What is Heaven?

Slydice

I don't want to share my views as I'm trying to build some right now, but I'd like to hear other Christians views on what Heaven is. Anyone be willing to clue me in (so to speak)?

Gordon

I am curious to hear Christians views on heaven also. I am not a christian, my parents didn't baptise me as they wanted me to choose my religion (bless 'em).

I personally think heaven is a state of oneness with this physical world that we perceive but a oneness that we cannot interact with, only experience.

Saruman

Heaven might be.. eh "heaven" if it were a Slydice Special

roar_ie

this is a tough question.

My personal belief is that is heaven is an existence without pain, suffering and death. Not only that but with the absence of any knowledge to do with this. It is perfect for want of a better word. I know the bible in revelations describes a city of gold etc, but i personally don't belief this. i feel this is man's attempt at describing the indescribeable. Ultimately that is what heaven is, indescribeable. i can't put many more words to it. Sitting here now i struggle to comprehend what it is. i don't think I can.

Well that is my two cence
roar_ie

Excelsior

I can't imagine heaven. Do I spend eternity with my friends and family from Earth? Or do I make new friends from the past and the future? Or do I have a need for friends at all? Will my wife be my wife in heaven? Will I get to actually see God? Will I have eyes to see and a body to hold my eyes? Will there be light by which I can see? Who knows?

No one. As a Christian, I never need to worry about heaven. Whatever it is, it will be better and more satisfying and exciting and calming than anything I could imagine. There are too many things to do on this Earth to make things better before I can take the time to imagine what the next is like.

Ixidor

i heard that heaven was a place on earth?
i can't for the life of me remember who said it.

Tellox

The bangles, Ix
I have an odd veiw on heaven...I beleive in Chi, The ying-yang ect... Im sure nobody wants to hear the messed up religious beleifs of a 15yr old

JustHalf

Belinda Carlisle.

Can we please keep this to what is the Christian view of heaven?

Manach

I suppose a glib answer
Heaven - God's presence
Purgatory - possiblity of God's presence
Hell - absence of God's presence

In passing, In both Milton and Dante, it's always Hell gets the best lines/scences, Heaven's description always seems nebulous.

Saruman

Purgatory? I think catholics were the only ones that ever believed that but the pope decided it did not exist after all... Nice one Thats one less thing for us to worry about and reduces the afterlife possibilities to 50:50

Typedef

Since the Pope proclaimed purgatory not to exist anymore, had I given money to get a soul 'out' of purgatory to the church, then I for one would want to get all the money back out of the church that was paid in order to remove 'a soul' from purgatory.

Oh, I must have missed the no money back clause of that, I guess the clerics don't have to respect consumer law.

almond

Jesus said "Heaven is God's Throne"

I interpret this to mean that heaven is where God reigns. Thats why Jesus said the kingdom of God is within you; God reigns from within not externaly as do earthly kingdoms.

The city descending in revelation I believe is a union of the heavenly and the earthly. It is described as the bride of the lamb so I think this is far more than a physical city. Primarily I would say it is a people transformed to bear the image of Christ.

peace, Stuart.

namuras

Purgatory
are we not already there? or is this hell.
Lets face it the best deception the Devil has done, is for us to no longer to believe in hell or his existance.

sanvean

According to the Bible (or at least certain passages) earth is hell. This is why the devil can tempt Jesus with the offer of ruling over the earth, as if the earth wasn't the devil's to offer, it wouldn't have been much of a temptation.

Emboss

This is *not* a troll, but I find it very hard to belive that people in this day and age actually think there's a heaven,

Heaven for me was rising from my bed one morning to see an NTL engineer's drill bit comming through my bedroom wall,

JustHalf

Earth isn't hell. Where did you get that idea?

On the question of authority: prior to Jesus dying on the cross, Satan had authority over the Earth (Luke 4:5-7). After this, the Father gave the Son authority over the Earth (Matthew 28:18).

Emboss: Take care not to link belief in God to stupidity. The "Eh, you believe in God you must be stupid" attitude of today is easily refuted with the works of Tolkien, Lewis, and countless other architects, artists and authors.

And don't assume that the most recent ideas are necessarily true

Emboss

Originally posted by JustHalf
Earth isn't hell. Where did you get that idea?

On the question of authority: prior to Jesus dying on the cross, Satan had authority over the Earth (Luke 4:5-7). After this, the Father gave the Son authority over the Earth (Matthew 28:18).

Emboss: Take care not to link belief in God to stupidity. The "Eh, you believe in God you must be stupid" attitude of today is easily refuted with the works of Tolkien, Lewis, and countless other architects, artists and authors.

And don't assume that the most recent ideas are necessarily true

I'm not calling anyone stupid, If you belive in GOD/heaven that's entirley up to you,

JustHalf

What relevance does the year have to do with anything?

You are implying that human beings should have outgrown the need for God by now. Which I find pretty funny (particulary considering the forum in which you made your statement).

Emboss

you're right i'll edit the post.....

JustHalf

There's no need to have done that. It's better to debate than to keep everything PC. I was going to ask why you had that belief, and then perhaps countering the reasons.

Whether you believe in God or not is up to you. However, it must be noted that some reasons for not believing in God do not make logical sense (like a lot of reasons for believing in God I suppose).

Emboss

it's a very simple reason i suppose, i have all the proof in the world there's no such thing as god/heaven life after death etc. no one seems to have the proof there is a god/heaven

JustHalf

I can see this thread (mostly thanks to me) going off topic. The question "What is Heaven?" is unanswerable (in the context of this forum) without the existence of God. I'm going to stop my debate with Emboss now, for it is about the existence of God and very much off topic... though it must be said Emboss' first post was definitely on topic.

Emboss, if you want to continue this discussion (I am unsure if you do or not) you're welcome to start a thread. If you don't want to, doubtless someone will start one on a similar topic at some time in the future.

l3rian

So, if the question: What is Heaven? is unanswerable

I think a better question is: Where is heaven?

In the clouds? Underground? Imagination of the Christian hierarchy?

JustHalf

What on Earth is "the Christian hierarchy"?

l3rian

You know, the pope, his cardinals ect

Or, should I have said "the catholic hierarchy"?

Also another good question (IMHO). At what point in human evolution did humans start to go to heaven? Will there be ancient primates jumping about?

JustHalf

There's a great deal of protestants who also believe in Heaven, l3rian.

With regards to your second question, we have no evidence to base such a determination on. I believe that human beings only went to heaven after Jesus died on the cross, but I also believe that there are those who died before this point or will be or are in Heaven. Specifically, "Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets" (Luke 13:28), and I don't know how many others.

Yoda

Alla tmntero smpetnhoun, auo smpetnbal. 'But the Kingdom is within you and it is without you'. (Gospel of Thomas 80:25-26).

The Kingdom of Heaven is an exalted state of consciousness analogous to the Buddhist Nirvana.

"Heaven" in the usual sense -- a reward resort enjoyed after this lifetime if you are "good" or if you "believe" -- is a myth, and one which has caused a great deal of harm indeed, and continues to do so.

Manach

From my take on the previous post, the state of consciousness is centred on the self and not on other people.
Even to achieve nirvana whilst not being part of a community, would more seem like hell.

Yoda

That's why people like Jesus and Gotama made it their business to spread the good news, talking about their ineffable experience as best they could, and hoping that people had ears to hear. My understanding it is that an essential spiritual oneness is felt in such a state, so that no essential "otherness" is perceived with regard to the un-woken members of the community.

In other words, your suggestion that being in a state of exalted consciousness while others were not would be a kind of hell, I don't think washes. Jesus and Gotama didn't go around thinking "man, this sucks" after all....

UbahOne

IMO Heaven is not programmed into humans. Anything like that can not even be comprehended/imagined by humans. Were like robots where everything around us is/can be done in our own free will but but outside that circle(life) we cant comprehend what happens...of course there is the bible but we cant imagine what Heaven is because we do not know what it is, we can only imagine and go by the bible. In other words, no human theory can explain what Heaven is because God is the Super Power who made us and knows what we know and knows we dont know what Heaven is...