heaven- what is it? who believes in it? and why/why not?

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it has long been known as a pleasant resting place for the deceased which goes under many names- paradise, the elysian fields, nirvana, heaven, the afterlife, et al. most religions include it in their philosophy. a majority of folk in opinion polls believe they will end up there sometime in the future. of popular family entertainments regarding death, many include some kind of heaven in their depictions therein.

how many readers here believe in heaven? what kind of heaven do you visualize? what makes you believe? for the skeptics, why not a heaven?

for myself, i found that a belief in heaven makes life bearable. i have something nice to anticipate when i shuffle-off my mortal coil. i can put up with a lot knowing that, much more than i could otherwise. "long-suffering" is "shorter" and more sufferable to me now. it has enabled me to learn a small degree of forgiveness of human shortcomings as well as gaining me a modest equanimity regarding worldly limitations.

i have occasional dreams of heaven, nothing very vivid with a few exceptions mostly of peace and endless prismatic "skies." of bell-choirs with the sounds of many distant waters in manifold harmonies. of flying through gentle winds with delicately sweet aromas. every now and then i dream of being with like-spirits deep in wordless "discussion" of ethereal subjects, floating carefree in grand temples. there is love and justice abounding. i so look forwards to staying there a long time. i just want peace.

I don't believe in heaven because it doesn't make any sense. Once you're dead you're dead, all of your body functions switch off, all your organs including your brain stops. Everything stops so how can you go floating off into some other realm in the sky.

I believe in Heaven, because that's where Jesus is. As a Christian, I make a conscious effort to do all the right things, so that I can see him, when I die. Let's hope that I don't die, for a very long time.

I'm a Christian, so I believe in Heaven. I know that Heaven will be much better than my life on Earth, so I always try to stay on good terms with the Lord so I can go there when I die. It is for this reason that I'm not afraid of dying at all. I've never been afraid of dying. I would love to be with Jesus in a place where there is no more pain, suffering and sadness. However, I'm still rather young, so I'd like to continue living for at least a couple more decades, just to see where my life takes me.

I'd be pretty grumpy if I found out that the universe had just been pulling an elaborate prank on me for all these years.

Its an interesting question - I'm agnostic regarding the answer though, and to many atheistic oblivion might sound quite like heaven in comparison to life on this earth (and they're even luckier than the Buddhists who have to reincarnate many times to earn the right to oblivion).

My belief, if there is a heaven, is that its a pleromatic life, one much larger where the eighty or ninety years we may often spend here is something more like a temporary workshop. I've had times in my own past as well, moments of what I think the best word for is ecstasy where, when I saw certain things or heard certain things in music I really felt like I was pulled in to something timeless, immense in its size, almost like memories of being in something like Avalon tens of thousands of years ago or looking into the eyes of someone who I've known sever hundred times longer and closer than my my parents or closest friends.

While I might just have a very pleasant form of synaesthesia and true, all of this sort of epic Atlantean thinking or minds-eye visions of the 'peaceful meadows' in between lives could be a hallucination, something in those visions holds a grain of very core reality - I'm still not sure though whether that's spiritual reality or just a Jungian type of manifestation. In the case that such a place is real - it links me to it and inspires me to, whether in mapping my own emotions or in terms of how I make music, I enjoy really exploring the depths more than I think a lot of other people would (and I feel like chasing such paths that are off the beaten 'evolutionary' path or sexual flouting behavior have a great amount of significance and purpose - what yet I'm not sure). If such visions were simply Jungian manifestations, I'd still say that they've been profoundly motivating and useful in terms of addressing myself.

My guess - if there is a heaven, the most likely candidate for an accurate story is gnostic 'pleroma'. I would almost summarily discount a hell, mainly for reasons I could get into later but ultimately the two critical issues I have there are a) God's omniscience and b) the slavery that exists in this life from even existing within time (ie. I'm full determinist).

I am a huge fan of the Pastafarian concept of Heaven, involving a beer volcano and a stripper factory.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmZYIyySxPE[/youtube]