If the soul is immortal, wouldn't it get desensitized to pain in hell or pleasure...

[Braznor]

...in heaven?

This is the fundamental flaw of the old notions of hell and heaven according to my opinion.

Why should it matter at all if the souls of sinners get boiled in the lake of brimstone and fire in hell or if the souls of good people get to experience eternal pleasure? All of them will get desensitized over the treatment already especially since it is 'eternal.'

Since the soul is immortal, why would pain mean anything to the soul of the sinner? At some point or another during the course of its eternal 'suffering' being boiled in oil or lava, that soul will nevertheless become desensitized/dissociated to its punishment?

Pain or Pleasure is relevant only to those which posses a physical body aka pain meaning something detrimental to the physical body of the sinner or pleasure meaning something pleasant to the physical body of the saint.

So why should pain or pleasure matter at all in the afterlife or for that matter hell or heaven?

Note: I'm not discounting the possibility of the existence of the soul here. Instead I'm just trying to reach a conclusion why pain or pleasure should matter to something that is immortal already.

Eg: If I was a sinner and I'm being boiled in hell in a lake of brimestone and fire, I will get used to the suffering eventually and at some point I will give the finger to the Devil and say 'Bring it on Asshole. I'm immortal!'


Note no 2: I'm posting drunk.

 

[mmntech]

I seem to recall the great philosopher Bartholomew Simpson having said something on this. "Wouldn't you just get used to it like a hot bath or something".

I haven't read the bible so I don't know what exactly hell entails. Though I seem to recall that the fire and brimstone, boiling lakes of lava, as a medieval creation. Most religious figures reconcile this as hell being worse than anything the mortal human mind can comprehend. The real punishment seems to be that you're eternally separated from God.

However, some believe that hell is only a temporary state as atonement for mortal sins before going to heaven. This seems to be what Catholics believe. Protestants are the big fire and brimstone, eternal damnation folks.

The same applies for heaven. The concept of heaven from what I understand it is closer to the Buddhist concept of nirvana. You achieve the ultimate peace and know God on a personal level. The real reward is that you're part of his kingdom.

 

[IronWing]

Go read Heinlein's Job: A Comedy of Justice.

 

[coldmeat]

Isn't the idea that hell is perfectly terrible, and heaven is perfectly pleasurable? Once you started getting desensitized to one sort of pain, it would just get switched up into another form of pain (maybe emotional/physical). I think by definition if something is perfectly pleasurable/painful you couldn't get desensitized to it.

 

[Jeff7]

I think that even watching Universes being born and then dying would surely get old after seeing the first few trillion of them.
Eternity's a long time.

Unless your memory remains very finite, such that old experiences are forgotten, and new ones are seen as if for the first time, which is rather unsettling by itself.

 

[akahoovy]

I think that even watching Universes being born and then dying would surely get old after seeing the first few trillion of them.
Eternity's a long time.

Unless your memory remains very finite, such that old experiences are forgotten, and new ones are seen as if for the first time, which is rather unsettling by itself.

Who's to say what the memory of a soul is like? It's another form of existence. Most of us do something over and over again that we like, not because we like the pattern of learning, but because we're looking for new data in the same pattern. And then we have the ability to forget, or inability to remember.

I think the point of an immortal soul was the ease the idea of death, that there was something that would happen after the physical body died.

 

[IronWing]

Mark Twain had a bit to say about the subject as well.

 

[TallBill]

What if jar jar was there with you?

 

[Jeff7]

What if jar jar was there with you?

Even Satan has limits.

 

[ImpulsE69]

It's meant to scare you into submission. Religious people don't think that hard. Shh.

 

[Jaskalas]

Heaven and Hell are here on Earth. With a mix of both it never gets boring.

 

[Howard]

I don't think you could get desensitized to all the perverse activities in Hell, at least as far as we perceive that construct.

 

[Sonikku]

It's probably like the mirror universe of star trek. You're in a chamber where the pain automatically shifts around to something else once you grow desensitized to it.

 

[pmv]

The distressing thing is, I can imagine getting bored with heaven, but not getting used to the horrors of hell. Indeed, generally, I find the latter far easier to conceive of than the former. I fear I'd be quite capable of getting bored, neurotic or otherwise disatisfied in heaven. I mean, if I'm not fed up, disgruntled or anxious then its not really me, and what good is heaven if its not me in it?

I'm worried that this state-of-affairs says something significant.

 

[Rakehellion]

This is probably why hell and heaven don't exist.

 

[BurnItDwn]

There is no heaven. There is no hell. There is no pain or pleasure after death. The soul is not immortal. Consciousness ends when the brain dies.

To think anything different is to believe fairy tales.

 

[webdave]

How about the idea of making it to heaven but having your family/friends in hell. Would you simply not remember them? You wouldn't be in a blissful state knowing your closest family/friends are in eternal agony?

Is there a term for this thought? I've seen it talked about before.

 

[lozina]

Posting this thread guarantees your place in hell! :twisted:

 

[torpid]

I am not sure you would become sensitized to it. Based on how the human body typically works, my guess is the opposite as in the case of a wound. Plus, if hell exists, you are pretty much guaranteed that they know how to cause you pain to which you won't become sensitized.

 

[gorcorps]

...
Note no 2: I'm posting drunk.

I detect few, if any spelling errors so I call bullshit shenanigans all over that statement

 

[MrColin]

A soul is not a biological mechanism with various cells detecting damage and signaling its brain to experience pain, and then gradually becoming overloaded and reducing its experience of pain. The pain of the soul is more akin to that of the apocalyptic boredom of your dead-end job or watching MTV.

I also believe that Jesus did not die for your sins. It is more plausible that any divine comment on the matter, assuming there was one, is that Jesus died because you suck. You dirty apes lack what it takes to escape to the heavens before your sun cooks you all.

It is also plausible that as our cognitive faculties decay at our death, we can experience eternity at some point even though the point may only be a nanosecond of perceived time for the living. During such a time one might experience perfect pain or pleasure during that instant which is experienced as eternity.

The most likely explanation is that nothing happens when we die. Heaven and Hell are the psychological carrot and stick of social control manifested by some religions.

 

[JamesV]

The fundamental flaw in all of this, is believing in a book written by men that claim to have had divine inspiration, or perhaps found golden tablets only they could read.

A soul is a nice idea; something of you that is permanent after death, but without your body, how would you feel pain? The brain processes our pains; without it, there would be no pain.

Hell is the adult's boogeyman.

 

[torpid]

The fundamental flaw in all of this, is believing in a book written by men that claim to have had divine inspiration, or perhaps found golden tablets only they could read.

A soul is a nice idea; something of you that is permanent after death, but without your body, how would you feel pain? The brain processes our pains; without it, there would be no pain.

Hell is the adult's boogeyman.

It would be pain of the soul. Like when you hear your favorite band is in town but you have to work overtime that weekend.

 

[Gintaras]

Who believes in soul immortality and reincarnation, prolly would know - where all extra souls come from....

 

[IronWing]

Who believes in soul immortality and reincarnation, prolly would know - where all extra souls come from....

It's all the same soul, man.