Been thinking lately about purpose in Heaven. What would it look like? I think it is more a matter of creating needs & wants. Because that creates a purpose to fulfill them.
Here on Earth we have extreme needs. Needs to avoid severe suffering. There is a lot of purpose in helping people on Earth fulfill their needs. I don’t think our lives will ever be as purposeful as they are now. To help alleviate any amount of suffering for someone is a great service.
In heaven though, the severe suffering will be eliminated, so where would our purpose come from? I will once again point you to video games. Video games do a great job of creating needs & wants without severe suffering. With really little to no suffering. But what these video games are also great at, is providing ways for other players to fill other peoples wants & needs and creating purpose for them. They do this through vibrant economies, crafting systems, helping others complete a quest, information, companionship, etc.
I am finding more and more truth and logic in the idea that Heaven will be operated much more like a video game at its core. I feel it is the only way to create strong needs & wants without all the severe suffering.
It may sound silly, but I always felt a strong sense of purpose playing EQ2. Crafting items people need or want, selling quested items people need or want, selling harvestables or collectibles, helping someone complete a quest, powerleveling someone, etc. There is a lot of purpose to be found in that game. That was probably its biggest appeal to me. And in my case, with my mental issues, it provided me a space and place to feel very purposeful still. People’s needs & wants within that game are real. They just aren’t extreme like on Earth right now and in our current situation. Granted fulfilling people’s needs & wants in the game can also alleviate some of their real world suffering as well.
Just some stuff to think about anyways. When I first proposed that Heaven might be like a video game it even sounded a bit silly to me. But with each passing day I see more and more of the logic in it. To me, it may be the only way to create needs without suffering.
But, I think we will still have a lot of purpose in Heaven, even if it’s manufactured in a sense. True purpose almost doesn’t exist in all reality. The only true purpose that exists that I can see is that God is eternal and that he wanted/needed people to spend eternity with. Our companionship is the only true purpose in life. But, we can still create lots of real purpose through various means. The purpose will be real, even if God had to create the parameters for it to exist.
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