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I don't know what book you're reading for "descriptions of hell". The religious texts I've read go into elaborate detail concerning heaven but contain limited detail concerning hell. — whollyrolling

Spit it out then...what does Heaven look like?

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As far as I recall it's a large (but not large enough for its populace) cube. It actually outlines dimensions in cubits. There are gold streets, white robes, altars for incense offerings of the saints, it describes a whole bunch of things in various parts of the bible. It also describes a new Jerusalem, which is on Earth, and where 144,000 Jews sing songs about God and bow to him for the rest of eternity while a multitude claws and wails banging at the outer gate trying to come in but never will. There are angels with animal heads around God's throne and Jesus sits on his right side in a throne as well. Come to think of it, it seemed to me there was just as much suffering described in "heaven" as there was in hell.

That's a nutshell version of a whole lot of text I can't remember more precisely.

Hell, on the other hand, is just a lake of sulphur and fire, weeping and gnashing of teeth, burning forever. It's relatively nondescript. — whollyrolling

:up:

This description of Heaven is, well, unsatisfactory because it doesn't mention anything about happiness. Contrast this to the fact that Hell is very detailed on how anyone unfortunate enough to be condemned to it will suffer.

Spilling over from my previous thread, The Religion Unmarred By Violence: Jainism, it appears that, given the various ghastly, highly-detailed, descriptions of hell (the supernatural realm in religions), it seems possible to recreate it on Earth. All that's required is to implement, make real, the various tortures described in these descriptions. It takes a moment though to realize that hellish tortures are all practicable methods of inducing pain i.e. there's nothing supernatural, ergo impossible for us, about them. Hell is possible on Earth or this world.

Now take note of the fact that, unlike Hell which has been described in disconcerting detail, little information is available on what Heaven would look like. Aside from taking this as an indication of ignorance of what Heaven is, it could also imply that Heaven is an impossible world :sad:

Comments... — TheMadFool

According to the guidebooks, Cabo Blanco was unspoiled wilderness, almost a paradise. — Jurassic Park (book by Michael Crichton)

Unspoiled wilderness = almost paradise. What's missing? :chin:

Heaven does not really exist; hell is spiritual torment, either meaningless pain/suffering or something potentially worse that reworks the integrity of life. This is just my new age bet, cos I don't think that bodies would be subject to God or karma or whatever else.

Unbearable physical suffering/disease is another thing.

The other thing worth noting that in many ways people don't recover from things. The blind don't see again, the lame don't walk, the dead are not brought back to life, and so on. I think the best response to that is to not make moire blind people, but whatever!

None of the other realms really exist, but that's very much beside the point.
Heaven, Earth and Hell are a descriptive analogy to the compartments of the human psyche: the mundane part which lives its day-to-day commnon-sense life on Earth; the moral, altruistic, co-operative conscience (sometimes called our 'better angel') and the dark, rapacious, evil part (sometimes reffered to as our 'demons')
We have been aware of this since the beginning of introspection. The ancient myth-makers of every culture had some ways of characterizing these aspects of human nature, whether personalizing them as animal totems, spirits or deities; poets and bards have sung about them in metaphor. Organized religions have located them as a vertical arrangement: the house of their chief god in the sky, this vale of tears, or land of opportunity on Earth; the dark, firelit underworld below. Modern psychologists have named them as superego, ego and id, or iceberg or archetypes.
The only difference is, the modern psychologists deny the good and evil in humans, so they attribute the good to correct nurturing and socializing and the evil to our primal, animal impulses.
That's true, as far as it goes, but not quite accurate. those primal impulses are turned to evil by the uniquely human compound of reasoning intelligence, imagination and capacity for self-delusion.

Why it's easier to describe hell than heaven: religions use hell as a threat for everyone equally. A threat has more teeth if it's specific, and we all experience pain and humiliation in a similar way, from similar sources. The promise of eternal happiness, however, doesn't mean the same thing to everyone, so it's best left to the individual imagination - just so it motivates each one to the good behaviour prescribed by his society.
When people lose confidence in the cohesion and values of their society, the psychological threats and bribes lose their effectiveness; people behave according to their own lights, some destroying all that stands in their way, while others strive to save things from destruction.

Heaven is impossible to create on Earth.
But hell is easy.

I’m an atheist

What's that to do with anything?

Unspoiled wilderness = almost paradise. What's missing? — TheMadFool

nothing. It's what's present and should not be that poses a problem. The lion cannot lie down with the lamb: he is impelled by nature to tear the lamb asunder and devour it. We can't have heaven on earth, simply because evolution has engendered predation and parasitism in the life-cycles of this planet. As much as humankind has been able to insulate itself from nature, the insulation is permeable to microscopic enemies and mankind is still subject to the predatory and parasitic tendencies in its own nature. Heaven is imagined as the absence of these flaws in creation.