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Since the beginning of existence, or of our sentience, we've always sought meaning into our existence. Why are we here? Who created us? More importantly - where do we go when we die?

There are many ideas of the places we could go after we die. Mostly, we do have a concept of a good place. This is Heaven, Paradise, Shan-gri-la, and among others. This is where the charitable, honest, kind-hearted people go - so religious society tells us and what we all can really agree with. It could have a landscape of clouds, floating angelic people, and be a world free of pain and suffering.

Then, there's also a consensus that there is another place - quite the opposite. This is the bad place. Where sinners of carnal and unfathomable pleasure go to spend eternity in isolation, torture, or just to burn. This is Hell, Xibalba, Tartarus, and among others. In early religions, this hell was viewed as a place of isolation, devoid of love, companionship, and light. When Christianity came along later in the late Roman Empire, the punishment and fire were added as details.

But despite these two places, there has been speculation of a third plane of existence.

It has been dubbed "Purgatory".

This is described as an "in-between" place. A place where souls were neither bad enough for the fires of Hell, yet not good enough to be exposed to the light of Paradise. Here, they toil for eternity, walking through an empty plane of existence where they wish for something better.

Are you now starting to see the allusion?

Most people in our history do and did believe in a life after death, in the existence of a Paradise and a Hell. And yet, there was stipulation of this Purgatory. And we have yet to prove that either and all exist.

And more importantly, we have religions that meditate and pray for our world to be better. They practice their faith to show to their based deity that they deserve the lights of said Paradise. They pray for the sick to become healed and the sinners to become clean and gentle, all-the-while wishing and praying and waiting for their chance to be taken by their deity into the lights and splendor of their Paradise.

Why, you might ask?

Because we are in Purgatory, my dear friends.

But that's not the point.



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Now I have a question for everyone: what is the worst crime a human can commit in life?

Probably what Andres Breivik did. It can't get much worse than killing 70 kids for being in Labour party camp.

Become the leader of a great country and orchestrate the deaths of millions of people ... before the Nuclear Age.

Every concept of afterlives or other planes of existence is predicated on the assumption that there is something to human consciousness other then the pile of guts and neurons we all shuffle around in. There is of course, no evidence for such a thing.

The science is overwhelming that what we call our "minds" cannot exist without a functioning brain. Therefore the mind must be an artifact of the brain.

The concept of a literal "soul" seems entirely abstract. People describe it as the thing that makes you the person you are and not somebody different. But there's nothing one can point at and see where the soul is physically stored. So what people call a "soul" seems to be just an artifact of the mind.

So if the "mind" and the "soul" are outgrowths of our complex brains, it raises interesting questions about how much cognitive function it takes for an organism to have a mind as we know it.

But we are still in our infancy in terms of understanding how the Universe works. Many theoretical physicists postulate the Universe contains far more dimensions then we are aware of. And once you introduce additional dimensions, the door is open for philosophers and theologians to lay claim to them.

I see a future where supercolliders provide tantalizing evidence of other dimensions and someone will come up with the idea that their afterlife or other plane of existence is actually all around us every day in those other dimensions. I'd actual expect that to form the basis of a major world religion in the future. They will say that when you die, you become aware of the 5th, 6th, etc dimension and exist there somehow. It'll still be bullcrap, but that hasn't stopped religions from catching on before.



Shooting 20 little school children for no fucking reason.

You have some wrong ideas about Purgatory. It can be described as a place in which you experience some measure of Hell before entering Heaven. You don't spend eternity there, you only stay as long as it takes for your soul to be purified and prepped for Heaven. What you're describing is more what ghosts go through, being trapped here on the planet until someone releases them from their chains somehow.

Purgatory is a place where any stain of sin you have when you die is removed, and it can be a painful experience, but once the stain is removed, Heaven awaits you. People used to wonder how long you had to stay there, but when you think about it, it doesn't matter, since time doesn't exist in the afterlife. All you need to know is that Purgatory is not eternal, and that if and when God gets around to wrapping things up, it will vanish once the last soul leaves.

As for Hell, it's not eternal either. Anyone in there will be destroyed when, again, God gets around to wrapping things up.

You guys are taking it too literal. I hope you can appreciate that it's not a religious or spiritual question.

First of all, I want to know why you want our opinions on what is the worst thing a person could possibly do..I don't really know how to answer that..In history, people have done plenty of cruel things to other people, and you can't really fairly judge which actions were the worst..If we are talking about people making decisions that lead to people being killed, it is not fair to say which action is the worst, because that is like saying the lives of one group of victims is worth more than another group of victims.

Now, as for the religion stuff, not everyone who believes in the afterlife believes in the mainstream concept of Heaven and Hell. I am pagan, I believe there is more than one spiritual world that people go to after they die, and that they don't all resemble most people's ideas of Heaven or Hell. I also believe in reincarnation and ghosts. I may have been in a house with a ghost 2 different times ( in different states) and I have known quite a few people who say they have past life memories..I don't think most of them are lying or delusional. I think it is very rude that certain people treat everyone who says they have a paranormal experience as a liar or someone who is insane. Because a lot of people who have had things happen for the most part are perfectly normal, and a lot of the time, they don't go telling everyone..Some of the people who talked to me only told me because not only do they know I am into this kind of stuff, but because they trusted me. They knew I was not going to make fun of them. No one can prove or disprove the existence of the afterlife, people just believe what they want to believe. It would be nice if everyone stopped being an assh*le to people who have different opinions than themselves on this subject.

Now, whether or not this life is purgatory, depends on what you make of it. What you choose to do with it, the attitudes you choose, what you choose to focus on, and whether or not you choose to appreciate the people around you who really care about you. I see a lot of miserable people.Especially people I know elsewhere online. I am getting so sick of their bitching and their posts about how pointless life is. I feel like they are focusing on all the negative things in life..How f*cked up the world is, and focusing on all the sh*t they do not have. They are in purgatory, and they put themselves there..A certain one in particular really annoys me, because that person can't even see I have always been there for them..I tried to be the light outside the purgatory this person created for themselves, but they never noticed..This went on for too long. So, now I am going to focus on things that make me happy, and not be in the same situation as these people.

I see we still haven't quite understood the point I'm trying to get across. To be more helpful, its a life question.

To me, this is the worst crime anyone can commit. Click here.

Because as John Kramer once said: "Yes, I'm sick, officer. Sick from the disease eating away at me inside. Sick of people who don't appreciate their blessings... Most people are so ungrateful to be alive. But not you. Not anymore."

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It's hard to know what you mean (and hence how to respond) if it's not meant to be taken literally.
The world is as unjust and full of suffering as any purgatory. Praying won't save us from that, working to improve the world will. There's no paradise waiting for us we have to make the best of what we have got.

Not sure how an afterlife would even work; people couldn't very well die if they're already dead and everything from eating to the immune system depends on death.

God redialed the pope and told him he was wrong about the whole purgatory thing a few years back.

Not every religion has an afterlife and most that do don't have divine judgement after death. There's no concurrences on that matter.

(The motive for the villain in Saw makes no sense but I think it's based on Nietzsche idea that it is the conflict and suffering in life that gives it meaning. Not a notion I adhere to but it deserves a better presentation than Saw gives it. No clue why that would be the worst crime.
Unless you mean making people experience bad things so they will become bad people is the worst crime.
OH! You think wasting your life is the worst crime you can do so...why are you going to a forum and posting that? Isn't there a less wasteful thing you could do with your life?)

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There's theoretically no limit to how much harm you can do so it's like you're asking what the highest number is.
What people have the power to do constrains them more than their motivations, a lot of the time.
If you kill one person you've destroyed everything for them, so nothing more than that could be experienced by any one victim. Beyond that it's a matter of the population you're hurting.

My message is that people should cherish life in every possible, Unassumption. Any way, any form. If you have an ambition, fulfill it. If you have opportunity and you know its never gonna come again, snatch it.

I'm no savior, but I think everyone deserves a good life. I think everyone deserves to be happy, and in order for that, they have to want it. That's all.

You have only yourself to blame for that. You derailed your own topic from the start by mentioning anything about life after death.

Now, let's take things out of the afterlife and ask:

Do you think you're living in heaven (your life is awesome and you wouldn't have it any other way), in hell (things can't get any worse), or in purgatory (life has its ups and downs, but you're not getting anywhere) right now? Or even in limbo (you don't know what to do)?

Have you read any existentialist writers, like Auguste Comte and Jean-Paul Sartre? You seem to be communicating a similar idea to what they expressed so might like their writing. If it is the idea you're trying to express, reading some of the responses to it might be useful too.

I'm not sure if you can really 'waste' your life,as that implies there's a meaningful way you can live it.
It's something thrust upon us, depending on our situation it may be a gift or a curse. A 'wasted' life is not a crime against anyone, except ourselves. It may be the worst thing we can do to ourselves though. Thinking we need to meet special milestones or achieve something for our life to be worthwhile may stop us living an enjoyable life. As far as I can see, enjoying it as much as we can is all we can really do.

Bringing up religion or politics online is likely to get people talking about those topics. If you want people to focus on your philosophy, bringing it up instead of making us guess what it is might be helpful :U

Don't mind Unassumption, he argues, and nit picks, and demands everyone back up any statement they make, like he was the f*cking God of this forum. This is one reason why I don't come here often. Anyway, yes, I am familar with the Saw movies..And, yes, the whole reason why John chose his victims was because they were people who he saw as ungrateful for their lives and the good things in their lives.

Now, I don't think now wasting ones life means achieving some milestone..I think it means not taking the people in your life who care about you for granted. Doing the things that really make you happy..And not focusing on the things other people do you consider f*cked up all the time.

Believe it or not, that scene was the first thing that popped to my mind when I you asked the question.