Okay, lets say heaven and exist. You die, your soul, as you say, goes to either of them, and then, without the body, the soul feels eternal pain or happiness. Now lets see here, in order to feel pain or feel happiness, you definately need somethin physical, nerves and brain chemicals and all dat, so theres my point. Heaven and must be in the physical world, so what does christianity have to say about this?
I don’t know about christianity, but I think that any certified Sadomasicist could tell you that pleasure and pain are purely mental phenominom only coincentialy concorent on certian physical states. It isn’t a logically nessisary connection an can be retrained, as it were.
man emotional pain can that has been observed throughout scientific studies has been known to touch area of the brain (primarily the frontal lobes) that we do not yet understand. I’d say in the next life the pain delt or joy received is far greater than the flesh can suffer from
its a different kind of pain fool
Maybe we have nerves in our soul. There are some things that get close to metaphysical feeling, such as the human energy field, so I imagine that our soul has sensors.
Read your medievalists brother. Heaven is the beatific vision, the eternal viewing of the majesty of God. Pain and pleasure are pale triflings beside this wonderment
Well, if heaven is viewing God in awwllll his mudjestik byewty and wunderment, then whats like? Looking in the other direction?
the opposite, pretty damn bad.
Ya know, why do you need nerves to feel pain, nerves only tell your brain information and have certain sensors, temperature, pressure and some others, i have not yet totally studied this in biology.
I think you are referring precisely to the Bible, you are taking it literally. The Bible is a guideline not to be taken totally seriously. And besides, if there is a God and he is omnipotent, why can’t he make us feel pain? Why can you tell when you feel pleasure or pain? Because your brain tells you that it is either positive or negative for your body. Now, why can’t God stimulate these?
I think Lokei is on to something. Your mind is what interprets what feels good and what doesnt.
Concerning the bible not being taken seriously though, I have one comment. It’s a religious text isn’t it? If you don’t take it seriously, then how are you supposed to have faith in it? I personally don’t take the bible seriously, but I’m not a Christian anyway.
I didn’t say he couldn’t. But in order for him to do so, he has to have a soul in the physical world. With just a lone soul, he can’t do this, because, as you said, “your brain tells you that it is either positive or negative to your body.”
Accidentally did double post.
Read below.
It was a rhetoric question, God can do anything he pleases. Although it has been pointed out, if i am correct. That God could be good and have limited power of be Evil and have much more power.
Yet, it is still arguable which one He chose. Because, you can look at it from the good suffer, or the evil prosper. Now which sounds worse? They each give evidence of one fact on each. But which one is true? You have to have a comparison. So, which action did God take when he chose to be good or evil?
Could this suggest there is no God because it is a idea without a comparison? What is the opposite of God?
Now to feel pain in Hell and pleasure in Heaven, you say that there must be some physical meaningness to this. You could take this on a different perspective. Something physical must have some sort of property otherwise it doesn’t exist. Take the example “Light” the properties of not being able to bend itself, can be reflected etc. Now, dreams… i really don’t understand where they come from. They cannot be touched, just a bunch of chemicals put together to produce an image. But where do you see this image? not through your eyes. It is just a simulation, could that be possibly be Heaven or Hell?
I think i kinda(sic) lost the plot at the end. I apologise.
Amputees feel physical pain where they no longer have a body part.
Regret is a mental pain. An interesting idea I heard about was that everybody goes to hell. If there is a god your going to hell. And what is hell? Well imagine looking back on your life and seeing how it was and then being shown what it could have been. No second chances. Hello eternal hell.
When it comes to personal identity, some would say that all that is needed is a continuity of memory and character. Lose either one and you lose your idenitity. Keep both and you continue.
But realists would say that you must also have physical continuity, that you must continue to physically occupy a continuous physical place in space and time, and that is you lose physical continuity (IE, of your body, or at least of your brain if nothing else) then you lose your identity and are no longer you.
The idea of that man has an eternal soul that is independent of his physical continuity but that would obviously be dependent upon continuity of his memory and character in order for it to be him. would be certainly not in this physical realm. How could it be? He would no longer occupy any point in space or time. It is a dualist philosophy and is conditional upon accepting of the metaphysical. It is metaphysical by definition.
As to pain and suffering, you realize of course that metaphysical pain and suffering versus physical pain and suffering would be …how would I say it…metaphysical??? Since nobody alive can possibly have any experience of the after life (as in after not during) then how could anybody describe or explain metaphysical pain?
But this is only my opinion, I could be wrong.
we receive physical pain through the nerves of our body, this is true. but as many others have already pointed out physical pain is not the only type of pain. in addition, that which pain itself is experienced by, the mind, could be considered the concious expression of the soul, as the soul goes on to the next realm of existence it would take with it the mind, otherwise it could not conciously experience anything. as the nerve centres are only messengers of pain, one of an already identified pair that I have pointed out, it is safe to assume that the nerves themselves are not nessecary to experience pain. all that is nessecary to experience pain is the embodiment of the soul, the concious mind (not the physical brain, but the mind) that recieves the message and messengers to send the pain. It is perfectly conceiveble to believe that god would use types of messengers, other then simply the physical ones we have in this kind of existence, to deliver pain or pleasure through. It is also conceivable that god could create special ones which are far more intense then purely physical sensations.
When we die, I don’t think there is any heaven or hell that we go to. The physical elements get lost in this physical world and the mental thoughts get lost in the Higher Consciousness or God. We register pain through the mind but I believe that the mind also registers something as soon as our physical body gets hurt somewhere or even if we are emotionally hurt. So we register hurt and the mind or God registers hurt too. Perhaps that’s why when things start to get too violent or bad on earth, God sends messengers because He can feel the pain. Whatever, gotta go to work…
This is simple. I’m not sure if your question was limited to the Christian heaven/hell idea, but i will answer it as such. It is because true happiness in heaven is said to be the immense joy of being in God’s presence and that the worst agony imaginable is to be without his presence. These are both emotional feelings. Hell as we think of it now, with fire and brimstone, and heaven with clouds and mist is pretty much from the minds of authors and artists. Mostly from the Renaissance period. I would think that if an after life truly does exist it wouldnt be a place where the physical (appearance, sensations) would bear much importance.
Because we don’t have the answers to so many things regarding the universe and life therefore I believe that our world is an illusion. The spirit world or the Higher Consciousness that knows everything is real or reality. When that reality needs CHANGE vitally and it’s imperative, it takes the form of a body. So, according to how good or how bad a spirit is on earth, accordingly is the life on earth and behaviour too. So it seems that bad behaviour and consequences started from our being on earth initially because the SPIRIT needed change. And gradually earth became hell. And heaven is the spirit world. This would be similar to letting all the prisoners out in a smaller world of their own, something like exhile but not putting them behind bars, so despite the fact that that they would be under confinement, they would still be free to an extent to enjoy the pleasures of life. So they would be in hell but feel it’s heaven too and they would also feel that there is something more powerful than their world because it would be instinctual. I also feel that God send’s messengers on earth to improve the lot and become more humane and understand Him or the spirit world more.
In essence, I’m saying that our world is an illusion and the spirit world is real.
The reason this has to be true is because when things are real, nothing is a secret and we are in control, yet our life and universe is a mystery, therefore, the spirit world that is hidden yet perceived by us and that seems more powerful and seems to be controlling us through fate is what must be real. So our world is a mere phase perhaps! I would also believe the spirit world is superior and in control because we cannot put life inside inanimate matter but the spirit world can. They can breathe life into it and take out too. We only have control over food energy but they have control over both, the food energy and the spiritual energy.
I also feel that after death, in the spirit world, our whole life must rewind through before our eyes like a film, in a jiffy because that is Higher Consciousness but we don’t necessarily have to feel through nerves or chemical affinity or emotions, there might be another way to perceive in that world but perceive we must for we must see the consequences of our subconscious and actions as relating to others’ subconscious and actions to see our fate on earth again. This is also why we are given to making films I believe because it’s inherent in us to do that. Are some of you laughing after reading this? Whatever, I don’t care… 
Guys! Read the above and forget it, I’m just brainstorming please!