Many people rightly so experience hell on Earth

They are states of mind for sure...but only if you are a believer....otherwise they don’t exist!

Reminds me of an excerpt from one of my favorite authors.

each man's hell is in a different place:
mine is just up and behind
my ruined face.
-Charles Bukowski

Yup and a state of some marriages lol

Imaginary state of mind.

"Just My Imagination" by the Temptations:

[video.search.yahoo.com]

no, they're just lies.

Hell is a state of mind and that state can be modified.

Heaven is every second of consciously aware existence.

Then so is Narnia.

I concur. I also like this saying on them from Mark Twain: "Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company."

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..”

― John Milton, Paradise Lost

Heaven's a lucsious 3some, hell's when the batteries die in your B.O.B 1/2 way to orgasm..

Yes, we can put ourselves through heaven or hell in our minds, but there are also forms of heaven or hell that are humanly constructed, and yet others are pure nature. So, there are at least 3 types of heaven/hell that I can imagine, none of them supernatural.

Well I can't speak for heaven, but Hell is in the state of Michigan

Heaven and Hell are a state of imagination.

Hell, as I understand it, is more of a state where one is being tortured in various ways, in which life becomes unlivable or nearly so. That sounds like a lot of lives currently being led by many many people. Heaven, presumably, would be the opposite of that. Also presumably, that only applies to the rich and powerful.

ORIGINS OF HEAVEN AND HELL - A SIMPLE EXPLANATION

I think the origins of heaven and hell are in the stories told by traveling story tellers. It was an attractive profession when being able to have a full meal, clothing and shelter were thought to be a good life. Story tellers were highly sought by the nobles, royalties and rich families as much they were by the middle and lower classes.

These story tellers told of the places that had pleasures, peace, luxury and peace people could dream of. People listened with a shock and awe. They were told if they worked hard and perform good deeds, their luck would take them there in next life. But the message was the good, model people lived in happy places with no sorrow. Most places in Europe were though to be better civilized societies.

Story tellers also told of barbaric places of injustice, risk, cannibals and violence. Most of these places were thought to be in Latin America and Africa. This was hell.

After this, the local medicine men took over and put their own spin on the stories and began telling people how things must be, how the medicine men and elders must be followed and what punishment they would get from fate if they didn't. The savvy people in tribes so this as an excellent opportunity to grab power. Nothing else got their attention as much as the lure of something very good and a punishment for disobedience with the fear of an invisible power. So, the mumbo jumbo grew and grew and grew ridiculously into faith, religion and Gods.

Just look at the similarities among stories of Odysseys and Lord Ram, Moses and Lord Krishna, 8 virgin mothers across epics in various cultures. These similarities came from story tellers recycling stories from one land to another.

Nope. Heaven, like Belinda Charlisle states, is a place on Earth.

Life is what one makes it!
The reality is not the same!

as Aldous Huxley said: "maybe this world is another planet's hell".
there is a large % of the world's inhabitants already in hell.

One of my early revelations before coming out as atheist.

I had an uncle that explained this to me years ago, he said "When you are at home, and you're with your loved ones, and you're all safe and warm, that's heaven, or as close as you will get to heaven. If you're cold, lonely, hungry and in pain - that's hell"