Humanity's Stuggle With Death.

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It simply can't end here. How could it?

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Wanting doesn't make something so. Wanting something to be true doesn't create reality.Part of growing up is coming to terms with this aspect of life.

Okay, this is just a speculative ramble. Forewarned is forearmed.This human need to be permanently reunited with loved ones for eternity can be viewed as evidence for a spiritual dimension; however, I think that it can be adequately explained without recourse to the supernatural.I think that our earliest experiences have a profound effect on our outlook and motivation.* The few scant months of unconditional love (if we are lucky enough to recieve it) from our mothers and fathers when we are too young to speak or crawl or think is, I like to believe, where our wholly inadequate blueprint for an eternity in heaven springs from.Do I have anything to back that up? Not really. I just have a reluctance to posit a supernatural realm just to explain that profound sense of longing and happiness when I think that it can be adequately explained within the bounds of the natural.* This is purely anecdotal (and not terribly relevant either, but perhaps illustrative of the power of our earliest moments to form our later preferences and outlook), but I had what by all acounts was a rather traumatic birth, and to this day I am deeply uncomfortable (to the point of panic and/or dizziness and vomiting) when I am required to hear or feel a pulse or heartbeat for longer than a few seconds.

Why is it selfish to want to spend eternity with close friends and family?Selfish would be wanting to spend eternity ALONE! Look at a tall mountain near your home. Imagine that every day, you went to the top of that Mountain and brushed it with a feather duster. The amount of days that it would take to wear that mountain down to nothing are a mere drop of water in a bucket. The bucket is one bucket taken from the ocean.All of the days, and all of the drops and all of the thoughts...and boxes without topses, and all of the sweet tomatos, and people that you meet and words that you jot in your diary.....as well as the proverbial grains of sand on all of the beaches...even the atoms in the dirt and dust of this planet...cannot begin to add up to ETERNITY.Don't be alone.

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Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil. --Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

what?that made no sense.

Have you ever heard of poetic license? Its sorta like a parable in a way.My point to you was that1)desiring to be united throughout eternity is an unselfish wish.... 2) Eternity is a long timeThis message has been edited by Phat, 01-24-2006 08:33 AM

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Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil. --Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

i see.i see the desire to be with people differently from you i guess. probably a function of the curious way that i interpret the existence of other people in my head. it's very complicated. but i think it is very selfish to want to not be separated from someone. but then much of my experiences are related to people not being with me in order to pursue something they want from life. who am i to keep them from something because i want their comfort?

I've given this considerable thought and I am no closer at arriving at a satisfactorily answer than when I began years ago.
What happens after we die? That's an interesting question, because I preceive eternity as I understand it, to be quite boring; you know everything, can go anywhere, will never die. In essence, in video game parlance, you are in 'GOD mode'.
Where's the fun or satisfaction in that? No risk, no reward, no defeat and the subsequent lessons.....

Hi Shraff.I'm not sure what you're suggesting here. Are you saying that eternal life is wishful thinking and should be culled at a certain age?If afterlife is a comforter, then that suggests it is something we come up with, at some stage in our lives. But it is a foreknowledge given via the scriptures. We are told of it. We don't merely wish for it one day.I hope fore eternal life, because that is the message given to us.It's not like Jesus came and said, "listen, I know you're all desperate for eternal life, so here's what I'm going to do.....".Infact it was Christ who came and told us about it.

This is actually a mini psychological example of why some people reject the story of the Fall (be it myth or reality)
and think of God as "selfish" for wanting people to obey only Him and...also...the idea that pursuing what we want out of life is the entire concept of free will and separartion from God.

i don't think the two are related.

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I'm not sure what you're suggesting here. Are you saying that eternal life is wishful thinking and should be culled at a certain age?

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Not really, although this is, in fact, my personal opinion.What I am specifically addressing with Charlie is his stated "reasoning" for why there "must" be an afterlife.Pretty much the sum total of his reasoning is, that he wouldn't like it if there wasn't.

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If afterlife is a comforter, then that suggests it is something we come up with, at some stage in our lives. But it is a foreknowledge given via the scriptures. We are told of it. We don't merely wish for it one day.

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Who wrote the scriptures, mike?People who wanted to be comforted. Even more than today, because life was much harder for the Jews and early Christians then.It's not like Jesus came and said, "listen, I know you're all desperate for eternal life, so here's what I'm going to do.....".Infact it was Christ who came and told us about it.

I know. He gets this particular subject into every topic he makes, as if the previous discussions you had with him didn't address it. Lol.His argument doesn't involve any actual reasoning IMHO. I'd love to know why he praises anything religious. I suspect because it agrees with him about the afterlife. I suppose it's possible, but I have to admitt that dying in order to get to a paradise, has never been my idea of a fun time. Especially if it's a painful death. And if I have to admitt comforting thoughts, which I do, then they are more so in the area of uncertainty life brings.This message has been edited by AdminJar, 01-25-2006 11:23 AM

There is no tangible evidence for an afterlife, or for a God, all of it is with reason, and feelings inside of the human spirit.This message has been edited by prophex, 01-25-2006 10:35 AM

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There is no tangible evidence for an afterlife, or for a God, all of it is with reason, and feelings inside of the human spirit.

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Almost.Take out the "reason" part, and you've got it."There is no tangible evidence for God or an afterlife.It is believed through faith."

Thomas Aquinas proved God with reason.