Do you believe in Heaven ?

[Sunbliss]

Just that. Do you believe in Heaven? If so what do you think it’s like. Im not religious but do believe there is a Heaven or would like to believe there some place we will see loved ones again and find peace ourselves.

@StarlightLady apologies from me too.

Hell is what you get if you don't commit to a belief in god

No, that's what some Christians think will happen to people who don't commit to a belief in god. I don't believe in a god and also not in heaven or hell, I'm ok with that.

@vdbfamily that's really lovely. I'm so sorry about your brother.

Of course not. As a PP said, it was something invented to keep people in line and make them behave themselves. We are here, we die, that's the end of it. Nothing to fear, you won't know anything about it.

Nothing to fear, you won't know anything about it

Any proof about that?

but I believe it would be grossly unfair for someone to live an evil life and face the same end (dead in the ground) as someone who lived a good life

I believe it would be grossly unfair if someone who did not believe in God, or who lived in an age in history or place in the world where the concept of God/Heaven was unheard of (long before even organised religions existed) was condemned to 'a hell'.
Besides, most modern religions believe in a forgiving God that forgives those who are really sorry for their wrongdoing.

Yes, I believe in heaven. It’s choosing love, God, however you like to put it. I think that Hell is choosing not to be with God, so from the point of view of someone in heaven, eternal punishment, but perhaps from the point of view of the person choosing this, just rational denial. Though for a take on Hell I like my daughter’s speculations as to how it would feel to be eg Hitler and come face to face with God and know and feel the reality of what you’d done with all your self-rationalising self-deception stripped away? Pretty hellish I would think.

Yes definitely believe. Not necessarily in any particular religion, but most certainly in God.

Yes, I do.

heaven is me, two older guys and a bottle of bubbly
oooooh yeah...

No, it's just a nice fairy tale.

Would love to be wrong but, unless you have faith (which I don't) it just sounds ridiculous.

I guess there are people (I know one!) but then I don't discuss the subject with anyone else, that believe in some things but not others. Say anything involving 'the other side'. They believe in certain things but not others, but I wonder if it's more of an all or nothing.

No.

I’m always confused by the concept of heaven linked to Abrahamic faiths. What happened to all the people who lived in the relatively much longer time period before these faiths came into existence? What about the many good people who are alive now but don’t live in areas dominated by Abrahamic faiths? Or are we to arrogantly think that we are the chosen ones because of the relatively small window in human existence in which we were born? Is everyone else condemned to Dante’s vision of hell, simply because they were born at the wrong time/place? What kind of god would that be? Would that god be worthy of devotion? What happened to the spirits of the druids? The Mayan? The Incas? The Egyptians? Are they in hell? Or alternatively did they get a free pass to heaven because they couldn’t have received the word of God? Either scenio would be unfair.

Mind you Swedenborg convinced many that he went on day trips to both heaven and hell so who knows😂.

I think we will all have lived in those ancient times, we just keep reincarnating to keep learning.

The morality of heaven / hell always put me off. Eternal punishment seems excessive even for Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot. After a few billion years won’t they have served their time?

For those who believe, that's where reincarnation comes into it; even evil like this can be worked out in time, though it may take many future well lived lives to do so

A permanent heaven or hell doesn't exist for reincarnationists ... it can't exist, because the possibility for growth means there's always hope (and if we're all wrong at least we've done our best in this life, which might just have been of some help to someone )

@NiceLegsShameAboutTheFace, thank you - you have put into words what I am trying to. If there was EVIDENCE, how could there be FAITH?

I believe in silicon heaven, what no silicon heaven'? Preposterous! Where would all the calculators go?

Lifeisgenerallyfun

Islamic perspective here - Gods teachings have been passed on since Adam. Prophets were sent along the way (some of which came with scriptures) to guide man to worship one God.

Thus people were to ‘follow’ the most ‘recent’ prophet of their ‘time’.

We believe that the same message has come from the beginning, except that the passage of time has not 100% preserved the text, so you have Judaism, Christianity etc.

All prophets called to people to worship one God, but the final prophet was Muhammad (peace be upon him) after which there are no more prophets, but the Day of Judgement.

Undoubtedly there will be some people who the message may not have reached, God will be the judge of that. But for anyone who reflects, the sign of God is in His creation - is, the world around us etc; so even if they are unaware of the minutiae, people will recognise a creator or some higher power.

Of course, these things constitute the finer details - they are not entirely faith based - for us, we accept the Quran as the word of God as truth - if an individual accepts this they will in turn accept its contents as truth - heaven, hell and so forth.

Stoneofdestiny

Answered a few of your points in post above

Yes, God can forgive all sins - God may forgive sins as a person has many redeeming qualities (story in our faith of a prostitute whose sins were entirely forgiven as she showed mercy to a dog who was thirsty and she gave it water) but there are different kinds and extents of sins, no? And then there are those people who are pure evil who have no redeeming qualities, will they be forgiven? There are sins which only harm ourselves, and there are sins which harm others - the latter which can only be forgiven by those who have been harmed....

These are all smaller details, undoubtedly there will be different answers from different faiths, but things like justice is a universal reason...

I don’t, I kind if wish I did as it’s comforting, but I think that once your dead, your dead. Out of curiosity, for those do do believe, do you think other animals go too, or just humans, and why?

No. In fact in church yesterday I had a revelation. The priest was talking about how we all want eternal life and it occurred to me that, no I didn't. Which is lucky seeing as I can't have it.

@Sabee thanks for your explanation on the Islamic position.

Are polytheistic societies such as Ancient Greece and Egypt together with the pre European south/Latin American civilisations, druids etc seen as part of this evolution of spiritual understanding to an apex of worshipping a single Abrahamic God? If so was there a purpose to this? Were these civilisations not ready to receive a prophet?

If we have now received the “truth” and humanity is now in possession of the knowledge about God, which will not now evolve into a different God as it has done throughout time. Does this mean we are nearing the end of a journey, having reached a destination, ie the end of days?

Interested to hear where any of the Abrahamic faiths sit on the development of beliefs throughout time. Have we reached some sort of pinnacle understanding of God? If so where do we go from here?

the latter which can only be forgiven by those who have been harmed

That kind off overrides the 'God is the judge' idea.

Sometimes victim forgiveness that would not be possible eg the 'victim' is no longer alive or the 'victim' is not the forgiving sort (not all victims of crime are good people! Some might judge the offence unforgivable regardless. In some cultures 'blood retribution' is insisted upon, 'honour killings' are accepted or money is accepted from the perpetrator. A big of a pick idea of justice.

In Christian terms an 'eye for an eye' is deemed as a 'fundamentalist' interpretation of Christianity - vengeance rather than suggesting a proportional response to an offence by man, with the ultimate judgement left to God.

Out of curiosity Sabee, is it generally believed by Muslims that Heaven is only for Muslims? I have friends who believe that. (I'm sure some fundamentalist/evangelical Christians believe it is only for them)

It doesn’t matter what religion you are. Too many wars fought through religion. No religion takes prevalence to who goes to heaven. God doesn’t care what religion you are , they’re all man made anyway. Love your fellow man. Do unto others etc.