Considering "Heaven"

Liamario

Can any of my fellow atheist scum provide me a concept of eternal life where I wouldn't get depressed fairly quickly.

eyescreamcone

Liamario wrote: »

Can any of my fellow atheist scum provide me a concept of eternal life where I wouldn't get depressed fairly quickly.

You die. - you get used as fertiliser for plants - you help make oxygen for future generations
That's it!

Liamario

eyescreamcone wrote: »

You die. - you get used as fertiliser for plants - you help make oxygen for future generations
That's it!

HEY, stop being reasonable and rational. I'm trying to find out is there any concept of eternal life (that doesn't involve dying) where you won't want to kill yourself after a month.

PopePalpatine

Well, his Noodly Appendage grants beer volcanoes and sexy strippers to those who ascend into Pastafarian Heaven. R'Amen.

Liamario

PopePalpatine wrote: »

Well, his Noodly Appendage grants beer volcanoes and sexy strippers to those who ascend into Pastafarian Heaven. R'Amen.

Does one get to suckle on the juice of his meaty goodness as well?

PopePalpatine

Liamario wrote: »

Does one get to suckle on the juice of his meaty goodness as well?

Maybe.

Liamario

PopePalpatine wrote: »

Maybe.

I'm just assuming there is meatballs to go with the spaghetti. If there are no meatballs, then this is no heaven!

sponsoredwalk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8-RZ4eWlO4

Sulla Felix

I always thought Buddhism was the least horrible. You have as many do overs as you need to get a high score and then you kind of melt into a conciousnessless (?) nirvana.

Evade

Liamario wrote: »

I'm trying to find out is there any concept of eternal life (that doesn't involve dying) where you won't want to kill yourself after a month.

One where you can block certain memories temporarily so you can re-experience your favourite things for the first time over and over.

Kivaro

Nobody is answering his question:
Heaven ................ eternal life ................... boring?

Yes, it would be very boring (after the first trillion years).

18AD

I guess you could unltimately figure out how much capacity your brain actually has by taking in as much information as possible.

Would still forget things in heaven? It'd be an uphill struggle to test the brains capabilities. Of course that's assuming that your consciousness still possess its usual capabilities as it does when you have a brain. But if there was a limit you would simply have to see what would arise by various combinations of perfectly learned ideas. You could memorise the works of Marx and Lovecraft and then see what happened and then you'd have to replace some of Lovecraft with Electrical Engineering and see how that mixed with Marx and so on forever. At least I'd hope you could access those things and also have access to all the future ideas and theory that haven't come about yet since heaven doesn't exist in this limited time space. So you could actually have access to time travel mathematics, considering it's actually possible and something like the theory of everything.

You could also have an outstanding game of nomic.

Infinite bliss wouldn't be half bad for a while. You could probably train yourself to be synaesthetic.

I guess it would get boring after a long while though. But you could freak out people who were still alive as well. That would be very amusing. I guess if you didn't feel that nihilism was bad in this life, you probably wouldn't have a problem with it in heaven, as it seems to be a rather nihilistic place altogether.

Would heaven (and any other conception of an afterlife) not be atemporal? If so, then descriptions such as "boring" are meaningless, because boredom is essentially predicated on there being a passage of time which one is aware of. If awareness of the passage of time is no longer present, or, indeed, the very concept of time itself, at least how we currently understand it, ceases to exist once entering heaven, then boredom would be non-existent, no? If so, then heaven wouldn't be all too bad, at least if you had absolute control over what you did with your self; you could read every book, experience every experience, attempt to understand all ... and so on. I suppose it's difficult to conceive of an atemporal afterlife: in what way would the thought "I've already read this book" be framed? Already implies previously in time. Without a framework of time, too, our memories would be meaningless and the act of creating a memory impossible. So, if heaven was practically atemporal, where you were not aware of the passage of time to the degree that it could be discomforting, it would be okay, I think.

Anyway, if there existed an afterlife where boredom couldn't affect me, I had complete control over what I did with myself, had access to all books and experiences, didn't have to worship some deity, and didn't have to suffer the company of people I didn't like, then I imagine heaven wouldn't be all too bad. Still, the concept of death, as in ceasing to exist and not being aware of such, is altogether better, I think; it introduces less problems.

Liamario

Evade wrote: »

One where you can block certain memories temporarily so you can re-experience your favourite things for the first time over and over.

That wouldn't be heaven for me to be honest. You'll soon get bored of reliving them, like groundhog day or something.

Liamario

gvn wrote: »

Would heaven (and any other conception of an afterlife) not be atemporal? If so, then descriptions such as "boring" are meaningless, because boredom is essentially predicated on there being a passage of time which one is aware of. If awareness of the passage of time is no longer present, or, indeed, the very concept of time itself, at least how we currently understand it, ceases to exist once entering heaven, then boredom would be non-existent, no? If so, then heaven wouldn't be all too bad, at least if you had absolute control over what you did with your self; you could read every book, experience every experience, attempt to understand all ... and so on. I suppose it's difficult to conceive of an atemporal afterlife: in what way would the thought "I've already read this book" be framed? Already implies previously in time. Without a framework of time, too, our memories would be meaningless and the act of creating a memory impossible. So, if heaven was practically atemporal, where you were not aware of the passage of time to the degree that it could be discomforting, it would be okay, I think.

Anyway, if there existed an afterlife where boredom couldn't affect me, I had complete control over what I did with myself, had access to all books and experiences, didn't have to worship some deity, and didn't have to suffer the company of people I didn't like, then I imagine heaven wouldn't be all too bad. Still, the concept of death, as in ceasing to exist and not being aware of such, is altogether better, I think; it introduces less problems.

Interesting points. If we had no concept of time, then we'd be living in a haze and as you said, unable to create memories.
Your idea of heaven where you get to do what you want and how you want to do it would eventually get boring. I think we have evolved into needing some sort of challenge in life; and even if we could manifest a challenge, it wouldn't be the same- we'd know it was within our control.

The only way I think we could enjoy a heaven is to take away our humanity and to do that would make us almost like zombies.

strobe

I like the idea of a 'disney' kinda heaven. Cloud city and all. And you get to hang out with like, play guitar with Jimi Hendrix and play chess with Billy the Kid and have a threesome with Tallulah Bankhead and xyz. Ye know the sort. And you are free to do that for as long as you want. But you don't have to worry about anyone being to busy to do something with you because everyone in heaven is omnipresent so everyone can do all kinds of thing simultaneously as they think of them. So basically, you get to heaven, start off kinda slow, chatting to Hitler about golf or whatever... see it's not on a if you did a.b.c you get in basis. Everyone get's in. But coercion is impossible as everyone is equally powerful or something like that, so the bad bastards can't really hurt anyone as if they try to then the other person can close that particular avenue of themselves off from the person doing the harm. So you do that for as long as it behooves you to. You learn how to play every musical instrument, if that's your thing, then you experience all the effects off all the big main psychoactives in every situation you could imagine them being interesting in, then you play Mega Bomderman on the Sega Megadrive with Cleopatra, then when you have done absolutely everything you think you could possibly like to do... you throw a big ass party, and when you're about ready, you step through a big 'Stargate' like blue glowy portal, that causes you to cease to exist. Or be reincarnated on earth as like a chicken in Vietnam or something... you choose the portals effects. (causa free will or...)

I think that'd be sorta nice.

Evade

Liamario wrote: »

That wouldn't be heaven for me to be honest. You'll soon get bored of reliving them, like groundhog day or something.

How could you get bored if you don't remember already having seen / read / done it?

Liamario

Evade wrote: »

How could you get bored if you don't remember already having seen / read / done it?

If you don't remember any of it, what's the point.

Evade

Liamario wrote: »

If you don't remember any of it, what's the point.

No point. But if you're stuck in an afterlife for eternity, blocking memories of things you like so you can do them again seems like a good way to avoid wanting to kill yourself after a month.

Liamario

Evade wrote: »

No point. But if you're stuck in an afterlife for eternity, blocking memories of things you like so you can do them again seems like a good way to avoid wanting to kill yourself after a month.

So basically, what you are proposing- heaven is a place where you don't want to kill yourself, because without any reference to any bad things or good things, you're just a zombie.

Evade

Liamario wrote: »

So basically, what you are proposing- heaven is a place where you don't want to kill yourself, because without any reference to any bad things or good things, you're just a zombie.

I've read this a few times and I have no idea what you mean.

Liamario

I just re read what your initial concept is.
Blocking memories, so things don't get boring. But then you admit that you have to have certain memories and thus a concept of time; which will inevitably lead to boredom...

Evade

Liamario wrote: »

I just re read what your initial concept is.
Blocking memories, so things don't get boring. But then you admit that you have to have certain memories and thus a concept of time; which will inevitably lead to boredom...

Given the choice I'd go for non-existence but if you were stuck existing for eternity it would be bearable. You could end up watching your favourite film on a constant loop for eternity and it would always be like seeing it for the first time.

krudler

You get to spend eternity surrounded by family, which to be honest sounds more like hell, imagine christmas day dinner, but forever. And I'm supposed to WANT to go to this place?

Liamario

krudler wrote: »

You get to spend eternity surrounded by family, which to be honest sounds more like hell, imagine christmas day dinner, but forever. And I'm supposed to WANT to go to this place?

This is kind of why I started the thread. I wanted to know if there is a concept of heaven that could actually work, where you would not be an emotionally vegetated state.

eviltwin

The only thing that I like about the idea of heaven is finding out the answer to some of the mysteries, is Elvis really dead, who really killed JFK, etc etc

Apart from that I don't really like the idea of it. Sure I'd love to meet up with my dad again and have a chat but I don't really fancy sitting down with him when he'll look younger than I do or without the pleasure of a few pints.

Bannasidhe

Evade wrote: »

One where you can block certain memories temporarily so you can re-experience your favourite things for the first time over and over.

Alzheimer's is heaven?

:pac:

IF I had to choose it would be Valhalla - Feast, Fight, Shag then start over in perfect health the next day...tho I am wondering if there is a quiet place one can get stuck into a good saga in peace...

Nirvana as second choice...

The Christian Heaven sounds awful, as for the Perfumed Gardens of Islam - all those virgins knocking about the place would do my head in and I'm not very fond of sherbert (:p)....

robindch

krudler wrote: »

You get to spend eternity surrounded by family, which to be honest sounds more like hell, imagine christmas day dinner, but forever. And I'm supposed to WANT to go to this place?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzfCtGFgRSk

Bannasidhe

eviltwin wrote: »

The only thing that I like about the idea of heaven is finding out the answer to some of the mysteries, is Elvis really dead, who really killed JFK, etc etc

Apart from that I don't really like the idea of it. Sure I'd love to meet up with my dad again and have a chat but I don't really fancy sitting down with him when he'll look younger than I do or without the pleasure of a few pints.

I'd quite like to see my Nan again. I adored my Nan - and I'd like to meet my granddad (her husband) as by all accounts he was lovely - his nickname was 'Honey' as he was so sweet. I inherited his vast book collection so we could chat about that for the first few centuries.

Would not like to meet my other grandfather - his nickname was 'The Wassie' due to his similarity to a wasp - I remember his wife...she made a glacier look warm...

iDave

If everyone were like Ned Flanders there would be no need for a heaven, we'd already be there

-Homer Simpson

Bannasidhe

robindch wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzfCtGFgRSk

Eternity with Popette eh Robin - bet you can't wait.