Heaven and Eternity?

Question

Those of you, and there seem to be quite a few,who believe that when you die you go to heaven, how do you cope with the idea of infinite time. Many who post here seem to have a very naive idea of heaven where they get to meet mom again or auntie Ethel and end up 'being with' God/Jesus. Ok fine for the first couple of months but then what?

After 10 years, 100 years, a thousand years, a million, a billion, ten billion? If you don't ever actually die you end up doing everthing an infinite number of times, isn't that actually hell?

Answer 1

heaven - a notion.
eternity - infinite

Answer 2

Excellent question.

I think there is a difference between eternity and infinity. Infinity is a "forever amount of time", and eternity is "without time". And yes, that is a big difference.

If there is a heaven, it would not be infinite, it would be eternal. That's why most christian scholars state that you will be with God "eternally", not infinitely.

If you were to live infinitely, that would be like living on the earth forever until it ended, and the universe collapsed. The universe, for all intents and purposes cannot be forever because things that move (or begin) have to have an end.

To think about eternity, think about what you were like before you were born. The matter we are made of has existed forever already. You don't remember "eternity", even though that's what you were before you were born.

You pose a good question though, and I often look at people crazy when they talk about living forever. Yes, I would think living forever would probably be hell. Our bodies are not made for it, and I think if you talk to most really, really, old people they are probably ready to go. They've seen all of their loved ones die already.

I actually had an experience like that at a company where I was making 50 grand a year. I had developed a lot of friends with people I worked with over the years, and one day they all got laid off and I kept my job. At first I felt glad I had a job, but then things were never the same and I missed my friends. I ended up walking away from the job a month later because of no other reason that I felt "it was time to move on."

I think when we get really old, our journey will feel the same.

"Row, row, row, your boat, gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, verily, verily, life is but a dream."--unknown

Answer 3

Heaven is part of religion which is designed to keep man's semi-destructive nature in check. Fear of hell causes many people do do the "right" thing.
What does following the church doctrine grant? Eternal life in a supposed place called "heaven." During life, what is more purely desired than long/eternal life? Nothing. If given the option of living forever or dying after 100 years, most people would choose life, because they fear the concept of death.

Can you imagine complete nothingness? That we are like computers and when shut off or broken, do not even exist. If you can imagine that when you die, YOU become nothing, absolutely nothing, but the universe rolls along; then you are gifted.
Most people cannot, and therefore pursue quite possibly false hopes of eternal life.

BTW eternal life in existence would suck. You would experience everything possible. The one and only thing left to do is die.

Answer 4

You are right. We all have a naive idea of Heaven. That is what makes it so interesting and a goal worth achieving! Although the idea of spending eternity in one place does sound boring, it is easy to deal with the idea of infinite time if you really think about it.

If you took the time right now to make a list of anything you would like to do here on Earth, no matter the cost, I would bet you could think of hundreds in just a couple of hours. You may want to see a show on Broadway, climb Mt. Everest, explore the Smithsonian, or anything else in between. There are millions of things you could do here on Earth if you had the means. I would like to hope that you don't need those means, such as money, in Heaven.

I think that in Heaven, you could do anything. One day you could go whitewater rafting. The next day you could walk along a beach talking to Ghandi. (I don't care if Ghandi wasn't a Christian. If there really is a Heaven, he should be there!). There really are infinite possibilities.

If you spent your time in Heaven doing the same thing every day, then it would get extremely boring. In my mind, your time in Heaven is just like your time in Earth. It is what YOU do with it that counts!

Answer 5

That's a really cool question - my idea of heaven is that I'll have the opportunity to experience everything in the universe that I can't now - I think about watching photosynthesis inside a plant molecule, seeing the interior of a sun, or go back in time hundreds of years to an early morning in the desert Southwest, so I can ride bareback on a mustang pony to the edge of a butte or mesa, and watch the sun come up over a river of buffalo

Answer 6

In Heaven, one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day. You'll never know how much time has passed because in heaven time has no meaning. It's not there. The reason we were created was to praise God and, after the first sin, our secondary purpose is doing His works and leading others to Him. When we get to heaven, we will be with our brothers and sisters in Christ( for He is the only way to get there), and will no longer need to lead people to him or do his works for our jobs will be finished. In Heaven, when we finally get to walk on the streets of gold and walk hand in hand with Jesus, we will have no cares. We will only want to praise the holy God that gave us the opportunity and a way to be with him.

Answer 7

If you are saved by the blood of Jesus, born again christain, then you will go to heaven, which has golden streets, a mansion to live in, you will have a glorified body, which means never sick or any problems, you will be eternally happy, and you really can't imagine how happy you can be there,

if you are not saved, then you will burn in Hell, not dieing, but burning for eternity, suffering and never ending pain,

Answer 8

A * very * stable question! If we are quite interior the presence of God, it would seem to logically shop on with that Heaven might desire to, certainly, be exterior of time. yet do understand that God confirmed His presence on earth in some style or style on extremely some events. in line with danger he will artwork it like that. His presence in heaven, jointly as some distance better than right here, remains interior time. uncertain. merely throwing it accessible. The mere actuality that we are created beings might desire to place us in time no longer instantly, i might think of. we've not constantly existed and, jointly as we can now * proceed * to exist, it nevertheless leaves us lacking to actual adventure timelessness .... possibly. of course, this finished communicate of "exterior of time" and eternity is technique by using those with a temporal component of the entire element. it quite is exciting to talk approximately, yet we are grabbing at straws. uncertain why Gutbucket can't communicate the difficulty in an grownup-like style.

Answer 9

Infinite time is a contradictory statement. Heaven, being a consciousness, appears when we have earned it, not a reward for living wrongly and then dropping "dead." Eternity is God's measure while time is our measure, and one must eventually go out. When one finds himself in the eternal moment, hell will not (could not) be there.

Answer 10

If you can imagine what it was like from your earliest memories of the immense curiosity of the world you were born to. Imagine now spending an eternity having access to the universe in the shadow of infinite knowledge of God.


"in the beginning was the word, ..."

that word translates from Greek as Logos. ....can be thought of as thought or knowledge.
Yahweh(I am)
Adoni (Lord)
Eloim (Almighty Creator)
...and an infinite number of titles of the One.

reliving childhood wasn't so bad was it?

Answer 11

You know, your attitude toward heaven is going to be biased by your attitude toward God and Jesus. If you have had a relationship with Jesus for awhile, and he's pulled you through all kinds of stuff and challenged you to do all kinds of stuff that really streches you...
Then you trust Him not to live in a boring place! When we die, we're so far from knowing everything and being perfect... even though our bodies are resurrected without flaw, I have a feeling that we don't become instant know-it-alls. I really suspect that the adventure continues...