The change described for Heaven isn’t necessarily brainwashing, or a wipe-and-rewrite, or anything so horrid. Think back on your own life: There are doubtless many experiences in there where you said beforehand “Ick, no way would I ever want to do that!”, but that once you learned more, you decided were actually quite desirable. Do you think that any of those constituted a wipe of your mind? Well, maybe Heaven is like that, just turned to eleven.
But back to my endless questions: The receptionist says that she knows almost nothing about Hell, beyond that it’s free of divine influence. OK, I’ll take her at her word on that. But she does know something of the mortal realm: She’s lived through it at least once, and she can observe it from here, and there doesn’t seem to be any sort of metaphysical ban on knowledge like there is for Heaven or Hell. And presumably, since Hell is defined by its lack of divine influence, that implies that there is divine influence in the mortal realm. So, just what form does that divine influence take? Is, for example, the human capacity for love, or for joy, a manifestation of the divine influence? If so, that would imply that Hell is a loveless or joyless place, which should make it much less appealing even to the libertarian sorts.
Oh, and it should also be taken as given that every one of my questions is followed by an implied follow-up of “How do you know?”.
The first question I’d ask is whether those in hell are immune from harm, either physical or mental. If not it might have turned into a fascist state or worse.
Heaven seems very boring, and I’m a product of my foibles. Remove them, and I’m not me any more, so that is out.
I’ve had a very good life, better than 99% of the planet even not counting animals, so reincarnation is out, unless I can come back as a Golden Retriever guide dog.
I’d probably due haunting, since I can learn the real secrets, though not being able to do anything about them would be frustrating. To a certain extent my answer depends on how optimistic I am about the future. Are we going to really screw up the planet the way it looks like we are? Is the future Star Trek or dystopia? If the latter, another reason for no reincarnation, and though I can dehaunt, I can’t unsee what I’ve seen.
So I might go for a short period of haunting followed by oblivion.
Not that I would choose it. Imagine some tyrant in the future who has the technology to bring frozen stiffs back to life, hand them a shovel, and keep them alive for thousands of years doing slave labor. A strong argument for annihilation, rather than any options that retain the possibility of mischief.
I imagined it as the divine powers told her what she needed to know, and if they was something she needed further information on she could go to them and ask. Sure you could talk to them directly but for someone still attached to their mortal life it might be a bit much, better to ease into it with another familiar human soul.
Good question, I don’t know!
I’m surprised that you are the first person to suggest this, I didn’t consider asking about famous historical people though.
Thanks for the answer, its always interesting to see what people think of such hypothetical situations but wow you’re really taking the worst possible interpretation of things!
As for people not returning from Heaven it reminds me of something I read once. A person is born and grows up in a house with no windows and no apparent exits, its painted a light grey all over with similar bland furnishings. There are some activities to keep them occupied, when they go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning the house has been cleaned and food left out for them. They don’t think much about it, this is just the way things have always been, they aren’t particularly happy or sad, just live day by day. One morning after years of this they wake up and a hidden door has been swung open, sunshine is streaming in, tentatively they look out and cross the threshold to find themselves standing in an open meadow, beautiful hills and scenery is all around, birds are flying overhead, there are sheep and cattle grazing, off in the distance smoke is rising from a village.
Certainly they could turn around and return to their limited existence in the bland familar house they know, but why would they? They have an entire world to explore. It could be similar with Heaven, there is nothing keeping you there but why would you go back?
And the cleansing and transformation doesn’t need to be negative, simply you are being shown the whole picture and your place in it, when in your mortal life you were acting on limited information. Perhaps its like trying to explain to a dog the entirety of human knowledge and understanding, in their present form they’re simply not capable of grasping it.
As for actions in the Afterlife Antechamber I pictured it as people doing things like physically or sexually assaulting others, really terrible stuff that can’t be ignored, not minor things like chewing gum, before the Powers that Be would intervene.
As for myself I would be tempted to have another few goes at Reincarnation and might spend some time in the Afterlife Antechamber, possibly even a stint as meeter and greeter, but ultimately I would have to choose Heaven.
That’s really only putting off the inevitable though, isn’t it?
Are you sure this isn’t Hell? Why would I need to be cleaned or transformed? Who decides what my failures and sins are? Would I even be me after this celestial Martinizing?
I choose haunting, at least I won’t be bothered by judgemental idiots for eternity. And I can go to the movies whenever I want, and finally see the world without a wallet.
Well, there’s that chick at the front desk. If you discovered funland, why would you leave people behind in drabland? Especially if you know for a fact that some of them are out there because they don’t know how fun funland is.
The whole “no one ever returns” is, seriously, really ominous. I wouldn’t expect a lot of people to come out, and I certainly wouldn’t expect them to stay out, but every once in a while somebody should poke their head out and shout “You have no idea how awesome it is in here! Whee!!” before ducking back in.
In addition to being shown that I’m a worthless speck of nothing who’s wrong about everything, I’m also to be “cleansed”. What’s being cleaned out? My tendency to swear? My interest in women? My materialistic fondness for legos? My neurotic desire to have some things organized? My anti-neurotic desire to pile other things haphazardly? Will I suddenly learn to cook? Will I suddenly forget how to lie? Will I become unable to write fiction (ie: lie)? Will I lose my shyness? Will I become gregarious? Will I lose my aversion to crowds? Will I lose my fondness for owning things rather than sharing them? Will I even recognize myself when it’s done?
When you turn a dog into a person, while simultaneously upgrading his mind, knowledge, and personality to be a person, you haven’t upgraded a dog; you’ve replaced it.
Presuming that that is both the case and that all the rules are clearly posted in advance, it would probably be safe to hang out there, pretty much indefinitely.
So, I may ask my relative behind the desk, what’s it like there? (That, at least, she should know.) Is it like another earth, except that it has omniscient cops that may or may not care about fraud, petty theft, and open bigotry? Is there money? Is there an economy? Can I be penniless and destitute there? Do I need to get a job if I want the finer things in life - or can I summon everything I need ex nihilo? Could I seal myself in a windowless room and watch movies all day forever? Are new movies even being made? Are they all rated G?
What do I do if I’m alone? I’m a pretty solitary guy but I like to have at least one or two friends - not that I have any luck finding them, mind you. And (as mentioned) I’m strongly averse to crowds. It seems highly likely to me that if I hung around in the antechamber (or took any of the other options for that matter) I would soon find myself isolated and alone - and would probably only do things to perpetuate that. Like seal myself in a windowless room watching movies all day forever.
In your view, what is the benefit of reincarnation? And when you reincarnate, which “you” is left over afterwards? The beautiful woman you are/were, or the handsome man you were/are?
First off, I’m currently working night-shifts (I’m a nurse) and I’ve been awake for coming on twenty-four hours now so if what I type below is more nonsense than usual that’s the reason why, reader beware!
Well in this scenario God, the creator of all things, is actually real and has our best interests at heart. Personally I’m comfortable taking direction from Him on what I did well and poorly in my earthly life. I know I’m not perfect, although I do try to do the right thing. You are taking a negative view, which is fine as its why I started this thread after all, I would take a more positive view if only because a benevolent diety would be operating from a much wider perspective and pool of information than we are.
Well she simply hasn’t made her mind up yet, she’s still human like you, though I admit I’m not certain what you mean by this?
Maybe its not quite as simple as that, a person entering Heaven/God’s presence undergoes a certain amount of transformation after all.
If you had lived your entire life on the street, illiterate and uneducated and one day some kind person brought you in, tided you up, washed you and fixed up your health, gave you clean clothes and a new existence of stability and comfort. If they educated you and helped you improve your life, kindly and with compassion teaching you and showing you the mistakes you made previously, that would be both a transformation and a re-education. You haven’t lost anything and have only gained, you are still you but unrecognisable from the person you were before. Again you’re taking the worst possible view of the situation. And nowhere does it say you’re a worthless speck of nothing who’s wrong about everything, again we’ve all had to learn as we go through life, this is just another stage or opportunity for learning.
That’s questionable at best, the upgraded dog would still remember everything that has gone before but now it would have a different perspective and understanding. You view this as a bad thing, I would say it isn’t necessarily depending on how it is done and the motivations behind it. And in the scenario in the OP the person is knowingly choosing to have this happen, no-one is being forced into it.
Yes, and it might be a fun game to try to find out who has been there the longest. But as I said above its pretty much a celestial departure lounge, certainly you could stay there as long as you like but its a circumscribed existence with most of the other scenarios giving you a much wider vista of experience.
If someone with infinite (or even just vast) wisdom, patience, understanding and compassion was willing to sit down with you and help you overcome these issues why on earth would you not take them up on the offer? You have nothing to lose and everything to gain, from the scenario in the OP God doesn’t do punishment, he wants to help people while maintaining choice and free will. Again I kind of view the whole scenario as a learning experience, and there is help out there if you want it, even if just your relative, who has already stated she can find out more for you if you want her to do so.
The scenario is that while in earthly form you don’t remember your previous incarnations when you die and find yourself in the Afterlife Antechamber you do have access to the memories and knowledge of your previous lives. I can see why you would be concerned by this but again we’re operating under the auspices of a benevolent God, I’m sure he has methods and processes in place for people to deal with it, again you aren’t losing anything, you can only gain, a gestalt greater than the sum of its parts perhaps? And wouldn’t you have a lot more empathy and understanding if you knew from first hand experience what its like to live an entire life as a woman in one incarnation and as a man in another? Personally I think it would be fascinating and its this opportunity which would make me mull having another go around, or even multiple goes, rather than going straight to the door marked Heaven.
Why thank you!
Even if the process is perfected and you are guaranteed to be able to use it every time (what if you die a quick, violent and unexpected death and there isn’t enough of you left to freeze?) at some point the material universe is going to experience heat death and the destruction of all matter.
As we’re talking science-fiction scenarios you might be able to sidestep the issue by uploading your mind to a virtual reality, but even then that’s going to eventually come to an end as well. Of course we’re getting into metaphysical ‘is the mind the same thing as the soul’ territory here.
I have no idea what this means.
OK, bedtime, thank you for the interesting answers everyone, nightie night!
Edited: blegh sorry for the formatting issues, I told you I was tired
Are you a courageous warrior? Because I think only death on the battlefield in support of a good cause is the only way in. Even Asgard seems inaccessible to us, since I only ever hear of beloved pets crossing the Rainbow Bridge anymore. That place must be a veritable zoo by now.
No prob. Philosophy is probably best discussed while loopy anyway.
Part of the reason why in my first post I wanted to interrogate the God is because, in my considered opinion, there is no way in hell a benevolent God would be running the planet Earth the way it currently seems to be running. Any deity who has been overseeing the shitshow that Earth has become in various times and places is definitively not omnimax, with benevolence being the most obvious trait missing.
At least by my definition of “benevolent”.
So when I’m told that there’s a deity out there who runs everything and is benevolent, my logical assumption concludes that the deity has a different and conflicting idea of what “good” is.
I freely concede that this might be because I’m the warped one - perhaps I’m insane to want the burden of free will and sentience, and any clearly benevolent entity is entirely correct to hope that I will freely volunteer for a lobotomy for my own good. Obviously the best way to make everyone happy is to make them be happy. Right?
That said, I’m perfectly willing to hear the god out and consider whether the god’s got a point. Which isn’t what’ll happen if I go the the heaven door - if I do that I’ll be forced to see their perspective, by being “cleansed” of everything that might make me resistant to the process. Correction by fire. Or lobotomy? Hard to say. Nobody’s ever made it back through the door to clarify what happens in there.
Prior to going through the door, I have empathy. I want my relative to have the best existence possible.
If, after going through the door, I conclude that heaven is the best existence possible, I’m gonna want to share that existence with my relative. I’ll want to go back out there and entice them to join me. And the more awesome it is in there the harder I’ll try to persuade her.
Presuming, of course, that by the time they’ve finished altering me in there I still have empathy. And a memory of the people outside. And the ability to recognize that she’s not in there with me. If I lack any of those then no, I wouldn’t come out.
If that’s the reason why nobody’s come out, I would have expected my relative to know that and explained it straight off. “The heaven door is a one-way door.” She didn’t, which suggests she doesn’t know.
But I’ll make this easy for her: I’ll just ask her why nobody comes out. In fact I’ll ask that about Hell, too. If she has a hotline to an omnipotent answer source that should clear things right up.
I find it amusing you tell me that I’m not a worthless speck of nothing who’s wrong about everything, immediately after providing an analogy that casts me, at its start, as a worthless speck of nothing who’s wrong about everything. Heh.
I’ve actually had the opportunity to consider my flaws a little, specifically in the context of why I’m single. I’m aware of what I would have to do to make myself an appealing catch to a woman - change darn near everything about me. All hobbies - gone. All interests - discarded. New skills - acquired. Weight - lost. Wardrobe - replaced. Personality - rewritten. It would be a fire sale - everything must go. And then be replaced with something (someone) different.
Thing is, though, I am my flaws. My hobbies and interests and such, as unmarketable as they are, are what I genuinely like. I can’t get up any enthusiasm to discard myself and change into a stranger. (Particularly one who I frankly don’t like the sound of.)
So let’s suppose for a moment that God could use his neurosurgery lasers and make me genuinely ashamed of my current existence, and then bless me with his amnesia lasers to make me forget the shame of having ever been that way (and the existence of my relative too). After that I would be reprogrammed to truly love the one true awesome activity: sitting on clouds and playing a harp. True bliss would be mine!
Still having a hard time getting enthusiastic about that surgery, honestly.
Whether it’s bad or not is a separate question than whether or not not dog has been destroyed. Depends on whether you prefer dogs or humans, really. And whether or not the dog’s opinion on the matter matters now that it’s been destroyed - they’re not complaining, are they?
And in the scenario in the OP it’s hardly an informed decision, unless the relative has quite a lot more information to distribute than she reports knowing about. Nobody actually knows what’ll happen to them once they go through that door.
:dubious: Most of them? Annihilation is the opposite of more experience, haunting is like watching a lot of TV, and it’s unclear what sort of experience Hell would be.
The appeal to departure lounge is that you get to continue being yourself, with all your flaws and apathy towards harps, but with an improved level of protection against miscreants than, say, Hell. This ain’t nothing - no other option grants that.
Since when is it an issue to be averse to crowds? Extroverts are freaky and weird. I admit I could probably benefit from knowing how to cook - but would I even need to know how to cook in heaven? (Or the antechamber, for that matter?)
About the only real problem I have is that I’m alone. This is not something either God or my relative is going to be able to help me with, because I don’t particularly want to date God and I have culturally-instilled barriers to dating my relatives. Plus, seriously, it’d be creepy for me to put the shmooze on some poor woman who has to talk to me because it’s her job. (That probably applies to shmoozing on God, too.)
And honestly? I don’t think going to heaven would help with that my loneliness either. Being in a relationship requires a second person to willingly participate, and if one is provided by heaven that’s creepy as heck. Of course it could be the case that heaven would alter me so I would no longer care about any relationship other than the one I’d have with my harp, but honestly that approach doesn’t appeal to me either.
The question I had was, again, one of identity. At the moment, I’m a human, and when I go to heaven I would reasonably expect to still feel like a human. If I get reincarnated as a dog, when that ends will I feel like a dog, or like a human? Like a dog reeling from the influx of incomprehensible human memories, or like a human awakening with the smell of his own hairy butt in his nose?
I’m a man. After being a woman, would I be man with new memories of having been a woman, or a woman with new (to her) memories of having been a man? Would both personalities merge together in a confused tug of war? If she liked peas and I hate peas what would I thereafter think of peas? Or would perhaps all the personalities would cancel out and leave me with no identity at all, since it would rapidly become clear that none of my identities had any significance or permanence?
Yeah, I know, I’m being a negative Nancy. But seriously, this scenario seems primed for existential nightmares.
Having a choice and if i were to die today, I would choose heaven.
One really should focus more on their journey rather than simply one open/closing of a single door. Since we are given free will and the knowledge from our elders while still mortal. So actualy one goes threw some kind of constant loop of reincarnation before granted access to the non revolving doors. We aren’t the same person we were as a child, teen, young adult, etc. A guide, person with patience, wisdom, empathy, devine intervention is needed for some in order for them stay in the loop of reincarnation. Without one would have already chosen Hell’s door without prior knowledge of even doing so.
Reincarnation maybe is a constant choice
Hard pass on Heaven for sure. It’s just not my scene. Oblivion is not at all appealing. I guess I’ll haunt the world of mortals for a while, just to pass the time as I think about my decision. I’ve got some questions first, though.
Are there mosh pits in Hell? Hell seems like the only place where there might be a never-ending concert with free booze, and that’s my ideal afterlife. Venal pleasures, no presence of God necessary. Even if it’s concerts every night with reasonably-priced booze and work during the day, it would be pretty sweet. If it’s just a bunch of nasty people doing nasty things to each other, I’ll pass. And, hey, are we even sure if there’s anyone in Hell? I don’t want to go in there and just be alone.
About reincarnation, I don’t see any lobsters crawling around here. If I get reincarnated as a lobster, do I come back here after I die? Or is there some lobsters-only afterlife? If I do come back here, what body will I have? I don’t want to have to spin the wheel a million times before I end up human again. What if end up as a tree? Can trees even experience anything? This reincarnation business is looking shakier and shakier. Could I talk to someone who’s done it? Preferably someone who’s been at it for a few millennia.
