Why I believe in a God and an Afterlife

[Ziro]

I think its selfish to believe that there is no point in life unless there is an afterlife. I personally think that knowing there is no such thing brings MORE meaning to life.. The knowledge that we are finite gives our lives purpose. We should attempt to make the world a better place .. Not because we can enjoy it from beyond the grave but because we want to let those we leave behind to enjoy it as much as we did.

Besides, the idea of an afterlife is flawed. To live for an eternity would be torture, It would be like eating your favorite ice cream for breakfast lunch and dinner with nothing else for a year. By the time the year has ended you will never want to look at that particular flavor ever again. I take comfort in the knowledge that one day my consciousness will return to the state it was in before I ever existed.

 

[TheMaw]

I personally don't believe in God, in any sort of definition. Though I think the religious definition of "God" sounds much more like Big Brother, then as a loving parent. And the idea of an afterlife, to me, would eventually get boring.

 

[alimck]

Simply put, I refuse to accept that after I breathe my last breath, I would be consumed by worms (Yes, I refuse to accept the truth).

I can assure you that you will be consumed by worms, bacteria, funghi and various other forms of life after you die.

What would my life have meant? The only thing left of me is my legacy? What a joke. What was the point? For my life to have been worth living, I want to hope that there is something out there after it is over.

Seriously dude, get over yourself.

You want hope that something is out there after 'it' is over? What about when what you perceive to be out there is over? What will you expect then?

What about before you existed? Where/what were you then? Were you nothing? How do you cope with having been nothing previously!?

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

You might find this video of interest...



Kindest regards,

James

 

[Exmortis]

Simply put, I refuse to accept that after I breathe my last breath, I would be consumed by worms (Yes, I refuse to accept the truth). What would my life have meant? The only thing left of me is my legacy? What a joke. What was the point? For my life to have been worth living, I want to hope that there is something out there after it is over.

Q) What is the single driving purpose shared by every life form.

A) The will to survive.

Life is a joke...
You self-centered theist idiot! This is what I have against theists. They are never content with the things they have, even life itself. They are always want more and more and more. So sure in your unjustified presumptions that you are the center of the universe. Tell me why do you think that a single caste of a single species of a tiny rock drifting through the cosmos should be given rights over any other. Do you believe you are better, smarter, more advanced then all of the others. Here's some fun facts for you, a common earth worm or cockroach is probably going to survive long after humanity is dead and gone. Put a man with nothing but natural attire in a cave with a bear and you can be damned sure that bear is going to tear him limb from limb every time. What makes mankind more worthy of a salvation when there are other forms of life on our planet far more clever, deadly and magnificent then man could ever dream to be.

(...sigh...)

The need for self preservation is present in all life, this includes human beings as well. Sure, humanity has broken the rules of natural world, however the instinct to survive and protect the next generation is always present.

Your legacy is the children you have raised. They retain your DNA, they will carry one the species, they inherit the world after you are 'worm food'. Therefore, they are the highest priority, even before self preservation.

 

[TheFlyingBastard]

Jesus, exmortis, relax on the namecalling. At least he knows it's a security blanket and he tells us from the get-go.

 

[RestrictedAccess]

Second mistake:

Pascal's wager.

Just out of idle curiosity, how is an argument invalidated simply by having the nature of Pascal's Wager?

 

[sgrunterundt]

Second mistake:

Pascal's wager.

Just out of idle curiosity, how is an argument invalidated simply by having the nature of Pascal's Wager?

Edit: Switch to right video, and embed.

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

sgrunterundt, if you edit your post to only leave the bit after the equals sign, it'll show the video in your post like mine above.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[sgrunterundt]

Greetings,

sgrunterundt, if you edit your post to only leave the bit after the equals sign, it'll show the video in your post like mine above.

Kindest regards,

James

Yeah, I know. I was just to lazy yesterday.

Thanks anyway.

 

[lrkun]

I am well aware that a majority of the forum are not religious and refuse to accept the existence of a God. I am not here to provide proof of a God, but to simply state why I wish to believe in one.

Simply put, I refuse to accept that after I breathe my last breath, I would be consumed by worms (Yes, I refuse to accept the truth). What would my life have meant? The only thing left of me is my legacy? What a joke. What was the point? For my life to have been worth living, I want to hope that there is something out there after it is over.

My religion has not messed up my studies. Neither has it conflicted with any scientific evidence I have come across since I am not a creationist.

So, let's ignore all the retarded creationist theories out there when replying. What is important to me is what would happen when my life is over. If there really was an afterlife and a requirement to get in, an atheist would have lost everything while one who believes is allowed in. If there was no afterlife and all these religions were bs, an atheist would have lost nothing. However, a theist would have lost nothing too.

Say, why is it that we are against religion?
Is it a waste of time? Unless you spend hours trying to pray, no.
Does it hinder a person from learning? No.
Are you really an idiot when you become a theist? No.

All I'm saying is that it's good to think positively and have hope. I do not want to live my life thinking that I would cease to exist. It's always a depressant.

Looking forward to your opinions, guys. I apologize for the wall of text.

I don't agree with you, but I can respect it.

Religion is like opium, it gives you false hope to move forward in life. But if that false hope works for you and you continue to be of use to the public, I won't stop it. Hehe.

It takes strong conviction to live in reality instead of fantasy. What I mean by this statement is to live life knowing that when one dies, that is the end.

 

[rareblackatheist]

If there really was an afterlife and a requirement to get in, an atheist would have lost everything while one who believes is allowed in. If there was no afterlife and all these religions were bs, an atheist would have lost nothing. However, a theist would have lost nothing too.

Why would that requirement be that we believe in something that tried it's hardest to convince us it does not exist? That's a pretty stupid requirement.

 

[Anachronous Rex]

If there really was an afterlife and a requirement to get in, an atheist would have lost everything while one who believes is allowed in. If there was no afterlife and all these religions were bs, an atheist would have lost nothing. However, a theist would have lost nothing too.

Why would that requirement be that we believe in something that tried it's hardest to convince us it didn't exist? That's a pretty stupid requirement.

More to the point, how does he even know what the requirement is?

Maybe the only way to get to heaven is to be a substitute teacher...

 

[Exmortis]

:roll: Yeah, It seems kinda strange that a god that is able to create the totality of existence isn't able to understand simple logic. Maybe he relied on magic to much. (I.E Noah's ark)

 

[makula]

There seems to be some confusion in your statement; firstly, you seem to have configured hope as belief i.e. you probably fervently hope there is an afterlife but I will wager that no matter how devout you are as a believer, there will be a microscopic glimmer of doubt hidden within you, which is kept alive by your intellect (I know, I am a born again atheist). As for your concept of the'truth', i.e worm food, again, you, or anyone else, could possibly know what comes after death. I am 62 yrs old, so my horizon is probably approaching much faster than yours and let me assure you, death, no matter what it brings, is the last big adventure. Remove the fear of death and you remove the crutch of belief.

 

[TheGreekDollmaker]

Is that a joke? Religion has a track record of massively hindering progress to knowledge. The pre-Quranic Arabic empire was at the forefront of science (particularly astronomy) until a little idea called Islam was popularised. Now religious texts are promoted in schools which state somewhat explicitly that the Earth does not move and the Sun orbits it.
Personally i think that this image represents what Andromedas said.

We could be traveling sideways throuhg dimensions if it wasnt for that huge gap made by the dark ages.

 

[Anachronous Rex]

Is that a joke? Religion has a track record of massively hindering progress to knowledge. The pre-Quranic Arabic empire was at the forefront of science (particularly astronomy) until a little idea called Islam was popularised. Now religious texts are promoted in schools which state somewhat explicitly that the Earth does not move and the Sun orbits it.
Personally i think that this image represents what Andromedas said.

We could be traveling sideways throuhg dimensions if it wasnt for that huge gap made by the dark ages.

I really hate that graph...

http://forums.leagueofreason.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=4819

Can we blame the decline of European civilization, and corresponding brain-drain, from the fall of the Roman Empire to somewhere around the 12th Century on Christianity?

The more I think about it the only answer I can come to is 'no.' You might argue (and perhaps I would agree) that Christianity may have contributed to Rome's fall, but it did not cause it. Christianity did not cause the Plague of Justinian, it did not cause widespread starvation (well, aside from the ascetic movement ), it did not depopulate the western Med, and it did not cause the Empire's intellectual infrastructure to collapse.

If it did anything to damage knowledge in these years, it is in that it selectively preserved. Plato was more-or-less maintained, Aristotle was not; to this we can assign some blame, but not too much. Vellum was not cheep, and transcribing not easy; many works owe their continued existence exclusively to fact that the Catholic Church saw fit to preserve them. There was no other faction in Europe with the means or disposition to do so, to this end we actually own the Monastic movement our thanks.

Now if you want to claim that Christianity was an impediment to Europe's intellectual recovery, you have my full support. Superstition is always like this. And if you were to argue that Christianity in the 12th and 13th Centuries was especially violent and intolerant, you have my support there too. Everyone gets their turn at bat it seems. But let us not overplay our hand. We want to be taken seriously after all, the evidence against religion is damning enough as it is, we don't need to exaggerate it. You see theists pulling this sort of thing all the time, watch how well it works for them. Exaggeration does not help any position, to do so only exposes it to needless risk and easy debunking.

Thoughts? Rebuttals? Offers to attend an orgy of hedonistic debauchery?

 

[John334885]

I just want to say, Ha.

 

[Nemesiah]

I am well aware that a majority of the forum are not religious and refuse to accept the existence of a God. I am not here to provide proof of a God, but to simply state why I wish to believe in one.

Simply put, I refuse to accept that after I breathe my last breath, I would be consumed by worms (Yes, I refuse to accept the truth). What would my life have meant? The only thing left of me is my legacy? What a joke. What was the point? For my life to have been worth living, I want to hope that there is something out there after it is over.

My religion has not messed up my studies. Neither has it conflicted with any scientific evidence I have come across since I am not a creationist.

So, let's ignore all the retarded creationist theories out there when replying. What is important to me is what would happen when my life is over. If there really was an afterlife and a requirement to get in, an atheist would have lost everything while one who believes is allowed in. If there was no afterlife and all these religions were bs, an atheist would have lost nothing. However, a theist would have lost nothing too.

Say, why is it that we are against religion?
Is it a waste of time? Unless you spend hours trying to pray, no.
Does it hinder a person from learning? No.
Are you really an idiot when you become a theist? No.

All I'm saying is that it's good to think positively and have hope. I do not want to live my life thinking that I would cease to exist. It's always a depressant.

Looking forward to your opinions, guys. I apologize for the wall of text.

Hello; here is what I think:

I refuse to accept that after I breathe my last breath, I would be consumed by worms (Yes, I refuse to accept the truth)

You are actually not; by reffering it as "the truth" you know your body will be eaten by worms (unless you are cremated and become ashes or burried in an air tight coffin in which case my unstanding is that you will become some sort of sludge), you just hope you will somehow survive this process.

What would my life have meant? The only thing left of me is my legacy? What a joke. What was the point? For my life to have been worth living, I want to hope that there is something out there after it is over.

I'll bet you enjoy the ocasional trip to the cinema; movies are apealing to you (movies; not the 86 minute long "join the army" adds that permate hollywood so much these days).

Movies as life have a begginig a middle and an end. After you have seen the movie I don,´t think you regret spending your money in the movie even though it is now over; never will a single word be added or taken away from the movie; the story has been told and in this way it will be always remembered; to the end of times that is the movie you saw, those were the parts you liked and the characters you cherished; even more if you never see it again.

Of the imposible amounts of people that wanted in, we are the few that actually got a ticket, please enjoy your life, love your life, religions are always telling you that the best is yet to come and they ask so much of you.

First: They ask you to suspend disbelief and accept watever they say as truth.

Second: They ask that you put more importance in what they tell you will happen than what you can see is actually happenning.

Third: By not accepting your own mortality you empovrish your life since it is the fact that once you were not and you sall again return to not being, now that you are it is so very wonderfull and important that chipping away from it with wishfull thinking is one of the worst diservices you could do to yourself.

Think that while you will stop being at one moment in time you will have been for the rest of time; that is trascendence, how you will trascend is up to you, Will you be a tyrant or a martir? Will you spend your life living it or squander it in vanality? you have maybe 100 years in this life, what characters will you play? the sage? the King? the bufoon? all?

Now, if in addition to believing in an after life you believe in an actuall god the problem becomes much greater.

Are you sure you belive in the right one?

Are you sure that the way you conduct your life is pleassing to it?

Will it be a harsh judge of your trespases?

Have you considered the thought that while there could be a god it could not want you arround for all eternity?

Are you really less anguished than us? We can commit no sin, we will not be judged, we are free.

How heavy are your chains?