insomniac Posted April 18, 2006 Share Posted April 18, 2006 hey everyone-- just wanted to see what your thoughts were on this topic. I mean, christianity and western culture have propagated the angel/demon image of heaven/hell over the years but I havent seen much material/biblical evidence about the afterlife, besides the obscure visions in Revelation. I even asked a very religious sibling what heaven/hell exactly are, and he simply had no answer besides biblical snippets, i.e. "dark void" and "lake of fire," which are again incredibly vague and useless. so...has christianity (or any religion?) been basing this stuff on virtually nothing the whole time? The concepts just arent clear u know? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JP Posted April 18, 2006 Share Posted April 18, 2006 Apparently heaven is up, and hell is down. And that they're places where you go when you die (according to the Bible anyway.) Besides the fact that no one knows if they exist or not, I don't know if there is anything else we can know about them. But I don't care either way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwc Posted April 18, 2006 Share Posted April 18, 2006 No one knows that heaven or hell would be like (assuming they were real of course). To Jews proximity to god is essentially heaven and distance from god is hell (I've read a number of variations but this one theme seems to exist in them all in some way). This makes a lot of sense since it appears that ancient Jews did not believe in an afterlife (except in some select cases and even then it's sort of debatable). Life was it for humans so once you died you died and went nowhere except the grave. If you could somehow get taken to heaven (as Elijah supposedly did) then you got to exist there forever but this was extremely rare (even Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon and all the rest of god's favorites didn't get this honor). Things changed once the concept of an afterlife entered the scene but the heaven equals close to god and heaven equals distance from god remained (except before this living a godly life brought you close to god in the here and now and after it changed it was about living a godly life now to get you next to god in the afterlife...still no xian version of hell though but those ideas were forming). To xians there's all sorts of guesses but they don't really add up to anything consistant. Xians are to have this magical heaven to live in with mansions and treasures but read that last book of the bible again since it says that god is coming to live in a new Jerusalem. So what's the meaning of heaven then? God's gone to earth to be with the Jews and all those xians get to hang out at his old place? Big deal! The xian concept of hell is very much like the concepts surrounding Hades and the glimpses into its actual makeup are very much like a volcano (ie. a lake of fire would be a volcano and fire, brimstone and sulpher are all volcanic traits) that has been placed into the "underworld" (a void, etc....the place of the damned back then). That's all that is but imagine seeing a volcano if you were an ancient Greek. A huge wasteland with that rotten sulpher smell. Fire and brimstone surrounding the "lake of fire." Horrible heat. "Spirits" dancing about (the hot gasses in the area). The rumblings (of an active volcano of course). People who ventured to close would die for no real reason (they didn't know about the lack of oxygen due to the other gasses). I can imagine that it must have seemed like a very magical and evil place (even volcanoligists today have a healthy level of respect for them since if they go off and lava and the rocks come out there's a good chance you die). So heaven is an idealized place that does not exist (unless you're like Amanda then it's all within you anyway meaning the ancient Jews kind of got it right) and hell is the "logical" (for lack of a better word) extension of what the Greaks and others saw when they looked at a volcano and mixed it with their vision of the underworld (since if that's what the underworld looks like when it "leaks" out onto the surface just imagine how much more horrible it must be to exist deep underground where this thing originates). mwc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manta Posted April 18, 2006 Share Posted April 18, 2006 Actually, it's all defined in the book of Revalation, the alst book of the NT. Hell is a lake of fire and is called the second death. That's all that's really said about it. Heaven is a city 150 miles by 150 miles made of gold with high walls and studded with precious stones of all kinds known at the time of writing. And there isn't a night time. And only a pre-defined 144,000 people are apparently going there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwc Posted April 18, 2006 Share Posted April 18, 2006 Actually, it's all defined in the book of Revalation, the alst book of the NT. Hell is a lake of fire and is called the second death. That's all that's really said about it. Heaven is a city 150 miles by 150 miles made of gold with high walls and studded with precious stones of all kinds known at the time of writing. And there isn't a night time. And only a pre-defined 144,000 people are apparently going there. Well, yeah, but those answers are as vague as the ones the OP mentioned (and the city is New Jerusalem, is on earth and is not heaven). The point is there isn't a lot of information in one spot and the visions of heaven and hell we have today aren't based on much of anything except bits and pieces from throughout the bible (which may or may not be related just like the Lucifer verses that aren't about the devil). mwc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JGJ@ReligionisBullshit Posted April 18, 2006 Share Posted April 18, 2006 Actually, it's all defined in the book of Revalation, the alst book of the NT. Hell is a lake of fire and is called the second death. That's all that's really said about it. Heaven is a city 150 miles by 150 miles made of gold with high walls and studded with precious stones of all kinds known at the time of writing. And there isn't a night time. And only a pre-defined 144,000 people are apparently going there. Don't forget your only job, according to revelations, is to sing his praises day and night kneeling in front of his throne. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manta Posted April 18, 2006 Share Posted April 18, 2006 Naturally, Having to sing praises to a God for all eternity is my idea of hell. The lake of fire at least sounds cosy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JGJ@ReligionisBullshit Posted April 18, 2006 Share Posted April 18, 2006 Naturally, Having to sing praises to a God for all eternity is my idea of hell. The lake of fire at least sounds cosy. Same here, as long as I'm on a spit and they rotate me eavenly and basting occasionally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greasemonkey Posted April 18, 2006 Share Posted April 18, 2006 Has anyone here read Heinlein's last book "Job: A Comedy of Justice?" It portrayed biblegod as a real asshole & a gambler who devised this diabolical system that you had to be in a state of "perfect grace" to get into his "heaven" just for his own sick amusement. The protagonist dies in "perfect grace" and goes to heaven, but his girlfriend (Thurisaz will love this) was an Odin worshipper I believe, and didn't make it to heaven with him. Well, heaven turned out to be a pretty boring place anyway, so the poor guy decides to go to hell in search of his girlfriend. Well, Hell turned out to be not such a bad place after all ...nice condo's, good food, great employment opportunities; even the "devil" turned out to be a pretty cool guy (turns out he's actually god's brother, not a "fallen angel," and they've just been on the outs for the last few millenia). The dimensional "portal" that opened into "hell" just happened to let out right next to an active volcano, and the "devil" complained constantly about how much time and money he had to put into psychiatrists to treat those poor saps who believed all the nonsense his brother said about him & when the first thing they saw was that damned volcano... I recommend the book highly! Heinlein wrote it as he was dying ...I think it was an atheists' way of thumbing his nose at organized religion for the most part, but it's a pretty hysterical read! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insomniac Posted April 19, 2006 Author Share Posted April 19, 2006 Heaven sounds more like a theory...no....a fairy tale, lol. and hell is a volcano apparently. it's amazing how other xian sects like mormons/catholics have fabricated such extensive depictions of heaven/hell despite the scant biblical references. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KT45 Posted April 22, 2006 Share Posted April 22, 2006 Heaven sounds more like a theory...no....a fairy tale, lol. and hell is a volcano apparently. it's amazing how other xian sects like mormons/catholics have fabricated such extensive depictions of heaven/hell despite the scant biblical references. The only other stuff that proclaims life after death are NDEs (Near Death Experiences). The don't reflect the christians idea of heaven and hell though since most people who have NDEs go to heaven including atheist, buddhist etc. Most accounts of hell in NDEs are usually by the christians who believe in it, and even then it's not eternal. Here's a website for more info HERE!!!!! Here are links from same site http://www.near-death.com/experiences/research14.html (about hell) http://www.near-death.com/experiences/research15.html (the other hell) http://www.near-death.com/experiences/research18.html (heaven) http://www.near-death.com/atheists.html (atheist Near Death Experiences) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts