On Heaven & Hell (again)

Thoughts on hell:

Follow me here. Let's overlook for a second the notion of infinite torture for finite crimes. If we go to hell when we die and hell is the place described in Dante's Inferno (the perception of hell, since aside from 'lake of fire' there's not much actual description of hell in the Bible), then what about us is being tortured? How can we "burn for eternity" without a body or a brain with pain receptors and nerves to feel and process pain? 

If I am actually a spirit floating around as an orb or whatever, I am not going to 'feel' things because I wouldn't have a body with which to experience senses. I wouldn't have the ability to smell or to feel things like hot and cold. How is something that's not in a vessel going to experience the pain of hell? You wouldn't be able to... You'd need a body for that, there sport.

Many scholars agree that the word hell in the Bible is a translation of two different words and that the place that is the lake of fire was actually a place that existed outside the city of Jerusalem called Gehenna. Gehenna was sort of like a burning landfill and it was also a place of human sacrifice by fire. Nothing was ever mentioned in the Bible that I can find, about hell being eternal. You get tossed in the fires of Gehenna and you're history. Separated from God and gone for good. The whole eternal torment thing was added later by the church, it seems. As they had a habit of doing. Like the trinity. The rapture. Etc.  

Thoughts on heaven:

Heaven sounds hella lame and hella boring. Why would someone want to live for all of eternity, even in paradise? And if these Christians are right about who is going and not going, no thank you! And how are they able to be happy for all of eternity while being fully aware of the notion that they have loved ones suffering in hell for eternity over silly little offenses? Do we not have a conscience in heaven? And why are people so terrified of the notion of just not existing? Why is this the worst fathomable thing of all possible things in the universe? 

The idea that scares me is the thought of this life being some stepping stone where you settle and try to live a certain way just to "guarantee" an afterlife that there is zero proof of... it's sad. There is nothing wrong with this being all there is. I'm not saying it is all there is because I obviously don't know one way or another. 

What I am saying is, I am perfectly comfortable with the idea of this being the only life we get. I am perfectly fine if, after I die, I exist in the same way I did before I was born. I don't! It's fine. It is actually more comforting to me than the heaven/hell notion. Why does anything NEED to last forever? The only explanation I can come up with is equal parts fear and ego. Humans can't allow themselves to grasp the possibility of them simply ceasing to exist after they die. I take comfort in the notion of ceasing to exist at some point. To returning to the earth. 

Existence is interesting enough without the unnecessary guilt religion brings. It's pretty messed up if you think of it in these terms:

I never asked to be born. I am a consequence (good for them or bad for them) of a choice my parents made. As soon as I am able to understand, I am taught that I was born evil. I am unclean and a sinner. I need to be fixed. I need to be saved. I am expected to be grateful to an entity for my existence, which is painted as a punishment. I am expected to spend that existence trying to please the creator entity, so that he doesn't condemn me to an eternity of torture. Remember, the existence I had no say in and gave no consent for, whatsoever. How is that fair? How does it even make sense? And why would I want to spend eternity with this tool of an entity?