Doesn't the idea of heaven... suck?

The bad things in life make you appreciate the good things so much more. The things I have lost in life, mainly loved ones, really make me treasure others in my life. Just one example.

My face starts to hurt if I smile for along time.

As I understand it, in heaven (if we are talking about the christian version) you spend eternity interacting with god (marriage is supposed to prepare you for this as after death there are no more marriages, only souls mingling with god). If interacting with god would result in eternal bliss, you would need nothing else and therefore would forget boredom even existed ;-)

I think the whole idea is bizarre to say the least, but I have long given up on trying to understand it. I plan on carving up my own little piece of heaven before I die, so if boredom sets in (though I’ll probably be too busy burning in the lake of fire for all eternity to notice it) I will at least have some great memories of this place to fall back on.

If heaven is basically like my life already without physical pain, illness, nor sadness I’m ok with that. It would be great to spend time with my grandma again, see her healthy and with her father and brothers who died very very young. But, I don’t think about it ever really. I’m Jewish, heaven and afterlife isn’t really something that occupies my mind at all.

The promise of heaven can be good as some seemed influenced to do good behaviors to get to heaven, but the down side is the promise of heaven can lead to horrific problems on earth too, little value for life on earth with much more emphasis on heaven I find a little scary.

“The Church has excommunicated German emperors because of their vices: As if a monk or a priest had a say in what someone like Friedrich II may demand of himself. A Don Juan is sent to hell: that is very naïve. Is it noticed that in Heaven all the interesting people are missing?”
—Friedrich Nietzsche

No! I think it sounds wonderful! We’re supposed to learn to manage our feelings and emotions as it is, strive for emotional intelligence over hardcore ego.
I think feeling perfectly content and at peace is bliss. I have had lengthy stretches of this in my life, and nothing compares. Of course, I believe the kingdom of heaven IS within. We create our own heaven and hell right here on earth dependent on our attitude.

If it exists, I’m sure there will be great and enjoyable people in heaven like Christopher Hitch-oh wait.

I’m not clear. Does E. coli travel with the righteous to heaven?

I don’t particularly believe in heaven, but it doesn’t make sense when people say “if I were happy all the time, it’d be boring.” Well, no it wouldn’t, because being bored is not being happy by definition, so if you were truly only experiencing positive emotions, you wouldn’t feel boredom either.

@DominicX The charitable interpretation of the claim, then, is that it is not possible to feel happy all the time because a full appreciation of happiness requires having periods of unhappiness with which to compare it. If happiness is more than mere contentment (which is how the word tends to be used in modern times) and something more like a feeling of fulfillment (which is how the ancient Greeks understood it), then one might even argue that happiness requires that we experience the full range of emotions in proper quantities.

This relates to @MilkyWay‘s despair at the possibility of “never feeling the feeling you get when you break the rules.” In her version of the argument, she suggests that the sorts of happiness those who believe in Heaven typically think would be allowed simply do not measure up to her view of what happiness is really like. In other words, she might be understood as saying that it would be boring to be happy all the time because the people describing Heaven have the wrong notion of happiness in mind.

Isn’t being bored a type of unhappiness? God promised there would be no unhappiness in heaven. So, you would never get bored. I’m sure He has some things for us to do there.

Mark Twain had a few things to say about Heaven. I think I’d prefer to go to a place that had people like Mark Twain in it. That most likely would not be heaven to those who have coined the term, but it would be heaven to me.

@leopardgecko123 See my response to @DominicX above.

If there is such a place as heaven, I have no idea what it might be like, just the notion is fantastic enough if there is such a place as heaven, and if I ever get to see it, I strongly suspect I will see my little grandson.

For me, the idea of a place of Heaven is repulsive. I’d very much rather be in hell or limbo. I’m just not a happy person, nor one that really wants to mingle with anything or anyone.

I just saw this recently and it made perfect sense to me, “If akitas can’t go to heaven, I want to go where they go.”

I haver never liked the idea of heaven that I learned as a child. I prefer the idea of reincarnation.

That’s why I don’t understand the basic idea of Heaven, really. We wouldn’t have all the experiences we have if we were anything else but human, and that can’t be prolonged with eternity or everlasting perfection and happiness. In fact with these things, being human wouldn’t even exist. And this is how we find true happiness and values, isn’t it?
I mean if you lived for a thousand years, could you even remember what you ate five hundred years ago? Erm. What if it was really good? It wouldn’t matter that it was good though, since every day in Heaven, you’d eat good shit. Then again if Heaven is real, my guess is that you’re not even human anymore, and it’s something else entirely.
But yes, otherwise, the general idea of Heaven does seem to suck ass balls a little. :/ We know what it is to be human and that’s all we know, and while there is too much pain and suffering in the world, that which we are is almost too impossible to conceive in any other means than now.
So if Heaven is just being immortal and always happy, I don’t even think we’d remain sane at all.

Some have told me we wouldn’t even have bodies there. How are we supposed to see each other wtf?

@CWOTUS – I just noticed that my quote is from Mark Twain, along with this one about dogs as well
“Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.

With the srtength of an industrial vacuum cleaner, yes it does.
Nicey, nicey, sugar coated, sickly sweet, yes sir, no sir, three fucking bags full sir!!
Be like having tea & cucumber sandwiches with the queen, boring, shallow, irritating & besides, I don’t like cucumber.

@Symbeline “Suck ass balls”? God you should write for a living. You paint pictures with your words. That’s the best description of something that seems nice at first, but isn’t heaven after all.

I think this is one of those cases where we can’t really imagine it because we don’t know what it’s like to live without a body. When we think of heaven, we usually picture ourselves as pretty much exactly the way we are now, but some sort of ghost or angel with all of the same thoughts and feelings. And trying to imagine eternity with mortal bodies – eternity in any place – would get long and tedious after a while.

In the afterlife, we won’t have a mortal body. We will probably have no concept of time or space. All of the senses – sight, hearing, touch – will be radically different and we will experience things in a totally different way.

I think the concept of heaven is supposed to be an existence of eternal joy. But what the heck does joy feel like when you have no senses or brain to process it?

With Heaven it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive.

Heaven is (to my mind) a lifestyle. It begins here and now; no need to wait for the after-life. I do not think it means mind-numbing happiness either.

Heaven is just the good parts of this life without the bad parts. The idea of dis-embodied souls floating around is not realistic. It is a continuation of this life in another place, minus the problems. Personally, I think it will be great not to have to worry, be sad or upset, and to be re-united with loved ones who have died. I guess if you find things that negatively affect others pleasurable, then you wouldn’t be happy there.