I don't think you should view me as representative for all liberals. 
Legolas Send a noteboard - 30/03/2017 07:53:55 AM
Legolas Send a noteboard - 30/03/2017 07:53:55 AM
View original postIn heaven, they would have sufficient knowledge and insight to be able to empathize with one another and totally get past everything that might have stood in their way in life. If they would not be capable of that degree of forgiveness, and not open to love to that degree, they wouldn't get to heaven in the first place. Also with different opinions. In heaven, only One actually matters. Well, technically Three, but since they are all perfectly good, perfectly loving and omniscient, there would not be anything on which the Persons of the Blessed Trinity would disagree.
I figured you'd say something like that. To some extent of course it makes sense that people would be able to let go of their more petty emotions or struggles about material possessions - but to get to perfect harmony you'd have to go beyond that and basically remove most or all of a person's personality in life. And then you end up at a point where, as you say, only One / Three matter - who are, to quote your line further below, pandered to by slaves with no free will. As blissful as that may be for the slaves in question.
View original postExcept he'd be in his own heaven and wouldn't care that he's not in hers. Actually, while Rose is prancing about on the Titanic staircase in her heaven, that would mean that in her mother's heaven, she is being a dutiful and attentive daughter, who is standing on the docks of NYC telling mom how grateful she is to have a good husband selected for her and what a privilege it is to do her part to rescue the family fortune, and in Molly Brown's heaven, maybe she's an onlooker as Molly puts the torch to a whole stack of lifeboats with different mothership names on their sides, and in Jack's heaven, they're perennially rolling around in the backseat of the car in the hold, while Fabrizzio cheers them on, and in Mr. Andrews' heaven she's telling him "No, no, you built me an awesome ship! Look, there's the Statue of Liberty out the porthole. We made it thanks to your kickass ship smashing through all those icebergs with its revolutionary hull design. I'll bet your drawing pencil is WAY bigger than Jack's..."
View original postThat might be an even more horrific concept, IMO, where people spend eternity alone, getting pandered to by slaves with no free will.
The way I see it, the concepts of heaven and hell as eternal bliss and eternal suffering inevitably mean that the people in it are alone, or at least alone with regards to other people. Whether that heaven consists of worshipping a divine being, or being in their own private heaven with their loved ones who are indistinguishable from the real thing except for lacking free will, or simply a state of general eternal bliss.
If I envision an afterlife in which people do have those genuine connections and really get to spend time with their loved ones forever in a meaningful way - then that inevitably becomes a place that has room for negative emotions as well as positive ones, neither heaven nor hell.
View original postI wonder if our conceptions of what heaven would entail speaks to some fundamental difference in a liberal vs conservative mindset: For the liberal, heaven is total control and being at the center of the universe, while for the conservative, it is uniting with an ultimate objective truth.
If you're going to draw conclusions like that, you should probably replace 'liberal' and 'conservative' by 'non-believer' and 'believer'. There's Christians or other believers on all sides of the political spectrum, and the same for atheists. Obviously atheists, including myself, don't actually believe in heaven as a real thing - but make the point that they're not really interested in heaven anyway if it would involve giving up most of their personality in order to avoid all possible conflicts.
View original postBut what then does that say about them or the metaphysics? Assuming by ghosts you mean spirits of the dead, then heaven or hell, the afterlife is the afterlife, and the revolutionaries in my example are still locked in an eternal strife.
If the presence of those spirits in the revolution is eternal, then that makes sense, but is it? My understanding was that those spirits appeared at the specific moment in time when their friends were on the barricades. Basically illustrating the idea of ghosts/spirits who linger in the world because there is some unfinished business or greater struggle that they remain linked to, being able to pass on for good only after that is finished. Not the same as an eternal afterlife.
Movie heaven is wierd
- 29/03/2017 12:05:19 PM
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Oh, fun, metaphysics debate.
- 29/03/2017 07:59:59 PM
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- 29/03/2017 07:59:59 PM
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Re: Oh, fun, metaphysics debate.
- 30/03/2017 01:31:38 AM
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- 30/03/2017 01:31:38 AM
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I don't think that's a liberal/conservative divide. I think that's a religious/secular one.
- 30/03/2017 07:30:42 AM
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I don't think you should view me as representative for all liberals.
- 30/03/2017 07:53:55 AM
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- 30/03/2017 07:53:55 AM
420 Views