Is God a Mystery that Will Never be Solved?

[dfnj]

For certain, there is a whole lot we do not know about the afterlife and very little we do know. From what I know I think the hell described in the Bible was really a scare tactic used to make people believe in God… Even in the Qur’an we see some similar verses. We do not have those in the Baha’i Writings, although I did stumble upon a reference to hell recently. I won’t post the passage but the gist of it was that people who have disbelieved in God and rebelled against His sovereignty are the helpless victims of themselves and they will send themselves to hell by disbelieving in God and rebelling against God. In this mortal life, it really is all about free will.
I have rebelled against God’s sovereignty but I have not disbelieved in God so I am hoping God will cut me a break.

FROM ANOTHER ONE OF YOUR POSTS: I do not worry about the *final destination* of very many nonbelievers but I do worry about this man. According to my beliefs, God does not *send* anyone to hell; rather, we make our own hell by being separated from God. The only way out of hell is by God’s mercy or the prayers of others. I will surely pray for this man but there is one caveat; unless God accepts my prayers this man will remain in his self-made hell.

I've been thinking about the metaphysics of Hell. I have two ideas about what happens when you die. Both ideas have the premise than our all-powerful all-loving God would try to save everyone from going to Hell because love is love.

First, is the idea God puts you in your own space-time dimension and you relive everyday of your life. Except every time you sin against someone you get to experience the sin from the other person's point of view and experience. You then repeat each day of your life until you figure out way to get through your whole life without sinning. Then God takes you back in since you've been fully rehabilitated. God's power to rehabilitate even the worse sinner among us has no limits!

But the second way I think is more interesting. So this is what I think happens to us when we die. People who have near-death experiences talk about a white light. I think what happens when we die, as our brain shuts down and the electrical signals fade, we have a God experience. When we face the light we look into the face of God. We are so enamored and awed by God's infinite beauty all time stops. We are no longer capable of having conscious thoughts, we are at peace, and we experience eternal heavenly bliss. Although it may only last a few seconds, like car-crash time when everything slows down, our experience looking into the face of God lasts an eternity. Experiencing God's infinite beauty is the greatest possible experience anyone can have. It is the absolute height of what a human being can experience as bliss.

Some people, for whatever reason, turn away from looking to the face of God. Each of us is our own greatest critic. Many people think they are not worthy to look into the face of God. So people turn away from God during this critical moment. When then happens is the brain has a free-form delusion where the conscious self has omnipotent powers. The brain becomes its own reality. Imagination and reality become the same word because the brain is no longer connected to the outside world. At this point, using new found omnipotent powers the conscious self works out every guilt, every regret, every short-coming until the person rids themselves of all their self-loathing. At this point, the person then turns back and looks into the face of God. Except this time the person doesn't look away and the person then experiences eternal heavenly bliss like everyone else. Everyone gets peace. Our omnipotent God neatly collects every soul and spirit back to the source from whence they all came.

Can you think of a better way for God to win the hearts of people who turn away from Him than to giving them everything their heart desires? Omnipotent powers may sound like a great deal but it would get boring in a seemingly short time. After having sex with two chicks over 10,000 times it all gets a little old. Staring into God's infinite beauty is our greatest possible experience. Why would you settle for anything less than eternal heavenly bliss?

 

[atanu]

It seems to me that, mainly for epistemic reasons, god is a mystery which will never be solved, although -- given human nature -- many people will endlessly seek to arrive at firm convictions about god.

Comments?

I agree. For me, God is that whereupon the basis of epistemology rests.

BONUS QUESTION: Are there benefits to being uncertain about god?

Will you award me the bonus if I give you an uncertain answer?

 

[Trailblazer]

I've been thinking about the metaphysics of Hell. I have two ideas about what happens when you die. Both ideas have the premise than our all-powerful all-loving God would try to save everyone from going to Hell because love is love.

First, is the idea God puts you in your own space-time dimension and you relive everyday of your life. Except every time you sin against someone you get to experience the sin from the other person's point of view and experience. You then repeat each day of your life until you figure out way to get through your whole life without sinning. Then God takes you back in since you've been fully rehabilitated. God's power to rehabilitate even the worse sinner among us has no limits!

But the second way I think is more interesting. So this is what I think happens to us when we die. People who have near-death experiences talk about a white light. I think what happens when we die, as our brain shuts down and the electrical signals fade, we have a God experience. When we face the light we look into the face of God. We are so enamored and awed by God's infinite beauty all time stops. We are no longer capable of having conscious thoughts, we are at peace, and we experience eternal heavenly bliss. Although it may only last a few seconds, like car-crash time when everything slows down, our experience looking into the face of God lasts an eternity. Experiencing God's infinite beauty is the greatest possible experience anyone can have. It is the absolute height of what a human being can experience as bliss.

Some people, for whatever reason, turn away from looking to the face of God. Each of us is our own greatest critic. Many people think they are not worthy to look into the face of God. So people turn away from God during this critical moment. When then happens is the brain has a free-form delusion where the conscious self has omnipotent powers. The brain becomes its own reality. Imagination and reality become the same word because the brain is no longer connected to the outside world. At this point, using new found omnipotent powers the conscious self works out every guilt, every regret, every short-coming until the person rids themselves of all their self-loathing. At this point, the person then turns back and looks into the face of God. Except this time the person doesn't look away and the person then experiences eternal heavenly bliss like everyone else. Everyone gets peace. Our omnipotent God neatly collects every soul and spirit back to the source from whence they all came.

Can you think of a better way for God to win the hearts of people who turn away from Him than to giving them everything their heart desires? Omnipotent powers may sound like a great deal but it would get boring in a seemingly short time. After having sex with two chicks over 10,000 times it all gets a little old. Staring into God's infinite beauty is our greatest possible experience. Why would you settle for anything less than eternal heavenly bliss?

Wow, that is quite an exhortation. Thanks. I definitely have some things to say but I will have to wait till tomorrow after I have gotten some sleep. This has been one long sleepless stressful week, but I look forward to reading what you wrote more carefully and making some comments. The afterlife is a rather important topic, for rather obvious reasons.

 

[Jumi]

Of course. definition-wise ... as an a-materialist, there's no belief needed not to believe in materialism ..

Of course you don't have to believe in materialism. I'm an a-materialist too, but I don't share your ideas or opposite of it. Surely it's not hard to understand?

And once again, the definition does nothing whatsoever to alter the actual belief either way, it only avoids stating it, attempting to shift the burden of proof,

There is no shift of proof for things you don't believe in. For materialism and a-materialism if you wanted to prove something you would have to bring some proof right?

theists don't feel the need to use this semantic device, because there's plenty to back up the positive assertion on it's own merits!

I feel your use of this in every discussion I've had with you proves you wrong and now you are saying this, what am I to think of you?

Also you forget that I am also theist, but I don't share your views. I was raised in protestant Christianity was taught the state religion for a decade as a compulsory topic in school(though I never believed in it), and one of the things that was repeated often (from the Bible) was that it is better to believe without seeing. And this also meant to believe without proof.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Natural mechanism = any natural mechanism

God= any creator God/ intelligent agent

None of us can calculate the odds, we are taking our best guess here right?, I certainly acknowledge belief, faith, that I could be wrong..

So In this analogy- anything you do not bet is burned-

anything you win goes to your favorite charity.


So by what you said, you would put at least something on God, right? but most on natural mechanism- so how much about? 90%? am I way off?

Or are you saying you'd rather avoid the bet entirely, let the money be burned, rather than violating the tenets of atheism and actually admitting a positive assertion?

It seems like your purpose here is get me to commit to a position other than the one I hold, which is merely that I lack sufficient evidence to believe that any god or gods exist, and because I am a skeptic and need a reason to believe, I have no god belief, a state called atheism.

I also said that although I can rule out logically impossible gods such as gods that are omniscient, omnipotent, and want to be known by man, but fail to manifest clearly in our world, but not gods in general, about whom I remain agnostic.

Now how to you propose to fit that position into your betting scenario?

Gambling has no appeal to me, especially skilless gambling such as slot machines and the kind of bet that you are proposing, which is merely guessing and hoping to win. If forced to bet the billion dollars, I would likely bet half on each of the two outcomes, effectively making the move not a gamble at all.

As I said earlier, I don't think that is what you are looking for, as it might imply that I consider the odds of a god or gods existing 50/50, and that is not my position. I think that you assume that I have an opinion about whether the existence or nonexistence of gods is more likely, that you assume that I consider nonexistence more likely, and that you want me to quantify how much more likely I consider nonexistence with this betting scenario. You want to demonstrate that I actually do have a positive belief on the matter about what is true.

I'd be happy to oblige you if I could. If I felt that it was 90% likely that there were no gods, I would say so here. Why wouldn't I? I was happy to tell you that I consider the possibility of logically impossible gods - that is, gods described as possessing mutually exclusive qualities at the same time like the married bachelor. I give them a 0% percent chance of existing, and if you offered me a bet there, I would gleefully accept and bet the wad on nonexistence.

I might even go to the banks for more money to bet.

But not on the existence or nonexistence of gods not so described. I wouldn't bet for or against the deist god, for example. How do assign odds to that? Not intelligently. It would be a random guess to assign a percentage to either position. As I said, if forced to bet, I would bet equally on each outcome to ensure breaking even less vigorish if any, and that would not reflect an opinion of likelihood, just an effort to avoid skilless gambling.

[atheism] demands this complete refusal to admit any positive assertion inherent in the name. I can do the same. As an a-materialist, I make no assertion, I simply lack belief in any materialistic explanation for the universe (and default to the obvious alternative meanwhile) see? works just as well.

I have no problem with that. My position on materialism is the same as with gods in general - agnostic. I really have no way to know whether the fundamental substance of reality is matter (materialistic monism), mind (idealistic monism), neither (neutral monism), or both (dualism), and so I don't choose any. I recognize them all as logically possible constructs, and have no way to rule any of them in or out, and therefore don't. It would be a leap of faith to do otherwise.

I guess that the refusal to assert that materialism is correct makes me an amaterialist in the manner you describe.

It seems that you don't acknowledge the possibility that a person can truly say, "I don't know" and stop there without picking a favorite. There is no "assertion inherent in the name" beyond that I have no god belief. None. Not one way or the other.

However, although there are three positions one can express - yes, no, I don't know - the last one is not an option for how one l can live. There are only two choices there - live as if gods exist, or don't. As a rational skeptic, I choose the latter, which is the same way a person who asserts that gods cannot or do not exist lives.

I live like that guy, but in a discussion with him, we disagree about the ontological status of gods. I am not that person.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

God can communicate as He desires and not as He desires

Yet if God exists, He communicates no better than if He didn't exist, and the accumulation of instances of God imitating a nonexistent god constitutes a potent argument that no detectable god exists. If a god or gods exist, they either choose to be or are forced to be undetectable.

This is a very interesting topic - restricted choice. Consider this general form: When if X is the case, A or B can happen, but if Y is the case, only B can happen. We can formulate this for our purposes as, If we live in a universe in which a god can and does manifest, perhaps it will manifest (A) or perhaps not (B). If no such god exists - and I call this state a godless universe not in the sense that no gods exist, but that none manifest n our world - then only B will be observed: No manifestations

And B is what we observe time and again. We are told that God could interfere with our lives (A), but chooses not to (B). We are told that God could communicate with us however he likes - perhaps by speaking audibly, or planting thoughts in our minds (A), but chooses to use messengers and scripture (B), exactly what would be necessary in a godless universe populated by beings creating religions anyway.

In a godless universe, we see restricted choice. If what appears to be a choice between A and B always turns up B, its time to consider that there really is no choice.

what?....no afterlife? not a chance? not one in billions?

This atheist doesn't take that position. Of course there is a chance of an afterlife. Who is in a position to say authoritatively that it is impossible.

The implications for this are just as significant for the believer and the unbeliever. If we do awaken after corporeal death and find ourselves aware again, we cannot begin to predict what the circumstances of that will be like. We don't know if gods will be there or just entities like ourselves. We don't know that we will or will not be judged, and if so, by what criteria with what consequences. The people threatening the rest of us with an afterlife in which we will be punished for unbelief may find themselves punished for presuming to speak for their hosts, and the skeptic rewarded.

'I don't claim it's heads, I just refuse to believe it's tails' it's just a way of trying to avoid making a positive assertion- why do a-theists like to do this.?.. is the question

The a-tailist doesn't need to refuse that tails is possible to say that he doesn't accept that the flipped and still covered coin came up tails. He's willing to wait and see before making a positive assertion about reality beyond the tautological position that the result was either heads or tails. You don't seem to be able to get past your assumption that we must all take a stand and assert something positively about the outcome - preference for one result over the other.

I assure you from much experience that this can be done, and is done.

Furthermore, I will say that it is preferable that it be done when it is not possible to decide. Apparently, remaining in an agnostic state is considered impossible by many people.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

For a similar reason why I can't take you by the hand and say, "Here, shake Love's hand."

But there are concrete manifestations of love seen in the actions of others, and an associated feeling in ourselves underlying our own similar actions. The word love is an abstraction that refers to all of that.

When considering gods, there are no analogous manifestations to go with the word, and hence nothing to point at - just a word to to think or speak.

To make the analogy to love apt, insert gods into the world that manifest in obvious ways - perhaps we can see them cavorting on Olympus - change "god" to "godhood." Godhood becomes the abstraction that cannot be held or seen even if gods undeniably manifest before us.

Abstractions that correspond to concrete referents are in a different category from those with no referent. In both cases, the abstraction is just an immaterial idea with no physical existence, but one is abstracted from reality, the other not.

I'd say that Atheism is more illogical mostly because it's a herd mentality that is all about rejecting Theist herd mentality.

How about if we turn that around and say that theism is herd mentality that is all about rejecting atheistic herd mentality? The two positions reject (exclude) one another. The more logical (rational) position is to reserve judgment (agnosticism) when there is insufficient evidence to decide, and to believe nothing without a reason.

How pathetic to have a belief system based on denying another's belief system.

If you are referring to atheism, it is not a belief system. As you have already been told, it's not even a single belief, although it is derived from two beliefs: [1] there ought to be a reason to believe something, and [2] no good reason to believe in gods has been provided.

Those of you who care about having their opinions taken seriously really ought to learn what it is we believe, which is something you'll only get from questioning atheists. Telling us what we believe and getting it wrong immediately undermines your credibility.

Talk about no back-bone!

What takes courage is to stand up on your own two feet like the brilliant bipedal ape you are and face the possibility without the crutch of comforting stories that you are not special or loved except by a handful of creatures on your planet. It's a little daunting at first, and there will admittedly be the temptation to run to the comfort of reassuring stories, but there will be a reward for persisting and succeeding.

 

[Revoltingest]

There's no mystery when one recognizes God for the myth It is.
(I capitalized the "I" in "It" out of respect.)

 

[Prometheus85]

It seems to me that, mainly for epistemic reasons, god is a mystery which will never be solved, although -- given human nature -- many people will endlessly seek to arrive at firm convictions about god.
God is dead
Comments?

BONUS QUESTION: Are there benefits to being uncertain about god?

 

[Prometheus85]

It seems to me that, mainly for epistemic reasons, god is a mystery which will never be solved, although -- given human nature -- many people will endlessly seek to arrive at firm convictions about god.

Comments?

BONUS QUESTION: Are there benefits to being uncertain about god?

God is dead

 

[godnotgod]

and there's not much point in creating several billion unique spirits
only to lose that quality in the next life

Untold millions of unique snowflake forms emerge from their common formless source: water, and then return to the source. What has been lost? What was born? What has died? There is no 'next life'; there is only this life, here, now, "as it was in The Beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen."

 

[godnotgod]

God is dead

Nietzsche meant that the old idea of God is dead. Hegel jokingly referred to it as 'the gaseous vertebrate'.

 

[Trailblazer]

I've been thinking about the metaphysics of Hell. I have two ideas about what happens when you die. Both ideas have the premise than our all-powerful all-loving God would try to save everyone from going to Hell because love is love.

I agree that is what God wants for everyone, not by a premise but according to my belief.

First, is the idea God puts you in your own space-time dimension and you relive everyday of your life. Except every time you sin against someone you get to experience the sin from the other person's point of view and experience. You then repeat each day of your life until you figure out way to get through your whole life without sinning. Then God takes you back in since you've been fully rehabilitated. God's power to rehabilitate even the worse sinner among us has no limits!

I think that this is a possibility. I know I have seen it on an NDE u-tube video, or I read it in a book... We will feel the emotional pain we caused others and conversely we will feel the kindness that we created for others through our actions. In one of these videos I recall that she said that the *only* thing that really mattered was love, the love we showed forth to others, which would include kindness and compassion. Nothing else we did in life such as material accomplishments mattered. Okay, now I remember something I read about love that confirms what was on the video. It is from a book written by a medium that had contact with a soldier that had died in WWI. Here is an excerpt on love:

“I want to say a few words about love--very few, because I know so little. Also because love is spoken about too much already, whereas it should be lived. If you would dwell in peace, learn to love deeply. Never cease from loving. Jesus said a good deal about love, if I remember rightly. Look up what He said and live it.

Love God by pouring yourself away. Love your fellows by giving them all you possess of light and truth.

Love LOVE for her own blessed sake. Such love will bring you nearer heaven.

I have spoken about illusion several times. I return to it once more. I begin to see that phenomenal existence, whether on earth or here, is so impermanent as to be unreal. This is a hard saying. I do not yet understand it.

Live above those conditions which, after much meditation, appear to you to be illusory. That is the best advice I can give.” Private Dowding, pp. 37-38

Regarding the life review we see in some NDE accounts, Baha’u’llah wrote about that:

“It is clear and evident that all men shall, after their physical death, estimate the worth of their deeds, and realize all that their hands have wrought. I swear by the Day Star that shineth above the horizon of Divine power! They that are the followers of the one true God shall, the moment they depart out of this life, experience such joy and gladness as would be impossible to describe, while they that live in error shall be seized with such fear and trembling, and shall be filled with such consternation, as nothing can exceed. Well is it with him that hath quaffed the choice and incorruptible wine of faith through the gracious favor and the manifold bounties of Him Who is the Lord of all Faiths…” Gleanings, p. 171
http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/b/GWB/gwb-86.html
I know that given your compassion you do not like the *idea* that anyone would suffer, but a God of love is also a God of justice. If that was not so, and if everyone got the same deal after they died, there would be no reason to believe in God or do good deeds. That does not mean that people will continue to suffer for eternity though, like the Christian version of hell.

But the second way I think is more interesting. So this is what I think happens to us when we die. People who have near-death experiences talk about a white light. I think what happens when we die, as our brain shuts down and the electrical signals fade, we have a God experience. When we face the light we look into the face of God. We are so enamored and awed by God's infinite beauty all time stops. We are no longer capable of having conscious thoughts, we are at peace, and we experience eternal heavenly bliss. Although it may only last a few seconds, like car-crash time when everything slows down, our experience looking into the face of God lasts an eternity. Experiencing God's infinite beauty is the greatest possible experience anyone can have. It is the absolute height of what a human being can experience as bliss.

I think there is truth to what you said but I have a slightly different version. People who have near-death experiences talk about a white light. I think what happens when we die, as our brain shuts down and the electrical signals fade, we have a God experience. The reason we have that is because our soul has left our body and we no longer have all the *obstructions* we have in the material world between ourselves and God. I do not believe we *look* into the face of God because I believe that is impossible, because we will never see God, but that white Light is the Light of God that we feel and know is there, unquestionably. When we encounter that Light, we are so enamored and awed by God's infinite love we do not want to come back to this world, which is what most people who have had NDE experiences report. In contrast to what you said, I think we are fully conscious of ourselves and where we are, more so than we ever were in the material world, a heightened awareness. That is because the soul is responsible for consciousness, and now the soul is free from the fetters of the body and the material world hindrances, like a bird let out of a cage... that made me recall another part of that book I cited above:

“Physical death is nothing. There really is no cause for fear.....
You see, I was so little 'dead' that I imagined I was still physically) alive. Think of it a moment before we pass on. I had been struck by a shell splinter. There was no pain. The life was knocked out of my body; again, I say, there was no pain. Then I found that the whole of myself--all, that is, that thinks and sees and feels and knows--was still alive and conscious! I had begun a new chapter of life. I will tell you what I felt like. It was as if I had been running hard until, hot and breathless, I had thrown my overcoat away. The coat was my body, and if I had not thrown it away I should have suffocated. I cannot describe the experience in a better way; there is nothing else to describe.” Private Dowding, p. 14, 16

I do not know that the experience of being “in the Light” lasts for eternity. The problem is that a Near Death Experience is called that because those people were not *fully dead* in the sense of crossing over all the way to the other side, so they do not depict that. These people were clinically dead for varying amounts of time but the longer they were dead the more they experienced. You might be interested in these NDE videos made by a Baha’i who died three times and has a stage 5 NDE, as she was dead for over 40 minutes: The Best Near Death Experience (NDE) on YouTube and Ms Rene Pasarow on Her Near Death Experience. I have not yet been able to get through them because they are long and I never seem to have the time.

I agree that experiencing God's infinite beauty (which I would say means being close to God) is the greatest possible experience anyone can have. It is the absolute height of what a human being can experience as bliss. Here is one thing that Baha’u’llah wrote about that:

“And now concerning thy question regarding the soul of man and its survival after death. Know thou of a truth that the soul, after its separation from the body, will continue to progress until it attaineth the presence of God, in a state and condition which neither the revolution of ages and centuries, nor the changes and chances of this world, can alter. It will endure as long as the Kingdom of God, His sovereignty, His dominion and power will endure. It will manifest the signs of God and His attributes, and will reveal His loving kindness and bounty.” Gleanings,pp. 155-156

(((Continued on next post)))

 

[Trailblazer]

Some people, for whatever reason, turn away from looking to the face of God. Each of us is our own greatest critic. Many people think they are not worthy to look into the face of God. So people turn away from God during this critical moment. When then happens is the brain has a free-form delusion where the conscious self has omnipotent powers. The brain becomes its own reality. Imagination and reality become the same word because the brain is no longer connected to the outside world. At this point, using new found omnipotent powers the conscious self works out every guilt, every regret, every short-coming until the person rids themselves of all their self-loathing. At this point, the person then turns back and looks into the face of God. Except this time the person doesn't look away and the person then experiences eternal heavenly bliss like everyone else. Everyone gets peace. Our omnipotent God neatly collects every soul and spirit back to the source from whence they all came.

I think there is truth to what you said but I have a slightly different version.

Some people do not find themselves immersed in the Light of God. In that video I think it is described as being *stuck* in the tunnel. I do not think it is related to our feeling of worthiness as much as it is how we *feel* about God. If we hated God and resented God for not *doing* what we wanted Him to do (like that man I was talking about I was worried about) they are likely not going to see that Light because they hated God so they are actually repelled by the Light of God. (BTW that is probably why blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the only unforgivable sin.) This state of the soul is what can be considered hell but it is not necessarily a permanent state of the soul because the soul starts along a new path after we die and continues to develop spiritually throughout eternity:

"With regard to the soul of man. According to the Bahá'í Teachings the human soul starts with the formation of the human embryo, and continues to develop and pass through endless stages of existence after its separation from the body. Its progress is thus infinite."

(From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, December 31, 1937)

I believe that the brain dies when the physical body dies and only the soul continues on, and it takes on a spiritual body made up of heavenly elements that exist in the purely spiritual realm. I do not believe any human has omnipotent powers, only God is omnipotent. I do not think that a feeling of unworthiness would be a cause for being barred from God but rather people who had any kind of mental-emotional problem such as that would be immersed in God’s Love and immediately realize that they were worthy, unless they were not worthy, which is another story for another day. However, I think that people will work out what they have to and then move forward. There are different levels or *spheres* and souls continue to move forward; there is no retrogression in the spiritual world. These books both confirm what Baha’u’llah wrote about moving forward, although they describe it in more detail: The Afterlife Revealed, Private Dowding.

You said: “Our omnipotent God neatly collects every soul and spirit back to the source from whence they all came.” There is also something that Baha’u’llah wrote about that:

“Know thou that every hearing ear, if kept pure and undefiled, must, at all times and from every direction, hearken to the voice that uttereth these holy words: “Verily, we are God’s, and to Him shall we return.” Gleanings, p. 345

Can you think of a better way for God to win the hearts of people who turn away from Him than to giving them everything their heart desires? Omnipotent powers may sound like a great deal but it would get boring in a seemingly short time. After having sex with two chicks over 10,000 times it all gets a little old. Staring into God's infinite beauty is our greatest possible experience. Why would you settle for anything less than eternal heavenly bliss?

I agree that being close to God is *better* than anything else we can ever experience and certainly better than anything physical such as sex. Others will disagree but that is because they really have no conception of God’s Love. I am not saying I have experienced God’s Love very much but just being in a spiritual state of mind is better than anything physical I have ever experienced and I have plenty of experiences to compare. Why do you think I am here so much? The more I have the more I want, I mean spiritual stuff....

 

[Trailblazer]

This atheist doesn't take that position. Of course there is a chance of an afterlife. Who is in a position to say authoritatively that it is impossible.

The implications for this are just as significant for the believer and the unbeliever. If we do awaken after corporeal death and find ourselves aware again, we cannot begin to predict what the circumstances of that will be like. We don't know if gods will be there or just entities like ourselves. We don't know that we will or will not be judged, and if so, by what criteria with what consequences. The people threatening the rest of us with an afterlife in which we will be punished for unbelief may find themselves punished for presuming to speak for their hosts, and the skeptic rewarded.

I was happy to see you are so open-minded about this. I have never met an atheist who believes that an afterlife is possible and I know some believers who do not believe in an afterlife.

Yes, the implications are the same for believers and unbelievers.

No, we cannot predict what the circumstances will be like.

However, there are certain *promises* God has made to believers. In my religion, there is nothing written (that I know of) about the fate of unbelievers, except that their soul continues to exist. That is not much to go on.

I surmise there is a wide variation in the eternal destinations of unbelievers but that also applies to believers because not all are worthy of heaven.

 

[Jumi]

I have never met an atheist who believes that an afterlife is possible and I know some believers who do not believe in an afterlife.

There's plenty of those here. It's more rare to hear an atheist on RF say all gods and afterlife are impossible.

 

[Trailblazer]

There's plenty of those here. It's more rare to hear an atheist on RF say all gods and afterlife are impossible.

That is good to hear but that seems more like an agnostic than an atheist... I never heard any atheist on the other forums I have been on for four years say there might be an afterlife...

 

[Thief]

Untold millions of unique snowflake forms emerge from their common formless source: water, and then return to the source. What has been lost? What was born? What has died? There is no 'next life'; there is only this life, here, now, "as it was in The Beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen."

comparing humans to flakes is shallow.....

oh wait.....some people ARE flakey

 

[godnotgod]

comparing humans to flakes is shallow.....

I never compared humans to flakes; I used the metaphor of snowflakes to humans to compare their coming and going. Sorry you are too shallow to get it. But at least you're consistent: you NEVER get it, cuz you're stuck in the same stagnant mudhole of beliefs, which is far worse than your morbid fear of being locked away in some forgotten grave in nowhere land.

 

[Thief]

I never compared humans to flakes; I used the metaphor of snowflakes to humans to compare their coming and going.

you just contradicted yourself .....in one sentence

and no...you don't get it