Heaven

I have problems with the idea of Heaven.

A good article on Heaven and its problems is written by philosopher Michael Martin (whose book I have read "The Big Domino in the Sky") and is located here: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/michael_martin/heaven.html .

Here is a link to "The Big Domino in the Sky"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/1573921114/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/103-4608745-1821468?%5Fencoding=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=507846

Michael Martin is a philosopher and his work is thorough.

And before I read the whole thing I want to put down my thoughts on Heaven.

#1 : Heaven is basic avoidance of the simple fact that when you die - your consciousness ceases to exist - totally and completely.

#2 : Heaven is a selfish idea. I am not a theist - so perhaps I get the point of life from their perspective wrong - but it certainly seems to me that the point of a theist's life is to get in to Heaven. This shapes what they do in terms of right and wrong. Can anything be morally correct if it is done merely because of the anticipation of future reward? It seems that I need to offer some reason for doing things that are morally correct in place of this idea of Heaven. And I have one. I believe in the human species. I want it to survive - and thrive - and always have a better future than the past. Actions that contribute to the survival of humanity and increase its abilities are morally correct. Things that subtract from the stability of humanity or promise to make the future less able than the present are morally incorrect. (and no, I am not talking about the pursuit of "perfection", please note that there is no such thing as perfection - and that perfection is a juvenile idea at best)

#3 : Heaven offers for no growth of the individual "soul" that goes there. There is little offered about what happens in Heaven. Only that you will be there forever. Perhaps this idea is appealing to some people, but not for me. There is no mention of yet another level above Heaven that the sould in Heaven might aspire to be a part. There is in fact little mention about what "Heaven" might be.

#4 : Heaven - access is allowed or disallowed by the theists god. And we do not know anything about the decision making process of such a god - if that god exists. I can easily think of different "tests" that might be applied to gain access to Heaven. For example, god might want people around him that are not blind followers - because those people use their minds. There was one science fiction story I read where a person died and got to meet god because he was a scientist that discovered something very important about the universe. Later our scientist found out that "god" had existed an unknown amount of time and was tired of existence. It wanted to die, but could not die since the universe was an integral part of itself and its death would result in the end of everything. It ended with the scientist for perfectly benevolent reasons - working to kill god - without destroying the universe.

So, like I said, Heaven is a problematic idea at best - and I am not the only one to say so.

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