Is there such a place as heaven?

[Paul]

??

[martincisneros]

Yes

[martincisneros]

Ironically, the Old Testament says more about it than the New, unless it's one of those "double reference" things in the New Testament where you could both take "heaven" and "heavens" in the way that I and many of us would, plus the traditional view of whatever.  To me, it's the Old Testament phrase "heaven of heavens" that doesn't come up very often.  Plus, in Daniel, you've got the risen Messiah coming with the clouds of glory to the Ancient of Days.  Obviously, the risen Christ didn't go to Brooklyn or the North Pole.

[Paul]

The Heaven that Christians think they're going to go to and spend eternity?

[martincisneros]

As far as what happens after death, there's no real consensus with anyone that comes to these boards so I'll be the quiet coward and see what others say first on that :laughing7:

However, if there's any type of literal message to the Book of Revelation, it seems to be saying that this earth is our home although it's going to go through a bunch of renovation.

2Corinthians 5 says that to be absent from the Body is to be Present with the Lord.  I just simply choose to take that at face value.  Some will insist on saying that when you die, you're just stuck in the grave until resurrection day, but for me, that makes it difficult to reconcile 2Corinthians 5 with 1Corinthians 15 'cause if we're just this ectoplasmic whatever that's radiating the ground until resurrection day, then unless someone's got a better explanation on 2Corinthians 5, then that would call the whole resurrection into question in 1Corinthians 15 'cause of the "Absent from the body, present with the Lord" and where He's supposed to be.

[Paul]

Christians think that either when you die or after judgement day, you go to a place in the sky where you prance around in the clouds. Is that the case?

[SeekerSA]

Christians think that either when you die or after judgement day, you go to a place in the sky where you prance around in the clouds. Is that the case?

Most want to go cloud surfing and watch as the 21 plagues/judgements are meted out and then return to personally deal with any survivors by beating them into submission with a rod of iron - likely a blow behind the knees to force said survivors to bow the knee.  Then of course we have 1000 years of peace barring (pun intended) the iron bar wielding maniacs, which of course leads to a freeing of satan for a short while so that all these victims of iron bar abuse will make war against the elect with weapons they somehow managed to make in secret during the 1000 years of peace.  Of course Israel becomes this supa nuclear power so that when the river Euphrates dries up and the Chinese and Russian cross over as by now all the have as weapons are sticks and stones (due to the high steel demand by the returning escapists for rods of iron) and somehow have lost the art of pontoon bridge building or boat construction but somehow have become horse breeders par excellence which btw should have no problem swimming over said river with one occupant upon said saddle - takes breath - Ah yes then they all move to the valley of Armageddon to do war with sticks and stones against a nuclear super power who wipes them out with one foul swoop of some mystical weapon called force factor 7 or something that leaves all horse occupants dead but spares the horses - how am I doing so far.  The horse of course are not able to move as the blood of the slain in a relatively flat valley is upto their bridles.  We are not told what happens to the horses.  Aah yes then comes the great WTJ.

Now at this juncture of the story, all the survivors of the 21 plagues/judgements have been beaten into submission and by now have really bad knee joints and extensive bruising.  One really has to imagine these poor folk plotting war crawling around amongst the KK (Kingdom Kops) and getting away with subversive meetings and plans in the 1000 years of (relative) peace.  So the war has passed and they are all dead and are now in the 2nd resurrection, bad knee joints and all.  They are helped to their feet by the KK (who have now been raptured a second time) and come into the presence of the Lord where they cannot stand and bow not in submission but because their legs are so damaged.  They are found unworthy and God tilts the disc-like floor where they roll off into the LoF to spend the rest of eternity.

Just in case there are some that have had 2nd thoughts of beating up other folk with rods of iron, special agents of the KK known as the MiB will come and zap them to ensure full memory loss.  This bright flash will undoubtedly cause huge irritation to said eyes and will possibly cause them to water.  We are however told that cosmic kleenex will be made available to wipe away the tears with the assurance that upon application of said kleenex, it will never happen again.

With the obvious memory loss, the survivors will then enter into classes to learn the intricacies of true worship which the MiB special agents will have removed from said memory banks.  After graduating from the class of worship and bowing down. all graduates will be led to the throne room of grace to bow down and chant 2 syllables of one word 3 times in a row ad infinitum, the title of this hymn is none other than holy holy holy which is sung in a never ending crescendo of highs and lows.

One needs to now imagine God sitting on His throne listening to this chorus ad infinitum.  It thus stands to reason that He, God must be paying for some misdemeanor committed in some other dimension or life as one really has to wonder how He shall endure this without casting Himself into the LoF.  Unfortunately this is the happy ending as we know very little else that may or may not transpire in a timeless void.  So possibly they sing holy holy holy once and there is just this big echo that makes it appear to go on and on and on.... forever (and ever) unless you are schooled in Greek in which case it is for an age or for as long as it lasts.  There is of course many mansions with streets of gold and a crap load of jewels embedded either in the walls or foundations.  Likely God has now arrested all the gold from the Zionist cabals in New York and has very little use for gold bars other than pavers.  Life in the mansions should be interesting seeing no one is married or has any sexual identity or function in that regard - possibly in light of this the mansions shall be transparent.  But then there is the problem with this incessant light that never goes out. We are not told how to make a room dark in said mansions but are assured that where light exists darkness flees.  Thus one shall have to learn the art of sleeping under 7Bn candle power luminance bearing in mind something that bright will penetrate even shut eyelids.  Possibly eyelids are replaced with shutters in the glorified body.

We are assured by some scholars that the flames in the LoF although sulphuric in nature will not burn bright but will in fact be a kind of blackness.  One has to then wonder of the extreme luminance of said place called heaven how this LoF is able to be devoid of light.

Having dispensed with surf boards 1000 years ago, the occupants of heaven are said to be able to enter in and out of said heaven by a gate that is permanently open.  This of course is to facilitate the spectator value of said occupants to observe the occupants writhing in the said LoF.  We are assured there is a tree of life for the healing of the nations whose leaves must be used to expedite said healings.  Seeing as the earth is now destroyed and defunct, one must ponder which nations these may be - The Mormon elect suggest reigning over other planets so maybe that is what the leaves are for - the exact method of how said leaves derive their medicinal properties is missing from all known accounts of sacred texts.  This leaves  :bigGrin: one pondering what the leaves are really for.  We assured by great scholars that these mysteries shall be revealed and should not concern ourselves with such trivial matters.  One is encouraged to live one day at a time as tomorrow seems to be filled with a whole heap more troubles than today - seeing that seers are taboo by the sacred texts one wonder how the scholars had insight into tomorrow seeing that being caught in the presence of such gets one stoned and quantum leaped into eternity sooner than desired - again this mystery shall be revealed no doubt.

As one's memories have essentially been eradicated by the MiB, then we are left wondering what we shall reflect upon apart from said worship class.

Aah yes Heaven something to really look forward to no doubt :sigh:

Stranger than fiction? When last did you attend church?

[martincisneros]

Christians think that either when you die or after judgement day, you go to a place in the sky where you prance around in the clouds. Is that the case?

Heaven's not like a Victoria Secrets commercial, if that's what you're asking.  A couple of months ago I made a passing comment about it being very sensual.  I certainly didn't mean anything like that :laughing7:  Sensual means to me that it appeals to all of the senses that you'll have while you're there: sight, touch, taste, smell, hearing, etc., etc. into the countless other senses that they tell us that we have in our spiritual body.  Think of the most beautiful place on earth, say a place like New Zealand which has the beauties of Colorado, Yellow Stone, Paradise Island in the Bahamas, the most beautiful tropical rain forest that you can think of, and the green pastures of say a Scotland, all rolled up into this little multi-island paradise in the South Pacific.  Now, imagine that place being hundreds of millions of square miles with a literal city like New Jerusalem with gold streets, and other cities with rubies, sapphires, and emeralds for streets (the literal meaning of stones of fire in Ezekiel 28:14).  And all of this having God for it's light instead of a sun.  It's a place with a North, a South, an East, and a West.  If you jerk a flower out of the ground and stick it on your table at home, it'll simply start to grow there.  There's no death there.  Every molecule of everything having the most beautiful music that it projects towards God.  Water that you can't get here, that tastes better than distilled.  Fragrant leaves for the healing of nations with their medicinal value.  Crops that are ready every month.  And I know this flies in the face of every religious tradition, but I won't say what I think can be done with the tradition to the contrary or my language would be so ripe that I'd get banned :laughing7: but yes, there's "time" there.  Time is not an evil enemy.  Time never was the problem that it's been made by the poets and other romantics who were definitely not inspired by God.  It was the curse that people were operating in on this planet that was wearisome, burdensome, etc.  With no time, there is no music, no crops, no reflection of light on the holy city to make it's various metals and gems prisms, etc.  Time is a biproduct of light.  At the same time, every technology that we have here, there is in heaven at a level that's obviously what we'd consider thousands of years more advanced.  Wanted to learn how to fly a plane in this life, but either found it prohibitively expensive or were nervous about either too much to learn to be able to do it or thought that the odds of death were too increased by being up there all of the time??  That's fine.  Just learn how to fly the plane you always wanted to fly "there."  Take that plane up high enough where you can see the stars since everything originated from there, and watch the constellations that you can see from there in full color and with the ability to hear the music coming off of those constellations that NASA has only recently detected our nearest planets and stars making around us.  Anything you can do here, you can do there, except for sin.  Imagine a place totally permeated with light, but that's not hard on the eyes.  There are fruits and vegetables there that have long been extinct here.  Colors and sounds that you've never seen here.  No one handicapped or old.  The ability to know everyone there by name.  Animals that have died here playing there like a bunch of little children.  The communication barriers since the tower of Babel that we've had here don't exist there.

[SeekerSA]

Martin I like your version better

I was having a general stab at what some folk seem to believe hence the one I painted was blismal to say the least

When I was inventing it I really had this image of God sitting on the throne, one leg over the armrest resting His head in His cupped hand, actually looking away from the praising saints and sheer look of frustration and like a thought balloon with "when is this going to end - what have I done"

Well I hope no one was offended but maybe mine can be referred to as the Gobbledygook heaven to match the gobbledygook gospel.

[WhiteWings]

I hope you are wrong about heaven Martin. I don't like gold and all that glittery stuff.
Can you reserve a cabin in the forest with a muddy track leading to it?

:laughing7:

[martincisneros]

I hope you are wrong about heaven Martin. I don't like gold and all that glittery stuff.
Can you reserve a cabin in the forest with a muddy track leading to it?

:laughing7:

I didn't say it was non-stop cities.  You can have a cabin as far away from the city as you'd like.  There are no unmet needs there.  And contrary to the secular media thinking from time to time that particular Christians have too much, God doesn't mind if your cabin is a thousand square feet or several hundreds of thousands of square feet so you can have company over.  What's a hundred thousand square foot house to Him?  He wouldn't care if we had that here, to be perfectly honest 'cause to Him, there's nothing too good for His kids.

[martincisneros]

Well I hope no one was offended but maybe mine can be referred to as the Gobbledygook heaven to match the gobbledygook gospel.

I was the first one that got to read that while Charlie was writing that, and I was laughing so hard I was honestly crying.  I'm not sure if I've ever laughed that hard before or since regarding anything "Church-related."  That's the EASY WAY to piss off all of the discussion boards.  I'm thinking that Gary Amirault quickly spammed about a dozen of 'em with that "Gobbledygook Gospel" message after he got to see it.  I know that I peeved quite a few folks with that one.  Oh...I'm posting it.  Give me a sec.

[martincisneros]

I was having a general stab at what some folk seem to believe hence the one I painted was blismal to say the least

When I was inventing it I really had this image of God sitting on the throne, one leg over the armrest resting His head in His cupped hand, actually looking away from the praising saints and sheer look of frustration and like a thought balloon with "when is this going to end - what have I done"

You really ought to develop that a little more, either as one longer article or something in multiple chapters where you're contrasting some paradigms possibly with the question at the start of all of it of "which makes the most sense to you?" and take a stab at Arminianism, Calvinism, New Age-ism when it goes a bit too far, and UR.