Of course, we have that here too, to a lesser degree, where that difference is largely reserved to the trivial: how we interpret colour and the ugliness or attractiveness of something: a person, a building, a landscape, rather than the actual form it takes. We generally tend to agree, for example, that a neoclassic building is neoclassic and not some Grecian or Gothic affair, whereas some imagined heavens allow just that. Anything goes, as they say, so two people can stand before the same structure which one will see as Romanesque and the other as a glittering tower of glass. In other words, these perceptual differences in these imagined heavens are far from subtle, and yet are not, in the works I've come across, compared: a character does not ask another if what they're seeing is the same, because it's either assumed that it is, or if one does have a semi-awareness that it's not (and which the narrative makes clear) it doesn't matter. It doesn't alter the fact of their being there if they do not share the same vision.
Often, the heavens described aren't too dissimilar to life on earth, except there might be more freedoms in connection with physicality and time and manifesting dreams. For the main protagonist, recently crossed over to this new plane, it's a continuation of life and a Disneyland; or reversely, they might be tied up with the past and existing in a void, very much alone, replaying events at will and at random. That the protagonist is there and realises it (or lets on to the reader) somewhere in the narrative seems to be main crux of these fictional ideals, and the rest we are left either to enjoy or question.
Imaginary heavens or conversations with a fictionalised version of a god-figure must, I can only assume, offer some comfort then, as well as amusement, and regardless of your religious convictions because I imagine if you were offended you wouldn't be drawn to such material, unless you wanted (and some people do) to be offended. Humans are perverse in that regard, usually so as to take the moral high ground and to dismiss that which others have a belief in or are entertained by.
Our curiosity, it seems about this unknown place, will never be satisfied, and will always be preached and written of, held up as part of organised religion or as a sort of playground. Maybe we are duping ourselves (and disbelieving, far-too-rational types would say we were) but the damage whilst living, if there is any, is little, not in just supposing a heaven of some description exists. Please do not imagine I am giving credence to a Paradise which is reached at a cost of innocent lives. That's a subverted interpretation by Man, which has as with Scripture been corrupted and caused skirmishes. Organised religion, or anything with a following, can bring out the best and worst of human nature. Although, perhaps that's not the fault of a doctrine, just human behaviour and its extremities.
Would Heaven be any more tolerant? Ideas of generally lead us to think this way – that peace reigns and love has conquered any separatist attitudes – despite their being no certainties that a heavenly existence (if that's the right term) is peace-loving, or even that there is eternal life.
Heavens constructed, by you alone or populated by fiction with or without the influence of faith-based teachings, expand on and perpetuate its mystery – it can appear to you as you want it to and you can be, do anything you like with added abilities. The limitations in your being and to your thinking removed, thereby increasing the appeal of its Creation.
Picture credit: LEGOLAND Minilands (London), Wikimedia Commons
