Is Heaven really all it's cracked up to be?

[Bez]

Imagine you have done enough to make it to Heaven and are set to live in paradise forever. However, your wife was a sinner and will burn in Hell for eternity. Surely knowing someone you truly loved was in Hell would be hell for you. Surely you could not live in a true paradise if this situation were to happen?

[Dov]

I guess it depends on the virgins...

[coolhandluke]

I'd say it totally depends on who's version of heaven you got into.

[Zygote]

it depends how the religion defines heaven. According to Judaism, there is no eternal hell (except for exceptionally evil souls, by many accounts). Aside from that, remorse, for example, cannot be experienced in heaven. Heaven is a spiritual world of little resemblence to our physical world. Experiencing heaven's greatness would depend on the degree of your closeness to god. Good people will be closer to god than the less good. If i remember correctly, i believe the Zohar says that 72 years of the greatest imaginable happiness in the physical world is equal to 1 second in heaven.

[Bez]

That sounds nice.

[Dov]

As I undestand it, according to Judaism (Kabbalistic), heaven and hell are supposed to work like this:

While you are in your physical form, you are automatically filtering a significant portion of the 'divine light' which sustains everything. This is because if you experienced it directly, it would overwhelm you and you would die.

Now, this world is supposed to be used to 'strengthen' or improve your ability to absorb divine influence which is expected for you in the afterlife.

In spiritual terms, there are no distances, as that would be silly. So when you say that something is 'close' to something else, what you are actually saying is that the 2 things are similar. Being 'close to God' means being similar to God. The more similar you are to God, the more divine energy you can absorb.

Since God is infinitely good, his energy is also good. Therefore, the closer you are to God, the better you will feel in the afterlife.

After you die, you will no longer have the 'filter' of your physical body, and your 'soul' will have a clear comprehension of the events that have occured to it. It will become extremely obvious what your actions were and there will be no excuses for anything that you did to further yourself from God.

Since it is now so obvious how stupid that action was, you will feel an unfiltered form of shame and embarassment which is likened to what we call 'burning with shame' here on earth.

There is no actual fire, and this shame is not eternal. This is because even after death, the soul can improve its ability to absorb God's influence simply by existing. This process is supposed to be much slower, though.

(Admitedly, I have trouble with this whole thing, due in no small part to the fact that time should not exist spiritually either.)

Anyway, this is my basic understanding of the Jewish version of heaven and hell according to the Kabbalists. (The real ones. Not Madonna.)

[Zygote]

[ QUOTE ]
As I undestand it, according to Judaism (Kabbalistic), heaven and hell are supposed to work like this:

While you are in your physical form, you are automatically filtering a significant portion of the 'divine light' which sustains everything. This is because if you experienced it directly, it would overwhelm you and you would die.

Now, this world is supposed to be used to 'strengthen' or improve your ability to absorb divine influence which is expected for you in the afterlife.

In spiritual terms, there are no distances, as that would be silly. So when you say that something is 'close' to something else, what you are actually saying is that the 2 things are similar. Being 'close to God' means being similar to God. The more similar you are to God, the more divine energy you can absorb.

Since God is infinitely good, his energy is also good. Therefore, the closer you are to God, the better you will feel in the afterlife.

After you die, you will no longer have the 'filter' of your physical body, and your 'soul' will have a clear comprehension of the events that have occured to it. It will become extremely obvious what your actions were and there will be no excuses for anything that you did to further yourself from God.

Since it is now so obvious how stupid that action was, you will feel an unfiltered form of shame and embarassment which is likened to what we call 'burning with shame' here on earth.

There is no actual fire, and this shame is not eternal. This is because even after death, the soul can improve its ability to absorb God's influence simply by existing. This process is supposed to be much slower, though.

(Admitedly, I have trouble with this whole thing, due in no small part to the fact that time should not exist spiritually either.)

Anyway, this is my basic understanding of the Jewish version of heaven and hell according to the Kabbalists. (The real ones. Not Madonna.)

[/ QUOTE ]

seems about right.

[slickpoppa]

God makes an exact copy of your wife for you. I read it in Leviticus, look it up.