Heaven or Hell?

[episkopos]

Are these real? If yes, where are they? Is heaven above the skies and hell beneath the earth?

[Manu]

I believe in Heaven and Hell as ideas and constructs of man. in those, I think they are effective and 'real.' But in terms of being actual places I do not believe so.

[antiquity]

Actually in the beginning of the belief of Heaven was below. Hell came later and was entirely made up by man to scare the flock who were drifting away back to paganism.

[Šñøü†ê®]

Indeed the Old Testament is unclear on the topic and it took the great Italian fiction author Dante and some other fiction writers to develope the concepts. The New Testament has some imagery in Revelation about Jesus coming back and punishing the synagogue of satan for extended periods of time for being evildoers though.

[trgfbv]

Not real.

[Malcolm Wright]

The debate over whether something being real in the mind makes something real in objective reality applies here, and is endless.

I tend to be permissive, and consider internal reality to be part of objective reality. As such I would say that heaven and hell could take on objective reality after death, for those who believe in it. Their belief could co-create hellish and heavenly realms, in which they would find themselves together.

Personally the thing that annoys me the most about Christian notions of hell and heaven is the heavy polarization without room for gray areas in between. What? Either you make the grade for heaven, or you get chucked into hell? Shy by a few points are you? Tough, off to Satan you go? Seems ridiculous to me.

The Buddhist notion that our mental makeup on earth creates our reality in death seems far more nuanced and sophisticated a doctrine, and rings true to me. Reinforcing the already well established importance of being mindful of our mental states. They create varying degrees of heavenly or hellish states here on earth for us, and may well continue to do so after we leave this place.

M.

[BooRadley]

Hell is a valley outside of Jerusalem. Once upon a time, they'd exile non-Yahewists there. If you didn't believe, therefore, you'd be cast down into "hell" (that's actually a Norse word that was adapted). Eventually the legend grew. Allegedly, the people in Gehennan Valley (later Gehenna, later Hell) were worshippers of Molloch -- a horned beastly God who would demand human sacrifice by fire. Take that and add a thousand years and you get Satan and Hell. Like most religion, it starts with a true story then goes crazy with superstition and fable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gehenna

[trgfbv]

When the biological brain is dead that's the end. Stop giving big pots of money to anyone who tells you otherwise. They are MSU. (making up shit.)

[Malcolm Wright]

When the biological brain is dead that's the end. Stop giving big pots of money to anyone who tells you otherwise. They are MSU. (making up shit.)

I agree about the pots of money bit
But the end of something is always the start of something else. What of is the question...

M.

[queenlillian1962]

When the biological brain is dead that's the end. Stop giving big pots of money to anyone who tells you otherwise. They are MSU. (making up shit.)

Humans have energy and personally believe that the human spirit is made up of energy. energy can't be destroyed but can be transformed. IMO it's in this way we continue to live after the flesh dies. I Don't know what exactly Heaven and Hell will be like but I think the transformation is much like another birth. You spend 9 months in the womb and are born,a certain amount of time on earth, and then move on to heaven/hell or what ever the afterlife is going to be. Where are they IDK. They could be in another dimension for all anyone knows.

[Lulu]

No on either heaven or hell. Humans need to compartmentalize and simplify so I guess that's why we decided 1 would be above us and 1 below. Heaven and hell are constructs to make people fear death less. Agree with Malcolm: I like the buddhist take on death and past lives... they seem to be better adjusted to death than we are.

One of my more memorable experiences was a born again Christian who was worried about my soul. He read bible quotes to me then told me all his Muslim friends were going to hell. I broke out in a cold sweat I was soooo uncomfortable.

[trgfbv]

Humans have energy and personally believe that the human spirit is made up of energy. energy can't be destroyed but can be transformed. IMO it's in this way we continue to live after the flesh dies. I Don't know what exactly Heaven and Hell will be like but I think the transformation is much like another birth. You spend 9 months in the womb and are born,a certain amount of time on earth, and then move on to heaven/hell or what ever the afterlife is going to be. Where are they IDK. They could be in another dimension for all anyone knows.

Belief in life after death or the human spirit are faith based beliefs. Not science based beliefs. Faith is described as belief without proof, or just opinions.

When a biological unit dies its eventually decays back to its original atoms and molecules which have energy. These molecules could eventually be incorporated into another biological unit. You could call that life after death.

[trgfbv]

No on either heaven or hell. Humans need to compartmentalize and simplify so I guess that's why we decided 1 would be above us and 1 below. Heaven and hell are constructs to make people fear death less. Agree with Malcolm: I like the buddhist take on death and past lives... they seem to be better adjusted to death than we are.

One of my more memorable experiences was a born again Christian who was worried about my soul. He read bible quotes to me then told me all his Muslim friends were going to hell. I broke out in a cold sweat I was soooo uncomfortable.

Crazy people make sane people uncomfortable.

[Malcolm Wright]

Actually this thread is perfect for continuing our discussion - nice one.

Belief in life after death or the human spirit are faith based beliefs. Not science based beliefs. Faith is described as belief without proof, or just opinions.

That's not entirely true. There is plenty of evidence that something survives the death of the body. Whether science preoccupies itself with that evidence or not is another matter entirely. Increasingly, it does.

When a biological unit dies its eventually decays back to its original atoms and molecules which have energy. These molecules could eventually be incorporated into another biological unit. You could call that life after death.

You could indeed. There are others. Our thoughts, our actions, and the very radiation of the energy that composes us is continually leaving an imprint on the world. That imprint is permanent - it represents a body of holographic imprints - an encoding of ourselves into the frequency domain of the universe.

Science currently restricts life to a biological paradigm, but that's a very narrow view of what we represent. Our interplay with the frequency domain of the universe is the most inclusive description that I can currently make of what a life form is - and that definition transcends time.

Not only does it transcend time into the future - it transcends a notion of a past before the life form existed, as the frequency domain manifested that life form. As such, it was encoded in the domain before its birth. This fact does not change just because the being was not tangible by the limited standards dictated by the limits of human perception.

It is irrefutable that you and I were implicit in the order of the universe before we were born, and will remain implicit in it after our physical deaths.

On a more physical tip, the particles that are the basis of all the processes we call a life display behavior on the quantum level that proves they are inseparably connected to the rest of the universe. This is just another way of describing the unity of the frequency domain hinted at above - this time coming from a particle interpretation rather than a wave one. The implication here is that you and me, on a fundamental level, do not exist separately from our surroundings. So if the life forms we see as islands because of the particular quirks of our scale of perception, never really were islands... how can they have a discrete beginning and end? It is not more meaningful to describe me as not existing before and after my 'physical life' than it is to say a drop of ocean spray does not exist before and after its projection from the crest of a wave.

Science has a lot of trouble grappling with the limits of our hardware: our brains, which have evolved primarily to guide survival in a three dimensional paradigm, on land, in an environment with quite narrow physical specifications, and an even narrower subset of survival parameters. That hardware, and the habits we ingrain on the way we use it, limits us more than we would like to recognize, and only by recognizing it can we start to envisage what it is causing us to ignore.

M.

[Malcolm Wright]

One of my more memorable experiences was a born again Christian who was worried about my soul. He read bible quotes to me then told me all his Muslim friends were going to hell. I broke out in a cold sweat I was soooo uncomfortable.

I remember when I was 16, my best mate and I met a girl from Zimbabwe in Sydney. She invited us over for dinner at her house, and her father turned out to be a HUGE God-botherer. He preached to us during the entire meal, and was pretty confrontational about it. I found it all amusing but it made my mate furious. He couldn't stop talking about it for hours afterwards. I could understand how he felt - one has the right to find it rude to be preached at while trying to enjoy a good meal.

Another time where I did get angry was when an Islamist tried to hard pitch me in front of a bank in Southport, Queensland. He really became aggressive when I told him I was not going to believe in Allah, no matter what he said (he was not taking any subtle cues). It put me in the uncomfortable position of really wanting to smack him up, but I knew I'd be the one to get in trouble for it - being a harassing religious nut job isn't a crime, but assault is.

M.

[Archaix]

There has to be a heaven -otherwise where did my goldfish go?

[Malcolm Wright]

There has to be a heaven -otherwise where did my goldfish go?

My budgies were not given any water by my sister while I was on holiday as a child, and I found them dead as dead budgies when I got back. They were a pretty peaceful pair, and there is every chance they are soaring between the tree tops of a lush after-life jungle. Perhaps your goldfish is in a pond near by.

[Going Postal]

The debate over whether something being real in the mind makes something real in objective reality applies here, and is endless.

I tend to be permissive, and consider internal reality to be part of objective reality. As such I would say that heaven and hell could take on objective reality after death, for those who believe in it. Their belief could co-create hellish and heavenly realms, in which they would find themselves together.

Personally the thing that annoys me the most about Christian notions of hell and heaven is the heavy polarization without room for gray areas in between. What? Either you make the grade for heaven, or you get chucked into hell? Shy by a few points are you? Tough, off to Satan you go? Seems ridiculous to me.

The Buddhist notion that our mental makeup on earth creates our reality in death seems far more nuanced and sophisticated a doctrine, and rings true to me. Reinforcing the already well established importance of being mindful of our mental states. They create varying degrees of heavenly or hellish states here on earth for us, and may well continue to do so after we leave this place.

M.

Ever hear mentioned - Seven Heavens

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Heavens

Follow the Underworld link at the bottom for the different neighborhoods of Hell.

[Going Postal]

Humans have energy and personally believe that the human spirit is made up of energy. energy can't be destroyed but can be transformed. IMO it's in this way we continue to live after the flesh dies. I Don't know what exactly Heaven and Hell will be like but I think the transformation is much like another birth. You spend 9 months in the womb and are born,a certain amount of time on earth, and then move on to heaven/hell or what ever the afterlife is going to be. Where are they IDK. They could be in another dimension for all anyone knows.

I feel, deep within my heart, as I center in oneness within my soul, I allow myself to connect and integrate with the harmonic frequencies of universal consciousness.* These harmonic frequencies of Love, Light, Sound, and many others, together, vibrate as universal consciousness, and permeates through the very essence of all Life, if allowed.

Universal consciousness is here, now, within this solar system, and is ever increasing in potency and in frequency accelerating to the point of instantaneous universal reality of the integration of all polarities of duality, so to exist as universal consciousness in solar, planetary, and individual Life forms.

I breathe in deeply the cleansing, love and light filling particles of air – universal consciousness in oxygen form, breathing in love, light, peace, harmony, integration, and oneness within and oneness with all life everywhere within this universe.

I deeply breathe-out relief.

I integrate my soul and body to exist as an integrated universal being in physical-human form.

I feel, think, see, hear, taste, touch, and sense everything and everyone, with my heart, as I continue to spiritually and physically evolve.

I am an ancient galactic soul incarnated as a Gaian-human, and I am ready to return to original form, as a universal creator being that I am, existing within this universe.

May One Love all Life, unconditionally, as One.

[Malcolm Wright]

Ever hear mentioned - Seven Heavens

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Heavens

Follow the Underworld link at the bottom for the different neighborhoods of Hell.

I'd heard of the expression 'seventh heaven'...
Thanks - interesting reading...

M