Suppose Don IS right (or more properly, Swedenborg was
right, Don just being his mouthpiece around here) and there
is the "Heaven-Hell" scenario he mentions, and I'm stuck
being ME for quadrillions of eternities, complete with habits
and personality quirks. (Barring of course, blessed oblivion...)
Swedenborg apparently claims that you VOLUNTARILY enter
the "Hell" society which seems most attractive to you.
But here's the kicker...
I'm not a very social person. In fact, I DON'T WANT to be a
member of ANY "society" post-mortem... Cripes, I can barely
stand the society I LIVE IN (modern America!) AND, I frankly
dislike people in general, and prefer my own company as a rule.
So what if I simply refuse to budge? What if I make the ultimatum:
"Annihilate me if you will, it's what I want. but I REFUSE to enter ANY
"society." I had a bellyfull of "society" during life!!! So, I guess
you'll just have to put up with me being an eyesore in
the lobby for the next umpteem bazillion years..."

B-misanthrope

Chum,

Swedenborg's use of the term societies, is simply like attracting like.  I'm sure there are many others like you.  You may choose to be with spartan hermits, who seldom interact with each other.
***********************
-I could do one better than that. How about non-conscious, fossilized
statues or something (if we MUST exist in one form or another...)

Haven't you learned this lesson in the physical, B-man?  Life is not ever static - NEVER; it changes constantly.  You age, learn, grow - the universe is in flux.  As above, so below.  If the physical world teaches you lessons that nothing lasts forever, why oh why must assume heaven or hell is forever? 
***********************
-If it lasts for ten thousand years, that's not forever. But it's probably
a good guess for how long I'd be in "Hell", as reports seem to indicate that change happens MUCH more slowly post-mortem.
And as for THIS life, I don't plan on adopting the "churchy" lifestyle
anytime soon. Ergo, I'm not likely to work very hard, or very long to win a seat in "Heaven"... I'd probably end up burning myself out if I tried. (That's what happens when you try to buck your own nature, Doc. I know it from experience.) I'd much rather spend the remaining years of my life trying to get rich, or something like that (an ACCOMPLISHMENT, in my view!)
SO...
I hope there are GUNS in the afterlife, and lots of ammo. (10K years is a long time to be dealing with ravening gangs of a$$holes...)

B-(hunted)man

B-dawg wrote on Mar 9^th, 2007 at 2:41am:


You wouldn't be stuck there for 10,000 years unless you wanted to be. You'd just need to think 'I want to leave here and go somewhere else' and helpers would be there to take you to a different more spiritually progressive place.

Also this whole time issue is a bit fuzzy. I do not believe that time really exists as I think its just a man made concept and it doesn't apply to non physical existence. Over 'there' what seems like a few days to one soul could seem like a hundred years to another depending on the experience they are having.

Chum:

Kind of related to what Dave wrote, what if you're just confused now. When it is your time to cross over, wouldn't you want a friend from the spirit World to jostle your memory and let you know that you've been mistaken about things? What if, despite what you now believe, things can be quite wonderful, if you allow them to be?

Chum,

First, lets locate the deceased Chumley.  You will find yourself in a rather private sector of ES's 2nd hell level where souls endlessly defend their viewpoints and are never willing to suspend judgment and do the hard work of detached critical thinking.   This would suit you because you abhor the endless violent clashes of the first hell level and you steadfastly refuse to read any book that challenges your perspective.  Ah, but you have 3 weaknesses for me to exploit: (1) Most of the time, you sit in a stupor overwhelmed by the acrid odor of metaphysical mothballs.  But when Berserk bursts on the scene after a protracted absence, you always spring to life with boingy-eyed intensity and feel compelled to deluge the site with an avalance of anti-Christian posts.  In this way, unknown to you, I have cunningly infected you with the Berserk virus.  Sufficent adversarial juice has flowed between us to establish a clear pipeline in the afterlife.  (2) Like attracts like.  Like me, You enjoy creative but absurd fantasies that amount to witty caricatures of positions you find threatening.  I will use that against you in the afterlife.  (3) Though close-minded, you are very curious--a weakness I will exploit when I sneak up to retrieve you.

First, to repeat, I will exploit your curiosity by luring you out of your hell with the promise that I can help you reincarnate as a sex symbol and a great white hunter like Teddy Roosevelt.   Before you know it, I will bring you to the residence hall of my heaven's Gregorian chant choir and grant you eternal membership.   But such a fate couldn't be forced on a heavy metal guy like you, right?  Wrong!   Like me, you love absurd fantasies that caricature.  That shared love will trap you in our commen fantasy.  Wh.en you start blubbering that you just want to be annihilated, I will smile sweetly and say, "Brendan, that's what I'd want for you too--but...it's too much fun to subject you to this sort of fraternal hazing first."  I was always a practical joker on college and you would be the perfect mark.  

After apologizing profusely for my sophomoric hazing ritual, I would then take you around to the private rural lodging you crave and help you adjest to a fulfilling array of activities that satisfy your deepest longings.   At the top of my list would be a quest to connect you with an attractive spiritual chick who could initiate you into the joys of astral sex (deeply satsifying mutual interpenetration, sweeter and more satisfying than earthly sex).   ES wrote a book on this subject.  But first I'd have to immerse you in a bath of PUL.   Brendan, you remind me of an insecure teenage boy who is terrified of rejection by pretty girls and therefore pretends he's not interested in conventional romance.  Once you actually experienced wave on wave of liquid love, your resistance would quickly melt away and you'd get permanently high on the buzz from a lifestyle immersed in less egoic altruistic existence.  Knowing how priivate you are, I'd then exit stage right.  But I would stealthily check up on you once in a while, giggling like a ninny all the while.  Or . . .I'd be trapped in a hell for delusions of grandeur and you'd have to come "down" and retrieve me!

thinly disguised PUL,
the Berserk retriever  

Wow, Don..I'd have to say that post of yours is one I truly enjoyed reading..loved that twist at the end!

... or what about Chumley is stuck with me and I can tell him all about my book collection ... that should take a good few eons cos I'll have to remember it all first!!  And while I'm doing that he'll be telling me how much he refuses to reincarnate into Earth again!