Considering it’s Christians’ official and desired Good Ending, they don’t seem to agree much about Heaven or what it’s like. I recently ran across a few Christians who like to make guesses about what their paradise will be like. Unfortunately, none of their ideas sound like a great way to spend eternity. Today, I’ll show you some of their guesses—and ask what infinite, eternal beings even need with gold, pearls, or crowns, and what these beings intend to do with their endless days in the afterlife.
Christians can’t even demonstrate the veracity of their claims about our current world, but that has never stopped them from spinning dreams about what the next one will totally be like.
(This post first went live on Patreon on 12/27/2024. Its audio ‘cast lives there too and is available now!)
Would you know my name if I saw you in Heaven?
In most flavors of Christianity, belief in Jesus earns believers a ticket to Heaven—and guaranteed safety from Hell, for the half or so of ’em who believe in that pernicious doctrine. We’ll get to that latter group shortly. For now, we’re just looking at Christians’ belief in Heaven.
But believers visions of what Heaven will be like can vary dramatically.
When I was just a child, my aunt the nun tried to explain the afterlife to me. She explained it as becoming part of Jesus himself. At the time, I took that explanation very literally. For years, I wondered exactly what part of Jesus I’d become after death. His pinky finger, perhaps? But there were so many Christians that it seemed to me that I’d only be the tiniest part of one of his fingernails.
Then, when I became evangelical, I heard about all sorts of Heavens. For golf addicts, it contained the very best courses ever imagined. For readaholics like me, it was a gigantic library—similar to the one in the Disney movie Beauty and the Beast.

And for other evangelicals, it’s a “never-ending party” featuring nonstop worship—because who would ever want to stop doing that!
All these contrasting ideas bothered me, though. Back then, I wasn’t the most perceptive little cat. I can still be pretty oblivious! But even I noticed a certain disturbing element of wish fulfillment in them all. A little voice whispered in the back of my mind:
Imaginary places can be whatever their dreamers want them to be.
Perhaps that’s why my first pastor never even tried to describe Heaven. When asked, he’d just smile jovially and say we’d all find out when we got there. In 2007, Billy Graham handled that question the same way.
I reckon it beats making yet more guesses. After hearing so many of them, I can’t blame those older leaders for not wanting to play that reindeer game ever again.
The Golden Borg Cube of Heaven
Imagine my surprise when I found out the Bible actually contains some fairly solid descriptions of Heaven. Here’s how the mysterious author of Revelation describes it in Chapter 21:
And he [one of the 7 angels] carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the holy city of Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, shining with the glory of God. Its radiance was like a most precious jewel, like a jasper, as clear as crystal. The city had a great and high wall with twelve gates inscribed with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, and twelve angels at the gates. There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south, and three on the west. The wall of the city had twelve foundations bearing the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
The angel who spoke with me had a golden measuring rod to measure the city and its gates and walls. The city lies foursquare, with its width the same as its length. And he measured the city with the rod, and all its dimensions were equal—12,000 stadia in length and width and height. And he measured its wall to be 144 cubits, by the human measure the angel was using.
The wall was made of jasper, and the city itself of pure gold, as pure as glass. The foundations of the city walls were adorned with every kind of precious stone[. . .]
But I saw no temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, because the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its lamp. By its light the nations will walk, and into it the kings of the earth will bring their glory. Its gates will never be shut at the end of the day, because there will be no night there.
So it’s a golden Borg cube 2.2km on a side. It’s surrounded by a golden wall that’s either 65m tall or wide—it looks like the original texts aren’t completely clear on that, but I’m inclined to say the figure indicates height.
However, this is Revelation we’re talking about. Who knows? Maybe they do mean this wall is 65m thick.
Heaven apparently contains multitudes
Since Jesus promises his followers in John 14:2 that he’s preparing homes for them and implies that these homes will be “mansions,” I asked Grok’s AI how many mansions could comfortably fit inside a Borg cube with Revelation’s dimensions. Grok replied that it might contain about 3.5M mansions if we considered each mansion as having a 1000m footprint and three floors.
But that doesn’t include any amenities, public spaces, parks, Yahweh’s huge throne room, or anything else. We’d also have to factor in angels, but we have no idea how much living space they require. After all, we don’t even know how many angels can dance on the head of a pin!
(Good Omens had a good answer to that one: Almost no angels can dance, so usually none. But Aziraphale had learned the gavotte. So provided the dance happens to be the gavotte and the angel happens to be Aziraphale, one.)
Lastly, we’d have to factor in vineyards and other agricultural fields, because Isaiah 65:17-25 specifically mentions them. But let’s not wonder overlong about who’s working those fields.
Heaven is also totally a really for realsies place
Here’s the funny thing: I know Revelation 21 and John 14 and Isaiah 65 are metaphorical. In vivid apocalyptic language, Revelation describes the very real destruction of the Jews’ Second Temple in Jerusalem (in 70CE). Within that envisioning, the Borg cube Heaven likely signifies a return to order after a period of chaos and lawlessness. Its grandeur and beauty communicates Yahweh’s complete power over humanity—and his perfection.
Meanwhile, John 14’s message exhorts Christians to endure hardships in this life because the next one will totally be better. And Isaiah uses imagery of planting vineyards and fields because its writer wanted to convey a sense of safety and security: Nobody in Heaven will need to worry about the fruits of their labor being taken away by war or debt.
It’s silly to take any of that language literally. But evangelical sites like Got Questions are out there telling readers “Heaven is a real place” as real as clouds and stars—and trying to suss out exactly what it’ll be like to live in the Borg cube. So yes, many Christians think Heaven is an actual place with furniture they can touch with hands and streets they can walk with feet. And, one presumes, endless coral shelves to hold the treasures they find from Earth’s past.
With all that said, Benjamin Gladd on The Gospel Coalition split some hairs a couple of months ago by pointing out that really, what most people think is “Heaven” is really going to be “the New Earth.” But he still describes it using Revelation 21, so we can rest assured he’s still talking about the Borg cube model.
And what shall TRUE CHRISTIANS™ do in Heaven?
For most evangelicals, Heaven is an eternal worship party for Jesus. I suppose they will leave their golden mansions, walk on streets of gold to his divine throne room, then sing and clap all day before heading back home—and then doing it the next day, and the next, forever and always.
I can’t imagine that being fun for Christians. Even their “outpourings” and “blessings” don’t last forever. Eventually, they peter out. And all of that’s a separate consideration from asking just what kind of narcissistic toddler of a god even wants 24/7 worship!
However, our “never-ending party” writer promises children that Heaven won’t be boring at all:
But beyond [the vaguest of outlines of Heaven], most children aren’t certain of the facts. They just hope heaven won’t be too boring.
They need not worry. If heaven were all about eating what we want and doing whatever we like, it would be tiring and repetitive. But the enchantment of heaven is that there will be a total lack of self-absorption. It won’t be like the movie Beaches, in which a self-focused woman says to her friend, “Enough talk about me . . . let’s talk about you. Tell me, what do you think about me?”
Heaven would only be boring if we were going to stop and look at ourselves to see how we were doing, how much fun we were having, whether or not we liked this place, or how we were sounding and performing. That kind of self-consciousness will be totally foreign in heaven.
Oh yes, that sounds beyond enthralling to a child. Yep yep. She’s solved the problem.
Alas, though, her god sounds exactly like that “self-focused woman” she criticizes. She can’t even pretend Jesus is anything else. All she can do is pretend instead that it’ll be the most fun anyone’s ever had, ever ever ever—while deploying the same kind of pure wish-fulfillment guesses that are no more valid than the ones I heard 35 years ago.
Imaginary places can be whatever their dreamers want them to be.
But there’ll be jobs, too!
In a November post, Benjamin Gladd offers us another guess about Heaven. His doesn’t focus on eternal worship parties for narcissistic man-child gods. Instead, he focuses on the jobs that his tribemates will fill in Heaven:
Applying what we’ve learned from Exodus 28 and Leviticus 16, we discover that every believer in the new heavens and earth is, strikingly, a high priest. The Spirit has so radically anointed and transformed believers’ bodies that they’re utterly holy. There’s no stain of sin, uncleanness, or defilement. Every individual in the eternal state, on account of Christ’s work and our union with him, has full access to God’s presence. No cloud of incense will obscure us from God’s face.
Yes. People will totally have jobs in Heaven! But he doesn’t talk about housecleaning or street-sweeping. Instead, he thinks people will be “High Priests of the New Sanctuary.” In fact, everyone will be. He describes their duties, too:
They were, for example, responsible for ensuring the sanctuary functioned the way God intended by burning incense (Ex. 30:7–9), tending the lamps, (27:20–21), and setting out 12 loaves of bread (Lev. 24:5–9). In short, they maintained the function of God’s house.
But when everyone is a High Priest, nobody is.

But Gladd’s got another guess:
Revelation 22:5, though, is the consummation of the Daniel 7 prophecy. Whereas believers primarily ruled over Satan and his devices on a spiritual level (sin, false teaching, temptation, etc.) between the two comings of Christ, in the new creation they’ll rule, to some degree, over the spiritual and physical realms. This may explain Paul’s statement in 1 Cor. 6:3: “Do you not know that we are to judge angels?” Of course, we won’t rule in the same way God rules and reigns over the created order, but it appears we’ll govern creation in the manner God intended Adam and Eve to rule from the beginning (Gen. 1:28).
See? These High Priests will also be governing the Borg cube! Under Jesus, of course. Not in their own name. And none of them will be corrupt or focused only on gaining and guarding power. Nope, none of them! He’s not the only person making this guess, either. Some group called Verse by Verse Ministry makes the same one.
But some jobs are way better than others
Everyone can’t be performing the same role. Someone’s got to arrange the flowers, play the instruments, help latecomers get seated, sing in the choir, etc. Most importantly, someone’s got to be watching the entire display. As the Milton poem goes, “they also serve who only stand and wait.”
More to the point, work is the stuff people do to afford to do what they want. Some people are lucky enough to have jobs that are fun and meaningful. But most people aren’t. If TRUE CHRISTIAN™ #2,100,45 decides he wants to blow off work for a week solid and go tubing down the celestial river, his work won’t get done unless someone else does it. How happy will that someone be about picking up the slack?
If that doesn’t push your thrill buttons, don’t worry. Remember the fields and vineyards I mentioned a minute ago? Based on those Bible verses, Gladd cautiously guesses that maybe farming is in some High Priests’ future.
It’s hilarious that Gladd concludes his post by asserting that his guesses have been “exciting, concrete, and filled with awe and wonder.”
Imaginary places can be whatever their dreamers want them to be.
Why does God need a starship: Crowns in Heaven edition
At various places in the New Testament, we learn that people will wear several kinds of crowns in Heaven. These include the crown of life (James 1:12), the crown of glory (1 Peter 5:4), the crown of righteousness (2 Timothy 4:8). Depending on just how literalist the Christian is, we might include the crown of beauty (Isaiah 62:3), the crown of rejoicing (1 Thessalonians 2:19), and the crown of victory (1 Corinthians 9:25-27). Another Got Questions post calls that last one “the imperishable crown,” but overall this is the general list of options.
That is a lot of crowns, and very clearly some lucky High Priests will wear more than one!
The Book of Revelation (4:2-4) tells us about one group of crowned people:
At once I was in the Spirit, and I saw a throne standing in heaven, with someone seated on it. The One seated there looked like jasper and carnelian, and a rainbow that gleamed like an emerald encircled the throne. Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and on these thrones sat twenty-four elders dressed in white, with golden crowns on their heads.
Sounds impressive, right? But those elders throw their crowns at Jesus’ feet while prostrating themselves before him. So what was even the point of Jesus giving them crowns at all? Are the others in Heaven going to do the same thing? We’re starting to experience levels of divine narcissism that shouldn’t even be possible!
By the way, this entire notion makes me think of tiered crowns—like the Pope’s!

Casting Crowns: Not just a Christian band!
At least one Christian thinks that like the elders in Revelation 4, Christians will throw their earthly crowns at Jesus’ feet. His logic is so tortured that it made me laugh:
God never demands we give up our crowns. In fact He will never ask. He will only prompt in love. When we cast them at His feet, they are not gone forever, but are recycled and infused with His divine character. [. . .]
When we sacrifice our man-made crowns, God picks them up, melts the components in the fire of His divine love, and rearranges them according to His superior plan and purpose. He then places it back on our head and exalts us according to His purpose (James 4:10; 1 Peter 5:6).
The new crowns, that writer promises, will grant their wearers “Eternal life, wisdom, authority, and righteousness, and profound revelation.”
So clearly, the elders in Revelation 4 are wearing very real earthly crowns, not the extra-special ones Jesus will totally give everyone in Heaven. I wonder how they got those crowns into Heaven? Did they smuggle them? Can those elders really “take it with them” when nothing else seems to penetrate the blood-brain barrier of death?
What’s even the point of getting rewards and crowns in Heaven?
Got Questions doesn’t answer that question very well, though they do give it the good college try:
God will give rewards in heaven at the bema, or the judgment seat of Christ, based on our faithfulness in service to Him (2 Corinthians 5:10). The rewards will show the reality of our sonship (Galatians 4:7) and the justice of God (Hebrews 6:10). God will give rewards in heaven in order to fulfill the law of sowing and reaping (Galatians 6:7–9) and make good on His promise that our labor in the Lord is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58). [. . .]
The rewards we gain in heaven are not like the rewards we earn here on earth. We tend to think in material terms—mansions, jewels, etc. But these things are only representations of the true rewards we will gain in heaven. A child who wins a spelling bee treasures the trophy he receives not for the sake of the trophy itself but for what that trophy means. Likewise, any rewards or honor we gain in heaven will be precious to us because they carry the weight and meaning of our relationship with God—and because they remind us of what He did through us on earth.
Alas, that doesn’t answer the question of why anyone will need to get rewards of any kind in Heaven. Children who win trophies for effort get a tangible indicator of their work at gaining skills and knowledge. More than that, trophies also represent their superiority over the children getting no trophies (or those getting trophies at lower tiers). Later in life, those trophies remind them of their hard work. I still keep my middle-school math trophy around for that very reason. Any time I think I’m just an idiot at math, I can look at that trophy—and remember that I’m not that bad at it.
More to the point, crowns aren’t rewards in the same sense as the spelling bee trophy is. They indicate power and social rank. That’s the issue I’m having here with the idea of crowns in Heaven. Power and social rank are very important to the sorts of Christians who spend a lot of time thinking about their future jobs in Heaven.
Maybe that’s why they can’t just say those Bible verses are speaking allegorically. No, these must be actual crowns! For actual heads! Of actual royalty! Which is them!
Of course, the real draw of Heaven is not being Hell
A long time ago, some Mormons tried to convert my Evil Ex Biff. They talked up a big storm about all the levels of Heaven, telling him that Pentecostals (like us) wouldn’t go to the very best level of Heaven. They’d be in the lower levels doing the hard work of maintaining Heaven for the best believers.
Biff’s reply blew their minds. He told them he didn’t care what Heaven he went to—because all of them weren’t Hell. As long as he escaped Hell, he didn’t care if he “scrubbed toilets in Heaven.” They had no idea how to respond. Their entire ideology was about them wanting to get into the best levels of Heaven.
In a nutshell, that’s why I think Christians don’t focus overmuch on the lore of Heaven. All these earnest Christians writing all these posts about mansions and crowns and jobs and parties, they’re just wasting everyone’s time. The descriptions the Bible offers just gloss right past their audience’s minds. I mean, I didn’t even notice that Revelation describes Heaven as a freaky Borg cube until fairly recently. I’d read that chapter I don’t know how many times, but I’d missed that part somehow!
I think almost all Christians miss it too. They just paint an image of Heaven in their heads, an image that they personally like, and that’s how it is. None of them really like thinking about Hell, anyway, and they know deep down that the only way to combat their fear of Hell is to talk up Heaven—no matter how dumb or evil-sounding their imaginings turn out to be.
What is Heaven, then? It’s not Hell. Anything else is just gravy. Nobody has to be right about what Heaven is like, because its very most important feature is being not-Hell. As long as they’re right about that, they can figure out the rest once they get there, as my first pastor used to say.
Imaginary places can be whatever their dreamers want them to be.
The worst part of Heaven might be not being human at all anymore
After reading all of this stuff, I’m wondering again why Heaven is such an appealing idea to Christians. They’re quite welcome to it. I don’t want to be there.
Despite what the “never-ending party” lady thinks, eternal worship sounds stultifying. A god who’d even want 24/7 worship sounds idiotic and childish.
Despite what that Gospel Coalition guy thinks, eternal jobs in Heaven don’t sound like fun at all either. There’s no way they could operate like real jobs on Earth do, either. Can you even imagine one crown-wearing TRUE CHRISTIAN™ yelling at another because he forgot to weed the potato field? Or the lead singer at the eternal worship party getting mad because the rest of the choir is late to practice? Or fighting over who’s going to clean up after yet another feast? It’s hilarious!
To make Heaven work the way these Christians envision, people need to not be people in Heaven.
The people who aren’t people anymore: A cosmic horror story
That’s my biggest objection to Christians’ gauzy notion of the afterlife. They’re trying so hard to make it sound like a perfected version of how things work on Earth, but it can’t be perfect as long as people are people. Yahweh’d have to practically lobotomize people to make Christians’ visions of Heaven work.
So if Yahweh can fix his Christians after death, then there’s nothing stopping him from doing it before then. He breaks the rules of science all the time—according to his followers, at least. Why not here, when he does it everywhere else? As it is, I suspect a lot of people don’t want to occupy any afterlife that also contains Christians as a group.

No, Yahweh would have to change humans on a profoundly fundamental level. These changed humans would no longer feel competitive or care about their own gain, would be happy to worship a narcissistic god 24/7, would cheerfully work hard in Heavenly farms to grow food for his feasts without any thought of the TRUE CHRISTIANS™ with much easier jobs than theirs, and most of all wouldn’t care that their loved ones are being tortured forever. After such a deep change, they definitely won’t be people I want to be around for any stretch of time.
Such changed Christians would only be sexless, joyless service droids programmed by their eternal master to sing and act happy and impressed with him. I’m very thankful that none of it’s real anyway. It all sounds so grotesque and cruel.
But Christians can deal with that. Whatever horrors await them in Heaven, it’s still not Hell.
Even if it really sounds like it.
NEXT UP: The rise and fall of “heavenly tourism.” See you soon! <3
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Heavenly Tourism: The rise and fall of the fakest genre ever - Roll to Disbelieve · 01/03/2025 at 4:00 AM
[…] food for angry gods. Christianity has fervent, faithful adherents enjoying an eternity in Heaven, though as we’ve seen they rarely agree on exactly what Heaven will be like for […]