Overcome, I fell to my knees in deepest praise of the Lord. My eyes fluttered open and as suddenly, the mist was gone and I was standing on a clear white surface before a gate of gold and light, of a purity I'd never before imagined!! Next to the gate was a slight and elegant podium, and next to the podium was a man who seemed serenely cheerful. I came to in a seemingly bottomless mist. Previous: town | The Japanese Kanji Metanode | Next: rice field TEN: sky, air, heavens, celestial sphere, firmanment heaven, Providence, God, Nature destiny weather, top, beginning.A Listing of All On-Yomi and Kun-Yomi Readings: By association it came to mean that from above. Originally written as a person standing with an exaggerated head symbolizing the upper part of something. KANJI: TEN ame (heaven, sky) ASCII Art Representation: I mean what are you really going to do for eternity? What do people in heaven do? Sit around and play cards? It sounds boring. Personally, I don't think going to heaven would be that great anyways. If what they say is true, you don't really have much of an option other than to blindly follow. Not lisening to us will result in eternal suffering." A very effective scare tactic.
"Sure your life may be miserable on earth, but if you do everything we tell you, after you die you will be eternally happy. What better could there be way to scare people into following you than to warn them that not following them will lead them into eternal suffering? The Catholic church is especially good at using this control method to exploit its followers. What better way could there be to lure people to follow you than by promising them a reward when their dead? There is no way to prove them wrong! The hell part is even better. I must say whoever came up with the whole concept of heaven is a genius. However if you disobey the rules stated you will be damned to hell, a place of misery, where you will have eternal suffering and pain. You will go to a place of perfection, where you will have eternal happiness and pleasure.
If you do as they tell you here on earth, when you die you get a reward. It is used to lure people into following the rather controlling rules set by religions. In Christianity if you simply believe Jesus is God, that qualifies you for admission into heaven).
Some religions require that you do not break their strict moral rules, some require that you lead a " good life" as definded by the religion, some require large donations of your time/money to their cause, and some simply require that you believe what they tell you (this one is the most silly. The conditions vary depending on the religion. It is allegedly a place you "go" when you die, if you meet certain conditions in your period on earth. Heaven is a fairly common religious concept.