The 'great nothing', vs heaven or hell: which is better?

[Howard Is]

I do because I thoroughly checked Him out.

No. You had ‘experiences’ which confirmed your chosen belief, as Homo sapiens do.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Really doesn't matter to me. I just make know assumptions about knowing what I don't know. If there is some kind of existence after we die, great. If not, no one is going to know about it.

Sure, lots of books to read. Lots of different beliefs about what happens after we die. Pick any belief you want. Any one is as likely to be right or wrong since none can really be validated.

Just amazes me that folks go about claiming knowledge they don't have.

It's why I go with the knowledge of what had already happened.

We were clearly dead before birth.

Death is simply going back to what it was before you were born.

On the playground , off the playground.

 

[Howard Is]

It's why I go with the knowledge of what had already happened.

We were clearly dead before birth.

Death is simply going back to what it was before you were born.

On the playground , off the playground.

The lamas say “Be as you were before you were”

 

[Trailblazer]

According to the claims of those you have decided are the real authorities.

Circular argument.

It is not circular because I do not believe in Baha'u'llah because Baha'u'llah made claims.
I believe because of the evidence that supports His claims.

 

[Trailblazer]

No. You had ‘experiences’ which confirmed your chosen belief, as Homo sapiens do.

You do not live with me so you have no idea what I did.
I have had no "God experiences."

 

[Twilight Hue]

The lamas say “Be as you were before you were”

Makes me wonder if the dead are as afraid of living as much as the living are afraid of being dead. ;O)

 

[Desert Snake]

Y fork in the road.

You choose the wrong path, then blame me.

 

[Aupmanyav]

It is not circular because I do not believe in Baha'u'llah because Baha'u'llah made claims. I believe because of the evidence that supports His claims.

Ah, the evidence! "The Maid of Heaven" (Maid of Heaven - Wikipedia). How can anyone refute that?

To an atheists soul wrenching meditation, is incredibly foreboding. An awakening, if you will. Faced with the great nothing, an annihilation, this is of prime importance to atheist religions. The anguished cry of a mortal screaming at an uncaring universe.

Why should meditation, contemplation, deep concentrated thinking should be foreboding to an atheist? We all need that and do that at times. Awakening, Jnana, Jhana, Enlightenment, Nirvana, Moksha, deliverance are to come to understand something. Nothing is ever destroyed, it is recycling. If that is the way of nature, why should anyone be anguished? Accept it as part of the game.

 

[Howard Is]

Makes me wonder if the dead are as afraid of living as much as the living are afraid of being dead. ;O)

It’s a bit nerve wracking all round, lol.

 

[Desert Snake]

Why should meditation, contemplation, deep concentrated thinking should be foreboding to an atheist? We all need that and do that at times. Awakening, Jnana, Jhana, Enlightenment, Nirvana, Moksha, deliverance are to come to understand something. Nothing is ever destroyed, it is recycling. If that is the way of nature, why should anyone be anguished? Accept it as part of the game.

Ah, yet you are the only one so far to aknowledge that. You have answered your own question.

 

[blü 2]

"Better?" define "better."

I dare say, "Pleases me" defined 'better' here.

Either there is some form of afterlife or there isn't. That truly is a binary set.

Yup. Followed, in the affirmative case, by another binary set: "Pleases me" or "Doesn't please me". I understand Heaven isn't democratic, for instance, so you never get a chance to vote the government out. I wonder if the angels had tried withholding their labor before it reached the rebellion stage?

What amuses me is how many atheists claim that there isn't one, and yet seem to think that they will somehow know that there isn't one once they are in it.

Really? I haven't come across that one.

I'm not utterly convinced that there is anybody who really thinks that there isn't SOMETHING.

Hello, my name's blü 2, and you have now.

Anyway, I think that there will be an afterlife. I don't KNOW what it will be like.

There's no information on the subject so all views are necessarily imaginary. Rather like the topic itself, but good luck anyway.

I have some opinions, of course, but mostly i'm hoping that it won't be boring; that I can spend eternity learning stuff. THAT would be better; no student loans, an infinite library and a mind that can encompass it all. That would be good. Hell, to me, would be me being barred from that 'library.' Bored eternally. That would be hell.

Years ago I wrote a poem called 'Heaven' that went like this:

One hundred
billion
years on
what will you say
to your true love?​

But the real problem is that we get our emotions from the interaction of our hormones with our nervous system, and without a body we have neither hormones nor nervous system so there's nothing we want to do, nothing upsets us, we just stare blankly into space; the good news is that we won't feel bored.

The only thing I really DO know is that between me and the non-believer who claims that there is no afterlife, no matter who is correct or whatever that afterlife is like, I'm the only one who can say 'I told you so." That works for me.

Again, best of luck with that!

 

[Aupmanyav]

Ah, yet you are the only one so far to acknowledge that. You have answered your own question.

Yeah, every one has to answers one's own questions.

I'm not utterly convinced that there is anybody who really thinks that there isn't SOMETHING.

Buddha did not dwell on the question but also did not accept the existence of SOMETHING. Hindus do accept the existence of SOMETHING, but that SOMETHING may not be God. It could be SOMETHING like 'physical energy', not creating, not destroying, not interfering in human or worldly affairs, uninvolved and eternal. And there is no bar to that thing to sometimes exist or not to exist, something like 'virtual particles'. We do not yet know the final answer.

 

[Howard Is]

One hundred
billion
years on
what will you say
to your true love?

“Have we met somewhere before ?”

 

[Howard Is]

but I am not about to wait that long because I like to be as prepared as I can be for eternity.

I looked at that quote, and it reminded me of an insight about eternity that I think is relevant.
Eternity encompasses all past and future.
So the past is beyond temporal measurement just as the future is.
Eternity is the inconceivably endless totality of past, present and future, simultaneously.

It is not divisible.
It will not begin.
If there is eternity, this is it.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Anyway, I think that there will be an afterlife. I don't KNOW what it will be like.

Oh, yeah, what constitutes you will have an after life. Let me tell you how? As a Hindu, when I am cremated, I will be turned into water vapor (to be absorbed in the atmosphere and then by vegetation and living beings), carbon-di-oxide (that is where the carbon in my body will go, polluting the world. We are thinking of how to limit this pollution) and lime (from bones of my body, this will be part of a sediment in future). If you are not a Hindu, then you can think about what will happen to you.

 

[ChristineM]

No, you really didn't answer the premise.

The answer, you didn't like,. Which is not my problem. But i did answer from the point of view of an atheist, not from one who knows nothing about atheism so makes stuff up

 

[Desert Snake]

The answer, you didn't like,. Which is not my problem. But i did answer from the point of view of an atheist, not from one who knows nothing about atheism so makes stuff up

Nonsense...

 

[loverofhumanity]

Man’s concept of the afterlife governs his behaviour in this life.

If a person is God fearing then he will act accordingly and try to not waste his life here just accumulating wealth & treasures and be absorbed in lust and pleasures. Because he would be aware that the condition of his soul could be affected in the next world.

Much like a mother who drinks and takes drugs while pregnant, she risks the health of her unborn baby. A person who ignores developing his spiritual nature here might be disadvantaged when he is born into the next reality which won’t be bodily but spiritual so only our spiritual wealth that we accumulated here will count and be of any use to him there.

This world is like a womb. Within the womb the hands, feet, eyes and so on don’t appear to be of any use that is until we are born.

So those of us supposing that being close to God, developing virtues and such are not needed here might find themselves crippled in the next world where these attributes and qualities will be required to function.

 

[ChristineM]

Believe whatever you want to.

You will have your evidence when you die.

Evidence?

 

[ChristineM]

The ones I believe in.

Believe whatever you want to.

You will have your evidence when you die.