curbyIII

If you think that immortality is a curse then you lack imagination. Immortality of your mind as it is NOW would indeed be unbelievable torture. But why not modify your mind to accept immortality? Our genes are responsible for our happiness. Sex, power, influence etc. all make us happy (though this is debatable) because having sex, power, influence was a survival advantage 10,000 years ago. But genes can be modified. I'm quite confident that within 200 years it will be quite easy to make people be happy doing anything. Why not eliminate the gene for boredom? Make mind-numbing repetition fun. Make doing absolutely nothing fun. All of this can be done. So you could spend immortality on a euphoric high absolutely content. Why not? That sounds a lot better than complete annihilation. Also if you don't want to alter your mind in any way then you could simply erase your memory every hundred years and live a new (or old) life. For all you know you could be doing that right now!

diana

curby,

If I read you right, you're arguing that everything will be fine with a spiritual lobotomy.

While we're at it, can we get the memories of all the painful mistakes we've made erased? I don't want to live with that forever.

I'm sure God will also see his way clear to delete any memories I have of "loved ones" who are suffering for eternity, because thinking about their pain will interfere with my bliss. Or perhaps he'll take out my compassion gene altogether and replace it with one that allows me to enjoy their suffering.

Sounds like heaven.

And while we're on it, don't forget God himself is presumably from forever to forever. Considering his perfection, he wouldn't have any painful memories to forget. But the only way I can understand his torturing souls forever in hell so that it does not bother him in the least is if he hates them. This is inconsistent with the traditional definition of God, as well as it being abhorrent to me to think such a creature is worthy of my worship.

d

HelenM

diana, you are right in supposing Christians believe some significant sort of 'change' will happen to them so that heaven will be a totally wonderful and not at all painful experience.

Christians don't set aside a belief in something just because they can't imagine it or reason it out. Verses like "My ways are higher than my ways and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts" says the LORD rather confirm them in their opinion that God is doing and will do things they can't imagine.

An atheist whose approach is "I only believe what I can understand/explain/rationalize/analyze" is going to rule out things Christian believe simply because of the atheist's approach. The question is - is it wise or foolish to limit one's beliefs in this way or not? And the answer of course is different depending whether you ask the question of an atheist or a Christian.

Helen

Mageth

I'm a bit confused, Helen. How does one go about believing in something that one "can't imagine or reason out"?

pz

You've got it all wrong. As an atheist, I don't rule out the christian myth because it is unimaginable/unanalyzable -- I reject it because it is entirely made up out of the clearly limited imaginations of a primitive, uneducated people, and is lacking even the slightest speck of evidence.

Odemus

Reminds me of that Bowie song The Super Men

When all the world was very young
And mountain magic heavy hung
The supermen would walk in file
Guardians of a loveless isle
And gloomy browed with superfear their tragic endless lives
Could heave nor sigh
In solemn, perverse serenity, wondrous beings chained to life

Strange games they would play then
No death for the perfect men
Life rolls into one for them
So softly a supergod cries

Where all were minds in uni-thought
Power weird by mystics taught
No pain, no joy, no power too great
Colossal strength to grasp a fate
Where sad-eyed mermen tossed in slumbers
Nightmare dreams no mortal mind could hold
A man would tear his brother's flesh, a chance to die
To turn to mold.

Far out in the red-sky
Far out from the sad eyes
Strange, mad celebration
So softly a supergod cries

Far out in the red-sky
Far out from the sad eyes
Strange, mad celebration
So softly a supergod dies


Or that verse from Dylan's Gates of Eden

The foreign sun, it squints upon
A bed that is never mine
As friends and other strangers
From their fates try to resign
Leaving men wholly, totally free
To do anything they wish to do but die
And there are no trials inside the Gates of Eden



Sorry 'bout that

Anyway, I can't think of anything more scary than ceasing to exist, except perhaps eternal damnation.

post-it

But despite the fact that we now have modern, highly educated people, they can't develop any greater truths or creeds to live by.

The ignorant mouse chews it's food well before swallowing, as did Einstein. Some things just ARE, and can't be improved upon nor denied.

Amos

But these goatherders sure have us wondering about it and the time may just come when modern minds begin to count their days and wonder who it really is they are defending.

HaysooChreesto!

See, the problem with this is that nothing can be ruled out and anything the imagination can dream up becomes possible.
So I would ask this, is it wise or foolish to have limitless beliefs in things unseeable and unknowable?
Also, I find the idea of "you get to do the good stuff when you're dead, so don't do it while you're alive" to be incredibly distasteful. To me, it smacks of death worship.

pz

This presupposes that the confabulations of a few tribes of pastoral nomads are truths. They are not. It also espouses a narrow belief that your petty, parochial creed is "greater" than all the others. I certainly do not see any evidence at all that that is the case.

It seems to me that whenever we abandon the myths of our superstitious forebears, we do approach closer to truth. That's been the lesson of the 20th century, at least.
Religion is not comparable to food. You die without the latter, but you thrive without the former.