On one of the local Christian radio shows (KJSL – St. Louis) one of the callers was upset last week. He really liked sex, he explained to Paul McGuire (the show host). The caller liked sex so much that the thought of going to heaven concerned him.
The caller asked the sage host whether it was true that there was no sex “up there.” McGuire carefully explained his answer by reference to the Bible: “there is no sex in heaven, but we won’t miss it. What IS in heaven is MUCH BETTER than sex.”
The caller asked whether it was like an orgasm? “It’s better than an orgasm,” explained McGuire. “It’s Like an eternally growing orgasm. It’s so much better than sex that you’d laugh if anyone in heaven ever asked you whether you missed sex. It’s like asking a grown man whether he misses riding a tricycle.”
The caller was not convinced. “I don’t get it. Why not have both sex AND that other thing that you claim is better than sex.” Why be forced to go anywhere without good sex? “After all,” he told McGuire, “even the Islamic people believe they will have lots of sex with many virgins.”
McGuire’s response was short and to the point: “The Islamic faith is a falsehood. They are misleading themselves. There is only one true faith: the faith of our lord Jesus Christ.”
With answers like this, no wonder there are so many wars breaking out between religious groups.
Or was this extended radio conversation perhaps a coded way for these two Christian Believers to say “We don’t really know about death because we’ve never actually been dead yet”?
I suppose that the caller could still ask his family to pack some condoms in his coffin just in case. Then again, is there a need for birth control in heaven? Even if sex is against the rules in heaven, if a woman violated the rules, could she get pregnant? McGuire didn’t say. Is a child who is born in heaven “naturalized” (entitled to stay)? This eternal orgasm stuff sounds suspiciously like the effects of some street drugs (which conservatives rail against). Why the different attitude toward pleasure up there?
Do they have chocolate in heaven? Dogs? Guitars? Freecell? What about kissing or hugging? So many questions . . .
Comment:
This exchange is so unbelievable I'm going to have to tune in to hear more.
Maybe I'll even call in with a question. If so, I'll be sure to drop your
name (and your blog's).
You obviously didn't pay attention to the nuns. I'm sure they told you that heaven is reserved exclusively for human beings and your major and minor deities, e.g. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit and of course the various angels and archangels. Dogs, cats, cute baby seals,
cockroaches and all other living creatures don't have souls and therefore can't go to heaven. Certainly, inanimate objects such as guitars and freecell do not go to heaven. Geez and duh. However, Heaven is basically
So, rejoice.
It seems to me that there wouldn't be sex in heaven, if it exists. Sex and its pleasures evolved for procreation and a disembodied spirit no longer needs to raise a family.
That's why I've always found it hard to swallow those movies in which a ghost is still in love with a living person. "Ghost" with Demi Moore is one of the best (and worst) examples. I would think that the remaining spiritual essence of the Patrick Swayze character would have better things to do than mope over the hot babe he left behind instead of traversing the universe or conversing with god. The all-consuming love that he felt in life (and that writers love to romanticize) was merely a chemical reaction in his brain to insure that he would singlemindedly pursue getting his sperm to meet with her egg. A real ghost wouldn't care about that anymore.
I'm an agnostic on whether there are such things as ghost sperm, ghost eggs and ghost babies. I just can't rule these things out at this point, not with 100% confidence.
Ha ha! You got me there, Erich! Was Casper the ghost of a dead child…or the child of ghosts? I guess we'll never know.
The Quran has a different approach to this issue, of course. Men who are martyrs might have access to 72 virgins. Women who are martyrs might get to be with their husbands. If they were unmarried on Earth they might get their choice of who to marry in heaven. http://www.slate.com/id/2160963?nav=tap3
You know, people who say there's no sex in heaven have never really thought about their beliefs… They have such low self esteem, that they have to look for pleasure in another life instead of trying to find it here.
Christians, here's some simple logic for you: Why create sex at all in the first place? Why bother having re-production at all? Can't God create people himself? What's the point of it all?
That's why I hate christianity… People are hypocrites. They preach about family values and say that I have to suffer from everybody's fervent hatred of my anti-homosexual "values", and then they tell me I'm n0ot gonna get squat for it in heaven! Bubkiss! How DARE he torture me like this and then threaten to send me to hell for wanting to stay like this?! Screw heaven! Heaven is right here on earth! And if you can't see that, then you're not really looking!
Actually youre wrong. You wouldnt go to hell for being gay…. Only way you would find yourself in hell is actively disrespecting god and not claiming him as your lord and savior and putting no effort into atleast being a decent person. Hes not going to send you to hell for stuff you cant help. Eating shrimp and eating alot of food is also a sin by the way..apparently if we want to eat alot we have to put knives to our throats…. The bible was written by humans. Im a christian and dont read it much because im not quite sure how accurate the wording in it is. But i sure do believe in God. People in my family have gifts that made me stop being a skeptic!! Pleaseee dont ignore God because its easier that way. Hopefully somebody comes into your life that can show you like my family members did for me..and they did so without knowing i was struggling too…so its not like they were ttying to force me into anything…person who helped me the most is my 6 year old brother and his unexplainable gifts
to think we will need sex is so wrong we are not people in heaven we are benings no deed for sex as god is not male or female and we too shall be beings lost of our need for lust sorry are no 72 virgins for your worldly needs as there is no need for sex real happiness shall be given without incading of others in any way and familys will be all not just what you remver to date we all are members of the bigger picture so love your fello man while you can as is your brother like it or not
Scotter periods must cost a lot of money where you live thanks for writing I don't really believe in heaven the end
Scotter writers:—"to think we will need sex is so wrong we are not people in heaven we are benings no deed for sex as god is not male or female and we too shall be beings lost of our need for lust sorry are no 72 virgins for your worldly needs as there is no need for sex real happiness shall be given without incading of others in any way and familys will be all not just what you remver to date we all are members of the bigger picture so love your fello man while you can as is your brother like it or not"
Well, I'm glad we have that cleared up!
It's a pity that Paul McGuire ignorantly turned somebody away from heaven over something that the bible says he knows nothing about! (And he will have to answer for it someday if he's not careful!)
YHWH is NOT bound by man's religious legalism, nor is he limited to the laws he has given fallen men. And he doesn't take gifts away from his children, in fact he is a God that gives (Because without YHWH, there are no gifts…and Hell is a place without God, so there are no gifts, but rather, everything would be taken away from you). Only those who see Sex as a gift from God, can accept the possibility of it being in heaven.
Because as much as anything, Marriage is designed to retain purity and health among men and women in corruptable bodies (And marriage wouldn't be required in heaven because everybody would be free from corruption, and they wouldn't get sick or die from being with others of the opposite sex).
YHWH wants us to be above the law, not under it. We obey the law after we are above it, to show our love and obedience to YHWH and love towards our neighbour…in Heaven the law won't apply anymore, and we are free to learn constantly, create constantly and love constantly.
May Yahushua bless whoever reads this 🙂
In case anyone is still reading, a positive (though possibly speculative) case can be made that male-female relationships similar to marital bonds can continue between the redeemed into the next life. This may then also imply a romantic, physical or even sexual aspect in such a relationship.
Below are some websites that make this positive case (across Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant strands of Christianity). Each website does deal with the marriage pericope of Mt 22 to a lesser or greater degree –
1. http://rezfamilies.googlepages.com
2. http://www.ewtn.org/library/Marriage/zmarrheavn.h…
3. http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&id=YSS…
Whether you find these arguments convincing is ultimately up to you.
PS. please note according to historic Christian doctrine, the next life involves the resurrection, which is physical in nature, and is not to be identified with "heaven" (where the redeemed go after death to await future physical resurrection of their bodies) – please see this link for more explanation –
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,171…
The typical Christian answer would be like "Oh, heaven isn't about physical existence, it's just your spirit with god on spiritual heroin in a constant, eternal state of ecstasy"
Basically, existence becomes redundant and loses all meaning. Sounds pretty boring to me. They must have a pretty high suicide rate in heaven…
asking if there's anything as good as sex in heaven might be like a child asking his parents if sex is as good as eating ice cream. the parents just smile and nod. if god's mind was able to come up with something as great as sex, it begs the question…i wonder what else he has in store? wouldn't he be a good guy to get close to?
as to the question at the end of the posting "Why the different attitude toward pleasure up there?" you're talking about a place where there's absolutely no temptation to take advantage of people. it's hard to imagine because we're messed up, and we tend to use people and destroy good things. which is why we're not free to do every little thing we want down here. up there, when everything you want is good, where you can enjoy things without having to own (and eventually destroy) them, things are a lot more free. if your desires match those of god, then rules don't mean anything. and keep in mind that 'god made them male and female' and called it good. he also made the physical body and makes it clear we will have them in heaven (removing the overly spiritualized ideas that the physical doesn't matter). the good things on earth are better in heaven. it's only the bad things that go away. does that mean we can have sex with anyone? part of me hopes so. whatever it is, it will blow out of the water anything we have here.
a great article on it: http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/sex-in-heaven.h…
Instead of fighting for social justice and reducing the number of people in prison (the US is a classic police state) we are arguing about sex in heaven. I suspect most so-called “Christians” won’t get in because they don’t care about the growing police state or human rights.
Christian Peper: I find that many religious beliefs are on that slippery slope that takes one's attention from real problems. Yes, it's a ridiculous topic for people like me who don't believe in an afterlife. There are people out there fretting about such things, however. I agree that there are better things to do with their time. I also think that it's important to recognize that many religions do steer believers from compelling real life concerns, and that this, in the aggregate, is destructive.
I'll also admit that I found this particular debate rather entertaining.
Psychologically, the entire edifice of a noncorporeal afterlife in which the matters of the here and now are gone—including the physicality of existence—says a lot about the people who also don't wish to deal with the problems you suggest are "really important." Heaven is the sought-after release from responsibility, from trying to figure out what is appropriate, from being torn by conflicting desires.
People who deny that there will be sex in heaven (never mind for the moment the absurdity of the entire premise) are people who are so in a hurry to be done with the world that they will gladly argue this point endlessly rather than deal with things right in front of them. They hate their bodies, their surroundings, their inability to cope with things, and they hope for a place where none of this intrudes and they can exist in a total absence of choices which require difficult decisions. Life, for them, comes with a large Yuck factor and to suggest that some of that Yuck will be there in heaven is to scare them out of their wits.
To ask them to deal responsibly with important issues is to ask them to turn themselves inside out and be different people who aren't afraid of real life.
Just my opinion.