Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I was reading The Five People You Meet In Heaven earlier, and got to thinking; what is the afterlife really like?
Personally, I think we all have our own paradise, and there is a great communal Heaven area for people to meet up with their lost loved ones. At least, if you've lead a mostly god life, barring some instances.
As for if you've lead a bad life i.e life of theft, you suffer an according punishment before you can have been said to have repented, and are then admitted to Heaven. As for murderers or rapists, they suffer an eternity, unless it was something like killing in self defense or you were forced into it.

What do you think the afterlife is, or if ther even is one?

One day I will die heroically and go to Valhalla. I will dine with my awesome ancestors and sleep with the Valkyries and drink until I die from Alcohol poisoning and I will come back, again and Kill my buddies in a field full of snow stained in gore.

There is no afterlife.

Such things are merely yet another clever control tool. Do as I say now and when you pop your clogs, you can do what you want.

Genius part of course is that nobody has ever come back to complain, seeing as they are dead, and thus ceased to be.

Shadowbrand wrote:One day I will die heroically and go to Valhalla. I will dine with my awesome ancestors and sleep with the Valkyries and drink until I die from Alcohol poisoning and I will come back, again and Kill my buddies in a field full of snow stained in gore.

See you there.

Do they have Red Bull in Valhalla?

If I thought there was another life after this one I'd kill myself now!

If there is an "afterlife" I very much doubt it'd be the romanticized "humans are the center of the universe" utopia that Christians and the like dedicate their lives hoping for. Instead I believe it'd probably be a very abstract even incomprehensible experience like 2001: A Space Odyssey or reincarnation.

You die and you won't even realize it and somewhere down the road your remains will form the basis of other living beings. Circle of life, Simba.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:There is no afterlife.

And what makes you the ultimate authority on that? I can't prove or disprove it, nor can anyone else. However, I'm Christian, and I believe that if I'm religious and live a good life, and there is an afterlife, then, well, I was right. If there isn't, then I'll still have lived a good life and been a good person.

Cheese Elemental wrote:

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:There is no afterlife.

And what makes you the ultimate authority on that? I can't prove or disprove it, nor can anyone else. However, I'm Christian, and I believe that if I'm religious and live a good life, and there is an afterlife, then, well, I was right. If there isn't, then I'll still have lived a good life and been a good person.

And that makes up one point of Pascal's Wager. Those who claim that there is no such thing as an afterlife, or deride the idea of one as foolish, are hypocrites. That is because of the simple fact that it cannot be proven or disproven, so it is just as as "foolish" to claim it as so with absolute fact. I believe in an after life, but I do not consider my belief to be absolute. It is simply a matter of faith, which, admittedly, is hard to maintain in our very spoiled society.

Would you realy want to live forever in paradise?

If everyone gets the paradise he wants, why not? Paradise does not necessarily mean that there will be no hardship or no danger. He that likes a life of fighting and surviving will probably get exactly that as a paradise. He who wants just peace and harmony will probably get that. There's something for everyone!

It is not so hypocritical, seeing as there is far more evidence for the lack of any kind of heaven than there is for it (see below for the whole "points of view" thing).

For example, I personally have never seen anything to suggest a world of fluffy clouds and an excess of harps that exists magically somewhere parellel to our own.

While I have seen an excess of space and time and physical rules along which all things run. And I do not believe that any of the rules would lead to the existance of a big bearded guy lording it over us all floating about in the clouds surrounded by sycophants.

It is reasonable to assume, based on the evidence that we have collected at this time that there is no god and no heaven. It is not hypocritical to make such an assumption, in the same way that it is not hypocritical to look at the evidence and say "well, it is like that because god did it and it is all part of his plan".

I personally find such a view point to be somewhat silly, but it takes all sorts to make a world, and so long as we can each get on with things in peace, I am sure it will not matter in the long run who is "right".

I am not saying there is no other dimension which we might go to when we die which we cannot detect with our current tools, but I doubt it, and I am pretty certain it is nothing like the human invented gods and pixie fairy tales that we have invented and told ourselves over thousands of years.

As above, if anything, I would imagine it to be more like 2001: SO than anything described in classical "god" doctorine.

People who considered themselves to be religious take advantage of life-prolonging care 80% more often than those considered to have no faith..

Which tells me those who most strongly believe in the afterlife don't really want to go there..

This is gonna be fun...

SilverMK2 wrote:It is not so hypocritical, seeing as there is far more evidence for the lack of any kind of heaven than there is for it.

But there is nothing to disprove the existence of any type of afterlife. The sheer idea that there is is quite simply foolish.

SilverMK2 wrote:For example, I personally have never seen anything to suggest a world of fluffy clouds and an excess of harps that exists magically somewhere parallel to our own.

So you are taking an artistic, imaginary, human conception and applying it so something that we have no idea will be like? I think you are oversimplifying things by relying on works of art as your source.

SilverMK2 wrote:While I have seen an excess of space and time and physical rules along which all things run. And I do not believe that any of the rules would lead to the existence of a big bearded guy lording it over us all floating about in the clouds surrounded by sycophants.

No one was making defensive or aggressive remarks concerning God or any other deity. Christianity is just what many people adhere to and adopt its idea of an afterlife. An afterlife does not necessarily entail the requirement of a god. You jumped to another debate completely, while taking cheap shots at people's religious values.

SilverMK2 wrote:It is reasonable to assume, based on the evidence that we have collected at this time that there is no god and no heaven. It is not hypocritical to make such an assumption, in the same way that it is not hypocritical to look at the evidence and say "well, it is like that because god did it and it is all part of his plan".

No it isn't reasonable, because the amount of knowledge that we have is so insignificant in comparison to the universe that it would be extremely presumptive to declare such a thing. The knowledge we have acquired is strictly limited in its capacity to both proximity to Earth and its existence in our physical reality. We haven't even gotten into the dimensional theories and their realities. You can't make such a presumptive point on such limited knowledge, its just bad academics. Hell, its just plain bad science!

SilverMK2 wrote:I personally find such a view point to be somewhat silly, but it takes all sorts to make a world, and so long as we can each get on with things in peace, I am sure it will not matter in the long run who is "right".

Making statements like, "It is reasonable to assume, based on the evidence that we have collected at this time that there is no god and no heaven," does not sound very peaceful to me. That pretty much degrades another human being's belief system, which of course devalues their thought process. Truly peaceful statements would be more appropriately stated as, "I really don't know if there is or isn't a god, afterlife, etc. Honestly, I am just not convinced enough to believe it, but I can understand and respect why someone else would choose to do so."

SilverMK2 wrote:I am not saying there is no other dimension which we might go to when we die which we cannot detect with our current tools, but I doubt it, and I am pretty certain it is nothing like the human invented gods and pixie fairy tales that we have invented told ourselves over thousands of years.

There are very substantial theories surrounding the existence of other dimensions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse

SilverMK2 wrote:As above, if anything, I would imagine it to be more like 2001: SO than anything described in classical "god" doctorine.

That's is definitely an opinion, but that movie isn't based on any modern type of philosophy. Arthur C. Clarke was an atheist, who was a closet-Buddhist, mostly because he insisted it wasn't a religion. The whole reincarnation idea is quite old, and predates the birth of Christ. So if the argument to be made is that it is "classical," and therefore outdated, the same thought process should apply here.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Big'Uns wrote:People who considered themselves to be religious take advantage of life-prolonging care 80% more often than those considered to have no faith..

Where in the world do you get any evidence to support such a claim?

SilverMK2 wrote:
It is reasonable to assume, based on the evidence that we have collected at this time that there is no god and no heaven.

No empirical evidence has ever been collected which might pertain to any metaphysical question, so any assumption you choose to make is inherently unreasonable (where reason is governed only by physical proof, and not emotional need).

SilverMK2 wrote:
As above, if anything, I would imagine it to be more like 2001: SO than anything described in classical "god" doctorine.

Classical god doctrine?

I'll just take that as an admission of ignorance regarding Theism.

@JEB_Stuart

Playboy Magazine

The most reputable magazine any american man can read...

Big'Uns wrote:@JEB_Stuart

Playboy Magazine

The most reputable magazine any american man can read...

And decidedly not journalistic, academic or reputable. The magazine is also extremely biased against religion, traditional values, etc. But that is of course for its own reasons. How does it back up these claims?

JEB_Stuart wrote:

Big'Uns wrote:@JEB_Stuart

Playboy Magazine

The most reputable magazine any american man can read...

And decidedly not journalistic, academic or reputable. The magazine is also extremely biased against religion, traditional values, etc. But that is of course for its own reasons. How does it back up these claims?

With a hot half-naked girl

Lord-Loss wrote:

JEB_Stuart wrote:

Big'Uns wrote:@JEB_Stuart

Playboy Magazine

The most reputable magazine any american man can read...

And decidedly not journalistic, academic or reputable. The magazine is also extremely biased against religion, traditional values, etc. But that is of course for its own reasons. How does it back up these claims?

With a hot half-naked girl

Touché

I will take everthing at once here rather than replying to each response, as I imagine that will get quite tedious.

My post was meant to be taken as a whole with the general message "I don't believe there is a heaven, based on the collected evidence of human wisdom and scientific understanding, as defined by any religious text that I am aware of, although I can understand and accept contrary beliefs (religious or non-religious".

I will admit that individual portions of my post may have been slightly inflammatory, which I would like to appologise after the fact for. I guess I missed the light hearted and strayed into something a bit horrible for some readers.

I made the comments about god in relation to the generally overwhelming link between the afterlife and god that prevades most classical thinking about the subject, the two, to many people, are irecocably interlinked. I am not remarking specifically to Christianity, to which you make referrence to. It is not the only religion, nor the only one with a god figure, nor the only one with a god figure often described as having a beard

My understanding of other dimensions and the miltiverse is actually quite good. I am rather interested in the whole field. I was not saying that we cannot detect or summise their existance, rather that, as far as I am aware, there is no dimension that has been theorised or detected which somehow accepts our "souls" (for want of a better word) and approximates any form of afterlife.

In relation to the rest of the posts that replied to mine (and here I am attempting not to start casting around unpleasentness, I am simply trying to make a statement, rather than cause any kind of anger or bad feeling), you appear to wish to retaliate in a way which discredits my personality and understanding of the world/universe/religion through simmilar, if perhaps more intentioned slurs as thouse I empoyed rather jokishly in my original post.

My intention in using them was to create something which was putting across my views, whilst lightheartedly poking a bit of fun. I was not particularly expecting such a strong responce to my post, though I can now understand how it could have been taken.

I would kindly ask that we keep this more off a personal level. I would gladly partake in any kind of heaven/lack off debate if that is what is desired (though I am at work so may take a while to reply) if we would all try to refrain from degrading one another with more personal attacks.

I realise I "cast the first stone" (so it goes), but would certainly be happy with a dearmament policy to dismantle our stones and build a rockery with them or something

May have missed some points out in this reply, but as I said, I am at work and trying to post this quickly between other things.

Playboy doesn't exactly put in the science journal from whence the information came. They have a better use for paper.

However I am guessing that it came from somewhere and that's pretty much the truth for ALL publications.

You can find anything you can believe nowadays. There is literally too much news. As Individuals we experience the media in different ways, picking up what we choose and ignoring what we deam unimportant. The internet has only further seperated us in the way we recieve media, each person and groups of people recieving news in different perspective.

Anyone can find a medical study to support something that they claim to be true. And simultaneously find another to say it false. Who's to say Playboy is not correct in this number?

IMO I don't believe there would be a bunch of atheists on life support because they are afraid to go to hell.

I could absoutely see that as something a dying person of faith considers.

See you there.
Do they have Red Bull in Valhalla?

Nope only mead.

Cheese Elemental wrote:

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:There is no afterlife.

And what makes you the ultimate authority on that? I can't prove or disprove it, nor can anyone else. However, I'm Christian, and I believe that if I'm religious and live a good life, and there is an afterlife, then, well, I was right. If there isn't, then I'll still have lived a good life and been a good person.

Whereas I firmly believe in perceiving Religion as an out-dated form of population control and brain washing, and instead concentrate on enjoying myself as I wish, within the Law of the Land (and occasionally outside of it). I will not have a Priest, 'Holy' Man or whomever telling me to feel guilty about anything. I know my own moral code, and I stick to it (don't hurt anyone if you can help it is what it boils down to).

The promise of an Afterlife is the ultimate Carrot to go with Religions ultimate Stick of a Hell. Do as we say, and when you die, you get an eternty of pleasure. Don't do what we say, and when you die, suffer for eternity.

That is my rationale. I don't demand anyone agree with it, I don't demand anyone tolerate it, I don't demand anyone like it. But that is my view. I see the view of religion as being no more valid than my own. At the end of the day, it's just some bloke saying something. At least I don't bully people for a life time to get my way.

Mad Dok Grotsnik wrote:At least I don't bully people for a life time to get my way.

Who are you to claim that all priests and preachers are bullies? What about the messages of peace and tolerance I hear in Church?

You're just coming across as a bigot.

Alright, in response to

SilverMK2: I can understand this viewpoint, as I once held it before opening myself up a little bit more, and it is perfectlly resonable for someone to have siad viewpoint.
However, I soon found it hard to accept this viewpoint, as if we found evidence of a heaven/paradise, then it would merely degrade and effectively destroy the concepts of faith and hope, imo. Also, if there is a god, would said Godnot fin it somewhat offensive that those he/she created lack the faith to eblieve in him/her? Please, donm't take this as inflammatory.

MDG: I also thought like this at one point, but once again, opended mysle fup to the concept of religon. Obviously, you can think of it as that way, but I'd prefer to think of priests/holymen trying very hard to ensure that those they love have a chance at eternal peace and happiness rather then an eternity in hell, but there are obvious examples of those who do exactly as you say.

SHadowbrand: I intend to met you in battle then.

If the afterlife is filled with endless amounts of Yukon Jack and millions of women all looking like Megan Fox or Taylor Swift or Angelina Jolie (or any combo of the 3) I want to die right now.

But since I don't know that I'll let God decide when I go. LOL.

To Vallhalla!!!!!!!! For Odin!!!!!!!!!!! But besides that fact I think people will go were they want to go kinda like the planes in DnD. My 2 cents

Thanks,

Dragonfire

You reincarnate and come back 100s, perhaps 1000s of times not only to Earth but other planets with similarly concious beings. Then eventually you reach "Gandalf Level", live one last time in the 3rd dimension, take the boat to the West and live in the next plane of conciousness. Maybe not.

Keeping the fingers crossed on Valhalla with flamethrowers, strippers and liver healing beer.

Lord-Loss wrote:Would you realy want to live forever in paradise?

If it was my version of paradise, hell yes. Who WOULDNT want to live in paradise?
Personally, I havnt figured out what happens next. Do you goto a heaven that was created by a god, Or do you goto the next stage of life in the Universe? Dont know, but the ones that do know, seem to like it enough not to come back and tell everyone else

Cheese Elemental wrote:

Mad Dok Grotsnik wrote:At least I don't bully people for a life time to get my way.

Who are you to claim that all priests and preachers are bullies? What about the messages of peace and tolerance I hear in Church?

You're just coming across as a bigot.

Saying that he is a bigot for this opinion is a bit much. I just chalk it up to cynicism and closed-mindedness...

Golden Eyed Scout wrote:SilverMK2: I can understand this viewpoint, as I once held it before opening myself up a little bit more, and it is perfectlly resonable for someone to have siad viewpoint.
However, I soon found it hard to accept this viewpoint, as if we found evidence of a heaven/paradise, then it would merely degrade and effectively destroy the concepts of faith and hope, imo. Also, if there is a god, would said Godnot fin it somewhat offensive that those he/she created lack the faith to eblieve in him/her? Please, donm't take this as inflammatory.

Just to reply to that which was aimed towards myself, rather than trying to answer for anyone else; I don't really see myself as being closed minded... I enjoy reading fact and fiction which expands my views on the worlds. I try and read at least a couple of books every so often that I might not otherwise have chosen just so that I don't get stuck in the rut of "I want to read x type of book and no other", for example.

I also enjoy reading and talking about other things, alternate dimensions, various new age-y ideas, etc.

I personally find it more close minded to follow one explanation for the world than it is to look at how everything works and try to see how it ticks. The ultimate conclusion of religion is "god did it", without explaining how or why, or even where god came from, or how the most complex thing in the universe (and far more complex than the universe itself) came into being, while being unable to accept that as yet science has not quite explained where the rather simple thing that is the universe came from (and the universe is very simple).

One thing that I don't believe though is the validity of religious teachings as some kind of "universal truth". More correctly, in my view and experience, they are stories stolen from other, earlier religions, chopped and changed to suit whoever was retelling them, and spread out to the people.

Whilst I am sure that some, or alot of practitioners of religion are truely in it, for as they possibly see it, the glory of god and to help their flock, there have been more than a few who have been rather evil (by any stretch of the word) and have used religion and twisted it to their own needs.

The current edition of the bible bears little resemblence to the earlier middle age bibles, and earlier ones will reveal even more edits and changes, I am sure. I think it was be absolutely amazing if the Vatican released its archives to researchers so we could see just what they have been up to.

Proof does not deny faith and hope. I have proof that I am not suddenly going to spin off into space because gravity will break (through various mathematical and observational proofs), however, I also have to have faith that they are correct, and hope that I one day do not spin off into space

Were there to be proof for the existance of god (and here I refer soley to the Christian god, as I know most about it), such as mass visitations of angels, heavenly light spilling down onto earth etc, there would still be some who doubted gods existance. After all, could the world itself be nothing more than a dream? Could it be the church's secret project that is causing people to think there are angels floating about, etc.

I for one would probably not be taken in, my background makes me highly suspicious of anything, and I like to try and know what is causing whatever it is I am seeing. The technology is not too far off that we could create totally "real" illusions, and I would want to be certain that what I was seeing was really the manifestation of the retelling of old tales, based on hundreds of cobbled together religions repackaged into Christianity, and then chopped and changed over the centuries by various rulers and factions into the cohesive package we have today... with its thousands of different churches and groupings...

That last fact alone is something that entirely puts me off religion. Even people who essentially read from the same holy instruction manual bitterly detest one another, even if they hold 99.9999999999999999999999% of the same views and read from the exact same publication of the bible and other related reading material.

The fact that there are so many different groups, some radically different from each other, each procliaming itself "correct" really does not imspire me that the texts and "facts" that they base their beliefs on are in any way related to god, other than as being some kind of fictional tale, and hence my reluctance to take anything they say as true. Including the existance of any kind of "classical" heaven/hell, as described in most religious writings.

I have no trouble accepting the possibility of our "souls" moving on after our bodies dying, but I distance that entirely from any religious beliefs. For every one text saying heaven is a garden, you will find one saying it is a cloud, or a beach, or individually suited to the person there, or a great light, etc. And because there has been so much human intervention in the writings that are now taken as the basis for most religions, I have little faith in them being in any way "correct".