Does "going to heaven" really solve anything?

[advancedatheist]

Christians talk about "going to heaven" as if that offered the final solution to all their problems, if not their god's.

Uh, what if christians in heaven choose to rebel against god? After all, most christians have some kind of belief about how god created satan in heaven, satan looked around and then he told god to stuff it.

Why can't something like that happen again?

[iplaw]

What practical difference would it make if it could.  Attributes of a place called heaven like happiness, joy, peace, etc. wouldn't cease to exist because free will is still a variable.  In fact, it is a vital variable in the equation.  Would joy, peace and happiness cease to exist because some chose not to partake or even rejected them.  Hardly a mind blowing question.

[Court]

But if free will, and therefore sin (it is in our natures to sin, correct?), existed in heaven, what would be the point? Why couldn't we just go straight there from birth, considering it would be just like earth, sans nature?

[iplaw]

Whoa. Leaps in the argument.  Lets' take these one at a time.  Free will does not equal sin, correct?  Free will exists in heaven.  I believe that even though we are there we can at any time choose to leave but does that make the leaving then a sin?  To answer your second question.  I tend to believe that there is a reason for mortal existence on an existential level that benefits us in one way or another.

There is also another theory that states that once lucifer fell, heaven was purged and thus changed.  Sin is no longer a reality in heaven as it was before lucifer fell.

[Aullios]

If free will exists in heaven, anger exists in heaven, because it's a basic human emotion.  If anger exists, what's to stop people from harming others in heaven?

[Court]

Whoa. Leaps in the argument.  Lets' take these one at a time.  Free will does not equal sin, correct?  Free will exists in heaven.  I believe that even though we are there we can at any time choose to leave but does that make the leaving then a sin?  To answer your second question.  I tend to believe that there is a reason for mortal existence on an existential level that benefits us in one way or another.

There is also another theory that states that once lucifer fell, heaven was purged and thus changed.  Sin is no longer a reality in heaven as it was before lucifer fell.

If free will can exist without sin, why did god let sin exist on earth?

[iplaw]

I think it comes down to a fundamental misunderstanding of the term sin.  Not all acts can be categorized as "sin."  I can use my free will to chose between two alternatives and neither may be "sin."

You're gonna hate to hear me say this but it goes right back into the argument of what types of worlds allow meaningful interactions between people and societies and between people and a god.  I don't think I wanna go back there again though :wink:

[Big Mac]

All I know is that Brian Boitono, Chuck Norris, and Ninjas better inhabit heaven or else I don't wanna go.

Wouldn't Heaven get boring after a while? I mean doing the same thing all the time and never being able to really do anything "radical" or extreme like.....having clothing of two fabrics or eating an animal boiled in its mother's milk or yoking an ox and an ass onto the same yoke like a yoking yokester?

Jokes aside, Heaven and Hell seem rather odd extremes. No one really has committed something so heinious they belong in forever torment, I don't even think Hitler would qualify, as evil as he was. Not to mention a lot of decent good people would go to hell for merely not accepting Jesus as their savior. I find this rather odd when so many murderers, rapists, thieves, etc. suddenly find Jesus in Prison and are supposedly saved.

[iplaw]

I don't know about ole Chucky.  But what would Brian Boitono do?

[Big Mac]

I don't know about ole Chucky.  But what would Brian Boitono do?

He'd make a plan and follow through, that's what Brian Boitono would do!

[Jassman]

When Brian Boitano was in the alps fighting grizzly bears...

...Wait, I'm getting deja vu. Didn't we already start with this song in the Jesus Dress-Up thread?  

[Court]

I think it comes down to a fundamental misunderstanding of the term sin.  Not all acts can be categorized as "sin."  I can use my free will to chose between two alternatives and neither may be "sin."

You're gonna hate to hear me say this but it goes right back into the argument of what types of worlds allow meaningful interactions between people and societies and between people and a god.  I don't think I wanna go back there again though :wink:

*Ack* I thought you said you couldn't have a meaningful relationship without freewill and evil existing (in order for us to choose between good and eveil). I'll go back and check, but I'm pretty sure your position was that the world needed "bad" and ambiguity in order for us to have a "meaningful" relationship with god.
But, if heaven can exist with freewill and no "bad", how can we, under that assumption, have a "meaningful" relationship with god in heaven?

[MommaSquid]

Wait a minute.  If you go to heaven you can get kicked out?

God can still threaten you with eternal hell-fire after you've lived a good enough life to get into heaven!!  

I'd rather burn in hell.








With the ninjas.

[Jassman]

With the ninjas.

I'm going to hell?

Oh right... I forgot for a second.

[Court]

Jokes aside, Heaven and Hell seem rather odd extremes. No one really has committed something so heinious they belong in forever torment, I don't even think Hitler would qualify, as evil as he was. Not to mention a lot of decent good people would go to hell for merely not accepting Jesus as their savior. I find this rather odd when so many murderers, rapists, thieves, etc. suddenly find Jesus in Prison and are supposedly saved.

I think that they are odd extremes because they are simply concepts, not reality. Many words and their connotations are determined by relationships with other words. For example, love and indifference, dark and light, good and evil, curved and straight. Opposites are the most simplistic relationship, and it is obviously not the only one, because many words don't have opposites, like colors (except black and white). But you still only know what blue is in relationship to the other colors. Without the other color concepts in your mind, you could never discern blue from red.
Anyway, my point is that in order to understand our surroundings, human create these relationships, forcing things that they perceive toward one concept or the other. Heaven and Hell are the same. When humans dreamed up the idea of an afterlife, they eventually assumed that "good" people and "bad" people couldn't go to the same place. They had to be seperated. The opposite relationship is the only logical one that could be used to describe these two poles. In real life, however, things are rarely black and white; most things do not fit within an opposites only relationship. There are rarely all-good or all-bad people, but the only afterlife the human mind can (or could) grasp is one of two opposite places. We are, as I mentioned earlier in another post, limited by our language. Heaven and Hell are a good example of those limitations.