Visions Of Heaven?

[LazyGun]

I note that Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon who recently achieved some measure of fame from claiming that, during a coma he was in, he visited heaven, rode on the back of a giant butterfly, met an angelic blue-eyed girl, and that heaven was an "immense void,completely dark, infinite in size,yet also infinitely comforting"

He even wrote a book about it - Proof Of Heaven, and now I hear it is being turned into a made for TV movie at some point.

So, it set me to thinking - for those that believe in a heaven, how do you imagine it will be? I would have all sorts of questions - stuff like where does everyone live? Do you have your own house? is it set on a cloud? Do you need to eat? When meeting friends and relatives who have died, are they incarnated as how you remember them from memory, or are they as they would like to be? Or is everyone just some sort of energy cloud?

This is not designed to mock - I am genuinely interested in what peoples visions of heaven might be, and whether any of those questions I mentioned are addressed in your visions.....

[naomi24]

I doubt I'll ever remember, LG, but I do think it's rather a pity that believers haven't contributed to this thread.

[LazyGun]

Aye, Naomi, although fenders link was useful.

Perhaps people really do not think much about it then - just believe in it,the key points or whatever.

I would really have expected especially the JWs to have had a more fleshed -out image of what heaven means within their religion though, since it is here on earth after all the evil gone, apparently.....

[vetuste_ennemi]

Yes, I'd like to hear from the JWs about their New World. Bearing in mind Christ's comment to the Sadducees that in the resurrection there is neither giving nor receiving in marriage, it looks as if one at least one human pleasure may be missing from their garden of earthly delights.

[naomi24]

VE, or could Jesus have been saying that marriage is a man-made institution, and not actually required by God, which would mean all those people co-habiting or simply revelling in a bit of canoodling without the sanctity of marriage aren’t sinners after all. Gosh, what a shock that would be to the Godly! Carry on chaps. nudge, nudge …. :o))

[vetuste_ennemi]

Naomi - shock!, horror!

[LazyGun]

OK so now I can begin to see the attraction. :) Might become a believer yet...

[vetuste_ennemi]

Oh, and JC added that they would be "just like the angels in heaven". You don't think, no surely not, do you...?

[ludwig]

// he visited heaven, rode on the back of a giant butterfly, met an angelic blue-eyed girl, and that heaven was an "immense void,completely dark, infinite in size,yet also infinitely comforting" //

That coma he was in wasn't drug induced by any chance?

[joggerjayne]

Heaven would be something like ...

The Gstaad Palace Hotel

... but it's all free.

And it never stops snowing.

[LazyGun]

@Ludwig - Could have been :)

@JJ Sounds a bit chilly to me, but horses for courses, and all that :)

[Mick-Talbot]

But this is heaven LG................it never stops snowing with warm snow.

[LazyGun]

My imagination is just too constricted. Never thought of warm snow! :)

[woofgang]

There is a Joyce Grenfell poem where she suggests that the best and most beautiful aspects of earth are a faint reflection of what heaven will be like.

What eyes behold the Spring?

What eyes behold the Spring?
No retina or lens
With signals to the brain
Could compass such a thing.

If on this earth we see
The green immensity
And hear the music's ring,
Where can the real Spring be?

From time to time the mind
Sees more than mortal range,
The universe made plain,
A seeing for the blind.

It is the eye of Mind
That sees and hears and knows
The law that holds intact
The man, the star, the rose.

[RATTER15]

Trying to describe a heaven that clearly does exist is a bit like trying to imagine a colour that doesnt exist, it hurts my head!!

[RATTER15]

LazyGun, Ive seen yellow warm snow but it soon melts!!

[LazyGun]

@Woofgang Thats a nice pome. I can appreciate the poetry without necessarily agreeing with the sentiment :)

Was always a fan of Grenfells work as a comedy actor.

@Ratter - I try and avoid yellow snow, warm or otherwise ;)
I would agree with you that for non-believers, trying to offer a vision of heaven is brain-meltingly difficult, but I remain interested in believers visions of heaven, if only to see how such visions encompass or exclude the mundanity of mortal living. Aging, schooling for kids, transport, you know- all that sort of stuff.

[vulcan42]

I've got warm snow coming down now, it''s hell.

[modeller]

LG. Do you remember this post of mine ?

//LG .//Its true, your alleged creator is invisible; thats because he is not there.... // No LG You have got it wrong , that proves it is there , that's logical ! Isn't it ? //

I've thought about it , if god was visible and we knew what he looks like , especially if he looked like us ( we are in his image ) , then he would not be infinitely special . So the only way he can be infinitely special is to be infinitely invisible. Therefore the fact that he is infinitely invisible proves he is god because no other entity can be infinitely invisible . Only god can be both an entity and infinitly invisible at the same time.

Maybe that's why believers believe. !

[seadogg]

My vision is one of permanent ecstacy. It is a feeling that you cannot control but you know when it's there. It is fleeting, hence Shelley's line "rarely, rarely comest thou, spirit of delight" and one has absolutely no control over it. The strongest episode I remember is watching an Alpine dawn from high on a big mountain.

Wordsworth's "Ode on Intimations of Immortality........" describes it better than I can.

[LazyGun]

@modeller - I like it, it sounds suitable mysterious and profound. God resides at the heart of a contradiction :)

@seadogg - thanks for the input. To expand - in this eternity of ecstacy that is envisioned, are there other people? family, friends? Wordsworth ode is paints a picture of an intense experience of a glorified, transcendent version of Earth, but gives few indications of other people or any society.....