eternal life = eternal boredom

[pagan1]

when socrates faced the possibility of a death sentence at his trial for corrupting the youth of athens he said that death would either be a long and welcome rest or a chance to meet homer,hercules and all the other celebrities of his day,and when he finally took the hemlock poison after he had been sentenced he said give a coin to asculepius the greek god of healing,for now he was cured of the sickness called life.I like to try and imagine how our ancestors dealt with the big issues of life and death,long before christianity,how they dealt with each other when God always had a small g.I wonder why humanity has put so much effort into fabricating such a fantastic fantasy as life after death,in the western version it just sounds so boring,I can just imagine billions of incorpoeal beings,screaming let me out of here!In the ancient greek view it was the gods who envied us because only mortals knew what true passion was.I think that if we live our lives to the full and if we face existance without hiding behind the veil of religion,then perhaps there is no need to ask if death means emptiness or a never ending party in heaven...perhaps it is OK for us to just accept it as the final experience that we will ever have...

[Mister Joy]

Interesting post, Pagan1. Personally, I quite like the What Dreams May Come version of heaven ; where you have your own personal fantasy world. Remember that flick with Robin Williams in his usual nauseatingly likeable role?

Then there's eternal Hells to consider. Even being horribly tortured must get a little boring after an eternity. Anyhoo, a lot of Christians would argue that Hell isn't eternal. The Bible doesn't say it is, apparently. In fact it implies more of a burned-away-until-the-soul-ceases-to-exist case of affairs, some say. In such a case, I'm quite content with going to Hell in a hand basket.

[Will]

AMEN. Eternity with fundies and evangelicals = hell. And what does one do for eternity? Halo gets old after a few millennia.

[cantthinkofaname]

Hmm seems to me in order to keep the mass of society in order there had to be a hell and heaven.  If they didn't obide by the laws of the god they had to invent a hell for eternity.   According to the judeo/christian bible heaven is not for an eternity, well not exactly.  Evangelical christians believe after their rapture thing that there will be a wedding supper, all those who went into heaven during and prior to that rapture crapture will be able to come to the new earth and travel back and forth to heaven.  

Everyone who survived and accepted the christ without the mark will go to heaven but then come back to earth to repopulate it.   So apparently  according to this belief they will not spend eternity in heaven.   I imagine people took life and death very serious back then before christianity really took over.   But after a while people most likely started to question the god so they came up with a hell to scare the crap out the doubters, sinners and keep social order.   I know after a while if I had to live a certain way with certain rules, laws that had to be obided by no matter what I would sooner or later question the authority ordering myself and the public to live a certain way which eventually would lead to my questioning the authority claiming to obey them.  What would the next step be to keep me in line other than being oh tortured, outcast etc.  I think it would be invent to the god then it would be to scare me and the masses (public) when over time questioning the god no one could ever see, hear, touch, feel.  Can't control the masses without a big sky daddy threatening to do to you what the human authority can't do to all of society.    Maybe when the hell was invented to be believed that's when they took it more seriously again.

EDIT:  Oh yeah and get this after ike 1000 years the satan and false prophet are loosed once again and everyone who falls or like sins and goes along with them will be sent into the hell forever and no more chances to change.  Everyone else lives for eternity either on earth or in the heaven.  

If this shit were true I don't know that I would want to have my body ( then new body they claim all will be given dammed or saved) to burn forever.  I got burned by a match and that hurt.

[pagan1]

That rapture crapture mythology,is truly some very serious "Opium of the People,"no wonder people get so hooked on it!It is even more mind boggling than Quantum Physics...who thinks up this shit?

[cantthinkofaname]

Ha ha who thinks it up Pagan, the whole thing is in the bible and interpreted that way.  It's not really called the rapture I think it's "caught up in the clouds", I forget the name of the person who originally came up with the name rapturus or something like that.  That was I think in the 1800's.   History repeats itself as we can see and when it does with religious propaganda it makes alot of money for the people who use the same idea someone else came up with years ago.   I'm surprised each new generation doesn't notice this by now.   If more people knew that previous generations thought the same thing they think today and it neverhappened they wouldn't think they were the first generation to think this shit.  Every generation thinks it's closer to their end of the world, antichrist bible babble and has no idea they are not unique.

It's like a love story with murder and criminals given a chance to get out of jail free.  It would make a great movie if someone could put it all together with all the bells and whistles.   Add the drama along with spectacular special effects and voila you have  a hit bigger than the titanic.

There was a movie a long time ago I think it was called Revelations, but not sure.  I think Mel Gibson was in that one too.  At the end it showed bodies um people dying.  their skin was burned off slowly and their eyes rolled back inside their heads and the were left skeletons.  That was all I got to see of the movie and back then I didn't know what it was about.  I would like to see the whole movie but can't for the life of me remember the defininte name or who starred in it.  :?

[SteveS]

I was going to respond, but I think I feel myself getting raptured as I type..............

Oops, I guess not.  Oh well - it must have just been my coffee kicking in.

Every generation thinks it's closer to their end of the world

Indeed.  Even Jesus allegedly said:

Mark 13:30  Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.

Luke 9:27  But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God.

Yeah, so I guess he was wrong.....

[Julia]

AMEN. Eternity with fundies and evangelicals = hell. And what does one do for eternity? Halo gets old after a few millennia.

We were always told that - assuming we were fundie enough - we'd spend eternity standing round telling God how wonderful he is. Which not only sounds intolerably boring, it also sounds utterly pointless. After all, if heaven is flawless, then all the beings there will be incapable of doing anything purposeful because there will be nothing that needs to be done, nothing to put right or improve, nothing to work for. That's not eternal life, that's external existence. A far poorer deal.

It also rubs in the idea that if the fundies were right, their supposedly loving "Father" has created them basically to give his ego an infinite amount of massaging. That's not love in any sense I've ever come across before.

[Davpronk]

Check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEOeqFAkC-o, it's a video from a guy nicknamed 'Atheistaaron' who tells about his views on immortality.

[jaymayo]

Whenever I think of heaven and hell, "Good Omens by Neil Gaiman" always come to my mind.

"No more world. Just endless Heaven or, depending who won, endless Hell. Crowley didn't know which was worse.

Well, Hell was worse, of course, by definition. But Crowley remembered what Heaven was like, and it had quite a few things in common with Hell. You couldn't get a decent drink in either of them, for a start. And the boredom you got in Heaven was almost as bad as the excitement you got in Hell."

and...

""We'll win, of course," [Aziraphale the angel] said.

"You don't want that," said Crowley, the demon.

"Why not, pray?"

"Listen," said Crowley desperately. "how many musicians do you think your side have got, eh? First grade, I mean."

Aziraphale looked taken aback.

"Well, I should think--" he began.

"Two," said Crowley. "Elgar and Liszt. That's all. We've got the rest. Beethoven, Brahms, all the Bachs, Mozart, the lot. Can you imagine eternity with Elgar?"

Aziraphale shut his eyes. "All too easily," he groaned."

Well my opinion kind of reflects that of Good Omens; heaven would be kind of monotonous and unbearable even for angels. That's why Lucifer just said, "Fuck it! I'm out of here. I'm making a hell of a party down there. Who's with me?!" Who knows? Heaven might be hell to some, hell might be heaven to some... all I know is they're all nursery rhymes.

Hmm... that would be a funny story. "God found out that heaven's boring and monotonous and life here on earth is quite fun. He makes a deal with the devil to close heaven and hell and bring all the souls, angels and demons back to Earth. So they both agreed. And that's why there is a population explosion!"

Err... on second thought.

[moosegoose]

Mötorhead sang it all out in "Ace of Spades".