I stick by my "theory" I posted on your other topic about hell, Jill Life is what you make of it. Heaven can be right here in your life, while you're alive..and the same can be said about hell. Refer back to muggaz comments. Here is what you make of it.

OOooooo I wanna play I wanna play....

Consider this.....We were created for eternity. Our bodies original design was eternal...immortal. Many liberal scholars have criticize the Creator for placing the tree of life in the Garden in the first place. You must understand....the intention was the following:

1.) God desired that we trust His knowledge...which far exceeds that of man. The tree was there to gift man with Knowledge. God planned to endow us with knowledge at HIS discretion. The sin was disobedience. God commanded the first couple to NOT eat of the tree because He was going to grant it to them because of their obedience. Because they chose to take it.....they were disobedient and had to face the consequences. Instead of being in God's presence for all time, man chose to steal from God. They allowed their banner to be disobedience.

2.) Because of this, man is on a quest to re-attain paradise. The bible is the true story of how God interacts with man and ultimately saves him through a dramatic and personal act of becoming man Himself in the form of Jesus. How wonderful to have the King of Heaven exercise the ulitmate rescue mission! God has promised us that through the blood of His Son, we are promised the retention of Heaven.

3.) The Word of God itself says of Heaven: I Cor. 2:9--"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." The descriptions quoted above of Pearly gates and Hollywoods meager attempts are merely man trying to describe what he cannot.

4.) Lucifer is a name that is translated from texts as early as Isaiah in which Satan is called the "Lightbearer" who fell.

5.) I submit to you that if God is a fairy tale and we just live and die....then why is there SO MUCH attention given to such a small, tiny country like the "Chosen" Israel?


There are descriptions of Heaven in Revelation and Isaiah---
Isa.6
[1] In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
[2] Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.
[3] And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.
[4] And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.
[5] Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.

and in
Revelation 4

Want more????

Sherye, I just have to say, asking why eternity would be different than life on Earth struck me strange. I guess I am hoping death will bring a different level of conciousness. Nothing would then be the same in eternity. That is the only assumption that makes sense to me because trying to equate eternity with anything I already know just doesn't add up to possible.

Jeremy, there you go picking on me again. I said this:
"rather than the beautiful, seductive angel of light he is." Lucifer has the root word in latin for light in it. (Spanish, Light = Luz, plural, Luces.) It's not a made up word. It's a name. Hebrew names always described qualities of God and sometimes of the individual person. That's why God sometimes told people what they would name their child in certain verses. Names are very important. He is a beautiful angel of light. Not a pitchforked cartoon. But you got what I was saying.

"Man created religion so as he would not be terrified that he did not understand something," Wow this is a premise so many of you are running with and I don't understand how you got this. Did you get your idea God is made up all by yourself? What about your beliefs? Did no other person influence you whatsoever in this?

Mark Twain -- Samuel Clemmens, actually -- was brilliant. I know you may not realize it, but he was quite the philosopher. (Read his autobiography.) He stated in one book his opinion regarding this very premise using two characters. It runs like this:

No one has ever had an original idea in their lives; not a completely original idea. You run off of only what others have told you. You'd never get to calculous without having been told about algebra. You'd never get to blog without being told about the internet. You'd never write a poem without something else giving you an idea. You may only rearrange thoughts in new ways. All thoughts we have are the fruit of other thoughts remixed or empirical evidence, right? Can you name one idea you've had in the last year that wasn't inspired by something else or remixed from other ideas you were taught?

So where did the idea of God come from?

We had to be taught the idea. Who then will teach us. He can't be an original thought. There's no way. Yet he's been around since civilazations were exceedingly primitive in thought. Before power, motivations, and purposes were even examined. He's been there. Who taught us?

He did.

En passe, I could not resist interloping to contribute to this discussion. A few red herrings never hurt anyone, eh? Most everyone assumes the Bible teaches that the soul inherently possesses immortality, as Plato taught, and as many of the Church fathers supposed. The Biblical authors are not as clear in this regard. In 1 Tim. 6:16, Paul tells his eponymous recipient that "[Christ] only hath immortality," and to the Romans says that "the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ," (v. 6:23). Jesus himself seems to indicate the body and soul of an infidel shall be 'destroyed in hell," (Matt. 10:28.)

If anyone can make a Biblical case for an instrinsically indestructible, eternal soul, please do.

En passe, I could not resist interloping to contribute to this discussion. A few red herrings never hurt anyone, eh? Most everyone assumes the Bible teaches that the soul inherently possesses immortality, as Plato taught, and as many of the Church fathers supposed. The Biblical authors are not as clear in this regard. In 1 Tim. 6:16, Paul tells his eponymous recipient that "[Christ] only hath immortality," and to the Romans says that "the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ," (v. 6:23). Jesus himself seems to indicate the body and soul of an infidel shall be 'destroyed in hell," (Matt. 10:28.)

If anyone can make a Biblical case for an instrinsically indestructible, eternal soul, please do.

I think that Heaven is the day-to-day living in the realistic now with no illusions and an awareness of the universe around you and your place in it. Hell is separation from the truth and reality and the way things really are. People in hell can, and indeed do, look at people in Heaven daily. Remember Jesus saying "The kingdom is with in you"? There are plenty of people in prison or confined to wheelchairs that are quite happy while there are very healthy & wealthy folks who are not.

Heaven and hell are both the same thing, separated in the mind only by awareness of reality. In hell, awareness is only of things, which are slippery and deceptive -- even trees and rocks. In heaven, awareness is of the nature of mind and the ephemeral quality of things -- like a magician's trick. Going from hell to heaven entails the willingness and capability to look reality directly in the face. Stop, turn around, and cast your gaze sithin yourself toward the deepest seat of your own consciousness. Let go of expectations and hopes, good and evil, right and wrong, this and that, being and not-being. Then, heaven is realized in all its beauty.

D.

Right on! That's what I was trying to say.

Let's see....

Heaven would be like the ninth inning of a close baseball game.

Hell would be like visiting the immigration office or the DMV.

I do know that Warrant tells us that "Heaven isn't too far away."

For some reason, this picture didn't come out right on my last post:

D. Where do you get this stuff?

Mr. Mephisto... I'm working on a complete answer. Thanks for your insightful challenge! Wunderbar!

Meph my man... got ya a first round here.

1 Tim 6:16 also says that "whom [Christ] no man has seen or can see," so a literal
approach is apparently out of the question.

1 Corinthians 15:54,55, 57 says, when we die and decompose, "this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, Where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? ... But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

Also, Mr. Meph, if the soul is not immortal, how did Elijah (who was translated) and Moses appear with Jesus at the Transfiguration on the mountain? This verse also proves we recognize each other by our souls... they didn't have a photo of Moses to pull out of their wallets you know. And the psalms speak of our deep calling out to His deep. That's a soul.

Finally, we're made in His image. He's a trinity and we are too. Father (Soul) Son (Flesh) and Holy Spirit (Spirit).

and as for Hell... Jesus said the rich man would look up and see Lazarus in Abraham's arms in heaven and beg for Lazarus to touch his finger to one drop of water to cool his tounge. Sounds like he didn't just vaporize when he hit hell... But he had a front row view for heaven's happiness and rewards. Sounds like hell to me.

Jill,
I don't mean that heaven and hell are the same as earth, but that just as there are both on earth, there would be both in eternity. If you've never read it, read C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce. You will find his view of eternity refreshingly different. It also isn't very religious even though it is Christian. Another thing you shouldn't miss is the book on tape version of the Screwtape Letters. It is delightful.

The Christianity that most of us know is either stodgy or superficial. C.S. Lewis gave a picture of Christianity that was neither.