This matter does tend to draw out a lot of controversy. The same opinions seem to be constant throughout this forum that people do not believe in heaven and its existence is merely for people to live their life in hope.
Epithemeos
“War on Religion”
http://hearingtheword.blogspot.com/

Religion isn’t always used for the best though…

Having been around and living with the "poorest"of the poor,and having lived with the elite the well to do,my verdict is,the theories of what is and what is not,are and still remain what they are,this includes science,but speaking about religeon and "GOD",it was in South Africa,living with very poor black human beings,that I FOUND,that their FAITH and HOPE,in GOD was real,and their humanity showed,IT ALL,that there is,in believing in GOD, not so living with the well to do and the ELITE,with them then GOD is for sure not there,now readers,you decide,but may it be said,that in todays world there is no place for A GOD,as SCIENCE has proclaimed that there is no GOD,and thereby have made SCIENCE the missing CREATOR?.Give me the GOD of the poor black human beings that I LIVED AMONST in South Africa,and I BELIEVE THAT THERE IS ONE,not the one of the world of SCIENCE,who is the CREATOR of the WORLD,according to their THEORIES,still not a complete and logical fact,but to me still found wanting in so many different ways.

Having been around and living with the "poorest"of the poor,and having lived with the elite the well to do,my verdict is,the theories of what is and what is not,are and still remain what they are,this includes science,but speaking about religeon and "GOD",it was in South Africa,living with very poor black human beings,that I FOUND,that their FAITH and HOPE,in GOD was real,and their humanity showed,IT ALL,that there is,in believing in GOD, not so living with the well to do and the ELITE,with them then GOD is for sure not there,now readers,you decide,but may it be said,that in todays world there is no place for A GOD,as SCIENCE has proclaimed that there is no GOD,and thereby have made SCIENCE the missing CREATOR?.Give me the GOD of the poor black human beings that I lived "WITH" in South Africa,and I BELIEVE THAT THERE IS ONE,not the one of the world of SCIENCE,who is the CREATOR of the WORLD,according to their THEORIES,still not a complete and logical fact,but to me still found wanting in so many different ways.

Aaah ……Excuse Me Sells,

“Thus heaven is real in that with its intersection with earth in the man Jesus it transforms the earth. The ideas of Marx were just ideas and led to misery. Heaven is an idea in the mind of God and brings wellbeing. It is an idea with its feet in historical event and thus is not just made up as some of you have said. It is an outworking of history. Thus it is a given and not our own product. It is “other”.”

You say heaven is an idea in the mind of God but what Marx is saying is that God is nothing but an idea of man. The material (i.e. real) world of man came before the “idea” of God. Thinking and ideas are a product of the material. Instead of God making man in his own image, men made God in their image. You put the cart before the horse before the cart.

You say that the ideas of Marx were “just ideas” and led to misery. Marx’s “ideas” arose from studying the historical material reality – which already contained REAL misery – and still does with or without Marx.

The reality is that what you call heaven’s “intersection with earth in the man Jesus” has not transformed the earth, and is just another “idea”. Yet you persist in BELIEVING the idea of heaven and then try to make it “real” by linking it to material phenomena and saying things like it has “its feet in historical event” and is “an outworking of history”, whatever that means. This demonstrates that you know it is not real, but desperately want it to be so, and must play games in your own mind.

Religion (including Christianity) does have its place in history but with progress its ideas can be seen for what they are – stories and myths that were an attempt by less advanced people to explain the world.

“Thus it is a dream with a firm basis in history.” No – it is a dream with an un-firm basis in your head.

Tao makes a lot of sense.

I have always thought that God is just a fantasy. That’s my opinion, it’s not a fact.

The only thing that is real is the fact that we don’t know whether heaven, God, or our souls are real or a fantasy.

We can only express our beliefs; beliefs that were 'installed' in our brains by parents, schools, communities. We cannot present facts.

We have to rely on religions to tell us the meaning of heaven. Religions don't even agree.
It mostly depends on the religion what kind of heaven they present to you.

Quotes from the bible neither move me in any way nor explain anything to me as I don’t believe in the truth of the bible.

Over the centuries/millenia, people have dumped several Gods and Godesses and chose to believe in just one (male) God. This means that Gods are disposable. They can come and go just like fashion.

Conclusion: We can discuss this forever but at the end we will be none the wiser.

KAROOSON, what does God actually do for those poor people in South Africa? Is there a point to their prayers and faith? What does science do for them?

Tao raises a question that is an essential challenge to us who profess to believe. He repeats the argument of Ludwig Feuerbach in the 19th century that religion is nothing but a human projection. It is no accident that Marx comes into the picture because he was a direct descendent of Feuerbach. The following quotes will give some of the flavor of this important negative theologian.

To turn.."the friends of God into friends of man, believers into thinkers, worshippers into workers, candidates for the other world into students of this world, Christians, who on their own confession are half-animal and half-angel, into men—whole men."7 To these proposed improvements he had earlier added: "theo¬logians into anthropologians . . . , religious and political footmen of a celestial and terrestrial monarchy and aris¬tocracy into free, self-reliant citizens of earth.”

“I deny only to affirm. I deny the fantastic projection of theology and religion in order to affirm the real essence of man.”

This is the foundation of Marxism. It seeks to destroy all of the religious hypostases and expose them as products of man. But instead it builds its own made of man himself with disastrous consequences. It is no accident that communist regimes all turned into secular religions that systematically slaughtered its citizens.

But Feuerbach is right. Most of the Christianity that I see in the churches would fall under his critique. Theology has been turned into anthropology. Whenever you hear talk of “spirituality” you know this is what has happened. But replacing these hypostases with the ones we create even if they look good to us, in fact especially if they look good, will only exchange one tyrant for another.

I recommend reading Barth’s introductory essay in Feuerbach The Essence of Christianity translated by our very own George Eliot and published by Torchbooks.