Mansions in Heaven

[Clownboat]

[Replying to SallyF]

In John 14:2 Jesus spoke of a house with many rooms, not individual mansions. The image he used was not of privately owned homes where people could live separate from each other, but of a one house of God so large that all people could be living together.

OMG …!!!

And they call this "Heaven" …?!

Most Christians I know can't stand each other.

At least if you're a Mormon Christian, you get a whole planet to rule …




But …

Like so many things in ALL the Christianities …

Folks are dodging admitting what they believe is real, and what is just stuff that's been fabricated by imaginative minds …

And is sort of taken as being articles of faith …

Because while it LOOKS like obvious make-believe …

Some folks in the congregation don't KNOW it's possibly ALL just make-believe.

And ... just as we do with Santa for the kiddies …

We need to do for the faithful and their unwavering credulity …

Because it might upset them.

So perhaps we all just live a self-deluding, feel-good, distort it and leave-out-the-bits-we-don't-like lie …?

The churches I was a member of promised us both mansion and entire planets to rule over. There would also be entire planets just for enjoyment that we could travel to at the speed of thought. Yup, the speed of thought.

Want to go horse riding? Go to the horse riding planet.
Want to play paintball? You guessed it!

[Clownboat]

And they call this "Heaven" …?!

Most Christians I know can't stand each other.

I am sorry to hear that you view Christians that way. However, the fact that Christians regularly and willingly meet together, both in individual congregations and in larger multi-congregational groups, is evidence that your assessment is not accurate for the vast majority of Christians.

I was brought up in a Christian home that claimed that Catholics worshipped Mary and not Jesus.

At least they were trying to worship the right god, unlike those dirty Muslims we couldn't stand even more.

To your point.
Christians meet with other like minded Christians to willingly meet together.
Baptists don't go to Catholic churches to meet together. Mosts Baptists (for example) probably couldn't stand to willingly meet with Catholics at a Catholic church. They reserve their meeting for other Baptists meeting in a Baptist environment.

[Danmark]

The churches I was a member of promised us both mansion and entire planets to rule over. There would also be entire planets just for enjoyment that we could travel to at the speed of thought. Yup, the speed of thought.

Want to go horse riding? Go to the horse riding planet.
Want to play paintball? You guessed it!

I always pictured a tropical island without annoying insects. It had a small waterfall fed lagoon and no sharks, where I could swim underwater with perfect vision and not have to hold my breath.

[William]

[Replying to post 31]

Clownboat: The churches I was a member of promised us both mansion and entire planets to rule over. There would also be entire planets just for enjoyment that we could travel to at the speed of thought. Yup, the speed of thought.

Want to go horse riding? Go to the horse riding planet.
Want to play paintball? You guessed it!

William: Yes - that is the basic idea. What one desires, one receives. That appears to be the overall nature of The Next Phase of Experience.
The devil is - as ever - in the details.

The one I have created for myself includes all of the others, but I am not bound within any of those others, as I am free to move wherever and whenever I want to.

[SallyF]

The churches I was a member of promised us both mansion and entire planets to rule over. There would also be entire planets just for enjoyment that we could travel to at the speed of thought. Yup, the speed of thought.

Want to go horse riding? Go to the horse riding planet.
Want to play paintball? You guessed it!

I always pictured a tropical island without annoying insects. It had a small waterfall fed lagoon and no sharks, where I could swim underwater with perfect vision and not have to hold my breath.

Yes … the Christians I know and knew all had their own imaginings of what "Heaven" holds.

When I was a kid, everyone I knew was expecting a robe and a crown and their very own mansion … and they saw nothing wrong in what they thought was a reasonable expectation, based on "scripture" as they were happy to understand it.

But the centuries-old Christian tradition of a mansion per person became unfashionable.

So …

In standard Christian fashion …

We needed to refashion the word "mansion".

We should remind ourselves of the wisdom of Humpty Dumpty …

[SallyF]

We have seen that Jamie Smith is looking forward to a set of wings and his very own mansion and chauffeur in Heaven.

We have seen that other Christians today expect some sort of Christ-centred commune.

Christians - it seems to me - just make stuff up to suit themselves.

The possibly fictional, would-be King of Israel, donkey-parading Jesus didn't (as far as we know) write the words about the mansions/commune/whatever in his father's house …

His propagandists did …

Possibly 70 years and more AFTER he had burst from the womb of the BVM onto the planet he had created and flooded.

Truth is …

We don't know WHO the propagandists were …

We don't know WHAT they really meant …

We have NO evidence that ANY version of "God" had anything to do with the propaganda …

So we just make stuff up …

In my view.

Which is part of why I'm a New Atheist …

Battling against what I see as the superstition and fraudulence of the almost innumerable versions of Christianity.