At the risk of upsetting Goat by talking about "The Wrong Bragg" again, todays BBC Radio 4 "In our Time" with Melvyn Bragg had an absolutely fascinating history of Hell. Amongst other things it described how it went from a place of interminable boredom, through an icy stage, and also what the current image of fire owes to Jerusalem's municipal rubbish dump.
It's accessible through the usual BBC listen-again route. Or via:
http://www.bbc.co.uk//radio4/history/inourtime/index.shtml (http://www.bbc.co.uk//radio4/history/inourtime/index.shtml)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime.shtml (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime.shtml)
(Hope the links work outside the UK; sometimes there are copyright reasons why they are blocked).
you know there is nothing you can do to upset me. I am very placid and serene.......
.......The worst that will happen is you will get another hug ;D
Sounds interesting though and the BBC should be available unless we have any North Korean, Zimbabwean or Chinese siblings.
Interesting. I got through half of it before Frankenputer got tired of making sounds...i'll try again when it's fresh.
Hell, to be the Biblical hell, is eternal separation from God. The supernatural hell? The descriptive hell? Now that's a different story!
Hell's always an interesting subject of study. You have the Hebrew Sheoul (grave). You have the Greek Underworld and Tartarous. Then you have the Norse underworld, presided over by Loki's daughter-goddess, Hel. Some Buddhist sects have a concept of Hell as a particularly exhausting dimension. The Islamic Hell is only temporary, where its inhabitants can eventually come back to Allah.
Egyptians didn't seem to have Hell, but simply nonexistance to look forward to if you were found lacking. Though that goes with the more Biblical idea of eternal separation from God.
The trash pit was called Gehenna if I remember correctly. NOw its a very lush valley if I recall.
Just some rambling disconnected bits of stuff that I know about the various Hells.
I know this is a serious discussion, but it reminds me of something I've read some time ago:
The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.
Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools off when it expands and heats up when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:
"First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate that souls are moving into Hell and the rate they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.
As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell.
With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added. This gives two possibilities:
1) If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2) If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over. So which is it?
If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year, "...that it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you", and take into account the fact that I still have not succeeded in having an affair with her, then #2 above cannot be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and will not freeze over."
THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY "A".
Sorry to interrupt your discussion, but I had to. Go on...
Quote from: Carl Ne the Shoeman on December 23, 2006, 04:13:43 AM
The trash pit was called Gehenna if I remember correctly.
Yep, that was pretty much what the program said. The trash pit was prone to bursting into flame and the idea got absorbed into Judaism as a place of everlasting fire. Apparently Hell took off in Christianity when it became a proselytizing religion. As in "Things are going to get
really bad for you, but there is a way out if you change your ways...".
Goat, BBC stuff is sometimes not accessible from overseas even without censorship; mainly stuff in different states of copyright, like current live bands and stuff. Think it's quite rare, but there have been complaints about it.
Kiyo, There's a similar proof that Heaven is hotter than Hell.
Is Heaven hotter than Hell?
The temperatures of Heaven and of Hell are not given specifically in the Bible. That may be because the various temperature scales (Fahrenheit, Celsius, Rankin and Kelvin) were not created by the 1st century CE. However, there is sufficient data available to calculate the temperature of Heaven. The maximum temperature of Hell can also be determined.
Heaven's temperature: Isaiah 30:26 states: "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days." One individual interpreted this passage as meaning that the radiation received by Heaven from the sun is 7 times 7 or 49 times as much as the earth does today. 1 Added to that is the contribution of the moon which would equal the present amount that the earth receives from the sun. Thus Heaven would receive (49 + 1) or 50 times the radiation as the earth does today. The Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation links the temperature of an object with the amount of radiation received. It would predict that the temperature of heaven would be 498 degrees Celsius hotter than the earth is currently. Thus heaven would be about 525 °C or 977 °F.
However, this temperature would only be the "steady-state" temperature. Presumably Heaven was created shortly after Earth so that it would be ready for its first inhabitants: Abel, Adam and Eve. Revelation 21:17 says that the walls of New Jerusalem are 144 cubits thick. This is about 66 meters or 216 feet. Such a thick wall would be an effective insulator. Heaven would thus have taken many months to reach its equilibrium temperature. But it presumably has reached about 525 °C today.
Hell's Temperature: Revelation 21:8 states "But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." Brimstone is sulphur. In order for sulphur to be molten, its temperature must be at or below 444.6 °C or 832 °F.
Thus heaven is at least 80 °C or 145 °F hotter than Hell. Assuming that the glorified bodies that the inhabitants have in Heaven are as sensitive to heat as our present earthly bodies, then they would suffer greatly; Heaven would become worse than Hell. Since that cannot happen, due to theological considerations, Heaven must have some very effective methods of air conditioning to handle the excess incoming radiation.
Shoeman that is the finest post I have read in a l;ong time. Cheers!
Mmm, the temperature of hell... interesting and cool postings by Kiyo and Shoeman.
Any way, on a more cynic note, I do think that hell is here and now, particularly for the billions of people currently hungry or in the middle of a war. It has always been a mystery to me how some people needs a place of suffering when so many people already is. :(
The people that demand there be such a place of suffering generally aren't suffering here.
A temperature difference between heaven and hell could be the process that drives the mills of God (those are proverbially slow but thorough). This might indicate a great total flow but only a minor difference in T.
One would also assume that Heaven is in the ultraviolet (the splendour) and hell in the infrared (dull glow), also leading to the conclusion that the flow is from heaven to hell (part of hells radiation being secondary emission due to heavenly input).
Some tradition says that the fire that burns the souls in hell provides the needs for the souls in heaven again hinting at a thermodynamic circular process (Carnot or Stirling?).
Is the icy hell tradition actually describing the cooling system of this engine? This would explain the paradox that the Norse souls in ice/water hell walk through icy water but have burning drops from snakes (snake coil coolers?) falling on their head (condensing vapour giving off the enthalpy of evaporation?).
Seriously, the Valley of Hinnom (Gehenna) is also considered the place where children were sacrificed to Baal by fire in a ritual called a Molk => Moloch may not be drived from Melik (king) but from this type of total (burning) sacrifice [greek: Holocaust].
An influence on the expected temperature of hell may be the climatic conditions under wich the believers live. In the North the cold is the enemy as is the darkness of winter, so severe punishment would naturally involve both. In the South heat and drought play this role of threat and there hell tends to be a hot and often dusty place where you can't get a decent drink. I have read that the first missionaries trying to convert the Inuit had to stop the use of their standard description of hell very fast because these Esquimaux loved the idea of a place where it is never cold and preferred to go there instead of heaven.
Quote from: Carl Ne the Shoeman on December 24, 2006, 05:09:44 PMHeaven's temperature: Isaiah 30:26 states: "Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days." One individual interpreted this passage as meaning that the radiation received by Heaven from the sun is 7 times 7 or 49 times as much as the earth does today.
I'd dispute that Isaiah 30:26 is actually referring to Heaven (as opposed to earth) in context, but for the sake of speculation.....
What if it's referring to a planet in a (lopsided) binary star system? Might also be consistent with a planet whose period of rotation is 168 hours.
The quote in Shoe's post looks like it's from the KJV or similar; the NIV gives the quote as "The moon will shine like the sun, and
the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the LORD binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted."
What if it's a far future description of an expanding Sun?
QuoteSome Buddhist sects have a concept of Hell as a particularly exhausting dimension.
QuoteAny way, on a more cynic note, I do think that hell is here and now, particularly for the billions of people currently hungry or in the middle of a war. It has always been a mystery to me how some people needs a place of suffering when so many people already are.
Compatible ideas, no?
Quote from: Agujjim on January 05, 2007, 03:27:58 PMCompatible ideas, no?
Indeed, under my understanding of Buddhism, it makes a lot of sense, more so given that nirvana is precisely
permanently leaving this place.
Kiyoodle...Thank you for making my day and putting a smile on my face :) That was great!
As for the discussion at hand, I remember reading a year ago about one Buddhist theory about the after life and that when a Buddhist dies he passes onto a new 'world' or 'realm' these 'realms' (If i remember correctly there were 7) differ dramatically between eachother, there is a realm of greed and a realm of wealth, you get the general idea, and of all these places, Earth is supposed to be the best. So I suppose what I am saying is that Earth has big problems yes, but there are far worse places by this belief. Relevant?
Actually Gloria, there are six realms, which are six divisions of the possible states of rebirth in traditional Buddhist cosmology. They represent all the possibilities, good and bad, of life in saṃsāra ("continuous movement" or "continuous flowing"). They include rebirth as a deva (non-human beings who share the characteristics of being more powerful, longer-lived, and, in general, living more contentedly than the average human being; aka "gods"), an asura (lowest ranks of the deities of the Kāmadhātu), a human being, an animal, a preta (hungry ghost - supernatural being that undergoes more than human suffering, especially extreme hunger and thirst), or a being in Naraka (hell).
The ranking of the realms may differ among different Buddhist traditions; for instance, some traditions place the Asura realm second, before the Human realm.
As you can imagine, the Deva realm is the highest ranked realm, and as such could be seen as the "best" and the one a Buddhist could aspire the most (and very difficult to reach).
ha...Well I was a little off...
Temperature may be a concept merely invented by humans in order to better define heaven and hell. When was temperature first conceived?
For years, I had a serious problem with the whole basic concept of "hell".
How could a good Creator even conceive of such a place?
I found it impossible to reconcile a Good Creator and Eternal Torture Pit.
Then, I read a book, "Inferno" by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. It was an interesting read, but the main points I got from it were two.
1. Hell is simply the last attempt of the Creator to get the Attention of the Damned. People ended up in Hell, because they believed they deserved to. Not because they were Judged and sent there. Hell was the place for people who could not permit themselves to dwell in Heaven, through Guilt. (notice anything missing?)
2. Hell was not inescapably forever. In fact, the "job" of one of the main characters was to guide people out of Hell--once they became aware of condition 1, and sought escape.
It is well worth reading, I think. It's a pretty deep book--and pretty graphic. Not for the faint-livered.
Quote from: Griffin NoName The Watson of Sherlock on January 21, 2007, 01:47:11 AM
Temperature may be a concept merely invented by humans in order to better define heaven and hell. When was temperature first conceived?
I think in the scientific sense that honour belongs to Cavendish.
Before that it was mainly complaints about how* hot/cold it was.
*quality not quantity