Christian tropers, join together!

Alternate history would be nice, but I don't know if we could find out what would have happened. God doesn't have to tell us anything. Casual space travel would be cool.

To the question of what is Heaven like?

Because we have so much brokenness on this Earth—we are broken from God (even believers aren’t totally aligned with His will), other people and even ourselves—I believe that at least one aspect of Heaven is all this brokenness will be healed. We won’t be jockeying for position, or petty jealousies, or holding on to past hurts.

I hope it's easier to make friends in Heaven. Making friends as an adult is pretty tough. This may be my social anxiety talking, but I never know how to ask someone to hang out without seeming creepy.

The question of what kind of fiction we'll have in Heaven is fascinating, by the way. I'd hate to lose the stories that have helped me understand myself. I'd be a much glummer person if it weren't for stories like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

FWIW, Thrice Charming, I find the easiest way is to have an activity in mind (“Blah Blah movie is playing at Local Theater, wanna come with?”).

But I’m blunt like that.

It certainly will be easier to make friends. There will be no anxiety of any kind - "God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away." (Revelation 21:4)

Plus, we'll all have at least one thing in common - the love of God!

I don't know about fiction. I don't think any existing fiction will remain - "See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind." (Isaiah 65:17) Which is very difficult for me, because I love reading! The heavenly activities talked about in the Bible are building houses, tending vineyards, playing music and singing, though that's by no means everything, John can't be expected to write down literally everything we do in Heaven. It could well be that we will write new fiction, though I'm not sure why we would, as no invented world could be as great as Heaven. Drama requires conflict, and there won't be any conflict in Heaven. It's difficult to imagine now, but in new bodies with no sorrow or sin, we won't need help to 'understand ourselves' any more. We'll know exactly who we are, and our place in God's kingdom - "For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known." (1 Corinthians 13:12)

Edited by Ulysses21 on Oct 8th 2019 at 9:18:03 AM

I'd imagine people will be much better at delaying gratification there.

That verse about not remembering things is referring to the bad stuff. We won't have PTSD from living in a fallen world. All the evil may then seem like a bad dream from childhood.

I just don't think Heaven can really be Heaven without the good things we have on Earth. A place without books, theater, etc. sounds pretty dull to me, and Heaven can't be worse than Earth in any way. Besides, fiction (even fiction that isn't explicitly Christian) can reflect our longing for God. Taking away something that's made us so happy doesn't sound to me like something God would do.

I also think that fiction about conflict can exist in a place without real conflict. Imperfect example, but we can read war stories without having experienced war firsthand. Maybe real life will be so fulfilling that we'll have no need for things like escapism, but I have trouble imagining what that will be like.

Edited by ThriceCharming on Oct 8th 2019 at 1:15:12 PM

I certainly hope there's fiction, stories of all kinds! I'm just speculating. However ultimately we'll only know for sure once we get there. "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).

All I know about Heaven is it's gotta be better than this

I never thought about it before (and full disclaimer—I am NOT a theologian) but...

Why not fiction? Jesus told fictional stories in the form of parables.

Yeah good point! I hadn't thought of that.

I definitely think so! And perhaps it will be much better than it was on Earth- devoid of writing flaws and maybe, just maybe, your OTP is canon.

I don't know. I still wish to watch Neil Breen-tier movies in Heaven.

I mean, honestly? If it's something that makes you happy, I imagine it'll be there- just perfected in a way that we can't understand on Earth.

Lol, I remember a video on eschatology on Youtube with John Piper and a few other pastors discussing premilleniallism, postmillenialism and amillenialism (look up "Evening of Eschtology" it's quite an interesting and somehow warm-hearted video) and one of the points they discuss was that one of the pastors as a child didn't want to go to heaven if it was all clouds and harps and he could play football anymore. They then concluded with, "if it's a case of a new heaven and a new earth, and the new earth is this one but better.... maybe football?"

Fiction, and by extention the notion of escapism, is created because it is generally impossible for anyone to fully satisfy all of their psychological needs.

So no, fiction probably doesn't exist in Heaven because there's no need for it.

That's logical. The same can be said of all diverting entertainment in that case.

The annual Pew Research religious landscape study is out. If anyone is curious, it offers a lot of details and crosstabs about how each group's ideological views or even religion have shifted over the past twelve or so years, in the US.

I only scanned the paper, but I wonder how much Christianity association with conservatives influences those numbers.

Which I can't say I'm not bothered by, people putting politics before faith, that is.

I mean obviously, if your pastor starts saying that all gays are going to hell, the proper Christian thing to do is to give him a stern talking to, and if that fails find a different church, but seeing all these people giving just because "I don't want to be put together with those other folks" makes me want to go "Bitch, the first Christians were literally thrown to the lions over their faith, the people at the Shimabara Rebellion were massacrated to the very last person, none of them renounced theur faith, what makes you think you must do less, you fuckin wimp!?"

I'm being hyperbolic here, obviously, but why, instead of stop being Christian, you instead don't work to improve its image? Because it's too hard? Since when Jesus ever said the path of the righteous was easy? Since when being even a good person was easy?

Doing the right thing is never easy, otherwise the world would be full of saints.

Anyway, that's my rant for the day.

I mean if you are associating it with all sorts of trauma, I'm willing to still be Christian despite everything, but no I'm not going oh other people are weak not to do it. I feel like unless you actually fought instead of sitting comfortably in pews while hate is given you can't talk about people giving up easily either.

There's kind of a thing I want to add to that point about sticking around and fighting to improve the image, but I don't know how people around here feel about Robert Barron.

Edited by Ikiniks on Oct 19th 2019 at 2:37:31 PM

Robert Barron? I heard a sermon by him once where he described Our Lord as the Good Shepherd going to search for the lost sheep, because sometimes the lost sheep is too broken and hurting to make their way back to Him on their own. It was really a quite lovely speech and has stayed with me for years.

Never heard of him.

Call me a pessimist, but I would argue there's a good social reason for at least keeping mum about your Christianity; with how aggressive the Christian Right has been for decades, and how Christianity is under more scrutiny than ever, it might be too late to "improve" our image, and any attempt to do so would just be seen as a weak #NotAllChristians defense.

It's only gonna get worse from here, I predict. It'll be slow, it'll take several decades, but it will get much worse. The times are changing, the decline is too established to stop. My suggestion: ride this shit out quietly and hope we die before we become the new scientologists.

Edited by PhysicalStamina on Nov 7th 2019 at 4:32:05 AM