I’ve talked a bit about cosmology and simulation theory, and this has some interesting ramifications for how we think about our current world: everything in this world is LESS real than the next. The purpose of this world is, in some ways, to be training wheels for the next – and God loves to teach by analogy, metaphor, simile, and the like. There’s a lot to think about here, but a few of the things that I think about most in this direction:

• God loves the physical-ness of this world, and called it good. Heaven will not be some ethereal ghostly environment, but real, substantial, and physical.
• Most of our desires in this world, even the more carnal ones, are reflections on some aspect of what we’re truly desiring in the world beyond. God has built those into us for many reasons, but one of those is to whet our appetite for what’s to come.