Thoughts on Heaven and Hell

[ZenJedi]

What are your thoughts about heaven and hell and angels and demons? Does anyone have experiences with these?

[desert-rat]

Welcome to the forum. Heaven,and hell are parts of astral created by those that believe in them . Demoms are astral critters and human created thought forms . Angeles are higher order beings . You might do a forum search for hell2 , a post I started a few years ago.

[ZenJedi]

Are these Astral critters responsible for things like demonic oppression and exorcisms?

[fowlskins]

neither are a concept that i believe in

[desert-rat]

There are negative astral beings . I don't know if they have a leader,devil. People that do remote viewing have found a being that could be thought of as the devil tho, so who knows.

[desert-rat]

neither are a concept that i believe in

This is an open forum. State your beliefs. I don't know that I am any more right than any one else.

[desert-rat]

P.S, Christians see heavin and hell as reward and punishment, but this is not written in the Bible.

[fowlskins]

This is an open forum. State your beliefs. I don't know that I am any more right than any one else.

perhaps i should of added the word "personally" i have no objections to what anyone else wants to belive 
let me elaborate, i dont believe in the concept of heaven or hell i think that this is something that people of faith will naturally encounter due to thier own personal conditioning
the idea that there is a place that certain people go if they are deemed good or bad leave far too many grey areas it would be a logistical nightmare to sort out which pigeonhole people need to go in

i think that people experiencing demons and hell etc are just witnessing their own fears stress and guilt manifesting   
the one thing that i can say for sure is that i am here now in this moment experiencing consciousness and as nice a idea as it is to think there is some all powerful entity watching over us i think its doubtful
i hope that my consciousness transcends to another place when i die but if it dosnt well i got on pretty well all the time before i was born so it shouldnt be a problem  

in the meantime i am trying to live my life as a good human enjoying this gift of the phenoenom that we call life whatever it may be and will continue to experiment and practice these little trips to the non physical

you can be a spiritual person without tacking on one of the many thousands of gods that have been and gone
my original post was not posted to offend

[ZenJedi]

Thank you for all of your opinions. I grew up Christian, but have problems with some of their theories like heaven and hell. But the reason I ask is because I've experienced exorcisms first hand. People can find ways to discredit experiences a lot like Astral projection. Some haven't experienced it therfore they don't believe it. I'm sure someone could also come up with a physiological explanation too. I was just curious because I don't know how else to explain what I've experienced and was wondering if others had a good answer.

[Xanth]

What are your thoughts about heaven and hell and angels and demons? Does anyone have experiences with these?

My reply should be fairly obvious at this point... they're nothing but labels and beliefs/expectations/desires/interpretations. 
They're not objective "things". 

[desert-rat]

People that believe in heaven or hell and know that they belong there will go there in their after life . Others from different beilef systems will join others of the same system. There may be a astral area for those that believe in the flying spaghetti monster.
I guess someone needs to believe a demon can possess them to be possessed.  We all create our reality. I don't really believe a demon can hurt me so they don't.

[theswearjar]

I think heaven is the state of mind of eternal ever new bliss and fufillment when one gets final soul liberation from manifested delusion an unites back with the infinite no-thing ( god ) through the perfection of the soul . And hell is the state of mind when man forgets his self and gets stuck in the never ending string of material desires that always innevitably ends in sorrow.    

Liberation or delusion

[personalreality]

I'm gonna say that these ideas were created by humans to control other humans and they are meaningless beyond any meaning you put in them.

People always seem to grapple with these ideas of good and evil, which is often related back to our rational fear of darkness (night) and rejoice at the rising of the sun (day).

There's a fun idea out there about a cataclysm that destroyed civilization some 12,000 years ago, and the remnants of humanity that survived were emotionally/psychically traumatized. That trauma left a scar on our collective psyche and induced an amnesia of the actual details, like PTSD. We don't remember why, but we have a fear of some kind of doomsday and that fear has informed our beliefs on good and evil in a superstitious way. What was once a detailed history of great cataclysm turned into religion and fear of god/devil or good/evil. Super neat stuff.

Of course, if you're not into the scientific explanation (and I understand if you're not as science has become a religion in its own right), you could always take the taoist/star wars perspective in that both are necessary parts of reality/psyche/humanity/whatever and must be in balance. I'm not of that opinion, but if it helps.

Things are. I see no need to classify them. Everyone and everything has their own motives, generally survival in some form. That doesn't mean ill or good will is intended.

[fowlskins]

i defiantly agree on the survival idea
that fight or flight feeling can lead you to do some very out of character things
i remember a news reporter talking about the fall of saigon he was there and they heard that the tanks were on the way and it was basically time to get the hell out of there and in his words he did claw and he did bite to get out

nothing is ever black and white
good people do bad things
bad things happen to good people