Is there a version of eternity...

that sounds appealing to you?

 

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An eternity bedding with virgins sounds good but I would rather spend it here in this universe. So I guess just being immortal will do. When the universe ends does eternity go with it?

 

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No concerns about boredom?
How about the fact that time seems to go faster as we age? Would thousands of years go by after a while like days do now?
How would you keep it interesting?

(I am not answering your last question because I am interested in people's imagined experience of eternity and not in putting forth an explanation or set of assertions.)

 

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70 virgins? How do they remain virgins???

By definition, eternity is beyond the life of this universe.
1111

 

Eternity is one of the Absolutes along with Infinity, Omnipresence, blah blah. Absolutes such as these started out as mathematical fictions, imaginary concepts. People kept repeating them so much that people began to think of them as Real. But, no, absolutes remain in the province of imaginary mathematical, and now, theological concepts.

There are no real Absolutes. No Eternity has ever happened yet.

 

If that's what's promised to me by our Lord and maker then I expect Him to deliver. How He does it isn't my concern.

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Then why isn't it all finished? How do you know it has already been a forever?
A line going back infinitely in time......

 

Not worried about boredom. Immortality is not something I think you can be guaranteed.....I could be vaporised in a heartbeat and That would probably be it. For a mortal and an atheist like myself then eternity is as long as I can stick it out. I'd have to be blessed with some type of unknown power like Superman's to remain alive forever, instant tissue regeneration isn't going to help me if there's nothing left but it would probably stop the aging. There's enough stuff to keep it interesting, like a universe, assuming I am able to learn as I go along.

 

HOW can you know this?

 

He can't know this, Scorpius and Simon. He can't.

Anyway, no, there is no eternity that sounds appealing to me, simply because it is eternity. Just try to imagine it for a second. I don't think we're wired to want to last forever. I really don't. I mean, seeing all your friends and family again sounds nice, but I can't wrap my mind around the idea of forever.

Would you want to do any one thing forever? I assume my spirit would be as dynamic as I am, correct? So wouldn't my spirit get bored with smiling all day? Wouldn't it maybe perhaps want to get into some mischief? Wouldn't anyone ever feel the need to get into a fight?

Do you think there's cage fighting in heaven?

Anyway, none of the eternities I've heard presented to me are appealing. And for everyone to be happy, it would have to be subjective anyway. Like, I'd have to be able to go to my version of heaven, and you to yours, etc., etc..

 

This used to bother me when I was a kid. I would imagine smiling in Heaven.....for billions of years and I found it scary. I was supposed to find it appealing, certainly the better of the options, but there I was finding it scary - it also sounded boring.

 

I don't even know what I want to do with this life. How am I supposed to know how to spend it in eternity?

I figure I could stand eternity as long as I was stuck in a state of euphoria.

 

Obviously y'all haven't hung out with many virgins.

 

It is said that the distinction between conditioned (repeated temporal existence) and unconditioned life (eternal existence) is where one seeks happiness.

Eternal existence is characterized around being cent per cent socialized around the loving service of god.

Temporary existence is characterized around, to a greater or lesser degree, being socialized around the service of one's self (which extends to "my family, my nation, my people, my species, etc etc")

In short, as long as there is a single bread crumb, separate from god, that we find happiness in, we will have a type of existence that will require temporary senses, temporary body temporary identity etc etc

 

For me a loving God would not be interested in eternal service, not needing that service anyway. But that is on the way off topic.

The idea of eternally serving God comes with no image for me, but I must say it does not sound enticing.

 

god doesn't require it
we do

NOI Verse 7. The holy name, character, pastimes and activities of Krsna are all transcendentally sweet like sugar candy. Although the tongue of one afflicted by the jaundice of avidyä [ignorance] cannot taste anything sweet, it is wonderful that simply by carefully chanting these sweet names every day, a natural relish awakens within his tongue, and his disease is gradually destroyed at the root.

Jaundice is a good example, since the cure for it is to eat sweet things, even though they taste quite bitter to the afflicted person.

As a side point, we are servants by nature - IOW even the filthy rich find actual pleasure in their friends and family.

The drastic change between conditioned and unconditioned life is simply re-directing the service attitude to its proper source

 

One where nobody died of "natural causes."

 

Some of you may. But then service is a poor choice of word - if 'we' require it rather than God does - since it comes from slave and servitude and the concept was definitely defined by the masters.

 

servitude is only a dirty word in conditioned existence since the whole thing is artificial. No conditioned soul is capable of fully surrendering to another conditioned soul and no conditioned soul is worthy of such surrender. Still the material game of material masters and servants goes on, while our actual identity as a servant and god's identity as the master goes on in the background ....

 

It's a poor metaphor. And so is surrender. They're old metaphors, they are traditional. But they are poor. Even if one thinks God does not change, we don't have to use old metaphors based on abusive relationships.

And an eternity based on an abusive relationship is not appealing.