The Afterlife

First of all, you should know I don't believe there is an afterlife.  I think the 14 billion years or so after I die will go as rapidly and painlessly as the first 14 billion years or so before I was born. To believe in the super-natural is to open your mental doors to believe in absolutely anything without any evidence at all.  Not a good plan, and when people have acted on their supernatural beliefs, it has led to really catastrophic consequences.

Given the above, I would have some preferences if there were an afterlife.  And since to believe in the afterlife we have to accept the supernatural, I can posit any conditions I want.  After all, there are no limits or rules about 'supernatural'.  People have manufactured a wide variety of afterlife conditions from clever to adolescent.

My idea of hell is boredom. The conventional idea of heaven includes clouds, harps, streets of gold, and lots and lots of singing, maybe doing nothing, or maybe sitting and talking to relatives long dead. That's about as close to hell as I can imagine, and I do NOT want to be sent there.  I don't even know anyone who wants that in this life for a brief period, much less for eternity.  Like holiday get-togethers that last forever. Without wine.

But least in hell, there might be something to do.  Different torments, scenery, demons, and so on.  Maybe I can get a job.  In fact, I would prefer to be a worker in hell than a guest in heaven.  I could push burning coals with a red-hot broom.  I could dirty up torture rooms (I don't imagine keeping them clean would be a priority). I could carry hot lava in my hands to the lava pools.

Perhaps I could run group therapy for famously bad people. There are some very interesting people in Hell, and they would have a lot of time on their hands. Would a group with Hitler, Judas, various mass murderers and child killers and political figures, be interesting?  Of course. However, there is the problem that if the therapy helped (and I would certainly have plenty of time to work)  and if the members got "better", what would happen to them?  Would they be sentenced to heaven?

And in this hell there would be other workers like me.  I could organize a union of workers, and maybe later we could let the demons join as well.  I wouldn't suggest we could strike for more interesting working conditions, but I wouldn't rule it out, either.

Considering my strong preferences, perhaps the worst punishment for me would be heaven.  I don't like being bad, andit's hard to know just how bad I would have to be to get out of being sent to heaven.  I don't want to be any worse than I really have  to be.

I'll have more thoughts later if I last long enough.