Maybe the human soul goes where it belongs or where it feels comfortable and right — be it hell’, ‘heaven’, somewhere in between (etcetera)?
Many people believe/fear they will eventually get bored in any eternal afterlife. However, if corporeal death totally relieves us from time — i.e., all-encompassing physical motion — there should be no boredom in the afterlife, perhaps even while playing the harp.
A lot of people fear a negative experience or hellish spiritual existence in the hereafter. When despised public figures or once-celebrated people die, a plethora of social media posts will assert that those terrible people/souls must be (or at least we hope they are) in some section of Dante’s Inferno or Hell, etcetera.
Yet, perhaps when all of us die, we lose that (corporeal) need for ultimate justice, which of course is suffered by the other guy.
Perhaps the spirit or consciousness is 100 percent liberated from the purely cerebrally based anxiety, agitation and contempt that may have actually blighted much of its physical existence. Therefore, free of the corporeal shell, the soul may be wondering, ‘Why was I so angry, so much of the time? Oh, the things I said! ... I really hope I didn't do damage while I was there’. ...
A few decades ago, I (raised Catholic though not practicing) learned from two Latter Day Saints missionaries that their church’s doctrine teaches that the biblical ‘lake of fire’ meant for the truly wicked actually represents an eternal spiritual burning of guilt over one’s corporeal misdeeds. I cavalierly thought and said: “That’s it? Our punishment is our afterlife's guilty conscience?”
During the many years since then, however, I’ve discovered just how formidable intense guilt can be. I’ve also considered and decided that our brain's structural/chemical flaws are what we basically are while our soul is confined within our physical, bodily form. The human soul may be inherently good on its own; but trapped within the physical body, notably the corruptible brain, oftentimes the soul’s purity may not be able to shine through.
Ergo, upon the multi-murderer's physical death, not only would they be 100 percent liberated from the anger and hate that blighted their physical life; their spirit or consciousness would also be forced to exist with the presumably unwanted awareness of the immense amount of needless suffering they personally had caused.
Thanks for weighing in! What you lay out here sounds a lot like some of the philosophies that were floating around even in the first century, like those of Plato. I like what N.T. Wright says though, the Bible doesn't say much about life after death, but about life after life after death. So, our hope is not in being a disembodied spirit (though God's people will rest with him in that disembodied state), but in bodily resurrection from the dead to inherit the world to come (1 Corinthians 15; 2 Corinthians 5; Romans 8). Whatever state of consciousness or unconsciousness we are in in death, that is not our final state or our ultimate hope.
Thank you both for this sober, mature, hope filled conversation.
Thank you, sister!
Thank you
Maybe the human soul goes where it belongs or where it feels comfortable and right — be it hell’, ‘heaven’, somewhere in between (etcetera)?
Many people believe/fear they will eventually get bored in any eternal afterlife. However, if corporeal death totally relieves us from time — i.e., all-encompassing physical motion — there should be no boredom in the afterlife, perhaps even while playing the harp.
A lot of people fear a negative experience or hellish spiritual existence in the hereafter. When despised public figures or once-celebrated people die, a plethora of social media posts will assert that those terrible people/souls must be (or at least we hope they are) in some section of Dante’s Inferno or Hell, etcetera.
Yet, perhaps when all of us die, we lose that (corporeal) need for ultimate justice, which of course is suffered by the other guy.
Perhaps the spirit or consciousness is 100 percent liberated from the purely cerebrally based anxiety, agitation and contempt that may have actually blighted much of its physical existence. Therefore, free of the corporeal shell, the soul may be wondering, ‘Why was I so angry, so much of the time? Oh, the things I said! ... I really hope I didn't do damage while I was there’. ...
A few decades ago, I (raised Catholic though not practicing) learned from two Latter Day Saints missionaries that their church’s doctrine teaches that the biblical ‘lake of fire’ meant for the truly wicked actually represents an eternal spiritual burning of guilt over one’s corporeal misdeeds. I cavalierly thought and said: “That’s it? Our punishment is our afterlife's guilty conscience?”
During the many years since then, however, I’ve discovered just how formidable intense guilt can be. I’ve also considered and decided that our brain's structural/chemical flaws are what we basically are while our soul is confined within our physical, bodily form. The human soul may be inherently good on its own; but trapped within the physical body, notably the corruptible brain, oftentimes the soul’s purity may not be able to shine through.
Ergo, upon the multi-murderer's physical death, not only would they be 100 percent liberated from the anger and hate that blighted their physical life; their spirit or consciousness would also be forced to exist with the presumably unwanted awareness of the immense amount of needless suffering they personally had caused.
Thanks for weighing in! What you lay out here sounds a lot like some of the philosophies that were floating around even in the first century, like those of Plato. I like what N.T. Wright says though, the Bible doesn't say much about life after death, but about life after life after death. So, our hope is not in being a disembodied spirit (though God's people will rest with him in that disembodied state), but in bodily resurrection from the dead to inherit the world to come (1 Corinthians 15; 2 Corinthians 5; Romans 8). Whatever state of consciousness or unconsciousness we are in in death, that is not our final state or our ultimate hope.