And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.â??
[/quote]
You got any original thoughts on the matter, or are you just going to keep regurgitating someone else’s opinion? One that was written a couple hundred years after the fact on top of everything else.
This constant pointing to quotes in the Bible is bullshit. The Bible was written by men, period. It represents their belief system as handed down to them by memory from others over the course of a couple hundred years. Memory is nothing more than decaying senses, and is therefore flawed at best. In essence, you’re just worshiping someone else’s belief system and not God. Put the Bible down and examine these sorts of issues without it. Or can you?
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
I don’t really spend a whole lot of time thinking about the afterlife at all. I think that, although this is probably a bit too simplistic, the idea of an afterlife has existed since the beginning of civilization as a way to keep people in check. That’s not to say that someone like Hamurabi or some shit like that just decided one day that he was going to invent this concept of an afterlife in order to keep people in line, lest they end up with a bad afterlift. But I think that people have always wondered what happens after we die, what’s next and if we DO go somewhere or we’re reincarnated or whatever, then how we do we ensure a desirable afterlife?
Combine that with the fact that for thousands of years people have looked to some sort of metaphysical entity for answers. Bad harvest last year? “God” must have something to do with it and this must be punishment for something. What is it punishment for? It could be for anything, but the people decide that EVERYONE should kinda shape up their act a bit to have all their bases covered for next harvest. That attitude has evolved over the course of thousands of years, but we still view the afterlife as some sort of final reward for the most part. There are people out there who think we just turn into fertilizer as well. But for the most part, the concept of an afterlife simply exists as motivation to do the right thing right here, right now.
Which is why I personally believe that the concept of an afterlife has no place in religion or in religious beliefs. At least the mindset that there IS an afterlife and that there is no other possible scenario doesn’t have a place in religion. To me, the afterlife may as well be Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy. It’s not truly good behavior if we are motivated primarily by what WE get out of it. If I walk a woman across the street because she needs help and I happen to be there and I don’t expect any sort of reward for my actions, THAT is good behavior. But if I do the exact same thing, thinking to myself that I better get something out of this, whether it be here or from the Big Scorekeeper in the sky, that is NOT good behavior. It’s selfish behavior with a good deed occurring simply as a byproduct of my selfishness.
To me, people should act well and all that good shit regardless of whether or not there is an afterlife. I never think about it because I am not concerned with it. If I found out tomorrow that there is absolutely no afterlife whatsoever and this was somehow proven to me beyond a reasonable doubt, it wouldn’t change a thing about the way I behave. I wonder though how people who are motivated here on Earth by the possibility of an afterlife would react to the same news.[/quote]
DB, I know those nuns did you better than this shit here. I am sure you’re familiar with the fighting analogy. Right? When we were kids and we used to get in a fight and we ran away mid way through, what did our pops (or, in some cases mama) say? If you don’t finish that damn fight, I’m going to finish for you. And, we went back out to either get our ass beat into the dirt or to fuck up the bastard that stole our bike for the 100th time and we were damn tired of it. Or, in your words, slit his fucking throat. Now, is this the par excellence of situations? No. Is it sufficient until you can go out there on your own and beat ass until you do the job because that is the right thing to do? Hell yes.
This is what I dealt with in my first fistfight and about my first four fights in the ring. I’d get a good hit in and I’d back up, back up, and back up. I wouldn’t finish the fight. After the round ended, my dad would whisper in my ear that if I didn’t finish this kid, he’d finish me when we got home. Now, was I a good fighter? Fuck no; I acted like a total and utter bitch. Did I finish the fight? All four fights were knockouts…the next round. I was scared shitless that my dad was going to hand my ass to me. He explained later that real men end the fight, either his opponent knocks him out or he walks out with the belt. I ended the fights, but I eventually ended the fights because I wanted to end the fight
Same for everything else in my life came from the teaching I got from my dad in the corner. Same thing with the afterlife. Is it as good a deed to do something because you fear hell as if you love G-d? No, it isn’t. Is it sufficient if you can’t muster the latter? Yes, it definitely is and to say otherwise is unrealistic. On top of that, I love my dad and that is why I listen to what he tells me. Nevertheless, to say I don’t fear the man that at three times my age could go punch for punch with me is a lie.
[quote]Squiggles wrote:
In Christianity, for example, you can be the best person in the entire world and it doesn’t matter. It’s about acknowledging God, accepting Jesus, asking for redemption and receiving it. You can be the worst person in the world and ask for it 10 seconds before you die, and BOOM, there’s heaven.[/quote]
Let’s not confuse the blood thirsty heretical protestants with true Christians.
You know what BrotherChris, as much as I like you, your religious intolerance of everything that isn’t Catholic, or at least your disdain for other religions, erases any sort of credibility you may have with me on this issue. I’ve heard way too many comments from you along the lines of your last one about Protestants to even begin to harbor any sort of notion that you may be able to look at any sort of religious topic in an impartial manner.
As for your post responding to me, I understand your point. The end result, when it comes to doing good, is more important than the motivation for it. And I disagree with you in that respect. But what does that have to do with God? God asks that our hearts be filled with Him or with love for our fellow man or something along those lines, right? Well, if I do something good out of selfish motivation, what is in my heart then? What’s the point of doing good every time someone is watching if you lack the capacity or you outright refuse to do good when no one is watching?
Also, I am reminded of the parable about the man who sits in the front row of the church every Sunday and fills the collection box with gold coins in a lavish display, while the poor old woman in the back puts her one and only coin in the box every week. Now, I understand that the topic here is different than the one that particular parable is intended to address, but the principle is the same. What motivates the man in front? Is he motivated by his love for God and the Church, or is he motivated by the social capital that he gains when people see him give so much to the Church, despite the fact that his weekly donations don’t make a dent in his wealth. However, the old woman, despite not giving anywhere near as much, has pure intentions and so her place in Heaven is secured.
As far as your analogy about boxing, I fail to see the relevance. Your dad wanted you to finish the fight because you must start what you finish, but he also wanted you to finish the fight because he wanted you to learn to face your fears. I think that is the bigger lesson he tried to impart to you. But really, how are you becoming more brave if you have to use fear of one thing to face down something else that you fear? Isn’t true bravery facing a fear that you KNOW you can simply walk away from without any consequences, and yet you face it anyways? Your father simply replaced your fear of the fight with the fear of him. And that’s all the concept of Heaven as some sort of final reward does: it replaces your fear of temporal retribution for bad actions with an even larger fear, the fear of an eternity in Hell.
Essentially what I hear is that God is saying “I don’t care how you arrive at accepting Me, just accept Me as your one true God and you can go to Heaven.”
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
You know what BrotherChris, as much as I like you, your religious intolerance of everything that isn’t Catholic, or at least your disdain for other religions, erases any sort of credibility you may have with me on this issue. I’ve heard way too many comments from you along the lines of your last one about Protestants to even begin to harbor any sort of notion that you may be able to look at any sort of religious topic in an impartial manner. [/quote]
You don’t watch enough Colbert Report. Most of my xenophobic one liners are from his show. I guess because I don’t have several million people watching me on a liberal hack station it isn’t funny when I say them.
[quote]
As for your post responding to me, I understand your point. The end result, when it comes to doing good, is more important than the motivation for it. And I disagree with you in that respect. But what does that have to do with God? God asks that our hearts be filled with Him or with love for our fellow man or something along those lines, right? Well, if I do something good out of selfish motivation, what is in my heart then? What’s the point of doing good every time someone is watching if you lack the capacity or you outright refuse to do good when no one is watching?[/quote]
Well, there has been three levels of ‘doing right’ when it comes to psychology. There is the infant or toddler stage who does it because they find joy in it for themselves, selfish. There is the adolescent stage who does it because they fear punishment. And there is the adult stage in which they do it because it is the right thing to do. Now, looking at a lot of my friends, I am wondering if they have left the first two stages, but that is for later.
It is a natural progression (rarely have I seen a child do something because it’s just the right thing to do, although I have seen adults jump from stage one to three in one moment) towards the third stage. Now, yes we are supposed to get to that point, but to say one should jump the first two stages is kind of difficult for me to believe.
[quote]
Also, I am reminded of the parable about the man who sits in the front row of the church every Sunday and fills the collection box with gold coins in a lavish display, while the poor old woman in the back puts her one and only coin in the box every week. Now, I understand that the topic here is different than the one that particular parable is intended to address, but the principle is the same. What motivates the man in front? Is he motivated by his love for God and the Church, or is he motivated by the social capital that he gains when people see him give so much to the Church, despite the fact that his weekly donations don’t make a dent in his wealth. However, the old woman, despite not giving anywhere near as much, has pure intentions and so her place in Heaven is secured.[/quote]
I agree with you and I have no doubt that what you’re getting onto is right, but the motives for the man who does so because he fears death and the man who does so because he wishes for praise is the difference between those first two steps.
I am getting at what you’re saying and I’m 100% sure if I were in your shoes I’d agree. Moreover, I am personally looking at what I did through my past and my recent past affirms what I have learned about how people view responsibility. It was a progress for me, when I was little I did things solely for how I felt at that moment. When I grew up I did things because I knew there was punishment if I didn’t. As I got older I did things because they just needed to be done. Same for most things in life, we usually start to do them because they make us feel good, turns into because we fear punishment (being kicked out of a club, school, fired from work, &c.) and then it turns into doing it because it is the right thing to do. Now, the best of these in the world is the first and last, but the last beats the first because the first will quit when it no longer benefits them.
I am not one for the accepting thing. I never understood it. But that is another day. I don’t believe that people are saved as soon as they become Catholic (as in secured, not as in baptism saves you now) I think there is a progress of salvation, that each day we are working towards it and there is no one day that we flip the switch and bam! We’re saved. Just like anything else in the world, in order to get better at it you have to exercise or practice. Ali didn’t roll off the streets into the Rumble in the Jungle and win. Same for Catholics, we may not have everything ironed out and running properly, but neither do we have to. What you’re describing is called perfect love in which we do things solely because of the love of G-d. It is hard to achieve that and if until you get their your motivation is a mixture of love and fear of hell. I can’t condemn anyone for that path, I went through that path. I much enjoy it now that I do things out of the love of G-d (doesn’t mean I’m perfect) instead of fear, but I did once do it out of fear.
[quote]kaisermetal wrote:
Stupid stuff, we will just return to dust.[/quote]
I think you convinced people by saying what they believe is stupid, you should be an evangelist for atheism, I think people will really take a liking to you.
I get to become a god (lowercase g). That’s not my primary motivation to get to heaven, my primary motivation is I think we get to nap anytime we want.
So, isn’t it true that people nowadays get clinicaly dead for several minutes at a time, in some instances, and then brought back to life by doctors? Doesn’t that mean that they see what’s on the other side and comeback to tell about it? And what is it that they see? Nothing. There’s just unconsciousness. Sure, there’s that “drug trip” pimbot mentioned, but after that there is nothing.
Doesn’t that prove that there is no such thing as an afterlife? Or does the soul or whatever you wanna call it knows that your body is going to be reanimated and just thinks “hmm, better to stick here for a bit longer, it’s not time to go partey yet”?
[quote]Daniel-San wrote:
So, isn’t it true that people nowadays get clinicaly dead for several minutes at a time, in some instances, and then brought back to life by doctors? Doesn’t that mean that they see what’s on the other side and comeback to tell about it? And what is it that they see? Nothing. There’s just unconsciousness. Sure, there’s that “drug trip” pimbot mentioned, but after that there is nothing. Doesn’t that prove that there is no such thing as an afterlife? Or does the soul or whatever you wanna call it knows that your body is going to be reanimated and just thinks “hmm, better to stick here for a bit longer, it’s not time to go partey yet”?[/quote]
For what it’s worth, which is nothing in the grand scheme of things, I don’t believe in life after death. We borrow atoms from the universe - we give atoms back to the universe. In my opinion there is no great conscious extension or rebirth or lingering or heaven and hell. There is only the here and now, which is why it’s absolutely vital to live life to it’s fullest.
The idea of reincarnation used to really appeal to me when I was a kid…though, it’s not something I’ve ever been able to intellectually defend beyond merely saying: It appeals to me + Psychologically speaking, the idea of an afterlife is always going to be a neat little way of circumnavigating the experiential nothingness of non-existence.
I sometimes muse that, perhaps if a beneficient creator did create us all, he/she also created/inspired all of the various different scriptures/interpretations as a means of testing us. Can we see beyond dogma & figure what is truly reasonable? OR are we always going to be wrapped up believing what we believe because of what ONE book or supposed authority has to say about certain moral & existential issues? Basic, well-natured human conduct wins out…perhaps.
Given the overwhelming logical difficulties with postulating the existence of such a spirit world, one wonders why people continue to believe in it. One reason that I can think of is that people have a deep sense of existential loneliness that makes it comforting to think that they are surrounded by the spirits of dead friends and family and that they will join them in the future. It is such a deep psychological need that it overcomes all reason and logic.
[quote]byukid wrote:
I get to become a god (lowercase g). That’s not my primary motivation to get to heaven, my primary motivation is I think we get to nap anytime we want.[/quote]
this!
glad you can have some humor about your belief, Kid.
[quote]Yo Momma wrote: Given the overwhelming logical difficulties with postulating the existence of such a spirit world, one wonders why people continue to believe in it. One reason that I can think of is that people have a deep sense of existential loneliness that makes it comforting to think that they are surrounded by the spirits of dead friends and family and that they will join them in the future. It is such a deep psychological need that it overcomes all reason and logic.
Mano Singham, Machines Like US
[/quote]
I just want to be covered by you and to be able to listen to your melodic bass thumping in my soul throughout eternity.
[quote]GorillaMon wrote:
The idea of reincarnation used to really appeal to me when I was a kid…though, it’s not something I’ve ever been able to intellectually defend beyond merely saying: It appeals to me + Psychologically speaking, the idea of an afterlife is always going to be a neat little way of circumnavigating the experiential nothingness of non-existence.
[/quote]
Me too, when I was younger. Not that I got heavily involved with Buddhism but I loved the concept of perpetual rebirth and the journey of breaking that cycle through enlightenment. I truly believed that within everyone was the the capability to transcend earthly needs, to let fall the chains of physicality and rise to a higher status. So much about the process made sense.
Then I read that Siddhartha Gautama had fasted against the bodhi tree and realised the dude was trippin… =/
First of all, I’ve never been able to figure out how people separate a post into segments the way you did mine, so if you could tell me how you do that, it’d be much appreciated. Secondly, I’ve never seen more than a few minutes of the Colbert Report, so your jokes go right over my head.
Back to the issue. I get what you’re saying about the three levels of behavior and all that, and I agree with you 100% in that respect. But I think you’re making my point for me here. If “adult” good behavior is supposed to be good behavior without motivation of fear and simply because it’s the right thing to do, then essentially what you are saying is that Heaven is not a concept that adults should be concerned with. It’s there for children and other immature people and not for adults. If adults are motivated by “the right thing” then why would any adult believe in Heaven? What is Heaven to those who do well strictly because it’s the right thing, the true altruists? If it is some sort of Final Reward and the other option is Hell or Purgatory, then how can the motivation to end up in Heaven NOT be a part of their “altruism”?
Also, there really is no difference between doing something because it’s right and because you fear punishment of retribution. We know what the right thing is because it is the opposite of the wrong thing to do. Good is defined by evil and evil by good. They go hand in hand and regardless of what it is, we know what happens when we do wrong. In a way, this third level of behavior is only possible if the person in question is totally unaware of any sort of consequences for doing wrong and kind of stumbles upon good behavior. When we do good, we are also NOT doing evil and these two can never be separated regarding people who have any level of awareness of the world around them at all. When I do something because it is the right thing, I am also doing it because it is NOT the wrong thing. So no matter what, there is always the fear of some sort of punishment, and again, the fear of going to Hell for many simply replaces the fear of temporal retribution.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
You know what BrotherChris, as much as I like you, your religious intolerance of everything that isn’t Catholic, or at least your disdain for other religions, erases any sort of credibility you may have with me on this issue. I’ve heard way too many comments from you along the lines of your last one about Protestants to even begin to harbor any sort of notion that you may be able to look at any sort of religious topic in an impartial manner.
As for your post responding to me, I understand your point. The end result, when it comes to doing good, is more important than the motivation for it. And I disagree with you in that respect. But what does that have to do with God? God asks that our hearts be filled with Him or with love for our fellow man or something along those lines, right? Well, if I do something good out of selfish motivation, what is in my heart then? What’s the point of doing good every time someone is watching if you lack the capacity or you outright refuse to do good when no one is watching?
Also, I am reminded of the parable about the man who sits in the front row of the church every Sunday and fills the collection box with gold coins in a lavish display, while the poor old woman in the back puts her one and only coin in the box every week. Now, I understand that the topic here is different than the one that particular parable is intended to address, but the principle is the same. What motivates the man in front? Is he motivated by his love for God and the Church, or is he motivated by the social capital that he gains when people see him give so much to the Church, despite the fact that his weekly donations don’t make a dent in his wealth. However, the old woman, despite not giving anywhere near as much, has pure intentions and so her place in Heaven is secured.
As far as your analogy about boxing, I fail to see the relevance. Your dad wanted you to finish the fight because you must start what you finish, but he also wanted you to finish the fight because he wanted you to learn to face your fears. I think that is the bigger lesson he tried to impart to you. But really, how are you becoming more brave if you have to use fear of one thing to face down something else that you fear? Isn’t true bravery facing a fear that you KNOW you can simply walk away from without any consequences, and yet you face it anyways? Your father simply replaced your fear of the fight with the fear of him. And that’s all the concept of Heaven as some sort of final reward does: it replaces your fear of temporal retribution for bad actions with an even larger fear, the fear of an eternity in Hell.
Essentially what I hear is that God is saying “I don’t care how you arrive at accepting Me, just accept Me as your one true God and you can go to Heaven.” [/quote]
I have spent way too much time lately watching those discovery channel docs on the universe and truthfully…the scale at which we even understand our place in the universe is so greatly inflated by our own egos that I really don’t think most of us really even understand how we relate.
In the grand scheme of the universe, all it takes is for one massive solar flare to be aimed directly at Earth or a stray ateroid the size of Texas and the Universe won’t even know we existed.
I have my own personal concept of an “afterlife” and tend to avoid these discussions because it becomes an argument between atheists and those who believe in a higher intellectual, spiritual power.
I know that energy is not destroyed…I also know that it is possible that life was seeded on this planet considering the improbability that life would exist at all on a rock just because it managed to be the exact distance away from a sun to warrant it.