- echo630
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That's right. My plumage is brighter than yours.
Posted by: EvilBad6666
Posted by: echo630
Posted by: EvilBad6666
Posted by: echo630
Posted by: A Blind Wolf
So far 47% of people here are idiots. When you die, you die. If life went on for eternity, it would make life meaningless. Might as well kill yourself now since you'll still somehow be alive afterwards.
This is ridiculous. You calling them idiots for having faith is hypocritical because you're so faithful yourself in the idea that life does not continue after death. To use an analogy, atheism is as much a position of faith as theism.
The idea that life would then become meaningless if it were eternal is also ridiculous. It presupposes that a finite life is not already meaningless and absurd. Either a finite life is meaningless and absurd, or it has some inherent, given, obvious meaning that is most likely delivered by a some deity--in which case, why would it be so idiotic to believe that life could last forever? If you keep it ahead of yourself that life, whether finite or infinite, is inherently meaningless, it makes it well worth living. You just have to bear in mind that your enterprise is absurd. See Albert Camus: suicide in the face of such absurdity is not the answer. And I wouldn't call him an idiot.
There not being something is the default position to hold. You do not need faith to not believe in something. If there is evidence then yes, but I have yet to see any evidence for an afterlife. All I see is a function. That's it.
I do not think that life has any meaning besides the meaning that you give it. There is no actual meaning to life, whether it is finite or infinite.
Keep in mind that I'm not the same person. I do not think that people who believe in an afterlife are idiots.
The default position is agnosticism, then, because there is evidence neither for the existence nor the nonexistence of the afterlife. Either of those positions, because there is no evidence for them, is a position of faith.
As for what you say about meaning, we're on the same page.
I hate to bring this analogy in, but it seems that I have to. This will seem quite ridiculous but bare with me.
Imagine that there is an invisible creature that you can not touch because it will phase through you is beside you. None of your senses work on it. Can you prove that that creature is not there? No, you can't because there's no way to examine it. There is no evidence for it and that is why I dismiss it.
Right, but we have no reason to believe that that creature would be there in the first place. When we speak about the after-life, we speak about the extension of something that we have good reason to believe is already there, namely our current life. We know, or have good reason to believe, that exists, and then there are philosophical and religious arguments for why this life may continue, and also why we can't be sure that it does not continue. Again, there isn't evidence for either theory, and if we truly have a soul or eternal essence (which I don't believe we have), then it may be that we have no way of monitoring whether it persists after death.
Now, if we want to be serious in considering whether the soul persists, then we should also be very critical now about the existence of a soul in this life. We should pay attention to whether there is anything at all that might persist.