Brutus,
The bible says very little about the nature or what is meant by heaven or hell. Like most things biblical the definition of hell is contradictory but the best analysis I have seen shows that hell is the grave, i.e. the first death where everyone goes (good or bad). The lake of fire is the second death (permanent destruction).
The Christian Heaven appears to be simply “in the presence of God” or it is the Earth beyond judgement day when everyone who has not been destroyed in the lake of fire will be resurrected here in physical form on Earth in an Eden like environment.
But the essentials of heaven and hell are concepts common to all religions, i.e. places that you will go after death depending on your behavior in life. Reincarnation is another variation.
What we see that is common to every primary religion is a promise of a life beyond death, a wish, a hope that it is possible to survive the ugliness and apparent permanence of death. Heaven and hell are of course as real as the land of Oz, and to somehow be reconstituted after you have decomposed or been cremated is a belief bordering on idiocy. But the concept of spirit or soul that can survive physical death offers an escape route from the problems of physical reinstatement. But now we know more about how the brain works there doesn’t seem to be any place where this ethereal entity might reside or indeed how it might interact with reality. The soul is of course once again a figment of zealous religious fantasies and has no basis or possible basis in reality.
Heaven for me is simply the opportunity to have an unlimited lifespan in this physical real universe with all the fears, joy, emotions, hardships, struggles, pain, and misery, that makes life real, challenging and worthwhile.
Hell for me would be a utopia where everything is perfect and where nothing can go wrong: sterile, unchanging, and stagnant.
