What's the point of heaven?

Originally posted by rwingett
It is to explain away the fact that the kingdom didn't come in their lifetime, as the very first Christians widely expected. When it became apparent that wasn't going to happen, in order to keep enthusiasm from flagging, the emphasis was shifted from this world toward the next, with Jesus expected to make his comeback tour at some indeterminate, but distant ...[text shortened]... future date. As you can see, all the additional waiting has not inspired him to make an encore.

False. Please read the Synoptic Gospels again for the first time. God's omniscience knew in eternity that the Jewish People would react out of disappointment that Christ's purpose was not to dethrone Caesar and the yoke of the Hierarchy in Rome.

Originally posted by Agerg
What's the point of heaven?

What's the point of the notion of heaven?

Believing it exists is a way of coming to terms with the inevitability and finality of death during one's finite existence.

It forms part of the quid pro quo substance of what-you-get-in-return-for adherence to and belief in a religion's package of doctrines and folktales.

The notion of heaven, and more especially the notion of being prevented from or failing to get there, has underpinned the enforcement of human social order and conformity for thousands of years.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
For your eternal benefit which hinges on your volition; the Sovereignty of God and Agerg's free will co-exist in time.

The question is what is the "benefit"?

Originally posted by wolfgang59
The question is what is the "benefit"?

Originally posted by wolfgang59
The question is what is the "benefit"?

* An abundant life: "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it [more] abundantly." (John 10:10)

* Total forgiveness. All sins (past, present and future) were forgiven because Jesus Christ paid the price for them for each of us on the cross. We are accepted by God, not because of what we have done, but because of what He did on our behalf.
"For by grace [all that God the Father is free to do because of what Christ did to satisfy His Justice and Righteousness] you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves [not our efforts], it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)

* Peace with God.. "Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.... the love of God has been poured out within our hearts.... having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him" (Romans 5:1,5,9)

* Spiritual Birth (regeneration): At the moment of belief in the person and work of Jesus Christ God the Holy Spirit imputes a human spirit to his or her immaterial being, creating a trichotomous human being [body, soul and spirit] now able to understand and assimilate and apply the absolute truth revealed in The Word of God. "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature [species]; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come" (2 Corinthians 5:17). "For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:26) You are now a Member of Christ's Royal Family.

* Eternal life: "Whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:16). "God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son" (1 John 5:11)

* United with God the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit. In God: "God in you" Ephesians 4:6; In Christ: "Christ in you" John 14:20, Colossians 1:27; In the Holy Spirit: ""the Spirit in you" Romans 8:9 as a seal of your redemption. "Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16). "It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20)

* Eternal Security: "Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39)

* Tranquility of soul as described in the 23rd Psalm of King David:

"23 The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
3 He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.

4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You have anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Originally posted by wolfgang59
The question is what is the "benefit"?

* An abundant life: "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it [more] abundantly." (John 10:10)

* Total forgiveness. All sins (past, present and future) were forgiven because Jesus Christ paid the price for them for ...[text shortened]... ess will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

In short, happiness.

Originally posted by JS357
Yes, "There are no truly altruistic acts" is a position that every bright young person stumbles across and eventually puts in their quiver to challenge the next generation of bright young people.

"What is the point of heaven?" Indeed.

Whatever is offered as the point of heaven, the question can be asked, what is the point of that? This is why I su ...[text shortened]... ly unhappy. I think a much more cheerful approach to Christianity would benefit those followers.

I would agree with you that the notion of heaven isn't pointless, and the point you put forward (happiness) is very reasonable. Further with the right participants in this thread (who haven't made an entry as I hoped) I confess that I would have taken the "... so what's the point of that ..." line for as long as I felt it necessary to soften them up for the main crux of this question - namely that, as you say, "whatever stands up to questioning, must be valued as the point must be for itself and not as a means to another end" - and then with that established, I would have gone on to show that their claim that "life is meaningless if you're an atheist" isn't tenable because someone such as myself can quite legitimately say that life *does* have meaning - even without "God". (I would put forward that the meaning of life is to live it as long as you can, and to pursue this goal in such way that, overall, it was enjoyable, and enriched the lives of othersReveal Hidden Content)

Alas, whether my intent is too obvious, or too obscure, I don't expect this one will play out the way I intended.

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
if eternity of anything might eventually become torture, is non-existence preferable?


if conscious, you can at least have an impact on whatever the afterlife is. you can petition god to be reborn as a member of a catlike alien race that just hunts in an alien jungle all day. you can petition god to create the Avatar world complete with blue cats and f ...[text shortened]... h individually. some will want to stay near god, some will want to do kungfu in an alien world.

Some of the points you mention here are the reasons why I wouldn't have accepted the elixir of eternal life in another thread - who's to say I would not regret making that choice 7 "bazillion" years down the line!
I think the notion of constant re-incarnation (where in each re-birth I would be ignorant of the lives I had lived previously sounds better than living eternally in one state).

Of course I don't believe this will happen, but what you put forward as an alternative to heaven is still a nice fantasy.

Originally posted by Agerg
I would agree with you that the notion of heaven isn't pointless, and the point you put forward (happiness) is very reasonable. Further with the right participants in this thread (who haven't made an entry as I hoped) I confess that I would have taken the "... so what's the point of that ..." line for as long as I felt it necessary to soften them up for the ma ...[text shortened]... intent is too obvious, or too obscure, I don't expect this one will play out the way I intended.

I subscribe to the more or less existentialist view that life has the meaning/purpose we give it, or find it to have. The former is a little too active, the latter a little too passive. But somewhere in between recognizes the fact that we are not in complete control of our life's meaning, but who we are affects what we find to be the meaning.

Heaven, as a brand, reduces the issue of meaning/purpose to the achievement of simple unending happiness, with whatever refinements Bobby wants to give it.

Originally posted by JS357
Yes, "There are no truly altruistic acts" is a position that every bright young person stumbles across and eventually puts in their quiver to challenge the next generation of bright young people.

"What is the point of heaven?" Indeed.

Whatever is offered as the point of heaven, the question can be asked, what is the point of that? This is why I su ...[text shortened]... ly unhappy. I think a much more cheerful approach to Christianity would benefit those followers.

Just a couple quick thoughts...

Aristotle thought our final, self-sufficient end was eudaimonia. Although this is often translated as 'happiness', it's probably better to translate it as 'flourishing'. This can help get at a real distinction between Aristotle's ethics and the hedonism of the Cyrenaics and Epicureans. Aristotle didn't think that happiness (flourishing) was a psychological state. Rather, it's a matter of being a certain type of person living a certain type of life. For Aristotle, possessing and exercising the virtues was partly constitutive of flourishing. It's only partly constitutive because, unlike the Stoics who thought virtue was sufficient for flourishing, Aristotle thought we also had to have a bit of good fortune. Although we can say that Aristotle thought happiness (flourishing) was valuable for it's own sake, what that means, at least in part, is that possessing and exercising the virtues is valuable for its own sake.

Also, I'm not sure that a truly altruistic act must be one valued for its own sake, if what that means is that a person must take as his motivation for the act that it was altruistic. Imagine somebody acting to ease the evident suffering of another. Suppose you ask him why and he answers "I did what I did because it was the altruistic thing to do and altruism is an inherent good". Doesn't this motivation seem too removed from what's actually morally salient about the situation, namely the evident suffering of another? Acting for the sake of altruism seems too abstract, perhaps even too self-absorbed, as though the agent is motivated out of concern for his own moral accounting. Wouldn't it seem closer to actual altruism if the agent responded "I did what I did because he was suffering"?

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Please read the Synoptic Gospels again for the first time.

Umm ... 😕

Originally posted by Agerg
I'm sure we've all heard the theist challenge: "what's the point of living if there is no God?"*. The idea being that if there is no afterlife, if our consciousness just vanishes and we all cease to be, then what purpose is there to life. Implicit or directly we are asked why don't we just go round stealing, killing, ... people because nothing really matters i ...[text shortened]... ion being:
http://www.redhotchess.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=161886&page=1#post_3321853

Really is a good question. What's the point in living forever? To glorify God? Etc.

Would you want to live in this world forever? Let's say one could stay alive here in this world forever free of illness and aging. Would that be a good thing? Or would it be tedious and boring?

The afterlife is basically a mystery. We know some things about it from scripture. Quite a lot actually, yet it is a misty thing. We ain't never been there, so we don't really know from first hand experience.

One thing is for certain though, no matter what you may think you know about the God of creation, when you see Him you will never tire of knowing Him.

The alternative is horrific. The contrast between living forever with God, and not living forever with God, is cause for pause and serious consideration.

Originally posted by rwingett
It is to explain away the fact that the kingdom didn't come in their lifetime, as the very first Christians widely expected. When it became apparent that wasn't going to happen, in order to keep enthusiasm from flagging, the emphasis was shifted from this world toward the next, with Jesus expected to make his comeback tour at some indeterminate, but distant ...[text shortened]... future date. As you can see, all the additional waiting has not inspired him to make an encore.

I might have thought that enthusiasm would have flagged with persecution.

So you think that the church flourished because of the promise of Jesus' second coming and the hope of life after death?

And what about the Jews? Doesn't seem that their enthusiasm is flagging even after these last 6000 years. Explain that!

Originally posted by josephw

The alternative is horrific. The contrast between living forever with God, and not living forever with God, is cause for pause and serious consideration.

As is being discussed in another thread "living forever" can be
quite a frightening prospect! Its not 200 years, a thouasand ,
amillion or a billion .. its FOREVER..

It would not be a simple choice if ours to take.

Originally posted by josephw

And what about the Jews? Doesn't seem that their enthusiasm is flagging even after these last 6000 years. Explain that!

You might like to research that!

I suspect at least 50% of US Jews are atheist.

As you have made the claim, you can get the stats to back yourself up!

Originally posted by josephw
The alternative [to living forever] is horrific.

If the gift from God were this finite life on earth and nothing more, would it still be "horrific" in your view.