Heaven or hell?

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Originally Posted by blazeofglory

God can not be contained within a logical frame.

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In other words God is an illogical concept, or perhaps a superlogical concept but that's the same thing.
Pfft, who needs logic anyway, its only of any use for boring things.

"Well, what's beyond the universe is nothing. Total nothingness is a tough concept to get one's mind around. I don't mean empty space. I mean a state without time and without space. Complete nothingness."

until you give it a name and some attributes, just because its not our universe (space, time, matter, energy) does not mean its nothing - we simply just don't know anything about it.

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Originally Posted by DapperDrake

In other words God is an illogical concept, or perhaps a superlogical concept but that's the same thing.
Pfft, who needs logic anyway, its only of any use for boring things.

"Well, what's beyond the universe is nothing. Total nothingness is a tough concept to get one's mind around. I don't mean empty space. I mean a state without time and without space. Complete nothingness."

until you give it a name and some attributes, just because its not our universe (space, time, matter, energy) does not mean its nothing - we simply just don't know anything about it.

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And this seems reasonable, until someone calls it an "afterlife", "heaven", "hell", "The Promised Land", "Nivarna", or something like and then people point to that as base illogical and totally unreasonable. Hummm. Well, we can't have it both ways, either it is nothing or it is to be assumed that there is something, call it what you will. Free will. Choice. :):)

God Bless

Pen

Heaven and Hell in Christian tradition have involved the person receiving in the afterlife the reality of what he or she has chosen (I'll comment on the ability to choose efficaciously a little further down).

In this view a person is not so much punished for sins externally (the fire and brimstone bit) but rather experiences the sin and the effects of sin on the soul without filters. A good illustration of this can be found in Dante's Inferno, and the corrupting power of sin on the soul is also poignantly shown in the description of slaveholders in Frederick Douglass' Narrative.

The reason that the result is eternal is based on the belief that at death the person no longer has the ability to make a new choice. Hence the emphasis on the need for a spirit of repentance before death. Dante's Purgatorio is a wonderfully readable presentation of this idea, especially in the first several cantos dealing with ante-Purgatory. While not Church doctrine, Dante was clearly aware of Church teaching (see, for example, his understanding of Thomism in Canto IV of the Purgatorio).

Heaven is the attainment of the experience of the activity of the Supreme Good (God) by those who have loved the Supreme Good. For Christians it is necessary to have known and believed the Gospel to be able to have this love.

Given these ideas it is true that those who have not heard the Gospel can not go to Heaven. This does not mean that such souls are doomed to torment. Far from it. A good non-Christian attains a state of happiness. However, this state falls short of Heaven as defined above.

Now here is the difficult part. The Western tradition, based on Augustine, teaches that in order to truly desire God one has to be given the grace to do so by God. Without going through all the arguments the essential idea (from Paul's letter to the Romans) is that human nature is incapable of earning salvation, and that even the act of true faith must be initiated by God.

The question of whether God offers this grace to everyone is at the heart of the doctrine of predestination, which in its most common form is based on Augustine's interpretation of Paul (and later developed by Calvin, among others).

People go to churches daily in order to pray to God to forgive their sins and coveting themselves a auspicious future.Humanity do not know genuinely whether there is hell or heaven,but since it is believed,then humanity shall abide by God's rules,to live harmoniously,etc.

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Originally Posted by EricP

I don't believe in an afterlife, but if heaven and hell did exist and I had the choice, I would choose hell. Then I could meet most of my favorite authors, philosophers, musicians, etc. :thumbs_up

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Yes I agree

In the words of Nietzsche "In Heaven, all the interesting people are missing."

Of course I do not actually believe in heaven or hell, but hypothetically speaking. I do not perceive Heaven as where the good people go and Hell where the bad people go.

The way I see it is:

Heaven = Christians
Hell= Non-Christians.

My preception of Heaven and Hell is that it does not matter the deeds you do or how you live your life, only the God you worship and how you pray.

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Originally Posted by wilbur lim

People go to churches daily in order to pray to God to forgive their sins and coveting themselves a auspicious future.Humanity do not know genuinely whether there is hell or heaven,but since it is believed,then humanity shall abide by God's rules,to live harmoniously,etc.

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When there is a large number of people involved in a faith, organization, movement, etc. it is nearly a mathematical certainty that there will be a wide range of beliefs within that group of people. Therefore there is probably little point to pick out some people who believe this or that unless it can be shown that either that is the dominant belief within the group or that it is representative of the doctrines of the group. In the case of Christianity, with well more than a billion believers alive now, the latter path makes more sense, since the former is probably not physically possible to determine.

"In the words of Nietzsche "In Heaven, all the interesting people are missing.""

What does that say about Nietsche? Only that, like many of us, he considers evil to be more interesting than good.

Well in my view it is not truly evil people that go to hell, but simply anyone who happens not to be Christain. Though I know Christains do tend to think that anyone who isn't Christain is is by definition evil.

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Originally Posted by Dark Muse

Well in my view it is not truly evil people that go to hell, but simply anyone who happens not to be Christain. Though I know Christains do tend to think that anyone who isn't Christain is is by definition evil.

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Your last statement is only true about the smallest degree of radical fringe Christians. Real Christians - the majority who have grown in maturity and understanding - acknowledge that they too - without the indwelling of Christ in our hearts - are just as evil as anybody who claims no affiliation to Christianity.

Jesus said "I am the way" not "Christianity is the way." It is not Christianity that saves anybody, but Christ who does so. There will be people in heaven who claimed nothing connected with Christianity but who knew Jesus (even if not by the name we know - cf. CS Lewis's treatment of this topic in The Last Battle, the final installment of the Narnia series).

Not all roads lead to God, but God will travel any road to find us.

Hell is a chosen destination - not a sentence.

As God's children, we must remember that it would be no easier for God to "sentence" one of His children to hell than any loving human parent to do the same. That "children" stuff isn't just pretty metaphoric stuff - God really sees us as HIS children. In fact, He loves us so much that He gave us the independence we demanded, even though He knew it would hurt us.

There is a statement in the First Pirates of the Caribbean movie I Found interesting. Barbosa in trying to explain what their curse is speaks of food turning to ashes in the mouth and no amount of drink or pleasurable company would suffice. This has been a long held version of hell, that the "burning flame" is desire, having them all but never able to take pleasure in them. A thought anyway...

God Bless

Pen

As one who believes in both heaven and hell (I am of The Church of Jesus Christ of Later-Day Saints - Mormon or LDS), I believe that God, being a supreme being and a loving Heavenly Father, does all he does for our benefit, knowing all that is best for us (even when we don't see the whole picture) and everything will work our perfectly in the end because He is constantly vigilant. Everything will work out. And God does NOT send anyone to Hell if they happen to fall short. God forgives EVERYONE who will repent and come to him. AND everyone who does fall short and refuses to come to him will not want to spend eternity with him in the next life anyway. Very few people will go to Hell. God wants ALL of his children to be with him for eternity and will do EVERYTHING in his power to guide them there even if it means helping them believe after they die. There is ALWAYS hope. Life is a time to prepare to meat God. Those who leave this life unprepared will not want to. We prepare by developing our faith by doing our best to keep his commandments and being decent people (even though we know that we will fail to be perfect by far). And Hell isn't a punishment. Hell is just "someone not getting the reward of being prepared". And those who are not prepared would rather burn than stand in the presence of God. Its really an act of mercy on his part.

(Note: these are my own personal views and should not be seen as a reflection of the church in which I attend)