Heaven and Hell
 

Well, I'm very athiest, I once told my R.E teacher that the bible was my favourite book of fairytales, better than peter pan.

And my general feeling on God is, the idea of God is there to make people live the right way and there will be a reward.

If there is a heaven and a hell, and that's a big if, at least if I do go to hell, I will have lived a fun life, a life with no regret and when I get there, plus it'll be warm and there will be lots of people I know there with me..

If you are someone who's living your life the right way, on hopes of an afterlife, what if there is no after life? and if you can feel things after you die.

How pissed off would you be?

what feelings are you talking about, if you just said there is no afterlife??

That is not the idea of God, if you are referring to the Judeo-Christian god.

I have always said that if I were to go to Hell I would just find some possible way to conquer it like Sisyphus conquered his eternal punishment. Simply put, I don't see how a hell could exist if we exist. We can control our emotions and our surroundings. Even if we were to be separated from everything, we could still find something to do that is enjoyable in an eternal punishment.

If there is no after life then one can't be pissed off about anything. They cease to exist. When you die your experiences and such are worth nothing. The man who enjoyed his life to the fullest and the man that dreaded life become equal in that sense. The point of life is to find something to do while living it. You seem to expect that even your enjoyment during this life has an objective worth that can be measured. It doesn't.

Hypothetically speaking.

Let's say your soul is floating about but doesn't get to heavan, and you can still see the world and what's going on in it..

And you could feel things

Would you be pissed off if you led your life right and the whole heaven pearly gates, eternal peace was just utter shit?

What you are describing is an afterlife ..

/facepalm

I don't believe in afterlives. And if there are any and they last forever, maybe they would all suck sooner or later.

Right, let's say..

You die, you're in a coffin..

You wake up for a miunte, you realise you died, and you didn't go to heaven or hell. And you lived your life with the belief you'd go to heaven.

You people don't understand hypothetically speaking do you :(

so you're saying there is an afterlife, just not one comprising of heaven/hell but rather just on a parallel plane of existence to the life we lead? and once we die we go to this state of being able to observe but not interact with the "real" world?

uhmm, that would be pretty cool i guess.

However as my interpretation of "soul" in this context is only that of our thoughts, i don't believe such a thing exists. once you're dead the chemical reactions and electrical impulses in our brains, that make up our thoughts, are no longer functional/active. Therefore our soul is also no longer functional/active.

Yes, it's just your initial hypothesis was that there is no afterlife but there is one after all. We just don't like contradictions ..

So what you're asking is what if we were sentient when we were dead, but there was nothing we could do. F.ex what if all you could do was experience your coffin.

I don't think there's anyone here who wouldn't think of that as a bad thing. However, I also don't think there are many here who don't consider that a pure fantasy scenario ;)

Yes, Kool Dude, that's the hypothetical situation I was spinning off.

But my point is, IF, IF being the main word..

IF you could somehow feel/think things after you die, and you IF believed you'd go to heaven. Would you be pissed off?

If I woke up for 1 minute in my coffin, that would be my worst fear realised.

Rebirth. Buddhism has theory about rebirth. Ever consider that versus Heaven and Hell as extremes? Instead of Hell, there's a rebirth, not necessarily because one did something wrong, but because perhaps one did not open his mind to enough learning/realization etc. Instead of Heaven, there's some type of upward movement to a state of being DURING life, becoming a buddha, experiencing Nirvana or "Bodhi" or seamingly some kind of enlightenment, awakening or realization.

Not sure where it's supposed to go after that though...

Sorry I didn't answer the "what if" directly because I don't necessarily believe in the Heaven vs. Hell thing, you know?

yes, if i believed something was going to happen and it didn't i might be pissed off.

my point: I don’t believe that it will happen.

I've experienced Nirvana!

I listen to Nevermind alot.

[ /ignorant stupid response]

Interesting theory, TheCunningStunt has a theory, imagine when you die, and you lie in your coffin, instead of going to heaven or hell. All you see is your life, like one big movie. That isn't really a theory, nor a belief, just a 'what if'. I think that'd be great.

I just imagne priests, take a vow of absenence, do everything right, pray, give his life to something that there's no proof of existence..

He dies. There's no reward.

God if that happened to me, I'd be so pissed off.

I'd be pissed, yes, if I applied myself so whole-heartedly into a religion only to, at death, be wrong, but of course this adds to the hypothesis the constant that I will be able to think about it at death....so how can I think after death? Too many questions and no answers. And so, I just try to enjoy myself as much as possible, singing songs and causing no fuss and no fight, just livin'.

AND yes, I would love to be able to watch my whole life as a movie...that would be incredible.

I think that'd be more rewarding than going to heaven, to watch your life, every second of it, all the way up until you die.

I wonder if it was like a DVD, and you can hit "go interactive" and "special features" and "interviews with members of the cast" :laughing:

As long as they have a fast forward button somehow. I mean, I would hate to have to watch myself at work or sleeping.

Are you a theist or athiest? Because why would you use the word "God" if you don't believe in God??

absenence? The vows priest take are Poverty (or perfect charity), Chasity, Obedience. So if the priest dies with no one there to reward him, he lived the life he wanted.

What's important is not your destination but the road you travel.

I'm athiest.

I use it as a figure of speech more than anything, like many athiests..

Priests also take a vow of celibacy.

Surely if a priest honestly lived their life with no love or sexytime or sin/guilt, to serve God, said priest would expect to be rewarded with eternal peace in heaven.

I think God is just a nice story, bible is a book of fairytales, God is something that makes children feel like if they do bad, God will punish them. He's an unpaid babysitter. Of course, I'm not a synic, I'm a bit ignorant to certain things in cristianity, but if I'm proved wrong one day, I'd love it. It'd be a great thing, the idea that someone is greater than us all, someone, or something actually made us all..

1. Your theory is a form of an afterlife and has no scientific backing or anything to support it whatsoever. What makes you so against the Christian belief of heaven but able to form your own beliefs about what happens? How is yours somehow more valid?

2. If you were actually an atheist then you wouldn't think that Priest wouldn't be pissed off. He'd live his life with his convictions in a completely holy manner and die thinking he would go to heaven and that would be the end of it. You can't be angry when you're nothing and no longer exist silly! You're a pretty shitty atheist.

I think the thing is that Cunning here doesn't believe in God, but he exists - or - he doesn't believe in an afterlife, but he's a bit scared there is one and what you experience after death is sentience without actually being able to do anything.

Well, not sure what you expect from us. It's a pretty wild idea. It's a bit like saying : What if when you die, you wake up and realize your whole life as a human was a dream. In fact, you are a princess in a fantasy world much like Lord of the Rings who was put to sleep by a witch's spell.

I can say it's probably not like that, but I'm not sure if that makes you feel better.

I don't believe in God. I believe when your body dies, the mind dies with it. The thing people aren't getting is the hypotheticalness of my question.

I ask WHAT IF you lead your life right because you believe there is an afterlife and you WHAT IF SOMEHOW you realise whilst you're dead, that there is no afterlife. How would you feel?

If I believed in God and thought the reward would be heaven, I'd be most displeased.

Well you'd have a long time to get over it. So no worries there.

That has to be my worse vision of hell I could imagine.

Why?

Not enjoying your life thus far?

So far, I'd quite like to see my life.

Maybe edited highlights

LOTD

Life of the day

DUM DUM DUM DUM DA DUM DUM DUM DUM, DUM DUM. :D

This is what passes for theological/metaphysical discussion on MB.:rolleyes:

theo meta whut?

Speak American mister!

Yeah. Goddamn Limey's with their fancy high fallooting cipherings. :/

Why did you say "Priests also take a vow of celibacy."
Isn't the "vow of celibacy" the same as the "vow of absenence?"

You are the first atheist I met that was not a cynic, you mention God a lot and seem pretty excited to meet him in the afterlife.

Hypothecticallyt I don't think a good priest will feel "Punk'd" if Ashton Kushner shown up in his funeral raised him from the dead and then told him "There's no afterlife" then both of them vanished...

Put it this way if you were in the desert and had no food or drink and then suddenly you met a stranger, and he gave you some food and water, wouldn't you want him to do that because you were a person not because he was thinking of himself getting a reward or payment in the future. You would feel better on the inside if the stranger was acting frinedly and not going to take advatnge of you.

I like baseball, I don't like the player that makes the most money, I like the player who plays heart out like it was the most important game of his life. You're from Manchester right?? so just substitute football for baseball - I guess.

See you know about knid deed and doing your best, so in a way that is like a little heaven on Earth. So the proof of heaven in the afterlife is little heaven, the good, we experience now.

We're wasting MB server space with text about afterlives.

If you believe in an afterlife, just wait 'till you get there and you can email everyone about it.
If not, there's probably better things to discuss.

I'll e-mail you, VF, k?

Cool.
I should have good reception when my Carbon molecules begin spreading around in the wooden interior of my coffin.

:rofl:

possibly the stupidest thing i've ever encountered on the internet. And you are weird.

Mebe cause it's impossible to be very atheist? xD

Isn't "Very Atheist" a new flavor of Kool-aid?

No, it's a new brand of Gideon Bibles.

I thought it was a chapstick.

I've never been big on Dio era Black Sabbath, to tell you the truth.

Just swap the St & C around in his username and it all makes sense.


Speaking of Heaven & Hell, Ive listened to the album a couple of times, was pretty hyped up and all being a big fan of Dio era Sabbath, but to be honest I found it quite a mediocre affair. I couldnt help but notice his voice wasnt the same as say, on the Dehumanizer album. But you do have to take into account he like 66 year old now.