What Heaven Means To Me

[sythyry]

The word "Heaven" is not a technical term of art; it means a variety of things. What does it mean to you?

[Poll #1610914]

Comments

[valdary.livejournal.com]

I regard heaven more as a emotion than a place. A sense of utter relaxation and comradeship.

[rowyn]

I actually have considerably less idea than the answers I put down. O:) Also, I think a place could be a proper heaven and still have several variations on the themes. For me, I think the key property of a heaven is that it be a pleasant place for its inhabitants and/or guests, and therefore what it's like would be based to large degree on what the inhabitants find pleasing.

[terrana.livejournal.com]

Of course I've no way to know about the reality or lack thereof. My answers simply reflect how I'd build my heaven if I were designing a universe.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

In that case, I would expect that a Mentador demon, rather than a Locador óne, would be the entity to kidnap you off to there.

[bloofox.livejournal.com]

I don't think a proper heaven really requires a god. It could (and the best ones would) be built by their inhabitants.

[draconis.livejournal.com]

Just to be more awkward:

Social structures in a proper heaven are rather more complicated by the larger differential of divinity (what with everything from crab lice to creator gods wandering about)

Clothing in a proper heaven is variable between being the same as non-heavenly places and the garments of status / function as accorded those with some degree of or proximity to divinity.

Work, in a proper heaven, is partially based on the economy of the heaven-state and partially God's Work, obviously the two will overlap. Or be at odds.

Food in a proper heaven is whatever you can grow or afford but is largely. Depending on the (meta)physical nature of the heaven, 'grow' might mean some pretty weird things. Soul cabbages, for example, could be grown from the lives of call centre workers.

Toilets in a proper heaven are just as offensive as elsewhere but are only there for making prurient jokes about rather than having to be used.

(I think my ideas about heavens are largely influenced by Garth Nix.)

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

I find that many different things could be a heaven - thus the sometimes-contradictory answers.

One thing I was unsure on was the sexplay question. I kind of wanted to put an answer in between "just like elsewhere" and "free and open" - I'd have thought it could be somewhat less inhibited, seeing as the people there might include less jealous types and that there would likely be less lasting consequences(especially if the residents aren't truly alive in some key sense, and cannot procreate).

Similarly, the toilets are only necessary for those living there who are alive. The dead might still "eat", but it's probably a "ghost" of food - all the essence and enjoyment, but no actual metabolic substance. So for the ghosts, toilets are unnecessary; for the others, they're convenient.

There is probably some food that has more effort into it than "whenever you want it, it's there", too. For some people, there really is pleasure in getting something after working for it. But there being plenty in the sense that nobody need go hungry would be a fine thing.

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

I need more then one choices on some of these!

[yotogi.livejournal.com]

Now there's a marketing byline for you.

Birkozon: Relaxation and comradeship, whether you want it or not.

[rowyn]

Nonono, you will want it!

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

The concept is pretty vague. As we tend to use the word, it's a nice place built by God/the gods to reward chosen followers with some idealized version of mortal life, and people don't think too hard about questions like "wouldn't you get really bored?" The Norse religion points out an unlisted option: a nice place created because the morals are actually needed for some reason. The Mormon version's interesting too; it involves getting promoted to godhood.

I've heard some Christians argue that the whole "land of puffy clouds where people strum harps and wear white togas" depiction is a distracting metaphor for a particular relationship with God, and so is the "fire and brimstone and demons jabbing you with pitchforks" depiction of Hell. I guess by that logic Heaven would be getting your soul absorbed by God, and this is supposed to be a good thing. Even calling the fluffy cloud land "heaven" implies you're dealing with a thoroughly nice god, which with every religion I can think of is a questionable assumption.

It'd be neat to explore this idea in the RPG my friends and I are playing, since several PCs are technically gods now. Each has a ruined elemental realm that could slowly be repaired and could be a base of operations, but there's not much innately paradisical about them. I wouldn't call those "heavens" though, nor even Mirricanis' "realm" considering what we know of the WT gods. Hmm, now I want to get into this idea for the "goddess of light" in my game, since canon says she prominently failed to Save the World but has a holy astral island place.

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

Like a "post-scarcity economy", or one where physics get so thoroughly hacked that people can design pocket universes?

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Where do you want to go today? Birknazza. You want to go there. Today.

[rowyn]

If there is a Birknazza plot arc in sleethnamedthis, you have only yourself to blame. >:)

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Ditto!

[relee.livejournal.com]

My favorite heaven was Elysium, from Planescape. It was the plane of absolute good, and rather than being utopia, it was paradise. It wasn't boring because bad things happened, but they only happened in such a way as to bring everyone together to solve those problems. In Paradise, things are as bad as you need them to be, and as good as you can stand them being.

Of course, Heaven isn't neccesarily Paradise. When people use capital H Heaven, I tend to think of something more like Celestia or Arcadia, heavens where everyone is devoted to a conceptual ideal or a deity who is the personification of that ideal. Something like the Christian heaven, where everybody stands around and sings songs praising the glory of god. Also all the archetecture is vaguely greek with ivory towers and collumns built on fluffy cloud lands.

I suppose it depends on the origin of the heaven. If it's a God's realm, it will be defined by the nature of that God. If it's an otherworld that is merely described AS heaven, then it is likely something more like Paradise.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

I certainly think that, say, Valhalla is a biiiiit more interesting of an idea than the traditional Christian heaven...

[relee.livejournal.com]

Ohhhhhhhhh we drink and fight and drink and fight and drink and fight and the pig comes back tomorrow!

[archai.livejournal.com]

Of course, MOST things built by committee end up a proper hell, instead...

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Valhalla sounds reeeeeally tedious. The traditional christian heaven is pretty awful too, I guess.

The typical modern christian heaven, where you can do whatever you want (presumably including drinking and fighting) and speak with celebrities from all of history and crap, is much better.

Or Jack's heaven where you get your own virtual world to live in (complete with resident sentient spirits that you can abuse guiltlessly because they aren't real) and can have other people visit. There's even some confusing creepiness where you can have someone over to your heaven but they don't have to experience going and visiting you, so that if you want to see someone and they don't want to see you both of you can be satisfied.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Well, see what you think of Mircannis' idea of heaven, then.

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

Just like in football. :D

[relee.livejournal.com]

Gridiron Warriors also go to Valhalla.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[Unfortunately, they go to Valhalla, NY, about two miles north of where I work.]

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

The comic "Order of the Stick" showed the setting's "Lawful Good" afterlife as a mountain where near the base, the residents have access to plenty of food, sex and dungeon-crawls just hard enough to be fun. We're told that people hang out there for a while but eventually get bored and climb to see the higher-level, less worldly attractions.

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

Haven't read "Jack" in a long time, but that was a memorable portrayal of Heaven. There was that one woman who made her personal VR fantasy land into a nightmarish stalker den, just in the hope that her evil boyfriend would hear about it and work to earn his way there. Or less seriously, the guy who liked to besiege Redwall Abbey.

Re: the poll's question about sex, "Jack" said, "In heaven, they make love; on Earth, they have sex; in Hell, they ****."

[archadia.livejournal.com]

same

[relee.livejournal.com]

[I thought you lived in Michigan?]

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

[Westchester, NY.]

[relee.livejournal.com]

Yeah that was the Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia. The idea is that you gradually climb the mountain while perfecting yourself, untill you reach the top where the perfect being is and unite with it. Though, not everybody makes it that far up, and it takes forever anyways. Some people just fade into the landscape and 'sleep' and others become Archons.

Order of the Stick are pretty true to their source. They even made sure to make the Planetars green.

[relee.livejournal.com]

[Sarnia, ON. For disclosure. Westchester is a dorkishly british name. I like it.]

[archai.livejournal.com]

Help! Where's my 'unnecessary BUT available' option? I need this for things like food! You don't have to eat, but what's the point of heaven if you can never have friends over for dinner or create food as an edible art form?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Most of the others will do for that...

[archai.livejournal.com]

Yes, but with caveats. Implicit necessity, for instance!