Question by Happy Human: The Afterlife : false promises real problems ?
There is a viable alternative to belief in heaven and survival after death. It is belief in natural death. In natural death we are resolved into our elements and recycled in nature. We are re-united with the whole from which our consciousness has temporarily separated us. This belief can relieve anxiety about death much more thoroughly and surely than belief in an unprovable heaven – with its attendant hell.
If we don’t believe in an afterlife, then this life and this body is all we’ve got. We must be positive about them and make the most of them responsibly while we’re here. This world is all we’ve got, this nature is our garden of Eden, and this one life is the only chance we’ll have to try to make it better for ourselves and our children.
No just God would punish us for adopting these beliefs. No just God would send people to Hell for disbelieving things for which there is no solid evidence. So even if there is a heaven, it would be better for this earth if we didn’t believe in it.
Question : What do you think ?
PLEASE NO IGNORANCE
Best answer:
Answer by JL
oh noo i think most of the atheists are true believers, for a fun they are talking like this
jl
What do you think? Answer below!
“survival garden”
Botanic Gardens – Dublin
Image by infomatique
The botanic gardens were established in 1795 under the auspices of the Dublin Society, later the Royal Dublin Society, at the behest of the Irish Parliament to ‘promote a scientific knowledge in the various branches of agriculture’. The twenty-seven-acre site chosen for the garden lay outside the hamlet of Glasnevin on the former demesne of Thomas Tickell, a minor poet and ardent admirer of Joseph Addison, the statesman and writer. A survival from this period is a double line of yew trees known as Addison’s Walk which Tickell probably planted in memory of his much-esteemed patron.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
I can’t dance to that
well… i lazy to read your article but i believe the afterlife…
God will punish everyone who do sins… the promises about the punishment because to make sure they not do sins…
If your daddy said he was a superhero and your brother or sister believed him… but you didn’t… who would daddy be more proud of?
Well… i can’t say any much more to that..
100% agree..
No ignorance? Too late, the question has already been posed!
But this “belief” (actually reality) is what scares the bejeebus out of those who “never want to die.”
Did you ever consider that justice in the eyes of mere men is different than justice beyond this life?
You can rationalize not believing in God, wrap it up with a big bow and label it with “I had good intentions”, but that doesn’t mean your idea of justice is God’s idea of justice.
You’re a mere man, you have no idea about the logic that exists beyond this planet, and when you die, you may discover your beliefs on justice are completely illogical.
God is always there for you, waiting for you to accept him…that’s all he asks for.
Nicely worded.
You should evangelize this Truth.
Since there is no verifiable record of dead people informing us of any afterlife scenarios–and since we cannot visit such afterlife locations, there is no reason to speculate on the afterlife at all.
Either there is or is not an afterlife, we cannot know for certain. Death is a finality. But the complete lack of any evidence for it, makes the afterlife highly improbable.
And since none of us can know, there is no reason to have confidence in prophets and seers and other claimants to have such knowledge.
Existential anxiety is simply one of the obvious genetic problems in human nature.
Religion has dealt with it in a mutualizing way for human cultural evolution until recently, while it is becoming quite clear religion has become parasitic to human culture in the present world.
We either get over it or Darwin’s little law puts us under.
I think you’ve already made up your mind. But I’ll answer anyway so maybe some day it’ll come up in your mind and make you think. I won’t go into trying to prove or disprove – this isn’t a debate forum and we can’t go point for point here so its not fair. I will give you this to think about though –
if your idea is right – and Christians are wrong – what exactly do they lose when they die? They did their best to live a good life on this earth, they had the comfort of believing in someOne bigger who loved them and cared about them enough to die for them, and they still go to your happy consciousness at the end.
now – what if Christianity is right? And you’re wrong? And there is a hell?
my question isn’t meant to convert you – but it might just be enough to get you actually researching your own question for factual arguements from both sides instead of just what seems more comfortable right now.
If what your saying is when we die we go into nature and become a tree or a rock or an animal or something like that. what a awful thing. To be human and have knowledge and then show up as an in-admit object or an animals with no sense of reason, I don’t think so. This earth is not all we’ve got, there is an afterlife a place where we go to be happy forever or a place where we will be miserable forever your choice.
I have no anxieties about death, and am still a believer in God and His promises, and still am positive and a responsible person in this life.
How ignorant do you think or suppose you’ll feel when after you die you come to consciously realize that all those pesky believers in Christ were right all those years you had in this life, and find yourself standing directly before Him as He turns to an angel and says “Review his/her life for Judgement”?
Oh, and don’t presume to speak of what a “just God” would do or wouldn’t do. That’s as hypocritical as it gets considering a major theme of the atheists in this place is that it’s “ignorant” for any Christian to assume to know what God’s mind is and what He says.
I think you have thought deeply about that possible scenario. As I have deeply pondered my own possible scenario. If that belief is what you need and what gets you through this chaotic and difficult-by-times situation of being confined to an earthly body, of your spirit having a human experience, then that is perfect. For you. As are my beliefs for me. I do agree with you in the sense that if many of the hard-core religious followers of the major religions did not have the notion of a promised afterlife, they would possibly be better while here on earth….but their reasons for believing are their own solace and I do not begrudge them their need. I have my own needs spiritually and hope that no one begrudges me mine simply because they don’t mesh with their own. Good question and a well thought out one at that.
There will be afterlife, punishment and reward. Wish there will be not, but wise choice to believe there is and take measure to get the reward in heaven as opposed to get punishment in hell. So be the winner, be the believer as there is no second chance. Use your effort to find the truth. There are many religions but only one is the truth. I am a Muslim and reading Koran again and again, the Book is a warning of the punishment afterlife, set rules how to avoid from getting the punishment. There are many invitation for man to think rationally in order to increase belief.
Moses was known to ask question to God, why don’t God admit everyone to heaven.