“Something’s fishy about this heaven thing. Is it a totalitarian dictatorship, from which there is no escape and no contact with other realities?”
Check out the story of Lazarus & the Rich Man if you wonder about that, here is the ending, where Abraham tells the Rich Man why he won’t send Lazarus back to Earth to testify to his family:
“27Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house:
28For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.
29Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.
30And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.
31And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.”
Also, in a way, heaven is totalitarian of course. Who can contest with an almighty God? Who would want to escape paradise either?
The story about Lazarus and the Rich man is a parable talking about the religious leaders of Israel (the rich man) and the jewish people (Lazarus) with Gentiles referenced as ‘dogs’.
While parables have their basis in reality (hell is real and probably meets the parables physical discription minus the side for the righteous (because after Jesus death the righteous are in Heaven with him)) this is not to be taken literally on all levels.
http://www.tentmaker.org/articles/Lazarus-byHuie.htm