Heaven and Hell

Well it seems to consistently pass some people by. In fact the whole argument about whether terrorism is rooted in religious doctrine or political power struggle has equally been done to death.

I think it would be fair to say that all the usual responses and arguments which arise in these "lolreligion" type threads have been done to death.

They almost always end the same way too.

1) Troll starts cleverly (or not so cleverly) disguised thread with a religious theme of some kind.

2) Those who have faith or some sort of belief putting their view forward.

3) The "lolreligion" crew flying the flag for scientific superiority "proving" every other point of view wrong and dismissing those with any kind of belief as dellusional.

4) Those with faith taking offence at the "lolreligion" crowd and posting heated rebuttals.

5) The usual suspects comming in with carefully thought out and formulated arguments both for and against trying to have some sort of meaningful debate in GD.

6) The "lol religion" gang taking it all very personally and making wilder and wilder accusations based on poorly undersood scientific terminology and methodologies.

Repeat ad infinitum until a Mod cant take it anymore and locks the thread.

Why these threads are still allowed I do not know.

/Salsa
 
Unfortunately I think when you die that is it. It is not a happy thought but then it won't be painful, it will just be like it was before you were born - eternal nothing-ness.

Do I believe in Heaven and Hell? - Just some make up crap to scare people into living the way the church wants to be honest.
 
Its CLEARLY not True,

Heaven and Hell are just made up words in the bible, they were just stories which was passed down and down. It doesn't exist at all.
 
Its CLEARLY not True,

Heaven and Hell are just made up words in the bible, they were just stories which was passed down and down. It doesn't exist at all.

How can you be so sure? There's nothing actually prohibiting it anywhere?

I don't want to spark an argument so I won't say any more then that now.
 
How can you be so sure? There's nothing actually prohibiting it anywhere?

I don't want to spark an argument so I won't say any more then that now.

Why do people believe fictional stories though. The fact is that religion almost holds the higher ground because no one can prove or disprove it, the same wasy as I cannot disprove the existence of fairies etc.
 
Saying that I've always had this view. When you die your life 'flashes before you'. At this point you relive everything you have done. So if you did bad things then its a horrible experience or 'hell', if you did good things its a pleasant experience or 'heaven'.

So heaven or hell would last a couple of minutes then before nothingness if I'm understanding you correctly? I don't think that's a viewpoint I've ever heard before.

I actually quite like this idea.

Time is a concept and linear but in your mind time can be be perceived very differently. Similar to how a dream can seem to span hours and hours but in the real world only a few minutes have passed. I guess upon your death the same could happen and what you experience could seem to stretch to infinity, while to those in the "real" world only a few minutes may have passed.

Have either of you ever read Haruki Murakami's book Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World? Deals with a similar concept and explains it much better than I ever could.

/Salsa
 
I actually quite like this idea.

Time is a concept and linear but in your mind time can be be perceived very differently. Similar to how a dream can seem to span hours and hours but in the real world only a few minutes have passed. I guess upon your death the same could happen and what you experience could seem to stretch to infinity, while to those in the "real" world only a few minutes may have passed.

Have either of you ever read Haruki Murakami's book Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World? Deals with a similar concept and explains it much better than I ever could.

/Salsa
I have it on good authority that although people tend to think of time as linear, it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey whimey stuff.

Time is not really linear, it's relative. For most of the time you can assume it's linear though. It's really quite complex stuff though, also there is the argument that time might be an illusion :O.

/pendant.
 
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Just throwing something into the mix.
I used to read loads of paperbacks in the 70s all to do with alternative theories and one 'explanation' always intrigued me.
This writer said that the Essene community that Jesus lived in had a church that was on 3 levels and the very top level was called Heaven and the Heaven we know now was bastardised from that.
Would be nice to have that confirmed/unconfirmed.
 
How can you be so sure? There's nothing actually prohibiting it anywhere?

You can't prove something doesn't exist, the best you can do is a complete lack of evidence that it does. Heaven/Hell fall into that group.

As I said earlier, paraphrasing Hitchins why would someone believe something without evidence?
 
So heaven or hell would last a couple of minutes then before nothingness if I'm understanding you correctly? I don't think that's a viewpoint I've ever heard before.

A fairly common belief is heaven last for ever as well as hell, however something hell is just the final death of the soul. (hell lasting for ever is very strong in Catholicism, where protestants are very much divided, although still a minority)
Hell isn't in the bible, it's a translation error from hades and shoel. However there is lake of fire which talks about a man with unquenchnable thirst and compared it to the ever lasting rubbish pit fires out side one of the biblical cities. Catholics take this literally and think hell is forever.
Others know those rubbish pits actually went out and take it as you are simply burnt to death, not ever lasting and the unquenchnable thirst illustrates how hot it is, and that for a long time, is just the time it would take for billions of bodies to burn to nothing.
Seventh day Adventists are the strongest believers in animation of the soul, rather than eternal punishment.
 
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Just throwing something into the mix.
I used to read loads of paperbacks in the 70s all to do with alternative theories and one 'explanation' always intrigued me.
This writer said that the Essene community that Jesus lived in had a church that was on 3 levels and the very top level was called Heaven and the Heaven we know now was bastardised from that.
Would be nice to have that confirmed/unconfirmed.

The Essenes were an collection of early Messianic Jewish groups that were one of the precursors to what we would consider Christian Monasticism. They were reputed to be scholars of all faiths rather than just one, however there is much controversy over who and what the Essenes were, not least of all because of the Qumran scrolls.

I would like to see the justification for claiming Christ resided in an Essene community, least of all a Church....which is something not associated with either Christ or the Essenes.....
 
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