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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Do you believe in Heaven ?

307 replies

Sunbliss · 16/02/2020 19:51

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.

OP posts:
NameChangeNugget · 18/02/2020 15:22

Religion was invented to control the masses. It’s served a purpose, based on fear.

Like the BBC, it’s had it’s day

XDownwiththissortofthingX · 18/02/2020 15:42

Nope.

I find the surety and finality of death enormously reassuring. No need whatsoever to work yourself into a frenzy postulating over the impossible. It's a totally unnecessary added layer of complexity and an entirely human construct. The universe works just fine without the notion of a heaven, just as it worked fine before you or I were conceived, and will continue to function just fine once we're gone.

restawhile77 · 18/02/2020 16:03

Religion was invented to control the masses. It’s served a purpose, based on fear.
You could be right, but they weren’t invented by God.

restawhile77 · 18/02/2020 16:14

The universe imo is more evidence of God.Our planet is so finely tuned for our survival, so predictable There’s no reason that it should behave so. . Sunrises and sunsets, the seasons etc. Far too orderly to be by chance. By rights it should be chaotic. (apart from man made chaos) The fact that the sun and moon perfectly in place shows that it’s been designed so.

pigsDOfly · 18/02/2020 19:26

restawhile Surely our universe is so finely tuned for our survival because we're part of the universe.

All forms of life have to have an environment that allows them to flourish. If our universe had been hostile to our survival then we would not have survived.

Can't see that as evidence of God, more that it's evidence of our place as a species in the evolution of the universe.

Dozer · 18/02/2020 19:27

No. Atheist.

Moonmelodies · 18/02/2020 19:50

If our planet is so 'finely tuned for our survival', how come so little of it is habitable, and then often only habitable by using our ingenuity.

Ohfrigginghellers · 18/02/2020 21:16

I think heaven is not a place as in physical terms but a state of being/consciousness which is enveloped in pure unconditional love and it's source is where we all came from and where we will return to. Home.

TheSandman · 18/02/2020 21:44

If our planet is so 'finely tuned for our survival', how come so little of it is habitable, and then often only habitable by using our ingenuity.

Well said.

I'm sure the things living round deep-sea hydrothermal vents - in conditions that would kill a naked human being in at least four different ways simultaneously - probably suffer from a similar Panglossian delusion.

restawhile77 · 18/02/2020 22:54

I never understand why atheists do this. Fair enough if they don’t believe, but it’s like they try to unsettle the ones that do. Why? Yes if your faith is strong it won’t matter, but some people are desperate to cling on to their faith for their peace of mind and well being, but when atheists put up their arguments against there being a God, it could cause distress and possibly doubt. I often think it’s like atheists are searching their minds furiously to counteract anything a believer says.

Isn’t it enough to just say “I don’t believe” rather than upset those that do. It shouldn’t matter to them, it doesn’t harm them, and I just wonder why they do it..... If I didn’t believe, I’d never want to be the cause of someone losing their faith and possibly their reasons for finding joy in life.

Holyfork · 18/02/2020 23:05

@restawhile77

This is a discussion forum, it's meant for people to discuss things. It would be pretty boring if everyone just gave yes or no answers. If someone can't handle people explaining why they don't believe in heaven, they shouldn't click on a thread called 'do you believe in heaven?'

And by the way, I've known people who have both had and hadn't had faith at various points in their lives, and some say they are happier without. It works both ways.

icannotremember · 18/02/2020 23:22

No. Sorry op, but I just don't. I think this life is it, and when it ends so do we. But whether we are buried or burned, sooner or later we go back into the earth, the air, the water, the plants and so on. All the bits that made us go on to be part of other things. I really, really like that.

Cazza6474 · 18/02/2020 23:33

Im conflicted as a lifelong catholic i would love to see my son and partner again but what kind of God would take them away in the first place

SidekickSally · 18/02/2020 23:52

There are some very sad posts on here 😞
I don’t believe in God, I am against organised religion and I don’t believe in a thing called heaven. I am a scientist.
But, I do believe that we are all made up of atoms and energy and when we die the atoms and chemicals get recycled into other stuff (if you’re buried for example) and your energy can therefore live on. You don’t live on as such, but your very basic components do!!
But when my Dad died I felt his energy live on in my dreams and memories and that’s good enough for me. Sometimes it’s so strong, he is there with me.

MintySpud · 18/02/2020 23:57

Yes. Also known as Luton.

Bluerussian · 19/02/2020 00:02

I do believe in Heaven but have no idea what it will be like except bliss. Human beings make up comforting stories to portray Heaven in a way that people understand.

SirChing · 19/02/2020 00:28

In a hundred years no one will know (or care) you (or I) even existed. Scary isn't it?

Confused Why would that be scary, unless someone has a huge ego?

I do believe in something after death, largely due to an experience I had like vdbfamily brother's friend. Except I was awake at the time. I will always be convinced that that particular loved one of mine is somewhere else and radiantly happy. Despite my then atheist DP trying to tell me I was silly for believing it and it isnt true etc Hmm

TheSandman · 19/02/2020 01:42

Why would that be scary, unless someone has a huge ego?

I don't think you need a huge ego to be scared when faced with the utter futility of your own existence. Some sort of ego, yes, but we've all got one of them - pretty hard to function without one I'd have thought.

You don't find the fact that you are running around 'doing the right thing', striving and struggling to make the world a better place for your kids, and those you love, and it "don't (as a great philosopher once said) amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world" even the tiniest bit scary?

I'm 60. My Grandfather spent 60 years on this miserable planet and died about 57 years ago. The only thing I know about him is a (possibly grossly exaggerated) story told to me by my father (also now dead). As far as I know that story is the only thing ANYONE knows about him apart from parish records and census data. When I'm dead in ten or twenty years that will be gone too. I doubt if my kids will be bothered to remember it. Means even less to them than it does to me.

Everything most of us have ever done, said, or created will be gone in a couple of generations. Forgotten. Just as if it didn't happen.

Of course it's scary. That's why people make up comfort-blanket stories like 'heaven' to keep the dark at bay.

LightDrizzle · 19/02/2020 01:44

No.

TheSandman · 19/02/2020 01:54

Isn’t it enough to just say “I don’t believe” rather than upset those that do.

Fine. We'll have a truce. We'll just say "we don't believe" if you stop too. So. No more proselytising. No more missionaries. No more bearing witness and street corner pulpit bashing "repent you miserable sinners" loonicans shouting at us through loud hailers. No bishops in the House of Lords. No more religious education in schools. Stop broadcasting the tedious Choral Evensong on Radio 3 and blah blah blah.

Whenever you're ready.

RoobyRoobyRooby · 19/02/2020 01:58

I’d love to. What a comfort to think that everyone you loved is with you for eternity and you’re in a place of eternal happiness.

But I don’t at all. I think it was created by humans to both help understand and justify the “traumas” of life - the “they’re in a better place” or the “you suffer now but you’ll be rewarded later” thoughts - and to convince people that following their path is the way.

YourWinter · 19/02/2020 01:58

No, absolutely not.

SirChing · 19/02/2020 05:42

You don't find the fact that you are running around 'doing the right thing', striving and struggling to make the world a better place for your kids, and those you love, and it "don't (as a great philosopher once said) amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world" even the tiniest bit scary?

Honestly? No, not at all. I matter NOW to the people I love and who love me. If that's all there is then that's more than enough. I just happen to think there is something after we die. If I am wrong, and am totally forgotten in 100 years time, then no, it doesn't faze me at all. Why would it? We won't be here to see it.

SirChing · 19/02/2020 05:45

No more proselytising. No more missionaries. No more bearing witness and street corner pulpit bashing "repent you miserable sinners" loonicans shouting at us through loud hailers. No bishops in the House of Lords. No more religious education in schools. Stop broadcasting the tedious Choral Evensong on Radio 3 and blah blah blah

With the exception of maybe the first one, none if the rest are really done on mumsnet. And I think people are talking about the behaviour of people here.

HeronLanyon · 19/02/2020 05:53

No not at all.

However my lovely old ma died recently and she did believe in heaven so I have a kind of shadowy ‘belief by proxy’ - I like to believe in it for her - ie that she has ended up ‘there’. This is however an emotional comfort not (obviously) any kind of ‘belief’ based on empirical knowledge/observed facts/rational reasoning.