Well, is it?
I can’t wrap my mind around this. You hear christians talk about heaven. Oh such a glorious place, no more pain, no more worries, no hunger, no anything but good.
So if heaven is all that…………..is it wrong to want to go there? Why would anyone not want to go there? Is it a real place?
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Personally I don’t believe in heaven. I think it’s much, much more likely to be a construct born from human yearning for pleasure, happiness and justification than a real place. There are people who do believe in it who think you have to practice gratitude and humility towards God, and make the best of your life before you can reach heaven.
You meet people who are so happy here on Earth. They’re not always happy, but much more than we are. Some people radiant joy and positivity. Not everyone is born with the ability to feel so much good in life. Some people learn it (through religion, therapies, age/experience and all kinds of other means). They seem to experience some of those feelings in their life, which makes me think that there’s the possibility that most of us could. Like the Christian heaven, it can be a long journey to reach that place.
There have been lots of times in the past couples of days where I couldn’t think straight. The one, only thing I could think was how badly I wanted the pain to get less severe. It’s not wrong at all to want to leave all the pain behind you. But there are other things to think about – whether that’s the best way to make it happen, and what will really happen to you and the people around you if you try.
Is wrong to want to destroy yourself to go to a wonderful place that sounds suspiciously like a bronze age fable? In my opinion, yes.
Or is your question more meta? If heaven is so good why aren’t Christians offing themselves left and right to get in? I’ve always wondered about that, too.
All I know is brain = self, so when the neurons stop firing I cease to exsist. Any phantom left over is certainly not me.
My mom was a stong, opinionated woman and an incorrigible mystic. She swore she would come back and haunt me. The only thing exceptional that happened after she committed suicide was a large robin flew into my apartment, crapped on the carpet, and ricocheted off a few walls on the way out. If that’s a sign of what the afterlife is like then I want to avoid it as long as possible.
It wouldn’t be wrong to want to go there. Actually many religious people count on you wanting to go there so you will act a certain way to get there, donate money to church, etc. Personally, I don’t believe it exists.
I can’t believe in a God that doesn’t love me and all you unconditionally. I truly believe there is a special place in heaven or the afterlife or just after, where people who are in so much pain they take their own life go.
I’m going to take a different approach and say that I do believe in God. And heaven is perfection. So why don’t I just off myself now and get up there asap? I have this belief that I am here to try and help as many people as I can while I’m here. Even though this place I call home can be a Hell hole, I try my best to positively affect at least one person’s life daily. If I wasn’t here, I wouldn’t be able to help.
And there are definitely times I wonder “Where the hell as God gone? Why is he letting me go through this? Why does he let any of us go through this hell we walk through daily?”
Sometimes, I don’t know. However- and this is completely cliche and I apologize profusely for saying it- my experiences have lent me so much strength, and so much experience for me to be able to pass on advice that will help someone.
That wasn’t clichéd. Not even partially.
Thanks, love 🙂 I just don’t want to give the wrong advice, if that makes sense…
No such thing coming from you. You’re supportive, and you share your opinion without shoving it in anyone’s face or saying your view is the only right one.
And I agree with SeeSmith, not even close to a cliché. Using that experience and knowledge you gained from it to help others is wise.
Help others? I really find it hard to help others when I’m so messed up I can’t help myself. So why am I on this hell hole called earth?
Is this so called god keeping me here to torment me? Make me suffer?
I at one time believed in god, maybe I still do cause I curse him every day of my life, several times a day! But I do know from practicing religion for years that you can take anything from the bible and make it fit any given situation. So maybe our ancestors were smarter than we give them credit, or the ones that wrote that book.
There are lots of old texts you can do that with. I don’t think it’s wise to see what’s happening to you as something caused by God. If it is, I suspect lots of people would say it’s because he wants you to gain something from overcoming all of this. But the important thing isn’t why it started, but trying to see it as something you can overcome, and looking for help on how to do that.
I had to give up my belief that God was tormenting me and making me suffer because he was, objectively, doing a terribly bad job of it. Seriously, the plots that M. Night Shamalan comes up with are more twisted and painful than the ones God comes up with. Michael Bay has better explosions than God. J. J. Abrams introduced more existential doubt in Lost than God could ever inspire. (despire?) Hitchcock does fear and anxiety far better than anything God has come up with. You want to know what God thinks is gripping anxiety? Global Warming. B O R I N G.
So looking at the evidence it is plain to me that either God doesn’t exsist or he doesn’t care about each of us specifically AND he is a horrible underachiever.
Only Mike and Trix have any standing to refute this as far as I’m concerned. Me? I’m damn lucky. I don’t live in Darfur. I don’t have Ebola. My father is too slow and weak to beat me. Gas is under $2 / gallon. Most guys around me think waving a Confederate flag is an intellectual exercise which makes me the equivalent of Carl Freaking Sagan.
If this is torture, then I’ll take a second helping.
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