Sex in heaven?

[JamesWesley]

I've often heard that once Christians reach Heaven they will recieve a new body as well as everlasting life. The same Christians say that they will no longer have need for sex for they will live forever.





No sex in heaven? If Heaven is supposed to be a paradise, wouldn't there be sex, the thing which the majority of us enjoy in our life?


Is there sex in heaven? I hope to God there is.

[Metatron]

Most conceptions of heaven that I have heard of from Christians make it sound like we will all be will-less drones pumped up on happy juice eternally praising God with no challenges, no personal ties, and nothing new to learn or create. Sounds like a variation of Hell to me.

That is certainly what I used to think. Quite strongly. But I had something of a paradigm shift when I realized that, if I were in heaven, I simply wouldn't care about that in the same way that if there were no afterlife at all I wouldn't care because I wouldn't exist. If the idea of no longer existing at all didn't bother me, why should it bother me so much that I would no longer think the same way if I did?

I'm not certain that I understand what you are saying here. If you are under the impression that because I don't believe in an afterlife that the idea of not existing any longer does not bother me, I'll be happy to correct that notion. I'd much prefer the sort of meaningful afterlife that FinalEnigma espoused earlier over extinction. The will-less drone scenario, on the other hand, has no more value to me than extinction though I suppose it still beats the fire and brimstone torture chamber of Christian Hell.

Oh, no, I was stating my own experience regarding the idea. I was rather skeptical of the notion of Heaven from a very young age, but when I was six or seven the idea of ceasing to exist scared me. Then I realized if I didn't exist, I wouldn't care that I didn't exist, so the idea of death stopped bothering me any. For quite awhile the idea of the will-less drone scenario was even worse to me than the idea of total non-existence, until I started thinking of it in about the same terms, and that too ceased to bother me.

Since I believe that you claimed to be a Christian with a universalist view of salvation, do you have an opinion of what the afterlife is?

[ChaosBorders]

Most conceptions of heaven that I have heard of from Christians make it sound like we will all be will-less drones pumped up on happy juice eternally praising God with no challenges, no personal ties, and nothing new to learn or create. Sounds like a variation of Hell to me.

That is certainly what I used to think. Quite strongly. But I had something of a paradigm shift when I realized that, if I were in heaven, I simply wouldn't care about that in the same way that if there were no afterlife at all I wouldn't care because I wouldn't exist. If the idea of no longer existing at all didn't bother me, why should it bother me so much that I would no longer think the same way if I did?

I'm not certain that I understand what you are saying here. If you are under the impression that because I don't believe in an afterlife that the idea of not existing any longer does not bother me, I'll be happy to correct that notion. I'd much prefer the sort of meaningful afterlife that FinalEnigma espoused earlier over extinction. The will-less drone scenario, on the other hand, has no more value to me than extinction though I suppose it still beats the fire and brimstone torture chamber of Christian Hell.

Oh, no, I was stating my own experience regarding the idea. I was rather skeptical of the notion of Heaven from a very young age, but when I was six or seven the idea of ceasing to exist scared me. Then I realized if I didn't exist, I wouldn't care that I didn't exist, so the idea of death stopped bothering me any. For quite awhile the idea of the will-less drone scenario was even worse to me than the idea of total non-existence, until I started thinking of it in about the same terms, and that too ceased to bother me.

Since I believe that you claimed to be a Christian with a universalist view of salvation, do you have an opinion of what the afterlife is?

I do not believe I made any such claim. I believe the universalist view of salvation has better scriptural support than the doctrine of eternal torment. I also believe the annihilationist view of hell has better scriptural support than either of those.

I am also, by most Christian standards, quite the heretic. My beliefs incorporate the bible as a consequent, but do not rely on it as a premise, so if all the Bible on earth suddenly vanished it would not change my beliefs in the least.

My personal opinion is that an omnipotent God would create an infinite number of realities. I suspect that a true display of omnipotence would also result in the creation of an infinite number of subordinate metaphysical states. As such, which specific 'religion' (if any) actually applied to any particular reality could never be known with complete certainty. So, in my opinion, it is likely that any conceivable (or inconceivable) afterlife is a possibility and that we cannot with certainty know which (if any) we will personally end up in until we get there (if we retain the ability to know anything at all).

[Metatron]

Most conceptions of heaven that I have heard of from Christians make it sound like we will all be will-less drones pumped up on happy juice eternally praising God with no challenges, no personal ties, and nothing new to learn or create. Sounds like a variation of Hell to me.

That is certainly what I used to think. Quite strongly. But I had something of a paradigm shift when I realized that, if I were in heaven, I simply wouldn't care about that in the same way that if there were no afterlife at all I wouldn't care because I wouldn't exist. If the idea of no longer existing at all didn't bother me, why should it bother me so much that I would no longer think the same way if I did?

I'm not certain that I understand what you are saying here. If you are under the impression that because I don't believe in an afterlife that the idea of not existing any longer does not bother me, I'll be happy to correct that notion. I'd much prefer the sort of meaningful afterlife that FinalEnigma espoused earlier over extinction. The will-less drone scenario, on the other hand, has no more value to me than extinction though I suppose it still beats the fire and brimstone torture chamber of Christian Hell.

Oh, no, I was stating my own experience regarding the idea. I was rather skeptical of the notion of Heaven from a very young age, but when I was six or seven the idea of ceasing to exist scared me. Then I realized if I didn't exist, I wouldn't care that I didn't exist, so the idea of death stopped bothering me any. For quite awhile the idea of the will-less drone scenario was even worse to me than the idea of total non-existence, until I started thinking of it in about the same terms, and that too ceased to bother me.

Since I believe that you claimed to be a Christian with a universalist view of salvation, do you have an opinion of what the afterlife is?

I do not believe I made any such claim. I believe the universalist view of salvation has better scriptural support than the doctrine of eternal torment. I also believe the annihilationist view of hell has better scriptural support than either of those.

Oops, my bad. We were talking about the universalist view earlier in the thread and I must have gotten it into my head that this was your position.

I am also, by most Christian standards, quite the heretic. My beliefs incorporate the bible as a consequent, but do not rely on it as a premise, so if all the Bible on earth suddenly vanished it would not change my beliefs in the least.

My personal opinion is that an omnipotent God would create an infinite number of realities. I suspect that a true display of omnipotence would also result in the creation of an infinite number of subordinate metaphysical states. As such, which specific 'religion' (if any) actually applied to any particular reality could never be known with complete certainty. So, in my opinion, it is likely that any conceivable (or inconceivable) afterlife is a possibility and that we cannot with certainty know which (if any) we will personally end up in until we get there (if we retain the ability to know anything at all).

One problem that I see with this idea of an infinite number of realities and an infinite number of "subordinate metaphysical states" (which I guess is a fancy way of saying afterlife) that there is no rational way for us to understand what God wants us to do or even if he does want us to do anything since the answer could be and somewhere probably is anything. Seems to me that one could simply go straight to the Many Worlds Interpretation and skip the supernatural stuff and you'd still be in the same situation. Aside from being a hypothesis for the origin of the universe, how is God even relevant?

[ChaosBorders]

Most conceptions of heaven that I have heard of from Christians make it sound like we will all be will-less drones pumped up on happy juice eternally praising God with no challenges, no personal ties, and nothing new to learn or create. Sounds like a variation of Hell to me.

That is certainly what I used to think. Quite strongly. But I had something of a paradigm shift when I realized that, if I were in heaven, I simply wouldn't care about that in the same way that if there were no afterlife at all I wouldn't care because I wouldn't exist. If the idea of no longer existing at all didn't bother me, why should it bother me so much that I would no longer think the same way if I did?

I'm not certain that I understand what you are saying here. If you are under the impression that because I don't believe in an afterlife that the idea of not existing any longer does not bother me, I'll be happy to correct that notion. I'd much prefer the sort of meaningful afterlife that FinalEnigma espoused earlier over extinction. The will-less drone scenario, on the other hand, has no more value to me than extinction though I suppose it still beats the fire and brimstone torture chamber of Christian Hell.

Oh, no, I was stating my own experience regarding the idea. I was rather skeptical of the notion of Heaven from a very young age, but when I was six or seven the idea of ceasing to exist scared me. Then I realized if I didn't exist, I wouldn't care that I didn't exist, so the idea of death stopped bothering me any. For quite awhile the idea of the will-less drone scenario was even worse to me than the idea of total non-existence, until I started thinking of it in about the same terms, and that too ceased to bother me.

Since I believe that you claimed to be a Christian with a universalist view of salvation, do you have an opinion of what the afterlife is?

I do not believe I made any such claim. I believe the universalist view of salvation has better scriptural support than the doctrine of eternal torment. I also believe the annihilationist view of hell has better scriptural support than either of those.

Oops, my bad. We were talking about the universalist view earlier in the thread and I must have gotten it into my head that this was your position.

I am also, by most Christian standards, quite the heretic. My beliefs incorporate the bible as a consequent, but do not rely on it as a premise, so if all the Bible on earth suddenly vanished it would not change my beliefs in the least.

My personal opinion is that an omnipotent God would create an infinite number of realities. I suspect that a true display of omnipotence would also result in the creation of an infinite number of subordinate metaphysical states. As such, which specific 'religion' (if any) actually applied to any particular reality could never be known with complete certainty. So, in my opinion, it is likely that any conceivable (or inconceivable) afterlife is a possibility and that we cannot with certainty know which (if any) we will personally end up in until we get there (if we retain the ability to know anything at all).

One problem that I see with this idea of an infinite number of realities and an infinite number of "subordinate metaphysical states" (which I guess is a fancy way of saying afterlife) that there is no rational way for us to understand what God wants us to do or even if he does want us to do anything since the answer could be and somewhere probably is anything. Seems to me that one could simply go straight to the Many Worlds Interpretation and skip the supernatural stuff and you'd still be in the same situation. Aside from being a hypothesis for the origin of the universe, how is God even relevant?

Omniscience+Omnipotent=no free will for anyone, so the only way you would bother asking what God wanted you to do in the first place is if you were already meant to ask the question. So in one sense the conclusion would be that God wants you to do whatever it is that you end up doing.

Many Worlds, besides not being anymore provable (at least currently), is also significantly limited. The full breadth of possibility of imaginable given the premise of an omnipotent being is like infinity to an infinite power.

And to me, at least, God is extremely relevant in that from my premises it follows every single person's life is intrinsically meaningful and valuable and loved. From the premise of Many Worlds I don't get that, and have no reason to believe my own life has any inherent value, much less anybody else's. That was not conducive towards my personal psychological well-being. (Also, if I die and end up in front of a super judgmental god of some sort like many atheists view the Christian one to be, I can give it the middle finger and say 'I believe in something greater than you are, jerk!' on my merry way down to hell. I certainly would not be able to do such a thing if I simply rejected the existence of God in its entirety and turned out to be wrong).

[Slopeshoulder]

Most conceptions of heaven that I have heard of from Christians make it sound like we will all be will-less drones pumped up on happy juice eternally praising God with no challenges, no personal ties, and nothing new to learn or create. Sounds like a variation of Hell to me.

That is certainly what I used to think. Quite strongly. But I had something of a paradigm shift when I realized that, if I were in heaven, I simply wouldn't care about that in the same way that if there were no afterlife at all I wouldn't care because I wouldn't exist. If the idea of no longer existing at all didn't bother me, why should it bother me so much that I would no longer think the same way if I did?

Ah, you are moving toward a eastern conception of detachment and possibly absorption in Brahmin. In all seriousness, you might want to check out eastern thought for more of what you're thinking and saying.

[ChaosBorders]

Most conceptions of heaven that I have heard of from Christians make it sound like we will all be will-less drones pumped up on happy juice eternally praising God with no challenges, no personal ties, and nothing new to learn or create. Sounds like a variation of Hell to me.

That is certainly what I used to think. Quite strongly. But I had something of a paradigm shift when I realized that, if I were in heaven, I simply wouldn't care about that in the same way that if there were no afterlife at all I wouldn't care because I wouldn't exist. If the idea of no longer existing at all didn't bother me, why should it bother me so much that I would no longer think the same way if I did?

Ah, you are moving toward a eastern conception of detachment and possibly absorption in Brahmin. In all seriousness, you might want to check out eastern thought for more of what you're thinking and saying.

I am well aware that my beliefs have certain parallels with some traditions and concepts in Hinduism.

[Slopeshoulder]

Most conceptions of heaven that I have heard of from Christians make it sound like we will all be will-less drones pumped up on happy juice eternally praising God with no challenges, no personal ties, and nothing new to learn or create. Sounds like a variation of Hell to me.

That is certainly what I used to think. Quite strongly. But I had something of a paradigm shift when I realized that, if I were in heaven, I simply wouldn't care about that in the same way that if there were no afterlife at all I wouldn't care because I wouldn't exist. If the idea of no longer existing at all didn't bother me, why should it bother me so much that I would no longer think the same way if I did?

Ah, you are moving toward a eastern conception of detachment and possibly absorption in Brahmin. In all seriousness, you might want to check out eastern thought for more of what you're thinking and saying.

I am well aware that my beliefs have certain parallels with some traditions and concepts in Hinduism.

It's an interesting area. There's a guy named Wayne Teasdale who wrote a book called The Mystic Heart: He's a Catholic renunciate and Hindu scholar. You might like it.

[Metatron]

Most conceptions of heaven that I have heard of from Christians make it sound like we will all be will-less drones pumped up on happy juice eternally praising God with no challenges, no personal ties, and nothing new to learn or create. Sounds like a variation of Hell to me.

That is certainly what I used to think. Quite strongly. But I had something of a paradigm shift when I realized that, if I were in heaven, I simply wouldn't care about that in the same way that if there were no afterlife at all I wouldn't care because I wouldn't exist. If the idea of no longer existing at all didn't bother me, why should it bother me so much that I would no longer think the same way if I did?

I'm not certain that I understand what you are saying here. If you are under the impression that because I don't believe in an afterlife that the idea of not existing any longer does not bother me, I'll be happy to correct that notion. I'd much prefer the sort of meaningful afterlife that FinalEnigma espoused earlier over extinction. The will-less drone scenario, on the other hand, has no more value to me than extinction though I suppose it still beats the fire and brimstone torture chamber of Christian Hell.

Oh, no, I was stating my own experience regarding the idea. I was rather skeptical of the notion of Heaven from a very young age, but when I was six or seven the idea of ceasing to exist scared me. Then I realized if I didn't exist, I wouldn't care that I didn't exist, so the idea of death stopped bothering me any. For quite awhile the idea of the will-less drone scenario was even worse to me than the idea of total non-existence, until I started thinking of it in about the same terms, and that too ceased to bother me.

Since I believe that you claimed to be a Christian with a universalist view of salvation, do you have an opinion of what the afterlife is?

I do not believe I made any such claim. I believe the universalist view of salvation has better scriptural support than the doctrine of eternal torment. I also believe the annihilationist view of hell has better scriptural support than either of those.

Oops, my bad. We were talking about the universalist view earlier in the thread and I must have gotten it into my head that this was your position.

I am also, by most Christian standards, quite the heretic. My beliefs incorporate the bible as a consequent, but do not rely on it as a premise, so if all the Bible on earth suddenly vanished it would not change my beliefs in the least.

My personal opinion is that an omnipotent God would create an infinite number of realities. I suspect that a true display of omnipotence would also result in the creation of an infinite number of subordinate metaphysical states. As such, which specific 'religion' (if any) actually applied to any particular reality could never be known with complete certainty. So, in my opinion, it is likely that any conceivable (or inconceivable) afterlife is a possibility and that we cannot with certainty know which (if any) we will personally end up in until we get there (if we retain the ability to know anything at all).

One problem that I see with this idea of an infinite number of realities and an infinite number of "subordinate metaphysical states" (which I guess is a fancy way of saying afterlife) that there is no rational way for us to understand what God wants us to do or even if he does want us to do anything since the answer could be and somewhere probably is anything. Seems to me that one could simply go straight to the Many Worlds Interpretation and skip the supernatural stuff and you'd still be in the same situation. Aside from being a hypothesis for the origin of the universe, how is God even relevant?

Omniscience+Omnipotent=no free will for anyone, so the only way you would bother asking what God wanted you to do in the first place is if you were already meant to ask the question. So in one sense the conclusion would be that God wants you to do whatever it is that you end up doing.

Many Worlds, besides not being anymore provable (at least currently), is also significantly limited. The full breadth of possibility of imaginable given the premise of an omnipotent being is like infinity to an infinite power.

And to me, at least, God is extremely relevant in that from my premises it follows every single person's life is intrinsically meaningful and valuable and loved. From the premise of Many Worlds I don't get that, and have no reason to believe my own life has any inherent value, much less anybody else's. That was not conducive towards my personal psychological well-being. (Also, if I die and end up in front of a super judgmental god of some sort like many atheists view the Christian one to be, I can give it the middle finger and say 'I believe in something greater than you are, jerk!' on my merry way down to hell. I certainly would not be able to do such a thing if I simply rejected the existence of God in its entirety and turned out to be wrong).

But if no one has free will and "God wants you to do whatever it is that you end up doing", where does that leave morality? Is a mass murderer doing what God wants him to do?

Also, how does the concept that you are essentially a wind up toy set in motion by God make you feel meaningful? I personally find the notion rather depressing.

[ChaosBorders]

Most conceptions of heaven that I have heard of from Christians make it sound like we will all be will-less drones pumped up on happy juice eternally praising God with no challenges, no personal ties, and nothing new to learn or create. Sounds like a variation of Hell to me.

That is certainly what I used to think. Quite strongly. But I had something of a paradigm shift when I realized that, if I were in heaven, I simply wouldn't care about that in the same way that if there were no afterlife at all I wouldn't care because I wouldn't exist. If the idea of no longer existing at all didn't bother me, why should it bother me so much that I would no longer think the same way if I did?

I'm not certain that I understand what you are saying here. If you are under the impression that because I don't believe in an afterlife that the idea of not existing any longer does not bother me, I'll be happy to correct that notion. I'd much prefer the sort of meaningful afterlife that FinalEnigma espoused earlier over extinction. The will-less drone scenario, on the other hand, has no more value to me than extinction though I suppose it still beats the fire and brimstone torture chamber of Christian Hell.

Oh, no, I was stating my own experience regarding the idea. I was rather skeptical of the notion of Heaven from a very young age, but when I was six or seven the idea of ceasing to exist scared me. Then I realized if I didn't exist, I wouldn't care that I didn't exist, so the idea of death stopped bothering me any. For quite awhile the idea of the will-less drone scenario was even worse to me than the idea of total non-existence, until I started thinking of it in about the same terms, and that too ceased to bother me.

Since I believe that you claimed to be a Christian with a universalist view of salvation, do you have an opinion of what the afterlife is?

I do not believe I made any such claim. I believe the universalist view of salvation has better scriptural support than the doctrine of eternal torment. I also believe the annihilationist view of hell has better scriptural support than either of those.

Oops, my bad. We were talking about the universalist view earlier in the thread and I must have gotten it into my head that this was your position.

I am also, by most Christian standards, quite the heretic. My beliefs incorporate the bible as a consequent, but do not rely on it as a premise, so if all the Bible on earth suddenly vanished it would not change my beliefs in the least.

My personal opinion is that an omnipotent God would create an infinite number of realities. I suspect that a true display of omnipotence would also result in the creation of an infinite number of subordinate metaphysical states. As such, which specific 'religion' (if any) actually applied to any particular reality could never be known with complete certainty. So, in my opinion, it is likely that any conceivable (or inconceivable) afterlife is a possibility and that we cannot with certainty know which (if any) we will personally end up in until we get there (if we retain the ability to know anything at all).

One problem that I see with this idea of an infinite number of realities and an infinite number of "subordinate metaphysical states" (which I guess is a fancy way of saying afterlife) that there is no rational way for us to understand what God wants us to do or even if he does want us to do anything since the answer could be and somewhere probably is anything. Seems to me that one could simply go straight to the Many Worlds Interpretation and skip the supernatural stuff and you'd still be in the same situation. Aside from being a hypothesis for the origin of the universe, how is God even relevant?

Omniscience+Omnipotent=no free will for anyone, so the only way you would bother asking what God wanted you to do in the first place is if you were already meant to ask the question. So in one sense the conclusion would be that God wants you to do whatever it is that you end up doing.

Many Worlds, besides not being anymore provable (at least currently), is also significantly limited. The full breadth of possibility of imaginable given the premise of an omnipotent being is like infinity to an infinite power.

And to me, at least, God is extremely relevant in that from my premises it follows every single person's life is intrinsically meaningful and valuable and loved. From the premise of Many Worlds I don't get that, and have no reason to believe my own life has any inherent value, much less anybody else's. That was not conducive towards my personal psychological well-being. (Also, if I die and end up in front of a super judgmental god of some sort like many atheists view the Christian one to be, I can give it the middle finger and say 'I believe in something greater than you are, jerk!' on my merry way down to hell. I certainly would not be able to do such a thing if I simply rejected the existence of God in its entirety and turned out to be wrong).

But if no one has free will and "God wants you to do whatever it is that you end up doing", where does that leave morality? Is a mass murderer doing what God wants him to do?

Also, how does the concept that you are essentially a wind up toy set in motion by God make you feel meaningful? I personally find the notion rather depressing.

A) This is why I generally do not promote my view of God to anyone. It allows me to do what I think is right without any need for a more logical reason, but if someone were so inclined they could just as easily use it to do what they think is wrong without further reason.
B) And if the view is accurate, that is simply what they were meant to do. It is an unfortunate conclusion they would be making, but would be just as necessary as every other action.
C) On a pragmatic level though, because my view is neither falsifiable nor provable to such an extreme, our subjective opinions regarding what is moral is still all we really have and what we should strive to live by. I personally do not think mass murder is a good thing, and because of my inclinations would not likely ever commit/condone/support such an action. This is in contrast to before God gave me my view, during which I would have happily wiped out most of the planet because I considered humanity so pathetic.
D) Though good objectively exists if my view is accurate, only God knows exactly what it is, and ultimately failure at acheiving this objective moral good is ok because it is necessary for the system as whole.
E) And as I see it, the choices are this:
1. There is no God, and we might as well be the wind-up toys of quantum forces anyways. We live, a lot of people with pretty sucky lives, we die, we're forgotten, we might as well not have existed. Meaningless.
2. There is a god, but it's the arbitrary schizophrenic psycopath that seems to be a lot of people's view of god. Maybe there is meaning there, but if there is it seems rather arbitrary to me.
3. There is my view of God, creating every possible reality because to do otherwise would be denying an entire reality its unique existence. Every action, down to the fluxuations of sub-atomic particles, is inherently necessary because if anything were any different than the reality would no longer have its own unique identity and creation as a whole would lose a bit of itrinsic meaning.

I suppose you could say it takes Ecclesiastes to an extreme: "I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it."