"Heaven Sounds So Boring!"

My answer to an atheist question

“Wouldn’t Heaven literally be Hell? Imagine living forever and ever and ever and you can’t do anything to stop it… Wouldn’t you go mentally crazy at some point?”

I found this question on an atheist forum thread on Quora and thought it was worth trying to answer it from my (admittedly limited) understanding. I often find that I’m surprising myself with new insights by answering other people’s questions.

Here’s what I wrote:

Hope you can stomach a guest comment from a Catholic convert, LOL. So you’re saying heaven would be like hell because who wants to live forever and ever.

Once I saw a protest sign in Ireland that summed it up pretty well: “Worried about dying? Don’t be. You will live forever. The only thing to worry about is location.”

So it’s not a super-boring and dull heaven or nothing for eternity. It’s an amazing heaven where you’re fully united with God or unbearable torture in hell for eternity.

It’s true that we have much clearer descriptions of hell than of heaven (though some Catholic saints got pretty good glimpses), but one thing’s for sure: It won’t be boring. The reason is that at the moment of death, your free will ceases to exist and becomes locked in the state of mind you were in when you died.

If you’re heaven bound, God’s will becomes your will, and you will want nothing more than to be united with Him, your Creator and loving Father, forever.

If you’re hell bound, your will gets locked into the sinfulness and aversion for God that made you turn your back on Him, and He will allow you to get what you wanted—His complete absence, which, as you will see, is the horrible torment of hell.

What most people don’t realize is that right now, this second, you are in God’s presence. You are surrounded by God, sort of floating in a sea of God, like fish are floating in water but being oblivious to the presence of the water because it’s the only element they know.

God is always waiting, hoping you will open your heart to Him. He loves you so much and wants you to love Him back. He will pursue you throughout your life, giving you one chance after another… until the very end. Even if you sincerely repent at the last moment of your life, you could be saved.

But if you stubbornly refuse Him, your destination is hell… and there’s no party there, just eternal pain and horror and hatred for God.

I hope we’ll all make the right decision. God bless you!

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