Heaven and The Problem of Evil

[MindForgedManacle]

This is actually called the Problem of Heaven.

[Neo-Scholastic]

If you are looking for extensive details about Heaven you can find them in "Heaven & Hell" by Swedenborg.

[professor]

To the OP,
I add Anna Roundtree to the youtube list,
Atheist trip to Heaven @ Beforeitsnews.com,
" Heaven is real" (film coming out) ,
"Dead to live again" by Ronald Posy (many chapters read aloud).

[RobbyPants]

This is actually called the Problem of Heaven.

Huh. I just Googled that and got all sorts of responses. I figured I wasn't really breaking any new ground, here, but that is a pretty succinct name for it.

To the OP,
I add Anna Roundtree to the youtube list,
Atheist trip to Heaven @ Beforeitsnews.com,
" Heaven is real" (film coming out) ,
"Dead to live again" by Ronald Posy (many chapters read aloud).

I don't feel like watching a bunch of YouTube videos. Do you care to elaborate your stance in this thread in your own words?

[Neo-Scholastic]

You might think that you'd feel sad thinking about loved ones that ended up in hell… there is no…suffering in heaven, and certainly, no one is hurting anyone up there.

I don’t think that is entirely true. The general state of the righteous in the afterlife would best be described of as the most bliss of which one is capable of receiving. This general state does not exclude their specific states while performing various offices, like ministering to the spirits in Hell. The idea that God Himself does not suffer seems like a later doctrine not entirely supported by Scripture. Clearly, Christ in His humanity did suffer. I cannot imagine that I would not be saddened upon finding that people about whom I care reject God’s love. Hopefully this will be tempered by the understanding that their rejection reflects what they truly want.

Free will…You can ask why God has to work under this framework and why it's necessary for us to be able to be this terrible for God's great plan, but rest assured that this is because of [reasons]. Sometimes, people speculate that this is because God needs to know that we really love him, so we have to be able to love him on our own, and that this isn't super creepy or narcissistic because of…

You were created with the potential to love and to choose the object of your love. Your ability to love is God’s gift to you. Perhaps you would rather have been made incapable of loving and/or deciding who you would love?

Also, they are being nice to each other, because if they weren't, it wouldn't be wonderful. So, are they able to sin or be mean to each other? Do they still have their free will? Yes or no?

Your thinking is fallacious. Choices are not limited to just good or evil. You can also choose between greater and lesser goods or equally good but different courses.

Yes, they still have their free will, but they never make bad decisions. What the fuck?! Why couldn't God have made us this way in the first place?

The only decision of consequence is whether you love the Lord and your neighbor OR love yourself and the world. Everything else flows from this choice. As stated earlier, the ability to love and select the object of your love is a gift. I cannot understand why anyone would complain because they aren’t zombies.
In life you choose the object of your love (God and neighbor OR self and world). Moving to a glorified state allows you to perfect your love in the afterlife. The value of earthly experience is that the consequences of your decisions are not as fixed or dramatic. You always have the option to repent and try again. In a glorified state the effect of decisions are magnified a thousand times. It’s like learning to walk before learning to run.

… to the Bible there are no people on this planet who are without sin. It's not like they are already that good or anything. There's obviously some type of transformation going on here, and YHWH is clearly holding back on Earth. So, this leads to the conclusion of unnecessary suffering.

In one sense you are correct, suffering is unnecessary. People could choose to do otherwise by loving God and their neighbor. Your mistake (and that of Faith-alone believers) is thinking that you don't need to work in partnership with the Lord to overcome. The Bible clearly says that those who overcome have their part in the Kingdom of Heaven.

… So, the idea here is that God faces some sort of limitations … and that we have to suffer here before we can enjoy heaven there.

God’s only limitation is to not force anyone to love Him against their will. Earth was created for us to enjoy life here and now. The evil hurt the righteous in this life because we have not yet been separated based on our choices because those choices have not yet been made. In the afterlife, He separates the sheep from the goats. The evil will no longer be able to hurt the righteous. God does allow this to happen so as not to interfere, but we trust in his restorative justice. He will restore the years the locusts ate and wipe the tears from every eye.

[Silver]

God’s only limitation is to not force anyone to love Him against their will.

False. Your psychopathic god states love me or burn.

[Rampant.A.I.]

If you are looking for extensive details about Heaven you can find them in "Heaven & Hell" by Swedenborg.

What makes his mythology accurate?

[Fidel_Castronaut]

If you are looking for extensive details about Heaven you can find them in "Heaven & Hell" by Swedenborg.

What makes his mythology accurate?

He believes it, so it's good enough for him.

[Silver]

In one sense you are correct, suffering is unnecessary. People could choose to do otherwise by loving God and their neighbor. Your mistake (and that of Faith-alone believers) is thinking that you don't need to work in partnership with the Lord to overcome.

False. A true beginning to the end of suffering presents itself when humanity is no longer reliant upon primitive, outdated mythologies. Of course, so long as there is always a hierarchy of power where corruption reigns down upon the lower castes of society, there will still be suffering, just less of it with religion out of the picture.

[RobbyPants]

I don’t think that is entirely true. The general state of the righteous in the afterlife would best be described of as the most bliss of which one is capable of receiving. This general state does not exclude their specific states while performing various offices, like ministering to the spirits in Hell. The idea that God Himself does not suffer seems like a later doctrine not entirely supported by Scripture. Clearly, Christ in His humanity did suffer. I cannot imagine that I would not be saddened upon finding that people about whom I care reject God’s love. Hopefully this will be tempered by the understanding that their rejection reflects what they truly want.

So, is it your stance that people can or cannot harm each other in heaven (physically or psychologically)?

You were created with the potential to love and to choose the object of your love. Your ability to love is God’s gift to you. Perhaps you would rather have been made incapable of loving and/or deciding who you would love?

Perhaps this is a false dilemma. Why do we have to be able to kill each other in order to love God? It seems like you're conflating two entirely unrelated things.

Your thinking is fallacious. Choices are not limited to just good or evil. You can also choose between greater and lesser goods or equally good but different courses.

Now, in context of my question: why don't we live in a world where those are our only choices? If you say that:

• Free will is important.
  
• Being able to choose between good and very good counts as free will
  

...then why is evil on the list of available choices?

The only decision of consequence is whether you love the Lord and your neighbor OR love yourself and the world. Everything else flows from this choice. As stated earlier, the ability to love and select the object of your love is a gift. I cannot understand why anyone would complain because they aren’t zombies.
In life you choose the object of your love (God and neighbor OR self and world). Moving to a glorified state allows you to perfect your love in the afterlife. The value of earthly experience is that the consequences of your decisions are not as fixed or dramatic. You always have the option to repent and try again. In a glorified state the effect of decisions are magnified a thousand times. It’s like learning to walk before learning to run.

If that's the case, why is "should I kill that guy?", "should I rape that guy?", and "should I steal from that guy?" on the available options to see if we love God? Hell, if God really wanted to know if we loved him, why not put himself down here and give humans the chance to kill, rape, and steal from him? Why does he have to let us be terrible to each other to see if we love him?

This seems like a really inaccurate test that's rife with collateral damage. Someone who's passing the test admirably is completely vulnerable to murder, rape, and theft.

Edit: before you say Jesus already did that, he was resurrected three days later and has been spending most of the remaining time in heaven, so I don't think this really counts.

God’s only limitation is to not force anyone to love Him against their will. Earth was created for us to enjoy life here and now. The evil hurt the righteous in this life because we have not yet been separated based on our choices because those choices have not yet been made. In the afterlife, He separates the sheep from the goats. The evil will no longer be able to hurt the righteous. God does allow this to happen so as not to interfere, but we trust in his restorative justice. He will restore the years the locusts ate and wipe the tears from every eye.

Why? This didn't address my question in the OP. You clearly believe that God can create a good realm where people are happy. Why do we have to endure here before we get there? You just said he has no limitation in that regard.