Yes, the only logical thing.
It's human nature to prepare for one's own future. That's how you need a pension plan when getting old. In order to do so, you need an estimation by faith. If life expectancy is 70, then you have an equal chance to die at 60 or 80. So which pension plan will you pick, one for 60 or the other for 80?
Similarly, it's by faith that you assume life ends here or goes beyond. Which future are you going to prepare for, with the faith that life ends here or the faith that life may go beyond. If it's the latter than you need a God to tell what it is as it's out of human capability to tell a future, especially one goes beyond our living realm.
In reply to my raising the issue “Is there any reason to believe God is real” you reply in the
affirmative, “Yes, the only logical thing.”
It seems to me you are saying that we are all bound by
faith whether or not we assume or conclude “that life ends here or that life may go on and continue beyond the grave”?
If life “ends here” then what is there to prepare for other than to squeeze out of physical life as much as possible, or prolong it, while also considering quality of life?
I would say there are two sources known to me that deal with such questions;
religion and
philosophy.
Philosophy can be further divided into two categories;
divine and
materialistic. The Greek philosopher
Socrates represents the former whereas
Marx and Engels represents the latter with their
philosophy of
communism.
Let’s consider communism as a philosophy which later came to be a
political reality in the USSR and in other countries such as China. I will at least look at
three specific principles of
communism as a philosophy as follows:
1. Firstly, a central principle of
communism is that life is purely physical which, you might say, is explained as a purely
natural process.
2. Yet another principle
predicts what was called a
temporary dictatorship of the
proletariat, which, by the way, never happened!
3. A
third principle made by the
philosophy of communism was in defining the origin of
morality which they asserted was the outcome of a
natural process which they termed
dialectical materialism.
This principle plays into their
political prediction of a
temporary dictatorship of the
proletariat. As soon as the means of production is
forcefully taken out of the hands of
capitalists or private ownership a natural process of the rule of
morality, namely
“from each according to his ability to each according to his need” would
naturally take place. This natural process would then cause the
temporary dictatorship of the
proletariat to wither away and die. Needless to say that never took place in the real world.
I will end this merely by observing that the history of the great religions of the world paints a very different picture from the material philosophy of communism, namely that there is more to reality to only what the
physical senses can take in. For example I would argue
scientific inquiry begins
creatively with a
hypothesis about physical reality that is not
limited by the physicality of human beings. Name me one other known life form on earth that indulges in
scientific inquiry. The answer is none which coincides with principles found in the great religions of the world that there is more to human life than his physicality, namely the existence of the eternally of his
soul.
