So I've been thinking about this whole heaven concept, and I've come to the conclusion that if it existed, I would not want to be there. Heaven is supposed to be a place where everybody is constantly feeling one emotion: happiness. Everybody I know and love would be stuck in emotional monotony. Happiness would become so commonplace that we would fail to appreciate how good it feels to be happy.

I like earth because we feel a variety of emotions. It is only because we suffer sometimes that we can truly appreciate how good pleasure feels. I love the people I love because they have deep and complex personalities, and I love getting to know those personalities. Our emotional lives are not simple, and things I value like love and morality and philosophy rest on how we deal with the various emotions that we feel. If we are stuck in a state of monotonous pleasure, we cannot have that same emotional depth, and I feel this would take a lot of meaning out of our lives.

The people whom I love know I love them because I am there for them when they suffer. It is true that we also sometimes experience moments of ecstasy together and relish in the fact that we are doing so, but it would not be the same if we did not have this emotional interdependence in times of pain. Without occasional times of pain, my relationships with other people would not be as deep and meaningful.

Heaven is not my kind of place. I do not want a god to inject a superdrug into my mind that forever blocks out most of the emotions I am capable of feeling, and does the same to all my friends and family. I want emotional variety and emotional depth. I want moral dilemmas. I want to lean on people when I suffer and I want people to lean on me when they suffer. I want to feel angry or sad when bad things happen to good people. I do not want to remain in a state of indifferent bliss when there is injustice in the universe.

The problem with heaven becomes even worse if we assume that there is also a hell. If some of the people I care about deeply end up in hell, and I know they are suffering for all eternity because they made a finite number of mistakes, I would consider myself a heartless bastard if that didn't produce some kind of negative emotion in me.
Oneironaut Reviewed by Oneironaut on . I don't want no eternal bliss... So I've been thinking about this whole heaven concept, and I've come to the conclusion that if it existed, I would not want to be there. Heaven is supposed to be a place where everybody is constantly feeling one emotion: happiness. Everybody I know and love would be stuck in emotional monotony. Happiness would become so commonplace that we would fail to appreciate how good it feels to be happy. I like earth because we feel a variety of emotions. It is only because we suffer sometimes that we Rating: 5