Personally, if I went to heaven after I died, I would be miserable thinking about friends and relatives who never made it to heaven being tortured in hell. I guess if heaven exists, it is a place of endless tears where people mourn friends and loved ones undergoing an eternity of torture because those friends and loved ones never made it to heaven.
Christian apologists say there will be no one in heaven crying for their loved ones being tortured in hell because God will erase the memories of those loved ones in hell. The bible says “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away (Revelation 21:4).” I’m not sure how God would erase a loved one from the memory of someone in heaven: What if, for example, you are remembering a time at a coffee shop sitting down with a few friends, and one of those friends has been erased from memory. That would be an odd conversation being remembered with one person missing from the table.
It’s kind of like marriage. Say a Christian woman’s husband dies and she remarries. When she dies, will she be with the first or the second husband in heaven? The bible’s answer is neither, because there is no marriage in heaven: “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven (Matthew 22:30).” So all the dedication of cultivating a loving marriage in this life means nothing in the afterlife.
Any Thoughts?
Christians seem to look foward to going to heaven but seem reluctant to go there at the same time. It was a good question to Jesus to which wife the husband would meet in heaven given she might have been married a few times. Its also odd that if marriages are made in heaven then surely why would even adultery be a reason for divorce? Most believers do think they expect to meet their loved ones again though. But if there is no marriage in heaven, how would they remember a wife or husband?
I have some sympathy for a view that was expressed in a debate Christopher Hitchens vs a Christian Apologetic where CH was arguing that there is no heaven (or hell) and this is the only life we have and the Christian chap replying that even IF there was no afterlife or heaven, isn’t it better to believe that when for example your child has died with cancer that you obviously love very much, you would be reunited with them in heaven at some time? I think even the most skeptical would agree with that?
CH used to compare heaven (and hell) with a Celestial North Korea where the Boss (God) gets to dictate everything you do and for all eternity too. Getting a laugh, he added that sounds like hell to him but when you are dead in North Korea, at least that is the end of your suffering.
Bart Erhman and many others became atheists and agnostics because of suffering and pain in the world and couldn’t imagine that IF there was an intervening God, then why does he allow it as we wouldn’t if we had that power? That view is understandable but how could the opposite view hold up where there was NO suffering in our world? eg No child dying young? Nobody dying of cancer and other things in middle age? No child going hungry or thirsty? No wars where nobody gets killed or maimed? All medical operations are a success with no failures. No pain at all from anything? No earthquakes or Tsunamies?
ie everyone dying in old age without pain or suffering?
That alternative may sound attractive but is it really a credible alternative?
There are some, even many believers who think pain and suffering in the world is due to the fall of man when Adam and Eve sinned. I think that is complete baloney myself!
What if you can’t stand your Missus and then find you have to put up with her for eternity? I would think that would produce more tears than Niagra falls over that period of time! 
Maybe there will be no time there either?
I don’t believe in the Christian Heaven or Hell…but I assume most believers never think about it in detail. They don’t think beyond “happy reunions,” or imagine that any of their loved ones or even acquaintances could have done anything wicked enough to doom them to Hell.
If, however, there were really a Heaven, I can think of a way around some of those “problems.” Every individual would experience, eternally, what he or she would perceive as ultimate bliss! If a loved one had “really” wound up in Hell, they wouldn’t know it: a thought-form replica of that loved one would be with them in Heaven. If their idea of eternal bliss included sex, they’d have it – any way, and however often, they wanted it. If they wanted to be in Rome (the Rome of any era), or in Paris or Acapulco or any other place they chose, they’d have the full experience of being there. Or if their idea of eternal bliss involved constantly learning new things that interest them, they’d experience that.
They might or might not realize they were actually in Heaven. If they did, it wouldn’t lessen their delight in their (in a sense, hallucinatory) experiences.
A further (very different) thought… I’m sure I read or heard this from a Catholic source many years ago, though I doubt many Catholics believe it.
What that source claimed is that “Hell” is not a place of eternal torture! All Hell involves is eternal separation from God; and the souls who go there have freely chosen eternal separation from God. They aren’t suffering in the least. They just aren’t experiencing – and can’t imagine – the bliss being experienced by those who are in the presence of God.
Wilusa said
What that source claimed is that “Hell” is not a place of eternal torture! All Hell involves is eternal separation from God; and the souls who go there have freely chosen eternal separation from God. They aren’t suffering in the least. They just aren’t experiencing – and can’t imagine – the bliss being experienced by those who are in the presence of God.
I wasn’t Catholic, but what you describe is what I used to believe. The Bible, in my opinion, is actually fairly unclear on exactly what hell is since there are various descriptions that true believers assume to be of hell, but aren’t precisely described as such. I don’t know of any “hell is X, Y and Z” descriptions. The book of Revelation probably did the most to promote the idea that hell was a place of fire since there are a number of verses that describe a lake of fire (and sulphur), but Revelation almost didn’t make it into the canon so I don’t know how early Christians viewed it. Other places in the Bible such as the gospels talk about a place of torment or fire. Matthew talks of a place of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Not all verses that some assume to be about hell talk about it being a place of fire though.
I’ve recently seen a book that talks about how the modern depiction and general understanding of hell as a place of fire comes mainly from the Middle Ages and earlier where art work almost always depicted hell as a lake of fire and place of torment. The most famous depiction is described in Dante’s Inferno from that time period.
From the apocalyptic point of view I think a bit of triumphalism is encouraged and glee at the prospects of the damnation of all those evil unbelievers. Christianity has always possessed a strain of sado-masochism. The bliss of heaven will include satisfaction at the tortures of the damned. The joy of being on the winning side is certainly one of the manifold pleasures of heaven. And winning becomes meaningless without losing. And the fact that there will certainly be many more losers than winners just magnifies the specialness of the winners.
To sympathize with the sinners is to question the willl of the Almighty who is after all the one who created Hell. And to feel compassion for the suffers would be to hint that we are more moral than God. That can’t be true now can it?
Like many of you I have my own idiosyncratic views of the Afterlife, equal parts conjecture equal parts whimsy. You see, I don’t think we are born with an immortal soul. No, we have to grow our soul, nurture it, like planting seeds in the soil; the soil being our flesh. If your soul is strong enough only then it will survive the trauma of physical death.
The natural question becomes, how do we grow a soul?
In this I think we may wish to take guidance from the Gospel of Thomas:
If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.
Now if you are a superior spiritual being such as… well, myself, you will know what this means and the course you must follow. If you are not, then alas, there is no way I could possibly explain it to you, but keep at it and see if you can figure it out. Good luck to you all!
said
Bart Erhman and many others became atheists and agnostics because of suffering and pain in the world and couldn’t imagine that IF there was an intervening God, then why does he allow it as we wouldn’t if we had that power?
Does mankind truly want God to intervene? No, not really.
Armies are sent hither and thither to do to the bidding of their of political leaders causing the death of millions in violent wars. Is this God’s fault? No.
Greed rules the world. There is no good reason for children to go hungry or to lack clean drinking water. Is this God’s fault? No.
Why do men kill their neighbor or rape their neighbor’s daughter or son? Is this God’s fault? No.
Why do children lack good health care? Is this God’s fault? No.
Why do parents abuse their children? Is this God’s fault? No.
Are the rich around the world and in every country willing to give up their riches for the poor? No. This too is not God’s fault.
Okay, now what can be set at God’s feet? Hurricanes, drought, volcanoes, earthquakes, etc.
The earth is on auto, not man. Man can decide what is good for himself and his neighbor. His greed for power and selfishness rivals whatever the earth can deliver.
Imagine if mankind took upon itself the responsibility for itself rather than, like whining children, blaming God for their own bad choices!
If God should intervene tomorrow how many would raise their fists in rebellion?
Many.
I can only speak for myself but I certainly would not object if God intervened to prevent people from being hurt. Unfortunately he never seems to do this. All we ever see are self-appointed spokesmen who assure us that if we uncritically follow their every pronouncement then God will make himself available. Sorry but I have no interest in any second-hand revelation. I freely run the risk of the charge of presumption or arrogance by insisting on my own revelation. (The Almighty knows where to find me, right?)
I acknowledge that there is no one who will swoop down and save me from my foolishness. Consequently neither God nor his minions get any credit when I live well.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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