There is a subject that is final yet contains ultimates: the subject of eternity. We will all spend most of our time there so it is a subject that is worth considering at least. I hate to call it death because we seem to be travelers in this short life and so eternity must be our natural state. The question is,” what will it be like?” It is hard to describe because we make all our associations with our earthly life. We can conclude with certainty that we won’t have these bodies since we observe others leave their bodies behind only to decay. I hope you don’t mind if we leave conventional ideas behind for a while and just look at what we can know. It is emotional for some and there are many who have staked their entire lives on certain ideals.

I don’t get where there is talk about pain and pleasure; hell and heaven. It seems cultures have their own ultimates according to their norms. I can see a mother who spanks her kid telling him that if he is too bad there will be eternal punishment. There are also those who use time outs for their kids who would be more apt to say there is a purgatory. We see that a temperate person will avoid immediate pleasures for something better in the future. It would only follow that we would make an ultimate pleasure such as heaven for those who deny earthly pleasures but didn’t have time to enjoy the rewards. The ancients would have places for royalty verses the common people and they would have places that reward their war heroes. Generations have a pattern of following the cultural norms and using things associated with how things are on the earth as their template of eternity. Lack of good things would be the ultimate punishment and excesses of them would be the ultimate reward.

Some things I don’t get. One is the matter of judgment. I get the impression from teachings that many go on a broad path to hell and the path to heaven is narrow. What doesn’t make sense is there being a kind of standard where at a certain point you don’t make it. Where is this tipping point? I just can’t picture two very similar people but with one too many sins it is off to eternal punishment while the other gets a free pass to eternal pleasure. Maybe it is like waiting in line at an electronics store where if you don’t happen to get there early enough, they will be out of stock. If you don’t fill in the paperwork right, you don’t make it. Everyone has their certain acts and lifestyles that qualify you; it hurts the head trying to sort it all out for ourselves. Knowing the right person, acting the right way, attending the right church or following the right rituals; it can all get so complicated.Why try to understand perceptions of things that have never been observed?

How can there be pain if we don’t have pain receptors? We leave our pleasure centers behind too. Time is of no use since there are no material things. I recently read a couple books about how the Germans and former nazi’s were oppressed and murdered after the war. It was bad enough to lose ones ideals but to carry the guilt and blame for such atrocities was difficult. On reaching eternity will we just wonder,” What was I thinking?” Absent the animal passions, maybe we will think clearly. Isn’t vice based on chasing immediate pleasure? It would only make sense that when we lose the body, we would think differently. I think that by observing the artistry of nature and the universe that the origin, where we came from can only be beautiful. The destruction and corruption due to decay and chaos are foreign to life. Why would any of it follow us to this beautiful place?  That might be why we need a savior; to keep those things out.

The only thing we can do when considering eternity is to not look at the past as something that disqualifies future delight. It is an outlook that works here on the earth too….