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How do you know you'll still be you when you get to heaven?
July 22, 2014 at 1:33 pm
Supposedly when you accept Yahweh/Allah/Jesus into your heart, he takes out all the parts he doesn't like, and the rest goes to be with him in heaven. Except that people are the sum of their parts. If you take away their life experiences, how can you say they will be themselves anymore? How is that different from having a lobotomy? You might say that it just removes the darker parts, but leaves the lighter parts, but the dark and the light are still parts of you. You just wouldn't be the same if you took out chunks of your life and thoughts and replace them with whatever another person finds more acceptable.
Over time heaven has just felt less and less appealing to me. It may not make me as miserable as immediately as being tortured in hell, but even if it is really me up there, and I'm not some automaton who can only feel what god wants me to feel, then it will wear down until I want to leave just as badly.
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RE: How do you know you'll still be you when you get to heaven?
July 22, 2014 at 1:38 pm
One of the big questions that I like to ask about heaven is: is there free will in heaven? Because one of the most common things I hear theists say is that God doesn't directly and indisputably reveal himself to every individual because he doesn't want to break their free will by forcing belief in and worship of himself upon them. However in heaven one would assume that the existence and character of God would be indisputable and directly present to everyone, so they lose the ability to disbelieve. It seems like heaven would be full of robots.
In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
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RE: How do you know you'll still be you when you get to heaven?
July 22, 2014 at 1:43 pm
I've heard that you can't have free will without sin. That's why sin exists. Except that implies there is no free will in heaven. You can't have it both ways. If free will exists in heaven, and there's no sin, then eradicating sin on earth shouldn't effect free will.
Removing "sins", i.e. the parts of you that god doesn't like, sounds a lot like reprogramming you. Heaven doesn't sound all that pleasant once you get past the mansions and streets of gold. You get everything you want. As long as it's ok with god. Which unfortunately excludes a lot of things humans like to do.
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RE: How do you know you'll still be you when you get to heaven?
July 22, 2014 at 1:44 pm
One question that I can't seem to get a straight answer from theists is are you allowed to leave heaven?
Heaven isn't heaven if you're denied the freedom and liberty to leave whenever you want. Its a glorified prison.
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RE: How do you know you'll still be you when you get to heaven?
July 22, 2014 at 1:46 pm
You're not supposed to want to leave. Plus the only place left to go is hell.
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RE: How do you know you'll still be you when you get to heaven?
July 22, 2014 at 1:50 pm
(This post was last modified: July 22, 2014 at 1:50 pm by FatAndFaithless.)
(July 22, 2014 at 1:43 pm)Chad32 Wrote: I've heard that you can't have free will without sin. That's why sin exists. Except that implies there is no free will in heaven. You can't have it both ways. If free will exists in heaven, and there's no sin, then eradicating sin on earth shouldn't effect free will.
Removing "sins", i.e. the parts of you that god doesn't like, sounds a lot like reprogramming you. Heaven doesn't sound all that pleasant once you get past the mansions and streets of gold. You get everything you want. As long as it's ok with god. Which unfortunately excludes a lot of things humans like to do.
I can't quite recall from whom I heard this idea, I think Matt Dillahunty, but I find it a great thought experiment. It goes something like:
"It could be that nobody we know goes to heaven. According to a huge portion of Christians, I (an atheist) am going to end up in Hell or be destroyed after I die. My mom, being a devout Christian, ends up in heaven. She knows that I'm being tortured forever or at least that she'll never get to see me again and that I can't enjoy the best possible existence God has to offer. Being a loving mother, she'll suffer and be hurt because she knows her son is enduring horrible agony. However, suffering is supposedly not possible in heaven, as it's supposed to be perfect. That means that wherever my mom is after she's dead, it isn't heaven since she's allowed to suffer, or if she is totally happy with the fact I'm being tortured, it's not my mom, and is instead some facsimile of her with parts of her personality removed."
In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
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RE: How do you know you'll still be you when you get to heaven?
July 22, 2014 at 1:51 pm
It's pretty obvious that the people who made this crap up and continue to believe it today are not the sharpest tools in uncle's woodshed.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
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RE: How do you know you'll still be you when you get to heaven?
July 22, 2014 at 1:57 pm
(July 22, 2014 at 1:50 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote: (July 22, 2014 at 1:43 pm)Chad32 Wrote: I've heard that you can't have free will without sin. That's why sin exists. Except that implies there is no free will in heaven. You can't have it both ways. If free will exists in heaven, and there's no sin, then eradicating sin on earth shouldn't effect free will.
Removing "sins", i.e. the parts of you that god doesn't like, sounds a lot like reprogramming you. Heaven doesn't sound all that pleasant once you get past the mansions and streets of gold. You get everything you want. As long as it's ok with god. Which unfortunately excludes a lot of things humans like to do.
I can't quite recall from whom I heard this idea, I think Matt Dillahunty, but I find it a great thought experiment. It goes something like:
"It could be that nobody we know goes to heaven. According to a huge portion of Christians, I (an atheist) am going to end up in Hell or be destroyed after I die. My mom, being a devout Christian, ends up in heaven. She knows that I'm being tortured forever or at least that she'll never get to see me again and that I can't enjoy the best possible existence God has to offer. Being a loving mother, she'll suffer and be hurt because she knows her son is enduring horrible agony. However, suffering is supposedly not possible in heaven, as it's supposed to be perfect. That means that wherever my mom is after she's dead, it isn't heaven since she's allowed to suffer, or if she is totally happy with the fact I'm being tortured, it's not my mom, and is instead some facsimile of her with parts of her personality removed."
That's a good way to put it too. I'm afraid that if I am myself in heaven, I won't enjoy it, and if I do totally enjoy it for all eternity, I'm not really me anymore.
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RE: How do you know you'll still be you when you get to heaven?
July 22, 2014 at 2:01 pm
As I see it, as an atheist I am guaranteed a place in this heaven (in the context of the scenario, obviously). Since I am to be punished for my unbelief, "God" knows exactly what that punishment would need to be. The absolute worst case option for me as an evil atheist would be to reside forever in "God's" kingdom, being made to lick holy arse - or arsey hole - and stroke deity dick for eternity.
As to whether I'll still be me doing all that: well, any version of me that would be okay with that kind of lickspittle existence, as well as being made to not care about all those (including loved ones) going to hell, wouldn't be any kind of me that I'd recognise - or want anything to do with.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
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RE: How do you know you'll still be you when you get to heaven?
July 22, 2014 at 4:18 pm
(July 22, 2014 at 1:33 pm)Chad32 Wrote: You just wouldn't be the same if you took out chunks of your life and thoughts and replace them with whatever another person finds more acceptable. Kinda like marriage? 
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