Do You Want To Live Forever?

[naomi24]

Reading two ABers from two different branches of Christianity telling each other they're on the wrong path to salvation illustrates to me the futility of it all.  Literally thousands of different religious philosophies all claiming to be right and all offering one tantilising attraction - escape from death.  So, should you happen to latch on to the right religion (and you won't know if it's right until the time comes) would you want to live forever or are you content to accept the inevitable - that every living thing dies eventually?

[sandyRoe]

Eternal life in the hereafter would soon get very boring.

I don't think I could stand it.

So, no I don't.

[Radagast]

According to Christopher Hitchens, the atheist view of death is that you have to leave and the party goes on without you. The Christian view is that the party goes on forever and you're not allowed to leave.

[Ringlet]

I'm with Christopher Hitchens

[Deskdiary]

I can't remember who, but somebody on this board once accused me of being "evil" for expressing the view (and it's a view I'm firm on) that people who believe in god must have a mental illness. I've made this point before that there's as much proof in the existence of leprechauns as there is of god, yet if I set up a building to worship leprechauns and got people to believe in the existence of leprechauns, I'd be carted off to the funny farm.

 

There's is literally no difference in the belief of the existence of leprechauns as there is to the belief in god.

[ImLostAgain]

*Reading two ABers from two different branches of Christianity telling each other they're on the wrong path to salvation*

I rarely if ever give the religious ab'ers a second thought. I mean them no harm, I just can't take them seriously, but I do enjoy their (in my opinion) silly arguments about nothing.

[ToraToraTora]

on balance no, but I'd like to be able to poke my head round the door in 1000 years to see how mankind is getting on.

[ToraToraTora]

Here's Freddie on the subject.....

 

[andy-hughes]

As I approach my seventieth birthday, I am more and more concious that I have had more time than I am going to have left, I am on the 'back nine' of life.

I am not concerned about dying for myself, only for the ones I will leave behind, my daughters and grandchildren and great grandson, who I know will miss me a lot.

Right now I am having the best life, and I would be really annoyed if it ended now, but I imagine that by the time old age catches up, i will be infirm and not really enjoying it as much, so I may well be ready to go.

I am making sure that I look back saying I did as much as I could, rather than, I wish I had done this ... - I think that's all any of us can do.

So I would not wish to live forever, and see my loved ones grow up and die, and leave me behind, that has to be the worst thing imaginable.

Death is something we are all going to know eventually, we just have to make sure we have enjoyed life as much as we can while we have it.

[andy-hughes]

naomi - // Reading two ABers from two different branches of Christianity telling each other they're on the wrong path to salvation illustrates to me the futility of it all. //

There is a built-in arrogance to all fervents of every faith and creed - the sure belief that they are right and everyone else is wrong.

It's part of their personality, but it makes them pompous, humourless, arrogant, nasty people, and the fervents on here underline that fact every time they post.

[Old_Geezer]

This is where English fails to provide enough words and so the same ones get confusingly used for different things. Take the phrase, "life after death", for example (ignoring reincarnation). This that we experience now is life, and we know it ends in a death (as we know of people who have died); so any existence afterwards needs a different word to "life" as a name/description. By definition it isn't, "life after death".

 

If we are actually referring to continued existence after death, well "forever" has a huge assumption attached to it. It assumes time is fundamental rather than emergent. If this is a block universe then that's not so. The idea that spacetime is a single thing implies it IMO. If time isn't fundamental it implies all moments of time (as we perceive them) are actually simply different aspects of the same instant. i.e. there is no passage of time. That you appear in many of these aspects believing you can recall other aspects where entropy is lower, and can picture even more aspects where entropy is higher. But in actuality they are all there, always.

 

So, in a way, you are already existing forever, regardless as to whether you have a spiritual aspect that resides outside of this physical realm.

 

Now, of course, we get tempted to explore possible spiritual existence that is separate from our actual life here.

[jourdain2]

Wow, O_G.!  I'm very simplistic. I  know my time on earth is limited, and becoming alarmingly shorter  as I look at all the things I still need to do/achieve.  Of course physical life ends; all dies eventually, but I do not believe that the 'soul' is physical.

O_G has more or less expressed it.  Things exist, life forces are there. I do not believe that, just because the format in which they exist ceases to be, they stop or die. 

There have been some fairly negative things said about 'religious people', which I don't recognise in those ordinary people I know who hold the faith that they will continue to exist.  The gaping gap is sad and t.b.h. hard to bear.

 

[Cloverjo]

No, I don't want to live forever. It might sound good but when you change the word to eternity it makes me feel very tired and want to check out now.

[Arksided]

No.. as a human but beliveing I might exist as a concious part of the unknown universe... goes on a different level. I do believe in the afterlife... but certainly do NOT! follow any false Gods before me. Raised as a Roman Catholic... but hate religeons.

 

[Tilly2]

No, I don't want to live for ever but do believe that my 'soul' will move on to its next phase.

 

[Hopkirk]

At most, one religion can be true.

In practice I believe zero are.

Religion is just a fairy story made up to avoid the truth.

[douglas9401]

And of course that truth can be found at 09002 407 GOD

£2/minute, all currencies accepted and donations are welcome.

[david small]

We are here to learn spiritual lessons. Our souls development take untold years to progress often regressing also. We aspire to reunite with our creator. We shed our personality upon demise. The oversoul grows and diminishes according to the lessons and experiences we encounter. I am not religious at all, but I think we are here for a purpose. Beyond our understanding, I confess.

The greatest adventure we all undertake, to me, is but another pathway to home.

[PsalmEquipt]

It's upon each of us as individuals to take a stand and believe for the enlightenment to see through all deceptions, especially when we have assurance from God's Holy Word that enjoying eternity in heaven with Christ is guaranteed for those of us who have accepted him.

For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? I Thessalonians 2:19

[Old_Geezer]

Zero existing religions are likely to be 100% correct. They all individually express a view that they, as a group, can, more or less, concur with. But whether they are all 100% wrong is another matter.

 

They may all be deluded, but it could be that they all have merely hit upon some truths, made a stab at filling in the rest of their belief, and therefore are simply expressing their view; as in the parable of the blind men describing an elephant.

[davebro3]

Hope I die before I get old.....