Paradise as a mental and psychological model

Andre Martins (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro)

The religious notion of paradise is approached in our research as an imaginary creation that – like all imaginary creation – responds to human desires, based on their affective experiences and idealizations of happiness and pleasure, which includes artificial paradises, and the absence of suffering. In the same way, hell indicates, on the one hand, human suffering, and on the other, moral punishment to their behaviors that differ from that established by religious dictates. Spinoza particularly studied the affections of hope and fear present in religious superstition. Based on the philosophy of mind proposed by Spinoza, we will seek to identify the mental structure of religion on the one hand, as well as, on the other hand, false gurus and false prophets, differentiating them from the true, but indicating why what separates them is a fine line between the first, second and third genres of knowledge.

Keywords: paradise, pleasure, suffering, religion, moral, Spinoza