Heaven as Freedom

>>54491310
I thought it was just that the main characters were just crazy sluts. they did get kicked out of heaven after all.

Well, hell is prison but for eternity so I guess you could say freedom is a major part of heaven's appeal.

C.S. Lewis used the same concept in many of his works, depicting Hell as an Orwellian Bureaucracy who was very banal in their attempt to enslave and destroy everything for their own benefit and advancement, and depicting Heaven as [from Hell's point of view] as a group of idealistic romantic hedonists.

>>54491384
This.

Heaven isn't chaotic, Panty and Stocking are just really bad angels.

>>54491534
Sorta until their mother turns out to be a giant live action pair of legs.

Also what pretty much Garter Belt says. They ARE slutty bad angels. Just turns out Heaven is pretty slutty overall.

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>>54491503
>someone referenced CS Lewis in a positive way on /tg/
>someone referenced CS Lewis at all

>>54491503

Yeah, in Narnia 'heaven' is endless freedom to explore and adventure, each adventure greater than the last. 'Hell' is being locked in a small room of your own construction you could leave at any point if you were willing to actually accept that freedom.

>>54491664

I wasn't aware /tg/ had a problem with Lewis. I have pretty fond memories of reading the Chronicles of Narnia when I was younger.

>>54491664
He's a shit theologian, at less in mere Christianity, that could be because he wrote that as an introduction to Christianity though and therefore dumbed it down for easy consumption

>>54491691
>'Hell' is being locked in a small room of your own construction you could leave at any point if you were willing to actually accept that freedom.
So you are saying that the only difference between Hell and the average anon's life is that in hell your room is much more shoddily built?

>>54491310
it actually sort of works with some interpretations of the Bible, actually.

one version claims that Satan's rebellion was caused because he didn't think God's idea of Free Will would work, that people would only choose sin and evil. And his proposition was for God to put him in charge and he would FORCE all humanity to obeying the commands of God.

God disagreed, and most people know where it goes from there.

Heaven as the epitome of law is a consequence of religion as we know it being a tool for people to control other people.

In the context of a fantasy game, without rules, rites and restrictions there's no real point for religion to be there at all since it wouldn't affect behaviour.

>>54492672
>>54491691
Sure.
In the Divine Comedy, Dante envisioned Lucifer as sitting in a frozen lake. The lake wasn't originally frozen - Lucifer's constant wingbeating in an attempt to escape is cooling the air over the lake and keeping it solid.
If he could only stop and accept that his punishment is fair and just, he'd be able to walk out.

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>>54491310
>Great Wheel
The upper planes fight each other more often than the lowers planes on the Law vs Chaos (Freedom) axis.
So angel vs angel, er well. Archon vs deva

The upper planes deal with more underhanded tactics and political maneuvering. Which is interesting as fuck.

The lower planes just blood war at each other which is rather boring.

>>54491310
Somewhat neat but theres a big reason it's traditionally played straight like that- Lucifer was the one who gave humanity free will in the first place, and was tossed out of heaven because he hated following god's rules. This context makes the heaven=order/hell=chaos dichotomy make sense, although the heaven=good/hell=evil is a separate dichotomy. Two great tastes that, together, get kind of stale.

>>54493213
Didn't Lucifer give humans understanding of Good vs Evil and not the free will?

>>54491310
I think Mormonism might have similar beliefs as well, due to their major emphasis in m the concepts of free agency (Freedom and responsibility for action), and how the one quote from their fanfic anthology that some have quoted to me goes "Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy"

According to them, the whole point of God's plan was for mankind to come to earth to live and learn not only how to excercise free will and stewardship of their lives, but also to see if they could use said free will to fully accept thier own situation, and use seek to seek greater and more righteous heights, and the reason for Lucifer's fall was that he denied the Father's plan, and instead wanted to take man's will away and force them to always be obedient automatons since simple mortals in his mind could never make the right choice. Then god went "Son, I am disappoint" and threw him down to earth without a corporeal body along with his fanclub so they could sit through reality and suffer in silence until the Apocalypse when they get called back to see if they'll apologize or if God will have to put them in time-out without supper. So basically all the devil does in Mormon theology is sit around, whisper to people, in an attempt to make them as miserable as him, because he's a whiny prat. Meanwhile Jesus's purpose is to be their as the ultimate understanding by g bro, to help vouch for you when you make a mistake, and to give you a means of making up for your mistakes. Also, apparently Mormons don't believe in hell, which is kinda weird I guess

>>54493213
Nah, God gave Adam and Eve free will, but they were like children with it and didn't really yet understand what to do with it.

It's after they took the fruit and ate it, the first act of defiance using said will, that they gained knowledge to better use said free will, however, they need to have free will in the first place to be able to decide to disobey the Father and eat it in the first place.

Then you get into the real messy parts of theology, where some groups start to believe the them eating the fruit and expressing that knowing choice was all part of God's keikaku, since otherwise they would not have been able to fulfill his will for them to go forth and multiply, plus it was to teach them the lesson that actions have consequences.

It's like how you tell your kid not to touch the stove, but then they finally do and they learn that it hurts and gets burnt for their troubles. They gained a knowledge from that act of defiance, and by their own actions were punished and probably got both a scolding from their parent, and a kiss to make it better.

>>54491310
I'm pretty sure this idea either is or was a widely accepted part of Christian doctrine at some time. At least, free will and the power of humans to make their decisions is an important aspect of Catholicism and its offshoots. I can see it being taught that good=freedom and evil=imprisonment as an extension of this.

>>54491310
Kneesocks a best

This is the objective truth

I really like when /tg/ can have a genuinely good discussion on theological stuff. shit like this has always fascinated me, thinking about in both spiritually and philosphically.
>inb4 some atheist comes in and ignores the point of the thread

>>54491503
Funny because Milton basically said that hell is the only true form of the expression of freewill and that the Illusion of choice is the great joke made by an omniscient creator.

What actually elevates men above angels is the ability to choose to do evil.

Satan himself knows he was set up to be the fall man in the beginning and that he only exists to absolve god of the responsibility in the eyes of men.

>>54493253
Yeah, I'm an ex-mormon, that's all pretty much what they believe.

>>54493253
>apparently Mormons don't believe in hell, which is kinda weird I guess
True. Closest thing they have is "Outer darkness" which is a self imposed exile from the presence of god.

>>54493897
>Only evil is freedom
>This is what Saturday Morning CE villains actually believe
>Le free will and life is illusion memes
Calvanism was a mistake.

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>>54491310
I'm going to throw in my own shoddy two cents, but wasn't the idea of Aquinas and to a certain extent classical liberal philosophers of statecraft that freedom is the supposed to be the privilege of the virtuous and that a republic declines if its people become less virtuous, therefore it's important to educate citizens to become virtuous beings? Perhaps you can play around with that, with the idea that everything and everyone in heaven is so virtuous, rules aren't neccessary because everyone does good out of their own free will?

>>54493510
>He actually believes this needs to be said out loud
It's about as obvious as "water is wet". We all know it already.

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>>54494141
What did the Calvinist say after falling down the stairs?
I'm glad that's over with!

Why should you never play chess with an Anglican?
He can't tell the difference between a queen and a bishop!

>>54493066

He would still be stuck in the mud.
Dante's Hell is not a place of forgiveness

>>54493233

I think they're overlapping concepts for christians.

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>>54494168

>>54494168
>Why should you never play chess with an Anglican?
Shit, that one was really good.

Lost so hard.

>>54491310
Purely an aside to ramble on about my own things: in one of my own settings, Hell is actually just as free as Heaven and was basically God giving Satan and Sinners a consolation prize of their own paradise.

The problem is that when you populate paradise with selfish assholes, it becomes Hell.

Thus, what truly divides Heaven and Hell are those who occupy it, to the point where when a demon escapes into the mortal planes, they end up 'corrupting' the area around them gradually into a mirror of Hell, because, often, they're still in the same, selfish, short-sighted, asshole mentality that basically means their prison will follow them.

The flipside of this is that, in Hell, there is a lone monk who sits, meditating in the burning wastelands, he offers advice, kind words, and insights to those who seek him out. And the area around him is beautiful, lush, and Edenesque. The monk's selfless and compassionate nature creates a small light in the expansive darkness.

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>>54494328
Shit, this is actually kinda good. Stealing it

>>54493253
They do have "outer darkness" which is basically that time-out you mentioned with despair and separation with God. Their highest concept of heaven (There are lots of tiers for afterlife they have, it's very fleshed out) also is to become a god and create your own stuff (but you need seven wives for producing spirit children comes in there apparently). Their highest and lowest conceptions of an afterlife are more limited than most Christians, but the problem I really have with it is that it's limiting to God, which is probably perfect for a ttrpg world where law and chaos are opposing and you want to flip which is good.

t. different ex-mormon anon

Overall I don't like the focus on law and chaos as necessarily separate and opposing forces though.

>>54494501
Cont.
I prefer the Orthodox Christian conception of hell after judgement as being in the presence of God with all his love, identical with heaven, but while being in a state of rejecting his love so that ones soul gives itself pain. It's not about law or chaos, freedom or restriction, but love and growth only. In reality law and freedom are both tools and you have to use both of them to raise a child right, which is a kind of natural metaphor for the process of preparing ourselves for that moment. Use only one and they will suffer for it, either going mad when they are off the tight leash or getting lost without guidance when they needed it. Man may be tormented by his freedom and use it to torment himself just as much as he might be bound by the word of the law so much he misses or attacks the spirit behind law. Hell of course is from everything which is not quite balanced and well in ones own soul. Man must be able to accept the love of God freely and to do this he must control himself to the spirit of the law, to be a whole human being. Order and freedom in that sense are not opposed but collaborating towards that final unity.

A more extreme expression of this idea can be found in the fictional Muslim sect where the phrase "nothing is absolute reality, everything is permitted" originated. If I remember correctly, in order to adopt that total freedom as his own law a man must have spent much time submitted absolutely, to the point of being willing to die at a command. In Buddhism "absolute liberation" is very much the same as becoming "the law" which is the cosmic reality and not just what we think of as the law. The idea that law should be a tool to create freedom and freedom a means of giving the law meaning is what I prefer to their opposition, and that both should be striving towards something more, something absolute, just isn't compatible with alignment systems but they're trash anyway.

>>54492672

In Catholic Catechism, the actual concept of hell is simply the absence of God. Anyone could walk into heaven if they accept Grace. (Which is where the arguments between sects start of course: Who gets to dole out Grace?)

>>54493510
>>54494151
My niggas

>>54494328
Nice.

>>54491730
Lots of people on /tg/ have a misplaced hatred of the Narnia books for not having a sufficiently rigorous internal logic.

>>54494328
Isn't this accepted as Christian doctrine?

>>54494328
Why is the monk in hell, though?

>>54494079
>>54493253

>Mormon's don't believe in Hell

This is false. The Mormon canonical works explicitly state that there is a Hell on numerous occasions. There are in fact TWO Hells according to Mormonism, Spiritual Prison, and Outer Darkness, which has already been mentioned. Spiritual prison is where spirits are tormented by their own guilt (since, lacking physical bodies, they can't be tortured physically, and there's no point in physical torment in the first place), which is supposed to be as painful as the lakes of fire that the Bible describes. The only difference is that it's not a permanent state, as anyone who doesn't go to outer darkness after the end of the Millenium will stop suffering, having paid the price for their sins. Thing is, they're in there in spirit prison during the MILLENIUM, so that's a thousand years of intense suffering for you.

This is a misconception that's really common even within the Mormon religion.

You are correct concerning outer darkness though, which is essentially permanent spirit prison.

>>54491310
>heaven
>the place ruled by a being so anal about being obeyed that he made a lake of fire to throw people that don't
>freedom
I SEE A BAD MOON RISING

>>54500879
Well, we are talking about a FANTASY cosmology, the God on the throne of this Heaven might not be YHWH.

>>54493796

>inb4 some atheist comes in and ignores the point of the thread

Not all atheists are fanatical followers of Dawkins, or even vocal about their lack of faith. And not all of them are actually ignorant about theology, for that matter. They just don't believe in it.

>>54493510
>>54494151

Kneesocks is great but I actually like Scanty more.

>>54491310

>Here it did something interesting, by portraying hell as the one that wishes to force everybody to live by hells law, whilst heaven is very live and let live.

Well, devils / baatezu are lawful evil in D&D but I am not completely sure who exactly are the primary chaotic good beings in the Upper Planes.

>>54500973
I think the eladrin were the main chaotic good outsiders before 4th Edition used the name for magical high elves; I don't know what 5th edition does about it.

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>What does the rest of /tg/ think? Neat or crap?

Its pretty neat. Afterall god created us, but did he create freedom or did we?

In any case both hell and heaven are ideologies, so both a biased.

>>54491310
welcome to the proud tradition of Jack Kirby and CS Lewis.

Kirby's new gods, the "good guys" of New Genesis are lead by the embodiment of freedom, as the ultimate expression of good. The evils of Apokalips are led by Darkseid, god of tyranny and the ultimate expression of order.

Similarly, CS Lewis in his Screwtape letters indicates that the divine presence is liberty, and that there are infinite ways one can be good and thus closer to god, while Satan in dragging people down tries only to make everyone more like himself.

Freedom without restraint is an ultimately destructive, thus evil, force.

Heaven is a heavy handed, but altruistic, hierarchy.

Hell is fuck you got mine amoral anarchy.

>>54500570
frequent and enthusiastic buggery.

>>54491310
Rationalize thusly

God gave man free will a d swlf determination

God declared man his greatest creation, made in it's image

Thus, Man must have free will and self determination is divine law - the only law. Man's law of choice supercedes all other laws, because they can choose to disob God

Thus it is the angels duty to ensure that man remains free willed and able to self determine

In practical terms, this generally means they remove outside impediments and manipulations from their lives

Demons interfere with humans decisions via temptation and must be removed

Vice interferes with humans decisions, and so humans are encouraged (but not forced) to shed vice

Angels encourage what we consider "good behavior" because it results in more prosperous and mentally balanced humans, holistically, thus enabling us to make our own decisions with as little impediment as possible

This is why heaven pussyfoots around with indirect, subtle action. Humans must be influenced to choose to be free, but they cannot be forced, and acting openly skews their decisions as it creates a sort of 'divine Mandy's, ie, if people knew there was a heaven and knew what it wanted them to do, that would affect their decision making (you'd probably do some shit if god was actual factual real and he told you to do it)

They want humans to be good, but they must be good by exercise of free choice, or it's invalid

There. CG heaven

>>54501157
The christian god if real would be objectively correct

The concept of temptation is patriarchal BS.
>ohh that busty succubus is too hot for me to refuse! Better put a bag on her and say it's her fault for being hot.
Own your decisions.

>>54501604
I dunno, I never really understood divine command theory.

>>54501675
That's the whole point of temptation. Demons can't force you to sin - if you fall for it, it's all on you.

>>54501699
basically morality instead of being a social construct is objective
God being omni-benevolent is the pinnacle of goodness
To disagree with god is to be wrong

>>54502031
but since god is too much of meek bitch to state his ideas clearly to every person, or at least every church on the planet...
You get multiple denominations that all believe in the same god but disagree with interpretations of various smaller bits.

>>54502031
You know what, okay, sure. Here, the question that comes to mind is, if God weren't omnibenevolent, would we know? I think if you weren't omnibenevolent but could credibly claim to be so, it would make a lot of sense to lie about it.

>>54502144
>>54502179
I'm not religious, I am just explaining the idea
>>54502179
As for how we could tell if god wasn't omnibenevolent in a world with objective morality, I figure we would have ways to tell if something is moral, like an objective conscience, that you could use to figure out if god was good

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>>54491691


A lot of similarities to Mormon theology.

Reminds me of this scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=508omJosuIQ

Robin Williams said it was the hardest movie he ever worked on. Obviously it touched on a lot of things that he struggled with throughout his life.

>>54502242
What about a world where you don't know if there's objective morality or not?

>>54502540
Where you don't know or can't know?

>>54500973
>inb4 some atheist comes in and ignores the point of the thread
TOO LATE
>>54500879
>>54500902

>>54491310
You might as well just not make them the abrahamic ideas of hell and heaven at that point because they aren't. Just make them unrelated but similar concepts.

>>54502649
As the second poster, what was I missing? I'd like to not fuck up again. I thought that first poster I was responding to was making unwarranted assumptions of how Christian a fantasy Heaven has to be, and was pointing out that I thought that might not be what the OP was looking for.

>>54502813
He's just sperging out about atheists

>>54493233
Yep, somethng like that. The apple story was a metaphor about how humans gained this thing called consciousness, and that evolving to the point of sentience cast us out of the bliss called ignorance. The ancient Jews was trying to get a grip on the nature of their relationship with/understanding of God and the laws He set forth (i.e. civilized behavior) so they made this story to intuit what was good and remind themselves what would happen if they deviated from good (i.e. if they became dicks to each other, which was what happened from the Cain and Abel thru the Noah story arcs)

>>54491310
It's a good idea for a false heaven or a false salvation. Something that could show up at the end of an Adeva game or a sci fi setting where everyone is uploaded.
It could be presented as absolute release, but as the players started asking questions the mould lines and fingerprints would begin to show. If everyone is free, everyone is free to drag your soul into some sort of debt or servitude. It would end up with it its own, complex power relations soon enough, and after that it would be very hard to distinguish it from the lake of fire.

>>54500570
Because in life, all he did was what he now does in death, whic was to remind others to "praise the sun!"

>>54491310
>neat or crap?
Personally, you had me at Kneesocks

On the theology, it's not too far of from the truth.

>>54491503
Check out Tolkien's theology too. Kinda close to how it really works.

Fun fact: Tolkien was one of the people who used to try and convince Lewis about God and stuff. Lewis, formerly atheist or agnostic, eventually believed and became Christian (though not a Catholic, as Tolkien would've prefered) and you can read in the Chronicles of Narnia (esp. Book 1) his burgeoning understanding of theology.

>>54503330
Tolkien himself started out as an atheist too, didn't he?
Though it always struck me as weird that the guy who was converted by a convert to Catholocism ended up becoming Anglican. What was up with that? Was it his servile Irish nature compelling him to bend the knee to an Englishwoman?

>>54491691
But who provides the adventure? Is the adventuree just a goblin who couldn't be bothered to spend the rest of eternity with his grandparents?
What about the souls of nonhuman or invertebrate sinners? I can imagine a kraken getting stuck in a small room could cause everyone to leave hell in quite a hurry.
And what about dwarves? Getting to spend eternity in a dark, underground place of their own construction doesn't sound like much of a punishment. I bet dwarves could crash the market for souls by committing petty crimes and drunken disorder en masse just so they could burn in hell. And that's before they start making improvements and figuring out how to give everyone in hell access to hot and cold water and twenty different kinds of craft beer. It would probably end up with the Lord smiting the whole place into oblivion after the little bastards managed to build a tourist industry and drive a beer train through hell.