Does heaven exist?

(continued)What if "your dreams coming true" involves helping others out of their suffering, sorrow, and grief? You're kinda screwed once you get to heaven, because if no sadness exists up there, then all you're able to do is sit on your ass and be pissed about not being able to help others for the rest of eternity. Clearly, you would be forbidden from interfering with the affairs of man due to all that "free will" nonsense, and even worse: everyone up in heaven would be happy-go-lucky 24/7/365/infinity. In a way, your inability to do what you like to do the most-- help people-- could torment you so badly that heaven essentially becomes hell for all of eternity.

Of course people don't think of heaven this way. Most people think of it in a selfish, bullshit, hedonistic way and associate short-sighted, materialistic traits with heaven. You'll hear things like "streets paved with gold" and "sandy beaches," but nobody ever questions why, if things are so perfect up in heaven, that those selfish pricks would stare down on starving children and poverty-stricken individuals and do nothing. You kind of have to wonder how anyone "pure of heart" and all would ever do something so sinister and dark.

So yes, I suppose heaven exists for people who are dicks and don't give a flying fuck about anyone else, because that's the only possible way it could exist without contradiction. On the other hand, if heaven really is all that it's painted out to be, then it seems that for the people who actually deserve to be there, it'd actually be more hellish than heavenly. After all, the people who truly care about others and truly wish to solve many of the world's problems would find the idea of self-endulgement in the face of others' suffering quite revolting.


Another thing to think about: how much fun can you have before it starts to get boring? Humans, of all creatures, get bored relatively easily. Over the course of a few thousand years, it would make sense that eternity would get pretty dull, pretty quick. Sure, there's always an influx of new people, but let's face it, you can only sit on "sandy beaches" and walk down "streets paved with gold" only so long before they become commonplace. If the lives of men have shown us anything, it's that nobody stays happy for any extended period of time. Whether it be in marriage, bachelorhood, poverty, or weath, everyone gets bored and eventually craves more from life. So, what happens when eternity gets boring?

I imagine the timeline like this:

Death to 100 years: You get to heaven and party like an animal with your fellow freshmen.
Year 101 to 10,000: You discover new things to do, new interests you never knew you had, and learn more than you ever thought you could learn.
Year 10,001 to infinity: After learning everything you could possibly learn, and doing everything everyone's ever done, you sit around with your thumb up your ass for the rest of eternity, bored out of your freakin' mind.

So does Christian Heaven exist? Probably not. But don't worry: Christian Hell doesn't either. But the way I figure it, this is a good thing. Some people are scared shitless about the idea of not existing when they die, and I think this is unfounded. Instead, they should be more scared about the eternity that follows-- not in a heaven/hell sort of mentality, but just in the sole idea that no matter what their "destination," they're going to be spending forever there. To me, it thus seems like the only place for the good people of the world to go after we die is Hell.

Dismal, isn't it? That's why I don't believe in either-- it makes what we do in life much, much more important, because if death is hell, then life is heaven.

Pretty strange, huh? That's why I'm not all that weirded-out by the idea of rotting in the ground after I die. :P

Cheers. =)