What is your vision of what heaven would be like?

[Genesis]

When you die, what would you want heaven to be like?

As for me, I imagine my heaven to be two planets. One of these planets would be the Earth as it is now, except devoid of people and pollution, disease etc so I could visit it when I pleased. The other planet would be of my own creation. The planet would be ten times larger than the largest star in the universe and divided equally into six sections, these sections would include the following:

1. Endless highways that span 100 lanes that are perfectly flat and pothole/imperfection free with no traffic and no speed limit. It will also have countless garages attached to the highway that have every car that was ever made, including futuristic ones, that all have infinite fuel. That way I can ride and race any combination of cars I want with the residents of this planet (who I will mention later.). I could see myself racing lambourghinnis, bugattis, porches, etc all day long.

2. A ridiculous amount of airports and space ports that would hold all aircraft and spacecraft both realistic and futuristic (starship enterprise for example) that I could pilot at any time or to do battle with at any time ... dogfighting with futuristic starcraft? Hell to the yes!

3. A ridiculously huge plain that would have any and all systems that have ever been made and will be made (ps3, xbox, nintendo, etc) with every game for them that I can not only play at anytime, but actually be any given character in that game and alter it as I please.

4. This section would be reserved for magic spells, and super hero powers. I would have any and all superhero powers and magic ever created or thought of that I could try out at any time and challenge other people with those powers.

5. The transporter room. This handy room will grant me access to anything in the universe I wish to go visit in the simple blink of an eye, to see what it looks like in person. How I always dreamed about visiting space as a little boy!

6. The creation lands. Where I can have anything created come to life that either someone else has created (Xenomorphs from Aliens, Predator, etc.) or something I have. I would also have the ability of turning into any of these things and do battle as well.

And finally, the icing on the cake, the residents of all the people on my planet are all 25 to 30 year old bisexual hot as hell lingerie female super models, that would all dig me of course.

Yours?

[Astrid Whitepeak]

I don’t really have an elaborate vision of heaven, though to be fair I’m an unbeliever and the thought of non-existence / complete nothingness does not bother me. If I were to imagine heaven, I would think of it as something along the lines of more idealized Human Instrumentality Project from The End of Evangelion.

Maybe spoilers?

Essentially, all people would exist as semi-distinct, incorporeal souls / essences in an immortal state of near perfect unity with the rest of existence, but would retain self-awareness. Each individual has complete control over their own “world” and can shape it to their liking, but can move freely within the ocean of human souls such that they can find other people and join them. Consciousness is shared (unless a person chooses to isolate themselves in his or her world), so there is no war, or hatred, or deception; there is supreme compassion and empathy for everyone because they are all one-and-the-same.

One of the things I think is important to note is that my “heaven” isn’t a place of total bliss all of the time. Pain can help us, challenges can let us grow, and sometimes punishment is cathartic. Like John Milton wrote in Paradise Lost, “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..” If you’re still wrestling with your demons when you die, I see the opportunity to resolve that in this Unity, either on your own or with the collective aid of all humanity.

Anyway, so that’s my two cents.

[Mordelain]

Infinitely dreamless sleep.

[Hysteria]

Dat last point.

I reckon you return to a sort of a 'whole'. Not really a state of consciousness so much as a state of existence.

[Lye]

I would say the same as Cyd. A stream of consciousness that starts off as being your own but gradually melts into indifference. Just like dreams, you may experience long periods of your individuality, but the reality of it is in milliseconds. After that, your "endless" dreams bleed into a collective where self-identity shifts and changes. The ignorance/knowledge becomes a state of utter bliss where nothing makes sense, but to you, it is right.

And since I personally believe that this is part of a cycle, a fraction of what your dreams have become are broken off. Your already diluted individuality is fractured and relocated into the soul of another physical manifestation - human or otherwise. Thus you awaken to reality. It contradicts what you've come to know - that nonsensical bliss of the afterlife - and you have to relearn to live all over. You will never be your old self again, but something/someone new, with only small subconscious traits of the past.

Very new-timey, but also able to fit within a certain religious beliefs of "heaven" or the after-life.

[Mordelain]

I just meant infinite blackness and no senses guys, jeesh.

When you dun dead, you dead.

[Brand]

I also agree with Cyd in a way, but, sleep would get boring

That being said, I'd probably like to see it as a sort of utopian society, with that sense of unity, but it'd be split, containing people in smaller compartments.

[Lye]

I find it hard to believe that the collective souls of all that have died are stored somewhere indefinitely. We could debate the point since there is no hard proof besides limited religious text, but the logistics of so many individuals actually meeting in an afterlife is absurd. It needs to cycle out or you would be talking about a paradox. (I guess that paradox is "Rapture", "Ragnarok", "The Apocalypse", etc)

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

I just meant infinite blackness and no senses guys, jeesh.

When you dun dead, you dead.

Seconded.

[Genesis]

Unless, you get reincarnated as something other than human like a squirrel or something. Hey, if that's true, does the thing you come back as relate to how much bad Shit you did in your life? Meaning, that if you killed 99999 people, do you come back as a dung beetle vs if you were the Pope you came back as something badass?

[Lye]

I honestly do not think morality plays into it. The "soul" or life-energy is impartial. Doing evil is also a matter of perspective. Therefore, your actions while alive would not determine any favoritism in a new life. Everything that makes you alive is just dissipated, then reformed into new life. You could be a saint, but reformed as a dung beetle, dog, dolphin, a couple algae cells, and part of what's needed for another newborn child. Those that are convinced ghosts and spirits exist could be explained by lingering collection of this energy. Much like static electricity waiting in the handle of a door, or how certain compounds can be charged with energy to become magnetic (haunted).


Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.

Therefore even the people who say "when you die, that's it" are not entirely correct. In a sense, your consciousness ceases to exist as an individual, but somewhere a part of what it was is now something new one way or another. That may be why most religious texts teach respect for all things living. If you want things to continually cycle as they do, you must respect it as it is and not throw off the balance to any one extreme.

[Genesis]

That's the most awesome response ever, I liked that. I just thought of something else, and this comes from the movie Final Fantasy the spirits within. It's about when you die, your soul and everything you've learned while alive return to Gia (the Earth's heart) which in turns allows it to grow and flourish into better things on the planet. Although this sounds good in a way, it sounds like you just got your soul stolen. Speaking of which, I doubt you could sell your soul.

[Philomel]

Heaven?

Heaven to me, literally, would be a never-ending summer garden. There would be rain for the plants to grow and there would never be any weeds. Streams would run through it, there would be low rising hills with sheep and deer and so forth. Horses, etc, all your awesome wildlife. Lots of birds too especially crows, and the dawn chorus would happen every morning. And of course there would be a long table every so often, laden with tea in teapots and with saucers and proper Victorian-esque company for partaking of this beverage. :D

[Amber Eyes]

I believe in an actual heaven, where souls are sent after death. I don't believe we retain our consciousness from this life though (which goes against the grain in my church). As far as what heaven is like, I kinda like the idea of a surprise. :P Of course, it should be noted, I'm a fairly devout Messianic Jew, so my view is certainly biased.

If I had to create my perfect heaven though, all true beliefs aside. It would be filled with fields and fields of strawberries and you could eat as much as you wanted without getting a bellyache :) I'm a pretty simple person to keep happy, haha.

[Genesis]

Endless strawberries sound good to me too! Although I'm atheist, I still believe SOMETHING happens to you after death instead of becoming worm food, what would explain all the unexplainable haunting for one example, along with other stories ... All 100 million+ people that claims this happens can't be ALL lying about it.

[Lye]

The mother Gaia thing seems a little farfetched as well. Many of us learn the exact same things. Pooling that collectively would do very little. I also think there's a little more than just our little sphere involved. Though a majority of it is local, I'm almost sure a small part of the pool bleeds out while a small part is also added from elsewhere. Much like evaporation and precipitation.

There's more out there than the moving things on one space rock. That has to factor in somewhere even if it is negligible.

[Hysteria]

Eeew strawberries. Now if they were m&m and popcorn chicken plants I could be convinced.

Edit: found an image that might appeal

http://d24w6bsrhbeh9d.cloudfront.net/photo/anY0x2B_460s.jpg