Is eternity in heaven logically impossible?

Erlaksoo Astralmirk · November 11th, 2015, 2:57 pm

I have been struggling with a thought which I haven't been able to find an answer to. My thought is this: If a person is to spend a finite time on earth, let´s say 100 years, but an eternity in heaven, wouldn't it be very unlikely that this person at a certain moment would be on earth? Wouldn't it be much more likely that the person "already" was in heaven? I am not trying to rob people of their faiths, on the contrary I hope that there is an eternal life in heaven. But I wonder if the thought that I just mentioned is "proving" that such an existence is very unlikely. Obviously, it is possible that there is a god but no after-life or that the after-life is altering between being in heaven and being on earth.

I guess that if life would simply end with death and the person in the question would never be conscious again, one could argue that it also in such a situation would be unlikely that the person would be alive at any given moment. However, for the person in question it would not be strange at all to be alive, as out of all the time "available" to the person, the person would constantly be alive. The person would never find itself in the "very common" situation of being dead, as "finding" would require that the person would exist. I guess that argument is pretty much the same as the anthropic principle, which states that it is not weird that our universe is suitable for life as we could never find ourselves in a universe not suitable for life.

Is my reasoning flawed somewhere or is it virtually logically impossible that a finite life is followed by an eternity in heaven?

The Beast · Post by **The Beast** » November 21st, 2015, 6:07 pm

It is survival as oppose to dead. Stereotypes are no meant to be rigid but, they follow a process of transformation. Here (IMO) is a process of rationalizing the schema in a frame of time. A human lifetime is a miniscule flicker when it is compare to the lifetime of the Universe and the size of a human does not register much as it is compare to any celestial size aside from abstracts of a stereotype like Heaven and Eternity. The flexibility of the schema is one of frames. In the frame we have a range of values in complex relationships. If I allow a frame where in one end consciousness is a total random causality, a miracle that may be unique the same as the emergence of the Universe then, the narrative starts today. No past and no future just scenes of realizations. On the other end we are like the hairs of Eternity. The hairs of light flickering on and off or moving in and out of consciousness. The narrative is then constructed around what it is the symbolic perception and the intuition of the truth. What attaches the hair to its source is a good root in Eternity. It we unite both ends of the frame, the complex relationships may have a mental representation… a vision of what we are. The vision comes from the frame. The frame comes from the stereotype. The stereotype is the tool of survival.

Belinda · Post by **Belinda** » November 23rd, 2015, 6:47 pm

Eternity is not an alternative to life in a world where time is relative. Eternity is timeless.

What you and I understand by eternity is not eternity itself, which might be no more than a fancy trick of language, or of certain works of art.

If, on the other hand, there be eternity then it is beyond understanding.

Erlaksoo Astralmirk · November 23rd, 2015, 9:05 pm

Perhaps I should have been clearer, I know that some "definitions" of eternity is based on that eternity is "out-side" time, but the eternity that I theorise about is an infinitely long time.

The Beast · Post by **The Beast** » November 24th, 2015, 1:20 pm

The nature of time is centered in the present. Can we become worms again? So, if we call the present time A then the future is A+ ΔA and the past is A – ΔA. The question is how small is this increment and its relative measure. What is obvious is that time can only be positive as we move in a one direction vectored representation. This increment of time is within the Earth time (seconds…) events as the Earth events are in a celestial time (light years). How big is our increment? The length of a word? How is this compared to the flapping of an insect’s wing? Can I make decisions faster than these? So the smaller the object the smaller the increment of time. At the smallest known particle the A+ΔA is billions ( to say) of times contain in our own time increment. Can time move backwards? No. But, in our own Time we have the power of the observer to change reality. Did I envisioned the particle where A + ΔA = A. Then Time as we know it is contain within.. That is Eternity always in the present. That is A… or not?

Post by **LuckyR** » November 28th, 2015, 1:18 am

Unfortunately for "heaven" believers, it is at most a Bronze Age concept, and is likely a Neolithic (Stone Age) idea. It is just that writing was of such poor quality at that time that we may never know for sure. Let's just agree that it is an extremely primitive concept with absolutely no basis for belief. It would make more historical sense to suppose that what we call the sun, is really the god Helios riding his chariot across the sky, than to believe in the more primitive idea of heaven.

The Beast · Post by **The Beast** » November 28th, 2015, 10:33 am

Heaven is the place of our feelings. This which I love goes to heaven. That which I hate goes to hell. So, lovers goes to heaven and haters go to hell. (A paradox of sorts). The irrational has a place in reality the same as the rational has a place in Eternity. If we construct a frame where in one end is the rational and at the other end is the irrational then it is said that we change along the line of our doing. (It is biological in the case of hormones).The rational and the irrational are parts of the same mind construct. The unchangeable Heaven is one of perfection that can only exist in Eternity. In this case, the rational end and the irrational end unite to form a circle. The same point in the circle is both irrational and rational. We have our own particular heaven where we hold our best feelings. We try to make it bigger and better and as such… are we closer to the rational or the irrational or to both? If my reality is one point in a circle and I exist then God also exist in Heaven. BTW Helios is the man.

Fanman · Post by **Fanman** » November 28th, 2015, 11:33 am

If human-beings have an eternal spirit, as well as a (connected) physical body, then it is possible that the spirit is in heaven, whilst the physical body remains upon the Earth (heaven being of the spirit and the Earth being of the physical). Whilst we're alive, we experience a 'blend' of the two states, which enables us to interact with both the spiritual and physical aspects / elements of life. If a separation of the eternal spirit from the physical body occurs upon death, then the consciousness of the body could fully transfer to the spirit which is in heaven. Therefore heaven is experienced with full consciousness, eternally - whilst we can no longer experience the Earth, because we do not have a physical vessel with which to do so.

Post by **Sy Borg** » November 28th, 2015, 4:18 pm

I will assume that the question pertains to how the afterlife stands with today's knowledge. Today's natural was yesterday's supernatural. The only naturalistic possibility for heaven (or hell) to exist would seem to be where a dying person undergoes a near death experience (NDE) and, the closer they get to death, the longer the NDE would subjectively feel like to them.

There is a huge amount of anecdotal evidence that subjective time dilation is often experienced during the time it takes for the brain to shut down, up to a matter of minutes after the heart has stopped. So one second in "normal time" could be be any length of time subjectively to the dying person who might feel as though they are living in their "dreamtime" forever.