OK, I need help. Basically the discussion is, as I've said in the title, comparing both secular and religious ideas/beliefs of what 'heaven' and 'hell' actually are - are they metaphorical or literal, etc, etc. A group of 15 of us (9 Christians (2 RC, 6 Baptist, 1 URC), 3 Muslims, 3 Jews (one of whom is a Rabbi!) 1 Buddhist and me, the token agnostic - they wanted an athiest but I said it was pretty pointless inviting a person who, by definition, doesn't believe in even the tiniest possibility of what's being discussed - anyway, I'm digressing.
Firstly I'd like some suggestions, film or literature, of pieces work by secular artists portraying heaven, hell and all things related. On any level - high brow, low brow, Monty Python - whatever .... Secondly I'd like to know what other peoples ideas are - do you believe that that heaven and hell exist? If so, what do you believe they are like? Or is it just arcaic bollocks? On the religious side of it i'm hoping for more than just a Christian perspective. What are the cultural differences between perceptions of heaven and hell?
Any input would be great - I'm the only non-academic going to this and the idea of that slightly intimidates me. I can just see me and the Buddhist guy having a grreeeeat time ...
I would suggest you look at this from the historical point of view as well.
My own view is that these concepts were invented by religious leaders to keep their parishioners in check. They were just the carrot and stick. A great deal of money and power were at stake especially in Mediaeval Britain.
As evidence look at how they resisted the publication of The Bible in English. Knowledge is power, and the bible said what the priests wanted it to say, not what it actually said.
With regard to popular references look at Dante obviously, the other one that springs to mind is A Stranger in A Strange Land - Heinlien.
I lent two members of the group Pasolinis 'The Gospel According to St Matthew' as they had heard wonderful things about it but never seen it ... I'll wait until they've watched it to tell them that Pasolini was an Athiest, Marxist homosexual ... because I actually believe it fits quite well into the whole 'secular perception' thing. I'm using some examples from Miltons 'Paradise Lost' as I think this was one of the most well known and vividly portayed ideas of heaven and hell. I'm also using some extracts from Alice Sebolds 'Lovely Bones' .. as a demonstration of heaven being something very individual. I'll take a scoot at Dante and Heinlien too when I go to the library tomorrow - thanks for taking the time to reply, Off
The Pasolini film St Matthew is one of the best films about the Christ story I've seen, and as you rightly say Pasolini was a non-believer. Another film of his which has religious overtones is Theorem, my favourite of his. It's a complex piece but entails the story of a mysterious visitor who turns a family's life upside down. He is a sinister sexual presence, which leads the family to re-evaluate not only their daily life but also their spiritual existence. They also resort to various forms of suffering in order to atone for their sins. Well worth a look. And if you want a descent into hell then there is his film Salo but it's strong stuff and perhaps not a film to spring on your friends. But I would! Failing that there's always Emmerdale on weekday evenings. Now that is hell.
How about the Powell/Pressburger film A Matter Of Life And Death which kind of plays on the heaven idea in a jokey way. Dunno if it's what you're after but heaven is recreated in glorious black and white.
Dennis Potter's Brimstone and Treacle uses the devil character as a source of redemption. A really interesting way of using evil as a form of good, there are two versions, i prefer the original tv version but it's probably the Sting version at your local Blockbuster.
I often think Scorcese's very good at the good versus evil concept especially when these terms get blurred and where evil is necessary to produce a form of good. I think Taxi Driver does this brilliantly and he also made the epic Last Temptation Of Christ based on a novel, the author's name escapes me.
And as previously mentioned Dante's Divine Comedy which combines the Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise. Sounds like an interesting discussion there Moonie, Good Luck and I'll try and think of some books too. Ciao.
Man, i should have read this before I went so i couldn't Use 'Bill and Teds Bogus Journey' as reference - hehehe.
I played the 'Death' scene from Monty Pythons 'Meaning of Life' ... whcih went down like a lead balloon with everyone except me, Masood and Jiwan. Anyhoo - it was an aammmmaaazing discussion, very, very intersting getting all these different perspectives and we're hooking up again next week. I'm dragging along my friend (who is a millitant athiest) as I decide it was stupid to think that an athiest couldn't bring anything valid to the discussion. I'll give an overview of what was discussed when my brain stops throbbing ... and also the reaction to Pasolini's masterpiece .....
Imagine you as a senctient being do not exist, this is exactly what happens, your brain ceases to function, you cease to think, you are no longer. Your consciousness comes to an end and you as a sentient being ends it's existence.
Here it can go 1 of 2 ways :the first is obviously you stay non-existant for eternity, the universe continues on it's endless voyage to reach equilibirum, it become less and less energetic and sooon all the energy in the universe isn't enoug hto fuel your mind for 1 second and you can not possibly exist for any longer and by universe i mean the entire universe including whatever undiscoverred part of physics we may have not encounterred yet.
Limbo of eternal reconstruction.
; the second is if we are wrong about the 2nd law of thermodynamics, the universe continues to be energetic for eternity or a very very long time. Enough time for your body to be pieced back together in the impossible future. EVen if the string theory is correct and your body is dissected into a black hole and the chances of your body coming back together are gain are 1/infinity if time = infinity and the universe maintains it's entropy you must come back together again. This leads on to other ideas about sentience such as the possibility of you talking to an exact replica of yourself and such questions that might arise from such an instance...
Seperated sentience.
This last one concerns the nature of sentience. Let us go back to where I said "Your brain ceases to function". Do you really lose your consciousness. If your brain ceases to function for long enough, is there a possibility that the compnents of your brain can interact with one another still, with the minutests fluctuations in the physical world, yet still permit you as a conscious being to think and exist. Sure you have less power and cannot sense, but there is the possibility you can still think and interact. Your mind will be seperated but you will still exist as a possibility, for eternity or not.
Final agnosticising thoughts, read at your peril!! :O
We all die and find out anyway, no use ponderring about it during our life times. Likewise there is no use constantly trying ot gain pleasure, we should create the conditions of things which allows us to experience consciousness to our greatest degree and create generations of people in the future to do the same. I believe. Freedom of thought or religion?
I've thought of a couple of other films; Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal which discusses our mortality and death makes an appearance in the form of the Grim Reaper, and Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire in which angels descend on the streets of Berlin, and again mortality and death are two of the film's themes.
Well I can't actually think of any films/books to add here as most of those I would have suggested have been mentioned. From a personal point of view, I don't begrudge anyone having a faith, I just really hate it when people try to force it on me. I do believe though that many people use religion as a crutch to help them through difficult times and in extreme cases I feel this is a really unhealthy way of dealing with problems. It's also a convenient way of shirking responsibility if you can claim 'gods will' for everything that goes wrong in your life. The Catholic Church have been responsible for an alarming amount of bloodshed throughout history and have definately used fear of 'hell' as a means of making sure the population submitted to their ideals.
This sounds a fascinating group Moon, keep us posted.
~*~ I'm out of my mind but feel free to leave a message ~*~
Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, comprising "Northern Lights", "The Subtle Knife" and "The Amber Spyglass", enjoyed by children and adults, has caused a bit of a stir in religious circles because of Pullman's depiction of God and Heaven. I won't try to summarise it here, but there are plenty of websites with interesting debates about the trilogy.
I was listening the other morning to a very interesting programme on Radio 4 about Biblical references to hell and the devil. The panel were pretty much as one on the fact that the concept we now have as hell and "Satan" emerged better defined in the new testament after the concept of resurrection of the dead.
In the old testament hell is defined as the abode of the dead and "fallen" angels are more tempters of mankind than outright personifications of evil. They cause men to be proud, deceitful, fornicators, blasphemers etc.
Basically, they taught men how to do all the interesting stuff in life - it was one of these fallen angels that seduced Eve and henceforth made man a much more complete being.
My favourite cultural interpretation of hell and the devil is in South Park: The Movie. How do you get any better than Satan being the homosexual puppet of Saddam Hussein?
quote:Originally posted by space_pirate: I'll be the agnostic, as I am an agnostic!
I believe there are 3 most likely possibilities.
_Non-existence_
Imagine you as a senctient being do not exist, this is exactly what happens, your brain ceases to function, you cease to think, you are no longer. Your consciousness comes to an end and you as a sentient being ends it's existence.
Here it can go 1 of 2 ways :the first is obviously you stay non-existant for eternity, the universe continues on it's endless voyage to reach equilibirum, it become less and less energetic and sooon all the energy in the universe isn't enoug hto fuel your mind for 1 second and you can not possibly exist for any longer and by universe i mean the entire universe including whatever undiscoverred part of physics we may have not encounterred yet.
_Limbo of eternal reconstruction._
; the second is if we are wrong about the 2nd law of thermodynamics, the universe continues to be energetic for eternity or a very very long time. Enough time for your body to be pieced back together in the impossible future. EVen if the string theory is correct and your body is dissected into a black hole and the chances of your body coming back together are gain are 1/infinity if time = infinity and the universe maintains it's entropy you must come back together again. This leads on to other ideas about sentience such as the possibility of you talking to an exact replica of yourself and such questions that might arise from such an instance...
_Seperated sentience._
This last one concerns the nature of sentience. Let us go back to where I said "Your brain ceases to function". Do you really lose your consciousness. If your brain ceases to function for long enough, is there a possibility that the compnents of your brain can interact with one another still, with the minutests fluctuations in the physical world, yet still permit you as a conscious being to think and exist. Sure you have less power and cannot sense, but there is the possibility you can still think and interact. Your mind will be seperated but you will still exist as a possibility, for eternity or not.
Final agnosticising thoughts, read at your peril!! :O
We all die and find out anyway, no use ponderring about it during our life times. Likewise there is no use constantly trying ot gain pleasure, we should create the conditions of things which allows us to experience consciousness to our greatest degree and create generations of people in the future to do the same. I believe. Freedom of thought or religion?
In the old testament hell is defined as the abode of the dead and "fallen" angels are more tempters of mankind than outright personifications of evil. They cause men to be proud, deceitful, fornicators, blasphemers etc.
Basically, they taught men how to do all the interesting stuff in life ...
quote:Originally posted by possum e1: Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, comprising "Northern Lights", "The Subtle Knife" and "The Amber Spyglass", enjoyed by children and adults, has caused a bit of a stir in religious circles because of Pullman's depiction of God and Heaven. I won't try to summarise it here, but there are plenty of websites with interesting debates about the trilogy.
In the old testament hell is defined as the abode of the dead and "fallen" angels are more tempters of mankind than outright personifications of evil. They cause men to be proud, deceitful, fornicators, blasphemers etc.
Basically, they taught men how to do all the interesting stuff in life ...
Brainwashed!
Brainwashed by Radio 4? Me?
Absolutely. I don't go anywhere without being told so on Breakaway, I don't buy anything without knowing its safe to on You and Yours and I couldn't even get out of bed on Monday if I hadn't listened to Start The Week.
I really need to sit down for a few minutes and share some of the ideas (or 'facts', in certain peoples opinions ) that have been discussed over these sessions. The last one one Christian heavy ... like 6 Christians and me (slightly intimidating). I'm completely agnostic, as I've said, but i do find other peoples beliefs fascinating and I do find 'faith' an interesting concept. Some of the people in the group believe they have had very personal experieinces with God .... others just have faith that whats the Bible says is true. I was asked if I believed in love - an intangible thing. I said yes, they looked smug ... but then I told them that I experience love everyday ... then they tried to tell me that was god ... I'm hoping that after Christmas the group will become a little more mixed with representation from more faiths/non-belivers/aggies as I think they may plan a full submersion baptism for me next time i go. I will try and summerise a little of what has been discussed later .... but it's quite hard as the conversation goes off on tangents and the conversation tends to be rather swirly as opposed to nice and neat. They did say, however, that Hitler lived by the beliefs of Buddha ('Believe nothing, no matter who has said, no matter if I have said, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense') ... interesting, headache indcuing, infuriating ... but I know I'll still go to the next one ...
A man once asked if he could visit heaven and hell. When he reached hell, he was amazed to find people seated around a huge banquet table. The finest foods were piled high on the table. “What a feast! Perhaps hell wasn’t so bad after all!” he thought.
Then he looked more closely at the diners. They were all starving! You see, each diner had been given chopsticks which were three feet long! There was no way they could carry the food to their mouths with these long chopsticks. No one could eat a bite.
What a hell indeed, to sit so close to a banquet and yet be unable to taste even a bite.
The man was then taken to heaven to observe life there. To his surprise he saw people seated around a banquet table in exactly the same situation. Each person had been given three foot long chopsticks in heaven too!
But here, everyone was happily eating the delicious food.
The residents of heaven were using their yard long chopsticks to feed each other.
And the moral of the story is don't eat Chinese food.
quote:Originally posted by Andalus: Chinese parable on heaven vs. hell
quote: Heaven and Hell
A man once asked if he could visit heaven and hell. When he reached hell, he was amazed to find people seated around a huge banquet table. The finest foods were piled high on the table. “What a feast! Perhaps hell wasn’t so bad after all!” he thought.
Then he looked more closely at the diners. They were all starving! You see, each diner had been given chopsticks which were three feet long! There was no way they could carry the food to their mouths with these long chopsticks. No one could eat a bite.
What a hell indeed, to sit so close to a banquet and yet be unable to taste even a bite.
The man was then taken to heaven to observe life there. To his surprise he saw people seated around a banquet table in exactly the same situation. Each person had been given three foot long chopsticks in heaven too!
But here, everyone was happily eating the delicious food.
The residents of heaven were using their yard long chopsticks to feed each other.
And the moral of the story is don't eat Chinese food.
The real moral of the story is that Chinese food is best enjoyed in good company.
I'm agnostic too but I reserve the right to have my own philosophy! It goes a little something like this:
1) Souls do exist - in the future they will be scientifically quantifiable once we have the instruments to measure them.
2) A soul is the catalyst that enables our DNA to be read like a computer program.
3) The soul is already identifiable to humans, it is the dark energy that comprises so much of our Universe. We just don't understand its relevance - yet!
4) Upon the death of the physical body, souls are returned to the central "pool" where all experiences are combined.
5) There is no heaven or hell as such, our experiences become mingled with both Mother Theresa and Adolf Hitler regardless of our personal actions in this life.
6) Parts of the dark energy are recycled to become new sentient beings (animal or vegetable) in any part of the Universe that has a use for them - ties in nicely with reincarnation.
Of course, I'm probably wrong, but I think my explanation is as good as any other I've heard so there!
) that have been discussed over these sessions. The last one one Christian heavy ... like 6 Christians and me (slightly intimidating).
It goes a little something like this: