• TheMadFool
    13.8k
    The joke goes...

    Three women die together in an accident and go to heaven.

    When they get there, St. Peter says, "We only have one rule here in heaven: don't step on the ducks!"

    So they enter heaven, and sure enough, there are ducks all over the place.

    It is almost impossible not to step on a duck, and although they try their best to avoid them, the first woman accidentally steps on one.

    Along comes St. Peter with the ugliest man she ever saw.

    St. Peter chains them together and says, "Your punishment for stepping on a duck is to spend eternity chained to this ugly man!"

    The next day, the second woman accidentally steps on a duck and along comes St. Peter, who doesn't miss a thing. With him is another extremely ugly man. He chains them together with the same admonishment as for the first woman.

    The third woman has observed all this and, not wanting to be chained for all eternity to an ugly man, is very, VERY careful where she steps.

    She manages to go months without stepping on any ducks, but one day St. Peter comes up to her with the most handsome man she has ever laid eyes on ... very tall, long eyelashes, muscular, and thin.

    St. Peter chains them together without saying a word.

    The happy woman says, "I wonder what I did to deserve being chained to you for all of eternity?"

    The guy says, "I don't know about you, but I stepped on a duck!"

    The punchline of the joke is that the last woman's (reward) heaven is the handsome man's (punishment) hell.

    My question is: can hell and heaven be the same place?

    If the joke makes sense, the answer seems to be "yes".
  • Hanover
    12k
    My question is: can hell and heaven be the same place?TheMadFool

    What difference does location make when determining if you're receiving eternal pleasure or pain? If you're having an orgy in your bed on Monday and being beaten mercilessly in that same bed on Tuesday, your heaven and hell, so to speak, occurred in the same place.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    What difference does location make when determining if you're receiving eternal pleasure or pain? If you're having an orgy in your bed on Monday and being beaten mercilessly in that same bed on Tuesday, your heaven and hell, so to speak, occurred in the same place.Hanover

    But...an orgy is different from a beating. One is clearly reward-like and the other is clearly a punishment. In the joke, the same thing, companionship, is both a punishment AND a reward.
  • Hanover
    12k
    But...an orgy is different from a beating. One is clearly reward-like and the other is clearly a punishment. In the joke, the same thing, companionship, is both a punishment AND a reward.TheMadFool

    The heaven and hell in both examples and in all examples will be the subjective interpretation of the person experiencing the event. Theoretically, the orgy could be someone's punishment and the beating someone's pleasure.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    The heaven and hell in both examples and in all examples will be the subjective interpretation of the person experiencing the event. Theoretically, the orgy could be someone's punishment and the beating someone's pleasure.Hanover

    Yes. That's the thing. Heaven and Hell could be the same thing! All we need to do then is for every good person we need to find a bad person - the two will be given the exact same experience but for one it'll be pleasurable and for the other painful. Killing two birds with one stone seems a clever way to handle the situation of human moral issues.
bold
italic
underline
strike
code
quote
ulist
image
url
mention
reveal
youtube
tweet
Add a Comment

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.