian orthodoxy. It’s from a JW site.

Connect

Hi Phaedrus,

I’ve thought about this concept. Are we sure that Satan and 1/3 of the angels were actually in a place called heaven? Perhaps heaven is a place yet to be created… Just a thought.

Connect

I guess to be technically accurate don’t know (again assuming for the sake of this discussion that the Bible reflects reality). Still that doesn’t materially affect the issue. As I see it we would 1) have free will, thus the chance to defy God, or 2) We don’t have free will as a result of some ‘metamorphisis’ of the spirit.

Hi Phaedrus,

It might have an impact on this issue because of the confound of saying the fall of Satan is exactly the same as would be found in heaven. If they are different (Satan in the presence of God and being in the context of heaven), the comparison is limited and maybe even apple and oranges.

Connect

i’m well aware of that,but you have to ask yourself,which one makes more sence?

the way i see it,being incorruptable,the ones going to heaven would not want to do anything bad because of how inefficient,inferior and usless it all is. it is the very epitome of futility.

“how the spirits of humans are transfigured into incorruptible beings. If that were so, they essentially wouldn’t really be us anymore anyway, would they?”

Good point, one I’ve pondered over many times after my used-to-be Christian friend turned…well…anti-theistic?

This was his argument, “I’d rather go to hell and be who I am, than go to heaven and be someone else” Great argument, although isn’t he assuming then that a God exists? heaven and hell both exists? So then he’s just rebelling against that which he cannot be sure of, he is unsure as to how that actually works.

I really can’t say I know how it works either. I mean when I get close to God, I “want” to do good, I don’t want to sin no matter the temptation, it’s really quite amazing that it’s the most strength I find, I find that strength in ‘love’. So in heaven, we won’t “want” to sin, but then how is that us? Doesn’t our sinful nature make us who we actually are? Is there something seperate from our soul from our mind?

I cannot possibly come to a plausible answer here, because we could all just be ignorant as to how this actually works.

sin is nothing but a defect. if someone were cured of sin,they’ed be better in every way.

sin is a disease that will be cured. i dont see how we could ‘lose’ anything.

sin also seems entwined in weakness,in my experience.

Is it possible for one to be “kicked out” of their own mind and memories?

yeah…I guess I can see what you’re saying there.

Lets explore this a bit

gluttony- You won’t eat in heaven right? forever full? No sin there
lust- Well…what can we lust after?
Drunkeness- um… no alcohol will be in heaven so no…
idols- how…if God and you are the only things than how can we have other idols?

These are just a few… I can see however that the absense of sin, or what sin leads to becoming, will be absent in heaven. You can’t have a steak if steaks don’t exist. You can’t fulfill a need if you are at peace right?

I’m starting to see some logic behind this concept.

Now as to why God didn’t create it this way in the first place, or his angels for that matter…I still don’t know, but I’d sure like to.

i’d have to say all of this (what is going on down here)is like a lesson.allbeit the harshest one i’ll ever know. but after this passes,i belive no one will have any exuse to sin anymore,because the “merits” of sin and alienation from god will have been fully explored.

in the begining i know we all had free will,then adam sinned and it passed down thru all his offspring…

god’s right to determine what sin actually is and to rule… that was challenged.

this is what happens to go astray from all that god stands for. i belive in the future,though still free, there could no longer be toleration of this,and no exuse to allow it again.

ah this is a very deep subject… and it’s 12:13AM.

What if one tired of Heaven?

But this is HUMAN thinking. Do we still think like a human being after death? I think not. Maybe we experience peace and ecstasy and do not tire at all.

We can’t answer this question, nobody can.

To me, any infinite existence seems scary… Doesn’t it scare you guys? Either way I’d rather be in heaven than hell if an after life does exist infinitely.

We could look at it this way, if we found a new product that made us indestructible, where we could live forever, would we tire of this earth? this life? If we knew we’d never die, how would we feel?