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.

Sorry if this upsets anyone but

Here's a question that has always bothered me about the whole 'meeting loved ones in heaven' malarky.

Do the believers believe that the loved ones waiting for them grow older in heaven? If you're expecting to meet children you have lost do they grow up? Or do they stay children for ever? Do old people stay old? Does someone who died in a pitiful state of senile decay with no control over their bowels spend eternity wandering around clutching a colostomy bag asking total strangers if they're going for a walk later?

Do racist bigots remain racist bigots in heaven? Forever!

Sounds horrible. On the whole I'm glad it doesn't exist really

I don’t know.

I would like to think there is one. I’d like to believe there’s a beautiful place where good, decent people go, or those who have suffered horribly in life, like the Jewish people during the Holocaust or Junko Furuta, the Japanese schoolgirl who was tortured more than 20 years ago.

Consequently, I’d like to believe in a Hell for those who created so much suffering by destroying lives – Hitler, Ted Bundy, Stalin, Jeffrey Dahmer.

I’d hate to think that, when all is said and done, everyone - the good and the evil - winds up the same after death – as nothing. As if never there. What then was the purpose of life?

The only purpose of life as far as nature is concerned is to reproduce. Once we've raised a family we've done our job. Obviously we've made our own purposes in life but reproduction is the bottom line in terms of nature.

Yes, but these kind of threads end up 'people of faith'- bashing so we rarely post, thus emphasising the echo chamber.

Not once I realised that my (d)m's idea of heaven would be to have me with her all the time, and that was my idea of hell.

Do the believers believe that the loved ones waiting for them grow older in heaven? Afaik it is thought to be their soul not the body that goes to heaven. Like a shiny comforting recognisable soul.

Sandman I don’t think heaven would be like that. If we are to believe in God in that he created us and the Universe then God is beyond all our expectations and heaven is beyond our imagination. We can’t possiblly expect that heaven would be anything like here on earth. I think people would be as old as they want to be. Many people who have near death experiences have spoke of an elderly loved one completely free of any pain or disablement that they had here on earth, and usually looking as they looked when young. There’s no time there, and people communicate by thought. and they feel just an overwhelming feeling of pure love like nothing on earth, and they all say the same, they don’t want to come back, they feel they have gone home, but it’s not their time.

It’s not a physical place as in all mankind huddled together, but constantly different experiences of pure joy and contentment. Ive read so many testaments of people who have “died” and had a glimpse of what the next life is. I think God does this for them to tell their story and give people hope and comfort.

Many people who have near death experiences have spoke of an elderly loved completely free of any pain or disablement that they had here on earth, and usually looking as they looked when young

Isn’t this just their dying brains sending out last, hallucinatory signals? There’s no evidence that it would continue once they have reached the point of no return from which nobody can come back.

No.

Abraid Their experiences are too deep and meaningful for that.

And to be fair, there won’t be any more evidence once they really go. But I’ve watched loads of people’s ndes on you tube. Some I can tell are fake, but others I can tell are genuine. I also love the comments on them where totally anonymous people with nothing to gain speak about their experiences. If people feel their faith is slipping (which I’ll admit has happened to me) these testimonies help to restore my faith.

Seeing heaven during a near death experience is a great basis for movies, but it doesn't really work out does it. How could you be in heaven while still alive? Does god take you and say "oops sorry you were not quite dead".

If dying automatically sends you to heaven without god's help then we just need to stop a volunteers heart in a hospital and restart it to get a report on conditions there.

Remember that death is just our arbitrary term for someone we can't bring back and we have changed when it happens by getting good at reviving people. It isn't mystical, but just a close call.

Oh and I'd be interested to hear about NDEs for other religions. Presumably they see what they expect to see too? Someone on Youtube recently claimed that Muslims and Hindus etc see the Christian god because of course 'he is the real one'.

No. Dead is dead. The whole NDE and 'I died', nope, because if you'd died you wouldn't come back, dead people don't come back. It's just the brain working in a different fashion.

There only one God. Many Muslims, Christians and Hindus seem to think he’s exclusively theirs. But in regards to NDEs people do actually “die” as in their spirit leaves their bodies. I refuse to disbelieve all the many many accounts of people who have had them. Their honesty and genuineness screams out of them. I think God allows this to happen for many reasons. Often to bring comfort to someone who’s lost their way, or feel unloved and to assure them that they are deeply loved. Sometimes to committed atheists to show them that God is real, sometimes just to show them not to be afraid, we’re only here to learn then we’ll go “home” to our real life....and I think he wants them to share their stories so we will not feel afraid of what lies ahead.

lasttraineast If you look on YouTube there’s quite a few Muslims and HIndus sharing their experiences. But I’ve never heard anyone say they think God is for their religion alone. If they did I’d immediately discount their stories as fake. You can tell who the genuine ones are, they have a humility and honesty about them. They tell us that God loves us all.

This man impressed me. An agnostic atheist, never knew there was such a thing.

I believe that some expect to "see" their elderly relative, their difficult ex, etc, as they were because during this life that's all we've ever seen of them. Some of the very advanced really can recall past lives or even the time spent between them, but on the whole most of us are stuck with what we know during this one

The point is that the soul's immortal and not chained to one body for all time; instead it's a collection of all its experiences and learning, which hopefully we'll understand more deeply when the time comes

No, sometimes I wish I did.

No.

I'd love to be proved wrong when the time comes though, lol

Absolutely not. But of course you will find peace. What could be more peaceful than nothingness?

No

Their experiences are too deep and meaningful for that.

There speaks someone who has never done acid.

I agree with @viscioysjackdaw thatHeaven is just a social construct, designed to keep the proles in line.

The construct is just an extension of the way we make our lives a heaven or a hell by how we live them. Lots of people want to believe, so are fed and belaube these stories.

No answer for sickness and poverty. Sorry.

Sickness and poverty is something we’ll all have gone through in past lives. We’re only here for a short time. No more suffering when we go home.

Also, if the good go to heaven and the evil go to hell, how do we decide what is good and bad since the definitions change between time’s/geographies/religions and indeed within these categories. There doesn’t seem to be any absolutes except at the extremes, most of us live life in the middle of this continuum. Where is the cut off? What is good and bad in a mediocre sense? Is there a scribe in whatever afterlife your subscribe to writing down every time each of us goes ffs? Or snaps at our OH? As myth/theology dictates!

What if the society we live in dictates one version of good and bad and we dutifully abide by this and this is not actually seen by God as good and bad. Religion is good at seeming prescriptive in the big things, not so good on the detail.

Imagine living at the time of the reformation, one week I’m drinking the Blood of Christ, the next week it’s a vinegary red wine representing blood, one week I can buy a get of jail free card, the next I’m damned to hell. One week I can do good deeds to get to heaven, the next my fate has been decided at birth. Heretics are going to burn in hell but who is a heretic varies between geographical location.