Hell,.. the Lake of Fire,... brrrrrr...Your Thoughts

[Cato]

The Infinite Unready . . . I surely don't want to go there! 

Heh-heh!

The phrase fairly well describes my students! 

[NikF]

I've been following this thread and finding it interesting, informative and enjoyable. However my own opinion is far more mundane and uninspired, because although I always make sure I occasionally glance ahead, I'm far more of the "Ah, I'll worry about it when it happens" type of person.

[Purusha]

Apropos:

http://www.studiesincomparativereligion.com/public/articles/Concerning_the_Notion_of_Eternity-by_Frithjof_Schuon.aspx
https://lumineboreali.net/threads/schuon-on-hell.158/
http://www.frithjofschuon.com/uploads/pdfs/articles/85.pdf

I know, TL;DR, but what the hell, maybe somebody will find this stuff interesting.

[Florestan]

'Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.'

That is the very origin of The Fall: pride. Beware!!!!!!!!!! 

[Purusha]

Yeah. Humanism was the grant idea that man could be exalted in place of God. Fast forward a few centuries, and now man seems to have had enough of "man". Wonder why.

[Florestan]

Yeah. Humanism was the grant idea that man could be exalted in place of God. Fast forward a few centuries, and now man seems to have had enough of "man". Wonder why.

Ask Goethe Job... 

[Sef]

Life is hard and then you die. The End

[jochanaan]

Life is hard and then you die. The End

Ah, but what if it isn't?

[Sef]

Ah, but what if it isn't?

Then I guess I'll be pleasantly surprised!

[jochanaan]

Then I guess I'll be pleasantly surprised!

Or not pleasantly surprised.

[Dax]

The thermodynamics of hell

http://www.quantumlounge.com/data/hell.htm

[Sef]

Or not pleasantly surprised.

Not the kind of God I'd be much interested in if this was His thing! I'm with Stephen Fry:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-suvkwNYSQo

[snyprrr]

Not the kind of God I'd be much interested in if this was His thing! I'm with Stephen Fry:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-suvkwNYSQo

See, but that's the point: you're not "allowed" to act like God is the one "punishing" anyone,... it's just that those who do against His Will CAN'T be allowed in His Presence--- IT'S NOT HIS FAULT!!

His attitude is like: "Duuude, I told you a looong time ago not to live your life that way. I'm just NOT going to turn a pickle back into a cucumber AFTER it's all over, that would be silly. So, duuuude, I live in a Perfect Place, and I just can't have your filthy mind polluting My Place for all My People,... y'see? It's really nothing personal,... and, it's really all your own fault. I mean,... you can't just start believing in Me right AFTER you take your last breath, right?"

and so on

Can't you see that, dear Poster? It's all OUR OWN Pride and such that puts us into the position of "torture",... God really has nothing to do with it in this manner of speaking.



Like, in the Garden of Eden,... look very closely at HOW the conversation goes- God's like, "Woooah, duuuude, WHAT DID YOU DO? Duuuude, I TOLD you- and now, what? there's nothing I CAN do for you (without destroying everything else..."


God's not like, "Dude, I'm gonna torture the f outta you for yelling at your mom."

He's more like: "Duuuude, don't you know that the way I have things set up, if you yell at your mom there's gonna be stuff comin' your way, and, sincerely, I AM "powerless" to stop it (without, again, destroying everything else),... so, duuuude, why'd ya do it?"

[snyprrr]

Greetings!

I am so happy that you have arrived at a deep area of contemplation!  0:)

Ultimately, there is no definitive answer to your curiously posed question.  I assume you know this already.   0:)

Science will tell you not to worry: your atoms will be reabsorbed into the Universe, and you will have no consciousness, no existence.  Of course, in one sense, you have already not existed, since the you from e.g. 5 years ago is not the you right now.  Science has no comment on whether your life has meaning.  However, you can create meaning for it right now...or refuse.   Science seems to indicate that your moral life is of no interest to the mathematical factors involved in operating the Universe.

Black holes seem to be an area of infinite gravity, or maybe the buddings of Big Bangs creating other universes, or maybe severe warps of the space-time continuum folding it back upon itself, or maybe all of these are wrong.  It may also be possible that they evaporate.  Black holes would not seem to be involved with death.  Pope Gregory the Great thought volcanoes were entrances to Hell, but as you know, that is wrong.

So calm down about black holes! 

However, if you sense that Science is not correct, you may consider the following.

If some sort of Divine force exists, and if it allows beings who can discover (some would say "create") the concept of Divinity, and if it allows those beings to choose the directions of their lives freely, and assuming that such a Divine force is not illogical but follows - so to speak -  a mathematical imperative, then it would make sense for consequences to exist for said beings when they commit evil, especially the worst crime of taking Life away, outside of self-defense. 

There are objections to the concept of a Divinity who micro-judges the moral life of every morality-capable creature in the Universe, i.e. that Divinity worries about your thoughts to steal cookies at age 10.  A consideration not without merit: to use a specific example from religion, recall how Jesus ignores various Jewish laws, speaks of them as distractions from a proper path for life, and boils things down to the basics.

Something else to consider: if a kind of evolution is at the nature of the Universe, i.e. that nothing stays the same because it cannot, since change is the basis of the Universe, then it may be that the elimination of evil is the purpose of the Universe.   Now this would seem to violate basic duality, i.e. that the existence of Good means that its opposite (Evil) must be allowed ("He who says 'A' must say 'B'.")  However, one could argue that an endpoint is reached in the history of the Universe where only Good exists, and Evil still exists, but only as an intellectual possibility which is never chosen.

Such a situation is assumed to have existed with the angels, or pure spirits, if you allow their existence.


In one sense, however, there is an answer to your question: if you are worried about this, don't commit evil, don't be unprepared to "shake hands with Divinity," and you have nothing to worry about.  Your life will be less anxious.     If the scientists are correct, it will not matter, except that your life was better because you chose The Good (at least more often than not). 

You may want to examine Teilhard de Chardin for further contemplation, and here is an essay by a Catholic Cardinal giving an overview of the problem:

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2003/05/the-population-of-hell



   

aye aye aye---- everyone's comments are tending towards the deep end of the pool.  !!!!!!!  Impressive!!   This will take more time reading..........


::)drrr drrrr drrrr

[ibanezmonster]

Like, in the Garden of Eden,... look very closely at HOW the conversation goes- God's like, "Woooah, duuuude, WHAT DID YOU DO? Duuuude, I TOLD you- and now, what? there's nothing I CAN do for you (without destroying everything else..."


God's not like, "Dude, I'm gonna torture the f outta you for yelling at your mom."

He's more like: "Duuuude, don't you know that the way I have things set up, if you yell at your mom there's gonna be stuff comin' your way, and, sincerely, I AM "powerless" to stop it (without, again, destroying everything else),... so, duuuude, why'd ya do it?"

Lol, at least it's slightly better than Job.

God: "Hey, dude, Satan, I wanna make a bet. I already know what the outcome will be, but just to prove how freaking awesome I am, I'm gonna murder Job's whole family and take everything he worked hard for his whole life, and he'll still worship me!"

Satan: "Hehehe... your ideas are better than mine. And you're the good guy? lolz"

God: "Here goes..."

end result...

God: "What'd I tell ya? And you think he'd ever worship you? Pfffft. Cuz I'm teh awesomeness."

Satan: *rolls eyes*

[ibanezmonster]

Speaking of Adam and Eve...

https://www.youtube.com/v/A_a6RjR_AHY

[Jo498]

I've been following this thread and finding it interesting, informative and enjoyable. However my own opinion is far more mundane and uninspired, because although I always make sure I occasionally glance ahead, I'm far more of the "Ah, I'll worry about it when it happens" type of person.

But isn't a major point of most religions (and maybe also implied in the quasi-karmic thinking of some classical philosophers like Socrates and Plato) that it's really *too late* "to worry about it when it happens". Because then you are in hell or trapped in some nasty re-incarnation you deserved due to bad karma and there's nothing you can do about it...

Among some protestant denominations there is at least the idea that atheists get what they expect (and not what they deserve according to more traditional orthodoxy): When they die their consciousness is simply annihilated, not eternally tortured or sth. like that. Whereas believers are miraculously resurrected to eternal bliss.

[NikF]

But isn't a major point of most religions (and maybe also implied in the quasi-karmic thinking of some classical philosophers like Socrates and Plato) that it's really *too late* "to worry about it when it happens". Because then you are in hell or trapped in some nasty re-incarnation you deserved due to bad karma and there's nothing you can do about it...

Yes, if that's the case then it would definitely be too late. And that would be my own fault. However, I've chosen to live my life in a certain manner, and so of the options available to me I prefer "I'll worry about it when it happens". But feel free to read that as " If/when it happens, I'm fucked and I know I'm fucked."

[Karl Henning]

http://www.youtube.com/v/srZkEZNk7i8

[NikF]

http://www.youtube.com/v/srZkEZNk7i8

Indeed.