Looncall
Well-Known Member
What you are saying makes no sense to me. What do you mean when you use the words right and wrong?
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Is there an afterlife? / The ultimate goal for man
- Thread starter Flat Earth Kyle
- Start date
What you are saying makes no sense to me. What do you mean when you use the words right and wrong?
yaddoe, would you say that the only thing stopping YOU from being the next Hitler is your belief in an afterlife?
Flat Earth Kyle
Well-Known Member
Its kind of hard to deal with it when you don't exist.
Flat Earth Kyle
Well-Known Member
I can say that the only thing stopping me from being the next Hitler or big time serial killer is my belief in consequences for my actions. I don't believe death is an easy escape. So yah, I suppose so the only thing keeping me back from becoming the worlds most deadly serial killer is my belief in an afterlife. Sure I love people, but I find love pathetic, cruel and meaningless if it can't last. When I love I love in the hope and faith that it can grow and last forever. Without that, love is a waste of time. Like I said, its like writing an elaborate essay that you put your whole heart into just to suddenly have your computer crash before it ever gets saved. If you know its going to crash every time before you can ever push the save button and e-mail the assignment in like you are supposed to, why even try typing anything at all.
Flat Earth Kyle
Well-Known Member
morally correct and incorrect. good and evil. Its all just a figment of our imagination.
The ancient Greeks certainly believed in geocentricism, and they passed it on to the rest of the Western cultures, as well as the highly sophisticated Arabic cultures of the time. Unfortunately, because the term "geocentrism" is so connected to the Greeks, it's hard to find out what anyone else really believed.
But, that is all beside the point. Your argument was that ancient cultures believed in the afterlife, and therefore, we too should give it strong consideration. Ancient cultures have a track record of believing false things. Why should we give this belief any more credence, then say, geocentrism or lightning coming from Zeus or imbalance of "humors" causing illness?
Flat Earth Kyle
Well-Known Member
Obviously not everything ancient is bad, are not the modern cultures of the world today based upon ancient cultures long gone? For example the whole idea of democracy is something that was taken and modified from the ancient Greeks is it not? If we get rid of our belief in an afterlife I say we get rid of our belief in democracy. Can you imagine a world where no one believed in an after life? No consequences, it would be total chaos. If there were no afterlife I could live as awful as I want and have the same result as someone who lived the best life in the world. If man's purpose in this world really is no different than the animals, to survive and repoduce, then by all means rape pillage and plunder, if you are going to get married have multiple wives and fullfill your purpose even better.
As I said before, it is hard for many to know there is an afterlife until they die. The most we can do in this life is make good decisions so if there is an afterlife we won't regret our actions in this life.
As I said before, it is hard for many to know there is an afterlife until they die. The most we can do in this life is make good decisions so if there is an afterlife we won't regret our actions in this life.
cablescavenger
Well-Known Member
There are plenty of stats to back up what I am saying. Go find them.
gnostic
The Lost One
yaddoe said:
And yet, you believe that afterlife is not figment of your imagination?
I'm staggered.
Can you show us that the afterlife is "real", and not simply a "belief"?
yaddoe said:
Christianity had centuries of powers, and churches can be found just everywhere the missionaries managed to reach, and yet it didn't stop the killing, stealing and raping. Being Christians didn't stop anything, let alone belief in the afterlife. It may certain restrain some Christians, but it doesn't stop all Christians, including Mormons. There are good Christians and bad Christians, just as there are good atheists and bad atheists. If you look at the statistics of those in US prisons, with regards to religious status, you will find there are Christian inmates than atheists or any other non-religious/non-theists. The afterlife doesn't prevent crimes from happening, or even preventing sins.
Religious Jews believe in God, not in the afterlife, they believe in the law (Torah) not the afterlife, and yet they shown far more restraints when it come to crimes, as it shown in the US prison stats.
Christians are not better or worse than any atheist (and other non-religious person), Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, etc, when it come to moral responsibility or moral obligation, and how to treat others. All it take, is education, self-restraint, empathy and compassion. Jesus didn't invent compassion. Nor did any of the prophets before Jesus.
To think that the afterlife is only thing keeping from raping, stealing, hurting and murdering others, showed how weirdly biased and frighteningly ignorant you are about people who don't believe in the afterlife.
I didn't say that "everything ancient is bad". I said that appeal to the beliefs of the ancients was a poor argument for why we should believe in an afterlife.
None of that follows, as others have pointed out to you. I want to be a good person despite the fact that I don't believe in an afterlife. And I know I'm not the only one. How does that fit with your theory?yaddoe said:
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
No. I'm just glad that you have a book to tell you what to do since you wouldn't do what's right on your own.
Wow.
I wasn't expecting that. Most people, when confronted with a question like this will concede that yes, they do actually have an inclination toward good apart from their fundamental self-interest based on reward and punishment.
I only hope that you're not giving yourself enough credit and you're not actually a hair's breadth away from being a psychopath. But if I'm wrong, I'm glad there's a wide distance between you and me.
BTW - you do realize that what you just said implies that you believe that human beings have no intrinsic value, right?
Also... to go back to a point I raised before: if instead of crashing, at some point in the future your computer would take whatever you had written and change it to A Midsummer Night's Dream, would there be any point in you typing in that case?
Flat Earth Kyle
Well-Known Member
Well, I suppose there are those kind of people out there who enjoy pushing the improbability button if you have seen Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
The only thing I am trying to imply is that human beings have no value at all unless there is an afterlife.
I also say that most people enjoy the praise of others. People will do crazy things including killing people and all manner of other attocities so long as there are enough people providing the praise. I think inheritly people try to do good because in most basic cases that is where they get the praise. When was the last time you heard of a kid getting in trouble for sharing or saying please and thank you?
Flat Earth Kyle
Well-Known Member
So if you don't agree with me how can right and wrong exist without an afterlife?
Do you believe that might makes right, or do you believe in something else?
Majikthise
nude
I clearly exist as I am typing this right now.
I once had an exchange student from Saudi Arabia tell me that we westerners place too much value on human life and that this life is only a way to the next. He believed in the afterlife and placed less value on life than I do, and I'm an atheist.
waitasec
Veteran Member
well right and wrong are subjective...
so yes...some can't figure it out on their own....
Erebus
Well-Known Member
The idea of an afterlife or lack thereof affecting the value of a human life is an interesting concept. On the one hand, why bother if it's ultimately all in vain? On the other, your limited time makes life all the more precious. I can certainly see both sides of the argument, though I'm struggling to understand a couple of people's views on morality.
For those who don't believe in some form of universal retribution, be it hell, karma etc. Do "Right and Wrong" really apply or is success the more important factor? One poster stated that the purpose of life is to pass on genes, to survive as a species or otherwise die out. We only need to see how vicious the rest of our world can be in the name of survival to see that morality and social behaviour are simply a survival mechanism. If one animal can steal, kill or maim and get away with it, what's stopping it? Where does the concept of universal right and wrong play into this? Surely normative reality is a little redundant here?
I'm not asking these questions as a masked way of saying there is a universal retribution, I don't believe there is. Also I don't believe human life has any intrinsic value beyond what we give it ourselves. I just can't get my head around normative morality. The idea that somebody can think of anything as being intrinsically "wrong" given the world we live in just doesn't click for me.
*edit* Just to give people a sense of where I'm at, If you were to ask me why I don't go out and kill my next door neighbour, I'd give one or more of the following reasons:
1. I'd most likely be imprisoned for it.
2. Even if I knew I could get away with it, I don't see what purpose it would serve (probably the most important point)
3. I get on well with my neighbour's son, I doubt killing his mother would do much for our friendship
4. I've heard that killing another human is either utterly thrilling or utterly traumatic and I don't know which camp I'd fall into.
5. I have better things to do with my time.
In my eyes, saying "it's just wrong" is a non answer and seems to indicate an emotional reaction (see point 4) rather than referring to any real normative morality.
For those who don't believe in some form of universal retribution, be it hell, karma etc. Do "Right and Wrong" really apply or is success the more important factor? One poster stated that the purpose of life is to pass on genes, to survive as a species or otherwise die out. We only need to see how vicious the rest of our world can be in the name of survival to see that morality and social behaviour are simply a survival mechanism. If one animal can steal, kill or maim and get away with it, what's stopping it? Where does the concept of universal right and wrong play into this? Surely normative reality is a little redundant here?
I'm not asking these questions as a masked way of saying there is a universal retribution, I don't believe there is. Also I don't believe human life has any intrinsic value beyond what we give it ourselves. I just can't get my head around normative morality. The idea that somebody can think of anything as being intrinsically "wrong" given the world we live in just doesn't click for me.
*edit* Just to give people a sense of where I'm at, If you were to ask me why I don't go out and kill my next door neighbour, I'd give one or more of the following reasons:
1. I'd most likely be imprisoned for it.
2. Even if I knew I could get away with it, I don't see what purpose it would serve (probably the most important point)
3. I get on well with my neighbour's son, I doubt killing his mother would do much for our friendship
4. I've heard that killing another human is either utterly thrilling or utterly traumatic and I don't know which camp I'd fall into.
5. I have better things to do with my time.
In my eyes, saying "it's just wrong" is a non answer and seems to indicate an emotional reaction (see point 4) rather than referring to any real normative morality.
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waitasec
Veteran Member
why ask...?
it is what it is...if you want to off yourself for having this one life then it would seem you don't feel connected to anything, not even survival, an inclination for those who are alive.