Draft on "Heaven"

“Heaven”




“The bounties and beauty of Heaven are immense, so much so that it is beyond abilities of mankind’s worldly mind to comprehend” says Hilal Plaza in there article about Heaven. Well it is said that nine out of ten people in the United States believe in “Heaven” (ABC News Poll). In general, “heaven” is a physical place and location considered to be in the sky or somewhere in the vast universe. “Heaven” is a place where people go once they have died and are said to experience paradise and eternal life. Many different cultures and religions believe in a “heaven” or “higher place” where they go once they have died. Religions such as Christianity, Buddhism and Islam all have a type of “heaven” where they go. Through each religion this “heaven” is described differently and has certain things that must be done or accomplished to make it into this “heaven”.

“Heaven” in Islam goes by the name of Jannah. For them Jannah is described as paradise. Though it is paradise there are many levels of paradise for them, 7 to be exact (Muslim Voices). The higher the level, the more things will be granted. It all depends on how righteous the person was on earth (Hilal Plaza). The higher the level, the closer they are to the understanding of Allah (God). They are said to experience beautiful virgins, young boys, water, wine, fruit and wealth (Flex.com). In their culture these are all thing that are accepted. Jannah will be a bigger and brighter version of world. Now, to be accepted into Jannah, it is pretty simple. Whoever praised and worshiped only Allah will be accepted to enter. But going back to how righteous they were on earth will decided on what level they will be accepted to enter.

Buddhists believe there are six realms of heaven and each have different aspects. These levels are best heaven, heaven realm, lower realm, animal realm, hungry ghost realm, and hell realm. They go from the ultimate pleasure and happiness to the worst possible place, hell. The ultimate place is what they define as Nirvana. Nirvana is said to “end of suffering while you're alive, and the end of rebirth after you die” (Urban Dharma). Now to get to heaven in Buddhism, it is mostly based on karma and what you have done. The Karma that gets you into heaven can be used up over time. You can only be in heaven for as long as your Karma lasts. Once your karma that you gained in life has been used up you are “re born” (Urban Dharma) to start over again with new wisdom you have learned in heaven.

Heaven in most widely know for coming from the religion of Christianity. Heaven here is said to be the ultimate paradise. There is no pain, no suffering, no sorrow and no more sin. Everyone will be fully satisfied and ultimately happy with everything. Also everyone will be brother and sisters here. There will be large feasts and you will be blessed with everything you need. It is said that the streets are made of gold and everyone will be able to fly with the angels. Now to be accepted into heaven, there are some things that must be done. All though there many different denominations of Christianity such as Baptist, Adventist and Methodist to name a few, they all have very close and similar principals of what needs to be done. One must fully believe and accept Jesus Christ as their lord and savior. This means they must accept that Jesus came to earth as a man and died on the cross for everyone’s sins. The next step after this is to publicly declare that you accepted Jesus as their lord and savior by being baptized. Once this has been done, you will be accepted into heaven when the time comes.

From the first quote it is clear that Heaven is described in many ways and said to be so amazing that no human can really comprehend what Heaven is going to be. The descriptions of heaven are so astonishing that people can only imagine what it’s going to be like. There isn’t much proof of when the time will come when people go to heaven. So either Buddhist, Islamic or Christian, the believers of a “heaven” are all waiting for the ultimate experience of paradise and happiness once their time is up.