Heaven and Hell

[Guardsman Bass]

By whatever name you call it, these two concepts(paradise and punishment, both eternal) have a strong influence on believers of those religions who hold this afterlife idea as a tenet of their beliefs(aka christian, muslim, etc). This may be part of the reason some people join Christianity: "fire insurance." They figure, what the hell, even if it doesn't turn out to be true, I have lost nothing, but if it does, then I have gained a lot.

Honestly, before I stopped believing in religion, the fear of going to hell(or OUter Darkness) was the one thing holding me back for a while. Perhaps we should compare these two "places."

1. Heaven: paradise, happiness, adoring God, worshipping and praising God and being in His presence all the time, blah.
2. Whatever nightmares, burning deserts, volcanoes, hot lava, darkness, sluts, drugs, Satan.

[Lagmonster]

Perhaps we should compare these two "places."

1. Heaven: paradise, happiness, adoring God, worshipping and praising God and being in His presence all the time, blah.
2. Whatever nightmares, burning deserts, volcanoes, hot lava, darkness, sluts, drugs, Satan.

Admittedly, it'd be the easiest thing in the world to market for hell: "Perpetual tan weather! All the drugs you can snort! And hey, if you're an unattractive guy, you can qualify for a position in our Punish the Loose Hot Sluts program! Act now!"

[Lagmonster]

The number one thing to consider between the heaven and hell is that there are too many conflicting reports about what it looks like and who's there.

Some accounts are the lakes of fire, brimstone, etc., versus a serene and boring paradise. The early missionaries to the nordics portrayed heaven as similar to Valhalla, and hell to a place not of torture, but of grim desolation and famine. Other accounts of heaven are just the 'it's heaven if you're near god and serving him' versus the 'it's hell if you're cast out of god's sight', implying that hell is just a place where god won't talk to you anymore or do anything to help you, but not necessarily punishes you.

By some standards of sin, even some of the popes would end up in hell, while if you recall Jesus' message about coming to save the sinners and prostitues, you can always get a call-girl in heaven.

[Tsyroc]

Heaven & Hell Good song from Black Sabath when they had Ronnie James Dio as their singer.

[Utsanomiko]

Unless you get into God's kingdom of heaven and it turns out that Lucifer was our Creator, and you've been following the deceptive lies of his twisted fallen angel, Jehovah, all this time.

considering the anti-free will and promotion of authoritarian punishment in the bible, that might be more plausible than God being good and Satan being evil, just because a liar can deny deception in his own book.

[kojikun]

A friend of mine is from Norway and she says that when the concept of a hell full of fire was brought to Scandanavia, people did everything in their power to sin, because anything hot was thought as a good thing compared to the fridgid north.

Just goes to show you, peoples thoughts on how good heaven and hell are can be very different, even if the concept of what they are is the same.