Why is the concept of heaven so appealing?
Posted: January 30th, 2018, 1:20 pm
Here's something I don't get. Most religions dream of an eternal paradise or heaven that you attain after you die (assuming you believe in the religion). Even spiritualists suggest this. There aren't very many pessimistic religions. But that doesn't seem to match up with reality. But consider this:
1)What if the ultimate purpose of suffering of life is to train you for hell? It's possible that reincarnation is real, and every incarnation gets progressively worse until you're finally ready to embrace your final destination.
2)The mainstream concept of what happens beyond death (whether it's that your consciousness fades out forever like atheists believe or you go to an eternal heaven where you stay forever like most religions believe) is way too simplistic. I would imagine that whatever happens beyond the physical realm (if there exists anywhere) is something beyond we can imagine, such as the merging of 2 consciousnesses, splitting, etc. (sort of like the NDE claim that we are all one). Or maybe you just teleport back to your birth upon death and make the exact same decisions with the exact same outcomes and get trapped in a never-ending cycle, like groundhog (gee, I hope not, but that's a possibility).
3)Life is not perfect. If the realm beyond this world (assuming one exists) was perfect, why did it create an imperfect world? Or do we have a misconception of what's perfect because our purpose here (assuming one exists) is beyond our understanding?
4)What would happen to aliens? With so many different planets out there in the universe that generally seem to have uncorrelated environments, there should be others that harbor intelligent life. Or simpler yet, what happens to animals? Other animals can be more intelligent/aware than a one-day old newborn.
5)What exactly is heaven? Anyone who has lived in real life knows that our minds are only happy upon improvement of something. If someone's way higher than you, you think you'd be happy in their position, but in reality you are only happy in the time that you're improving. So if you stayed at heaven (or hell) forever, wouldn't the experiences be essentially the same after the initial shock? Or does our supposed soul operate completely differently than our brain?
1)What if the ultimate purpose of suffering of life is to train you for hell? It's possible that reincarnation is real, and every incarnation gets progressively worse until you're finally ready to embrace your final destination.
2)The mainstream concept of what happens beyond death (whether it's that your consciousness fades out forever like atheists believe or you go to an eternal heaven where you stay forever like most religions believe) is way too simplistic. I would imagine that whatever happens beyond the physical realm (if there exists anywhere) is something beyond we can imagine, such as the merging of 2 consciousnesses, splitting, etc. (sort of like the NDE claim that we are all one). Or maybe you just teleport back to your birth upon death and make the exact same decisions with the exact same outcomes and get trapped in a never-ending cycle, like groundhog (gee, I hope not, but that's a possibility).
3)Life is not perfect. If the realm beyond this world (assuming one exists) was perfect, why did it create an imperfect world? Or do we have a misconception of what's perfect because our purpose here (assuming one exists) is beyond our understanding?
4)What would happen to aliens? With so many different planets out there in the universe that generally seem to have uncorrelated environments, there should be others that harbor intelligent life. Or simpler yet, what happens to animals? Other animals can be more intelligent/aware than a one-day old newborn.
5)What exactly is heaven? Anyone who has lived in real life knows that our minds are only happy upon improvement of something. If someone's way higher than you, you think you'd be happy in their position, but in reality you are only happy in the time that you're improving. So if you stayed at heaven (or hell) forever, wouldn't the experiences be essentially the same after the initial shock? Or does our supposed soul operate completely differently than our brain?