That’s what the pitchfork is for. Keep everyone moving so we burn evenly.
Not only is there no proof Hell exists (I know, edgy online atheists, actual Christians just mad at God they were sent to bed without dessert, etc), but what is written about Hell in “official” texts (say, holy books) and what was written later (e.g. movies, but also classic literature such as Dante’s Inferno and whatnot) differ a bit.
One of the big misconceptions about Hell is that the Devil (Satan, Lucifer, whatever) is the warden of Hell, or the leader or something. No, he’s just prisoner #1.
It’s more accurate to say that Hell is just a purgatory that is far from God’s light. An endless void.
I’m no Biblical scholar, but most of what we commonly think of as Hell comes from movies, and has been used to scare Christians into giving more than they can afford at the collection plate so the priest or pastor can buy this year’s Cadillac.
As far as where you go when you die? Nobody knows, but science’s best guess is it’s where you were before you were born. Nowhere. You can read about how life was like before you were born, but you can never experience it. Add 100 to the year you were born: anything after that is similarly conjecture and stories. It will never exist for you. Dream about it all you like, but at that time, or somewhat after (people have lived to around 120? but it’s rare) you won’t be here. It’s what you do here that matters.
Instead of worrying about what happens after you die, worry instead about how you will live. Or spare a thought for the trillions who will never live. In your place, a great artist who united the world could have been born, or a great scientist who cures cancer. But instead, you live in their place. That’s not to say your worth is lower; in your place it could have been another serial killer as well. But no, you’re the one who lived… so live.
That last paragraph wasn’t me. I was summarizing and paraphrasing Darwin.
Speaking about assumptions about the afterlife, people who believe in reincarnation typically believe that after you die, you get reincarnated. The assumption there is that it happens right away. What if it happens like a thousand years after you die or maybe an entire universe goes by?
I’m not sure how many people who believe in reincarnation believe that it happens instantly. Some do. I think for a lot of them (I couldn’t put a number or percentage weight on it), it’s a variable time.
It’s nice to think that the baby who was born down the hall at the moment of your loved one’s death got the soul of your loved one, especially if, as they grow, they exhibit similar traits. Comforting, I mean. Like they will never remember you, but their soul lives on.
I always had this wild idea when I was a kid that there was a sort of “lobby” that souls waited in for a set amount of time. This idea came about in the early 1980s, long before gaming lobbies, but… same idea. The idea being that in this lobby, there are other things you can do, but the main thing you do is pick a life and live it. Like when you’re a new soul, either one of two things happens. Either you get to pick, and you pick an easy one. Or you don’t get to pick, and you get given a shitty one. As those lives end and you come back, you retain the memories and lessons learned, but they don’t carry through to the next life. But in the lobby, they accumulate. And after a few lives, you start picking more creative ones. Like maybe you want someone who has an epic death. Or someone who is one of the 0.01%. Just for the experience. I dunno. It was a theory I thought of when I was a little kid. Probably nothing to it at all. I don’t actually believe it. I just remember making it up. Might have even pieced it together from movies and TV.
Yeah it’s a common thought: An afterlife where people gather before going on to the next.
Usually, people think that the quality of your choices for the next life will be based on whatever criteria they think was most important in life. Someone who went out of their way to be nice will believe that it will be based on how nice you were. Whereas someone who spent their life accumulating money/power will assume it’s based on that.
For all we know, though, your “afterlife score” could be based on how many different sorts of food you tried, how many buttons you pressed, how far you traveled from where you were born, etc.
I actually have a novel idea about this concept: Dude dies and gets the red carpet treatment in the afterlife. He’s very happy about it but he doesn’t understand… He never got married and spent most of his life doing data entry and courtroom steganography.
Turns out, he got the high score in “button pressing.” He’s at the top of the leaderboard and this qualifies him for all sorts of “premium” reincarnation options. Not only that, but the gods intend to put his talents to use right away on “pressing issues.”
Or it could be non-linear…
The Egg by Andy Weir
Edit: It’s actually so weird that I live a life as an immigrant in “this incarnation”, it’s like being in between two worlds, never really belonging in either…
[…] but science’s best guess is it’s where you were before you were born. Nowhere.
May I have a slightly different interpretation: Everywhere.
We are made from the same stuff the Sun is made, traveling together for eons. When we die, we just roll back to the matter is our planet.
And once it dies, we will travel again together through the stars.
Sure, but I mean the mind. We can’t remember where we were before we were born because we did not exist. The mind cannot fathom true zero, not existing, so we made up a lot of cool and interesting theories for what comes next.
Of course, the physical body returns to the soil and all that.
Yeah, that part ducks.
There is no good spot in a microwave for a human
(The half-wavelength or distance between hot spots is about 6 cm. You’ll get burns of internal organs and most likely cataracts because the proteins in your eye’s lens, which gets very little cooling due to lack of blood flow, coagulate at high temperature.)
But what about a hell-sized microwave
A microwave oven, no matter the dimensions, uses microwaves. If the wavelength increases tenfold, it becomes a radio wave device. Also not an oven, because it’s no longer good at heating water molecules so you don’t of in the cold food and of out hot eat the food.
so you don’t of in the cold food and of out hot eat the food
Come again?
Ah, a shitty meme! Not your fault; I intentionally memory-hole the dumber memes I encounter.
Then again, since Religions are BS, you are wasting part of your short life, that cool being good with, with the needed threat-motivation of religions’ BS.
I know nothing about philosophy, but the Absence of Myth is often a heavily discussed topic since last century, and iIrc there’s a school of thought that I adhere that says “if you take the gods from the hearts of men, they will make new ones*”.
The idea is that our brains are constantly trying to make sense of an otherwise chaotic world, and in doing so, we create (or adhere) to myth to help us keep being rational (and focus on the stuff that matters(?)).
So even those of us that don’t subscribe to organized religions still have some mythos going on. But I’m not educated enough to explain or understand well this point.
*e.g. technological progress, artificial intelligence (well mostly LLM bs.), nuclear era will save us all, internet era will save us all, new-age stuff, cosmology, predestination, if we upload our conscience to a computer = heaven, etc. etc.
A link: https://gettherapybirmingham.com/on-the-absence-of-idols-on-mythopoetic-meaning-making/
EDIT: I forgot! One of the most common religious activities that we often don’t recognize is playing the lottery. It seems odd, but it is a communal activity solely based in faith that a better life is possible, and it is around the corner. But this is a faith-based activity, as anyone with some cursory statistics knowledge will tell you the odds are nought to nada.
I have often been split apart between telling someone or keeping the “lie”, as it seems it helps them keeping hope there is a better tomorrow.
If someone mentions their neighbor won the lottery, I would remind them the difference between empirical and anecdotal evidence.
I like to think Hell is just a big constant party. I mean, all the best people are there, and Satan seems like a pretty chill guy in the Bible. I bet his parties are just non-stop fun.
If you believe in what the Bible says, Christians are in Heaven. This list includes Hitler, much to the dismay of many Christians I know who have rewritten the rules in their mind in order to exclude him. I don’t know if you’ve ever hung out with a huge group of exclusively Christians, but it’s not exactly what I would describe as “fun”.
I remember one comedian joking about who Hell is the place to be as that is where all the partying will be.
I wanna get drunk, fuck a lot of people, be a gluntanous pig and then pass out and do it the next day.
HELL IS THE PLACE FOR ME.
Enjoy heaven with the harps and floating cloud chairs.
I hope hell is just kind of crappy. Like if the streets of heaven are laved with gold, hell is just tarmac and has potholes. And its all overblown propaganda.
If there’s so much gold you can pave the streets with it, it’s not very valuable.
Having said that, if we’re all living in a simulation, then having our “streets” (cables) paved with gold sounds fantastic 👍
Only thing better would be fiberoptic cable but that might not be possible since you can’t carry power over fiber 🤷
Aside: You can generate power from light traveling through fiber optic cable but it’s not the same thing as carrying power efficiently over copper or (better) gold.
oh, I’ve been to this city. Food was overrated.
My religious teacher told us a metaphor for heaven and hell:
In hell, everyone sits at a table loaded with the best food.
But their hands are tied to utensils that are too long to reach their own mouth.
So everyone is miserable and starving while madly trying to eat.In heaven, everyone also sits at a table loaded with the best food.
And they also have utensils that are too long to reach their own mouth.
But everyone is happy and cheerful, as they feed each other.utensils that are too long to reach their own mouth Cow tools?
In hell, they just use Crow Pilot for this sort of thing.
I think hell is a non-stop party. Think of all the people who are there–everyone who loves rock music, used drugs, and had sex before marriage. Why would Beelzebub torture his own? We all buddies.
Now think of all the people we’re told go to heaven. Do you really want to hang out with them for eternity?
I’m not sure if I want to be in a party with Pol Pot, Goebbels and Kissinger.
Well I’m wrapping up hollow knight so I know the truth, that the light is evil… embrace the void
People aren’t intelligent enough to see through, idk, Western propaganda and Andrew Tate nonsense and they think they can trick God. Even if you don’t believe in the Creator, is anyone here arrogant enough to think they could fool him, hypothetically? 😅
Me, at life’s exit interview…
“Sooo… I’m regards to my, er, contributions to the good of the world… Does open source software count? What about all those times I made witty comments that made a few people smile? 😬”
Every bit counts! 😁
Or maybe we don’t matter enough to be seen. I mean, beekeepers don’t know each bee individually. In the span of time and space, our existence would be so short that it would be like looking at an individual fleck of dust in the air.
But God is not a beekeeper because he’s not a man. His understanding of the universe and everything in it is unimaginable to us, our intelligence is contained in a meat machine. So, God knows this universe maybe He can and does care (well, I believe/“know” He does but I don’t wanna scare anyone 😅).
Dudes like super old. Probably has dementia, so probably easy to trick. Like most people who are really young or really old.
Silly goose!
honk
I hope a fake societal control construct is [adjective] so [something meaningless], too
Haven’t seen a half-decent shower thought in a long time. Time to unsubscribe.
