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but it could work as inspiration if you guys wanna write a poem based on this idea. I know I might. If you guys wanna suggest any readings/poems based on this idea or similar ideas I'd love to check those out. Would like to hear what you guys think about this argument:
If a lifetime amounts to one eternity, and Hell
is an eternity of torment, then a lifetime
of torment is Hell. If the conditions we produce
are exploitative of our siblings,
then Hell is our creation, born from our
divided imagination. Satan walks among us
but so does God;
if a lifetime amounts to one eternity, and Heaven
is an eternity of bliss, then a lifetime
of bliss is Heaven. If the conditions we produce
meet the needs of our siblings,
then Heaven is our creation, born from our
collective imagination.
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well collective imagination embraces envy, jealousy and so on. celebrates them.
divided imagination creates the conflict that produces posts like this.
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As a Christian, I tell people that I trust atheists more than any Christian because they don't just believe whatever is told them. A true revelation is undeniable, doubt is critical for the unbelievable. I don't believe a lifetime is an eternity so the rest doesn't work. To believe it seems crazy. Heaven? Hell? What are you talking about?
Peanut butter honey banana sandwiches
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you believe what you believe long enough to keep you and yours alive.
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sure, i think a collective imagination can "celebrate" these qualities through art if that's what you mean, but I'm not sure if these qualities are useful in building a world based on meeting the needs of each other
the conflict that a divided imagination creates is the one we've been in the middle of for centuries. i think everything we put into the world is bound to be produced by this conflict in some way
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I have to agree with CRNDLSM in that a "lifetime " by almost any definition is not an "eternity ." Your idea might be better served by putting a lifetime in its proper place, eternity next.
The idea is fine, but has its kinks.
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art isnt much to a perfect world.
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(10-13-2021, 07:22 AM)CRNDLSM Wrote: As a Christian, I tell people that I trust atheists more than any Christian because they don't just believe whatever is told them. A true revelation is undeniable, doubt is critical for the unbelievable. I don't believe a lifetime is an eternity so the rest doesn't work. To believe it seems crazy. Heaven? Hell? What are you talking about? i think i'm more agnostic. i say a lifetime is an eternity because we don't really know where we came from before birth or where do we go after death. so in a way it's like our lives have no beginning or end. our beginning starts with our earliest memories but even those are foggy until our consciousness sharpens enough to fully understand this present moment. and the earliest memories about ourselves, before the ones we can remember, belong to the people who birthed and reared us. i don't believe in the christian idea of heaven or hell and i don't like the purpose of the idea's existence though
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It seems as though life is the continuous simultaneous interactions of and between both divided and collective imaginations. Surely some actions are neutral, what is neutral? Reimagine 'needs' and exploitation is then impossible
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(10-13-2021, 07:40 AM)rowens Wrote: art isnt much to a perfect world. art is communication and expression and i don't think a perfect world will ever exist, whatever that is. im sure that even a world that is focused on meeting each other's needs will be imperfect. i think art is everything to humanity, and humanity takes on many shapes
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humanity is an artform?
is that your language.
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um it can be? as in it can be expressed in different ways
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well, thats your task, man.
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I don't know if this is relevant but reading your your post kept taking me back to the Australian film Noise (2007), where the main character says this:
“Anyway, what I read was, the brain keeps working for a few minutes after you’re dead. So my theory is that...Heaven or hell Is whatever you’re thinking then, in those milli- or nanoseconds between your body dying and your brain dying. That's the eternity everyone's talking about...What you remember. Your life, basically: How you lived it, your regrets, who you loved, who loved you.
How you remember, you know, whatever, that's all in there. So if you are a fuckwit...then when you die, in those 10 seconds between your brain dying and your body dying, your brain remembers over and over again all the times you were a fuckwit. And all these endorphins and stuff are released into your system until it feels like this…eternity. You are a fuckknuckle for eternity, and that's hell.
But if you weren't an idiot all your life, then your brain would remember that. Your brain would remember all the occasions where you managed to not be an embarrassment...and that'd be heaven.”
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(10-13-2021, 07:57 AM)CRNDLSM Wrote: It seems as though life is the continuous simultaneous interactions of and between both divided and collective imaginations. Surely some actions are neutral, what is neutral? Reimagine 'needs' and exploitation is then impossible
I agree with that to some extent. I had this thought about energy and how different types of energy occupy our lives at different points. Maybe eternity doesn’t start and end with one lifetime and there are smaller eternities within one lifetime, brought about by the interactions of and between those different imaginations. Like a person can know bliss for sometime, then fall into a situation so nightmarish that it’ll seem like those days of bliss were a lifetime ago.
I don’t know what you mean by that last sentence though, and yeah i think it’s hard to define what action is neutral
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(10-13-2021, 01:19 AM)alexorande Wrote: but it could work as inspiration if you guys wanna write a poem based on this idea. I know I might. If you guys wanna suggest any readings/poems based on this idea or similar ideas I'd love to check those out. Would like to hear what you guys think about this argument:
If a lifetime amounts to one eternity, and Hell
is an eternity of torment, then a lifetime
of torment is Hell. If the conditions we produce
are exploitative of our siblings,
then Hell is our creation, born from our
divided imagination. Satan walks among us
but so does God;
if a lifetime amounts to one eternity, and Heaven
is an eternity of bliss, then a lifetime
of bliss is Heaven. If the conditions we produce
meet the needs of our siblings,
then Heaven is our creation, born from our
collective imagination.
You could’ve been a 5 year old murdered in Auschwitz. Was your life heaven or hell?
The death of children upends your theory
I don’t know what to make of the nature of reality. What I am certain of is that the Abrahamic religions barring Judaism are built on very weak foundations. The execution of an illiterate preacher in a backwater of the Roman Empire was not the calamity that saved humanity. It was just the unexpected death of a zealot who was himself surprised by the swiftness of it all.
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Burn Norton? http://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-22409.html
I don't even remember what that piece is about, but it has a similar sound xD
here's a different sort of attack on the argument: Heaven and Hell as conceived in the (typically western) imagination is not the same as Heaven and Hell as conceived by, say, more traditional Christian or perhaps even Jewish circles. Heaven and Hell are one and the same place, life in the presence of God, only for one who loves God such a life is heaven, and for one who doesn't such a life is hell.
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Exploitation seems like a good thing. Exploit your brain, use something to the fullest. Meeting needs is also tough because most people think we need food water shelter, maybe love, but what is a hunger strike but saying you can't exploit me because I don't need what you're dwindling for leverage. What is fasting but a divided imagination within one body? Spirituality in general I don't believe could exist within a collective imagination where needs are met, because of needs
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...and now, for some levity, from yers truly:
If ya make it into Heaven, try to save a place,
take along my picture so the Lord'll know my face,
please try to make my good side show,
if ya make it into Heaven when ya go.
If I gotta go to Hell, I don't really mind,
chances are it's full of lots of friends of mine,
and we'll put on one helluva show,
if I gotta go to Hell when I go...
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