Do Heaven and Hell exist?

[Aeternitas]

Most religious people describe Heaven as a place where you are close to God and where there is no sufference, only happiness, while Hell is a place where you are separated from God, in darkness and you are tormented for eternity.
What do you think? Do you believe in a Heaven and Hell? How do you picture them? Are there any arguments to support their existence? Or, is there an afterlife?

[Alkman]

"Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
One thing is certain—This Life flies;
One thing is certain and the rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies."

The Rubαiyαt of Omar
Khayyam of Naishapur


I would describe death as a permanent loss of senses.

[Zyklop]

"From their misery they sought escape, and the stars were too remote for them. Then they sighed: "O that there were heavenly paths by which to steal into another existence and into happiness!" Then they contrived for themselves their by-paths and bloody draughts!

Beyond the sphere of their body and this earth they now fancied themselves transported, these ungrateful ones. But to what did they owe the convulsion and rapture of their transport? To their body and this earth."

Thus Spake Zarathustra - Friedrich Nietzsche

Personally I don´t believe in any form of afterlife beside mental and genetical legacy.

[Timo]

Originally Posted by Aeternitas

Do you believe in a Heaven and Hell?

Nope

Are there any arguments to support their existence?

None which have proof

Or, is there an afterlife?

No clue if there is actually one

[Theobald]

Originally Posted by Aeternitas

Do you believe in a Heaven and Hell?

Yes of course.

How do you picture them?

I believe in a paradise with tens of young gorgeous virgins for martyrs who died for Allah.

Are there any arguments to support their existence?

Just read the Bible.
Anyway, it's just a matter of personal faith, there isn't any technical proof.

[Rusalka]

Heaven and Hell make perfect sense in a feudal system (and other similar ones). Why do the poor suffer and what's more, work for their lords who have absolute rule over everything even their very lives? Because they're told that this world is full of injustice but they should endure and lead good lives after which they are promised Heaven. No questioning the authority, that's a sin, and don't worry: the poor, the sick and the meek will inherit the next life anyway so you might as well forget about this one. Perfect arrangement.

[Agrippa]

We can't be certain if there is some sort of existence after our biological life or not, but its rather unlikely and most things I can think of speak definitely against.
Thats a jump our brain made to give us hope probably.

But if there is any life after death, I find it rather absurd to believe that there is a heaven and a hell.
To keep somebody "alive" in some form just to torture him? If, only purification of the "soul" would make sense, but even thats somewhat strange if looking how our personality came up, namely because of genes-environment.

So if you believe in god or not, if you believe in afterlife or not, the heaven-hell story in the classical way sounds just ridiculous to me.

And that there is any sort of life after death is rather improbable.

[Milesian]

Using Blaise Pascal's logic, it makes perfect sense to believe in it. A betting man would immediately see the value

[Rusalka]

An afterlife is a different issue. There are lots of different "afterlives", one of which is as Zyklop has pointed out, "the living through your progeny" kind. It may be argued that the matter never really perishes but merely changes form, so there must be some sort of an afterlife. If nothing we all know that sooner or later almost all the dead people (unless cremated, I assume) become fertilizer for the plants. Living your next life as chlorophyll cells.. That's a possibility. Although I'm sure it wouldn't appeal to most people who'd rather have the aforementioned virgins around.

[Agrippa]

Originally Posted by Rusalka

Heaven and Hell make perfect sense in a feudal system (and other similar ones). Why do the poor suffer and what's more, work for their lords who have absolute rule over everything even their very lives? Because they're told that this world is full of injustice but they should endure and lead good lives after which they are promised Heaven. No questioning the authority, that's a sin, and don't worry: the poor, the sick and the meek will inherit the next life anyway so you might as well forget about this one. Perfect arrangement.

It makes sense to keep a moral standard for those to weak, dumb or bad to understand it if it would come to them in another form.
So families were kept together, children were raised up, people tried to "be better" and so on...
Its just a question of how much confidence you have in the reason of an average human being of your society and of how good the moral behind the religious dogma is for you, your group and the greater whole.
Some people just need some sort of irrational motivation to behave like a human being probably...

[Rusalka]

Originally Posted by Milesian

Using Blaise Pascal's logic, it makes perfect sense to believe in it. A betting man would immediately see the value

That's why I'm an agnostic.

[Gil]

Of course there is! Hasn't someone already mentioned my 20 virgins???!!!
Back to reality, I don't believe there is Heaven or Hell but if they do exist then I already know where i'm going to be for the rest of the eternity.....

[Milesian]

Originally Posted by Rusalka

It may be argued that the matter never really perishes

It would be a silly argument though as scientificaly speaking, all matter in the universe is unstable and will decay. Okay so we are talking about an incredibly long time from now, but still....

[Milesian]

Originally Posted by Rusalka

That's why I'm an agnostic.

Being a fence-sitter won't help you out in that scenario, Turkoid

[Awar]

Since I said most of what I wanted to say about Life, Death and the supposed Afterlife,
here I'll just rant about nothing special

Look at the world around us... it's perfect. The laws of nature, nature itself, it can all be represented by perfect geometrical images.

The circle of life, the line of time, you know what I mean?
Basic relations in life have this stable structure when you try to imagine them.

But, what about theological structures?

We're born, we live our lives, and try to live our lowly lives in a manner that makes us
eligible for going to heaven. So... this entire world is some sort of experiment? Why?
We go through temptations? So, if we do it like God intended, with our free will ( our persona, which is largely shaped by genetic heritage and the surroundings ), perhaps we get to heaven, and then what?

We get rewarded for being obedient to commendments from an old holy scripture ( which could easily be fake ), and then what?

We live in this reward forever? We enjoy ourselves?!
We never ever do anything anymore...and God keeps us around because we're nice people?!

C'mon! This is so obviously a concept born out of human hope for something 'better',
I can't find words to explain how typically HUMAN it is.

So, the almighty has nothing else to do, except test us?
Doesn't it all sound a little too self-centered to you?
What does God do that isn't closely connected to upkeeping his flock of limited pets?

So, ok, to God, we're pets, his Sims video-game, but what else does he do except playing with us? Does he just fling lifeless rocks and gas-giants around universe all day for fun? An occasional super-nova lightshow... and... what else?

So, since he created us in his image, he looks like a guy... who just floats there ( is he dressed at all ), he has a nose and lungs ( like we do ), but he doesn't use them, because an almighty God certainly doesn't NEED to breathe, or eat, ok, maybe he shape-shifts from time to time... and what else is there?

So, after we die, we join him, and just like, hang around with Him, forever.
Do we take part in some cool Good vs. Evil war? We, the Good guys, versus the Evil guys ( who are evil because they are against us ), even though God is almighty, and he created them too, so there's not much point to their existence except tormenting guys and gals on earth.

So, back to geometry of things. This religious concept of Life, Death and Afterlife
seems to be a shabby line with lots of interruptions... kinda like scribblings of a child.
Compared to the perfection of the existing laws of nature and life itself, that is.

If there really is a god who has a personality, and who gives us free will,
I'm sure he's at least a bit annoyed with the arrogance of religion, its imperfection
when compared to the perfection of existing laws... like that of gravity

[Milesian]

Originally Posted by Awar

Since I said most of what I wanted to say about Life, Death and the supposed Afterlife,
here I'll just rant about nothing special

Makes a change

Look at the world around us... it's perfect. The laws of nature, nature itself, it can all be represented by perfect geometrical images.

The circle of life, the line of time, you know what I mean?

Actually no, have you been smoking with those hippies again?

Basic relations in life have this stable structure when you try to imagine them.

But