Retired Boards (Archived)
Eternity
Posted by: jayceeii
« on: December 03, 2019, 11:05:37 AM »Eternity in heaven, scary thought!You are pushing ideas of eternity into practical zones, which is far, far beyond the mental abilities of most Christians, who really do rest content to think of playing harps and floating on clouds, or “being with Jesus” like a tick on a dog’s neck. It is because the Christians are not asking questions about Heaven, like you ask, that the answers were never required to sustain their darksome church. Yet one has come supplying many of the answers, which is Emanuel Swedenborg, boldly proclaiming he’d brought the Second Coming, though I’d say only the outline, which was the reason that he annoyed Blake.
Thinking about eternity after death can be very scary indeed, while we all want to live in peace and joy forever after we die; the very unimaginable idea of everlasting eternity is daunting to our mortal understanding. How would we occupy ourselves, for eternity, would one not become mind-blowingly board with our heavily friends in a place of never ending, eternal happiness and peace, without any challenges after billions of years would become unpleasant like eating barrels of ice-cream.
Try to think the moment you die, you must go to a very new and strange place full of strangers no matter how pleasant they are. If God is going to wipe away every tear and supply all our needs, what then is left for us to do, in this heavenly realm of everlasting ecstatic bliss?
Eternity is a very long time. In fact, if you were to measure eternity it would take you forever to complete your measurement. In fact, you would not be able to finish the measurement at all, because eternity has no ending.
In fact, eternity does not have a beginning either.
Although of course, as we think we have explained so far, it would not actually take an eternity, it would just feel that way. For eternity is an incomprehensibly long time. It boggles the mind how one could even start to explain to someone how utterly and totally mind numbingly long eternity it simply goes on forever and ever, without ever ending.
Lets try and comprehend very much smaller unit which is the unimaginable huge single googol year,
One ‘googol’ year, is how much? Lets take a number say 150,000,000,000 or in words a hundred and fifty billion years, compress or squeeze billion, billion , billion , billion , billion , billion , billion , billion, billion , billion , billion, billion, billion more years into all that time into the thickness of a single dollar note times one billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion times over, and one-googol years would give you a pile of money that reaches one hundred quadrillion, quadrillion, quadrillion, quadrillion, light years high. It would not even fit into a universe a billion, billion, billion, and times larger than our own immense universe.
How small fleeting and insignificant we are we are?
One googol year, that’s truly staggering, totally beyond anything, a human can comprehend. Nevertheless, it infinitely small when compared to eternity. Take this example of eternity, if a small bird were to sharpen its beak on the peak of mount Everest, once every zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion,, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion ,zillion, google years, When the mountain is completely worn down, the first moment of eternity would not yet have occurred.
It might be great to share eternal life with our new neighbours in heaven, but after a hundred years they would begin to bore/irk us a lot. After a thousand years become unbearable, after a million, heaven would become an everlasting hell (Maybe correct me if I got it wrong)
First off I’d say it looks as if you have not found your dynamite girl, which is to say the girl who makes every day fresh and increasingly exciting. Second I’d say you have not found good and venerable friends, whose profound intelligence leads to an infinity of good conversations. Third I’d say you haven’t found yet what is worth talking about. These days I am often in boredom, but it is because no one around me rises to logic or virtue. I also have not found competent friends, trolling around for decades seeking them.
If you tire of eating ice cream then I pity you. In fact the pastimes of the wise are infinitely more varied than the pastimes of the foolish, and opposition is a negative or sick condition, something to alarm us rather than providing thrills. None are rising into such zones yet on this planet, but the root of it has been presented in some of the angelic musicals, such as “Brigadoon” (1954). Such musicals are like an entrance exam for the wise, since if your heart thrills to them it means you have a life above violence and an ecstatic heart. These films are not entirely pure, but can be a bridge to a far richer place.
If you say you seek the challenges God supplies in eternity then I doubt your word, for I see many huge challenges completely unfaced. God’s type of work requires an ability to extend oneself above the senses, and is therefore only properly the work of angels, not of humans. If speaking to me from the human realm, you are not prepared to think about what lies before you in eternity. As Jesus said a man must be born anew to enter the Kingdom, and He did NOT mean the “born again” experiences that apes appear to have.
I can add further that God’s peace requires power. It is an active peace, whereas the human race seeks passivity, their idea of peace something like cows endlessly grazing. The goal of religion has been bliss, but bliss is not the goal. Instead it is power, and experiences of bliss require a sacrifice of this power, therefore among the wise such experiences are kept to a minimum. Straining for some meaning from the maddeningly vague Sermon on the Mount, perhaps this is what Jesus meant by the “poor in spirit.”
The wise feel themselves to be poor and humble, but this is a basic requirement for a good friend. In them ecstatic bliss typically comes dropwise, though occasionally in a torrent. The question is how much they can do from these drops, for it should be possible to build a new society where love replaces money and crime is not only unknown but forgotten. I watched “Godspell” (1973) again the other day, and they sang about this. “We can build a beautiful city, yes we can.” Yet so far none are arising to the challenge.
Posted by: Walter
« on: July 17, 2018, 01:13:27 PM »How about this: At some point in Heaven, you "die", but after that you are born, and everything in your life happens literally in the exact same way.
It would be an eternal cycle. The snake that bites its own tail. The beggining and the end are one and the same.
But even if it was like that, you could ask the question of "how many times has this happened then?" And the answer would have to be a real, finite number, so maybe it is not like thay.
It would be an eternal cycle. The snake that bites its own tail. The beggining and the end are one and the same.
But even if it was like that, you could ask the question of "how many times has this happened then?" And the answer would have to be a real, finite number, so maybe it is not like thay.
Posted by: jmscwss
« on: April 25, 2017, 03:15:46 PM »I think this is a reasonable intuition given our present set of experiences, however I’m happy to say I think you will probably be wrong. Your error is to focus on “our new neighbors” in heaven, rather than God. While they will be a big part of our perpetual rejoicing, they are not the central element: God is. God is the maximally great, the infinitely discoverable. You will never grow tired of searching Him out. Every time you discover and enjoy some new nugget of revelation into God’s awesome nature, you will have the pleasure of sharing your discovery with your new neighbors. Sharing your joy with others is the heart of worship. When our new neighbors share with us what they have found, we will rejoice with them. In this instance, they have been the mechanism whereby God has revealed Himself to us. Getting to know each other, we learn to see God better. The more we get to know God, the better we love one another. What I am describing is a truly perpetual system, which leads to ever increasing joy that approaches infinity.
Posted by: Bjorn Aagen
« on: April 13, 2017, 08:33:52 AM »"Time seems to go so quickly when you are enjoying yourself" or "I wish I had all the time in the world" we often say.
There is plenty of time in the after life which is not so scary when with God experiencing pure joy shared with those you love including those that were missed who may have passed on before you.
There is plenty of time in the after life which is not so scary when with God experiencing pure joy shared with those you love including those that were missed who may have passed on before you.
Posted by: Thebluewizard
« on: April 12, 2017, 03:19:58 PM »Great question! I always just assumed it would be interesting getting to know an infinite God. You got me think what makes us bored with things.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/open-gently/201212/why-people-get-bored
Seems some of it might be biological and that may not be an issue in eternity.
If there is to be a new heaven and a new earth and we are to rule with Him {2 Timothy 2:12}. It seems to me there will be plenty to keep us occupied. Hope that helps.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/open-gently/201212/why-people-get-bored
Seems some of it might be biological and that may not be an issue in eternity.
If there is to be a new heaven and a new earth and we are to rule with Him {2 Timothy 2:12}. It seems to me there will be plenty to keep us occupied. Hope that helps.
Posted by: Gill
« on: August 16, 2014, 04:18:15 PM »Maybe you will be reincarnated and forget.
Posted by: Alan McDougall
« on: July 01, 2014, 08:41:39 AM »Eternity in heaven, scary thought!
Thinking about eternity after death can be very scary indeed, while we all want to live in peace and joy forever after we die; the very unimaginable idea of everlasting eternity is daunting to our mortal understanding. How would we occupy ourselves, for eternity, would one not become mind-blowingly board with our heavily friends in a place of never ending, eternal happiness and peace, without any challenges after billions of years would become unpleasant like eating barrels of ice-cream.
Try to think the moment you die, you must go to a very new and strange place full of strangers no matter how pleasant they are. If God is going to wipe away every tear and supply all our needs, what then is left for us to do, in this heavenly realm of everlasting ecstatic bliss?
Eternity is a very long time. In fact, if you were to measure eternity it would take you forever to complete your measurement. In fact, you would not be able to finish the measurement at all, because eternity has no ending.
In fact, eternity does not have a beginning either.
Although of course, as we think we have explained so far, it would not actually take an eternity, it would just feel that way. For eternity is an incomprehensibly long time. It boggles the mind how one could even start to explain to someone how utterly and totally mind numbingly long eternity it simply goes on forever and ever, without ever ending.
Lets try and comprehend very much smaller unit which is the unimaginable huge single googol year,
One ‘googol’ year, is how much? Lets take a number say 150,000,000,000 or in words a hundred and fifty billion years, compress or squeeze billion, billion , billion , billion , billion , billion , billion , billion, billion , billion , billion, billion, billion more years into all that time into the thickness of a single dollar note times one billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion times over, and one-googol years would give you a pile of money that reaches one hundred quadrillion, quadrillion, quadrillion, quadrillion, light years high. It would not even fit into a universe a billion, billion, billion, and times larger than our own immense universe.
How small fleeting and insignificant we are we are?
One googol year, that’s truly staggering, totally beyond anything, a human can comprehend. Nevertheless, it infinitely small when compared to eternity. Take this example of eternity, if a small bird were to sharpen its beak on the peak of mount Everest, once every zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion,, zillion, zillion, zillion, zillion ,zillion, google years, When the mountain is completely worn down, the first moment of eternity would not yet have occurred.
It might be great to share eternal life with our new neighbours in heaven, but after a hundred years they would begin to bore/irk us a lot. After a thousand years become unbearable, after a million, heaven would become an everlasting hell (Maybe correct me if I got it wrong)
Regards
Alan McDougall