Why do descriptions of heaven seem highly materialistic?

[Enai de a lukal]

I know you were being goofy. I am just saying that harp music is far better than sex and Beethoven's 5th symphony in C minor is even greater :clap

I'm afraid it just sounds like you've been having sub-par sex.

 

[Sha'irullah]

Perhaps for someone that is Asexual, but not for the majority of the rest of us.

I have to admit, I like teasing people for their sexuality because I just don't get it. Sort of like viewing two monkeys in dresses putting lip stick on each other. It is funny and all but not that funny.

I like Beethoven as well, however...



Sex and Bolero!


Flight of the Bumblebee need not apply. LOL! At least not during sex.

Flight of the Bumblebee is the greatest work of art and should replace the American anthem

 

[Ingledsva]

...



Flight of the Bumblebee is the greatest work of art and should replace the American anthem

I have a friend that knows I love it, so she plays it for me every time she comes to my house. It's great.


My playing on the other hand, is just atrocious! LOL!



*

 

[Muffled]

I'm not sure if this really matters to those who believe in a type of heaven, but this is something that bothers me. It seems to me that religions that teach one not to be attached to the world or worldly possessions, has some of the most worldly descriptions of heaven. This seems to present a sort of paradox: if one is not to be materialistic as part of one's virtue, then how does it equate to being so in a paradise-like existence? How can these two seemingly contradictory ideas be reconciled?

I believe this world passes away or we die and possessions go to someone else.

One can describe Heaven in any good way because it is fantasy although the fantasy has the feeling of reality even though it doesn't have the substance.
I believe God created the Universe and said it was good so a fatasy of the creation must also be good.

I believe the two are not mutually exclusive. As Jesus said people are to be in the world but not of the world. So in Heaven one may have a virtual world to be in and also have eternal life.

 

[Muffled]

Well of course heaven is just wishful thinking, and that thinking knows nothing beyond the mind, hence the materialistic view of heaven.

I believe that view is wishful thinking. Of course since only itelligence is present in Heaven it can fantasize whatever good thing it wishes. However I believe if someone wished to fantasize a bevy of suppliant virgins, it might not be allowed.

 

[Muffled]

Either materialism is evil or it's not. If it's one way for one realm, it only follows that it's the same for another realm. In other words, if it's evil for this material realm, then it should be even moreso for a heavenly realm.



Take the Christian view of heaven, for example. Everyone gets a mansion, on streets of gold, with gates of jewels, huge kingly feasts. Or in Islam, rivers of milk, honey, and wine, with 72 virgins. Greed, gluttony, and lust.

I believe it is not evil but I also believe that it is foolishness. However existing in a material world is not materialism.

I believe none of this has anything to do with heaven but concerns whaat life may be like when eternal physical life comes into being. I believe greed, gluttony and lust will not be found in Heaven or in the Kingdom of God. Also the 72 virgins might not be so appealing if the eternal body doesn't have a sex drive.

 

[LightTraveler]

Well, they are using it to placate the downtrodden masses.



You're at the bottom of the heap now - BUT - just wait tell you get to heaven!




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So you think there'll be no justice for the downtrodden?

I don't think that earthly descriptions of Heaven can be accurate, but the temporal human mind is very limited and narrow in its concepts about divine matters. Even those involved in the occult.

 

[Ingledsva]

So you think there'll be no justice for the downtrodden?

I don't think that earthly descriptions of Heaven can be accurate, but the temporal human mind is very limited and narrow in its concepts about divine matters. Even those involved in the occult.

Not unless they get it in the here and now.




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[Sees]

Not unless they get it in the here and now.




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Or at least wipe off their faces and put in some effort to show they deserve it... Nobody likes a cry-baby. The ones who say "oh well, this life and world are supposed to suck"

 

[NobodyYouKnow]

I was going to mention the 72 virgins of Islamic heaven, but somebody beat me to that...also I often wonder where god finds those 72 virgins....

Also, the idea of harp playing angels, streets of gold, huge mansions + pigging out doesn't really appeal to me either.

If there is a 'heaven', I have my own idea of it...like the Elysian Fields it is...

Cool, grassy hills covered in wildflowers of every colour and description, snow-capped mountain peaks as a 'backdrop'....streams of crystal clear pure water babbling over rocks and small, cute fluffy animals everywhere...and buildings resembling Shinto shrines and Japanese Zen Buddhist temples with monks chanting.....yeah, Shangri-La = my heaven.

 

[shawn001]

Lol. You're not doing it right, then. I'm going to enjoy my life as much as I can.

LOL

Maybe on the sex thing though your just constantly in the orgasmic state with drool coming down your mouth like Homer Simpson after a doughnut for eternity. Yikes even that wouldn't be good. There has to be change.

 

[shawn001]

Hmmmm?

"Genesis 6:1-6 (New King James Version)


Genesis 6:1-6
New King James Version (NKJV)

6 Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, 2 that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose.

3 And the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive[a] with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” 4 There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown."

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

LOL

Maybe on the sex thing though your just constantly in the orgasmic state with drool coming down your mouth like Homer Simpson after a doughnut for eternity. Yikes even that wouldn't be good. There has to be change.

Lol. Yeah, I'd get bored with that too. I want variety. I believe in reincarnation and there is no "eternal destination", anyway.

 

[Penumbra]

From what I've seen, the most consistently materialistic descriptions of heaven are in Islam, followed by considerable portions of Christians that believe in having a resurrected magically glorified physical body. Those seem to be the easiest things for people to relate to- animals including us evolve with various materialistic needs and so it's natural that if people believe in some better world, it includes something like physical things.

Then there are the less physical descriptions, like semi-physical or ghost-like realities where people can create their own heaven out of thoughts and other stuff like that. Basically everything you ever wanted, and more or less materialistic even if it's not actually matter.

Then there are beliefs where an individual mind merges with some type of blissful oneness and then basically loses any description after that other than apparently being somewhat like an endless spaceless epic orgasm without action or thought or interaction or anything else. Pure bliss, no thought, no action, no sense of self. In some ways it's the least physical description but in other ways it's the most hedonistic thing I've ever heard; depends how you look at it I guess.

So it seems to me that there are various descriptions of what people ultimately want ranging from the seemingly mundane to the seemingly philosophical, but it all comes down to the fact that people want bliss for themselves. Can't really blame them.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

I've wondered about that too, along with the anthropomorphism behind many deities, and why would heaven have things that were invented by man on earth? But then I figured out why;

You can't connect with something so diverse, so different from man, without building something we can relate to. We simply can't understand something that is beyond our own concepts, so we must put it to our terms, simplify it down, what we know of the universe is a strikingly unremarkable amount, so we must compare it to things that are down on our level.

 

[shawn001]

Repetition for eternity, not something I personally would want in either a heaven or a hell.

I would have quite a few questions though ot would be nice to know, but not for eternity.

Even living in some paradise for eternity. After a while you wouldn't even likely care, it would be common place. Every once in a while you need a nice storm over your paradise to appreciate it.

More artworks have been done on hell then on heaven.

 

[shawn001]

A classic

The Hunt

"Hyder Simpson lives with his wife and his hound-dog Rip in the backwoods. Mrs. Simpson does not like having the dog indoors, but Rip saved Hyder's life once, and Hyder won't be parted from him. Mrs. Simpson has seen some bad omens recently, and warns Hyder not to go raccoon hunting that night. When Rip dives into a pond after a raccoon, Hyder jumps in after him, but only the raccoon comes up out of the water. Next morning, Hyder and Rip wake up next to the pond. When they return home, Hyder finds that neither his wife, the preacher, nor the neighbors can hear him or see him."

[youtube]kkG2bWGZR2M[/youtube]
The Hunt - YouTube

 

[Hawkins]

I'm not sure if this really matters to those who believe in a type of heaven, but this is something that bothers me. It seems to me that religions that teach one not to be attached to the world or worldly possessions, has some of the most worldly descriptions of heaven. This seems to present a sort of paradox: if one is not to be materialistic as part of one's virtue, then how does it equate to being so in a paradise-like existence? How can these two seemingly contradictory ideas be reconciled?

Christianity:
To design an entity capable of lasting eternally, such an entity must have a unique ID which is also lasting eternally. This ID is our soul. However, this ID is only visibly identifiable by God but not by humans from a designing perspective. Humans are so designed that they need a body as an image for them to recognize with each other.

A human soul can thus be described as a worn in a sense that you can't tell a worn from another visually, you can't visually ID the worns one by one. A human can however ID another human visually through the body as an image.

Those who are living in new Heaven and New earth (yes, it's a new earth) will be given a new body (at least for humans to identify each other). This is how humans are designed. On the other hand, angels are designed the other way, that is, they can ID each other without a body. As long as we need a physical body to identify each other visually as designed, everything surrounding us will be materialistic or at least pseudo-materialistic.

 

[Philomath]

This thread got off topic towards the end lol

 

[Sha'irullah]

From what I've seen, the most consistently materialistic descriptions of heaven are in Islam, followed by considerable portions of Christians that believe in having a resurrected magically glorified physical body. Those seem to be the easiest things for people to relate to- animals including us evolve with various materialistic needs and so it's natural that if people believe in some better world, it includes something like physical things.

Just so you know. It is specifically mentioned int he Qur'an that Jannah will be physical as Allah will invert life and allow people to acquire a physical body in paradise. So it is semi-reincarnation