Quote:
Originally Posted by Happy Monkey
It seems to me that for heaven to be perfectly peaceful, some restrictions on free will would be necessary. But that seems to diminish the attractiveness of heaven. And if it is possible to have free will and peace in heaven, then why would it not work on Earth?
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This points to a basic misconception about the afterlife--that after our physical death we might remain individuals, with the name and the identity we had while alive.
If we think instead of the animating spark of life within us as a small part of a complete, singular universe, then the very idea of our individuality becomes a matter of biological constraints. These counstraints would be undone upon our death, and therefore any illusion of individuality.
We would go to heaven not as individual souls travelling to a cosmic vacation resort, but rather upon our physical death we would simply rejoin the universe we temporarily forgot that we were a part of all along.
At that point, concepts like "free will" no longer have any meaning.