If There Is A Hell, We're All Going To It.

[Avatar]

...there is no objective being of pure evil who enjoys to torture the wicked, we punish ourselves. The people who go to Hell are the people with too much pride to forgive themselves.

Yeah, I really like that interpretation myself. And it's one which sort of rings true for me. Afterall, humans delight in making their own lives miserable and complicated.

--Avatar

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

I personally delight in making my life more complicated. I don't know why, but for some reason, when there isn't some kind of emotional drama going on, I tend to subconsciously create one.
I think that kind of pain and drama stimulates my growth.

[Iryssa]

I personally delight in making my life more complicated. I don't know why, but for some reason, when there isn't some kind of emotional drama going on, I tend to subconsciously create one.
I think that kind of pain and drama stimulates my growth.

With my friends and my life, I don't need to make any more drama for myself...my life's like a soap opera sometimes (only without the people killing eachother and either going into a coma or waking up out of one to find their spouse with someone else... )

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

Right! Mine too...hehehe.... except when it's not, sometimes... and that time is sort of my chance to learn from the last act in the play, and get myself all clear and cleaned up for the next act. And I can almost see it, each person's life like it's own play, building and growing.
I just get this feeling that if you could look at a person's life in one brief snapshot, like if you could see everything all at once, you would see how their decisions made sense, at least to them, and that would probably do a lot for hate and blame.

What is the purpose of hell, to get back to the topic, according to the posters here?

[Avatar]

I just get this feeling that if you could look at a person's life in one brief snapshot, like if you could see everything all at once, you would see how their decisions made sense, at least to them, and that would probably do a lot for hate and blame.

I think you're right. It is our lack of understanding that renders most things un-understanable to us. One of the weirdest things must be to be able to see the world through the mental filter that another person uses. How different would it appear to us!

To return to topic, I'm not sure that I could suggest anything else but that hell is necessary as one thing to make heaven desireable. Theoretically, as I understand it, hell's purpose is to punish (even if through withholding gods love) those whose path is counter to the one that god espouses.

We may be facing it from a non-christian perspective here though, so perhaps Baradakas has a better definition?

--Avatar

[[Syl]]

I don't think anyone is more intrinsically holy. People experience God in many ways; and it seems to me that God does what the rest of us do: He chooses the means that best gets His message across. He's not rewarding us by talking to us. He's talking to us because He has something to say to us directly, as opposed to the things He says to all humanity.

[Avatar]

I like to think that in their own way, almost everybody is "intrinsically holy".

There's that whole "Thou art God" thing again.

--Avatar

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

Well, if all we've got is reality, I'd think everything is as damned or holy as anything else. Except for me. My logic is wholly holy. And holey, as in has many holes. heh.

Hahahaha.... if there IS a hell, I'm going there now. For that pun. Because it is a pun deserving PUNishment.

If this is my last post on the board, it's because lightning struck me dead the instant I pressed the submit button. If that happens, change your ways!

[Avatar]

Why does your statement depend on the condition that all we have is reality? I agree with what you say, but I don't think it necessarily becomes untrue if there is more than just "reality".

--A

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

If there was more than just "reality" then it would still be reality, it would just be bigger than we thought.
In the same way that there's no supernatural. Because it'd just be more of the natural world than we were aware of beforehand.

[Avatar]

I think it was Coleridge who said:

What sense do we lack, that we cannot perceive another world, all around us.

We never know whats coming next. Infra-red allowed us to catch our first glimpse of "alternate" spectrums. What will technology allow us to see next?

And Niels Bohr once said:

Sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic

I agree that there may be nothing "supernatural", but that it merely depends on our concept of "nature". As our perceptions change, so does our understanding.

--Avatar

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

One pretty scary thought that I had that kind of goes along with Av's last post, and the topic in general, is the idea that if our beliefs can alter our perceptions, in a situation where we would have no outside input, (such as just after death, when we have brain activity but no sensory activity) our perceptions would DIRECTLY create our reality.

What if you believed you were going to hell when you died, and it would last forever, and then created that idea for yourself at a point when you knew you were dead, or about to die?

[Avatar]

Sure. It's a possibility I've often thought of, and kind of ties in with an idea I used to like, i.e. that whatever we believed was going to happen to us when we died is what actually happens.

I changed my mind as to the desireability of that idea when I realised that the people deserving of punishment were the least likely to imagine it fot themselves.

But on that question, I've often wondered to what extent peoples religious convictions affect their near-death experiences. We've often read/heard of people experiencing "christian" effects when near death, such as angels, friends welcoming them etc.

Now, it's been established that the whole "tunnel of light" may be part of the actual physiology of death, but I wonder how many athiests have seen angels/whatever or whether these perceptions are created out of expectation on the part of the "victim"?

--A

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

Definately a very good question. I don't know where I would find the answer to it though. How would I go about looking it up?

[Avatar]

No idea. Although to be honest, I've never tried. Just one of those questions that occurs one.

--A

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

Well, I think a true atheist would probably attribute the angels to subconscious conditioning inflicted by christians. As reasonable/unreasonable as that might sound

That's why I think it's best to stick to agnosticism...it frees you rather than restricts you.
That and Discordianism because then you're a freakin Pope. And everyone loves a Pope

[Avatar]

You don't have to be limited to being a Pope. Positions as Deity are also available. PM me if you'd like to apply.

If Popes are loved, Gods are even more popular.

--Avatar

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

Not discordian gods. Generally the discordians seem to tell THEIR gods to get off the discordians couches and get a real job.
*sniff*

[Avatar]

[Iryssa]