Heaven/hell. Why isn't there a third option?

[Magna]

That non-Catholics go to hell is the first “selling point” I can remember as a child listening at mass and thinking, “hmm, sounds like tnese guys are trying to scare me into being Catholic. And I don’t like bullies. I know where God and I talk and it is not via this avuncular show-off who says all the people of other faiths go to hell. That’s more conceited than even my older brothers and sister.”
Since I detest unfairness I moved on from Catholicism despite loving certain aspects of it.

I think things have softened a bit in regards to Catholic belief compared to the old days, but I'm no expert on the subject. I think the teaching now is inclusive to Christians in general. I do wonder about those people in the world who have lived their lives never hearing of Jesus and therefore never having the option to accept/"choose" Jesus. That would be very vindictive indeed to send such people to hell through no fault of their own.

 

[Raggamuffin]

A Seth quote regarding this topic:

"There is no heaven and hell in Christian terms. However, if a personality believes strongly in the reality of hell, for some time after death he will experience the hallucination of a hell which will be of his own creation. This will last very briefly. Heaven and hell, indeed, are mere representations. They represented originally intuitive insights. But no heaven or hell exist in those terms. There is no place within the universe or within any universe or system for them. You create reality according to your beliefs and expectations. Therefore, it behoves you to examine your beliefs and expectations very clearly."

I do love the irony that Seth says there is no hell, yet there were Christians out there claiming that Seth was a demon, or something evil and ungodly.

Ed

 

[Tom]

I think things have softened a bit in regards to Catholic belief compared to the old days, but I'm no expert on the subject. I think the teaching now is inclusive to Christians in general. I do wonder about those people in the world who have lived their lives never hearing of Jesus and therefore never having the option to accept/"choose" Jesus. That would be very vindictive indeed to send such people to hell through no fault of their own.

There is a passage that says roughly 'before Christ there was the law and before the law there was conscience.' I took the context to mean by which standard a person is judged. If so, I wonder if it may still apply to those who have not been exposed to Christianity.

I am not sure where it is, but think one of the letters after the gospels.

 

[Suzette]

I think things have softened a bit in regards to Catholic belief compared to the old days, but I'm no expert on the subject. I think the teaching now is inclusive to Christians in general. I do wonder about those people in the world who have lived their lives never hearing of Jesus and therefore never having the option to accept/"choose" Jesus. That would be very vindictive indeed to send such people to hell through no fault of their own.

Yes, these kind of teaching are why I do not believe. Men have made these rules to their own glory. It has nothing to do with god.
These are rules created by humans to subjegate others for the puropse of usurping their power and lands. Conquering 101.

 

[AprilR]

Honestly the idea of heaven and hell is comforting to me. Or at least the idea that everyone will get what they deserve in some other dimension. Otherwise life would be hell itself with all the things people are put through that they don't deserve.

 

[LadyS]

I think creating only two options make it easier in a sense to 'control' the masses. Less wiggle room = more order. Using fear has always been a control technique. "Do it this way or be damned". If you think about it, it sounds very much like how a parent might threaten to punish a child for not doing as they say or following their rules. I.e. "The monster will come and get you if you misbehave". The potential of living in an infinite fiery torment might be enough to get someone to obey and follow.

But there is also "choice overload", which when presented with multiple options the human brain starts to become stressed and even shutdown. I think this is why many people need things in black and white, heaven and hell, good or bad. No inbetween. The gray area is always scary and unknown so picking a side may settle the psyche? I'm not sure why people need things in blackin-between though. Sounds boring. I love the gray area with infinite possibilities.

But then why limit to only 3 options? Why can't there be, let's say 7 realms of existence, where you learn different things in each one, ascending as you succeed?

Or maybe we were already born from the fires of "Hell" (aka the Earth's or nature's fire) and existence on earth is just the stop where you're supposed to achieve enlightenment before reaching the heavens (stars/space). And if you don't you "burn" again and are reborn over and over again until you do. Kinda reminds me of the movie Mother!

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Like arguments about how many angels can fit on the head of a pin, I do not countenance the supernatural or the superstitious. My view of the cosmos is that it is entirely naturalistic and materialistic, hence speculation about the supernatural, like heaven or hell has no basis except as fantasy.

Our memories and all we are is coded in our brain, and only our brains. When we die and our brains turn to mush we no longer exist. It is like the time before we were born, that is all. I take solace that I have worked to protect the health of people using the pharmaceuticals whose manufacture I was tasked to manage, and have had some good experiences along the way.

That said, I do enjoy fantasies about souls, like Cloud Atlas. But, I see such, along with heaven and hell, as cute diversions.

 

[watersprite]

Further views with apologies to @Magna for veering somewhat into another cloud lol. However for me, this directly affects my sense of a third option.
(Which would make a splendid book title, I think.)

When we die and our brains turn to mush we no longer exist.

Maybe. Maybe not.
An Italian scientist proposes that our consciousness (including memories) are not trapped or hidden inside our brains, but coded elsewhere too.

Perhaps, he says, that the separation we insist on between us and objects, us and others, that ‘wall’ we assume to be inviolate throughout the world, is actually not.

In his words,
“The universe is in front of us…the universe - or a part of it - is the thing we are. Nothing hides inside us. … The theory of spread mind expresses a fundamentally alternative view. One’s consciousness is the causally singled out totality of objects that one experiences. … Everything is physical and one’s consciousness is a subset of the physical world. The particular world that one’s consciousness is made up of is carved out by the causal process that by means of a human body takes place. Thus one’s mind is physical, but, crucially, it is not inside one’s body. Neither is it inside one’s brain.”

— Ricardo Manzotti, The Spread Mind

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Further views with apologies to @Magna for veering somewhat into another cloud lol. However for me, this directly affects my sense of a third option.
(Which would make a splendid book title, I think.)



Maybe. Maybe not.
An Italian scientist proposes that our consciousness (including memories) are not trapped or hidden inside our brains, but coded elsewhere too.

Perhaps, he says, that the separation we insist on between us and objects, us and others, that ‘wall’ we assume to be inviolate throughout the world, is actually not.

In his words,
“The universe is in front of us…the universe - or a part of it - is the thing we are. Nothing hides inside us. … The theory of spread mind expresses a fundamentally alternative view. One’s consciousness is the causally singled out totality of objects that one experiences. … Everything is physical and one’s consciousness is a subset of the physical world. The particular world that one’s consciousness is made up of is carved out by the causal process that by means of a human body takes place. Thus one’s mind is physical, but, crucially, it is not inside one’s body. Neither is it inside one’s brain.”

— Ricardo Manzotti, The Spread Mind

One may speculate such things, but there is no evidence of that. I may speculate that our thoughts are coded by interdimensional Trafalmadorians farting while they tapdance, but that is about as real as saying the mind is not in our brain. The only evidence of a distributed intelligence is the nervous system of the octopus, and perhaps other cephalopods, which is the result of over 500 million years of independent evolution. So far every example of thought processes requires a nervous system. To say otherwise would invoke LaPlace who said “the weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness” and Manzotti fails to offer any evidence at all. His speculation is a cleverly constructed argument devoid of hard, independent, and observable, proof.

 

[watersprite]

@Gerald Wilgus I suspect Manzotti loves going to conferences and getting into arguments with other scientists & philosophers.

If you don’t want to venture into discussions concerning unfalsifiable ideas, including faith, etc., that is fine of course. However the premise of @Magna title for his thread isn’t asking about the scientific validity or lack thereof of believing.

I added the bit from Manzotti because it is provocative. It’s as yet untestable. And who knows maybe Penrose will link it to another dimension, thus opening up for us a third option.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

@Gerald Wilgus I suspect Manzotti loves going to conferences and getting into arguments with other scientists & philosophers.

If you don’t want to venture into discussions concerning unfalsifiable ideas, including faith, etc., that is fine of course. However the premise of @Magna title for his thread isn’t asking about the scientific validity or lack thereof of believing.

I added the bit from Manzotti because it is provocative. It’s as yet untestable. And who knows maybe Penrose will link it to another dimension, thus opening up for us a third option.

I guess that I was clumsily proposing that a third option is that we, our mind, only exists with a living brain, which means that after life there is only nonexistence.