There are two seperate things I'd like to discuss with anyone who wants to reply.
First: WHAT is a soul? (It brakes down in several topics, which you can adress:
- What is it 'made up of'? (For example: Matter, energy, something else, ..., ...)
- Can it exist without a body (if so: What is keeping it together? If not, how do they get to their 'afterlife')
- Does the soul have intelligence, knowledge, the ability to do things, the ability to speek or make conscious choices, the ability to feel emotions or pain, ..., ...)
- Something I haven't mentioned
And, topic two:
Heaven, Hell, afterlife in general, something else that is related (which breaks down to several things
- WHERE is heaven or hell? (If it is not located in the physical world, please explain how you know of its existence and what it is made up of)
- What evidence you have of the existence of a heaven or a hell
- Who goes to the afterlife? (Animals too, or just people, or just people of a certain religion, can several different afterlives exist next to each other - like the heaven and hell of christianity and that of other religions-)
These two topics seem very different from each other, but I think that when the discussion starts we'll see that the two are very closely related. I don't think we need to adress EVERY single point seperately, but it gives us a few starting points that might proof interesting.
Let's start with this one:
Before space exploration started, people thought that 'Hell' was located deep underground and 'Heaven' beyond the clouds. It is clear to us now that the center of the Earth consists of molten rock and that there is no physical (or at least visible) realm in the sky above Earth.
Where must we look to see these places, or is it in some other dimension where we can never see it? (If so, please tell us how you got to this conclusion)
I have started this topic in the 'Science, Creation & Evolution' forum because I'd like to emphasise the 'Science' bit in this topic.