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Thanks, Labech.

For once, I got some useful information here.

I am a liberal Christian and I do believe in an afterlife. But I don't know what it is like and I don't see a big point of spending a lot of time trying to figure that out. H
ere's why: When I use to live in a ground floor apartment, I would leave for work every day and my two cats would sit in the window and watch me leave. In the evening, as I rounded the corner, there they would be, waiting and watching. They could have been spending all day trying to figure out where I went every day but it just wouldn't help. Their little cat-brains could not imagine getting on the train, going up an elevator and working in an office all day. Our brains are probably even less impressive than cat brains in the ultimate picture of the universe. We can't figure it out. Why not just live the best you can and trust your beliefs?

Daniel
I think she is referring to descriptions of heaven in Revelation. One of the materials was jasper, a beautiful crystal. See Rev 21.

Yes Godfrey, that is the poem I was thinking of.

One thing I do not understand is this:

"I shant walk the “Jasper”—barefoot—"

Does anyone know what walking the Jasper means?

But for that mystery, I find this poem to be achingly beautiful.

I think we have trouble with heaven because it is not something we experience. It is the opposite of our experience most of the time. This is the same problem we have with all “end time” stuff. We don’t know how to talk about what we don’t know. We only know what we want relief from. Or what we think will make us happy. Trouble is, most stuff that makes us happy is too transient, not something we’d want for eternity.

As time has gone by in my life and I have trusted God more, I have less concern about what will be (heaven) and more concern about what is happening now with my neighbor. If there was a moment when I knew I was on this trajectory, it was my first year of seminary. I was reading a book by Gerhard Forde (Justification by Faith: a Matter of Death and Life) who wrote that in heaven, we will BE ABLE to love God and our neighbors as ourselves (the essence of Jewish law). After spending a lot of my life craving more love and respect from my family, this sounded like heaven to me. It still does.

Heaven is not so much a “place,” but a “when.” I realize that I don’t have to wait until I die to have small pieces of heaven. But, I will look forward to it when it comes and it will be relief and happiness.

Daniel:

Do you mean this one?

What is — “Paradise”—
Who live there—
Are they “Farmers”—
Do they “hoe”—
Do they know that this is “Amherst”—
And that I—am coming—too—

Do they wear “new shoes”—in “Eden”—
Is it always pleasant—there—
Won’t they scold us—when we’re hungry—
Or tell God—how cross we are—

You are sure there’s such a person
As “a Father”—in the sky—
So if I get lost—there—ever—
Or do what the Nurse calls “die”—

I shant walk the “Jasper”—barefoot—
Ransomed folks—won’t laugh at me—
Maybe—“Eden” a’nt so lonesome
As New England used to be!

Franklin 241. Johnson 215 varies slightly.

Here is a site that gives a number of opinions of heaven by great theologians.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/heav_hel.htm

Especially get a load of Aquinas. Charming, what? A real god of love, innit?

To: Ja Joz

So? What's your point? What do you really think? Didn't you at least like the poem that I indirectly referenced by Emily Dickenson? By posing such naive questions about Heaaven, like, "will they have nice shoes," you could tell that her wonderings about Heaven were actually rhetorical, that she was not really supposing to know, because, in fact, not any one of us can possibly know, nor imagine, nor even speculate what Heaven might be like; maybe we can only fantacize.

Oh my goodness!

Yesterday evening, I posted a not too pleasant vision of Heaven, not what I think it might be, but what common characterizations of Heaven would imply. Since then, I have read Keb's post. I am largely in agreement with this post. As a Christian, I am not targeting my life nor my actions towards a Heavenly reward, which I cannot even imagine. I am merely hopeful, that there may be a place, Heaven, where we go after death.

I do not want Heaven to be buildings, even large palatial buildings; and I do not want Heaven to be a city, even a city paved with streets of gold.

In Heaven, I want to be in a meadow, with a temperate breeze, like April. I want to be near a lake, with some trees, and maybe a wooded area nearby. I want the land to be rolling hills, with some craggy rocks to climb on. I want to be among lush vegetation, and flowers. I would not want angels wings, or robes, nor for that matter, even clothes. The people there would all be people whom I don't really know very well, but still, in a way, we would all already know each other.

Would this be a good place to spend all of eternity? I am not sure; probably not.

Emily Dickenson wrote a beautiful poem about Heaven, which I do not have at hand, and cannot remember, exactly. But in it, she wondered "will they be farmers, will they hoe fields, will they have nice shoes?" She wonders, "will they be cross with her if she is not good?" And then she says, finally, that "Heaven may be less lonely than New England used to be."

It was a very pretty, very sweet poem, about Heaven.

The irony of most all of the conversation herein is that the bible does not say people go to heaven or hell. Both are myths, if you will, of mankinds reasoning. The bible is clear on 2 other resurrections besides the one of Jesus Christ. The elect will reign with Christ 1000 years on earth, and then all that have ever lived will have a opportunity to know God too. Beyond that, scriptures state, a new heaven and a new earth. Its all there.

As for hell...many references, from the Greek for example, refer to only the grave, while others refer to a consuming fire for those who wish not to accept God's invitation. Red-horned being(s) with pitchforks are not part of the picture. Humans dancing on hot rocks or put on a rack with a fire under them are not happening.

Rev 12:9 backs up all of the above

Lisa, actually I am ok with not knowing the answers to all the Heaven questions.
Having citizenship there and a foreigner’s status in this world is strange to say the least.
This world has given me more than I deserve but its not home. When that reality set in my heart jumped for joy.

FOLLOWING IS A TERRIFIC SUMMARY OF WHAT SWEDENBORG BROUGHT BACK FROM HIS VISITS TO THE HEAVENS AND HELLS. LOTS TO THINK ABOUT HERE, E.G., THE FACT THAT THE INHABITANTS OF HELL ARE HAPPY THERE AND DON'T WANT TO LEAVE.

Some Thoughts about Hell
Steven Koke

Why would one want to choose hell if heaven is better? If we knew that heaven was better, more preferable, we would choose it. But in Swedenborg's concept, the idea that heaven is better is considered nonsense in hell. Your values in hell are not very intellectual, not very aware, just to start with. Intelligence is down in favor of the rise of the lower motivations which prevent much thought from a higher point of view than yourself.

You get there after death by going through the world of spirits where the goal is to get everyone to think as they feel and feel or love as they think. The individual must not be divided inside, or neither heaven nor hell will be available. That makes sense. Everyone is then likely to experience whatever they would most love to experience. Everyone is happy in either "place." No one is in pain except by contact with the opposite state of mind. There is, in a way, happiness everywhere in heaven and hell, except that some happiness is perverse, and other kinds are more elevated. Everyone becomes what he really, down deep, has wanted to be.

In hell, hellish things are what you would love the most or you wouldn't want to be there and therefore really couldn't be there. You couldn't even find a way to get there. A good person finds heaven attractive, and ways to heaven eventually open up in unexpected places in the world of spirits. An evil person really prefers hell, and only those who want to be there ever get in. Ways then open up. But some spirits from hell were allowed to satisfy their curiosity about heaven, looked around and saw heaven as repulsive. The great architecture of an angel's house was seen only as a pile of bricks and straw. There was nothing to envy. There is nothing objectively beautiful in heaven that could be envied by someone from hell. The visitors from hell felt choked by the energies of love in heaven, couldn't breathe, and finally threw themselves desperately back down into hell, head first. There they revived and felt comfortable. In hell, one looks around and sees his friends as regular fellows, good-looking. Only when some light from heaven penetrates does that disappear. But that is temporary, very unpleasant, and there is always the eventual turn back to normalcy.

The things that make heaven beautiful, and hell ugly, are not objective, observable by everybody, because they aren't material, like a beautiful diamond that everybody would see the same way. They are values made sensually beautiful only to those who have them inside, states of mind. An angel is beautiful because of his or her values, not beautiful to just anybody. Consequently, a person of a hellish state of mind would not be attracted to heaven.

Hell got a horrible reputation from orthodox teaching, which made it a place of torture, not a state of the heart. Anyone would want out of an oppressive place and would think in any private moment that there has to be something a lot better than this place, but God punishes, so we are left there forever against our will. I think a lot of that idea of an objective ugliness and unpleasantness inflicted on us while we are extremely unwilling to stay and can only think of better things while inside, still remains as a kind of background coloring to the idea of hell and will then raise questions about its validity. Nobody should enjoy hell, and we should all want out.

Swedenborg very early disposes of the idea that in talking about heaven and hell, we are talking about places. As states of the heart, they only look like places--something that the Pope caught up with recently (what a brilliant guy!). Hell's people do enjoy hell. They love it. They love to fight and make war on the other group or town, not too unlike people who are addicted to computer war games, or to assault weapons, and dream of some juicy military action, not to mention the real gangs and warlords on the planet who are in a position to do it for kicks. They are actually visiting hell already, trying to recreate it around them here. After death the competition for dominance in hell is fierce; rape, destruction, and the victories, are satisfying, and you can keep at it for a long, long time. There's nothing unpleasant or non-addictive about it.

Nobody dies there. There are no casualties. The "dead" lie stunned for awhile but then revive and gather themselves for the next stimulating episode. We'll get you the next time around. This is habit-forming. It's an endless round of violence and energy, though it does nothing for anyone but feed fantasies. Also, eternity is a state, not just endless time. It is the experience of timelessness. This is one of the harder to understand ideas. In the spiritual world, there is no time, only duration of state, and in complete enjoyment of one's life, time is meaningless, life seems timeless. But that's probably not right for this discussion. It's one of the more difficult things. Deep involvement would only let an eternity slip by unnoticed. Hence the eternity of the hells. It's not a sentence, it's a condition of the self.

So the big question is, How would anyone, once in hell and of such a character, ever want to leave? There is no alternative better place in view; hell really looks good. Now and then some (usually new, it seems) spirits from hell get to look at heaven, but that's a crock, and there's no inclination to go find one. There are no activities that don't have a fierce dedication to them, like a violent or seductive game that one constantly wants to replay. You are totally involved. You may be tortured by a rival in hell, but your response is just to get back at who did it--double. That's sweet.

Stephen Koke’s ties are to the San Francisco Swedenborgian Church. His thoughts on hell were the response to an on-line discussion, at SwedenborgNews, about the validity of the idea of hell.

Keb - thanks a lot for your vision of heaven - it sounds like an interesting place to spend eternity -- and it sounds like you're having a good life here on earth too.

Yo-Yo, Kai, and Anonymous,

Thanks for your comments. I can't defend the thermodynamic analysis of Heaven and Hell, or accept either credit or blame for it. I must confess: I plucked it off the internet.

K and A,

Your math is probably better than that of the analysis.

A,

Think how your life would be different if you'd poked around the odd corners of thermodynamics and pulled out a little-known constant, which you could then have tweaked to convince Ms. Banyan that Hell had indeed already frozen over!

Jihadist,

A nice story! If Swedenborg was right, you'll arrive where you most want to be (see the post above), so you could meet those terrible people. I'm not sure if S said you could move from one Heaven or Hell to another, but I don't see why not.

Keb,

I'd say the same thing to you that I said to Jihadist.

Best to you all.

Lisa Miller,

You wrote:

"There is nothing wrong with this glib approach to heaven, this patched together vision. After all, who knows the truth about heaven? No one, as far as I know, has actually been there and back though through the centuries visionaries have claimed to have seen it."

Not so. Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) visited the Heavens and Hells and returned to his ordinary life as the Chief Inspector of Swedish mines.

His main point: after death we go to the place where we will be most comfortable. Those who enjoy bar-hopping and brawling will go to a "Hell" where they can continue to enjoy their sport, They would not be happy in a "Heaven".

BTW, lest you think he only experienced a "vision", he accurately predicted the exact moment of his death and, while at a large gathering in Stockholm, he gave an accurate, moment-by-moment running account of a huge fire then raging in Copenhagen, 300 miles away.

No telegraph, radio or TV in those days.

Note: This is recycled material but with a twist, so to speaketh. Ya Ya.

Remember: "Gitmo" and other facilities, is just a "Rehab Center" For extreme cases of "KoranaholicISM" , so we are winning and they are loosing. And

Brethren(s) & Sistar(s), please uphold "Secular-King & Queen" Bush's, wishes for the good of "The-Peaple" of Earth, not just America & friends.

Question: What is the Difference between a "Lame-Duck", A Elephant & a Donkey? Same Shiat! Ya Ya. And there is nothing Sunny about It! Ya Y.

Bless America & Friends.

Important News: Bin Ladin, founder of Al Quada, via muhajeen & Talibani, IS DEAD!

He died this month in an undisclosed Location by overdose of heroin or Kidney or heart failure??.

If any one knows please let US know. Thank You.

Bless America & Friends. So let's celebrate his death this 4th of July & more! Ya Ya Ya.

Hip hip Horray!

P.S. If you notice I do not include the "pipe" any longer with me caracature. Yes I quit smoking! Pueeeeewwwwweee.

Personally, I'm not so concerned about what Heaven and Hell are like. I know many people are, and some evangelists try to use fear to bring people to their way of thinking, but I'm not a Christian because I'm scared of Hell or drooling over the shiny pearly gates of Heaven.

I'm a Christian because I believe that Jesus taught correctly and spoke the truth (and that his words were faithfully recorded in the biblical texts). I'm a Christian because I believe Christ's teachings offer the best blueprint of how to function in this world. So while I believe his promise that there is a heaven where happiness exists and a hell where evil is punished, I don't feel it radically affects my life on a daily basis. What it will be like is something I will find out when I get there.

One thing I hope about Heaven is that it will be a place where questions can be asked and answered. So if you ask silly questions about what Heaven is like, Jesus will drop by for tea and tell you the answer. I'd probably come up with enough questions for an eternity of teas.

I don't think it's important to have a clear vision of heaven and hell to obey the two commandments of Christ: Love God and Love your Neighbors (ie, other people). Those who do their best to obey the commandments have nothing to fear, here or in the afterlife. (This is not to suggest that works are the way to get to heaven--you can't buy your way in by being "good" any more than you can buy your way in by praying the "sinner's prayer". Jesus already bought the tickets. And he's going to look at the whole picture.)

Just because I'm noncommital about what heaven actually is (since I freely admit I don't know and don't have to know), doesn't mean I don't have ideas in my head. Since you asked, here's what I imagine, though it probably is more fairy story than reality. First, as Jesus said there were many rooms and many mansions, I picture endless gleaming palaces, enough for everyone to be comfortable and happy with what they have. Nobody would have more than anyone else, but everyone would have just enough so they wouldn't want more. Forget about feathery wings--you could be with the people you love pretty much just by thinking of them. Creativity would abound. God would be everywhere and people would feel loved and accepted, all the time. There wouldn't be any sadness, but neither would there be any boredom, because there would still be things to explore, learn, discover, and create. Everyone would feel that their talents were being well used and appreciated. Maybe there would be new worlds to create, or new lives to live. And while Jesus said that people would not be given in marriage, he said it in a way that indicated the whole story was not really comprehensible with our human frame of reference. Maybe there's something better.

I'm not afraid of death because I do believe it's not the end--but even if it was, I know I'm living a pretty decent life and maybe I've made one or two other lives better along the way. God can take care of the details of my reservation. I think my part is to focus on loving God and loving other people the best that I can, making the world a little more like heaven.

Mark Twain's opinion: "Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company."

"MENCH"?

Norrie Hoyt

You ask : "Want to got to Heaven? Be careful of what you wish for."

I don't know Norrie. I could only have the company of the prophets and messengers of God in heaven judging by the way we all behave in life.

But as for hell, I would want to go there to meet and ask Attila the Hun, Timurlame, Genghis Khan, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot etc - what in the world were they thinking in creating such hell on earth?

A speculative story for you on heaven and hell:

Mr. Smith died and was taken by an angel to meet God for judgement as to whether he will go to heaven or hell. On the way, he saw Krushshev with Marilyn Monroe on a couch acting lewdly with her against her will.

Mr. Smith said the angel - "If this is heaven, I really want to be here."

The angel responded ' "What do you mean? This is hell for Marilyn Monroe."

Best regards
J

ya Ya

As A Hermit posted on a different thread -

Here's an old joke about a Physics exam question on the nature of Hell:

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or Endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law, (gas cools off when it expands and heats up when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

"First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate that souls are moving into Hell and the rate they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand as souls are added. This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2. Of course, if Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa Banyan during my Freshman year, "...that it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you." and take into account the fact that I still have not succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then, #2 cannot be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and will not freeze."

Olu and Dave - could you be specific about what you would do in heaven? How you'd spend your days? who you'd relate to?

I haven't read the bible that closely, Is there anything in the Bible about that? I don't mean just about being "with the Lord" I mean what you'd actually do all day. You mention there'd be no traffic, diabetes, etc. What would there be?

And how do you know?

Thanks

"silly questions"

Yes.

Why do people go on like this about obvious fantasies?

to: Norrie Hoyt

That is a great piece of analysis. I love the idea that heaven would be hotter than hell but...

your quotation of scripture is more likely interpreted as the light of the sun being seven fold, as if it were the light from the sun over seven days. So rather than x49 it would really be only x7.

It still comes out to (H/E)^4=8 which resolves to H=231 C... more than twice the temperature that water boils.

So while it isn't hotter than the hottest that hell could be, it still might be hotter than hell actually is.

And who knows, if the density of hell remains low(with 81% of americans going to heaven), it just might freeze over.

Norrie Hoyt

Wouldn't want you to think that
nobody appreciated that post of yours,
way back there. I for one found it delightful!
I'm still chuckling.

Look at what Kai wrote, a few comments above. This is a good point. The absence of everything bad in Heaven would mean that all that would remain would be good. But, not so fast. I don't think it would work like that.

Of all that is said of Heaven, it is most reverred for being a place where there will be no more suffereing, sickness, or pain. And there will be no more death. Perhaps a corrolary is that there will be no more birth.

Right off, it is then a very strange place. There will be no man or woman; there would be no sex or gender. I will not be a man anymore in Heaven, and my wife will not be a woman anymore.

Also, without suffering, sickness, or pain, our feelings will be more muted, and serene, and our motivations for doing or thinking anything will be dulled. When your close loved one goes on a vacation to Spain, for example, don't you worry about their plane crashing? Don't you want to hear from them, by phone email, to be assured that they are ok?

Whenever we are separated from any loved one, don't we want to somehow keep in touch with them, touch base with them, to make sure they are ok? Don't we spend, almost all of our emotional energy worrying about the wellbeing of those we love? In fact, isn't love really worry? Worry that our loved ones will suffer pain, injury, sickness, or death? Isn't this worry, in fact, one of the primary motivators in all our lives, from trying to get to a sale at Kmart, to enlisting in the army to fight in Iraq?

Well, in Heaven, no one would worry. You could go weeks, months, years, decades, without hearing from a loved one, with assurance that they are well, and ok. What we would want most of all, safety for our loved ones, would end up making us think about them very little, if at all.

By earthly standards, Heaven might be a place were nothing happens, and nobody cares about anything. This is a little scary to me. I want it to be a little more like the world I know in life. But how can I imagine this world being as it is, without also all of the terrible things that cause it to be as it is?

These are all speculations, and very tiresome specualtions, I might add. No one can know about the afterlife, or Heaven. Religious people have their beliefs, and their faith, but that is quite different than "knowing."

Even on mundane things of our daily lives, we really speculate much more than we know. How then on something so far removed from our daily lives, as Heaven, can we do anything but speculate?

You get to go exactly where you wish. Everyone will live forever. Souls, good and bad, are eternal.

Heaven is being in spiritual harmony with God, feeling hsi complete and total acceptance because of your loyalty to Christ.

Hell is the opposite: absence of God and all of the good things He brings. Those who take up residence there have weighed the information and have decided in their hearts that God is either untrustworthy or does not exist.

Scientific understanding of God is based on proof not faith and assumes that our minds are equal to his. Since our abilities are not as great as his it is logical to reckon that our minds are not, either.

It pleases me to rely on God. What I cannot understand, and the questions I cannot answer, he has figured out.

I for one do not wish to go to heaven.

If heaven is 'All Good' and 'No Bad' then every moment must be the most perfect moment. And since that perfect moment would not be different at one time from another, all moments must be the same. There can be no change in heaven.

Add to that the complete loss of hope. There is no hope in heaven because all is fulfilled.

It may suck in hell, but really, after you've been tortured for half of eternity I would imagine the second half would not be as bad. And even though it might not ever happen, you would still have hope that a pardon awaits.

No, I'd give up eternal stagnation for an eternity of hope.

Great article, but to put an ounce of energy into thinking about this topic is a completely useless waste of time. Which is probably why most Christians can't come up with a coherent response to "what is heaven and what is hell", even though their entire religion was founded to make sure you end up in one and not the other.

Heaven as promised by Jesus Christ is where human soul of a believer in Him goes to after physical death on this earth. In this Christ's kingdom, there will be no more dying, no more suffering, no cancer, no high blood pressure, no diabetes, no accidents, no bills to pay, no crying and wailing, no employment,no marriage, no traffic and all these things we do and go through in this world. Indeed, there would be an everlasting peace, joy, perpetual worshipping of the Lord and all the things that are noble and worthy. So trust in Christ today if you want to be in Heaven and not in Hell which epitomizes eternal damnation and suffering.

Lisa, great topic.
However, I fill we must to think through Bible. The Bible say that the heaven and hell are real and teach us how we can obtain both of them. If you desire is live forever in hell, all you have to do is follow your own decisions and leave God outside your life. If you desier is live in heaven, all you have to do is obey the God's word and follow him. If you believe or not is your decision but if the heaven and hell is real, i think is better you think about it

Lisa, grat topic.
However, I fill we must to think through Bible. The Bible say that the heaven and hell are real and teach us how we can obtain both of them. If you desire is live forever in hell, all you have to do is follow your own decisions and leave God outside your life. If you desier is live in heaven, all you have to do is obey the God's word and follow him. If you believe or not is your decision but if the heaven and hell is real, i think is better you think about it

Lisa – my sentiments exactly – The few people whom I’ve recently asked what heaven is like stumble around, seemingly embarrassed to realize that they don’t have a ready answer. Then some get upset with me for asking such a presumptuous question. Then they get really upset if I comment that I figured they would have given more thought to the place they expect to spend eternity.

When people answer yes to the simple poll question about heaven, I think they may be saying one of several things:
- I believe in God, so there must be a heaven.
- I have no idea, but “yes” is the easy answer.
- I sure as hell hope there’s a heaven.
- Leave me alone; it’s too scary to think about.

There must be a study on this, don’t you think?

Do the righteous of all nations have a share in the World to Come?
Does Tosefta, to Sanhedrin, tell us, "Sure they do, by Gum!"?
Will they munch on Leviathan at a table in the sky
While they're learning Torah at that great Yeshiva up On High?

Yeah, Steve, the carrot-and-stick approach to right living always made me a little queasy.

Personally, I think the question is--or should be--irrelevant except to academic discussion among theologians. If you do (or don't do) something to gain (or avoid) a reward (or punishment) for yourself, rather than because it's the right (or wrong) thing to do, you've already missed the point. One's goal should not be, "Please let me get to heaven," but "Not my will, but yours ..."

"Things Should be Made as Simple As Possible, but not any simpler"

- Albert Einstein (Father Of Eclatarionity).

"Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven,
But Nobody Wants to Die."

good column lisa, much the same could be said of people's understanding of "God."

Is HE Santa Claus?
Or Darth Vader?

Some beliefs by religious scholars who have studied the situation:

Professor JD Crossan (an On Faith panelist) does not believe in an afterlife as noted in his book, Who is Jesus? He may have changed his mind as he progresses in years.

Father Edward Schillebeeckx, the famous contemporary Catholic theologian, has a different take on hell. He reasons that the Singularity does not tolerate imperfection in his spiritual realm. Therefore, any soul dying in mortal sin will simply disappear since hell the imperfect state does not exist.

Aquinas concluded that Heaven is a spirit state i.e. no bodies to include glorified bodies. From that one might conclude there were no bodily Resurrection of Jesus, no Ascension and no Assumption.

Other points of interest: Angels and devils (those demons of the demented)

Joe Smith had his Moroni.

Mohammed had his Gabriel (this "tinker bell" got around).

Jesus and his family had Michael, Gabriel, and Satan, the latter being a modern day demon of the demented.

The Abraham-Moses myths had their Angel of Death and other "no-namers" to do their dirty work or other assorted duties.

Contemporary biblical and religious scholars have relegated these "pretty wingie talking thingies" to the myth pile. We should do the same to include deleting all references to them in our religious operating manuals. Doing this will eliminate the prophet/profit/prophecy status of these founders and put them where they belong as simple humans just like the rest of us.

Personnally, fear of punishment has it rewards so I CMAFH (Cover My A__ with Fear and Hope).

A scientific appraisal of Heaven and Hell:

The temperature of Heaven and Hell:

The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed from available data. Our authority is the Bible: Isiah 30:26 reads, "Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun and the light of the sin shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days." Thus Heaven receives from the moon as much radiation as we do from the sun and in addition seven times seven (49) times as much as the earth does from the sun, or fifty times in all. The light we receive from the moon is a ten-thousandth fo the light we receive from the sun, so we can ignore that.

With these data we can compute the temperature of Heaven. The radiation falling on heaven will heat it to the point lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation. In other words, Heaven loses fifty times as much heat as the earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann fourth-power law for radiation (H/E)^4 = 50, where E is the absolute temperature of the earth - 300K. This gives H as 798 K (525 degrees Celcius).

The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed, but it must be less than 444.6 C, the temperature at which brimstone or sulphur changes from liquid to a gas. Revelations 21:8: "But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." A lake of molten brimstone means that its temperature must be below the boiling point.

We have, then, temperature of Heaven 525 C. Temperature of Hell less than 445 C. Therefore, heaven is hotter than Hell.

Want to got to Heaven? Be careful of what you wish for.

Wha do biblical literalists make of this?