OK, Atheists, so you don't believe in Heaven. May I ask you this?

Question

Have you ever wished Heaven were a real place?

Gee, read all the atheist vitriol. No, you guys aren't unfairly stereotyped at all....*rolls eyes*.

Answer 1

I’ll answer this, and I don’t care what my fellow atheists (or anyone else, for that matter) think of me for saying so.

I got a dog last year. He’s my first pet as an adult. I had no idea I could love anything as much as I love my dog. Within about a year’s timeframe, I have gone from believing I couldn’t keep another living creature alive to becoming “Crazy Dog Guy”.

My dog makes me wish Heaven were real. The thought of life without him is unbearable. It would be nice to think I could spend eternity with him.

Answer 2

no, definitely not. Sounds like an awful place. You ever been bored? Living for eternity sounds the sure fire way to get bored. If my mind would be miraculously changed so I am eternally happy, it's not me any more, it's a kind of monster or idiot. If you can't be sad, then there is no free will in heaven and being an automaton singing halleluja for eternity? Definitely not attractive.
Also if you look at some people who think they are going to go to heaven. If they really end up there, I'd like to be far, far away. Nope, I hope heaven doesn't exist.

Answer 3

Actually, traditional descriptions of heaven sound pretty deadly dull. And I've never heard of an alternate which was appealing, either. So, no.

I think people tend not to really grasp the concept of "eternity" frankly.

If you think the replies you've received are "vitriolic" I can only think you are extremely sensitive about the topic. The replies I've seen have been courteous if perhaps mildly ironic or sarcastic.

Answer 4

If it is a place permanently bathed in a pearly radiance, all waving palm fronds, and singing hosannas (What language?) for eternity, people may think that the other warm place will be more heavenly.

Singing implies time exists, hearing exists, and probably other senses: perhaps in a more heightened fashion.

What will keep all engaged?

I fervently hope that such a place is not for real.

At least in our monistic Hindu philosophy there is no heaven (thank heaven!). There is only pure awareness: timeless, senseless, silent.

Answer 5

Well, not the Christian idea of heaven, but I do wish I could go to the Elysian Fields. Did you ever watch Xena: Warrior Princess? I saw the Elysian Fields there and it seemed like such a nice place.

Answer 6

You mean like an actual utopia existing somewhere on earth, or do you just mean certainty of an afterlife?

Sure. I think it's a perfectly natural human impulse to wish for an existance beyond the inevitability of death, or to wish that it was at least possible for a utopia to exist.

Wishing doesn't make it so, nor even make it possible, though.

Answer 7

Hell yes!

I wish Johnny Depp were giving my calves a massage while Ewan McGregor sang and poured Chambourd for me.

But...you know....

((edit)) Come on, "virtriol?" We are asked this same question multiple times a day. Forgive us for injecting a little humor into what is really pretty much common sense. People generally would love to live forever! Yes!

Answer 8

Im not an atheist..im not christian..i dont know what i am anymore...BUT the more i think about heaven...and the people who will be there, or think they will be there, the more i dont want to go. People who hate gays, biggots, zealots, fanatics, people who condemn everyone for not believing the same as they, people who fall over when touched with the power of god, the pink haired lady on the christian network....the more i think about the people who claim they are doing gods work, and have secured their place in heaven, the more the idea of going to heaven scares me, and makes me not want to go there myself.

Answer 9

It would be nice if a heaven existed.

But I'm a tad bit more concerned with the here and now of my fleshy proportions. If a soul does exist, it can wait until said fleshy proportions die.

Answer 10

I very much like the idea of heaven, I'm not positive it doesn't exist. I just don't like how religious people assert that it DOES exist, when they have no proof. No one really knows, what's the harm in admitting you don't know what happens when you die?