Disclaimer: I don't think hell exists and I don't want to scare anyone with this thread. I rather wanted to express my associations with it because due to my education I was once religious.
I was not sure which question should go first. How do you imagine hell or heaven. Hell was earlier in my mind. But maybe someone can now steal his idea from me.
I don't want to scare anyone with hell. I don't believe in hell and I think this concept was probably created because people felt comforted than there was justice in the afterlife. Heaven for the good people and hell for the allegedly evil people. I think wanting to put people who commit suicide into hell would be very cruel and unfair. These people often have suffered for a very long time. It would be quite the opposite of justice. Maybe except of people like Hitler and the Nazis who ctb.
I was raised somewhat religious. We sometimes went to church. I prayed to God. My mom even hit me for that/insulted me for that because I showed OCD behavior while doing that. My grandmother believes in hell I think. When she learned that I am suicidal she said to me. What if if you land in hell for it? My somewhat religious faith exacerbated my pain a lot. I was so scared about hell and had horrible nightmares. I will go into details later. Reading about atheism comforted my a lot. The notion of nothingness after death felt so good. It gave me hope. Instead of this insane notion people who commit suicide get punished for it.
I think religion can help people to deal with hardship. But for me it was quite the opposite. I once met a very religious woman in a clinic. She had major depression for a very long time. She had a necklace with a cross which she oftenhold in her hands. She suffered a lot. She was suicidal and this is why she could not leave the clinic. I think christianity says having doubts in God is normal. It is a part of faith. It is an interesting notion and I could write a whole thread about it. I don't think it is very convincing. For example people with great lives think Oh well I am a great person, I earned all of this. And the poor people must seemingly have done something wrong and they kind of deserve it. Not all people think like that but the notion God rewards us is double is janusfaced. Doubts often come from suffering. But why does God test the suffering people and barely the ones with great lives?
I think I saw hell in my nightmares during my first major depression before I lost my faith. I had often nightmares that I get punished for ctb. They were very vivid these dreams. My bullies at school celebrated with patients from the clinic that I will go to hell for commiting suicde. It was a party at my school and the people spit in my face. They told me you will get in hell for it. Then I woke up. I think my subconscious thought a lot about hell to that time.
But now I try to imagine hell when I am awake several years after this dream. When I think about hell I think of fire or magma. People get tortured in that fire for eternity without dying. This notion to suffer forever is for me interesting. I had a debate with a friend of mine. He likes living and enjoys it. He is rather anxious that he dies early. I asked him the question if you could live forever with your current health would you go for it. He agreed on it. I told him I think this is a bad deal. Imagine a life without death. We don't talk about living 1000 years. Not 100.000 years. Not 10 trillion years. No it really is forever. We said the earth would still exist in this thought experiment. But I think living forever was probably torturous. I think we are not programmed for that. Though I don't argument for an early death. I could imagine if the health of a person was well, the conditions to live also very well I think people could enjoy living for 200 years without much pain. But of course the circumstances would have to be right. Our technology is far away from that. I think people who had a fulfiling and long life probably can say goodbye to this world with way less pain.
Maybe this was a little bit off-topic. I wanted to demonstrate that the notion one would be in hell forever is in itself a horrible concept because eternal existence sounds scary. Very scary to me. In some way the fact that our time is limited makes life special. We have the feeling to make the best of it because of this fact. However when I was young this idea tortured me. The notion yes my life is ruined forever. I suffer daily and I cannot change that. One only has one life- one chance and mine is ruined. Yeah this felt horrible for me. But my thinking has changed. My current mood is rather the goal of sublimation. I am not 100% sure if it fits what I mean but I have a certain image in my head. Using my time to achieve something no matter how bad I feel. People have created and were admired for it despite they had horrible lives. This notion comforted me more than this one life, one chance imagination. The thought using my suffering to create something feels better for me.
I notice I ramble a lot. Probably because I don't want to scare people with my notion of hell. One could argue existence forever is different to living a life as a human forever. This could be true. I sometimes think maybe I am already in hell. My life feels so cyncial, kafkaesque and nightmarish sometimes/often. On the other hand this thought is kind of solipsistic. I am not the only one who suffers in an existential way. One very self-absorbed thought I have is: maybe I am living in a simulation and the simulation has the goal to torture me. And some more powerful beings watch my life and laugh about it. I think this scenario is kind of unlikely. But the cynicism that my life contains led me to this thought.
I cannot think about a better description of hell. Maybe you have something more sophisticated to say about it. Maybe the thought itself is rather negative but I am pretty sure I am not the only one in this forum who sometimes thinks yes my life resembles hell.
I was not sure which question should go first. How do you imagine hell or heaven. Hell was earlier in my mind. But maybe someone can now steal his idea from me.
I don't want to scare anyone with hell. I don't believe in hell and I think this concept was probably created because people felt comforted than there was justice in the afterlife. Heaven for the good people and hell for the allegedly evil people. I think wanting to put people who commit suicide into hell would be very cruel and unfair. These people often have suffered for a very long time. It would be quite the opposite of justice. Maybe except of people like Hitler and the Nazis who ctb.
I was raised somewhat religious. We sometimes went to church. I prayed to God. My mom even hit me for that/insulted me for that because I showed OCD behavior while doing that. My grandmother believes in hell I think. When she learned that I am suicidal she said to me. What if if you land in hell for it? My somewhat religious faith exacerbated my pain a lot. I was so scared about hell and had horrible nightmares. I will go into details later. Reading about atheism comforted my a lot. The notion of nothingness after death felt so good. It gave me hope. Instead of this insane notion people who commit suicide get punished for it.
I think religion can help people to deal with hardship. But for me it was quite the opposite. I once met a very religious woman in a clinic. She had major depression for a very long time. She had a necklace with a cross which she oftenhold in her hands. She suffered a lot. She was suicidal and this is why she could not leave the clinic. I think christianity says having doubts in God is normal. It is a part of faith. It is an interesting notion and I could write a whole thread about it. I don't think it is very convincing. For example people with great lives think Oh well I am a great person, I earned all of this. And the poor people must seemingly have done something wrong and they kind of deserve it. Not all people think like that but the notion God rewards us is double is janusfaced. Doubts often come from suffering. But why does God test the suffering people and barely the ones with great lives?
I think I saw hell in my nightmares during my first major depression before I lost my faith. I had often nightmares that I get punished for ctb. They were very vivid these dreams. My bullies at school celebrated with patients from the clinic that I will go to hell for commiting suicde. It was a party at my school and the people spit in my face. They told me you will get in hell for it. Then I woke up. I think my subconscious thought a lot about hell to that time.
But now I try to imagine hell when I am awake several years after this dream. When I think about hell I think of fire or magma. People get tortured in that fire for eternity without dying. This notion to suffer forever is for me interesting. I had a debate with a friend of mine. He likes living and enjoys it. He is rather anxious that he dies early. I asked him the question if you could live forever with your current health would you go for it. He agreed on it. I told him I think this is a bad deal. Imagine a life without death. We don't talk about living 1000 years. Not 100.000 years. Not 10 trillion years. No it really is forever. We said the earth would still exist in this thought experiment. But I think living forever was probably torturous. I think we are not programmed for that. Though I don't argument for an early death. I could imagine if the health of a person was well, the conditions to live also very well I think people could enjoy living for 200 years without much pain. But of course the circumstances would have to be right. Our technology is far away from that. I think people who had a fulfiling and long life probably can say goodbye to this world with way less pain.
Maybe this was a little bit off-topic. I wanted to demonstrate that the notion one would be in hell forever is in itself a horrible concept because eternal existence sounds scary. Very scary to me. In some way the fact that our time is limited makes life special. We have the feeling to make the best of it because of this fact. However when I was young this idea tortured me. The notion yes my life is ruined forever. I suffer daily and I cannot change that. One only has one life- one chance and mine is ruined. Yeah this felt horrible for me. But my thinking has changed. My current mood is rather the goal of sublimation. I am not 100% sure if it fits what I mean but I have a certain image in my head. Using my time to achieve something no matter how bad I feel. People have created and were admired for it despite they had horrible lives. This notion comforted me more than this one life, one chance imagination. The thought using my suffering to create something feels better for me.
I notice I ramble a lot. Probably because I don't want to scare people with my notion of hell. One could argue existence forever is different to living a life as a human forever. This could be true. I sometimes think maybe I am already in hell. My life feels so cyncial, kafkaesque and nightmarish sometimes/often. On the other hand this thought is kind of solipsistic. I am not the only one who suffers in an existential way. One very self-absorbed thought I have is: maybe I am living in a simulation and the simulation has the goal to torture me. And some more powerful beings watch my life and laugh about it. I think this scenario is kind of unlikely. But the cynicism that my life contains led me to this thought.
I cannot think about a better description of hell. Maybe you have something more sophisticated to say about it. Maybe the thought itself is rather negative but I am pretty sure I am not the only one in this forum who sometimes thinks yes my life resembles hell.
Last edited:
