posted
I've been reading these forums for a while now but this is my first post. I read Kreve's post and since I love debates and especially debating religion, I was inspired by her post to start a discussion about a topic that has been lingering in my mind for a while.
My question: How can Heaven and Hell exist?
Preface: I'm an atheist born in a moderate to light Christian orthodox family. Unlike Kreve, I'm not trying to convert anyone, just want to hear your opinions. Although I'm horrible at philosophy, this is my brief thoughts on the Christian views of Heaven and Hell.
Let's start with Hell. Eternal damnation, torture, pain, fierce fires, and of course the Devil, doing whatever he wants upon your pitiful soul. Don't get me wrong, it all sounds horrible and scary. But you have to ask yourself, why? It is because you're comparing that description to your current life or to your other beliefs, like Heaven.
Let me try to make my point. I bought my first computer in 1997, a 133 MHz processor with 16 megs of ram. It was amazing; it played games, browsed the internet, helped me do my school homework. 8 years later, I'm typing this on a powerful 3GHz computer with 1 gig of ram. I think about my first computer and pity it! What a piece of junk! This one plays 3D games with incredible graphics, physics, all the bells and whistles.
My point is one evaluates his life based on things in his recent past and his present.
Further, *You can't die in Hell, so no fear of death *2 thousand years of torture in Hell and your 70 or so years on earth will be forgotten. You will no longer be able to compare the torture to a past of "no torture and happiness" *Torture and pain will become mundane, expected, and yes, I dare say enjoyed.
Let me address a few obvious rebuttals that I foresee coming.
1.) The Devil is all evil. He will find ways to torture your soul, maybe at exponential rate for eternity so you will always feel the pain and discomfort. He may tell you of heaven at times so you have something to yearn for, something to compare your horrible experience to.
My reply: Seeing how happy and nice Heaven is, won't give you much comparison in Hell. That is because once you're in hell, you have no chance of salvation. Why bother yourself with something that is unachievable? I was trying to think of an example showing that but there is no earthly example. That is because you have no free will in hell. You cannot affect your life there; you are condemned to eternal suffering. As far as the exponential pain, if you expect it and cannot compare it to any "pleasurable" experience, it will be common and bearable to you.
2.) I'm not intelligent enough to understand how Hell works.
This is not a real argument. I'm not listing possible scenarios for hell and disproving them one by one, hence I could possibly miss one. I'm arguing that Hell cannot exist because we conform to our experiences. Pain is pain because pleasure is pleasure. Remove one of those and the other one loses its meaning!
---------------------------------------------
Onto the more complicated debate: Heaven doesn’t exist.
By believing in Christ, you are given eternal pleasure, life, joy. My argument is pretty much the same as Hell. How can you truly appreciate Happiness if you are never unhappy? How can a person be very dear to you when you don't fear his death, his cease of existence from *your* life? How can you have free will without being able to do moral evil? I suppose most people who are accepted into Heaven will do no evil, but Heaven is not exclusive to those people only. You can get into Heaven if you do moral evil but repent for it. Once you are in Heaven, can God still send you to Hell? Those people who do moral evil but believe in Christ and he forgives them, will they be able to do moral evil in Heaven without any consequences? I guess you could argue that Heaven will provide them with everything they need so there's no need for them to do evil. I, again, retort that if you have everything, it becomes mundane and you will want more. Those people will do evil just because it's different. Pleasure/happiness is up, pain/unhappiness is down. At any time that you are not moving on this axis, you feel nothing.
Let's say you win the lotto. Extreme happiness right? Let's say you keep on winning every day after for eternity. It diminishes in pleasure, doesn't it? Unless you can compare it with an event of *not* winning the lotto, winning it is unimportant.
By the way, great quotes like "live your life like every day's your last" will be completely lost. You'll have eternity, why do anything?
I was thinking for a long time of how heaven can give someone eternal pleasure and I'll admit, I've come with some viable options.
Possibility #1: We're social being; we love talking to each other. Since there are infinite amount of people in heaven, you can always talk to different people. You can gradually find more and more interesting people and stories until you get to the Orson Scott Card's. Of course, if you keep going up, you will eventually have only God as more interesting as the last person you talked to, and after talking to God, then there's nothing else. Talking to God for eternity is a different thing and I'll cover it in a bit. Of course, you can always go down. You can talk to someone really dumb and be completely amused. Then you can start building up slowly again. It's possible that your memory will fail you sometimes and you can hear and enjoy a story twice without noticing. In any case, this works. A perfect utopia, no evil and only pleasure. My question is, is this what we really want out of heaven?
Possibility #2. I love games! I love Ender's Game! Can God make a game just like in EG? It will adapt to you and keep you entertained forever. I'm curious how one would interpret free choice here. It kind of seems like a matrix kind of scenario with God farming us. Ugh!
Possibility #3. Have sex for eternity. Sex can never get old! Okay, I’m joking. Bad joke. Damn, I should read OSC's two books on how to write well. This one is where God has an unlimited amount of possessing power (a lot more then Jane!) and can entertain everyone in Heaven. For one, this doesn't seem right off the cuff. He entertains you for eternity because you believed he existed in your extremely minuscule and brief existence on earth? Given that he cares for us that much, let's say God tells you incredibly interesting stories for eternity. Wouldn't you, given a billion, heck trillion years of God telling you stories, get bored of it? And where's the free will in that: choosing which story God tells you next?
Of course, you can combine these three and add a bunch of others and choosing in between these pleasurable things, gives you free will. So I admit a place (Heaven) can exist where one would have exclusive pleasure with absolutely no pain/suffering. This, however, doesn't dispute my first argument that Hell doesn't exist.
That begs the question, if Heaven exists but Hell doesn't, is earth Hell since it's the opposite of eternal pleasure?
Here's where I'll probably lose the remaining 2 people who agree with me so far I'm arguing that the pleasure one gets on earth in his brief time is far more then the pleasure one would have in a place of eternal happiness. Only one thing stuck with me in my Philosophy class and that was Epicurus's 4 part cure: "Don't fear god, don't worry about death; what's good is easy to get, and what's terrible is easy to endure." The don't worry about death is a very complicated argument so I'm not going to go into it other than to say I don't completely agree. Don't fear God is better explained with this quote than I ever can:
"The gods are happy and immortal, as the very concept of 'god' indicates. But in Epicurus' view, most people were in a state of confusion about the gods, believing them to be intensely concerned about what human beings were up to and exerting tremendous effort to favour their worshippers and punish their mortal enemies. No; it is incompatible with the concept of divinity to suppose that the gods exert themselves or that they have any concerns at all. The most accurate, as well as the most agreeable, conception of the gods is to think of them, as Greeks often did, in a state of bliss, unconcerned about anything, without needs, invulnerable to any harm, and generally living an enviable life."
My argument comes with the last two statements. It is obvious that pleasure is easy to get on earth. I've lived in a 3rd world country and I've had more fun there then in my last 8 years living in the US, so don't pity them. Even people in Somalia have joyous moments, maybe not as we see them however. I'm sure they treasure the value of living another day a lot more then us; we take that completely for granted.
My argument for Earth giving more pleasure then Heaven is because "what's terrible is easy to endure". Epicurus explains that strong pain is brief, temporal and that mental pain can be avoided if one so desires. So you can endure a bit of pain and have it give you a huge comparison to the happy moments. It will make them that much more pleasurable. So, although you'll have constant pleasure in Heaven, it'll be dull, constant, and unsavory. If you save the life of a hostage in Iraq who would have definitely been beheaded, now that's eternal pleasure!
I apologize that it got so long. As someone so rightly said before, I didn't have the time to write a shorter post.
Hope some take time to read it and post some replies Posts: 38 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
2. I'm not trying to convert anyone in the Presenting Faith thread. It's about "should I be doing this if the consequences are truely this dire?" line of thought and reasoning and I only wanted to hear opinions as you do.
Anyone enough about my thing, lets talk about yours.
I completely agree with you on bad defining the good. To truely be a good person you can't just be a good person when things are good, you have to be a good person when things are absolutely horrible. That's what defines a truely good person in my book. And the lack of comparison to truely know what good and bad is, is definately a compelling question. We're assuming that in Heaven you'll lose all basis for comparison instead of remembering everything clearly. What if you can remember everything absolutely vivid and have a perminant basis for comparison?
I remember hearing (I'm not sure if this is accepted within the church and I'll have to do more research on it as it is very interesting, but it will generate good discussion) from a Biblical scholar who mainly focused on Revelations that after the second coming Satan will be sealed away in hell, BUT for a limited time supposively. I think it was around 1,000-5,000 years or so, but I can't be sure. So when Christ comes back to earth and creates his kingdom on earth, it's feasible there might be another war in heaven type senario when Satan is freed. This may not mean that everyone in Hell is there permanently, or everyone in Heaven will just lead boring lives. This could be a second chance type senario if things are as strict as they were recently discussed as being with me from a friend (hence my discussion). If anyone knows more about this please share (but this is just something I heard so please no direct attacks at me)
I can see why people don't want to believe in hell, I believe in it and I still don't like it. But as for Heaven I'd think that's something people would like to believe in, maybe not all the time but at least sometimes
posted
Heaven is a speakeasy and spell-checked stall full of over-tired and under-exercised wanna-be-published writers in bloom.
Posts: 551 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
You are trying to debate something that is beyond our meager perseption with our meager perseption.
Posts: 503 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I wrote a pretty long response, but my computer restarted. grrr... I am too lazy to reinvest my thoughts, so here is the skinny:
In order to place what I say in context, I should let you know I was raised Mormon. I went on a mission to South Korea. I married in the temple. I have come to realize for myself that the Joseph Smith story is false.
I am now agnostic, but I have respect for Christianity. I also appreciate Mormonism. What I say comes from my LDS background.
quote: Let's start with Hell. Eternal damnation, torture, pain, fierce fires, and of course the Devil, doing whatever he wants upon your pitiful soul.
quote: By believing in Christ, you are given eternal pleasure, life, joy.
I have issues with the premise of this post. I have never associated Hell with pain and Heaven with pleasure. Since these two assumptions seem at odd with my understanding of heaven/hell, I can not respond to your definitions, conclusions, and preemptive rebuttals.
I have separate issues about Heaven and Hell, but I think a good understanding of Heaven and Hell reveal that Heaven is a place where you are in God's presence. This is not reduced to physical pleasure, but rather, it is a place where you can eternally learn and progress. I think trials are implied.
Hell is just separation from God, light and knowledge. Being dammed is being unable to progress past a certain stage. That is a picture of eternal boredom and regret, not pain. Maybe regret will come and go like the tide, but the soul has limited potential.
I am curious how other Christians view Heaven and Hell. I think a good definition from believers would aid in this discussion.
posted
Kreve, are you also Icec0o1? You sound a lot alike, and I wonder if you are playing two sides to get a full range of responses.
Icec0o1, your post was really hard to follow. You used a line of logic that I simply do not agree with to prove your points. The arguements seemed a little chaotic to me.
I think maybe I was annoyed that you presumed your audiences responses and argued them. That tactic almost kept me out of this post, but I am curious how different Christians understand Heaven and Hell.
Posts: 2445 | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm glad this turned non-contentious. Hope it stays that way. Fine to set out what you believe; not so fine to attack what others believe. Obviously, when beliefs contradict, then it can LOOK like arguing. But if the tone remains at the level of mere explanation of the context of one's beliefs, no problem. It's when you start going after the other guy's beliefs that it becomes inappropriate for our forum.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
If Heaven is the natural consequence of heavenly action and hell is the consequence of hellish actions then the states are perpetuated by the action. You end up in the state that is most consistant with the you who you are.
Christ is a catalyst for change, in my own experience.
Posts: 26 | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged |
What God has done and what God has in store for us is on God's plain, not ours. It's pretty much a given that our ability to understand it now is limited by the fact that we aren't God, but even moreso by the fact that we ARE human.
My advice is simply to not worry about it. There's no real reason to understand Heaven OR Hell, or even God for that matter. If you trust that if you take the clearest things in Scripture and live as close as you possibly can to that ideal you will go on to be with God, then there's not a lot else to worry about.
If you are conflicted in your belief in Scripture's clearest messages, AND care about resolving that conflict, then you've got things to worry about on the Earthly plain of existence and don't need to concern yourself with Heaven and Hell.
If you simply don't care and think the whole thing is made up, then you are just making noise about something you believe to be nonsense. You'd be wasting your time and everyone else's.
I can't see one good reason for anyone on Earth to give more than a passing thought to Heaven or Hell for most of their lives.
There are always times when the thought of one or the other might prove a comfort or a motivator, but for the vast run of our existences, we don't need spend a lot of time concerned with either of the H words.
PS: This is just one person's opinion, and not officially sanctioned by any particular religion or sect. The Church of Bob does not exist and if it did, we'd make you donate a lot of money before letting you in on the "secrets" we have to reveal. As it is, you're getting a freebie.
posted
The concept of hell is too illogical and frustrating for me. People on earth already go through a ton of pain, why should they have an enternity of suffering. What I want to exist is the Celestial Library. The Celestial Library would make death worth dying. Every book in existence. Even the books that haven't been written yet. *drools* All that music. What could be better than an eternity of reading books, listening to music and hanging out with people like Rumi? *wistful sigh*
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
The only thing I truly know about the afterlife is, if after I die I discover that my thoughts on the afterlife were completely correct, I will be in the vast, vast minority, of 1. On the otherhand, if I find out I was wrong, I will be in the vast, vast majority of everyone, except possibly one.
And that more or less goes for everyone else.
Not counting God of course.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
This thread is mistitled, or -- as I'd like to think -- misapplied.
Personally, I'd rather see a thread that mirrors the original: how do those of us who are agnostic and/or atheist, and believe that people and the world would be better off if more people were agnostic and/or atheist, go about spreading our beliefs?
Is it polite to do so? Since we aren't motivated by fear of Hell, do we have less incentive to be "rude" if it isn't? And what sort of example is likely to sway a believer?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Ice, the problem I have addressing your post is that you haven't addressed "the Christian" view of heaven and hell (as if there were any such single view). You've laid out a view, which I'm sure is similar to what some Christians, somewhere, believe hell and heaven are like, but it bears very little resemblance to what I, or the majority of Christians I know, believe.
In a real debate/discussion you also don't get to write both sides of the argument, which is what you've done -- "Here's the Christian view, here's why it's wrong, here's the Christian rebuttals, here's why they're wrong." I hope you enjoy arguing with yourself, since you haven't left room for any other conversation partner.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Tom, why don't you start that thread? I'd like to read it, although I'd likely have nothing substantive to add to it.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Let's start with Hell. Eternal damnation, torture, pain, fierce fires, and of course the Devil, doing whatever he wants upon your pitiful soul.
You're operating from a false assumption here. Not all Christians even believe Hell as you describe exists at all. Certainly this is a correct statement of the belief of many fundamentalist Christians (although the term 'fundamentalist' is kind of strange-I think most everyone believes their beliefs are among the fundamentals of their religion).
quote:How can Heaven and Hell exist?
I don't know. I cannot personally explain how they can exist, but only state my faith that one of them does exist.
quote:My point is one evaluates his life based on things in his recent past and his present.
I think this is a pretty generalized statement for someone pretty young (I'm deducing that from when you bought your first computer, and using it to help with homework) to be making. All I can answer for is how I evaluate my life, and personally I look further back than the recent past. I don't know how far someone who is, say, 75, would look back. No one knows how far someone who has been self-aware for hundreds or thousands of years would look back.
quote:*2 thousand years of torture in Hell and your 70 or so years on earth will be forgotten. You will no longer be able to compare the torture to a past of "no torture and happiness" *Torture and pain will become mundane, expected, and yes, I dare say enjoyed.
Again, an assumption-a statement of faith. On both counts. While personally I think it is possible for someone being tortured to eventually become masochistic, by no means am I sure it happens. You certainly cannot be remotely certain, either.
quote:I'm arguing that Hell cannot exist because we conform to our experiences. Pain is pain because pleasure is pleasure. Remove one of those and the other one loses its meaning!
What is your basis of comparison? Have you ever been totally without either pleasure or pain? Or spoken to anyone who has?
Our bodies react to painful stimuli purely on instict. While I cannot be sure, I think that contradicts your argument, unless you are assuming that, say, a muscle flinches when very mild pain is induced only because it has felt pleasure before, and thus has a basis for comparison.
quote:By believing in Christ, you are given eternal pleasure, life, joy.
Again, this is operating from a mistaken assumption. Not all Christians believe Heaven is as you describe, nor do all Christians believe Heaven exists as you have described it at all.
quote:Those people will do evil just because it's different. Pleasure/happiness is up, pain/unhappiness is down. At any time that you are not moving on this axis, you feel nothing.
I personally don't think people do evil just because it is 'different', although sometimes people like to attempt to excuse evil because it is 'new'. You don't know that you feel nothing because of the lack of pleasure's opposite.
quote:Epicurus explains that strong pain is brief, temporal and that mental pain can be avoided if one so desires. So you can endure a bit of pain and have it give you a huge comparison to the happy moments.
This is interesting, but ultimately it is a statement of faith. You are questioning the faith of Christians who believe in your (pretty specific and easy to knock-down, I might add) versions of Heaven and Hell, because of your own faith that things which you have never experienced, and never learned about from anyone who has experienced, truly are.
Your presentation is interesting, but unfortunately you've invested quite a bit of effort into picking out what Christians believe and then arguing against it. It simply doesn't work that way, for anyone.
------
Tom: I think the same answers given in the other thread apply here-living by example is the best missionary possible, and proseltyzing simply cannot be done without exciting precisely the same emotions you experience when people attempt to proseltyze you.
Different flavors, but the same emotions, that is.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote: Obviously, when beliefs contradict, then it can LOOK like arguing.
Some time ago I figured out that a lot of the problems that arise between theists and atheists come from that honest and sincere question: "Why don't you believe in God?"
The honest and sincere response takes the form of a series of statements based on the atheist's experience, which led that person to their state of belief. Of course, "a series of statements arranged so as to lead to a particular conclusion" is a dictionary definition of the word "argument."
So a theist asks a fair and honest question, the atheist gives a fair and honest answer, and the theist hears an argument, because that is precisely the form the answer took. From there it's only a short hop from argument to "attack." That is, the theist feels their belief system is being attacked, when really all that happened is that their question was answered.
Argument isn't a bad word. But the mechanism above explains why it gets such a bad rep. It really is amazing that this group is able to bypass this mechanism most of the time. And even when it isn't, the resulting "attacks" or "fights" are generally forgivable. They just remind us that we're humans.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:So a theist asks a fair and honest question, the atheist gives a fair and honest answer, and the theist hears an argument, because that is precisely the form the answer took. From there it's only a short hop from argument to "attack." That is, the theist feels their belief system is being attacked, when really all that happened is that their question was answered.
This does go both ways, of course (I don't think you were implying otherwise)
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I want to reclaim "argument" as a good word, not a perjorative. It's how truth is shared and discovered by more than one person.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I believe in heaven and hell. I don't define heaven as a place of sublime pleasure forever, but as a state of being metaphorically described as "my Father's house" or "gone on to be with the Lord" or other Biblical references. Since I like God, I think that might be pleasant! Similarly, I wouldn't define hell as torture, pain, and fire; it's metaphorically described as "wailing & gnashing of teeth" and "where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." It doesn't sound pleasant.
If I strip away metaphor, I would think of the afterlife as either with God and pleasant overall, or without God and unpleasant overall, and hard for us to describe. I don't see this as impossible. After all, I've had times in my life that were pleasant overall, or unpleasant overall, so they must be possible!
I have also heard this interesting argument against heaven, except as a state of boring flatness. Whenever you take action, you're hoping to improve the state of the world (from your perspective). For example, if you put on the kettle, you think the world will be nicer if you have some tea. If the world is already completley perfect, there's no need to do anything, so you'll just sit there.
I didn't agree. When I find the world to be perfect, or close enough, I want to get up and move! I see kids get really excited, and they don't slump into a stupor; they get up and dance. Sounds good to me.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
I skimmed what you wrote, but for me, this question has no meaning. It's like saying "How can Pluto (the planet) exist?" Whether it exists or not in reality has little relation to whether you believe it.
So what you're really asking is for justification in believing that Heaven and Hell exist. As a short aside: I like to think I believe that they do, but examining my actions, I sometimes wonder. Let's assume for a moment that I do believe. If I do, I have to base that belief on something. In my case, I base it on a belief that the Bible is true. If my belief is based on the Bible, then justifying the existence of Heaven or Hell isn't really my job, anymore than it's my job to justify the existence of platypuses or appendixes. Or anything else in the universe that doesn't appear to make a heck of a lot of sense.
That's not intended as a cop-out, and I realize it's a wholly unsatisfactory answer, but it's not too comforting to me either, so we're at least both in the same boat even if our beliefs strongly differ.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by lem: Kreve, are you also Icec0o1? You sound a lot alike, and I wonder if you are playing two sides to get a full range of responses.
Nope, I'm just me.
Posts: 20 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Jeniwren, it is your examples that illustrate exactly why I, as a struggling agnostic (teetering on athiest), have a hard time "believing" in Heaven and Hell. I don't have to believe Pluto exists because it can be seen. I don't have to believe in a platypus because I can reach out and touch one (and run when the Zookeeper starts to chase me). Sure, I can't explain WHY they exist but I don't have to worry THAT they exist. Heaven and Hell only exist as ideas that have some uniform similarities among those that believe (though it is pretty different among faiths).
Some believe in the heaven with harps and clouds and the hell with fire and brimstone. Some see these as metaphors for "something" that feels like those things. Some believe we become gods in our own right or devils if we acted poorly. Some think they come back and do it all over again in some other form.
To me I don't even bother with the Heaven and Hell as a specific discussion...I am curious why people believe in any afterlife at all! The idea that our jumble of senses (which are based on physical traits...we see, smell, feel, hear, and taste due to our senses not some mystical force) will perceive something after those jumble of senses shut down amazes me. I really WANT that to happen. Like Woody Allen said, I don't want to be immortal in the works I leave behind...I want to be immortal by not dying.
Is it simply this curse of human condition, in that that we know how we will end up, and coupled with that nature's desire to survive that creates these feelings for a NEED for an afterlife? I don't know. I think it is a cool discussion as I am curious and struggle with this mightily (and have done so ever since losing my father some years ago...I wanted a heaven after that whereas before I barely thought of it).
I like the idea from a poster above: "hey, don't worry about it...you'll find out eventually" or, as Douglas Adams (very much an athiest) said, "Don't Panic!"
Posts: 896 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Question, (I skimmed through this and saw it brought up a few times in the definition of Hell), if a person doesn't believe in God, are they then going through their own personal Hell on earth?
Posts: 2867 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Possibility #2. I love games! I love Ender's Game! Can God make a game just like in EG?
No, He can't. Orson Scott Card still owns the rights.
Well, maybe if He asked. Nicely. And stopped giving him grief over that stupid "Gay" interview thing.
Posts: 1862 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I like what a character in Imago said. She, being an alien said that she believed in life and not in anything after. I thought that was an interesting way of looking at things.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
1.) Why wouldn't heaven or hell exist? There are many things in this world that even science can't fully explain, such as the origins of the universe.
2.) I actually don't believe that heaven and hell are actual realms. I think they're metaphors for our own states of mind, but that's the Buddhist in me. Posts: 46 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote: 1.) Why wouldn't heaven or hell exist? There are many things in this world that even science can't fully explain, such as the origins of the universe.
Just because a scientific cause is not known as of yet doesn't mean one doesn't exist.
Posts: 2756 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Wow, I'm surprised people actually responded. My post was so horrific, I was hoping it would be ignored Although I don't know what kind of a discussion is going on right now exactly.
I’m not sure I have the literary skill I’d need to express my real thoughts on this and possibly get a good conversation going without offending anyone, but I’ll try to at least correct my first post and apologize for it being so bad. I was contemplating whether I should start a new thread and let this embarrassment fall off of the page but it’s more fun and challenging to try to salvage my reputation here.
I was not trying to disprove all heavens and hells possible. I wouldn’t even pretend to know all of the different definitions and descriptions of them (like the Islamic one where you get 72 virgins in Heaven). It was actually a horrible generalization of the idea that I had in my mind and couldn’t put down on paper. Also, I’m not trying to disprove the existence/belief in the afterlife nor the existence of God although that’s an interesting debate in itself. The concept I’m trying to analyze and get your opinions on is that life is unfair and therefore afterlife exists to equalize the playing field. So morally good people get rewarded with the presence of God and stay in paradise while those who chose to be immoral in this life get eternal damnation.
I don’t even know why I brought Christianity into this. I was not trying to focus this discussion at all on a single religion; all religions which believe in the afterlife suggest that those who do good will be rewarded and those who do evil will be punished after they die. A very strong image burned into my mind when I was watching a special on CNN about religion in the US a while back. A girl that looked to be about 12 years old, looking sweet and innocent, came on the screen and professed in the most commanding and vigorous tone that anyone who doesn’t believe in Christ *will* go to Hell. How can a girl so young be taught to show such hatred and discrimination? I apologize.
So here’s my real argument. I hope I can write it well enough for it to be worth your time.
One thing that stuck to me in my philosophy class was when we were discussing Epicurus. It was something on the lines of pleasure has no quality, but only quantity. At first, I seemed to agree because things that are more fun have more pleasure points or whatever. But how can you compare saving a life to kissing a girl for the first time to winning the lottery? I’d say there are pleasures that are of better quality then others. I’m getting off topic, though. Anyways, this made me think, what is the opposite of pleasure? What can Hell possibly be like?
A lot would say the opposite of pleasure is pain, mental suffering, anything that’s not attributed to pleasurable feelings. I’d have to disagree. The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s apathy! I would be daring enough to define pleasure as life, existence, the ability to feel *anything*. Therefore, the opposite of pleasure is the state of being dead; not existing. How can pain or suffering be pleasurable? Am I a masochist? No! But I do think that anything is better then nothing. I don’t see a middle point where pleasure is up and pain is down, I see “not existing” as the bottom, and everything above it being a good, pleasurable thing.
Imagine a person who loves sports, plays soccer everyday, rides his mountain bike on the weekends, and skis every winter. Imagine he got into a car accident and lost both of his legs. The tragedy would surely force him into depression and would make him question whether his life is worth living anymore. Is it? He will obviously never have as much pleasure as he would have had if the accident didn’t happen. He can’t help it that he’s comparing his current life to his past. But even though he’s gone down in the scale of pleasure, he is still experiencing it. He’s still alive.
The pure fact that masochism exists is enough of a proof that one could get pleasure from pain. Of course it’s looked upon as a negative thing because it’s crazy in our circumstances, that being our lives on the earth, but I’d argue that pain is better then nothing.
So wait, did I get myself into a dead end? I admitted that there are different quantities and qualities of pleasure. So if Hell and Heaven exist, both keep you alive but Heaven simply provides more pleasure, wouldn’t that be good enough to provide reward and punishment for our moral decisions in this life on earth? Well it doesn’t work that way because the quantity/quality of pleasure is based on comparisons. If you never knew what happiness was, you would be satisfied with being unhappy. If you didn’t know what lack of pain was, pain would mean nothing; it would be as subconscious as breathing.
Eternity is a long time. If you’re in either Hell or Heaven, you will forget your brief existence on earth and would therefore not know any different than what you experience in either Hell or Heaven. There was a suggestion that you are forced, in Hell, to remember how much pleasure you had on earth so you had a comparison point. You have to walk very carefully along these lines, however. At any time that you deny the free will of a person, you deny his existence. So let’s say the person still has free will but this is an effect like an addictive drug. It still makes no difference if you can remember your past and how happy you were and it’s because of hope.
It is all about hope! If you have no hope of escaping Hell, then you will still register pain as pleasure, even though you have a reference point from your memories on earth. The point being that you won’t care what you experience; you will expect pain for eternity so it’ll become a subconscious/boring or possibly a very pleasurable thing. I said “very pleasurable” because boredom provides still some pleasure. So is the difference between Hell and Heaven, hope? I’d argue that you have no hope in Heaven as well! On earth, you have hope because you can either end up in a less pleasurable place or a more pleasurable place based on your moral choices. You hope to be able to make the right ones. What can you hope for in heaven? One of the posts suggested that you can hope to get closer to God. But since we’re talking about eternity and you never reach God since if you do so, you’ll be at the end and lose your hope, there must be infinite levels of closeness to God. But then, even though it would seem that you are getting closer to him, in reality you are not because there is an infinite levels in between you and Him still. Therefore, getting closer to God is unrealistic.
So how can bad people be punished and good people rewarded in the afterlife when every uniquely conceivable afterlife by itself is equally as pleasurable as any other one? Further, in every case, you lose your hope because you do not have any further rewards for doing moral good. If you have nothing to work towards, why work?
Posts: 38 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I'm arguing that the pleasure one gets on earth in his brief time is far more then the pleasure one would have in a place of eternal happiness. Only one thing stuck with me in my Philosophy class and that was Epicurus's 4 part cure: "Don't fear god, don't worry about death; what's good is easy to get, and what's terrible is easy to endure." The don't worry about death is a very complicated argument so I'm not going to go into it other than to say I don't completely agree. Don't fear God is better explained with this quote than I ever can:
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Carry on.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
