Another silly Question

MooseJam

Again, maybe it has been asked before, sorry if so, there doesn't appear to be an advanced search. The idea of heaven, everlasting life, what does it mean to the average believing Christian, to me, the idea of everlasting life, to be condemned to eternal awareness seems like the worst hell you could send me to,unless there is some huge transformation upon my death, whereby my soul takes on some other form, where it is happy to be in a state of eternity ,and every single experience it could possibly go through, with God or not it's happy to go through again and again and again and again. If there is life after death, and the God Christians believe in truly exists then surely you can grasp what ETERNITY means, what you are looking forward to, picture sitting with someone, God or other and playing paddycake paddycake for 100 million years or any other timeframe you can imagine, that is what you are looking forward to, if not, then I'd appreciate if you could tell me what you are looking forward to, tell me, what are you looking forward to ?

robindch

It's an good question which I've rarely heard asked and certainly never answered. I hope somebody can give an answer more fulfilling than "reposing in god's love"...

aidan24326

That is a good question Moosejam, though I'm not overly surprised at the lack of responses given the difficulty of it. Often thought about that one myself. Personally I don't believe in an eternal afterlife but I too would be most interested to know what afterlife believers actually make of this.
To talk about your conscious awareness lasting for an infinite eternity, well forever is a long long time! Assuming there is a finite number of possible conscious states, it's difficult to see how it would be all that desirable to remain aware for such an incredibly long time. Some may argue that an afterlife existence would avoid this problem by your existing in a completely different realm not bound by the constraints of time at all. But it is difficult to know how any such thing as conscious awareness could exist outside of time, since time is a fundamental concept in our mental makeup. Like you, I find the idea of forever (taking the real infinite meaning of that word) to be scarier than the alternative, of just dying, but it would be interesting to see how others reconcile this obvious problem in their own minds (though I've no doubt some people, including some I've spoken to, just prefer to dodge these awkward questions altogether).

Wibbs

Living forever as a human would be a nightmare as humans gauge their lives in goals and milestones set in a finite existence. Maybe you could reconcile it by saying that you become a part of God and because of that the concept of eternity would hold no problems for you. An imaginary denizen of two dimensional space might be horrified by a three dimensional existence. You could scale that up and think of the transformation to a being existing in ten dimensional space. "Time" "eternity" and the passage of same would hold no horrors.

Then again I'm a looper, so......

L31mr0d

It would be interesting to see a question posed to Christians being answered by a Christian for a change.

Moosejam, there are varying beliefs among the Christian sects as to where this eternal life will take place. In the Catholic tradition the belief is in a heavenly afterlife, I however have a belief in an earthly restoration (which I can go into further detail about if you're interested) which is spoken about in revelation as happening after Armageddon as Judgement day.

Say the earth was fully restored, say to the state of Eden (i.e. in greek pa·ra′dei·sos or garden) and you had a perfect mind with a perfect body that would live forever. You say life would get boring, well take for an example someone who has spent their life studying the habits and natures of a simple fly, they may spend their whole life of 80 years studying its physical makeup, its traits, its biological structures and abilities, in fact there work is so unfinished that another person has to continue it after their death, which is true for most research into anything in our world today. Imagine how long it would take you to study every species of fly, then every species of insect, then every animal, then every living creature, then every earthly formation, then every universal formation, and for all these things you had the time to gain a complete understanding of them. How long do you think this will take.

Now i'm only going on what we now see in the world around us, but the bible makes mention of new scrolls being opened after judgement day which will contain new information about our lives and our existence. Regardless if you believe in a universal creator you accept that whatever he has planned for us will only be in our best interests. Just as how now if you apply the Bibles teachings (The Sermon on the mount is a good place to start) you can lead the best possible life this world affords.

Wibbs

L31mr0d wrote:

It would be interesting to see a question posed to Christians being answered by a Christian for a change.

Lucky enough you came along.:)

Just as how now if you apply the Bibles teachings (The Sermon on the mount is a good place to start) you can lead the best possible life this world affords.

Good advice that many would do well to follow rather than waiting for an afterlife for things to get better. I'm sure that was the whole point of that sermon.



BTW I thought paradise was a Persian/mesapotamian word? Learn something new every day.

L31mr0d

Wibbs wrote:

Lucky enough you came along.:)

Good advice that many would do well to follow rather than waiting for an afterlife for things to get better. I'm sure that was the whole point of that sermon.

Well the main point of Jesus teaching was that you won't gain everlasting life unless you live your life in emulation of his. Which is what confuses me most about the Catholic religion as Jesus was a teacher, and thought all his followers to teach, and told them also to teach others through every adversity (the life of Paul as an example)... yet Catholics aren't told that as a catholic they need to teach others about the life of Jesus. They are only told that they need to attend Church.

Mahatma Ghandi wrote:

I have a great respect for Christianity. I often read the Sermon on the Mount and have gained much from it. I know of no one who has done more for humanity than Jesus. In fact, there is nothing wrong with Christianity, but the trouble is with you Christians. You do not begin to live up to your own teachings.

This is precisely why I chose not to be Catholic and to follow another form of Christianity which applies fully the teachings of Jesus.

Wibbs

L31mr0d wrote:

Well the main point of Jesus teaching was that you won't gain everlasting life unless you live your life in emulation of his.

Even speaking as an agnostic and regardless of my views on His divinity, the world would likely be a better place if all Christians did precisely that.

Which is what confuses me most about the Catholic religion as Jesus was a teacher,

The title they addressed him by "Rabbi" kind gives the game away to boot.

(the life of Paul as an example)

The Paul part of Christianity always confused me a tad, but that's a whole other thread entirely

yet Catholics aren't told that as a catholic they need to teach others about the life of Jesus. They are only told that they need to attend Church.

I'm not so sure it's as simple as that, but I see your point(I have both sides in the family).

Mahatma Ghandi wrote:

I have a great respect for Christianity. I often read the Sermon on the Mount and have gained much from it. I know of no one who has done more for humanity than Jesus. In fact, there is nothing wrong with Christianity, but the trouble is with you Christians. You do not begin to live up to your own teachings.

I suspect he's not limiting that to one or other denomination of Christianity. In fact he was more exposed to Protestantism than Catholicism, but it's a good quote that one and I for one am glad to see Mr Ghandi is a boards member(sorry couldn't resist the last bit).

L31mr0d

Wibbs wrote:

The Paul part of Christianity always confused me a tad, but that's a whole other thread entirely

Post that thread with your questions, i'd like to understand what confuses you about it.

Wibbs wrote:

I'm not so sure it's as simple as that, but I see your point(I have both sides in the family).

I'm sorry yes it was an over simplified view of Catholicism. I was just trying to show how the Catholic church has changed from starting as a group of preachers teaching Jesus' word world wide to building churchs and making the people come to them.

Wibbs wrote:

I suspect he's not limiting that to one or other denomination of Christianity. In fact he was more exposed to Protestantism than Catholicism, but it's a good quote that one and I for one am glad to see Mr Ghandi is a boards member(sorry couldn't resist the last bit).

lol, yeah there doesn't seem to be a function for quoting people other than boards.ie members. He was more exposed to protestantism yes, and he correctly had gauged the flaw with christianity, in that we have a great handbook of guidelines to live a meaningful life, yet many christian sects pick and choose which of these they are willing to actually implement in their own lives, the major one being Jesus' request for his subjects to "preach to all the nations" which seems to have been forgotten along the way by some.