So expounding on the religious discussion from Sunday's dinner.

Eric proposed his conceptualization of Heaven was that you would exist in a state of perfect empathy with all those people whose lives you touched. You would feel what they felt when you affected their lives. The sum total of this knowledge would determine whether you were very happy with a life well lived helping others or miserable feeling the misery you inficted on others. Most people would probably fall somewhere in the middle. The allure of this concept is that the state of afterlife is the same for everyone, it's the sum of how they affected others that determines whether their eternity is heavenly or hellish. It's an interesting concept as well as being neat, tidy, and karma-like so I thought I would share it.

I'm kinda partial to the Albert Brooks . Defending Your Life . version of heaven.