An afterlife would be terrifying for me

[brewer]

But the neuropsychiatric of contentedness in the demented is only inferred from outward neuromuscular behavior.     Is the loss of The capacity for inward concern and worry the same as contented?    In that case a rock or vegetable is contented.

I would think Real contentedness requires at least subconscious appreciation of possibility, presently unrealized, of disagreeable discontent.

Are you stating that psychiatrists assess the condition of the demented by their outward appearance?

Yes, rocks and vegetables are content, every bit as much as they are discontent.

I have no idea where you are going with your last statement. Sounds new age hippy.

[The Grand Nudger]

Promise not to derail, but plants -do- exhibit behaviors that we associate with simple* things like contentedness and discontent.

That over with, yes, we do diagnose people (and even assume that something is a person) based on behaviors. Outward indicators of interior states, useful for communicating those states. Perhaps the people who get to glimpse heaven, and report back to us that it's full of HAPPY! faces got this impression because they all had their cheecks god-tucked back and up into their ears.

God was tired of hearing their shit, ever tried to talk with a permanent ear to ear smile on?

[Anomalocaris]

But the neuropsychiatric of contentedness in the demented is only inferred from outward neuromuscular behavior.     Is the loss of The capacity for inward concern and worry the same as contented?    In that case a rock or vegetable is contented.

I would think Real contentedness requires at least subconscious appreciation of possibility, presently unrealized, of disagreeable discontent.

Are you stating that psychiatrists assess the condition of the demented by their outward appearance?

Yes, rocks and vegetables are content, every bit as much as they are discontent.

I have no idea where you are going with your last statement. Sounds new age hippy.

Yes, I mean precisely that.    The ability to read minds is as yet denied them. 

So Just stopping all your biological functions will make you contented. 

[brewer]

Are you stating that psychiatrists assess the condition of the demented by their outward appearance?

Yes, rocks and vegetables are content, every bit as much as they are discontent.

I have no idea where you are going with your last statement. Sounds new age hippy.

Yes, I mean precisely that.    The ability to read minds is as yet denied them. 

So Just stopping all your biological functions will make you contented. 

You got issues unique to you that you'd like to tell us about?

Psychiatrists don't have to read minds. I don't think you understand the vastly different ways dementia can be present. Sounds like you've grasped onto worst case scenario dementia as all dementia.

I was making fun of your rocks/vegetables comment because it needed making fun of.

[Mister Agenda]

What if you're granted the happy kind of dementia or anterograde amnesia?

I refer to that as the 'heavenly lobotomy'. In heaven you won't give a shit about your loved ones roasting in hell because that would make you unhappy and you can't be unhappy in heaven. I've also heard it put that in heaven you will realize how richly deserved the roasting of your loved ones is and you won't be able to be sad about people getting just what they deserve.

[HappySkeptic]

What if you're granted the happy kind of dementia or anterograde amnesia?

I refer to that as the 'heavenly lobotomy'. In heaven you won't give a shit about your loved ones roasting in hell because that would make you unhappy and you can't be unhappy in heaven. I've also heard it put that in heaven you will realize how richly deserved the roasting of your loved ones is and you won't be able to be sad about people getting just what they deserve.

I'm with you on this.  Sound like heaven would either be a hell, or else a place of drugged-out apathy.

To be a bit more serious, I'm going to outline the view of heaven/hell that I had when I was a Christian.

It seems to me that most religions specify something that the adherent must either do (sacrifice, prayer, glorious death), or a state of mind that they must achieve (enlightenment) to enter into some good afterlife.  Actions or state-of-mind in life dictate the state after death.

Christians demand a "belief in Jesus, that he has saved you from sin".  This belief supposedly magically gives you back a connection to God - one that is needed to attain heaven.  I began to doubt this magic, but instead, perhaps the belief itself is supposed to bring peace and love, and that itself is the "state of mind" necessary for heaven?

If true, Christianity itself has no hold over who gets to heaven.  Anyone who can overcome hate and fear can get there.  But, why is this "state of mind" important at all?

Religions sometimes declare the afterlife as a reward, but I saw no justice in some arbitrary judgment.  Perhaps "state of mind" is important because of what I call the "theology of the frozen soul".

In this idea, there is no change in heaven.  You are always in the state you were at death.  You can't become better, or worse.  You can't be "forgiven".  You can't suddenly decide that your life choices were a mistake.  You can't become good if you were bad, and you can't become bad if you were good.  "Judgment" becomes a simply the reification of your state before death.  A form of natural law.

I think Christians realized the problem with this, because no-one is particularly "good" in life.  We are all selfish jerks when you strip away our socialized niceness.  So, they invented the "magic get out of hell free card".  But the problem with it is they create an arbitrary "in crowd", and replace the natural-law justice of the "frozen soul" with an elitist religious cult.

Still, heaven sounds like a bad place.  Nothing ever happens, and no-one changes.  If they could, people in hell would choose heaven, and people in heaven would rebel.

Yup, sounds like the "heavenly lobotomy" is the only way out

[brewer]

I'm just screwing around and playing the other side of the coin, most atheists make heaven unpleasant. It's all fantasy. Make it what ever you want, think about it however you want. Make it the worst place ever or the best or some shade of grey.

In the end it does not matter because it does not exist. But the persons conception might be telling about the individual. Just sayin.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Most people already live as if they would last forever. We go about our daily lives, insofar as possible, ignoring the proposition that we will soon die.

[HappySkeptic]

I'm just screwing around and playing the other side of the coin, most atheists make heaven unpleasant.  It's all fantasy. Make it what ever you want, think about it however you want.

Well, I did kinda like the Back Street Boys dance video everyone was in at the end of "This is the End".

[The Grand Nudger]

I don't know that it's atheists that make heaven unpleasant, rather than the fact that even here on earth people respond to the notion of something like heaven with a whole lot of reservation. Christians aren't tripping over each other to get there either.

If our lives were a whole lot shittier, we might not have those sorts of concerns. We might want it with fewer qualifiers and conditions. Beliefs that promise a heaven tend to spring up in hellish circumstances.