Fear of going to Heaven?

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According to the New Testament, heaven is a place where there is no day and no night.

Also, according to the New Testament - what Jesus Christ said, married persons abandon their wives and opt for a different type of living in heaven.

Abandoning a wife one loves seems to many to be an unloving approach to eternity.

Also, heaven appears to be a walled city with twelve gates and some persons just prefer the wilderness/open spaces/groves of Redwood trees vs having to show id's to get past angel guard checkpoints.

Can a person have a valid fear of going to heaven?

The whole point of Heaven is being able to be with God and be abolished of sins I thought. Apparently those two things equal paradise. I would say no.

(reworded, moved)

Last edited by pgd on 14 Sep 2010, 12:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You didn't have to move it to reword it. The edit button exists for a reason.

Frankly, I'm surprised the mods haven't banned you for constantly spamming up the forum with identical topics.

I am reminded of a quote from Bart Simpson's Guide to Life
"Wouldn't eternal bliss get boring after awhile?"

heaven is not what it is commonly made out to be.

The thing that disturbs me most about the traditional view of heaven is what one clergyman called the 'abominable fancy' - the idea that part of the reward of the blessed (their entertainment, if you will) was being able to look down at hell and see the damned writhing and burning. This view was espoused by such distinguished early Church writers as Augustine and Tertullian, and has been frequently referred to in Christian writings ever since. The usual modern apologetic is to say that God will make it so the blessed will simply 'forget' or 'have no awareness' of their loved ones who may be suffering in hell. I'm not sure which view is less appealing.

I don't buy into that. Hell represents separation from God and the pain that comes with it. For example, hell is alternately described as a place of total darkness and where the flame never dies. Well, hell can't be darkness AND physical flame. I also think hell as a place exists as a way to give mercy also to the unrepentant. How could it be merciful for the "blessed" to be able to look down and make fun of or pity those in hell? Now, yes, the Bible has the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. But parables are stories used to make a point or teach a lesson. They are true in the respect that they teach truth, but they can't be taken literally in the strictest sense. They are to be taken literally in the sense that they are literally parables. So I don't think one can take this to mean that people in heaven use the condemned as "entertainment."

The point of earthly living is to focus on God and submit in total obedience to Him. Paul described marriage as one of many distractions and advocated lifelong celibacy with the understanding that if one simply does not have the strength to live such a life, marriage IS a desirable condition. Well--good for Paul, but not good for me!! ! I enjoy sex too much. The idea of married couples in the afterlife usually comes from a conversation Jesus had with some of the religious leaders of His day. Jesus said in the resurrection "there will be no marriage or giving away in marriage... They will be like the angels in heaven." Because our #1 priority in life is to focus on God, NOT our earthly mates, all temporal matters and concerns will cease to exist in the afterlife. It may make us sad that certain loved ones aren't "in," and I do think we will remember earthly life to a degree. But since eternal companionship and communion with God is our chiefest concern, earthly life will seem more like a bad dream that gradually fades away when we wake up.

My wife and I are both believers, so we can look forward to being together in eternity. But because we are just as much or even more friends than we are lovers, and because we seek God in each day, whatever God has in store for us beyond physical death will be just fine for us!

whatever type of heaven that would contain mean people looking down on the writhing hell with pleasure, i'd rather avoid.

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Last edited by Mike1 on 23 Sep 2010, 6:59 pm, edited 3 times in total.

I fear that most the funniest and interesting people won't be in heaven

Heaven. That Realm of Infinite Boredom.

ruveyn

infinite boredom can be a relatively nice thing- it literally beats the hell out of sheer unmitigated terror.