Yes and no. I want to be a friendly, helpful, compassionate person. But I want to for evil, that is I want it to come out my heart unconstrained, I don't want to be that way via a moral code. I want to be that way for myself, acting selfishly. If that makes sense...
I vowed, and so did you: Beyond this wall- we would make it through.
x3 Perhaps that might have been motivated by want for attracting support. But while "doing good" helps build a better society, it doesn't really answer the matter in question.
"...is a straight out guideline to go to heaven or hell. THAT IS NOT HOW IT WORKS, heaven and hell are only metaphors for our own species' state as a social group. "
That's an oversimplification of metaphysics, IMO. Why would they be metaphors?
It's not really about moral code but about your own character, I would say.
edited 8th Apr '12 7:03:55 PM by abstractematics
Now using Trivialis handle.I want to make it absolutely clear that "just" is a key word in the title of this thread. If you have other reasons for wanting to change who you are, and those reasons are valid, then by all means go ahead and change. But if your only reason for wanting to change something about yourself is that you've been told to believe it means the difference between having a good afterlife and not having one? I do not consider that to be a good enough reason on its own.
For example: Suppose you are a male from one of those Christian dnominations who condemns homosexuality, and you used to be entirely straight but have suddenly found yourself sexually attracted to other males. If you don't like it for your own personal reasons (e.g. you just find it plain disgusting) then yeah, maybe you should find ways to make yourself straight again. But what about if you have absolutely no reasoning other than your fellow congregation members telling you you'll go to hell if you don't become straight again before you die? What would you do then?
edited 8th Apr '12 7:09:03 PM by Fuschlatz
I should note that, at least by Catholic doctrine, being homosexual is not a sin, despite what the more ignorant would tell you.
edited 8th Apr '12 7:08:00 PM by 0dd1
Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.The main problem with this is that a person shouldn't try to be good just to get into heaven. A person should be good because it's the right thing to do, i.e., don't be a dick, respect other people, help the downtrodden, don't lie, don't exploit other people, that stuff. I can't fathom the idea of someone willfully saying "I want to be evil, because fuck good, man!", because we all think that what we do is the correct thing to be done.
Sure, I was simplifying a bit for the sake of not making it a wall of text, but what I mean is that, while "Heaven, Hell, whatever" help answer the question, what comes after life, the concept of "Place of eternal bliss and joy and rainbows" or "fiery pit of death" are more applicable to our own species and civilization as a whole, which, eventually, is used a lot to try and make people do good, because people are assholes, and unless you threaten them directly, they won't do shit.
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See, the problem with the notion of "just going to heaven" pretty much means you're doing all the good you did for selfish reasons, not because you actually give a damn about everyone else. Does that make you a good person?
Of course, it goes the other way around. You have the best ideas in the world and you constantly tell people to do good and all that, but all you do is be a colossal asshole to everyone everywhere. That's not good at all.
That is true. I'm gay and I assist to my church often.
edited 8th Apr '12 7:15:15 PM by ThatOneGuyNamedX
I could tell, though it came off a bit more as a critique on the concept of heaven, and religion and whatnot.
Oh, also, I'm following you on the twitter thing now. Just because.
Dammit, It's way later than I expected. as much as I'd like to continue this little discussion (DISCLAIMER: I mean this in a good way, not as in "I'm pissed off at all of you"), I've got classes tomorrow real early. I'll leave that post up there as my foreword for tonight.
edited 8th Apr '12 7:18:53 PM by ThatOneGuyNamedX
@Fuschlatz
I think that even if you started out with that reason, as you mature, you change and develop to understand that it's not that simple.
While "just" sounds shallow and selfish, perhaps this is your great desire and wish. And to have a genuine wish is understandable. But then you see that that your own "getting into heaven" is not the whole picture. You see that there are other people too. You develop a heart that isn't selfish, even if your desire was initially.
@That One Guy
IMO, you're talking about two different things: the reality of heaven/hell issue, and people's social reactions and responses. They're not the same. How the civilization develops is what people thinks of the truth of the matter and not the matter itself.
I too agree with your statement, "The main problem with this is that a person shouldn't try to be good just to get into heaven. A person should be good because it's the right thing to do." But that doesn't discount the actuality of heaven itself.
If I don't post after this for the rest of today, it's because of my Internet connection acting up and making it hard to browse Tropes.
edited 8th Apr '12 7:58:58 PM by abstractematics
Now using Trivialis handle.Unlike pretty much everyone above me, I don't really have any complex, elaborate beliefs on the subject, except to say I don't honestly care about gaining a reward or evading punishment. What's right is right, regardless of the consequences. Whether I go to Heaven or Hell is irrelevent. As for changing myself, I don't really see my "self" as a thing, but I'm willing to change it to do the right thing.
edited 8th Apr '12 9:34:46 PM by randomtropeloser
That's not really how heaven and hell are understood in standard Christian theology, I think.
Heaven, or part of it, is being yourself — yourself as you were meant to be, free of all the crusts of sin and imperfection. And yes, I would be quite happy in a heaven in which I would not be "allowed" to be greedy or envious or lazy or so on. I don't want to be these things anyway, although due to my fallen nature I end up being so more often than I'd like.
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas./shrug/
As far as I'm concerned, we're human. Humans have flaws. I try to do my best in life, but I don't believe there's any sort of afterlife coming when I die, except that I described in my first post here.
You either leave the world a better place than it was when you came into it, or you make it worse. I intend to do everything I can to leave it a better one - not out of some hope based in religion or spirituality, but purely because I believe it's the right thing to do. I guess I'm a humanist, in the end. Or a transhumanist.
Though the details about Catholic heaven and hell in this thread are definitely things I didn't know before. My experience with Christianity has primarily been Evangelical, and extremely negative and narrow-minded. I have a great many reservations about organised religion in general, but that's for another time.
"Lock up your girlfriends, lock up your wives, Grim's on the loose so run for your lives." - Pyrite@That One Guy Named X (from post 9):
And "heaven" and "hell" do exist, I think, although of course not as physical places. They are spiritual states; but that's something a bit different from a "state of mind" in the shallow sense of "I'm feeling happy/sad".
And of course, Catholics do believe in the Last Judgment and the physical Resurrection, and the world after it will definitely count as a physical Heaven.
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.Perhaps one could say that our main task, as human beings, is to strive to turn earth into a province of heaven — at least, that's how I understand the whole "Kingdom of God" narrative.
But I cannot agree that heaven and hell are only "metaphors for our own species' state as a social group": rather, I could say that our societies' states can be used as metaphors for heaven and hell.
EDIT: Oh wow, I am now playing "conservative Catholic" to X's "liberal* Catholic". That's pretty unique — generally, my theological positions are considered ludicrously liberal and modernist, at least over here...
edited 9th Apr '12 12:37:41 AM by Carciofus
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.I would have to say no, but that is mostly because I almost hope that after we die we don't just go to heaven or hell, and if given the choice between the two I'd obviously rather go to heaven, but even so, I've been reluctant towards the idea of heaven for awhile. It's supposed to be "everything you've ever wanted" but being up there for all eternity just does not sound good to me. I'd rather just be born into a new life with no memory of a previous one, aka reincarnation.
My PM box is always open to anyone who wants to talk/vent.I dunno if you have read The Great Divorce: but it presents a number of convincing imaginary scenarios of why people might want to refuse heaven even with a pretty thorough understanding of what heaven is (or might be).
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.I wouldn't change myself to get into heaven. I'd change heaven to get into myself. Nom! :3
Seriously though, I believe that religion is the product of humanity, not the other way around. So when your consciousness escapes your body, it either reincarnates, or creates an experience that it perceives as the correct afterlife.
Standing on the edge of the crater...I know, and if Heaven and Hell is really where we go when we die, I meant I'd rather go to Heaven, not that I necessarily get the choice. I know some of the choices I've made thus far can be considered by many, and probably by some inclinations the bible, so if Heaven/Hell are our only possible destinations in the afterlife, I dont really know where If end up, especially since I have never asked that my "sins" be forgiven.
My PM box is always open to anyone who wants to talk/vent.I'm not religious, I don't believe in an afterlife or divine beings or their judgements. But I do see why concepts like Heaven and Hell can be taken as allegorys for the state of mankind and that's how I personally take them.
For me, "Heaven" is about growth and improvements, about being a better person and making the world a better place. Ultimatley, Heaven is being at peace, being happy and content, freedom from being without. As people are by nature imperfect "Heaven", or whatever you call it, is something that will always be one step beyond where we can go, but the aim of the game is to strive for it because it is worth striving for.
And let us pray that come it may (As come it will for a' that)My definition of heaven:
IMHO, heaven isn't about being in paradise; it's about being in the presence of the all powerful, all loving god who created you. Hell isn't about "FIRE BURN", it's about seeing the all powerful, all loving god who created you, and saying to him, "I reject your reality, and substitute my own!"
Go play Kentucky Route Zero. Now.

I fail to see why it has to be one or the other; I weigh everything on a case-by-case basis.
Incidentally, it's why I confuse some people when it comes to my relationship with them, because they have certain expectations of me based on how we interacted in the past, while I deal with all but the people closest to me almost entirely on their current actions.
Cynics are optimists that have become used to disappointment.