To wonder if we are all equal in Heaven

[Guesswho88]

I was thinking about those that have never found love or who have loved and lost. And those that have lost a spouse who has passed away but have gone on to remarry - what happens when the person who has remarried dies and is reunited with former spouse? And then the other spouse dies as well. How does it go down?

The Christian marriage ceremony says "Till Death Us Do Part" so I believe that Earthly vows have no status in Heaven and we are free to choose new love and or loves for Eternity as we see fit, after all you are a long time dead so they say, so you will have plenty of time to form many other physically loving relationships in Heaven with people you know, or don't, or are dead, or are not yet born, although not close relatives but perhaps great grandparents or more distant because the taboo of incest is to prevent unnatural births but there will be no new babies born in Heav'n.

It's all fine until Jesus checks your ticket and you find yourself in the wrong carriage and facing a surcharge or limbo if you don't have the extra

It's all human invention and ultimately a kind of greed. Is the spectacularly remote possibility that YOU existed on a beautiful planet in a fascinating universe not enough? Why do you need more. Live life, stop looking for a better deal.

I asked the same question at an Alpha course I attended ( a course ran by churches to explore religion for non attenders )
I was told we are not in heaven to be with past loved ones but to be in gods presence.
tbh that was a rather sad thought that I could be up their with loved ones but we have no care for them , only god.
This course was at least 10 years ago , and I still don't attend church so for me , they gave the wrong answer.

I don't believe in being sat up in big fluffy clouds or anything but I do believe there is more to this life than we understand and there is something out there.

No pain only peace and love.

I cling to the idea of seeing my loved ones again.

Jesus says asking these kinds of questions means we just don't get it and we will be like angels. See the stories in the bible where the sadducees asked him about one bride for 7 brothers.

I'm Catholic and I believe in being with God after we die so earthly relationships won't mean the same thing.

Memento mori - make this life a good one.

Gosh I assumed that most people nowadays recognised that the concept of heaven is a historical notion that served to fill gaps in understanding and to shape social structures.

But yeah I'm struggling with this at the moment because my child attends a school that teaches Christian concepts and she came home this week asking What Is Heaven? I replied that it's the idea of a place where everyone is happy and at peace. My DH said it's where God is. So confusing..

Funnily that bit about remarrying is actual dealt with in the Bible - Jesus does say “it doesn’t work like that, no one is anyone’s spouse, you’re looking at it wrong ” - or words to that effect!

Now I’m not religious now but I remember that bit.

I think whatever afterlife there is - if there is one - it’d be so different to our living reality that we can’t imagine it. A totally different way of being (if it’s anything at all)

Oh I should have rtft!

I’m a Christian and this is pretty much closest to my beliefs.

We won’t have earthly bodies or earthly desires, we will be spiritual beings and as the bible says “there will be no marriage”

Also that whole the first will be last and the last will be first thing. So I expect the rich arrogant lot who make it will be in lesser positions, and those who’ve had shit lives and been at the bottom of the pile will be given greater blessing or whatever that looks like.

I’ve had dreams about loved ones around the time of their death and afterwards, where I’ve seen them full of happiness in a beautiful landscape. But that may well be my brain’s/psyche’s way of coming to terms with loss.

I don’t know what happens, but I think the fact that we exist at all in this infinitesimal space is amazing and being a human is a strange, sometimes agonising, often painful but beautiful and extraordinary experience.

The Christian view is that once there is a new heaven and a new earth we will all be single. This is because (good!) marriage points to the love, joy and being known that is fully realised in relationship with God. In other words we will all be more blissfully happy than those who are married to the love of their life now.

You go back to being worm food and all human aspects of ourselves fall away. So the tall tales of religion (which is a man-made construct) are irrelevant.

Just for interest sake, do you vote?

No one can answer this question, unless St Peter is a Mumsnet member.

That said, your question is, in my view, perfunctory, as there is no heaven.

Heaven for me used to be 3am on the dance floor of gatecrasher 1998-9 but if I were perpetually stuck there forever, it would become hell.

I think maybe if we have souls, we just become pure beings who float among the stars, bumping into other pure souls until we hear a calling to be reborn on earth or wherever.

It's a nice fantasy but I doubt that's true either!

I don't believe we go anywhere but, like a good book, I sometimes think about "what if".

Such as, if we do go somewhere do we live there forever? What happens with the illnesses we took with us? If our partners join us, how on earth would we ever find them? Do we eat, if so, what and where does it come from?

It does seem such a waste of a special soul for it to just end. It must be of some comfort to truly believe there's a heaven.

I would say more we are all equal in death .

I should add that my brother was in ICU in an induced coma with sepsis when he was looking at a camp fire with dead relatives sat around it and they told him it wasn't time to join them. He believes it was his brain dreaming or hallucinating rather than the other world but he's still a sick guy and chooses to use the experience as a comfort.

They didn't die, they almost died.

Sorry, no I'm not going to talk about my dad.

I only believe in Mumsnet Heaven. When you get there your mil is waiting to greet you as your eternal maid and she has to seek your permission to have any sort of relationship with her son.

Why not? It's just as likely as some of these daft scenarios.

If you believe in Christian theology, death dissolves the marriage and there is no marriage in heaven anyway.

I'd like to think I'll see dead loved ones again but I suspect once we die, the electrical circuits fade, that's it for consciousness.

Hypothetically, if there is a heaven, I'd like to think we're all equal, though do some people who have been truly evil in life deserve that?

I guess I'll either find out or not (if death is lights out).

Funny, I had no real issue with the concept of heaven when I was Christian. Maybe because I didn't have to think about it too hard. Once someone very close to me died, I realised I don't know what I believe and lost my faith. In some ways it feels like it's still there, I just can't connect with it the same way.

In olden times believing in heaven and hell meant ‘consequences’ to how you behaved in life. The church was very powerful - it seems like it would have been a way to control society ‘put the fear of god’ into people. But now we have laws and police! I’m not sure what I believe regarding the afterlife - but heaven and hell are surely man made concepts.

🤣