Eternal Life

4,863 Views | 80 Replies | Last: 7 yr ago by Duncan Idaho
Woody2006
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Doesn't it get boring?

I feel like any experience would become torture eventually. Eternal life seems to me as though it would be torture no matter your destination.

Isn't annihilation preferable?
Aggie4Life02
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Woody2006 said:

Doesn't it get boring?

I feel like any experience would become torture eventually. Eternal life seems to me as though it would be torture no matter your destination.

Isn't annihilation preferable?


Everlasting life, in order to explore the depths of an infinite God. Sign me up.
kurt vonnegut
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Aggie4Life02 said:


Everlasting life, in order to explore the depths of an infinite God. Sign me up.


In other words, you have no clue what Heaven is like, right?

I sorta imagine heaven would have to be a place with very short term memory. Hanging out on the beach drinking beer with family and your childhood idols would be great if you could forget that you had spend the infinite number of previous years doing the exact same thing over and over.
Aggie4Life02
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kurt vonnegut said:

Aggie4Life02 said:


Everlasting life, in order to explore the depths of an infinite God. Sign me up.


In other words, you have no clue what Heaven is like, right?

I sorta imagine heaven would have to be a place with very short term memory. Hanging out on the beach drinking beer with family and your childhood idols would be great if you could forget that you had spend the infinite number of previous years doing the exact same thing over and over.


Revelation gives a pretty good idea what heaven is like...
Woody2006
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Eternity sounds painfully boring no matter how its positioned.
AggieRain
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Woody2006 said:

Eternity sounds painfully boring no matter how its positioned.
Maybe...but I'd like to give it a shot.
kurt vonnegut
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How so?
Martin Q. Blank
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Heaven would not be enjoyable for atheists. Or anybody who does not love Jesus.
outofstateaggie
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Time is irrelevant to an eternal being. Remove that from the equation. One would have no sense of a beginning or end...just an eternal present. Is boredom still a factor in this scenario?

Also, learning and exploration would involve progression. Is eternal learning or progression another way to describe eternal life? Is that boring?
Sapper Redux
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Martin Q. Blank said:

Heaven would not be enjoyable for atheists. Or anybody who does not love Jesus.


What do you plan on doing?
Aggie4Life02
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Then I saw "a new heaven and a new earth," for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 'He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death' or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liarsthey will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death." ...

I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.
Revelation 21:1-8, 22-27 NIV
http://bible.com/111/rev.21.1-27.NIV
Sapper Redux
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So, Earth but with the complete physical manifestation of God? Seems hard to square with the nature of God as defined by theology. Unless you mean the verse as some kind of metaphor.
fwheightsboy
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Everyone can stand around all day and praise the Lord. Thank him for all he has provided. Sounds a lot like North Korea.
Aggie4Life02
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Dr. Watson said:

So, Earth but with the complete physical manifestation of God? Seems hard to square with the nature of God as defined by theology. Unless you mean the verse as some kind of metaphor.


I don't understand the objection?
Woody2006
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outofstateaggie said:

Time is irrelevant to an eternal being. Remove that from the equation. One would have no sense of a beginning or end...just an eternal present. Is boredom still a factor in this scenario?

Also, learning and exploration would involve progression. Is eternal learning or progression another way to describe eternal life? Is that boring?

It all sounds horrifically boring to me over the course of eternity.

What's so bad with the concept of the lights going out?
Aggie4Life02
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Woody2006 said:

outofstateaggie said:

Time is irrelevant to an eternal being. Remove that from the equation. One would have no sense of a beginning or end...just an eternal present. Is boredom still a factor in this scenario?

Also, learning and exploration would involve progression. Is eternal learning or progression another way to describe eternal life? Is that boring?

It all sounds horrifically boring to me over the course of eternity.

What's so bad with the concept of the lights going out?


...what you personally prefer doesn't have anything to do with what is.
Woody2006
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Aggie4Life02 said:

Woody2006 said:

outofstateaggie said:

Time is irrelevant to an eternal being. Remove that from the equation. One would have no sense of a beginning or end...just an eternal present. Is boredom still a factor in this scenario?

Also, learning and exploration would involve progression. Is eternal learning or progression another way to describe eternal life? Is that boring?

It all sounds horrifically boring to me over the course of eternity.

What's so bad with the concept of the lights going out?


...what you personally prefer doesn't have anything to do with what is.

So I'm doomed for eternal torture no matter what?

Jk. What are you most looking forward to about life everlasting? Once you have learned everything there is to learn and experienced everything heaven has to offer too many times to count what will there be to look forward to?
Sapper Redux
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Aggie4Life02 said:

Dr. Watson said:

So, Earth but with the complete physical manifestation of God? Seems hard to square with the nature of God as defined by theology. Unless you mean the verse as some kind of metaphor.


I don't understand the objection?


God is supposedly an atemporal being outside of spacetime and the universe who is omnipresent and omnipotent and as such cannot be fully contained in any form. And he's going to sit in a city that apparently doesn't constitute the entire globe while kings (democracy disappears?) bring tribute. Seems implausible given the philosophical nature of God.
Aggrad08
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It would ostensibly not be a crippling boredom if your memory was imperfect. I will certainly say that eternal life could feel like a terrible trap in certain circumstances. Doesn't mean I wouldn't prefer talking my chances at that over this being it (which I feel is drastically more likely).

But by the way some try to describe heaven as a place without sin, It seems there can be no free will, so from that perspective it may be far more prison than mere boredom requires.

747Ag
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Choose wisely...


Dad-O-Lot
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eye has not seen, ear has not heard...

I don't think we can fathom eternal life.
Aggie4Life02
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Woody2006 said:

Aggie4Life02 said:

Woody2006 said:

outofstateaggie said:

Time is irrelevant to an eternal being. Remove that from the equation. One would have no sense of a beginning or end...just an eternal present. Is boredom still a factor in this scenario?

Also, learning and exploration would involve progression. Is eternal learning or progression another way to describe eternal life? Is that boring?

It all sounds horrifically boring to me over the course of eternity.

What's so bad with the concept of the lights going out?


...what you personally prefer doesn't have anything to do with what is.

So I'm doomed for eternal torture no matter what?

Jk. What are you most looking forward to about life everlasting? Once you have learned everything there is to learn and experienced everything heaven has to offer too many times to count what will there be to look forward to?


If God is infinite, there will never be a point where one will learn and experience everything there is to know about God.
Aggie4Life02
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Dr. Watson said:

Aggie4Life02 said:

Dr. Watson said:

So, Earth but with the complete physical manifestation of God? Seems hard to square with the nature of God as defined by theology. Unless you mean the verse as some kind of metaphor.


I don't understand the objection?


God is supposedly an atemporal being outside of spacetime and the universe who is omnipresent and omnipotent and as such cannot be fully contained in any form. And he's going to sit in a city that apparently doesn't constitute the entire globe while kings (democracy disappears?) bring tribute. Seems implausible given the philosophical nature of God.


...so are you saying an omnipotent being can't enter his own creation? See Jesus, the Angel of the LORD, and the Shekinah Glory.
Sapper Redux
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For eternity? In totality? To be in and of the creation?
Aggie4Life02
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Dr. Watson said:

For eternity? In totality? To be in and of the creation?


Who says in totality? Physicality cannot be infinite. Any physical manifestation of God will be by definition finite.
kurt vonnegut
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outofstateaggie said:

Time is irrelevant to an eternal being. Remove that from the equation. One would have no sense of a beginning or end...just an eternal present. Is boredom still a factor in this scenario?

Also, learning and exploration would involve progression. Is eternal learning or progression another way to describe eternal life? Is that boring?

I don't understand what it means to be eternal or experience eternity. I have no frame of reference to pull from to understand existence with an irrelevance of time. I don't know what an eternal present means.

The problem with describing Heaven or God with any term that invokes the 'infinite' such as eternal, timeless, all-loving, all-good, omnipresent, omniscient. . . . is that human being do not understand what this actually means. As such, I find its use in describing God or Heaven to be nonsense. There is a lot of well constructed and vivid word salad out there to describe these things, and they all basically mean nothing.

As Dad-O-Lot said:

Quote:

eye has not seen, ear has not heard...
I don't think we can fathom eternal life.

I think that if we are to be honest, this is about all we can say. 'I don't know.'
kurt vonnegut
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Quote:

Then I saw "a new heaven and a new earth," for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.


Ok, so you'll be on something like a planet, but with no Ocean (if I'm to take this literally).

Quote:

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
This is hardly a practical description of Heaven. Certainly nothing tangible. There is the statement that God's dwelling place is now among the people, which suggests an amendment to the current arrangement.


Quote:

'He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death' or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
Vague. Might as well say "Heaven is good,"

Quote:


He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death." ...
Nothing that describes what Heaven will be like in any real sense. However, there is actually a tangible description of Hell. Is it fair to infer that those in Heaven won't feel any mourning, crying, pain, or have any tears in their eyes when some of their friends, family, wives, and children burn for eternity? I don't think a single one of us here would say that they could comprehend an existence where they were infinitely elated while their own child burned for eternity. As such, what does this passage from Revelation mean? How does it further help us understand Heaven - all it does is introduce possibilities we don't and can't understand, or if your like me, reject with every fiber of your being. If my child is to be tortured, I cannot understand wishing for anything other that that same torture or annihilation. Can you?


Quote:


I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.


Again, no description of Heaven that isn't entirely metaphysical and abstract.

-----------------------

I'm not responding to this post to poo-poo on your religion or your faith. You stated that Revelation gives us a good idea of what Heaven is like and I say that it doesn't give us any description of Heaven that really means anything to us or helps us understand what Heaven will actually be like or feel like (aside from 'it will be good' and there will be no seas).

BusterAg
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Yeah, I agree.

Some counter-points to Woody:


Quote:

"over the course of eternity"


Does eternity have a course? Is it possible that it is kind of solid-state? Unchanging?


Quote:

"Once you have learned everything there is to learn"


Will learning be something that builds up over, um, not time, but some other increments? Not sure if your observation here is valid. Not sure that there is progressive learning.

Quote:

experienced everything heaven has to offer too many times to count
Is there an opportunity to experience things more than once? Is there like a chronology, where you are experiencing this, um, not now, but, uh before the next experience and after the previous one? Does before and after have meaning in eternity?


Quote:

what will there be to look forward to?
What do you mean look forward? Like, into the future? Um, not sure if that works.

We are temporal beings. We can't really grasp a world that is not bound by time. I doubt that eternity is an infinite dose of time that just doesn't run out, which is how many people frame it.
Solo Tetherball Champ
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For what it is worth, I've always imagined Hell as an eternity and heaven as "timelessness".
Aggie4Life02
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...as a point of clarity, the afterlife is everlasting, not eternal. Heaven isn't timeless.
kurt vonnegut
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Aggie4Life02 said:

...as a point of clarity, the afterlife is everlasting, not eternal. Heaven isn't timeless.
Would I be correct in saying that eternal has no beginning and no end while everlasting has a beginning, but no end? If that is correct, it doesn't solve the problem. I can no more understand everlasting than I can eternal. Can you?
Solo Tetherball Champ
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semantics.
Sapper Redux
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Aggie4Life02 said:

Dr. Watson said:

For eternity? In totality? To be in and of the creation?


Who says in totality? Physicality cannot be infinite. Any physical manifestation of God will be by definition finite.


So God is splitting into another manifestation?

And there are still nations on this Earth?
Aggrad08
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A timeless aspect seems inconsistent with Catholic theology which has you omnipresent at every location in the universe Lest someone petition you for a prayer.
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