After taking that quiz, I wanted to finish my post, so I didn't bother to read all of the different "levels of hell". But today I am fresh and stopped to look. As I read through them I realized a few interesting points. Like, for example, the deepest level of hell, where everyone is froze solid with no sight or speech, actually wouldn't be much different than living in a place like heaven. I mean, the differences in scenery between heaven and the 9th level of hell become relatively trivial after enough time. Same is same, despite being paradise or darkness. A constant paradise does nothing but skew your view of what is paradise. After some time, what was paradise becomes the average, and with time, the average will eventually become dull. If God forces paradise to always be interesting on to your spirit's psyche, then he's going against his whole "free will" thing, which leaves your "eternal soul" as nothing more than his puppet. Is that truly paradise?
And what about hell. Just as an example, let's pick the fiery burning sulfur filled hole that is the most common view of hell. As with everything, enough exposure will take the "miserable" and make it into average. Ya, it'll probably really suck for the first year or so, but since we're looking at your eternal soul, a year is effectively irrelevant. "But what if you are obliterated in the flame, your eternal soul quenched forever?" I'd suggest that that would be a good thing. Tortured life or quiet non-existence. You wouldn't miss your old consciousness, because you wouldn't have the consciousness required to miss it. Just silent repose. "But what if God makes it so you can't forget the pain?" Well, we come back to the whole free will thing. Alleging that he gave us free will and because we used it for gluttony, or sadness, or wrath, or sloth, etc. He's going to punish us AND take it away so we cannot learn from our mistakes? Only a true sadist, (or someone who is truly vengeful) could even consider such a thing. If that's so, than I feel that despite my fate, I would be sorrowful or slothful (something that doesn't require that I break my morals by hurting someone else) just as an act of civil disobedience to show to the world and God that He doesn't deserve the my worship. Creator or not, anyone who would be truly, purely evil like that, is not the kind of person who I'd give my respect to. "But God is beyond the 'person' qualifier. He is the almighty!" Ya, so? If he could punish people in a way that they could not learn from their mistakes (or be given a chance to change their hearts) then he is nothing more than a vengeful, hypocritical child who has more power than he deserves, and is definitely abusing it.
But, I don't believe in God. I fear not the wrath of God, even if he does exist. I have done my best to be upstanding and just, and although I may have shortcomings, I make strides to improve upon them. Surely He would see that effort (and hopefully my logic for not believing in Him) and would allow me to learn from my errors. I seek no heaven and am prepared for the consequences of oblivion (not that that's hard). When it comes, I can only hope that my efforts here will not have been in vein, but that I will have helped more than I have hurt.
Ok, sappy stuff aside (I must really need more sleep to be writing unmitigated crap like that) my life has been at least adequate. I got a new Ti-89 yesterday, and it is frickin' awesome. With it I'll be able to verify my answers in about 1/10th the time I spent in the past. And because of it's integrated CAS, I can use it to bypass some of my poor concentration when doing homework, and as such, score higher on the final answers of problems (Which really matters in my Circuits I class where that's basically all the credit I get.)
But it came with a dilemma... I stayed up till 1:00 AM patching it and putting all the cool software on it. Now I'm as tired as I get without going unconscious. Not fun.
Now you'll suffer eternal torment!... Ok, not eternal... More like brief torment with long rest periods...
Mood: zzzZZZzzz * How do I feel? ... oink zzzZZZzzz