Heaven & Hell, etc.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

Okay. First off, I would like to ask the Christians if their belief is that Heaven and Hell are physical places or are they just where your 'spirit' goes after you die (different realm/after-life).

Secondly, I would like to discuss what happens after you die. My thoughts:

If there was a place to go after you die, you would technically need your senses to experience it (like anything else), but because you need your brain for your senses to work, how would you experience heaven or hell? Your brain is rotting in the ground. So I figure that it just stops. Your thoughts, everything. Or perhaps you are re-incarnated. Of course, there can be no proof. For me, ideally, you would just be in sort of a personal utopia, where you live for eternity to do what you want sort-of-a-thing. Thoughts?

[Trystan]

Being dead = same as before you were born. You simply don't exist as you did before; your body is burnt to ash or decomposes in the soil. I could be wrong, but it seems likely nothing happens when you die apart from death.

[Dr. Zoidberg]

Yeah, I had trouble understanding how you wouldn't exist. But if it was like being before you were born, that would make alot of sense. Thanks :lol:

[mel]

Nobody has any idea, and no christian that I've ever spoken to thinks that heaven is a physical place that your earthly body goes when you die. There is a belief among Protestant Christians is that when you die you remain dormant for a period, then at the time of the apocalypse all of the souls are judged and sent to either heaven or hell (at least this is the interpretation I have often seen in biblical scholars) many Protestant Christians in contrast believe that your soul is judged immediately upon death and you are sent to either heaven or hell (which is not a physical place but a spiritual realm in which you are given a new body which means new senses, which goes for both interpretations). The nature of hell is one of separation from God, not necessarily a red guy with a pitchfork poking you with a fork while your skin burns forever...though this varies from christian to christian and denomination to denomination.

In my understanding (but I am not and have never been, and have never spoken to a scholarly catholic so this may be incorrect) Catholics believe in purgatory, which is a sort of in-between place where your soul rests until you are judged. Limbo/Purgatory is sort of your "second chance" to gain admittance to heaven if you weren't a believer when you died while they await judgment which occurs at the time of the apocalypse. However it's not as easy to get accepted into heaven from purgatory...there's stuff like prayers of intercession and other sorts of rituals that your remaining friends and family on earth need to do on your behalf while you are in purgatory from my very vague (probable misinterpretation) of what some catholic friends have told me.

Personally, I don't subscribe to any of these beliefs.

[RedAnarchist]

We'll only know after we die, and if nothing happens, we'll never know.

[F9]

Im not a christian, i used to be for many years, last 2 i think is when i "changed" and became an atheist, so yeah i know some things, i will try to answer what they believe, i am still getting christian lessons at school but in not that known for been a great student, so i could have some wrongs, but anw..But again to clarify i dont believe those shit, at all!

What i learned to my "bad days" is that the body just caries the soul, until you die.Soul gets borned with you and is made exact the same time when you are made, and it leaves inside you until the death of your body.Soul never dies.After the death, which comes to every person, when your body and brain are considered dead, your soul is never dead.
Now about hell and heaven, i considered it even on my "christian days" to be the most rediculous thing, i couldnt understand how this "god" who says he loves his "creations" sends some of them in "punish" or he differs them.But anw that was my view.It had nothing to do with christianism.They think that hell and heaven are some metaphysical(?) phases, were heaven are those who are close to the god, so they have a pure soul, aand in hell are those who were away from god, so they are been "tortured" on their own for their "sins" etc.
Thats what i basically got all that time, im not absolutely sure if they are indeed the "correct christian lines" but anw.
Btw i was raised in orthodox christianism.

Fuserg9:star:

[Bud Struggle]

Okay. First off, I would like to ask the Christians if their belief is that Heaven and Hell are physical places or are they just where your 'spirit' goes after you die (different realm/after-life).

Nothing physical. Your body is dead. The spitit? Maybe not so much.


Secondly, I would like to discuss what happens after you die. My thoughts:

If there was a place to go after you die, you would technically need your senses to experience it (like anything else), but because you need your brain for your senses to work, how would you experience heaven or hell? Your brain is rotting in the ground. And what "controls" the senses? Is it just the physical? Then a dead man has just as much of the infrastructure as a person that's alive. Something makes the person "alive." That's what the senses are all about.

[mel]

And what "controls" the senses?

My best guess would be an active brain.


Is it just the physical? Then a dead man has just as much of the infrastructure as a person that's alive. Something makes the person "alive." That's what the senses are all about.

They have the infrastructure, but it's non-operational. I'm not one to immediately criticize any belief that you may have about a soul, but these are weak criticisms of the point the original poster was trying to make. In my experience most christians believe that upon entering the afterlife they will be granted a spiritual "body" which which they would experience the afterlife.

The so-called "soul" is given a more perfect form and it would experience the afterlife, obviously not hindered by lack of a brain or the senses with which we have become accustomed, but our physical senses are definitely controlled solely by the physical, the difference between a dead person and a living one is whether or not the physical is still operating.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Secondly, I would like to discuss what happens after you die.

You start to rot, usually.


And what "controls" the senses? Is it just the physical? Then a dead man has just as much of the infrastructure as a person that's alive. Something makes the person "alive." That's what the senses are all about.

I think such questions betray the assumption that the mind and body are seperate entities, something which is not in evidence.

I've not seen any indication that human beings, and by extension living things in general, are anything other than marvellously complicated biological machines.

[RedAnarchist]

If the Christians were right (and scientifically, biologically and chemically speaking, that's a big if), then Heaven would be this uptight, restrictive environment which would seem like a Christian theocracy, whilst Hell would be a libertarian (in the leftist sense) paradise.

[mel]

If the Christians were right (and scientifically, biologically and chemically speaking, that's a big if), then Heaven would be this uptight, restrictive environment which would seem like a Christian theocracy, whilst Hell would be a libertarian (in the leftist sense) paradise.

And if you had ever read anything about heaven written by any Christian, or in the Bible, you would know that everything you just said is complete bullshit.

[Misanthrope]

If the Christians were right (and scientifically, biologically and chemically speaking, that's a big if), then Heaven would be this uptight, restrictive environment which would seem like a Christian theocracy, whilst Hell would be a libertarian (in the leftist sense) paradise.

Except for that whole part about it being a pit of fire

[RedAnarchist]

That's from a Christian perspective. There's no point trying to get people to behave in the correct way if they don't scare them. There's no evidence of a heaven or hell anyway.

[F9]

Except for that whole part about it being a pit of fire

Actually no, the fire thing as said by christians is made to make people "afraid" to make sins etc.Hell isnt fire place, full of snakes etc.I think they describe hell as the place without god, a place where your sould wont find peace..
But no, the fire thing is a myth of a greater myth-religion itself.

Fuserg9:star:

[mel]

Actually no, the fire thing as said by christians is made to make people "afraid" to make sins etc.Hell isnt fire place, full of snakes etc.I think they describe hell as the place without god, a place where your sould wont find peace..
But no, the fire thing is a myth of a greater myth-religion itself.

Fuserg9:star:

There are a few verses in revelation to support the "lake of fire" conception of hell.


That's from a Christian perspective. There's no point trying to get people to behave in the correct way if they don't scare them. There's no evidence of a heaven or hell anyway.

Of course it's from a christian perspective. You said "if the christians are right". If the christians are right (some of them), then hell is an excruciatingly painful lake of fire. Not a libertarian paradise. Especially considering for every leftist in there, there's bound to be an army of fascists and a few billion cappies. Even if anyone was free to run whatever society they wanted down there, the capitalists and fascists would soon take over and run the place down since they're a little more morally loose than leftists seem to be and I doubt they'd be above torture to get the kind of society they want running. Whether it's a pit of fire or not, hell would be an awfully shitty place to be.