The difference between Heaven and Hell

[Kacey]

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this - but it's not a joke, and I'm not sure it's serious enough to go into the Study... I received the following from a friend of mine via email, and I don't know where she got it - and I seem to recall having seen it before. What do people think about the definitions included in this vignette?

A holy man was having a conversation with the Lord one day and said, Lord, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like."

The Lord led the holy man to two doors. He opened one of the doors and the holy man looked in. In the middle of the room was a large round table. In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew which smelled delicious and made the holy man's mouth water. The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles that were strapped to their arms and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful, but because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.

The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering.

The Lord said, "You have seen Hell."

They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as the first one. There was the large round table with the large pot of stew which made the holy man's mouth water. The people were equipped with the same long-handled spoons, but here the people were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking.

The holy man said, "I don't understand."

It is simple" said the Lord, "it requires but one skill. You see, they have learned to feed each other, while the greedy think only of themselves."

 

[exile]

Here's how I read it... you remember that famous play of Jean-Paul Sartre's, No Exit, mostly famous because of the line `Hell is other people?' What this little fable is saying is that heaven is also other people. The nature of the human situation defines misery or bliss.... which particular aspects of the spectrum of human possibilities is the one that emerges. It's nothing to do with notions of the afterlife, I don't think.

 

[Kacey]

Here's how I read it... you remember that famous play of Jean-Paul Sartre's, No Exit, mostly famous because of the line `Hell is other people?' What this little fable is saying is that heaven is also other people. The nature of the human situation defines misery or bliss.... which particular aspects of the spectrum of human possibilities is the one that emerges. It's nothing to do with notions of the afterlife, I don't think.

Oh, I don't think it necessarily has to have anything to do with the afterlife, either - it's pretty easy to create your own heaven or hell on Earth, by just the types of behaviors given above - I'm more interested in the way it differentiated between groups based on behavior.

 

[Tames D]

That was good.

 

[Zida'sukara]

I think it is beacutifull Kacey!! I am not a religious person but I truly like this.

 

[DavidCC]

Here's how I read it... you remember that famous play of Jean-Paul Sartre's, No Exit, mostly famous because of the line `Hell is other people?' What this little fable is saying is that heaven is also other people.

oh no, I guess I'm doomed

 

[OnlyAnEgg]

I liked it!

When we stop thinking of ourselves, harmony ensues!

Bravo and Yay!

 

[exile]

oh no, I guess I'm doomed

Naaah... maybe you just need some more generous-minded drinking buddies!

There are, for me, two things that's very appealing about this story:

(i) the idea that a novel perspective can lead to simple solutions, and that the ability to see these simple solutions by revising your `common-sense' assumptions—the ability, as it used to be called, to `think laterally'—holds the promise of allows us to feast, instead of undergo famine, in exactly the same set of circumstances. I don't think one need read this story as a pollyanna-ish homily on how things will be great if everyone is nice to everyone else; to me the really interesting implication in it is that in a community where imagination and the non-obvious move are rewarded—or at least given a fair hearing—things which might have seemed insuperable problems simply dissolve.

(ii) the notion that reciprocity and social interconnectedness is the key to enjoyable survival. There are huge schools of ethnological thought, most famously associated with French structural anthropology, that have argued the crucial role of reciprocity in human existence and cultural evolution: don't carry out tasks yourself if you can work out a way to do them for each other. I know Claude Levi-Strauss and Co. have had their day—it was already begining to get old back in the 70s—but the core idea, that human societies flourish when they're organized in such a way that subgroups reinforce each other—still has a lot going for it. One of the hottest `new' discoveries in evolutionary ecology is the role of symbiotic relationships in nature, which isn't only `red in tooth and claw'; reciprocity and mutual protection turn out to play important adaptive roles. In the story Kacey circulated, there was no other choice; but the implication seems to be, think reciprocally and you'll do a lot better.

Put (i) and (ii) together and... I really like what's there!

 

[CoryKS]

It's a nice story, but it just doesn't work for me. It doesn't address greed so much as it does stupidity. I mean, a person could still work out the solution and still be greedy. Ex., "Psst, I'll feed you and you feed me, but don't let the others see us." The hell people aren't necessarily greedy, just unable to think outside the box.

 

[Xue Sheng]

"aven" and "ll"

Sorry but based on the title of the post I could resist no longer.

I'll go now

 

[hong kong fooey]

that was a really good post thanks for posting it