An afterlife or no? You choose (for athiests and agnostics)

Nice avatar TC.The Bible describes nature itself yearning for the day it will be restored to full glory. Like fallen man, fallen nature struggles ever upwards but finds its efforts ever thwarted and at best, like man, just a shadow of its former glory. There is afterall, nothing new under the sun. All is vanity (copyright Ecclesiates).To observe nature is to see a revealing picture of life as we know it. And we are told that by the Bible too in Romans 1

the way i see it, if there is a heaven or hell or what have you, i'll find out when i die, i have no control over it, if i had a choice really i'd go with valhalla - screw harps and clouds i want some beer carting wenchs

I hear you, Rev. I don't much care for the notion that I was created to spend eternity adoring my creator. If I'm lucky.What kind of gig is that?Let him get a puppy.

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Write me into the "no afterlife" category. I'd rather just not exist than be alive for eternity. It seems pointless to me, and the assumption that I'm immortal greatly cheapens my life as it is now. I think that my life is short and I have to make the most of it while I can. If I'm immortal, why bother doing anything interesting? I'll literally have all the time in the world to do it later.I don't like the idea of Heaven. Apparently I'll die and then enjoy eternal bliss, and maybe be God's yes man forever. Why should I be granted eternal bliss when there is so much pain and misery on Earth? It seems pointless and selfish to me. Instead of keeping me alive in Heaven forever, it makes more sense to reincarnate me on Earth so that I can take a stab at improving things, or just kill me off and be done with it.If Hell exists as it is often described to me, then God is the most evil, sadistic being that could possibly exist. If I go to Heaven, I am supposed to serve God forever, according to some schools of thought. The problem with that, in my mind, is that this is the same god who created an unimaginably horrible place solely to punish people for committing a bunch of arbitrarily defined sins. Hell seems more like something people invented just to control each other, rather than the work of a benevolent diety. I don't think that something that is supposedly more intelligent than humans would see a need for Hell. Why does he keep making humans, just so they can live a century at most and then be tortured for unimaginable lengths of time? He should at least make us stop reproducing if so many people are simply produced for God to give up on and then send off to suffer in Hell forever. If there is some problem with my thinking, the only other possibility I can see is that God gets off on the pain of others. He allows our population to burgeon exponentially, to fuel a machine that lets him torture more people today than he did yesterday. What is the point of that, other than God's own sick amusement? I want no part of either Heaven or Hell as they have been described to me. One place requires its inhabitants to be absurdly selfish while they condone the torture of billions of people in the other.

yeah...but do the wenches want to cart beer. One mans meat...

That's why the creator made them, so to cart beer is their reason for existance.Robots are ok in heaven.When they serve dead men.

thats their lot in life in valhalla at least according to the norse belief
otherwise they go to hel, along with cowards and men who die of old age(this is not a goal of the norse)
hel according to the norse is were everyone goes but heroes and people who serve heroes

Point me to a man who isn't a coward in some area of his life and I show you a liar or a self-deluded. But maybe valhalla has no problems with admitting the liars and the deluded. Doesn't sound like much fun to me though. Maybe that explains the necessity for all that beer.This message has been edited by iano, 11-Feb-2006 11:55 PM

remember social context, they believed being a warrior was of the highest order, so being a lier or deluded has no bearing on it, you wouldn't find it much fun, unless you like eating, drinking and fighting to the "death" (being dead already has its perks), then doing it all over again till the midgard serpent comes to bite your head off

In this I have no doubts. We exists after we shed this vessel through which we dwell. I will not attribute this to any religion. One fact we ignore in everyday life is that we bring the intangible from a source we cannot scientifically define into physical manifestation. It happens so often we overlook it. one cannot hold a thought. One cannot physically define the nature of a thought. One cannot scientifically define how a thought originates. Yet the intangible and undefinable arrive through the conduit of our bodies as speach,writing,physical movement,musical expression and invention. It is happening as I come to you now with my thoughts in this forum.
I find it ironic that so many use a non scientific undefinable source to argue the non existance for the very source from which thier own arguements and hypothesis originate.
I have other related thoughts but one can of worms is enough for now

I dont like the idea of an after life because of the possibility of a bad one . If a bad afterlife was never mentioned i would prefer the afterlife , but since bad is a possibility ill have to go for oblivion .But , if at the beggining of life each person was given an indestructible "life EULA(end user liscence agreement)" as i like to call it then i would say put me down for the afterlife , i can follow rules if indeed they are the TRUE rules . But since noone knows whether various life EULA's , or "bibles" are true i prefer to side with atheism and just live try to live my life the way i think is best .

It would be better to exist, even in pain, than not exist.

If that existance included:- intense self-loathing
- perpetual, aching and deeply intense regret
- fear indescribable
- indescribable pain, not just physical but to the innermost of your being
- hopelessness of an infinite variety - never any, not even oblivion
- no pleasure of any kind not even those we take for granted: cool air in our lungs, warmth on our skin, birdsong,
- no sense of peace - everThe above is only the Biblical view of it. It could be worse. Not to debate, but just to point out what an unknown afterlife might entail and whether you feel the same way in that light.Personally, Chiroptera seemed to me to have the most sensible take on it. Along the lines of "If even the merest chance (of the above) then oblivion

I'll take it. Not that much different from earthly life, really.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 02-17-2006 06:16 PM

Oh Robin....