[Vision2020] I like to think there really is a Heaven . . .

[Sue Hovey]

Interesting how our religious ideas change with the passage of time.  I don’t mean to say that we all change in the same direction, but for me growing up in a Southern Baptist culture with a firm belief in heaven and hell (with a lot of Bible study to support me, and Donovan you know where you were going, according to us) to being perfectly comfortable shedding a belief in an eternal life in whatever domicile one gets assigned, is where I now fit, both emotionally and intellectually.  It was Socrates who said if death is nothing more than a nice long sleep, that works for me.  Well, it works for me, too.  As a Christian, for many years I believed that we were headed for heaven (some of us) and everyone else was assigned somewhere else.  Every time  I read Elie Wiesel’s Night, the paradox is further proof  that should I believe I am headed for heaven, and a Jew with a faith much stronger than mine would ever be, is not, no longer works.

I might not be quite so put off if religions were not by nature sexist.  The OT, with only one exception of which I can think, defines females, not by their intellect, but by their anatomy and biological function, which is always subordinate to males.  

I no longer have to deal with religious dissonance...that’s very nice; only political and human conundrums take up my time, and that’s plenty for me.  Of course all my relatives have me on their prayer lists...but Doug Wilson’s posturing is irrelevant.  

Sue H. 

From: Donovan Arnold 
Sent: Monday, September 09, 2013 11:41 AM
To: Nielsen, Ralph ; vision2020 at moscow.com 
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] I like to think there really is a Heaven . . .

Ralph,

If nobody goes to Heaven or Hell it would be because it doesn't exist. I believe Jesus died on a Cross so I could enter a "place" with God despite my countless personal flaws. Although I have no evidence to present this case to others, so it can only be presented as a personal belief.  


I know many people who continue to do good even though they are long dead. If God didn't allow people to do good at any point, he would be stopping good from happening, which would make a good God a contradiction. So I would not honor such a God, even if it meant he smite me with a thunderbolt. There is no such thing as time outside this Universe.  So once we "have" existed, we will always "exist" in the spiritual sense. 


Donovan J. Arnold
From: "Nielsen, Ralph" <nielsen at uidaho.edu>
To: "vision2020 at moscow.com" <vision2020 at moscow.com> 
Cc: Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com>; Tom Hansen <thansen at moscow.com> 
Sent: Monday, September 9, 2013 10:59 AM
Subject: I like to think there really is a Heaven . . .


Beautiful thoughts, Donovan and Tom. But don't count on them coming true.

In the Hebrew religion, in the Old Testament/Hebew Bible, nobody goes to heaven because God does not want people to go to heaven and live forever with him. In fact, he doesn't want people to live forever at all. That is why Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden of Eden before they would find the tree of life, eat of it and live forever (Genesis 3:19-24).

In the entire Old Testament/Hebew Bible only two people went to heaven: Enoch and Elijah. They were taken up alive because when we die we cease to exist.  

This means that any good we want to do we have to do now, while we are alive.

Ralph Nielsen
______________________________________
Me too. For me it would be  to meet again and talk to all the people I have ever taken care of without a disability, advanced age or dementia being in the way of our conversation, and to see them happy and healthy with God and their loved ones.   Donovan J. Arnold
 
________________________________
 

The things one thinks of at 3 in the morning, such as . . .

I like to think that there really is a Heaven that you enter upon your passing and it begins with the happiest day of your life.

For me . . . I would be sitting with friends at a table at "My Brother's Place" (a tavern in Newport, Rhode Island) in March of 1973.  I would ask that attractive redhead sitting at the next table to dance . . . and it would start all over again.

And you?  What would Heaven be to you?

Tom Hansen







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