Heaven? Where Did you Get that Idea?

By BILL MEDLEY

Surveys have shown that most people in the western world believe in the idea of heaven - but where did the idea come from? Many who believe in heaven don't know the answer to that, which suggests to the sceptic that the concept of heaven is nothing more than wishful thinking. Did the idea of heaven develop through near death experiences? Is there some consensus from the different world religions? '...I've seen better. Some of the grammar and punctuation was quite poor. Where did this guy go to school? It can't have been a Catholic school. Don't they have spell checks down in Australia? Burka is spelt with a "q"'!' Pope Previous 'There were times reading this book when I wished I really was dead. And other times when I just wanted to say to the author, "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog."' Elvis Presley

• Language: English
• Publisher: Authentic Media
• Release date: Apr 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781780782294

Book preview

Endnotes

1

WHERE DID YOU GET THE IDEA THERE IS A HEAVEN?

So where did you get the idea there is a heaven? That was meant to be the original title of this book, something like:

So Where Did You Get the Idea That There Is Such a Place as Heaven?

The publisher said the title was too long and the trouble is that this long title would have taken up most of the front cover of the book and I would have had to lose the photo. What? After all this time, I finally had an excuse to dress up as Angus Young and it’s been pushed off the page? No way! The longer title just had to go. But that was what I really wanted to ask: where did you get the idea there is a heaven? Where did it come from? I mean the ‘heaven’ concept comes in handy when the family pet dog, poor old Rover, rolls over. What do you tell the kids? ‘It’s OK, Rover went to doggie heaven.’ All the while we really know Rover is just a couple of feet below providing food for the worms! But we justify telling the kids about heaven to help them cope with the loss. But are we any better at the funeral of a friend when we try to comfort each other with: ‘Well, they are in a better place now. They are up there looking down on us.’

Our motive is compassion of course. We want to give hope in the face of the trauma of death. It might be a hope that is a bit hazy. It might be a slim hope but at least it’s a hope. But is it realistic? Is it based on anything more than the promise of doggie heaven for dead Rover? Just where did you get the idea there is such a place as heaven?

We want to give hope in the face of the trauma of death

Human beings are eminently capable of deluding themselves to try and ease the pain of having to face reality. Karl Marx, the great German philosopher whose theories became the foundation of Communism, said that religion is the ‘opiate of the people’. In other words, religion is a dulling drug created by the ruling class to keep the working class sedated. As long as the workers believe in heaven (the reward of a better afterlife), it will keep them in line to work hard in this life. So heaven is just a delusional idea created to help endure the pain of this life.

Dying to get to heaven! – Harri-Carri Potter and the Luna-tickets

There is certainly no shortage of people who delude themselves about heaven. In March 1997, thirty-nine professional webpage designers committed suicide. They became known as the Heaven’s Gate Internet Cult. The members took a lethal cocktail of Phenobarbital and vodka and the police discovered a very orderly scene where the bodies lay. Why did they do it? Their leader had told them that the appearance of an unusually bright comet called Hale-Bopp was the sign that they were supposed to shed their earthly bodies and join a spacecraft travelling behind the comet that would take them away to heaven! Well, that is crazy. How could such well-educated, supposedly intelligent people fall for such a thing? Where did they get the idea from in the first place that heaven was waiting? But wait a minute. Where did you get the idea there is a heaven when you die?

He said he was certain he was going to heaven when he died

At funerals, everyone seems to have the theological mind of a saint (Bernard)

Not long before he died, Don Chipp, founder of the Australian Democrats political party, was interviewed on ABC television. At age 78, he said he was certain he was going to heaven when he died. He made it clear he was not