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

Mon Sep 9 14:29:19 PDT 2013

I'd guess that most any guy who had been married on earth and who waited around in heaven for their wife to show up would most likely receive a rude awakening when she informed him that 1) the duration of the marriage contract was only as long as they BOTH shall have lived, and 2) that she hadn't liked him very much in a long, long time.

Date: Mon, 9 Sep 2013 16:48:23 -0400
From: art.deco.studios at gmail.com
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] I like to think there really is a Heaven . . .

Here is a classic read on the subject:  [Not for the tender minded!!!!]

http://www.amazon.com/The-Illusion-Immortality-Corliss-Lamont/dp/0804463778

Another thought:  Do we get to choose who we hang around with in heaven?  Or are we obliged to be with all the horse's asses we've known?

w.

On Mon, Sep 9, 2013 at 4:15 PM, Sue Hovey <suehovey at moscow.com> wrote:

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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