Have you watched The Good Place? A clever show.

I would like there to be a Heaven that is much like life at its best down here. I don't want there to be a Hell, and fortunately I don't think there is one.

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I think they're most usefully treated as metaphors for how you should expect your inner world to turn out based on the way you live. In a sense, nobody ever really gets away with anything.

Taken more literally, the concepts are deeply problematic. Eternity has a way of trivializing all things. It could never be a just and proportionate consequence to anything. And if they're fundamentally unjust, the dichotomy itself, as a package deal, is basically hell.

The way I view it, is that our memories persist in the fabric of the universe and these memories (call it Karma if you wish) stay with us as a transcendental life passing through multiple physical lives. We actually experience this as inherited or innate traits and skills.

I remember hearing the skit that Rowan Atkinson does here from a BBC recording quite a long time ago. The script was very similar, but it was somebody else doing it--different voice, different pronunciation, accent, etc. It's still at least moderately amusing.

Most religions have a belief in some sort of afterlife. Taking specifically the belief in a heaven and a hell, I would like people's opinions on what these would look like. — René Descartes

I have an idea for an afterlife that is somewhere between heaven and hell. I've thought about it a lot and I think it is fair and just. All of us will have to relive all the pain we've caused others. Once we're done, we move on. I'm not a bad guy, but I've hurt people. I'm willing to get what I deserve. Hitler won't be tortured for eternity, but he will have to face the pain of the millions of people he killed, tortured, and destroyed. That should keep him busy for millions of years.

Do I think such a system exists? No.

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It's a bit like the ide of purgatory. The more you have sinned, the longer you take to get rid of your sin through reflection before going to heaven. — René Descartes

It seems fair and just to me, but then, what does God care about what I think is fair and just.

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I enjoyed Damned, Chuck Palahniuk's 2011 novel about hell.

The narrator is a barely pubescent girl who dies and is whisked off to hell. Hell is dirty -- dusty popcorn balls on the sticky floors, oceans of spilt semen, mountains of aborted fetuses, etc. There are, of course, demons and tortures, but they don't seem all that bad. Many of the damned work in Hell's call center where they annoy people (who are alive, of course) at mealtimes to conduct tedious and pointless surveys about things like their toothpick preferences. As noted, it's always mealtime somewhere.

The concept of heaven and hell is a self control regulatory mechanism. It is quite clear that people cannot control others totally by laws or even by force. Hence by imposing threat of heaven or hell guides that you do "good" while you live. This is probably more efficient than total policing.
Now what constitutes "good" depends on the religion

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What the hell are you reading? — René Descartes

Damned, Chuck Palahniuk's 2011 novel about hell. It's an absurd comedy, maybe like hell itself.

Palahniuk's other novels include Fight Club.

Some people enjoy pain. We are not naturally inclined to pain because it is correlated to body destruction. It is our fabric which dictates this.

Heaven = happiness
Hell = suffering

What more need be said?

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What about if one wants to suffer but one is sent to heaven, will one not suffer in heaven instead because one cannot go to hell. — René Descartes

I once tried to start a thread on ''it's impossible for god to punish a masochist'' but it was always deleted. I don't know why.


Of course there are variations in what people mean by heaven or hell. That's why I kept the definition simple. Heaven = happiness (whatever that means to you and Hell = suffering (whatever that means to you).

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I see what you're saying. So do you mean that it is possible for one to have heaven or hell on Earth? — René Descartes

Perhaps. If we take heaven and hell as states rather than places then some of us are in heaven and others in hell.

[Delete] @Baden

Most religions have a belief in some sort of afterlife. Taking specifically the belief in a heaven and a hell, I would like people's opinions on what these would look like. — René Descartes

They look exactly what they are; fantasies.

I agree. Waste of time trying to think what they might look like. Now, what would Aideen the Fairy look like, I wonder?

I know what Aideen the Fairy looks like. She visits me everynight and gives me a neck massage!!!

You just googled that, didn't you

No - Se is in fact real!!! Honestly!