Hawkings on Heaven

Stephen Hawking has said that heaven is a fairy tale, and really, who can argue with that? Heaven is completely unevidenced and not even well thought through. What is heaven like? Has anyone come up with a conception of heaven that isn't self-contradictory or at least contradictory to the ideas of the religion that spawned it?

What is Heaven?

So, what is heaven? Are there any Xians who would like to step up and lay out a definition for it that makes sense? How is eternal bliss possible? How can one be eternally blissful while others are suffering in hell? How is it possible for one to retain one's free will (which is impossible anyway if god is omni-max) and there be no evil, yet that's not possible on Earth?

The concept of heaven is simply not well thought out. The extent of the thinking has generally been on the order of simply gaining some sort of reward for currying god's favor, and as a counter point to hell. Hell, on the other hand, has been well imagined by various authors and laypeople alike, but not so with heaven. This is because no conception of heaven makes sense. Maybe some theists here can prove me wrong?

Greetings From the Afterlife

So, some of you may have noticed that I haven't blogged in a while. That's because I died. Well, that and it took a while for the paperwork to go through in my new afterlife residence in order to secure my internet connection and get me an incorporeal computer to use. But, that's all been squared away, and I'm able to post again.

So, you must want to know what the afterlife is all about, right? I was rather surprised that there was one at all. When I met people here I asked if it was heaven. They told me, "Believe what you want, we don't care." They also have very Nordic accents for the most part. Weird.

Is there a god? Actually, I think there's several, although Odin mumbles every day about how he can't believe that people think some feller named Yahweh is god instead of him. Loki finds it to be uproariously funny though and boasts about his trick every day. I think he does it just to set Odin off.

Anyway, what other questions do you have? I'll try to answer them as best I can.

Justice or Love

Many theists claim that we all deserve hell, and that it is just for god to place us there after we die. They assert that god is perfectly just and for us to go to hell shows god's justice.

Many of these Xians also assert that god is perfectly loving, that he loves us all and doesn't want us to perish in hell - that he shows his love by bestowing his grace upon us, thus saving us from what we deserve.

The problem with this, is that the theist has set up a condition where justice and grace are opposing ideas. In order for god to be perfectly just, we must all go to hell. In order for god to be perfectly loving, we must all be saved. The theist, by claiming that some go to hell and some go to heaven, has shown that god is neither perfectly just nor perfectly loving by the theist's own guidelines. When god grants grace, the person does not receive what the person deserves, hence justice is not served and god can not be perfectly just. Conversely, when god bestows grace on people to show his love, but is unwilling to do it for all, it shows that god can not be perfectly loving. Hence, the theist's argument is self-refuting.

Heaven or Free Will

Xians regularly claim that this world contains evil because we have free will. Having free will means that evil will necessarily exist. Therefore, god is not evil for allowing evil since he wishes for us to be free, autonomous agents capable of making decisions based on our free will.

Of course, the idea of free will with an omni-max deity is inherently contradictory, but let's grant that free will exists for a moment. The argument is that god can not imbue us with free will that causes us to want to do good, because that's not truly free. This is supposedly impossible. Yet, Xians claim that such a place exists - heaven. In heaven, there is no evil, and people strive to do what is good at all times, one would assume. Therefore, if it is impossible to have free will and eradicate evil, heaven must be a place where there is no free will. The Xian ideal, it seems would be to become an automaton for god - a robot, with no power to choose anything. Is this what eternal bliss is?

The Xian will no doubt object to this, saying that we must have free will in heaven, which means that it is possible for us to have free will and live in a world that is free from evil. The theist can not have it both ways. The Xian might also object and say that the people in heaven have used their free will to choose to be with god in heaven, thus free will is preserved. But, this only preserves the "choice" to go to heaven in this Earthly realm, not in heaven. Is one able to exercise one's free will in heaven and reject god? If so, and if this is "evil" then heaven is not a place free from evil and it is not eternal bliss.

Just another contradiction from the contradiction mines.

Is Life a Gift?

Some Xians contend that life is a gift. I believe that it is in the sense that life is a wonderful thing to have, but unfortunately for them, calling this life a gift is completely at odds with their beliefs.

According to Xianity, once we die we are headed for one of two locations, heaven or hell. (Note, Catholics also pontificate on purgatory, but that eventually leads to heaven, so for the sake of this argument, we can safely ignore purgatory.) So, let's examine the options.

Option 1: Person is headed for hell.

If a person is headed for hell, one might be tempted to think this life is a gift, but what kind of gift ends in eternal torment? The finite amount of time one has on this planet with its ups and downs is nothing compared to the permanent agony and torture that one would endure in endless amounts for eternity in hell. Even if one had the life of Riley in this life, and was always happy, this would quickly be overcome with the torture endured in hell. It would be far better for one to never have been born than to endure infinite torment.

Option 2: Person is headed for heaven.

If a person is headed for heaven, this life could not be considered a gift, as it is just a lowly way-station on the road to eternal bliss. Heaven is described as a place that is so great, that it far surpasses any happiness that is possible on this world. If one were bound for heaven, then one would be stupid not to want to get there as quickly as possible to start experiencing true happiness. Even living the life of Riley would not compare. This life is only keeping you from true happiness and is therefore not a gift.

As an atheist, I am free from these delusions of the afterlife and can truly enjoy life. But, a Xian that holds to a logically coherent view of the world must necessarily detest this life as it keeps that person from enjoying their true reward, while also noting that those poor schmucks bound for hell would be better off not being born.

Heaven Is?

One response to the problem of evil argument is to blame all of life's ills on free will. This is an especially bad answer for many reasons, like why god would give us free will if it would cause so much suffering, the fact that it hasn't anything to do with natural evil, and how this doesn't get god off the hook in any case, among some of the failings of the argument. What I want to focus on today, though, is heaven. What does this argument mean for the concept of heaven?

Well, if the Earth is a place full of evil because of free will, and heaven is devoid of evil, what does that tell you about the presence of free will in heaven? It seems that heaven would be a place where we are all automatons according to the free will argument. Is this what we should strive to be? Is this the end-all be-all of our existence, to wind up as unthinking robots? Is this really how you would want to spend eternity?

Jesus

For the purposes of this post, I'm going to assume that Jesus said the things attributed to him in the Bible, because I want to look at the message that the Bible gives us. Is it a good message or a bad one? Let's find out, shall we?

First, there are some good things in there. The golden rule is one (although it didn't originate with Jesus, still he gets points for saying it), don't brag, don't judge, love your neighbor, love your enemies, turn the other cheek, don't be a hypocrite. Jesus, of course, falls well short of many of these things and is rather hypocritical, and there's serious scholarship about some of these, like the idea of one's neighbors being fellow Jews and no one else. Regardless, let's just move forward.

Jesus also said some bad things, like the bits about how one should hate one's family, how he didn't come to bring peace but to bring a sword, his acceptance of the Noachian flood, etc. One would think that an all-loving, omni-benevolent god would only bring good words and not evil ones, which makes for a real problem for Xians. Also, the good should be considered with the bad. All too often Xians make the mistake of focusing solely on the good and disregarding the bad, but one needs to acknowledge both. This isn't the focus of this post, however.

The real focus is on a big problem I have with the teachings of Jesus in the Bible. Jesus sets up a system of absolutes. One is either good or bad, with nothing in between. Then, he sets up impossible standards. For instance, in the sermon on the mount, Jesus says that one should not be angry with others (without cause I believe). But, he takes it to extremes when he equates being angry with others to be tantamount to murder. This has gone too far as is all too often the case with theistic belief. Anger is a natural and normal human expression. We should strive to not be angry without cause, but it is going to happen from time to time. What we should focus on is finding positive outlets for that anger. Yet, according to Jesus, we are all guilty of murder. We are all guilty of sin and worthy of punishment. And, as if that weren't enough, Jesus is not content to allow us to simply die, but we must be punished. So, he preaches that we are all guilty and are all deserving of eternal torment in hell. This pernicious teaching is simply vile and anti-human.

Pascal's Wager

How many of you Xians think that Pascal's Wager is a good argument? For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, the short version of the argument goes like this:

If you believe in god and you are wrong, well no harm no foul. If you are right, you get to go to heaven. If you disbelieve in god and are right, no harm no foul. But, if you disbelieve and you are wrong, then you go to hell. Disbelief at best leads to nothing and at worst leads to eternal torture, while belief at worst leads to nothing but has heaven as a reward for being right.

I've had lots of Xians try to use this argument as if it's a good one. Unfortunately for them, it's not a good argument at all. Let's forget about the perversity of a supposedly omni-benevolent, all-loving god that will throw us into hell for simply disbelieving. This argument presupposes that god wants us to believe regardless of everything else. The argument hinges on god holding our belief as a higher virtue than anything else, but no one can know that. It may be that god would rather us be true to ourselves than try to profess belief in something that can't be shown. The argument also presupposes that we can simply choose to believe. Really, it sets up a system where we should believe, just in case. But, this is not true belief, and it's hard to believe that an omni-max god won't see through the ruse.

There are, of course, other problems as well. This argument presupposes the Xian god, but there are other gods out there that will throw you into hell for your disbelief. Take Allah for example. If you disbelieve in Allah, you are bound for hell. So, any Xians that think this is a good argument should also believe in Allah in order to increase their chances.

Was God asleep at the wheel?

If Jehovah himself cannot muster enough foresight to prevent corruption from entering his perfect kingdom (it's happened before you know), how can Christians know for sure that Jesus will not allow evil to enter and corrupt Heaven: an obvious problem. If he's so omnipotent why hasn't he kickethed Satan's red ass?

Heaven?

There is something inescapably immature about the philosophical belief that when we die we are sent to a magical paradise where all our dreams come true. Or maybe that's just me. It is consoling when Fido's being scraped of the windscreen. The idea has been effective in keeping the poor in their place throughout history: it doesn't matter if you spend all your life in appalling conditions making money for someone else if your duration is only a fraction of an eternity in Eden.

What confuses me is the lifestyle of people who really do have faith. Surely anyone who is certain they will be rewarded so richly will not take any chances. 50% of America's population should be crowding round the poor in Africa and Asia. And why does death grieve people who 'know' their loved ones will be with them again in somewhere other than a comparative shithole?

Maybe that's just my depressive cynicism. But what's for certain is that until people realise that this is probably 'it' then we will continue destroying our planet.

Questionable Parables

David and Goliath: At first glance this seems to be a heartwarming story where the underdog wins; however, the defeat of a larger enemy through superior weapons technology isn't always praiseworthy - look at Hiroshima. Maybe that was a bad example. If I suckerpunched a boxer would that make me pure of heart?

The Prodigal Son: Why work hard? The son who was loyal to his father was stepped upon whereas the son who stole money and acted morally was treated like a saint. Jesus told us that anything goes as long as there is an apology afterwards. The Lost Sheep: "I tell you that even so there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance". So why are Christians so uptight about sinning?

Ten virgins: If anyone understands this give me a note.