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Thread: How could a heaven operate?

  1. #21
    Muizer's Avatar member 3519
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    Default Re: How could a heaven operate?

    Quote Originally Posted by AqD View Post
    Wouldn't this mean every souls are in fact isolated from each other and what they interact with are fake?
    That would have to be the case if everyone who died and went to heaven found everyone they knew how they last remembered them. To give an example, I never knew my great-grandparents. Now they would have know their grandchildren (my parents) as youngsters only, whereas I would only know them at a later age after I was born: Me and my great grandparents' experiences of my parents are mutually exclusive. So, what age, and consequently what self-image, would my parents have in heaven? They would have to be both. If not, you end up with a situation like you suggest: a kind of solipsistic heaven where everyone else is only a fragment of their true self, and hence, indeed a lie.

    No one in heaven can just be who they are when they die. The only way to resolve that is to abstract some 'common denominator' of 'self', from the sum of all 'instances' we ever were. Like an entity carrying around a photo album with countless snapshots: They wouldn't be any of the 'persons' in that book to the exclusion of any other.
    Last edited by Muizer; June 06, 2020 at 10:46 AM.
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  2. #22
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    Default Re: How could a heaven operate?

    AqD,

    Whatever you think don't shortchange God. When a person is regenerate, born again, in this life, the one thing God doesn't take away from them is their memories, why? For obvious reasons in that we would have to learn all over again like little children so my guess is that we will retain our memories totally free of sin and so we will recognise the loved ones who are also in heaven. There will be nothing fake about it. Another thing that comes to mind is the degree that the Israelites put into ancestry and so it follows that we who get to heaven will be reconnected to ours who are also in heaven which for my part is quite exciting.

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    Default Re: How could a heaven operate?

    Quote Originally Posted by Prodromos View Post
    You may be on to something there.
    That's a very interesting perspective considering the most renowned kings and emperors in human history murdered greatest numbers of neighbors and indulged in the most sinful pleasures.

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    Default Re: How could a heaven operate?

    Quote Originally Posted by AqD View Post
    That's a very interesting perspective considering the most renowned kings and emperors in human history murdered greatest numbers of neighbors and indulged in the most sinful pleasures.
    AqD,

    The only unforgivable sin is to reject the Holy Spirit's revelation of Christ Jesus to anyone so these men, even women who have done the most despicable things either have been forgiven or are lingering in hell. The ones in heaven are covered by the forgiveness of Jesus' actions for them on the cross and God's description of forgiveness is to forget it happened at all and so all them in heaven will be the same in that no-one can ever accuse them again of their sin no matter how hideous it was. I have a prayer that goes something like this, " Heavenly Father if I have offended anyone, may they forgive me, and, if anyone has offended me give me the strength to not only forgive them but to forget completely the offense." That's how God forgives and what Jesus died and rose again for.

  5. #25

    Default Re: How could a heaven operate?

    This is actually an interesting question to all parties that risks being de-railed by the usual old provocations.

    In the Bible I've read so far, the "Heaven" is not as people say it, "Heaven" being a more popularized concept to explain a simplified Christianity to the masses that would spread faster and easier (as it did).

    What you get from Jesus is "Kingdom of God" instead of "Heaven".
    Plenty of religions talk of heaven but Jesus focuses a lot on "Kingdom of God" and on how "My Kingdom is not of this World" which can have plenty of different interpretations.

    So to have an interesting talk on this we should ask "How would Kingdom of God operate?" rather than being stuck to juvenile heaven pictures of a man in the clouds (aka Zeus imagery incorporated during Renaissance). Thus the idea of Heaven got too associated with the old Zeus Greek symbology (which ironically is pagan to some degree).

    Let's say you end up in the actual Kingdom of God that Jesus spoke of. How do you imagine things operating?
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    Default Re: How could a heaven operate?

    Pretty sure the Kingdom of God as presented originally by apocalyptic jews would be an actual kingdom on earth, overseen by the big man or one of his underlings. I'd imagine that in this hypothetical kingdom, there'd be no suffering, plenty of food, earthly pleasures basically. The rapture that the apocalypticists preached wasn't thought to take the good people up, but rather to remove the bad. How you get from that idea to christianity eludes me, but hey, the christians also invented hell.
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  7. #27
    basics's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
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    Default Re: How could a heaven operate?

    The very first evidence of there being a Holy Place was after Creation when God planted a specific garden within it. So, we have all creation as one thing and this garden as another. Within it He made man and woman in His image with certain rules that applied to it and not what was outside. We all know what happened in this special place and so we can make the assumption that it was a picture, an insight, of a heavenly place where man and creature were at one with one another. The lion and the lamb were at peace with one another. When the fall happened God then promised a " seed " from the woman Eve to come in time to contend with Satan for the souls of men which happened in Jesus Christ becoming a man by taking up union with an egg of a certain female who had never known a man sexually.

    This Jesus in His teaching said, " In My Father's house there are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you." My words but as near as possible without me quoting from Scripture directly. Further on He describes hell as being adjacent to heaven with direct differences between the two. Paul is then left to describe our change into heavenly bodies when we are resurrected and how we have to judge angels as being part of the body of Christ. John by his vision brings to a climax the sight of the new Jerusalem entering this picture. Just exactly what each one will do is not shown but the main emphasis is the worship of Him Who saved us, why? Because this story was never about us, rather about Him and His love for us something that mankind just cannot fathom here on earth. Someday however all will know from whatever side of the chasm.

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    Default Re: How could a heaven operate?

    Let's say you end up in the actual Kingdom of God that Jesus spoke of. How do you imagine things operating?
    Pointless to speculate - however omnipotent deity wants...

    If we roll with the Bible let's just hope he does a better job than in the Garden.
    Last edited by conon394; June 26, 2020 at 09:27 AM.
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    Default Re: How could a heaven operate?

    conon394,

    Well ole fella, I wonder if Hyperides still thinks the same? I pray that you never get to ask him.

  10. #30
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    Default Re: How could a heaven operate?

    Well ole fella, I wonder if Hyperides still thinks the same? I pray that you never get to ask him.
    Well a man willing to bite his own tongue off under Antipater's torture to turn over the locations of the other leaders of the Democracy is somebody I would be happy share the afterlife with. Besides its not like he had an alternative your god never got around to giving him the option in 322/21 BC. Anyway so you don't like democracy?
    Last edited by conon394; June 26, 2020 at 09:28 AM.
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    'One day when I fly with my hands - up down the sky, like a bird'

    But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place; some swearing, some crying for surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left.

    Hyperides of Athens: We know, replied he, that Antipater is good, but we (the Demos of Athens) have no need of a master at present, even a good one.

  11. #31
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    Default Re: How could a heaven operate?

    Quote Originally Posted by conon394 View Post
    Well a man willing to bite his own tongue off under Antipater's torture to turn over the locations of the other leaders of the Democracy is somebody I would be happy share the afterlife with. Besides its not like he had an alternative your god never got around to giving him the option in 322/21 BC. Anyway so you don't like democracy?
    Conon394,

    Didn't Paul notice that the Greeks had among their gods a place for the unknown God? Didn't he preach to them Who that God was and were not some of them to become believers? People have always known there is a God, their problem has been their interpretation of Whom He was and is. It all kicked off with the deification of Nimrod or Ninus followed by all them imagined by man to be gods. Paul writes that inside each person is the knowledge of God placed there by God so that no man can find an excuse for not seeing it.

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    Default Re: How could a heaven operate?

    Quote Originally Posted by basics View Post
    The lion and the lamb were at peace with one another.
    Are you suggesting they have souls, or that they're merely placed there to entertain ascended humans?

  13. #33
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    Default Re: How could a heaven operate?

    a place for the unknown God?
    Err no according to the unbiased Pausanias they did have a couple alters/shrines to unknown heroes and unknown gods - but not in the singular only the plural. That they were open and willing to talk to Paul is quite cool better than Christians manged when they on top of the wheel oft times.
    IN PATROCINIVM SVB Dromikaites

    'One day when I fly with my hands - up down the sky, like a bird'

    But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place; some swearing, some crying for surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left.

    Hyperides of Athens: We know, replied he, that Antipater is good, but we (the Demos of Athens) have no need of a master at present, even a good one.

  14. #34
    conon394's Avatar hoi polloi
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    Default Re: How could a heaven operate?

    Quote Originally Posted by basics View Post
    Conon394,

    Didn't Paul notice that the Greeks had among their gods a place for the unknown God? Didn't he preach to them Who that God was and were not some of them to become believers? People have always known there is a God, their problem has been their interpretation of Whom He was and is. It all kicked off with the deification of Nimrod or Ninus followed by all them imagined by man to be gods. Paul writes that inside each person is the knowledge of God placed there by God so that no man can find an excuse for not seeing it.
    Dates my friend too bad Hyperides was some 4 centuries dead when Paul showed up. The nominal god of the NT was inefficient and left a otherwise moral man no choice to believe as he was raised.

    It all kicked off with the deification of Nimrod or Ninus followed by all them imagined by man to be gods
    Well than maybe Jesus should have entered stage right a bit sooner.
    IN PATROCINIVM SVB Dromikaites

    'One day when I fly with my hands - up down the sky, like a bird'

    But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place; some swearing, some crying for surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left.

    Hyperides of Athens: We know, replied he, that Antipater is good, but we (the Demos of Athens) have no need of a master at present, even a good one.

  15. #35
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    Default Re: How could a heaven operate?

    Quote Originally Posted by conon394 View Post
    Dates my friend too bad Hyperides was some 4 centuries dead when Paul showed up. The nominal god of the NT was inefficient and left a otherwise moral man no choice to believe as he was raised.

    Well than maybe Jesus should have entered stage right a bit sooner.
    conon394,

    Yes that might be true but what also is true that the Gospel of the " seed " Jesus Christ derived from the fall of man many centuries before him and that Gospel became in twisted version all the other religions that sprung up thereafter. That's what Paul opened up for these Greeks and some, not all, but some wanted to hear more about this God of Paul's.

  16. #36
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    Default Re: How could a heaven operate?

    before him and that Gospel became in twisted version all the other religions that sprung up thereafter.
    Well realistically it is the OT that is likely a twisted version of Sumerian religions since thay got their first with the writing and the priests. Although the People who drew the Chauvet Cave painting some 20-30000 years ago seem like thay some form of religion and its pretty clear its no derivation of the OT.
    Last edited by conon394; June 28, 2020 at 04:03 PM.
    IN PATROCINIVM SVB Dromikaites

    'One day when I fly with my hands - up down the sky, like a bird'

    But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place; some swearing, some crying for surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left.

    Hyperides of Athens: We know, replied he, that Antipater is good, but we (the Demos of Athens) have no need of a master at present, even a good one.

  17. #37
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    Default Re: How could a heaven operate?

    I'd love to hear a logical explanation for why Moses has the exact same "origin" story as Sargon of Akkad ?

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  18. #38
    conon394's Avatar hoi polloi
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    Default Re: How could a heaven operate?

    Well first you ignore all geological, and archeological evidence. Than you can get to your young earth creationism. Than you assert your holy scripture is obviously correct - well because nobody else had miraculous events and they must be telling falsehoods. Than you come up with some genealogy that has people break away who otherwise known the asserted right answer (of course self contained in your book). Than you bend over backward to sift through the sands to try and make connections to show other beliefs are clearly yours through a glass twisted. Rinse and repeat, or just set and forget because most of your believers will not do their own homework or care to believe the results if they did
    Last edited by conon394; June 29, 2020 at 01:40 PM.
    IN PATROCINIVM SVB Dromikaites

    'One day when I fly with my hands - up down the sky, like a bird'

    But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place; some swearing, some crying for surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left.

    Hyperides of Athens: We know, replied he, that Antipater is good, but we (the Demos of Athens) have no need of a master at present, even a good one.

  19. #39
    Akar's Avatar I am not a clever man
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    Default Re: How could a heaven operate?

    But where could someone learn these secrets ?

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  20. #40
    basics's Avatar Vicarius Provinciae
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    Default Re: How could a heaven operate?

    Quote Originally Posted by conon394 View Post
    Well realistically it is the OT that is likely a twisted version of Sumerian religions since thay got their first with the writing and the priests. Although the People who drew the Chauvet Cave painting some 20-30000 years ago seem like thay some form of religion and its pretty clear its no derivation of the OT.
    conon394,

    It is written that in the period between the fall of man and the flood God saw nothing but violence yet in that time men began to call on the name of God but which god, and so He decided to wipe them out and start all over again. Therefore it is not impossible for recollections of them to have survived the flood although they didn't. The OT is an account of God's people and not these others and when one looks at Israel today one has to see the power of God in their history. Nations, empires, come and go but Israel is still Israel. Why is that?

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