On Heaven.

Ok, I've been thinking about this ever since I was a little kid. A recent poster reminding me. Does anybody know anything about what the christian heaven is protrayed to be? I mean, I thought it said somewhere in the bible...never ending worship. Seriously, a never ending church service, I'd rather be on earth! I'm sorry, but it's the truth and I can't lie to myself by saying I'd love to just stand there singing and worshiping FOR ALL ETERNITY!!!

Actually, this is a common portrayal of heaven by different pastors and teachers. In Revelation, John sees a large group of "saints" who, it says, worship God day and night (this is before the rapture). There are other references to people in heaven worshipping God for all eternity, including the elders. But there are some things you should understand.

1 - Nothing in Revelation is literal. Everything John sees in his vision is a representation of something that is supposed to occur.

2 - Worship is different than singing songs in church. Worship in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament church, was the most exciting time in a person's life. It was the time where a person can truely connect with God. Christians in today's church services sing songs out of tradition. Many churches have professional musicians, equipment, choirs, etc., but the meaning is lost. There is a difference in "praise" and "worship". You are very lucky if you attend a church where people worship God, and if you do, you wouldn't mind spending eternity doing it.

3 - Forever is not "forever"
If I told you I played computer games my entire life, would it mean that 24/7, I simply played games all the time? I wish! I could only play a game once every few years and still correctly say I've played them my entire life. People often take things in the Bible too litearly, but you have to realize that it is written in human languages. And languages have to be interpreted.

Once does not attain heaven by travelling to it. It is not a place in the physical sense. Souls are not judged after the die, and then separated into heaven or hell.

Rather, it is in the sacred process of life on this earth that one attains the characteristics of his immortality. This means simply, we become as we are while we live, not after we die.

Therefore, heaven is attained in life, not after we die. What is heaven? Heaven is the fullness of the mind, and the realization of divnity within yourself. This is why heaven remains a mystery to you: The joys of heaven are the joys of a man when his mind is compeltely cleansed of the dark matter that fills this earth, so that all his thoughts can be manifested and his mind is enshrouded in the soul-light that protects individual thought and being.

If you attain this level of perfection on the earth, then you are able to overpower the OTHER forces that play on the earth, and can join the other spirits who have ascended out of this plane. If you do not, then you are held in the lower regions, WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE, and after you die.

This is what is meant by the New Testament when it teaches you about them who overcome by the sprit, and how those who overcome are given a crown of life. The crown of life is the power of light that protects the brain and the systems of the mind/body interface. It comes from the reflection of the angels and that of the Original Creator APPEARING IN YOU. When you are perfect (And it is possible to become perfect in this life, or else you CANNOT attain paradise) this light can be trasmitted to you, and it appears in you. Conversly, there are demonic powers and humans with evil intentions on this earth who want to put THEIR garbage matter into you in the place of this light, which has the effect of sludging up your mind, and dragging you down into the awareness of the abyss.

That is the whole contest. Most young people are unaware of this process, and therefore are hit with a sneak attack by the powers of the darkness, who then fill you will all sorts of dark matter, which clogs your spiritual being and causes you to remain helpless.

The work of the enlightened spirits is to cleanse you by pushing out this gross stuff with their own light, and "bringing you up the light." It is merely just the process of healing the spirit and the mind, versus polluting it. To understand this, you must understand the kinds of subtle matter I am talking about. When you see a person shining with a white light around his head and body, some people call this an aura. This is actually a kind of spiritual material. It can be manipulated and stolen, or build up and made stronger. That is what the whole work of salvation is about. If you can build up your spiritual light great enough, it becomes a house for you individuality to live in past your death. If you do not, then what you were in life is destroyed by the process of mingling and mixture with the darkness.

Heaven is the state of joy that those who are completely enveloped in the light feel. Unless you expereince it for yourself, it cannot be transmitted to you by words. Heaven is the natural state of mankind, for it is the fullness of his potential. When this is lacking, or damaged, then the forces of demons and bad people can enter into us, and overpower our own thoughts and motivations with their own, thus causing the condition of "hell." Both of these states are found among the living, as well as the dead, but I would estimate that the extreme development of either state is only attainable after the fleshly body is cast off.

That is immortality 101.

Arkaleus

[Edited on 11-9-2004 by Arkaleus]

Heaven is another stage of life like going from first grade to second grade and so on.

Heaven will be similar to life here, there will be work, leisure and pleasure---heaven is not a place where you will sit around in eternal bliss playing the harp, unless that is the profession you have chosen.

Originally posted by sleeper
Heaven is another stage of life like going from first grade to second grade and so on.

Heaven will be similar to life here, there will be work, leisure and pleasure---heaven is not a place where you will sit around in eternal bliss playing the harp, unless that is the profession you have chosen.

I agree. Go back to Genesis. When God created Adam and Eve, it doesn't show them constantly singing songs to God, etc. God walked with Adam, and Adam and Eve had their own lives. That's how it will be in heaven. It will be like life before the fall.

Geneses is a great example---and they were basically free to do whatever they wanted---however, that apple thing is debatable.

Originally posted by sleeper
Geneses is a great example---and they were basically free to do whatever they wanted---however, that apple thing is debatable.

What do you mean debatable? Because they couldn't eat it?

The reason the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was even there was for us to know we had free will. How would we have free will, if we can't choose to disobey God? God didn't want us to do it, but we had to make that choice. Otherwise, we would just be slaves.

The story of Adam and Eve is just that a story, a parable, told to the Israelites by their leaders because they craved everything Egyptian. They had been given all the land of Canaan "the Promised Land" yet they wanted more---the luster of Egyptian gold (golden calf) and the fabulous cities, and the fertile land on the Nile----that was the apple, the forbidden fruit they partook in.

Originally posted by sleeper
The story of Adam and Eve is just that a story, a parable, told to the Israelites by their leaders because they craved everything Egyptian. They had been given all the land of Canaan "the Promised Land" yet they wanted more---the luster of Egyptian gold (golden calf) and the fabulous cities, and the fertile land on the Nile----that was the apple, the forbidden fruit they partook in.

Well, I personally believe the stories of the Old Testament have more truth than you give them credit. You don't have to believe they are true to be a Christian though. The only thing that is certain, is that the Old Testament was holy-spirit inspired. But that does not exclude them from being parables, just excludes them from being made up.

I presume that you believe God to be omnipotent, if so then everything including what I am writing and what you are writing as well as what everyone else writes is inspired in some way by God's spirit.

If God is sovereign he is the God of the righteous as well as the God of the pagan.

The pagan can not speak or write without God�s desire for him to do so.

Life itself is nothing without God---therefore, everything that happens is from God----good and evil.

Otherwise God is not sovereign.

Originally posted by sleeper
I presume that you believe God to be omnipotent, if so then everything including what I am writing and what you are writing as well as what everyone else writes is inspired in some way by God's spirit.

If God is sovereign he is the God of the righteous as well as the God of the pagan.

The pagan can not speak or write without God�s desire for him to do so.

Life itself is nothing without God---therefore, everything that happens is from God----good and evil.

Otherwise God is not sovereign.

I don't think that's what Jesus meant when He said the scriptures were Holy Spirit inspired.