Humanity's Stuggle With Death.

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Are these wonderful feelings that you have described limited to the life we live on earth? Will they someday not be with us?

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Nobody knows.

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This is the root of the problem that I have, Life is so great, but without eternity, it's greatness is only temporary. To be buried with our bodies, buried with wherever we felt these amazing feelings that encompass all of life. Life can give you reason to live, yes, but how can something so special become forgotten? These fundemental questions form the roots to why I know that there is an afterlife. Excluding the texts that I have accepted as objective truth.

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I have a tiny, 100ml bottle of very special Balsamic vinegar which was gifted to me by the brothers who make it on their family's land in Modena, Italy.The minimum age for all of the vinegar in that bottle is at least 45 years old, but much of it (as it is a blend of various ages of vinegar) is much older. They only bottle around 10 of these per year.I haven't opened the bottle yet, but I will. I will open it and very occasionally consume very small amounts of it.It will be glorious; a transcendent culinary experience that very few people have ever gotten to experience, and I will get to repeat it many times, and share it with my family and special friends.And then this tiny bottle of special, rare vinegar will be empty.Such is life.When that bottle is empty, does that, in your eyes, constitute evidence that there is an afterlife?

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Humans are set apart from nature spiritually

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We are mostly set apart intellectually."Spirituality" is a product of this intellect.

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Yep.

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It is not evidence, though, of there being an afterlife.It is only evidence (and I have said this to you before and you have not commented) of you wanting there to be an afterlife.Just because it would be wonderful for there to be an afterlife so I could go on having memories of the taste of that glorious vinegar doesn't mean that there is one.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.

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Someone should POTM that post.

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Thanks, dear.

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I think that one of the most fundamental question that science fails to answer is the question of why. Why do we exist? Why was this universe created? The question stems more than a fear of death, but it is an ultimate realization that everything that we know and do is temporary.

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Sure, science fails to answer such questions because those sorts of questions are not amenable to the scientific method.Since science describes nature rather, faulting science for not finding the Meaning of Life is silly. Science has no opinion on such religious or philosophical matters.

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So, in this view, the question must be asked. What is the purpose of life? Why do we exist if our existence is temporary, and anything we do is a temporary blip on a galactic scale? Is our very existence a cosmic joke?

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Nobody knows.I don't think it is possible to know.

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i don't suppose he's ever had an orgasm. clear evidence that things that end have meaning. or maybe he's hung up on the afterglow.

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i mean. there will always be another football season. other sports will have strikes or disputes that break them up and inhibit their meaning. wars come and go and make no difference. eventually even the genocide in darfur will end, even if only because they run out of people to kill. but there will always be another football season. and football is the most meaningful thing on the planet.

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ROTFLMAO!

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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.

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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.

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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."

I agree that it would be a very good exercise for you to find the flaws in Aquinas' reasoning.

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Dude, any high school or soap opera will illustrate just how convoluted things can get.

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Yeah, I hate it when one of my friends is posessed by the devil, or is captured by terrorists, or drug cartel thugs, and the like.