Sure. If you’ll indulge me, its best explained by a kind of story.
Say you got into heaven and you think “ok, I always wanted to play golf while I was alive.” So, you play golf every day for 10,000 years. Afterwhich, you can play an 18 hole game in 18 shots, one handed. Then you think "well, I always wanted to learn the piano. So you learn the piano for a million years. Afterwhich you can play every song ever written, perfectly, by heart and with your feet. Then you think “ok, well I always wanted to learn lots of things.” So, you read everything ever written. More so, you learn every language ever, so you can read everything ever written, in its original language. This keeps you occupied for a billion years (and I’m being very generous there).
Now, maybe not the first, maybe not the second or third but, by the 7th or 8th hundred, thousand billion septillion years, you might start getting a little bit bored. By the 9th, existence will be indistinguishable from hell and you still won’t be even 0.00000000000001% of the way through eternity.
So, you go to God and ask “hey, I’ve done everything ever. Time means nothing to me. Any amount I spend on something, I can always spend infinitely more on something else. Anything I do, I master. Whats the point? I don’t understand.”
God then replies, its not that you don’t understand. Its that you finally understand the meaning of heaven and now you’re able to accept your own death.
The other alternative is that its eternal worship of God which would be hell. Some claim God’s godness will make that all not true. However, the you that would be ok with eternity would be so far removed from you that it wouldn’t be you at all but something else entirely.
thank u for explaining that was a really good read!!! i agree that eternity in heaven would be psychological torture after a while and at least in hell you have the simulation of being burnt
As an ex-Christian I find it amusing that you chose to explain via parable. :)
However, I think there are some flaws to your story. You seem to assume that Heaven would be like getting permanently sealed into your own personal holodeck, alone, no contact with anyone but the entity that put you there, the computer loaded with complete records of everything that had existed up to the moment of your death but never updated beyond that. It’s all so very static. Of course you would eventually go mad; what you’re describing is just a more comfortable version of solitary confinement!
It’s also not how Heaven was described to me when I still went to church. Some claimed we would all be sitting on clouds singing praise songs, forever experiencing a state of mindless ecstasy. (Which doesn’t sound like much of an improvement.) Others claimed the Bible says we will be rulers in Heaven, and how can you be a ruler without something to rule over? (That seemed a little better, but I also don’t really want to be some kind of king imposing my will on others.)
The most appealing concept of Heaven I’ve encountered so far is the one portrayed in the Housepets! comic. It’s just another place, but one where everyone has agency and security and has been healed of whatever traumas ailed them in life. They are free to build, create, share, and grow as they like. You can still fuck off and become a hermit if you really want to, but most people choose to hang out in a big city. Some have jobs but there is no money or material needs; they work because they enjoy it or because they believe it’s worth doing. One of the characters even chose to open a free massage parlor because they like helping people relax and wanted more opportunities to do that. And the mortal world still exists, so there are always new people to meet and new stories to read (or write!)
I could maybe spend eternity in a place like that. And if I had to change to make eternal existence possible, well, I’m not the same person I was five years ago and I have no desire to still be the same person five years in the future. I think if Heaven did exist, then Purgatory must also. Not as a place of punishment, but of healing. This world will crush your soul, and even the purest of saints (perhaps especially the purest of saints) carries too much pain and trauma with them for any place they exist to be a paradise. I think you’re right that in order to be okay with eternity we would need to be changed into something unlike our current selves.
Sorry this got so long and rambley. I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what kind of hypothetical afterlife could possibly make this all worth it.
Oh, don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of time to catch up and hang out with whoever you like. In fact, you could spend at million years with everyone who ever existed, individually, and you would still have plenty of time left over…
because its eternity
Then what?
I didn’t mention all the things a person could do but that wasn’t meant to indicate that they couldn’t do other things with their time as, ultimately, they would end up at the same place. Please feel free to swap them out with anything you like.
Fair enough but neither of those match what bible says. It just says heaven is “where gods praise is eternal” which is pretty ominous, if taken literally.
If heaven existed, there’s no reason the presume purgatory must also exist. Especially as purgatory was just made up by medieval monks looking from a new revenue stream. There’s no purgatory mentioned in the bible and only one ruler in heaven.
To me, the version of us that would be ok with eternity would be so far removed from us as to make the line “you will go the heaven” a lie.
Mostly, people find problems with it as they can’t yet fully let go of eternalism.
I’m aware that Purgatory isn’t scriptural, and the community I was raised in believed a lot of stuff that wasn’t found in the Bible. (It’s one of the reasons I left.)
The point I was trying to make there is not “What is Heaven according to scripture?” I was speculating what heaven would need to be for me to consider it a paradise. And the answer I came to is that no place can be a paradise as long as I’m in it. Not because I think I’m a bad person, but because I have so much trauma and other mental baggage that I would be bringing with me. I would be too suspicious of a place with nothing bad in it to be able to enjoy it. I would unintentionally hurt those around me because of the pain I’m in. And those people would hurt me, and each other, because how many people actually manage to reach a state of complete emotional health before they die? No one is ready for paradise.
There would need to be a place and a time for healing the traumas of life before we could enter any kind of heaven. For this I borrowed the name Purgatory, because it seems to me a similar concept. And maybe the person who emerged from such a place would be so different that you couldn’t really say they were me anymore, but I think I’m okay with that. I don’t want to stay the person I am now; I want to become something better.
I guess that doesn’t have much to do with your original point about people not understanding eternity, other than being in agreement that it wouldn’t be a fun thing for humanity as we know it.
can you explain?
Sure. If you’ll indulge me, its best explained by a kind of story.
Say you got into heaven and you think “ok, I always wanted to play golf while I was alive.” So, you play golf every day for 10,000 years. Afterwhich, you can play an 18 hole game in 18 shots, one handed. Then you think "well, I always wanted to learn the piano. So you learn the piano for a million years. Afterwhich you can play every song ever written, perfectly, by heart and with your feet. Then you think “ok, well I always wanted to learn lots of things.” So, you read everything ever written. More so, you learn every language ever, so you can read everything ever written, in its original language. This keeps you occupied for a billion years (and I’m being very generous there).
Now, maybe not the first, maybe not the second or third but, by the 7th or 8th hundred, thousand billion septillion years, you might start getting a little bit bored. By the 9th, existence will be indistinguishable from hell and you still won’t be even 0.00000000000001% of the way through eternity.
So, you go to God and ask “hey, I’ve done everything ever. Time means nothing to me. Any amount I spend on something, I can always spend infinitely more on something else. Anything I do, I master. Whats the point? I don’t understand.”
God then replies, its not that you don’t understand. Its that you finally understand the meaning of heaven and now you’re able to accept your own death.
The other alternative is that its eternal worship of God which would be hell. Some claim God’s godness will make that all not true. However, the you that would be ok with eternity would be so far removed from you that it wouldn’t be you at all but something else entirely.
I hope i explained that well enough.
thank u for explaining that was a really good read!!! i agree that eternity in heaven would be psychological torture after a while and at least in hell you have the simulation of being burnt
As an ex-Christian I find it amusing that you chose to explain via parable. :)
However, I think there are some flaws to your story. You seem to assume that Heaven would be like getting permanently sealed into your own personal holodeck, alone, no contact with anyone but the entity that put you there, the computer loaded with complete records of everything that had existed up to the moment of your death but never updated beyond that. It’s all so very static. Of course you would eventually go mad; what you’re describing is just a more comfortable version of solitary confinement!
It’s also not how Heaven was described to me when I still went to church. Some claimed we would all be sitting on clouds singing praise songs, forever experiencing a state of mindless ecstasy. (Which doesn’t sound like much of an improvement.) Others claimed the Bible says we will be rulers in Heaven, and how can you be a ruler without something to rule over? (That seemed a little better, but I also don’t really want to be some kind of king imposing my will on others.)
The most appealing concept of Heaven I’ve encountered so far is the one portrayed in the Housepets! comic. It’s just another place, but one where everyone has agency and security and has been healed of whatever traumas ailed them in life. They are free to build, create, share, and grow as they like. You can still fuck off and become a hermit if you really want to, but most people choose to hang out in a big city. Some have jobs but there is no money or material needs; they work because they enjoy it or because they believe it’s worth doing. One of the characters even chose to open a free massage parlor because they like helping people relax and wanted more opportunities to do that. And the mortal world still exists, so there are always new people to meet and new stories to read (or write!)
I could maybe spend eternity in a place like that. And if I had to change to make eternal existence possible, well, I’m not the same person I was five years ago and I have no desire to still be the same person five years in the future. I think if Heaven did exist, then Purgatory must also. Not as a place of punishment, but of healing. This world will crush your soul, and even the purest of saints (perhaps especially the purest of saints) carries too much pain and trauma with them for any place they exist to be a paradise. I think you’re right that in order to be okay with eternity we would need to be changed into something unlike our current selves.
Sorry this got so long and rambley. I’ve spent a lot of time wondering what kind of hypothetical afterlife could possibly make this all worth it.
Ha, yeah, the format did feel very fitting.
Oh, don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of time to catch up and hang out with whoever you like. In fact, you could spend at million years with everyone who ever existed, individually, and you would still have plenty of time left over…
because its eternity
Then what?
I didn’t mention all the things a person could do but that wasn’t meant to indicate that they couldn’t do other things with their time as, ultimately, they would end up at the same place. Please feel free to swap them out with anything you like.
Fair enough but neither of those match what bible says. It just says heaven is “where gods praise is eternal” which is pretty ominous, if taken literally.
If heaven existed, there’s no reason the presume purgatory must also exist. Especially as purgatory was just made up by medieval monks looking from a new revenue stream. There’s no purgatory mentioned in the bible and only one ruler in heaven.
To me, the version of us that would be ok with eternity would be so far removed from us as to make the line “you will go the heaven” a lie.
Mostly, people find problems with it as they can’t yet fully let go of eternalism.
I’m aware that Purgatory isn’t scriptural, and the community I was raised in believed a lot of stuff that wasn’t found in the Bible. (It’s one of the reasons I left.)
The point I was trying to make there is not “What is Heaven according to scripture?” I was speculating what heaven would need to be for me to consider it a paradise. And the answer I came to is that no place can be a paradise as long as I’m in it. Not because I think I’m a bad person, but because I have so much trauma and other mental baggage that I would be bringing with me. I would be too suspicious of a place with nothing bad in it to be able to enjoy it. I would unintentionally hurt those around me because of the pain I’m in. And those people would hurt me, and each other, because how many people actually manage to reach a state of complete emotional health before they die? No one is ready for paradise.
There would need to be a place and a time for healing the traumas of life before we could enter any kind of heaven. For this I borrowed the name Purgatory, because it seems to me a similar concept. And maybe the person who emerged from such a place would be so different that you couldn’t really say they were me anymore, but I think I’m okay with that. I don’t want to stay the person I am now; I want to become something better.
I guess that doesn’t have much to do with your original point about people not understanding eternity, other than being in agreement that it wouldn’t be a fun thing for humanity as we know it.