Heaven and Meaning

Paula Kirby at the Washington Post has an interesting article examining how atheists find meaning in a godless universe. She maintains that we don't need an invisible babysitter in the sky to hold our hands and give us direction and meaning, that we can find these meanings out for ourselves and, in effect, give them greater importance without being directed from above. But it's her point about the Christian heaven which I find interesting:


Life cannot be meaningless so long as we have the capacity to affect the well-being of ourselves and others. For true meaninglessness, we would need heaven.
In the state of permanent, perfect bliss that is the very definition of heaven, ‘making a difference’ is ruled out. If the difference made an improvement, the previous state could not have been perfect. If it made things worse, the result would not be perfect. In heaven, neither is possible. Even being reunited with loved ones could not add one jot to their bliss or yours, for heaven would be, by definition, a state that could not be improved on.
Just consider for a moment the hellish pointlessness of heaven. At least in our real existence our actions have an effect, for better or worse, and it is therefore worth trying to get them right. In an eternal life where we can have no effect whatsoever, we might as well be dead.
we can have no effect whatsoever, we might as well be dead.

I've often thought that heaven, as described by the Christians, would be horrible: an eternity frozen in myself with absolutely nothing to do or be or look forward to because everything is perfect just as it is - boring, pointless. Hellish, in fact. What is it about life that Christians hate so much? Despising this existence in favor of some theoretical afterlife is an evasion. What we have is the Now.