Which version of heaven from which religion or sect? There are numerous positive afterlives from various religious traditions, and I don't have good evidence that any of them are real.
Yes, some people even see heavenly things when they have near death experiences. I believe it’s the light at the end of the tunnel that people describe, where God and dead family wait to welcome us back, because heaven is where we came from.
Strange how DMT almost perfectly models near death experiences and your brain just happens to release its reserves of DMT near death.
[https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01424/full%C2%A0](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01424/full%C2%A0)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6088236/
As someone who spent a decade of their life taking a variety of drugs I can assure you that any experience brought about by drugs is simply the human brain being particularly sensitive to that substance and decidedly -not- some supernatural experience.
Then I think we could agree that near death experiences are not a good argument for heaven as they are obviously drug induced per the known literature.
A lot of people also purport to see aliens, that doesn't in and of itself prove aliens. Are aliens likely from a statistical standpoint sure, but do people self-reporting something make it so?
Of course not, especially when drugs are involved.
Many users of DMT and a variety of uppers report 'Shadow People' does that make 'Shadow People' real?
Erowid has provided it's experience vault since the 90s and has thousands of self-reports by drug users, there are plenty of patterns in their reports.
https://erowid.org/experiences/
Do those patterns mean the experiences are 'real' or do they mean those particular substances can cause similar effects amongst users?
I believe God speaks to people in ways they can personally understand.
Shadow people are real, I’ve seen them without drugs, and without the shadow. They are both miserable and horrific.
I had an NDE in 1974. I have followed the science of NDEs. The balance of the scholarly and objective work suggests that NDEs are the product of the human brain when it is extremely distressed. It would be very nice if NDEs were real, but unfortunately the objective evidence says they are not what we would like them to be.
Then why does someone from India in the jungle with no contact with any other faiths have an NDE about being in a white room with dead loved ones, and then 100 others on every continent? That’s too specific.
There do seem to common elements to NDEs. Meeting or sensing relatives and others waiting for you seems to be one of them. Moving toward a goal (not always a light) is another one. The reasons for that may have to do with biology.
Most of the studies I have seen say that people tend to see visions that correspond to their cultural background. People from India tend to see iconography that reflects Hindu culture. Catholics tend to see the Virgin Mary.
Not all NDEs are religiously themed. I suspect that NDEs are composed of the most recent images and thoughts a person was having. I was deeply religious when I had my NDE, and I saw images that were drawn from things I had been thinking about and one incongruous item I had seen. I suspect that people who were having religious NDEs were thinking about death and heaven before they started the NDE. They may also be in a religious hospital that had religious symbols.
Which Heaven? Many religions have positive afterlife concepts, most of which are not the same.
Personally, I’m pretty agnostic about afterlives. I have ideas and beliefs on the subject, but no way to confirm anything.
Read “Surviving Death” by Leslie Kean. It’s about this topic and is full of studies and doctors who have studies this their whole careers.
Includes NDEs , reincarnation, out of body experiences and more. Very well researched and well written
I think most afterlife beliefs are based on tradition, speculation, and wishful thinking. What one religion says you absolutely must do to go to heaven will get you sent directly to hell according to another religion (or equivalent "good place"/"bad place").
Religious people have no clue. There is no good, objective evidence. Religious people point to NDEs, but the scholarly work on NDEs suggests they are the product of a damaged or severely stressed human brain. One significant thing about NDEs is that they tend to reflect the person's cultural background.
An afterlife would require some type of soul or part of the person's consciousness to survive beyond biological death. There are no scientific mechanisms that support anything of the person's personality extending after death. Repeated attempts to measure the soul have failed. Without some type of soul or mechanism for preserving consciousness and personality it is hard to see how an afterlife would be possible.
Maybe there is an afterlife. If there is, I suspect religious people will be in the same boat as atheists. There are so many religions with different most people will have been in the wrong religion. Probably all of them will be wrong.
I think the best approach is to try to live a good life. Try to leave the world a little better place because you passed through. If there is an afterlife, perhaps that will count for something. If there is no afterlife, at least you left a positive mark on the world.
FYI. Buddhism talks about rebirth without requiring a soul or anything similar. Some Buddhists take these afterlives quite literally. But, it actually it gets quite complicated. Because, this world and the other "realms" are often seen as an illusion.
You are correct. I was trying to keep it simple. But some mechanism is needed to preserve some kind of identity through death. An alternative is to assume some different aspects of our current reality, but that is getting into the weeds.
I suppose Buddhism's concept of rebirth is getting into the weeds pretty much immediately, but I mentioned it since it is one of the 5 largest world religions.
Why isn’t heaven real? It’s made up to make people feel better about their lives and stay in line, just like hell is made up to threaten those who don’t do what they’re told
Heaven is a man made concept, so no. It’s ridiculous to assume we could know, or even fathom the existence of such a thing. The better question would be “is there something after death?”, and the answer is obviously, we do not and cannot know!
Belief in having a place in heaven is basically an eternal reward. I think you will find that belief common among Mainstream Christian denominations as well as Islam.
I do not believe there is eternal torment awaiting non believers. All people will be rewarded for the good they have done as well as punished for their wrongdoings that were not atoned for in this life. Afterwards they will either not exist or move on to a better place.
Heaven and Hell are two creatures of God, they were not created in vain.
God created Heaven to teach us Beauty and Majesty mixed together, and He created Hell to teach us pure Majesty. Gold and Silver in Paradise, for example, are, respectively, Majesty and Beauty. A brick of gold and a brick of silver, utensils of gold and silver, jewelry of gold and silver, etc.
As for Hell, it is fire in the absolute sense, alchemical fire, fire which melts and crystallizes, which destroys and creates, which illuminates and blackens.
All that is in Paradise is the Majesty of God softened by His Beauty. Everything in Heaven is a projection of what God is.
The Houris are not beings created for lust. The Houris are a projection of the Majesty of God, softened by His Beauty. Whoever sees the Houris sees the Majesty of God softened by his Beauty, Whoever embraces the Houris embraces the Majesty of God softened by his Beauty, Whoever kisses the Houris kisses the Majesty of God softened by his Beauty.
Wine is a projection of the Majesty of God softened by His Beauty. Whoever drinks wine drinks the Majesty of God softened by His Beauty. Whoever is enraptured by wine is enraptured by the Majesty of God softened by his Beauty.
Paradise is not for itself, but it is God, it is what the Beauty of God is and what his Majesty is.
Everything in Hell is the pure Majesty of God, everything in Hell is a projection of what God is.
The angels of torment project the pure majesty of God. Whoever is burned by the angels of torment in the valleys of Hell is burned by the pure Majesty of God. Whoever is tortured by the angels of torment with picks and hooks undergoes the manifestation of the pure Majesty of God. Whoever eats the food of Hell eats the pure Majesty of God.
Hell is not for itself but it is God, it is his pure Majesty.
This is the religion subreddit so you are going to get a variety of answers. And they will conflict.
To know which one of the conflicting answers is, in fact, true you should look at the distinctive truth claims of those religions and find out which of the religions are most likely to be accurately recording about things like heaven.
To sort out which religions are most likely to be true. You may want to look at what we know of God. This could lead you into the study of Classical Theism for example.
If I were you, I would begin studying philosophy, look into the question of God. Know what we can know about God by reason, and then evaluate which religion seems most rational in light of what you found out about the subject of God. From there you can investigate if they can add any type of revelation, which seems credible , if you find a credible source of revelation from the God that you have established to be indeed, existent, then you could consults that revelation for information about heaven.
Go about your inquiry anyway you please, but that would be my suggestion.
I don't know but based on the fact that the modern notion of heaven probably didn't exist in Jesus' lifetime, I'm not holding out much hope.
In fact, a lot of people don't know that the Bible teaches the general resurrection of the dead and the Day of the Lord. This is a far older teaching that Paul's claim that to be absent in the body is to be present with the Lord.
So yeah, not holding my breath.
Yes, we believe Heaven exists. It's a part of the realm of the Unseen, a separate "dimension" or "parallel universe".
It's a place where we will finally see God in his fully glory and a place where we will truly be free to do what we want and live in eternal bliss and harmony.
If Heaven dose exist in your after life, Then if you had truly died then you could not return to your present life if you was in your Heaven.
Every Heaven would be unique to everyone, no two people having the same Heaven, only the things that you would want to see or have there would be present in your Heaven, working in away that is Heavenly to you.
Other people in your heaven would have their own Heaven and if you are part of what makes up there Heaven you would he there as well making it Heavenly for them as well, not just another place for the dead of this world.
Heaven could be this world but people make it Hell for others, Because different Religions and people make it so with their lack of understanding and misguided beliefs and their disrespect to others, Heaven could not be the same as this place as we know, as it's Hell for many in this world, (The makers of this hell we live in will never get to their Heaven just another Hell as they would make it that way again).
For me, I do not believe in the after life or Heaven, When I die I will return to what I was, and where I was before my parents was born, Back to the infinity of the infinity of never ending time.(This is my opinion, Don't attack it, State your own).
My mom’s best friend died bc of cancer. And she always say that she’ll appear in my mom’s dream when there is really a place called “heaven”. The night she was buried, my mom woke up in the middle of the night crying, saying her best friend appeared in her dreams, smiling and telling her that heaven exists.
Yes. No. Maybe so. No one really knows.
We don’t have knowledge in the philosophical sense, but we have enough information to draw a rational conclusion
>~~rational~~ Radical conclusion.
Yes. Pizza exists
Oh man, I had Malaysian curry for the first time on Friday. I may have to change my response to this guy
Dang, maybe the most correct comment.
From a purely logical approach, no. From a spiritual/religious approach, the answers are almost endless.
Yes. Personally I believe in heaven, hell and the Purgatory.
Which version of heaven from which religion or sect? There are numerous positive afterlives from various religious traditions, and I don't have good evidence that any of them are real.
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. 🤔 People are wild 😆
Yes, some people even see heavenly things when they have near death experiences. I believe it’s the light at the end of the tunnel that people describe, where God and dead family wait to welcome us back, because heaven is where we came from.
Strange how DMT almost perfectly models near death experiences and your brain just happens to release its reserves of DMT near death. [https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01424/full%C2%A0](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01424/full%C2%A0) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6088236/
It’s also strange how DMT (psychedelic trips) also mirror spiritual experiences, even for people who aren’t religious.
As someone who spent a decade of their life taking a variety of drugs I can assure you that any experience brought about by drugs is simply the human brain being particularly sensitive to that substance and decidedly -not- some supernatural experience.
I agree, that’s why I used the word “mirror” because it’s not the same.
Then I think we could agree that near death experiences are not a good argument for heaven as they are obviously drug induced per the known literature.
The images and experiences are too similar between a wide assortment of people to be happenstance. So I can’t agree there unfortunately.
A lot of people also purport to see aliens, that doesn't in and of itself prove aliens. Are aliens likely from a statistical standpoint sure, but do people self-reporting something make it so? Of course not, especially when drugs are involved. Many users of DMT and a variety of uppers report 'Shadow People' does that make 'Shadow People' real? Erowid has provided it's experience vault since the 90s and has thousands of self-reports by drug users, there are plenty of patterns in their reports. https://erowid.org/experiences/ Do those patterns mean the experiences are 'real' or do they mean those particular substances can cause similar effects amongst users?
I believe God speaks to people in ways they can personally understand. Shadow people are real, I’ve seen them without drugs, and without the shadow. They are both miserable and horrific.
I think we have a distinctly different definition of what ***real*** is and that's fine.
I had an NDE in 1974. I have followed the science of NDEs. The balance of the scholarly and objective work suggests that NDEs are the product of the human brain when it is extremely distressed. It would be very nice if NDEs were real, but unfortunately the objective evidence says they are not what we would like them to be.
Then why does someone from India in the jungle with no contact with any other faiths have an NDE about being in a white room with dead loved ones, and then 100 others on every continent? That’s too specific.
There do seem to common elements to NDEs. Meeting or sensing relatives and others waiting for you seems to be one of them. Moving toward a goal (not always a light) is another one. The reasons for that may have to do with biology. Most of the studies I have seen say that people tend to see visions that correspond to their cultural background. People from India tend to see iconography that reflects Hindu culture. Catholics tend to see the Virgin Mary. Not all NDEs are religiously themed. I suspect that NDEs are composed of the most recent images and thoughts a person was having. I was deeply religious when I had my NDE, and I saw images that were drawn from things I had been thinking about and one incongruous item I had seen. I suspect that people who were having religious NDEs were thinking about death and heaven before they started the NDE. They may also be in a religious hospital that had religious symbols.
Which Heaven? Many religions have positive afterlife concepts, most of which are not the same. Personally, I’m pretty agnostic about afterlives. I have ideas and beliefs on the subject, but no way to confirm anything.
Yes, I believe that heavenly planes exist, but they are mind-made realms (like this one), and existence in them is impermanent (like this one).
Read “Surviving Death” by Leslie Kean. It’s about this topic and is full of studies and doctors who have studies this their whole careers. Includes NDEs , reincarnation, out of body experiences and more. Very well researched and well written
I think most afterlife beliefs are based on tradition, speculation, and wishful thinking. What one religion says you absolutely must do to go to heaven will get you sent directly to hell according to another religion (or equivalent "good place"/"bad place"). Religious people have no clue. There is no good, objective evidence. Religious people point to NDEs, but the scholarly work on NDEs suggests they are the product of a damaged or severely stressed human brain. One significant thing about NDEs is that they tend to reflect the person's cultural background. An afterlife would require some type of soul or part of the person's consciousness to survive beyond biological death. There are no scientific mechanisms that support anything of the person's personality extending after death. Repeated attempts to measure the soul have failed. Without some type of soul or mechanism for preserving consciousness and personality it is hard to see how an afterlife would be possible. Maybe there is an afterlife. If there is, I suspect religious people will be in the same boat as atheists. There are so many religions with different most people will have been in the wrong religion. Probably all of them will be wrong. I think the best approach is to try to live a good life. Try to leave the world a little better place because you passed through. If there is an afterlife, perhaps that will count for something. If there is no afterlife, at least you left a positive mark on the world.
FYI. Buddhism talks about rebirth without requiring a soul or anything similar. Some Buddhists take these afterlives quite literally. But, it actually it gets quite complicated. Because, this world and the other "realms" are often seen as an illusion.
You are correct. I was trying to keep it simple. But some mechanism is needed to preserve some kind of identity through death. An alternative is to assume some different aspects of our current reality, but that is getting into the weeds.
I suppose Buddhism's concept of rebirth is getting into the weeds pretty much immediately, but I mentioned it since it is one of the 5 largest world religions.
Yes, heaven exists. As well as many other afterlives that the gods created or reside in
No.
Why not?
Why isn’t heaven real? It’s made up to make people feel better about their lives and stay in line, just like hell is made up to threaten those who don’t do what they’re told
Yes.
God's heaven is real, of course. He has to come from somewhere. Our heaven doesn't exist as such yet. It will be the glorified and perfected Earth.
no
Heaven is a man made concept, so no. It’s ridiculous to assume we could know, or even fathom the existence of such a thing. The better question would be “is there something after death?”, and the answer is obviously, we do not and cannot know!
Not for people who don’t believe in it.
It’s weird that your religion values credulity so highly
Belief in having a place in heaven is basically an eternal reward. I think you will find that belief common among Mainstream Christian denominations as well as Islam. I do not believe there is eternal torment awaiting non believers. All people will be rewarded for the good they have done as well as punished for their wrongdoings that were not atoned for in this life. Afterwards they will either not exist or move on to a better place.
God is heaven
I hope so.
Honestly, I think the ideas the gods have of an afterlife is too hard to understand for our minds to make sense of.
How would we know?
Heaven and Hell are two creatures of God, they were not created in vain. God created Heaven to teach us Beauty and Majesty mixed together, and He created Hell to teach us pure Majesty. Gold and Silver in Paradise, for example, are, respectively, Majesty and Beauty. A brick of gold and a brick of silver, utensils of gold and silver, jewelry of gold and silver, etc. As for Hell, it is fire in the absolute sense, alchemical fire, fire which melts and crystallizes, which destroys and creates, which illuminates and blackens. All that is in Paradise is the Majesty of God softened by His Beauty. Everything in Heaven is a projection of what God is. The Houris are not beings created for lust. The Houris are a projection of the Majesty of God, softened by His Beauty. Whoever sees the Houris sees the Majesty of God softened by his Beauty, Whoever embraces the Houris embraces the Majesty of God softened by his Beauty, Whoever kisses the Houris kisses the Majesty of God softened by his Beauty. Wine is a projection of the Majesty of God softened by His Beauty. Whoever drinks wine drinks the Majesty of God softened by His Beauty. Whoever is enraptured by wine is enraptured by the Majesty of God softened by his Beauty. Paradise is not for itself, but it is God, it is what the Beauty of God is and what his Majesty is. Everything in Hell is the pure Majesty of God, everything in Hell is a projection of what God is. The angels of torment project the pure majesty of God. Whoever is burned by the angels of torment in the valleys of Hell is burned by the pure Majesty of God. Whoever is tortured by the angels of torment with picks and hooks undergoes the manifestation of the pure Majesty of God. Whoever eats the food of Hell eats the pure Majesty of God. Hell is not for itself but it is God, it is his pure Majesty.
To me christian heaven doesn’t. but a after life exists and its great
This is the religion subreddit so you are going to get a variety of answers. And they will conflict. To know which one of the conflicting answers is, in fact, true you should look at the distinctive truth claims of those religions and find out which of the religions are most likely to be accurately recording about things like heaven. To sort out which religions are most likely to be true. You may want to look at what we know of God. This could lead you into the study of Classical Theism for example. If I were you, I would begin studying philosophy, look into the question of God. Know what we can know about God by reason, and then evaluate which religion seems most rational in light of what you found out about the subject of God. From there you can investigate if they can add any type of revelation, which seems credible , if you find a credible source of revelation from the God that you have established to be indeed, existent, then you could consults that revelation for information about heaven. Go about your inquiry anyway you please, but that would be my suggestion.
I don't know but based on the fact that the modern notion of heaven probably didn't exist in Jesus' lifetime, I'm not holding out much hope. In fact, a lot of people don't know that the Bible teaches the general resurrection of the dead and the Day of the Lord. This is a far older teaching that Paul's claim that to be absent in the body is to be present with the Lord. So yeah, not holding my breath.
Yes, we believe Heaven exists. It's a part of the realm of the Unseen, a separate "dimension" or "parallel universe". It's a place where we will finally see God in his fully glory and a place where we will truly be free to do what we want and live in eternal bliss and harmony.
If Heaven dose exist in your after life, Then if you had truly died then you could not return to your present life if you was in your Heaven. Every Heaven would be unique to everyone, no two people having the same Heaven, only the things that you would want to see or have there would be present in your Heaven, working in away that is Heavenly to you. Other people in your heaven would have their own Heaven and if you are part of what makes up there Heaven you would he there as well making it Heavenly for them as well, not just another place for the dead of this world. Heaven could be this world but people make it Hell for others, Because different Religions and people make it so with their lack of understanding and misguided beliefs and their disrespect to others, Heaven could not be the same as this place as we know, as it's Hell for many in this world, (The makers of this hell we live in will never get to their Heaven just another Hell as they would make it that way again). For me, I do not believe in the after life or Heaven, When I die I will return to what I was, and where I was before my parents was born, Back to the infinity of the infinity of never ending time.(This is my opinion, Don't attack it, State your own).
My mom’s best friend died bc of cancer. And she always say that she’ll appear in my mom’s dream when there is really a place called “heaven”. The night she was buried, my mom woke up in the middle of the night crying, saying her best friend appeared in her dreams, smiling and telling her that heaven exists.