What Did You Picture Heaven Like?

[Internet Jesus]

I was taught that it would take god and man seven days to reach heaven on a giant cloud.

I was taught that heaven was PROBABLY behind the middle star of orion's belt.

As a Seventh Day Adventist we learned that heaven is full of metrosexuallity [since there's no need for the dirtydirty force of life in heaven]

 

I pictured it as gaudy and beautiful all at the same time, what with gold and jewels in the sidewalks of heaven. [as the vision of Ellen White foretold]

I pictured beautiful earthly landscapes, and since I [with my sick family] followed E.G. White. I pictured humans with wings.

We would have the ability to explore the infinite universe of creation. Of course this was back when I was taught that the universe was infinite.

 

Not to dampen the subject with all that negativity, I pictured a beautiful paradise.

I pictured a world with colors we had never seen and infinite knowledge at our fingertips.

I pictured mountains and endless jungle.

I pictured existence in heaven to be an endless orgasm.

It seems like such classic psychology doesn't it?

Make the condition for your happiness an unattainable goal, and you'll lose all hope unless you still follow that unattainable goal.

 

 

Tell me all about the picture of your reward, or if you're feeling down, how did you picture hell?

I'm sure the way we pictured these things tells us alot about ourselves now.

[hereticzero]

There is no heaven.

There is no hell.

[Tabula Rasa]

I was taught that it would take god and man seven days to reach heaven on a giant cloud.

I was taught that heaven was PROBABLY behind the middle star of orion's belt.

As a Seventh Day Adventist we learned that heaven is full of metrosexuallity [since there's no need for the dirtydirty force of life in heaven]

 

I pictured it as gaudy and beautiful all at the same time, what with gold and jewels in the sidewalks of heaven. [as the vision of Ellen White foretold]

I pictured beautiful earthly landscapes, and since I [with my sick family] followed E.G. White. I pictured humans with wings.

We would have the ability to explore the infinite universe of creation. Of course this was back when I was taught that the universe was infinite.

 

Not to dampen the subject with all that negativity, I pictured a beautiful paradise.

I pictured a world with colors we had never seen and infinite knowledge at our fingertips.

I pictured mountains and endless jungle.

I pictured existence in heaven to be an endless orgasm.

It seems like such classic psychology doesn't it?

Make the condition for your happiness an unattainable goal, and you'll lose all hope unless you still follow that unattainable goal.

 

 

Tell me all about the picture of your reward, or if you're feeling down, how did you picture hell?

I'm sure the way we pictured these things tells us alot about ourselves now.

 

I had several different ideas over the years. I pictured heaven with the traditional fluffy clouds with angels singing, a paradise like the garden of eden or even just wandering throughout the vast vault of the universe. As I grew more cynical, I didn't really care much as to what heaven was like just as long as I knew I was going there and wasn't going to end up in hell.

 

Giving up the idea of heaven is one of the harder things to do for me, but given only two choices of a universe with a heaven and a hell ruled by an omnipotent tyran,t and a universe where we just cease to exist upon death, I'll take obliviion.

 

Though I still hope for some kind of afterlife...

[bush country]

Not exactly an answer to the OP, but my thoughts about heaven....

 

Sitting in a bible study about a year before I deconverted the other members were talking about what heaven would be like. We were all mid-forties to mid-fifties, so not exactly overly enthusiastic teenagers. One woman in particular kept going on about how beutiful it must be, how excited she was to have her reward there, and how she couldn't wait to go. I was still a pretty hard-core xian at the time, and I remember thinking, "What a f***ing nut case!"

 

It was yet another step in my eventual deconversion. I realized I didn't care what heaven was like. If I wasn't (as a christian) prepared to do my duty here on earth with no guarantee of reward, then my heart truly wasn't in it for god's glory.

 

I progressed from not caring what heaven was like, to not believing there was such a place along with no hell, to realizing that prayer is pointless, and so on, until I broke free from all of it.

[ogilvy]

i thought of it as a place where everything was perfect, beautiful and peaceful. we would be free from illness, pain, age, sadness. we would be re-united with loved ones, but only if they had been 'true christians'. that was a flaw in it, because how could we be happy knowing the others were in hell? i thought the paradise part was in the 1000 year reign of Jesus on the earth. in heaven, i must admit, it didnt sound so appealing, we would be doing nothing but worshipping God, however, we would LIKE doing that, because we would have been changed, and be like Jesus, who loved doing the Father's will.

heaven was going to be, just everything good and nice, absence of everything not nice down here. wish it were so

[Neon Genesis]

I used to imagine that heaven would be like the stereotypical view of heaven with all the clouds expect there would be mansions of gold floating on them that we would live in, and we would be reunited with all our xtian friends and family that have passed away and would get to praise God together. Though when I was a xtian, I used to wish that we would have cable TV in heaven. ^^;;

[SilentLoner]

I let go of the concept of heaven at a pretty young age (12 or so) - but as a kid I used to picture it as a huge, beautiful park with trees and green grass where you could meet everyone you knew in life. And there was always ice cream (seriously, always ice cream - my mom used to tell me that when I was really young for some wierd reason)

[Vomit Comet]

About like what Neon Genesis described. Fluffy clouds and all that, but with the big mansions on top of them like described in the Bible. Lots of gold and jewels everywhere, eternal light and all that, reunited with Christian friends and families and praising God forever.

 

The "praising God forever" part always sounded like the crappiest bit, because praising God was always the most tedious part of church for me. Also, if that's what everyone did all the time, even if the big man Himself was sitting right there in front of your face, then it wasn't much of an "eternal vacation." Everyone made it sound like there would be no time to explore the universe or do anything magical and cool because everyone would be too busy standing within a few hundred yards of the big throne and praising away.

 

Also, the thought of not getting any pussy for all eternity sounded really shitty.

 

Well, the idea of being obliterated upon my death is not an appealing one at all. I'm still reeling from the likely reality that there is no afterlife and that I'll just blink out and be completely gone. Every time I hear an atheist writer describe the sleep of death as peaceful, and they wax poetically about the dignified process of dying like in some shitty bourgeois "deep thoughts" poetry recital on NPR or something, I roll my eyes, cringe, and shudder all at the same time.

[Brother Jeff]

I pictured life in the Sky Kingdom as an endless Charismatic/Pentecostal Praise & Worship service! Wouldn't it be glorious to sing about the Magic Sky Man with the Magic Sky Man? I would never get tired of that. Glory!

[Crazycatlady]

I imagined it would be a different experience/state for everyone depending on what their idea of heaven would be. Mine was usually a beautiful solitary forest with a small pond.

[HuaiDan]

The removal of being restricted to 4 dimensional time-space. We would become multidimensional beings in heaven, knowing all, seeing all, being all that is, ever has been, and ever will be.

[MesaGman]

I never envisioned Heaven. I concentrated my dreams of a future on Earth, with "Bajor" like buildings (from Ds9). and wondered if Heaven was like that... some kind of a terrestrial Paradise... like the "Always" video by Erasure....

 

But I mostly focused my delusions on Video game like city scapes, but in reality.

[Vigile]

The removal of being restricted to 4 dimensional time-space. We would become multidimensional beings in heaven, knowing all, seeing all, being all that is, ever has been, and ever will be.

 

Yeah, that was pretty much my ideas as well. I pictured heaven as a place my questions would finally be answered and all that didn't make sense would be cleared up.

[Vomit Comet]

The removal of being restricted to 4 dimensional time-space. We would become multidimensional beings in heaven, knowing all, seeing all, being all that is, ever has been, and ever will be.

 

Yeah, that was pretty much my ideas as well. I pictured heaven as a place my questions would finally be answered and all that didn't make sense would be cleared up.

 

Almost too bad it won't happen. As far as afterlife goes... well, maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised?

 

Or maybe... unpleasnatly surprised? (Oh shit!)

[florduh]

I never had a good image in my mind. I thought Heaven was a mystery not to be fathomed by the mortal mind.

 

However, I always realized that if I had to spend even a day in Heaven hanging out with other Christians, it would seem an eternity.

[Vomit Comet]

However, I always realized that if I had to spend even a day in Heaven hanging out with other Christians, it would seem an eternity.

 

This may be apocryphal, but I read Machiavelli's dying words somewhere. I'll provide a rough paraphrase:

 

"No, I do not want to go to heaven, where I would be in the company of beggars, monks, and apostles. I would rather go to hell. There, I will be in the company of popes and kings."

[Evolution_beyond]

I pictured heaven as beautiful nature - forests, rivers, fields.

 

I also thought that heaven was probably subjective - different people would experience different things because different people find different things pleasurable.

 

Later (pantheist ex-christian) I thought that heaven was a becoming one with God, literally. Your individual soul would go back to where it came - and fuse with God so that you become one. We all go back to source.

 

Edited to add: That would kind of be like becoming this multi-dimensional being that others mentioned, because if you become one with God then obviously you then become God and can see all, know all, be all etc.

[gradstu09]

This is going to sound silly, but I always imagined it as Middle-earth. At 12 years old, nothing sounds like heaven more than living in your favorite book. In fact, once I got to HS and learned the Catholic version of heaven, it was SO disappointing.

[par4dcourse]

The fabled "promised land" was described as the land of milk and honey, with streets of gold. Milk and honey were scarce treats so it's expected that having plenty would be heaven. Now, I can pop down to the corner market and get all my wallet will allow. Gold, while pretty, would make a horrible paving material (it's too soft) so I guess heaven is a lot like my local Kroger's with a shiny but lumpy parking lot.

[bellsybop]

As a child I always thought about streets of gold, people with wings, and houses.

I always feared I wouldn't find my family there, especially my mom.

 

Then it went into more of a place where everyone had to be nice. I worried that I

couldn't be as good as people would expect me to be. It started to sound boring,

worshipping all the time.

 

Then as an adult, I thought about it being just an existance, more than a place. I

saw a picture of a bunch of spirits flying around singing and praising. I still didn't

want to do it.

 

Then after I started this deconversion process, I held onto the possibility of it being

our lives now on earth. To make our own heaven here while we are alive.

 

Now I don't believe in any of it.

 

 

As for hell, I thought it was fire, lava and demons. I wouldn't allow myself to dwell

on it very long.

[Emme]

As a child I always thought about streets of gold, people with wings, and houses.

 

I did not like the idea of heaven being full of gold and jewels, that always sounded a bit tacky and weird. I guess jewels and gold represented the good things in life back when the bibble was written...

C.S lewis idea of Narnia appealed to me. I would have wanted to go there and travel with the dawn treader to the end of the world.

[smellincoffee]

What I wanted heaven to be stood in stark contrast to what I was told it was. The heaven I imagined in my head was a big park; lush, with brooks and big shade trees. Every family had its own shade tree and everyone could just sit and talk and picnic. As I matured, my idea of heaven was simply a healthy Earth -- only occupied by a humanity united in love.

[Internet Jesus]

What I wanted heaven to be stood in stark contrast to what I was told it was. The heaven I imagined in my head was a big park; lush, with brooks and big shade trees. Every family had its own shade tree and everyone could just sit and talk and picnic. As I matured, my idea of heaven was simply a healthy Earth -- only occupied by a humanity united in love.

 

 

amen

[HuaiDan]

As for hell, I thought it was fire, lava and demons. I wouldn't allow myself to dwell

on it very long.

 

 

 

The whole idea of physical torment always seemed a bit improbable to me, in the context of not having a physical body.