[[Do the departed Christians retain some conscious awareness of the goings-on in creation, on Earth,]]
Some argue that because there is no more cryign and sorrow in heaven, then NO, they do not remember-
Those that go to hell are said to not know what is going on either despite the analogy in the rich man poor man parable “The dead know nothing”
Ecclesiastes 9:5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing. They have no further reward, because the memory of them is forgotten.
Pulpit Commentary
Verse 5. - For the living know that they shall die. This is added in confirmation of the statement in ver. 4. The living have at least the consciousness that they will soon have to die, and this leads them to work while it is day, to employ their faculties worthily, to make use of opportunities, to enjoy and profit by the present. They have a certain fixed event to which they must look forward; and they have not to stand idle, lamenting their fate, but their duty and their happiness is to accept the inevitable and make the best of it. But the dead know not anything. They are cut off from the active, bustling world; their work is done; they have nothing to expect, nothing to labor for. What passes upon earth affects them not; the knowledge of it reaches them no longer. Aristotle’s idea was that the dead did know something, in a hazy and indistinct way, of what went on in the upper world, and were in some slight degree influenced thereby, but not to such a degree as to change happiness into misery, or vice versa (’Eth. Nicom.,’ 1:10 and 11). Neither have they any more a reward; i.e. no fruit for labor done. There is no question here about future retribution in another world. The gloomy view of the writer at this moment precludes all idea of such an adjustment of anomalies after death. For the memory of them is forgotten. They have not even the poor reward of being remembered by loving posterity, which in the mind of an Oriental was an eminent blessing, to be much desired. There is a paronomasia in zeker, “memory,” and sakar, “reward,” which, as Plumptre suggests, may be approximately represented in English by the words “record” and “reward.”
That, in context, is as regards this life, and as the natural man perceives it. But as regards spiritual reality, this is no more Divine Truth than is,
There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God. (Ecclesiastes 2:24)
Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labour the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 8:15)In contrast,
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: (Matthew 25:41) 46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.