Heaven

[Guest Heather C E]

Everyone knows about heaven. I remember hearing somewhere that in the Bible, there is a passage about how humans get new bodies when we go to heaven. I'm not the biggest supporter of the bible (the Old Testament mostly. Anything Jesus says is a good base to act on) and I don't know which testament or where this appears, but do you think that for transpeople that our "heaven-bodies" are our mental gender? I'd imagine they are... heaven is heaven, right? The idea is certainly an attractive one and it has definitely brought me closer to my faith, which makes me feel God planned this for me. My dysphoria has gotten a little less severe due to it (I'm still not content with it of course) but I've got a good feeling about the future now. Just thought I'd share this at a brought a little light to my life and I hope it can to yours too. I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions on the subject, especially from someone with a bit more biblical knowledge.

[Guest Misaka]

I can't imagine the body you have in heaven will have a gender, there doesn't seem to be much need for gender in heaven. If everyone gets new bodies, and those bodies have attributes as human as gender, then it would be really confusing to go to heaven and you wouldn't recognise anyone because they'd all be in new bodies and stuff. And all the people who never came out as trans would be a different gender too and it would be pretty embarrasing for them. I don't think heaven would be big on outing people if they didnt want to , you know.

[VickySGV]

On of my favorite authors on the subject of an afterlife was C.S. Lewis and the book of his most on point is entitled The Great Divorce. Lewis's story takes place in the lowest foot hills of Deep Heaven which is a high beautiful range of mountains. In this plain are people who have come from a dark foggy shabby, and lifeless type of town aboard a bus. They step out of the bus, and soon some of them realize they are virtual ghosts, and their "un-reality" meets the "great reality". To gain their own great reality, all who will go on must give up EVERY BIT of their earthly reality, which for many is too great to ask of them.

Going forward in this heaven may require that we give up our transness if it prevents us from a real relationship with God. If we have a relationship with God, where we can willingly give up all ties with our earthly life and say "God thy will be done!" then it will not matter whether our preferred gender is the one we will have there. If our transness though is something that we cannot include in the package of things to give us, when we stand on the verge of heaven, then God will look sadly at us and say "human, thy will be done!" It will be back down the smallest crack in the earth of heaven to the gray town where our humanness in all its un-glory lives apart from the Great Reality.

One of the vignettes in Lewis' story is a seeming depressed man who has a small lizard like animal on his shoulder, the lizard seems to be almost glued onto the man. The lizard keeps the man from going further in and higher up, and a "bright being" nearby offers to remove the lizard from the man to let him go onward. The lizard makes up all sorts of excuses why it should not be taken away, including that it will kill the lizard. At last though the man, consents to the birght being wrenching the lizard off of his shoulder. In that action, both the man and the lizard are transformed, with the lizard becoming a great stallion that quickly carries the now joyful man "further in and higher up" at a breath taking speed. In seeming seconds they are carred to a speck on the edge of the highest mountains.

I personally intend to let my transfigured body help me draw closer to God, and be the means to my life that will allow me to tell God that His Will shall be done. What happens from there I expect to be a good and happy adventure.

[Guest HeatherAnne]

I figure there are three posibilities if the is an afterlife:

We get the bodies we feel we should have

We get the same bodies we were born with

We get the bodies we work towards during life

In any case, it is absolutely an argument for transitioning now. Either I might as well go ahead and have the body I feel like I should have while I have this short opportunity (for the first two cases) or I NEED to assert my choice now (for the last case).

Of course, at this point I am fairly Atheist, so I am taking the only opportunity I get.

[Guest Shari]

Everything is made perfect in heaven.

I asked my pastor if I was going against God's will by transitioning. He answered that God creates our spirit first and sometimes the physical body that follows has problems that must be corrected.

I hope we all get to Heaven and are made perfect.

Shari

[Guest DanD]

I'd buy that.

I would think that in order for it to be truly Heaven, it would be somewhere wonderful for us.

maybe its something we are incapable of even the slightest comprehension; Jesus did try to simplify things for the apostles after all, they werent very bright.

Maybe Heaven is everything you'd wish it to be, and maybe its different for each person.

I dont know, i dont worry about it much anymore. Maybe its where we were long before we were born, and we've only no conscious memory of it. Maybe we are born again, as in reincarnation?

Is Life the same as Energy? that can neither be created nor destroyed, only changes form?

Many questions, and only opinions for answers.

Like I said, I dont wonder about it much anymore. But i used to. I wonder about everything, from time to time, and find very few answers.