I don’t believe in heaven, but many people do, and they can’t wait to get there. But not so fast. What is heaven like? This article suggests that heaven is not all that it’s cracked up to be.
Reasons why heaven would disappoint you.
- Post author:Erich Vieth
- Post published:February 1, 2015
- Post category:Religion
- Post comments:3 Comments
Erich Vieth
Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.
I consider myself lucky to have been raised in a secular family (in The Netherlands). Religion never had a hold on me as it had/has on so many raised in a religion. And here too we have many accounts of people having been tortured while growing up with these ghastly religious visions of hell, doom and eternal stasis under heavy sedation. Many of them are in need of serious psychiatric help, sometimes for the rest of their lives. Although many become atheists, often their past religion keeps on haunting them.
To me the linked article seems to have all the markings of this entrapment in the effort of escaping religion, and not really succeeding. They always seem to be the same kind of arguments. No matter how necessary or eloquently made*, if one is rehashing ancient scripture or/and the arguments against it, one still remains bound by it. Man, this feels like a terrible loss…….
* http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2015/01/30/good-answer/
It is hard to imagine the discord that heaven must contain: KKK members alongside civil rights leaders, anti-abortion protesters alongside pro-choice advocates, billionaires alongside the homeless, libertarians alongside communists, every army and sports team that has ever existed (all of which, of course, prayed to and believed that “god” was on their side)…the mind reels. And what reason do we have for believing that all these people will behave any differently in heaven than the do here on Earth? None that I can see…unless, of course, they all get lobotomized upon entry. To suddenly chuck everything they have passionately believed in…to embrace their bitterest rivals…people would need to lose virtually their entire identities. And, don’t forget that staying in heaven is not guaranteed, because Lucifer (for one) got kicked out for disobeying the boss. I predict heaven has lots of passive-aggressive inhabitants — folks who want to appear cooperative, but who can’t maintain the ruse for all eternity.
“The popular christian version of heaven” is, of course, a strawman. The kingdom of God is a form of government, not a religion. One of the elements of a kingdom is territory. The word “heaven” encompasses God’s rulership, where ever His right to rule is acknowledged.