Heaven Does Not Make Sense

Heaven:

Exists.	43.6%	[ 17 ]
Doesn't exist.	56.4%	[ 22 ]
Total Votes:			[ 39 ]

[The Great Heat Miser]

Im_the_real_Crystal

In Revelations 21 you can find out all about the city, it's descending from the third heaven, but it also is the third heaven. So when it is put here on Earth all that are saved are going to live in that city. Does that help any?

Not at all. If the city is the third heaven, and the city is descending from the third heaven, then the city is descending from itself.

Which is sort of impossible.

[Syndactyly]

Why would there be a "coming"? Why would thinks "merge"? Why not just be one and whole? This all seems rather inefficient.

[Syndactyly]

How can someone be perfect in physical form, but no longer have the desires of the flesh? How can they be alive, but after they're dead? How can they be resurrected back into a physical form, completely restored, but have no physical desires? What is the point in keeping human souls separate if by the end of it all they will all be exactly the same?

[Dion Necurat]

Syndactyly

Dion Necurat

Actually, the description of Heaven is vague enough that you can come up with your own interpretation.

This is accurate, as far as I can tell. But I'm no Bible scholar.

Well, they talk mostly about "being with God" "entering paradise" etc etc.

[Dion Necurat]

Syndactyly

How can someone be perfect in physical form, but no longer have the desires of the flesh? How can they be alive, but after they're dead? How can they be resurrected back into a physical form, completely restored, but have no physical desires? What is the point in keeping human souls separate if by the end of it all they will all be exactly the same?

Ask the Egyptians.

[Celeblin Galadeneryn]

Syndactyly

Why would there be a "coming"? Why would thinks "merge"? Why not just be one and whole? This all seems rather inefficient.

Why does God have to be efficient? Lots of things he does aren't efficient to our eyes, but then again his nature is unknowable.

[Celeblin Galadeneryn]

Syndactyly

How can someone be perfect in physical form, but no longer have the desires of the flesh? How can they be alive, but after they're dead? How can they be resurrected back into a physical form, completely restored, but have no physical desires? What is the point in keeping human souls separate if by the end of it all they will all be exactly the same?

The short answer to most of this is the will of God.

Specifically for the second question, it's a matter of dying in one plane of existence and then living in another.

And restored doesn't necessarily mean their mental condition, it's a bodily restoration coupled with a release of the turmoil of the mind into a state of peace.

And the point of keeping souls separate seems to be that being ultimately subsumed to God will take different paths for different people. Some, according to the levels of Heaven interpretation, won't be as close to the substance of God of others, some will have to go through the purifications of Sheol, and some, according to Judaic interpretations, if they are completely degraded and horrible as humans will receive a limited amount of punishment before being entirely destroyed. There's apparently a point where you can be unquestionably irredeemable, but that's saved for the lowest of the low in their actions. The Christian interpretation is of course a little different than that, but one of the key things here is that you could end up going to one of the places we often translate as hell and then go to heaven.

The problem here is that while we translate Sheol as Hell a lot, due to it's general chthonic position (it's thought to be underground), it's more appropriately a dreaming like place of purification which one eventually gets to leave, and very likely the inspiration for Catholic purgatory.

[Darth Acheron]

You clearly don't understand Christianity. There is no sin in Heaven, therefore you can't sin. And you don't get 'whatever you want' it's not some genie that grants wishes. Seriously if you want to have a debate go read the Bible first..

[Captain Verd]

Man cannot know Heaven until he is there. People assume that it's going to be flowers and bunnies because that's nice, but we can't really know. There's nothing wrong with speculation, of course, but the Work of God is something man simply cannot know.

[Vixianna]

Syndactyly

How can someone be perfect in physical form, but no longer have the desires of the flesh? How can they be alive, but after they're dead? How can they be resurrected back into a physical form, completely restored, but have no physical desires? What is the point in keeping human souls separate if by the end of it all they will all be exactly the same?

Interesting questions.

1) Do you remember that Adam and Eve's original bodies did not age? They also knew no pain, and before they decided to sin, had no uncontrollable natural compulsion to. This is kinda similar to the body, the "perfect" one we will get after the rapture, tribulation, and Lucifer's defeat.
The desires of the flesh are to sin, but these desires were put there, not by God himself, but by Adam and Eve when they chose a life of sin and disobedience.

2) Your old body, the one that's a inheritance from Adam and Eve, is dead, but your spirit "lives" on after death. It is this that is given the new "perfect" body. So they are no longer dead, but made new again, which is similar to another verse which says we are made whole, new, and living through Christ.

3) You are assuming this is the same body they had before death. It isn't. It's a new one, one that is void of sinful nature, and devoid of physical needs, such as for food. Is such a thing impossible for The Almighty?

4) I'm not exactly sure what you mean here. The souls that go to heaven before those of the living that live through the tribulation, are separate from earth. But other than that those souls who followed Satan are cast into the fire lake with him at the end of days, to suffer for all eternity from pain and forever separation from God, light, his love, and all the goodness in the world.