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Well, here goes:

I was raised Catholic in a very religious family. My dad especially is very serious about religion. I went to mass every Sunday, said prayers before meals and bed, all in all I was a good little Christian. But around the time of Confirmation, this is where a person is officially recognized as a member of the Catholic Church, I started to really think about things. I am a very inquisitive person and I started to question my faith. I read a lot and did lots of research and the more I learned the more skeptical I got about the whole concept of God and an afterlife. I told my parents I was an atheist but my Dad made me go through with confirmation anyway.

I call myself an atheist but what I really am is not really sure. Don't get me wrong, I 100%, absolutely, do not believe in god. What I'm struggling with is whether or not there is an afterlife. I see religion as a way to try and explain things we don't understand. One of these things is what happens when we die? I really cannot think of anything other than that we cease to exist. A quote by Epicurus really explains what I believe- "Death, the most horrible of all evils, is nothing to us; for when we are alive it doesn't exist for us, and when it is present we no longer exist."

Of late though I have been thinking and I have realized that I don't want to not exist! I see that people cling to religion as a sort of comfort knowing that they will live for all eternity in the afterlife. But I just can't believe that. I want to, but I just can't. I have read about some schools of thought that argue that we just pass into another sphere of consciousness or that we are reincarnated, and I have to say that these make more sense than ending up in either heaven or hell after being judged by some all powerful divine being, but I still can't shake the feeling that this is just a comfort and ignoring the cold hard truth.

I recognize that it is human nature to want to have an afterlife, as shown by almost every religion in the history of humanity having one, and I want to believe in an afterlife, but I JUST CAN'T.

rant over.
What are your thoughts on this, but please, keep it civil. That means no blatant insulting of other peoples' beliefs and please don't post the cosmic jewish zombie poster, as that tends to get threads closed pretty fast.

My Thoughts:

I don't care. There might be an afterlife, there might be oblivion (will Martin be there?), it doesn't change anything. Do what you want, damn the torpedoes, and be happy.


Jesus will smile despite himself.

We have 75 years average life span. That is it.

Enjoy it. Go have sex. Go smoke a ciggie. Go get pissed out your skull.

There is no after life. Never has been, never will be.

'Near Death Experiences' prove nothing, considering the people who have had them are dosed up on all sorts of (medical) drugs at the time, thus rendering anything they say suspect at best. Not saying they are lying, don't get me wrong. It's just that the light at the end of the tunnell might just be, well, you know. A lightbulb. Seen through poor vision. Faded by drugs. Like when I have a migraine, and I can only see patches. I know something is in the blank areas, but I just can't see it.

We are mortal. Life begins, life ends. Don't stress, go have fun.

That is all.

I guess you're quite young, yeah? The acceptance that this is all we have is, as you are beginning to realise, one of the most difficult part of existence. Humanity has wrestled with it since we got the hint. Hence the tree of knowledge myth. However, finding that acceptance is the most liberating gift you can give yourself. It also needs to be reaffirmed every day, and can be almost impossibly hard. To do it, to experience it, will give you more strength than anything you face. Try living your life by a different belief system each week, experiment, accept the meaning and the meaninglessness of life. Your existence is the only existence you can ever experience, try it all, love it, love everything. A meaningless life is a beautiful one.

I believe that there is reincarnation, and that how a person lives their life determines what they come back as next time, and that it is possible to get closer to perfect existence with every life. On the other hand, I also believe that I'm currently pretty fething far from the bright center of the universe, so I'm calling this life a mulligan. The only reason that I haven't been more of a bad boy than I have been is that I don't want to spend any time as an even worse person's prom date.

You shouldn't be worrying rubiksnoob. You're not mortal, you're actually an immortal being from another galaxy. Unfortunately, your thetan has been brainwashed into thinking that you're a human by the space lord Xenu, and you need to pay thousands of dollars so you can regain your immortal godhood. Also, you evolved from clams.

Who let the Scientologists in?

You can stick your Dianetics up your arse, L Ron!

Stop this hate speech against my religion!

You better have a good lawyer!

Orkeosaurus wrote:Stop this hate speech against my religion!

You better have a good lawyer!

Nah, everyone knows the jews run the Earth :3

But seriously, my advice is to watch some porn, forget everything you were told in your childhood and enjoy life, because there is nothing waiting for you when you die, so live every day like it is your last, because for all you know it could be.

Old L Ron Hubbard
Went the cupboard
To find his doggy a bone.
But when he got there
The cupboard was bare
So he founded a 'religion' in order to line his pockets with the money of idiots without an ounce of sense who don't feel that a religion 'discovered' by a SCIENCE FICTION WRITER might just, you know, be an even bigger and more provable pile of bollocks than any other religion on the face of the earth

Screw it never mind.
i hate it when people knock my religion so i wont stopp to there level

Nobody who hasn't died yet can say conclusively what happens after death. Maybe something. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.

Some people say you go to an afterlife when you die. Some people say when you die nothing happens.

Neither of those groups actually know what they're talking about. They have ideas, and they have beliefs, but neither of them know for sure. Neither of them have any way of proving anything.

Your life is what you make of it.

dogma wrote:My Thoughts:

I don't care. There might be an afterlife, there might be oblivion (will Martin be there?), it doesn't change anything. Do what you want, damn the torpedoes, and be happy.

I'm with Dogma on this except I hope Martin won't be there. After Big Momma's House he is dead to me in any life.

I've struggled with the same things rubiksnoob.

But I believe in an afterlife, albeit a bleak one. Our souls/spirits/residual energy remain in a parallel world that overlays the material plane after our death. This self is a latent psychic copy of ourselves that travels with us in life and is imprinted from us that way. When we die this being is left, whether we are this being or not is unknown. This being wanders the overlaid sphere of existence trying to pierce back through to the one it believes it belongs in, our material realm of existence. These incorporeal beings are what we would probably call ghosts. They are mostly confused and afraid wandering aimlessly. As time goes on these beings gain more awareness or they extinguish into nothingness as their energies deplete to nothing. If these beings move on to some kind of 'heaven' or other sphere of existence from that one is also unknown, but if that is possible fear is probably what stops them or a strong connection to the world they may have left behind. Like dieing young or dieing during an extremely stressful time.

It all does sound very crazy and irrational, but most religions do too. I personally feel that this line of thinking may actually be attached to science at some point, when people stop hand waving that ghosts don't exist.

Typeline wrote:It all does sound very crazy and irrational

(Seriously though, I suppose it isn't any stranger than the beliefs of most religions.)

Ahtman wrote:

dogma wrote:My Thoughts:

I don't care. There might be an afterlife, there might be oblivion (will Martin be there?), it doesn't change anything. Do what you want, damn the torpedoes, and be happy.

I'm with Dogma on this except I hope Martin won't be there. After Big Momma's House he is dead to me in any life.

I think he was reffering to Martin Septim, son of Uriel Septim, descendant of Tiber Septim, emperor of cyrodil, from the Eldar Scrolls game Oblivion.

Gwar! wrote:

Orkeosaurus wrote:Stop this hate speech against my religion!

You better have a good lawyer!

Nah, everyone knows the jews run the Earth :3

But seriously, my advice is to watch some porn, forget everything you were told in your childhood and enjoy life, because there is nothing waiting for you when you die, so live every day like it is your last, because for all you know it could be.

Im abit different on this one.

I would say " live your life to be the best of a person you can be. If heaven or gods exist, great , you just earned yourself a spot for a good after life.
If god doesnt exist , oh well , you can be proud of yourself that you have done good , helped others and die in peace"

A person and their action is like a ripple dropped by a pebble in a massive ocean , just because its tiny doesnt mean it doesnt cause a chain effect.
Whether you want the chain effect to be good or bad towards others is completely up to you.

Afterlife in most Religions is a good example of Carrot AND Stick.

Be good, and you get a treat. But if you're naughty, you're going to get spanked like there's no tomorrow. In fact where you're going, there is indeed no tomorrow. Just an endless, eternal day of being spanked by a Gorilla in a Gimp Mask using a peculiarly spikey Gopher, whilst you are forced to listen to Eamonn Holmes waffle on endlessly about how great he is.

See, all just a primitive (if highly effective) method of controlling the masses.

Live instead. Go kick the Pope up the jacksy. That'll be good for a laugh, and show the Worlds most inexplicably popular Dictator who's the Boss! Especially if you do it whilst showing him a picture of Bruce Springsteen.

Falconlance wrote:

Ahtman wrote:

dogma wrote:My Thoughts:

I don't care. There might be an afterlife, there might be oblivion (will Martin be there?), it doesn't change anything. Do what you want, damn the torpedoes, and be happy.

I'm with Dogma on this except I hope Martin won't be there. After Big Momma's House he is dead to me in any life.

I think he was reffering to Martin Septim, son of Uriel Septim, descendant of Tiber Septim, emperor of cyrodil, from the Eldar Scrolls game Oblivion.

I was, but the Church of Blue Streak is where I was raised, so maybe not.

Tengo El Gato en los Pantalones!

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:We have 75 years average life span. That is it.

Enjoy it. Go have sex. Go smoke a ciggie. Go get pissed out your skull.

There is no after life. Never has been, never will be.

'Near Death Experiences' prove nothing, considering the people who have had them are dosed up on all sorts of (medical) drugs at the time, thus rendering anything they say suspect at best. Not saying they are lying, don't get me wrong. It's just that the light at the end of the tunnell might just be, well, you know. A lightbulb. Seen through poor vision. Faded by drugs. Like when I have a migraine, and I can only see patches. I know something is in the blank areas, but I just can't see it.

We are mortal. Life begins, life ends. Don't stress, go have fun.

That is all.

this

LunaHound wrote:

Gwar! wrote:

Orkeosaurus wrote:Stop this hate speech against my religion!

You better have a good lawyer!

Nah, everyone knows the jews run the Earth :3

But seriously, my advice is to watch some porn, forget everything you were told in your childhood and enjoy life, because there is nothing waiting for you when you die, so live every day like it is your last, because for all you know it could be.

Im abit different on this one.

I would say " live your life to be the best of a person you can be. If heaven or gods exist, great , you just earned yourself a spot for a good after life.
If god doesnt exist , oh well , you can be proud of yourself that you have done good , helped others and die in peace"

A person and their action is like a ripple dropped by a pebble in a massive ocean , just because its tiny doesnt mean it doesnt cause a chain effect.
Whether you want the chain effect to be good or bad towards others is completely up to you.

I gotta take the middle ground between Luna and Gwar. Live your life how you believe is best. I wouldn't reserve any "immoral activities" simply because their MAY be a God who created everything and is all powerful but for some reason still gives a crap that an insignificant spec like you or I don't believe in him when hes provided nothing to satisfy our inquisitive nature to prove he DOES exist. And at the same time, you don't need religion to be a good moral person, based on what you perceive as moral. If you don't think its moral, dont do it. Because if a rational person believes it isn't moral, its probably f*cking things up for the rest of us.

Yep, Morality isn't the sole purview of religion. In fact, most of the thing that religion claims as sinful are pretty bad. A lack of faith does not constitute license to pillage.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Afterlife in most Religions is a good example of Carrot AND Stick.

Be good, and you get a treat. But if you're naughty, you're going to get spanked like there's no tomorrow. In fact where you're going, there is indeed no tomorrow. Just an endless, eternal day of being spanked by a Gorilla in a Gimp Mask using a peculiarly spikey Gopher, whilst you are forced to listen to Eamonn Holmes waffle on endlessly about how great he is.

See, all just a primitive (if highly effective) method of controlling the masses.

Live instead. Go kick the Pope up the jacksy. That'll be good for a laugh, and show the Worlds most inexplicably popular Dictator who's the Boss! Especially if you do it whilst showing him a picture of Bruce Springsteen.

But at least that dictator has his followers do generally helpful things in the world, right? I know that most Christians have got off track a little. But they generally try to do well.

One should still be charitable, kind and helpful in the world. It makes it a better place and the more one person does it the more there is incentive for all others to follow suite.

dogma wrote:Yep, Morality isn't the sole purview of religion. In fact, most of the thing that religion claims as sinful are pretty bad. A lack of faith does not constitute license to pillage.

Morality is a False Social Construct imposed by Religions to keep control.

Gwar! wrote:

dogma wrote:Yep, Morality isn't the sole purview of religion. In fact, most of the thing that religion claims as sinful are pretty bad. A lack of faith does not constitute license to pillage.

Morality is a False Social Construct imposed by Religions to keep control.

According to dawkins, morality is an evolutionary survival mechanism.

Falconlance wrote:According to dawkins, morality is an evolutionary survival mechanism.

Dawkins is an utter idiot. Morality is not the same as Mutuality. Morality says "Killing is Wrong because we say so", Mutuality says "Killing is wrong because it lowers the number of breeding pairs".

The concept of morality being the invention of religious organizations is ridiculous, unless you define religion in such an overly broad way as to include any moral authority by default.

In B4 Gwar gets it locked...whewww!!

There have been a lot of people posting on this thread with the "Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die" attitude. Also you get the I believe this is how it is such and so forth. So the thing I take away from those posts is that people really think they can live how they want too as long they keep to their own belief system.

I'm a born again Christian, I know that Jesus lives. Having a relationsip with God is much deeper than the afterlife. It's really about the present life and how you can live spiritually free.

GG

generalgrog wrote:I'm a born again Christian, I know that Jesus lives. Having a relationsip with God is much deeper than the afterlife. It's really about the present life and how you can live spiritually free.

So you believe that you are superior in your belief structure because you have a personal connection during your life with a being that may or may not exist?

I don't think I said I was superior. However I do have a connection through the Supreme Being, God, through Jesus Christ. And as far as I'm concerned there is no may or, may not, about it. Only the truth that he was resurected and that I'm born again.

Until you experience God the way I have, he will only seem like a theory or a myth to you. I was once a staunch Dawkinesque atheist, like many gamers are now, but now I'm a born again believer.

That statement shouldn't offend you, but I know it will offend some.

GG