# The most interesting heaven or hell **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 28, 2005, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-interesting-heaven-or-hell/287098 "2005-01-28T12:57:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![fluiddruid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fluiddruid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fluiddruid)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-interesting-heaven-or-hell/287098/41 "2005-01-29T03:42:06Z")
I had a professor in college who gave us some information about some of the hells in some Buddhist teachings. The only one I remember is that there were various levels of cold hells, and the worst was the “so cold that you freeze until you explode” hell. Sadly, I didn’t have quite the nerve to ask more about it. What happens after you explode? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-interesting-heaven-or-hell/287098/42 "2005-01-29T04:05:48Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > Don’t know about the most interesting, but I think the most accurate… Accurate? Really and truly? Or just most like some older book? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![butter\_pie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aca169/32.png) [@butter\_pie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/butter_pie)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-interesting-heaven-or-hell/287098/43 "2005-01-29T05:19:47Z")
I wanted to mention _What Dreams May Come_ but a couple of people beat me to it. I absolutely loved that movie, especially the visuals. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-interesting-heaven-or-hell/287098/44 "2005-01-29T06:10:28Z")
I rather enjoyed reading a description of a huge boat posited by Tom Robbins in _Jitterbug Perfume._ Like a harbor cruise boat in some touristy marina, the kind that offers booze cruises or dinner cruises. This boat was filled to the gunwales with people engaging in any kind of party-time activity you could name; eating, drinking, playing cards, talking, arguing, sexing (well, probably no pinata-whacking), all while the boat wended its way back and forth across an enormous lake, occasionally stopping at a dock to take on more revelers. The name of the boat was painted on the side (sort of). On one side, the word “Heaven.” On the other side, “Hell.” ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2005, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-interesting-heaven-or-hell/287098/45 "2005-01-31T12:54:49Z")
I forgot one of my favorites, the pauintings of Hieronymous Bosch, especially the one entitled **The Garden of Earthly Delights**. [http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/bosch/delight/](http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/bosch/delight/) I have a _full-scale_ replica of this painting at home. It’s in book form, in sections, but it lets you see it in all its detailed glory. As one critic said, if you go close to most paintings, you see technique. If you go close to Boschj, you see more detail. It’s almost fractal. Although the title is usually given as “The Garden of Earthly Delights”, we don’t really know what the title is (the earliest one we have is, engimatically, “The Strawberry Plant” – but that’s probably not the title Bosch gave it, anymore that TGOED is). Exactly what it represents still isn’t clear, but there’s little doubt that the right-hand panel of the triptych is supposed to be Hell. I hyave an interpretation of this, but it’s different than most other interpretations. Bosch painted other Heavens and Hells, but this is his most famous and mysterious. ---
**Author:** ![Winston\_Bongo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a9adbd/32.png) [@Winston\_Bongo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Winston_Bongo)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2005, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-interesting-heaven-or-hell/287098/46 "2005-01-31T17:33:35Z")
I always liked the “Got Milk?” commercial: An arrogant SOB is crossing a busy city street, talking on his cell phone, telling someone he/she is fired, then laughing gleefully about it. Suddenly he gets hit by a truck. He wakes up in an all-white environment, surrounded by beautiful women. “Welcome to Heaven!” they tell him, and serve him plate after plate of delicious chocolate chip cookies. He’s having a great time, and they take him to a refigerator packed full of milk cartons. His mouth full of cookies, the guy grabs a carton, eager for a swig o’ cold, delicious milk. The carton is empty. He grabs another one. It’s empty, too. In a panic, he goes through all the cartons like a madman. They are all empty. THERE IS NO MILK! Finally he yells, “WHERE AM I???” Cut to the “GOT MILK?” logo surrounded by flames. I \*love \* that commercial! ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2005, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-interesting-heaven-or-hell/287098/47 "2005-01-31T18:43:15Z")
> [@Bippy the Beardless](#): > > Darn you to heck, I’d just researched the same site for Chinese Hells. Man, I don’t know if this is due to the translation or what, but these are great! Court 1: Mirror of Retribution. Ruled by QIN-GUANG-WANG. Court 2: The Pool of Filth and the Hell of Ice. Ruled by QU-JIANG-WANG. These first two are kinda boring. Court 3: Black Rope Hell and the Upside-Down Prison. Ruled by SONG-DI-WANG. Getting better. Would be a good name for an album. Court 4: The Lake of Blood and the terrible Bee Torture. Ruled by WU-GUAN-WANG. Lake of blood? Pedestrian. Bee Torture? Now this I’ve got to see. Court 5: Sixteen Departments of Heart Gouging. Ruled by YEN-LO-WANG. How many ways can you really gouge a heart? And it sounds so bueracratic. Court 6: Screaming Torture and Administrative Errors. Ruled by BIAN-CHENG-WANG. This right here is my favorite. Screaming Torture is self-explanatory, but you never saw Dante coming up with the sheer hell that is administrative errors and bueracracy. Even better, now I can scream things like “Aagh! I’m trapped in Court 6!” Court 7: Torture by Mincing Machine. Ruled by TAI-SHAN-WANG. Meh. Court 8: Hot Suffocation Hell. Ruled by DU-SHI-WANG. Not all that great, but the way it’s stated is kinda funny. Court 9: Iron Web and Office of Fair Trading. Ruled by PING-DENG-WANG. What kind of fair trading do you do in hell? Court 10: The Wheel of Rebirth. Ruled by ZHUANG-LUN-WANG. Meh. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2005, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-interesting-heaven-or-hell/287098/48 "2005-01-31T18:57:33Z")
> [@Tentacle Monster](#): > > Anyway, I think the most interesting heaven was described by Kurt Vonnegut in _God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian_. Is this the story where the protagonist goes to heaven, and finds out that in heaven everyone gets to choose what age they want to be. He chooses to be eighteen or so, and is quite distraught that his father has chosen to be nine. Every time he (the protagonist) tries to score with a chick his father comes running to him naked. ---
**Author:** ![Ichbin\_Dubist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/51bf81/32.png) [@Ichbin\_Dubist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ichbin_Dubist)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2005, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-interesting-heaven-or-hell/287098/49 "2005-01-31T20:20:27Z")
“Hell goes round and round. In shape it is circular and by nature it is interminable, repetitive and very nearly unbearable.” ``` --Flann O'Brien ``` To go into it in too much detail would be to give the game away, but Flann O’Brien’s novel **The Third Policemen** seems to be set in a Hell that could pass for Ireland’s little-known County Godot, punishing its denizens with absurd logic, atomic theory, scholarly footnotes, and bicycles that are nearly half people. The narrator is a nameless man with a soul named Joe. ---
**Author:** ![Improvisor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/50afbb/32.png) [@Improvisor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Improvisor)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2005, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-interesting-heaven-or-hell/287098/50 "2005-01-31T22:14:13Z")
My mom would always say she wanted heaven to be just like those Dairy Queen commercials from the 1980’s where the whole landscape was made of sweets. Ice cream mountains and trees, chocolate fudge rivers, candy forests, etc. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2005, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-interesting-heaven-or-hell/287098/51 "2005-02-01T00:37:39Z")
If you want an interesting version of the secong coming, [Electric Jesus Corpse](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0971357285/qid=1107218490/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/103-5811222-3111029?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) might do the trick. > [@](#): > > The twisted and surreal version of the story of Jesus Christ set in a bizarre version of modern day Earth that has been ravaged by war and cannibal zombie plagues, where the landscape is slowly mutating into meat and human flesh is transforming into machine. The novel follows Christ’s twelve apostles. However, in this world the apostles are pimps, necrophiliacs, skinheads, and other assorted freaks. And they have no desire to follow Jesus Christ on his crusade to save humanity whatsoever. Definitely _interesting_. ---
**Author:** ![dotchan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@dotchan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dotchan)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2005, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-interesting-heaven-or-hell/287098/52 "2005-02-01T01:06:28Z")
Here’s another second for _The Great Divorce_. Chinese heaven is quite boring, unfortunately. It’s a sprawling bureaucracy with offices for everything imaginable. The only redeeming (pun intended) factor is that they throw great parties with the Peaches, Wine, and Pills of Immortaility. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2005, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-interesting-heaven-or-hell/287098/53 "2005-02-01T01:29:18Z")
> [@](#): > > The twisted and surreal version of the story of Jesus Christ set in a bizarre version of modern day Earth that has been ravaged by war and cannibal zombie plagues, where the landscape is slowly mutating into meat and human flesh is transforming into machine. Wow, John Carmack _is_ God! :eek: 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2005, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-interesting-heaven-or-hell/287098/54 "2005-02-01T01:57:04Z")
> [@Ichbin Dubist](#): > > To go into it in too much detail would be to give the game away, but Flann O’Brien’s novel **The Third Policemen** seems to be set in a Hell that could pass for Ireland’s little-known County Godot, punishing its denizens with absurd logic, atomic theory, scholarly footnotes, and bicycles that are nearly half people. The narrator is a nameless man with a soul named Joe. Are you certain you have the title correct? Just checked Amazon, & no go. ---
**Author:** ![easy\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/eb8c5e/32.png) [@easy\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/easy_e)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2005, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-interesting-heaven-or-hell/287098/55 "2005-02-01T02:48:53Z")
There’s a brief description of hell in Stephen King’s **The Stand**. Basically it’s an inversion of the traditional Western hell–it’s cold and white. So white you can’t see anything. Total sensory deprivation. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2005, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-interesting-heaven-or-hell/287098/56 "2005-02-01T20:41:14Z")
> [@easy e](#): > > There’s a brief description of hell in Stephen King’s The Stand. Basically it’s an inversion of the traditional Western hell–it’s cold and white. So white you can’t see anything. Total sensory deprivation. I don’t remember this bit. Where in the book is it? ---
**Author:** ![easy\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/eb8c5e/32.png) [@easy\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/easy_e)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-interesting-heaven-or-hell/287098/57 "2005-02-02T01:23:04Z")
> [@Priceguy](#): > > I don’t remember this bit. Where in the book is it? It’s when Nadine plants the bomb in Nick’s closet and starts to have second thoughts. To make sure she goes through with it, Flagg takes control of her body. > [@](#): > > When Nadine opened her eyes, her first thought was that she was in hell. > > Hell was whiteness, the thesis to the dark man’s antithesis. She saw white, ivory, bleached-out nothingness. White-white-white. It was white hell, and it was everywhere. > > She stared at the whiteness (it was impossible to stare _into_ it), fascinated, agonized, for minutes . . . Okay, maybe it’s not exactly hell. And there’s no mention of cold in the passage, but in the line right before there was > [@](#): > > _and he was cold_ , referring to the dark man. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-interesting-heaven-or-hell/287098/58 "2005-02-02T01:35:14Z")
While not exactly a picture of Heaven, I always enjoy the imagery of the Angel of Death and the hapless souls being led to the afterlife in \*\*\*Bone, Thugs and Harmony’s \*\* \* _Crossroads_ video. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-most-interesting-heaven-or-hell/287098.md?page=2)