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Heaven would be a gilded cage--an unsustainable one too. Everyone goes to heaven expecting themselves to be accommodated with access to everyone else they know has died. But what about all those who have died agendas and expectations? It would be ridiculous for a "god" to manufacture some accommodating private fantasy for each dead person. Why would any being want to take such on? It all falls apart when one questions the practicality of delivering "heaven" and motivation for doing so. The movie Star Trek: Generations broached this with the energy ribbon called "the nexus". Kirk and Piccard had been individually pulled into the Nexus and were given the power to live in any fantasy they could imagine. Both ultimately sacrificed that opportunity to come back to reality and make a difference--facing what could be the truth death. The question was begged: do you value the only reality that you can count on or live through it as if its a necessary evil to get somewhere that's immaterial and perhaps not even there?

Some consider Heaven to be a place where the faithful are rewarded by getting an opportunity to spend all eternity praising Yahweh. But I wonder how well the faithful would fare if they actually ended up in this sort of Heaven? Let's take the most obnoxious fundamentalists that one can think of, and imagine them arriving in Heaven after they die. To begin with, they'll be absolutely delighted and positively gleeful - vindication that they have been right all along, and now they are to be rewarded for their virtuousness. Now they get to spend their time contemplating the magnificence of the god they spent their lives serving, and worshipping him. One expects that after ten years of non-stop worship and praise, they'll probably still be pretty pleased. But what about after a hundred years? A thousand? A trillion? Eventually, even for the most diehard fundamentalist, non stop worship and praise, in the full knowledge that it will never ever end, will eventually become excruciating. Their fate would be like that of Sisyphus, performing the same task over and over again for the rest of eternity, in the full knowledge that there will be no change, they will be doing the same thing forever. If every grain of sand in the universe were to represent a billion years, then after they have gone through every grain of sand in a trillion universes, they would still be no closer to the end of their perpetual church service. What started out as a 'reward' would eventually become an eternal nightmare, and no matter how dedicated and devoted they may have started out, eventually the whole experience will become nothing but torment. If there's one place that would be Hell for fundamentalists, it's Heaven.

It is solved. We got the opportunity to work from our summerhouse both of us so we are back to some more primitive circumstanses again. But of course, with computers this time. It might take up to two months to restore our apartment though.

Gurra - sad to hear about the state of your apartment (and, presumably,  your fish)

Luckily most of the fishes survived. There were some water left on the bottom !

It is looking a little better; Labor are on 72 and the Liberals and Nationals on 70. Hopefully Labor can get up to 74, so that they can govern only needing the support of the Greens and Andrew Wilkie, assuming he wins in Denison, and not need to rely on the conservative independents. Though the good thing about the conservative independents is that they all hate the National Party, which makes them less likely to support Abbott.

Hopefully this will all be the catalyst for some electoral reform. Several of the Greens members have made comments suggesting that they'll be pushing to make proportional representation a big issue in this parliament, and they will have quite a bit of clout, particularly if they end up in a coalition with Labor.

Well the populace spoke. And it said, "A pox on both your houses". That may have been the most excruciatingly uninspiring and cynical election campaign I have seen (& I have now seen more than a few).

The upside is that neither Julia Gillard nor Tony Abbott can form a government on their own terms. The downside is that one of them will still from government. I don't like either of the major parties, but Tony Abbott scares me. I also hope for a Labor/Greens coalition, but the numbers don't inspire confidence. Could still go either way...

I'm sure everyone remembers my health complaints, been exhausted for so damn long, hard to believe I haven't posted anything in over a year, completely wiped out, stagnant and still.

Sorry to hear.  Even with your ill-health and recent loss, do you manage to find moments of peace?

Well, I've just got back from voting. I ended up voting for the Secular Party; I checked out their policy platform and it's pretty similar to that of the Greens, except the Secular Party's environmental policies are actually sensible. Not that my candidate has a hope of winning, due to our lovely voting system. Still, my electorate is a marginal Liberal/Labor seat, which means that there's a small chance that I'll get a very dodgy consolation prize of my 6th choice, a particularly awful Labor candidate, winning, although it's most likely I'll end up getting my 8th choice (there were a total of 9 candidates standing).

The opinion polls are suggesting we'll get a hung parliament - hopefully we'll get a Labor/Greens coalition, as that is probably the best possible outcome, though there is a horrifying chance that Tony Abbott will win.

I'm sure everyone remembers my health complaints, been exhausted for so damn long, hard to believe I haven't posted anything in over a year, completely wiped out, stagnant and still.

Mom passed away on july 16h of this year, thanks for the concern. I may have shared this already I don't remember.

Feeling sad for your sake...

Back on topic: I am currently reading Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification by Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman (can you tell it's for my thesis?).
For pleasure I'm rereading This Freedom, a book of short stories by Australian writer John Morrison. Most of the stories were written in the mid-20th century, before I was born, and they are local and detailed enough to provide a glimpse into the world that my parents grew up in.