Shouldn’t students be excited to turn in their test in to the teacher, because it means an end to the stressfull test and the obtainment of the good grade?
Even in the back of their minds, the religious are unsure where they’re going. Because nobody came back from the dead to tell anyone what to expect.
Mankind has constructed the idea of Heaven, Hell, Rainbow Bridge, Valhalla, River Styx, Hades .etc as places we all think we’ll go when we die. But the truth of the matter is, is that we won’t know until we do die, though we can’t come back to tell anyone what’s there and what to expect.
It is all as superfluous as trying to tell someone there’s a being of omniscient and omnipotent design that controls the casualty of our actions.
It is essential to Christianity that Jesus was raised from the dead. Without that, there is no message. Source: the Bible
“…if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”
I think heaven was a necessary evil. The point was to have a scary place with an omnipresent being that will send you there if you break the rules. For that to work, you need a good place to serve as the dangling carrot.
No, for that to work, you needed to be the only convincing, smart and devious conman that had influence on otherwise people with simple brains in ancient civilization. Ones who were too scared to even know what a sun eclipse was.
You’re agreeing with me, so I’m not sure why you’re saying No.
The con man uses the carrot as part of the convincing. And people are just as susceptible to those strategies now as they were back then. Science is better now but the “floor” hasn’t moved much, just the ceiling.
Shouldn't athletes expecting to medal just want to skip the competition and go straight to the podium? I mean, that's the reward, right? It is pretty easy to come up with many other analogs where there is a reward/goal that would feel hollow without whatever experience precedes it.
Totally not the same. Religious people believe the afterlife is better than real life and the OP was curious why they aren’t speed running to get to it.
A blank nothingness is not an upgrade for most people.
Be scared of dying. The whole context of this thread is someone asking why theists are scared of dying, when the answer is the same reason that atheists are, dying can suck, no one is 100% certain about anything except for zealots, and fear of death fundamentally does not come from the logical part of our brain.
It’s relatively worse. If you have nothing you won’t be around to complain about it. But having a good life is totally better than simply not existing.
It’s not relatively worse, it’s just objectively neutral. It cannot be relatively worse because it is not perceived or felt to be compared. It is just objectively neutral.
It is not zero or null, those are both conditions you perceive, it is the complete lack of perception and being. You cannot have lost anything if you no longer exist to perceive any loss.
A blank nothingness might not technically be bad but there are plenty of ways that transitioning to that nothingness could be absolutely terrible. There are also many people living very enjoyable lives that want to keep the party going so to speak.
I for one am an atheist and madly in love with my wife. You bet your ass I’m gonna try and squeeze every last drop of goodness out of my life.
There is. Also, if you want to mourn or fear that loss, you have to do it beforehand. Thus making the reaction to fear death completely rational for atheists.
Or they’ve changed. Martyrdom and suicide were both enormous issues in the early Christian church - so much so that church leadership had to establish the doctrine that “if you kill yourself, or you start the fight, you don’t go to heaven”.
In roman-catholicism suicide is a bad thing that makes god angry. In the past, clerics said you would go to hell if you were to commit suicide. We also have the commandment that says “thou shall not kill”, which is shared with a lot of other religions. So, we are educated to not facilitate death, and I guess the idea is to die peacefully when death comes, thinking about the afterlife. Don’t think “exciting” is the goal here.
Speaking about Christianity – but it’s not an unforgivable sin. If one believes in what is common in Christian sects and is having a difficult lonely life without support, it definitely makes sense to commit suicide. God being angry, but then forgiving you and allowing you to live in heaven sounds better than a life of despair to me.
It’s my opinion that most people that call themselves religious don’t actually believe. The true believers are the ones doing suicide bombings and fighting unwinnable wars.
Also most of the early Christian sects who believed either this or “no marriage/children until the second coming” died out. Either literally or they got absorbed into Catholicism as various orders.
The religious aren’t as obtuse as Internet randos suddenly given a voice may lead you to believe. Even those who profess reincarnation believe we only get to experience this life and serve our purpose once. May as well make the most of it.
I had to sleep on this before coming up with a reply. As an individual who is not what you would call religiously devout, you can take it with a grain of salt. But whatever the case, here goes…
I grew up without religion for the most part but married a Catholic, and as musicians, we wound up playing at the local church.
As it stands, I would not say that I have bought into the whole religious faith thing at the deepest levels. That does not come easily for me. But I think it is fair to say that certain aspects of the religious experience have rubbed off?
In particular, I am more invested in the welfare of others ranging from my immediate family and friends (many of whom I met indirectly through church connections) to the community at large. As such, I am in no hurry to shuffle off at this point, as I feel there are people who depend on me and so I guess I still have unfinished business?
I don’t know what happens in any afterlife. Does anyone, really? Frankly, if we all just fade away into oblivion, I’d be satisfied to simply have a peaceful release from worldy concerns, but I don’t have any expectations beyond that.
I mean, I’m not religious but I’m excited to die ¯_ (ツ)_/¯
(This is a half serious joke. I have a long history of suicidal feelings and whilst I generally do want to live and am not in any acute risk, I wont lie — many days are a struggle. )
Edit: escaped a backslash so my shrug could have both arms.
Hi if you ever wanna talk to someone or feel like your alone do feel free to dm me . This is not just internet formality i’ll be genuinely happy to talk to you .
Its all good its that some people feel more suicidal when alone so i thought I’d offer and you don’t have to talk to me about your problem we can talk about anything else . But hey i get it and i hope you overcome whatever that is bothering you .
Not all religions have a heaven to look up to. Most schools of Hinduism, and Mahayana Buddhism, require a person to live multiple lives before they achieve nirvana (‘non-being’ or ‘enlightenment’, not ‘heaven’). Other schools of Hinduism and Buddhism are either silent on life after death (Theravada) or reject it (Navayana, Charvaka).
They are often, consciously, but the biology of us works so that most decisions are made unconsciously. The nature of all biological life is that there’s a survival instinct, which is in full effect for religious people as well. So they try to live as long as possible anyway, inventing all sorts of reasons for doing so.
Religious belief is inherently not made to make sense, it’s to alleviate fears. Trying to make sense of it rationally like you do is futile.
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