Why is our dream to just jump to the end of the story?

[Neoplatonist]

First kisses also lead to crayon-drawn Father’s Day cards and grandkids. We could play this game all day. Consider, too, though: no suffering means no compassion, and what elevates the human spirit more than compassion? So we would be unavoidably “less” if there were only joy and cake and presents as far as the eye can see.

But part of the point is that without the contrasts, nothing would register as meaningful or joyful.

You sort of illustrate my case, though, Nihilist. If God is all and everything else is nothing, then we and anything we have done become meaningless—like dissipating fog. How can that be the dream we would aspire too either?

Back to my first point in this post, though: consider what it would mean if a Saint were given the choice and she were to choose to go to Heaven rather than stay here where she can help others.

Of course, that runs into some problems because I’m arguing we can’t conceive of the Heaven choice, so there is no legitimacy to saying she could really weight the alternatives against each other. I think you can probably see the point about compassion nonetheless.

 

[Neoplatonist]

But WOULD a saint choose Heaven instead of staying here to help the suffering?

If God created us for compassion to be our highest calling, how is it a fulfillment of that to remove the saint from the one context where she could answer that call?

Even for the holy saint, then, why desire Heaven? Why want that more than to travel further along the path she is one - a path with pilgrims needing her help.?

 

[Nihilist]

But WOULD a saint choose Heaven instead of staying here to help the suffering?

If God created us for compassion to be our highest calling, how is it a fulfillment of that to remove the saint from the one context where she could answer that call?

Even for the holy saint, then, why desire Heaven? Why want that more than to travel further along the path she is one - a path with pilgrims needing her help.?

Well, I think the condition of the saint is more or less identical to that of the superman (or superwoman). The tragic hero, who longs for death, but choses life, as an act of sacrifice. But chosing the sacrifice on its own doesn’t quite qualify- I think the true saint sees that this world, suffering, time, others, are all just appearance- even ultimately, the self, Heaven, ‘God’.

But even this isn’t enough…

The true saint doesn’t care if she lives one moment, or a million years, or was never born at all. She doesn’t care if Heaven turns out not to exist- if there is no immortal soul, etc. Everything is done for ‘Love’- but this ‘Love’ has no relation to merely human love, or anything that can be conceived or felt- it is word to designate the unnamable. It is more like a surrender to an implacable necessity, a God beyond God. The thing which defines ‘love’ is not some feeling- but rather it is that real love always has a tragic destiny- a Cross, or a broken heart. No love without a tragic end, and no tragic end without ‘love’. And this is paradise of the true saint, the true hero…

Meister Ekhart talks about eternal life (which we can enjoy while our bodies are on Earth) being a God-like state, in which our joy is simply joy in being ourselves, seeking not to do our own will, nor the will of God, knowing nothing, having nothing, wanting nothing- being what we were before we were.

So, no, the saint would not hit the fast-torward button on life. She or he would stay and do their service, die in their battle or die of boredom, act out their tragedy, drink the bitter cup, and somehow be happy about it. Like Nietzsche’s superman, prepared to re-live their life an infinite number of times, or Camus’ Sisyphus with his rock…

Shudder…What a frightening thought?

 

[Neoplatonist]

Somehow that whole “will nothing, be nothing, want nothing” vision fails to appeal. How is that discernible from a coma patient hooked to a machine that stimulates the pleasure centers?

What is more, I think as soon as we start talking about “unimaginable” we’ve gone off the rails. We can’t want something unimaginable - though we can use that sentence and understand what the words mean. Similarly, we can pursue no meaningful conversation about what it will or won’t be like. That’s a bit like saying we can have a meaningful argument about the gravitational fields of a black hole that is swallowing dark matter just from looking at a hand-drawn picture of a black hole.

Turning back, to the first point in this post, we face similar problems if we try to ground phrases like “consciousness without objects”, or “joy without antecendent desire.”

 

[Neoplatonist]

Let me reiterate, I ‘m not talking about shortening a given mortal lifespan. I’m talking about wanting to skip over grades between where we are and where God is - like skipping a big handful of chapters in the middle of the Lord of the Rings where very cool things unfold and important growth along the characters’ arcs take place.

 

[Paragon468]

We seem to be viewing heaven and God as completely separate and alien existences from the good and happy experiences we have on earth. It is true that God is everything, and anything apart from him is nothing. But then, that doesn’t mean our experiences are nothing. We know they are not because… Well, because we experience them!

Rather, these happy experiences that we enjoy on earth are gifts that come directly from God. So why do we assume these gifts will stop when we are in heaven? Sure, our perception of these experiences would be very different. There would be no evil, no flaws. We would not have spouses or children to share them with. But on the other hand, there will be infinite goodness and perfection, and we can share the experiences with the entire Communion of Saints, and with the transcendent and omnipotent God of the universe!

In other words, the experiences we have in heaven will not be lesser than our experiences on earth simply because we will exist outside of time and away from evil. They will be infinitely greater experiences because of this.

 

[oldcelt]

We seem to be viewing heaven and God as completely separate and alien existences from the good and happy experiences we have on earth. It is true that God is everything, and anything apart from him is nothing. But then, that doesn’t mean our experiences are nothing. We know they are not because… Well, because we experience them!

Rather, these happy experiences that we enjoy on earth are gifts that come directly from God. So why do we assume these gifts will stop when we are in heaven? Sure, our perception of these experiences would be very different. There would be no evil, no flaws. We would not have spouses or children to share them with. But on the other hand, there will be infinite goodness and perfection, and we can share the experiences with the entire Communion of Saints, and with the transcendent and omnipotent God of the universe!

In other words, the experiences we have in heaven will not be lesser than our experiences on earth simply because we will exist outside of time and away from evil. They will be infinitely greater experiences because of this.

There is no proof for anything you just said. I admire your faith…I look forward to the quiet.

 

[Neoplatonist]

We seem to be viewing heaven and God as completely separate and alien existences from the good and happy experiences we have on earth. It is true that God is everything, and anything apart from him is nothing. But then, that doesn’t mean our experiences are nothing. We know they are not because… Well, because we experience them!

Rather, these happy experiences that we enjoy on earth are gifts that come directly from God. So why do we assume these gifts will stop when we are in heaven? Sure, our perception of these experiences would be very different. There would be no evil, no flaws. We would not have spouses or children to share them with. But on the other hand, there will be infinite goodness and perfection, and we can share the experiences with the entire Communion of Saints, and with the transcendent and omnipotent God of the universe!

In other words, the experiences we have in heaven will not be lesser than our experiences on earth simply because we will exist outside of time and away from evil. They will be infinitely greater experiences because of this.

Problem one:
You’ve missed the heart of the original question: why would we WANT to skip over the growth process that leads from this level to that infinitely higher one. If you woke up tomorrow and were suddenly married with three grown children and 10 grandchildren and so on, would you not have missed some wonderful growth experiences in between?

Problem two:
I deny that we can grasp any meaningful idea behind the words when we talk about eternal bliss and timeless being and so on. If one thought no longer comes before or after another, our thinking would be so radically different that it seems like an empty placeholder to say that would still be “you” or “me” in any meaningful way. What is more, how could we “remember” our life on earth as having come before our (then present) state in Heaven? So no meaningful conception of “memory” being “ours” from our earthly life - again suggesting that it would no longer be “us.”

Posting this as a new thread, so go there to tackle problem two.