[chimaera]

Ok so we've been told of a Heaven and a Hell and I believe in the existence of both but I see a big question that I don't see many people discuss.

Looking at this from a Dualist perspective, when a person dies his body goes back to dust but his soul continues to live on - non extended in time and space and is completely spiritual. With that said, it means that the soul is completely void of physical attributes......including pain. If this is the case, then how would we burn in Hell? Is it that Hell doesn't exist or is it that there's a big misunderstanding to the concept of it?

What are your thoughts?

[where_i'm_calling_from]

well cartesian dualism makes the claim that although the soul and body are separate, they are also intrinsically linked. one should not care about the body...as the soul is the only permanent thing in the 'self'. to take the example of moby dick, captain ahab becomes obsessed with the pursuit of the whale that took his leg, to the extent that he devotes his entire life to its destruction. here we can see the distortion of the soul due to something that affects the body, and as such there is a connection. they are not entirely distinct.

but 'burning in hell' is only a metaphor. it is meant to emphasise how bad hell is, not that one would literally 'burn'. the same thing, presumably applies to the concept of paradise, especially in islam. when one dies a martyr, one is given 72 virgins to wait on you in heaven...well...is this to say there is a real physical reincarnation? one would have to say not. the body can feel pain (not very suitable for paradise), is imperfect, and the question of what form your body would take is a serious issue. if one were blown to pieces, one couldn't be physically reincarnated in that form...but if one died at the age of 100, would one want a frail old body, that is blind and incontinent? you might presume you were reborn in your physical prime, then how would a stillborn baby be reincarnated? i.e. they never lived to manhood.

the idea of receiving 72 virgins may sound appealing...but what would one actually do with them? its kinda stupid. and degrading and objectifying women. on the whole, the idea of a physical paradise (or hell) is nonsensical, and must surely be false, or a metaphor. one doesn't actually get 72 virgins, or burn, but something similarly appealing or unappealing in whatever form the afterlife takes.

a far more interesting question arises when one considers the removal of the concept of limbo from christianity by the pope recently. limbo was where unborn babies, and children who die in a state of grace go. however, without limbo, these babies go straight to heaven. now think about it: if one never got the chance to live, one goes straight to heaven, not limbo. if one lives, therefore, one infinitely increses the chances of going to hell. you cannot go to hell if you don't get born, but if you are born, that possibility arises. thus, it is far better never to be never born as one is guaranteed a place in heaven, and doesn't have to suffer on earth, and this completely fucks up the whole point of christianity. it leads to the belief that one is actually unlucky to have been born, and not to have died as a child. limbo is a necessary loophole to explain what happens to unborn babies, and it has been announced as not existing.

[Forgone Conclusion]

I would have thought newborn babies would go to hell since they carry original sin, but I may be wrong.

I also thougt about this and thought that would a mother, believing that her child would go to heaven instantly, kill a baby so that it did? Also, having done this, would she go to hell, as, while she had committed a sin, she has essentially done a good thing... Even if not, if she was Catholic and confessed, would she THEN be allowed into heaven?

I think I believe even less in a traditional hell than I do in heaven. I can't see how a God can be all-forgiving (certainly the new testament one), and yet condemn someone to eternal torment. God is essentially threatening people with punishment of eternal torture, which I think is a punishemnt that nobody should recieve

It would also be interesting to see the scale of things you can get sent to hell for. If I'm honest I've committed a huge number of sins. I've stolen, I've lied, I've cheated, I've been jealous, greedy, etc, although never to a huge degree. If you ignore the fact that I'm agnostic (and therefore would go to hell), would I still go to hell? It seems like a bit of an overkill in my opinon, and is why the idea of purgatory makes much more sense, although it is never actually mentioned in the bibile, and i'm not sure if it's actually accepted by the pope, etc atm

This post has been edited by Forgone Conclusion: 02 January 2006 - 04:51 PM

[where_i'm_calling_from]

nah babies are considered as innocent. read the catcher in the rye by jd salinger, or northern lights by philip pullman for a literary explanation of this theme. so murdering a baby would be pointless. and a mortal sin. but you might be able to confess your way out of it. i dunno.

in modern christianity hell doesn't really exist. its more of a medieval concept. modern day people aren't so scared that lying will send them to hell. they just find it annoying and so choose not to believe in it.

and curtis, yes, you are going to hell.

[Forgone Conclusion]

IF a baby is innocent, then why would it be pointless to murder it? The point would be to send it to heaven

[Echoes]

chimaera, hell is Ashley Cole getting injured and Patrick Cygan stepping in to replace him.

as for biblical hell, well we've never seen any shred of evidence of its existence (or any kind of afterlife for that matter) so why think it does? like most of religion's follies, ill believe it when i see it, and until that day, ill laugh at you for believing in things that you have no idea exist. You might as well believe in monsters under the bed.

[Droogie]

xedx, on Jan 2 2006, 03:48 PM, said:

but 'burning in hell' is only a metaphor. it is meant to emphasise how bad hell is, not that one would literally 'burn'. the same thing, presumably applies to the concept of paradise, especially in islam. when one dies a martyr, one is given 72 virgins to wait on you in heaven...well...is this to say there is a real physical reincarnation? one would have to say not. the body can feel pain (not very suitable for paradise), is imperfect, and the question of what form your body would take is a serious issue. if one were blown to pieces, one couldn't be physically reincarnated in that form...but if one died at the age of 100, would one want a frail old body, that is blind and incontinent? you might presume you were reborn in your physical prime, then how would a stillborn baby be reincarnated? i.e. they never lived to manhood.

the idea of receiving 72 virgins may sound appealing...but what would one actually do with them? its kinda stupid. and degrading and objectifying women. on the whole, the idea of a physical paradise (or hell) is nonsensical, and must surely be false, or a metaphor. one doesn't actually get 72 virgins, or burn, but something similarly appealing or unappealing in whatever form the afterlife takes.

the thing about the virgins.. apparently somewhere along the line the original text (written a very long time ago) was mistranslated, and it turns out martyrs dont receive 72 virgins but in fact 72 grapes. im guessing they'll be a bit disappointed when they end up with a bowl of grapes. oh well. i like grapes.

[Craobh_Rua]

I'm not going to read all that but i'd just like to say in my experience hell ain't a bad place, hell is from here to eternity.

[Forgone Conclusion]

wuh?

[where_i'm_calling_from]

iron maiden lyrics. its a shit song.