What's your heaven?

[Farm Boy]

You die and you discover an afterlife. By sheer coincidence, or not, it's what you hoped it would be. What is it?

I was sort of ruminating on this Christmas day. I was at my in-laws with their far flung children and paired significant others for a gathering that happens once per two to four years, an unknown quantity of such remaining to have with all, if any, earthly. I was struck by the realization people have been getting it wrong all this time. Christmas is all about the presence after all.

 

[Kyriakos]

I think it will be very cool if upon having died i am greeted by some similar-looking people noting that i did well on our common-run research for which i was partly sedated and memory-manipulated
Our home planet has ancient laws against making anyone suffer, but a math/physics issue threatening us was recently proven to require the thinker at least experiencing pain once more. So i- the noblest and most beautiful of all, of course- volunteered so as to save us all

PS: the rest of you are just computer programs, though. Sorry

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Banks upon banks of screens and servers filled with the entirety of human knowledge and beyond.

 

[timtofly]

Heaven was made on the 3rd day so time does exist

and the world will end, and thus ends the experience

That is not the heaven in the OP question. I am pretty sure that has already been transversed by humans and space junk, and a place, I can go to while in this life, not the after life.

 

[Borachio]

Christmas is all about the presents after all.

How true.

 

[Farm Boy]

It's an excuse for both the good and the unimportant indeed.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I suppose i might be entirely alone, cause "hell is other people" :60sfrenchpseudophilosopher:

That was one of the most depressing things I ever had to read (in my 2nd-year college French class).

Don't you ever read anything cheerful?

 

[Kyriakos]

No exit to cheerfulness

 

[Farm Boy]

Spoiler :

Link to video.

?

 

[Borachio]

Link to video.

 

[Greizer85]

For my money I'd like to become a ghost after I die. I'd remain in this world, with my senses unchanged or perhaps even enhanced, but with the characteristics that are traditionally attributed to ghostly entities (in the West at least).

Pros:
-immortality (since I'm already dead )
-won't need to eat
-won't need to sleep
-won't need to work or pay rent
-not bothered by walls or traffic
-most importantly, unseen by others unless I want it
-i could scare others when I do choose to appear

Cons:
-none (I already have no sex, ever, for you smart-asses out there. besides, ghost-sex might exist... the mechanics would have to be hazy at best! )

I exist to observe, and being ghostly would remove every obstacle to it, while adding greatly to the potential. I suppose I could eventually go mad with isolation... But I could find other ghosts for company! Then I'd just drift away (pun intended), once they're no longer needed. Humans tend to take offence to that, being thought unnecessary; but I'm sure other ghosts wouldn't mind, at least not if they too had become ghosts by choice as I did.

@Darkflight: I've never been able to fathom folks like you. How can you possibly want the end of your consciousness, unless in terrible physical and/or mental pain (which, presumably, Heaven could correct, whatever their nature)?

 

[MilesGregarius]

Good company, good weather, good food, good music - and no worries that any of the aforementioned will end.

 

[warpus]

You die and you discover an afterlife. By sheer coincidence, or not, it's what you hoped it would be. What is it?

This is what would happen in my perfect scenario:

1. I die
2. Lights go on
3. I hear a voice that says: "Please exit the machine.. and watch your step"

Turns out I'm a part of the intergalactic 1% and have enough technological knowhow, power, and money to live through an infinite number of lifetimes, of various species, on various planets, at different points in time in the existence of the universe and all other universes.

Also turns out that some of the people who I love and/or know here on Earth are also a part of the intergalactic 1% - they accompany me from existence to existence. Sometimes we cross paths, sometimes we don't. It's all a bit of a game to us, really. Sometimes we choose to be born with the knowledge of who we really are, and sometimes we don't... The purists among us feel that this is the best way to truly experience what it is to be a bee. Or a human. Or whatever. You go in not knowing anything - and spend your life trying to figure it all out. It's driven a couple of us mad, but it usually pays off in the end.

My stay on Earth is just one of many trips that I have been making throughout my existence. When it's done I can wake up in my real body and a master summary of my existence will be presented to me after breakfast. I can't wait to see the list of achievements I have managed to unlock! That's the best part about death for me - you get to see all sorts of interesting tidbits and statistics about your life. The amount of hotdogs eaten, the closest you came to die before you actually did, the number of people you kissed.. It's all there.

When I'm done with the report I'm going to meet up with the rest of the gang and we're going to figure out our next trip. A lot of them are hot babes.

 

[Kyriakos]

This is what would happen in my perfect scenario:

1. I die
2. Lights go on
3. I hear a voice that says: "Please exit the machine.. and watch your step"

Turns out I'm a part of the intergalactic 1% and have enough technological knowhow, power, and money to live through an infinite number of lifetimes, of various species, on various planets, at different points in time in the existence of the universe and all other universes.

Also turns out that some of the people who I love and/or know here on Earth are also a part of the intergalactic 1% - they accompany me from existence to existence. Sometimes we cross paths, sometimes we don't. It's all a bit of a game to us, really. Sometimes we choose to be born with the knowledge of who we really are, and sometimes we don't... The purists among us feel that this is the best way to truly experience what it is to be a bee. Or a human. Or whatever. You go in not knowing anything - and spend your life trying to figure it all out. It's driven a couple of us mad, but it usually pays off in the end.

My stay on Earth is just one of many trips that I have been making throughout my existence. When it's done I can wake up in my real body and a master summary of my existence will be presented to me after breakfast. I can't wait to see the list of achievements I have managed to unlock! That's the best part about death for me - you get to see all sorts of interesting tidbits and statistics about your life. The amount of hotdogs eaten, the closest you came to die before you actually did, the number of people you kissed.. It's all there.

When I'm done with the report I'm going to meet up with the rest of the gang and we're going to figure out our next trip. A lot of them are hot babes.

Reminds me of a very brief note (not really a story) by Borges in his ending years, where he presented how there might be some calculator somewhere having the info of how many times in your life you will do 'x', eg how many times you will go to some place, or utter a term. When the last bit of breaths you will take is used up in the calculator, you are dead

 

[Hygro]

This is what would happen in my perfect scenario:

1. I die
2. Lights go on
3. I hear a voice that says: "Please exit the machine.. and watch your step"

Turns out I'm a part of the intergalactic 1% and have enough technological knowhow, power, and money to live through an infinite number of lifetimes, of various species, on various planets, at different points in time in the existence of the universe and all other universes.

Also turns out that some of the people who I love and/or know here on Earth are also a part of the intergalactic 1% - they accompany me from existence to existence. Sometimes we cross paths, sometimes we don't. It's all a bit of a game to us, really. Sometimes we choose to be born with the knowledge of who we really are, and sometimes we don't... The purists among us feel that this is the best way to truly experience what it is to be a bee. Or a human. Or whatever. You go in not knowing anything - and spend your life trying to figure it all out. It's driven a couple of us mad, but it usually pays off in the end.

My stay on Earth is just one of many trips that I have been making throughout my existence. When it's done I can wake up in my real body and a master summary of my existence will be presented to me after breakfast. I can't wait to see the list of achievements I have managed to unlock! That's the best part about death for me - you get to see all sorts of interesting tidbits and statistics about your life. The amount of hotdogs eaten, the closest you came to die before you actually did, the number of people you kissed.. It's all there.

When I'm done with the report I'm going to meet up with the rest of the gang and we're going to figure out our next trip. A lot of them are hot babes.

This is basically what a lot of folks I know believe except they have a spiritual component of souls and an extra dimensional afterlife.

 

[azzaman333]

The problem I have with the idea of heaven is that without context there are no highs or lows. If you're always on a high, you have no perspective of what a low is, so it all feels the same and you effectively re-calibrate to that level. If I could just do the things I enjoy doing all the time, they wouldn't be as satisfying since there's no down time. So I don't know what I'd consider to be my heaven, since it'd need to be something that still allows me to experience the lows to enjoy the highs.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Honestly, the Christian concept of Heaven sounds kind of dull. Other ideas of the afterlife sound much more interesting to me. I've always been intrigued by the idea of reincarnation, but without memories of previous lives I'm not sure what the point would be. Certain sci-fi conceptualizations of ascension to a higher state of being seem cool too, where you take on a non-corporeal state but still exist in, and can interact with, this universe if you want to. I recall theories that the shows Quantum Leap, Farscape and Q Continuum in Star Trek were about afterlives (personally, I think those shows are much more interesting if they're not mystical, but I think religion reduces the universe to a less interesting place, for the most part). iirc, the Stargate television series had some idea of ascension too, but I can't remember if that was tied to death and an afterlife.

 

[Antilogic]

@Darkflight: I've never been able to fathom folks like you. How can you possibly want the end of your consciousness, unless in terrible physical and/or mental pain (which, presumably, Heaven could correct, whatever their nature)?

I've rarely seen it phrased that way, but I think most of the non-believing crowd intellectually know there isn't one, and the hope there is one comes off as a false hope. It's toxic.

Honestly, the Christian concept of Heaven sounds kind of dull. Other ideas of the afterlife sound much more interesting to me.

Mine is sorta like Valhalla, but with board games. In the modern equivalent of the Great Library.

 

[Hygro]

The problem I have with the idea of heaven is that without context there are no highs or lows. If you're always on a high, you have no perspective of what a low is, so it all feels the same and you effectively re-calibrate to that level. If I could just do the things I enjoy doing all the time, they wouldn't be as satisfying since there's no down time. So I don't know what I'd consider to be my heaven, since it'd need to be something that still allows me to experience the lows to enjoy the highs.

Couldn't a heaven be where you are always totally high without losing out on the lows? Like, that's what makes it heaven and not life here, yeah?

 

[warpus]

This is basically what a lot of folks I know believe except they have a spiritual component of souls and an extra dimensional afterlife.

If the Bible had more hot babes in it, they could have very well convinced me of their theories about the afterlife.