I honestly don't want to believe that but, there's nothing else to indicate that there's an afterlife. And if anyone has any proof they're most likely wrong. And honestly, irrationally, I do fool myself into vaguely believing into the possibility to an afterlife or something beyond death, maybe to mitigate the fear of death. I'm still young, in my early 40s and currently am not afraid of death, but a conversation with my mom made me realize it's because it's quite far away and not likely anytime soon - excluding a sudden accidental death or some terminal disease I could be afflicted with at anytime. She was also carefree when she was young but as she's approaching her 70s she's now starting to feel an anxiety about ceasing to exist. It helps to believe in afterlife or even agnostic. Not sure why I got down-voted, but guess people on HN don't want to hear it.
Also LSD or mushroom trips for terminally ill patients are very promising in accepting death. I'll retort to that if it will be possible.
I'm turning 30 this year and I still feel anxious about death every once in a while when I think about it. But I think usually my anxiety stems not from death itself, but what it means for the life I am experiencing right now. It means that I'll have regrets because desire is limitless, but I only have so much time to fulfill my desire. It's impossible to fulfill every desire. I also fear the pain of dying.
But I guess that's where various religion and philosophy come in, the ones that eschew desire. Maybe you will still have pain, but if you try to limit desire, you also limit your regret, or other suffering that desire can cause.
Life is difficult, but can also be filled with happiness. When you die you will no longer suffer, but you will also cease to be able to experience happiness. That is why death is such a conundrum. Depending on how you experience life, it can be a source of dread, or something in which to seek solace. Many times it is both.
That's what gets me. It's nothing forever? It was nothing forever once but one day "I" woke up in the universe.
Leads me to another point. What are the odds of waking up? I think it's with 100% certainty that you become conscious.
Your memories are 100% physical though so that definitely evaporates. Perhaps if you find consciousness again it's as if you awoke from a dream you cannot remember, a new blank slate. You flash forward to the next time you find consciousness.
When you start thinking this way, about what defines your "being," you have to decide what you want to believe. If you believe in the possibility of "waking up" again, then you arrive at the conclusion that you must have a soul that connects your many lives. Or, you might believe that this is the one existence you'll ever experience, and that what we call consciousness is simply ephemeral.
But I tend to lean toward believing we are more than ephemeral. I think this because I am often left wondering why I am me and you are you. Why didn't I become you or you become me? Why am I experiencing life? Why is my body not just some physical machine moving through the universe? Why do I even have a consciousness? And we are only human. As much as we think we know about the universe, there's so much we don't know, and probably never will know.
That's exactly what I wonder as well. Why am I not a dog or grasshopper or someone else? Why am I here at all? Am I only here because I wouldn't experience it otherwise? It seems like it's impossible to experience nothing, you must always experience something.
> What are the odds of waking up? I think it's with 100% certainty that you become conscious.
I'm not sure what you mean here, can you explain what you mean by "you"? What remains to be "you" if your atoms are spread out (happens in life too), your memories are gone and your consciousness is also temporarily gone? Isn't it more like just random parts of the universe coming to life and turning into someone? In what way could it be "you"?
I think if you were to believe in becoming someone or something once again, then yes, like your memories, your consciousness would be gone. I think this because I think your consciousness is inherently tied to how you sense the universe and your own being, and that will obviously be different if you once again exist as someone or something else.
As a result, if you choose to believe you will one day exist again after you die, in order to make a connection between one or more consciousnesses or lives, you would need to invent something to explain it. Like a soul.
You could make thinking about all this even more wild by thinking about how time is involved in all of this. We are assuming if that you exist again it must be some time after you cease to exist. What if you exist "again," but at the same time you exist now? Are you also another person somewhere else? Is there another universe with another you? When you die do you then relive the same existence again? The questions are as limitless as our imaginations because we have no answers.
I'm not sure the last questions could be answered without determining more about this new kind of soul, which by the way reminds me of Locke's substances. A substance for Locke is like an object with no properties whatsoever, it's that which bears all the properties that we observe but which maintains its identity through space and time. I guess we'd need something like that to be 'us' before we're reanimated. The problem though is that none of that is really observable by 'us' being it or anyone living since it really has no characteristics. Doesn't mean it's not real, but not that helpful after all :/
Thanks for mentioning Locke's substances. It sounds like quite an intriguing idea. I have not read nearly as much philosophy as I would like, and that gives me a great indication of where to look when I pursue reading more of it.
Sure thing, I've just been thinking about object identity recently and they come up quite often. Tthe article in SEP can help you avoid the arcane English of his writings btw.
I don't know. I mean how people always say life is rare. What were my odds of being born? I think somehow it was 100% certain that I'd be born. Why didn't I awaken as a grasshopper?
As to my understanding time and distance are two words for the same thing. so should we travel back towards the big bang fast enough stuff started to rewind. Travel fast enough in the other direction and things start to fast forward.
So based on this, while the universe changes, it is static in nature, think of it like a ledger where each previous state is recorded and that record is time. Distance is just what we physically take notice of, because it separates us from that reality.
Now for a little back story on me, for years I was agnostic and pretty much summed up any thoughts of an afterlife as wishful thinking, but something always troubled me about the universe and what we know about it, and that is the damn thing really looks like it was designed, there are so many open questions that I had like:
Why can we explain everything we know with Math, if we met another intelligent species when would most likely be able to communicate with them via math. Math seems to exist beyond humans, we seem to have discovered math and not invented it.
Why when we get to sub-atomic does it really start to look like data-storage. To the extent that we now believe that the universe is 2D data-store and we experience the data thru 3D projection, not unlike the data on our computers are on a flat 2D disk, but we experience said data via projection via our monitors and speakers.
Why are there programming languages embedded in nature (e.g DNA, Chemistry).
So with all this I went from probably a 50/50 position, defaulting to skeptical to probably a 70/30 that the system has a design and that designer has to be intelligent and supernatural i.e exist outside of it's creation, and eternal as it is not bound by the time slices recording of the universe.
I am fairly confident the system has a builder, I will refrain from using the word God as that title because it is loaded with a lot of baggage.
Now the question becomes are we an ant farm or are we important to that creator. This becomes difficult to answer and I would say it's a 50/50 shot on that one. But if we are important then it leaves open the question why do we not receive communication from this creator.
Which becomes really interesting because now we are in the realm of religion. Either this entity left a manuscript for life or it made us and got board. Well if it left a manuscript then it should provide some information as to why the creator is absent.
TLDR from here, I am going to delve into religion, I am not going to try to save your soul but if it is not your bag just skip the rest.
OK so following my trail, it seemed logical to me that if a manuscript was left the creator would have ensured that it was widely available. Which lead me to my next jump which was 3 of the major world religions base their foundation off of the same manuscript and that is the old testament or the TORA.
In it it talks about the fall of man and sin, and how sin much like a virus has infected reality. To the extent that once introduce Adam and Eve saw reality very differently and the veil of heaven was placed. That they no longer had access, visibility or the capability to experience that reality.
This was interesting to me, as it is a possible explanation for why we don't have any indication of this creator.
It goes on to explain that now that sin is introduced, death is the only way to cleanse it, to the extent that heaven and earth will have to finally be destroyed to cleanse it of sin and end death forever. But in that a book of life will be retained, going back to the universe as a disk or data, it is plausibly that if what is written is true, that, that disk of data is that record of life.
What I find interesting is the simplicity of the document which can be summed up as, people don't want a creator that has to be the supreme ruler, that the creator basically allowed them (and us) to experience what it will be like without a creator guiding us and that by doing so it will answer for all time the need for the creators guidance. That at present we are abandoned to our free will and the only way to sever the veil and experience a re-connection with heaven is via prayer. This act circumvents the free-will covenant and allows for the restoration of experiencing pieces of re-connection to the creator.
As I said, I have my moments in doubt, and the religious stuff is just interesting to me but it's plausible. I certainly cannot get over the fact that everywhere in nature we find design.
I agree, the fact that we can observe so much order in the universe through math, physics, and chemistry leaves me with a feeling that there must be some reason such order exists. I don't know if that necessarily translates to the existence of a builder, a creator, or a god, but I do believe it means something. And it's interesting to wonder if that something is internal or external to our universe.
You mention the old testament and the Torah. What draws you to the scripts of religions that are monotheistic?
What do you think about older religions that are not monotheistic? For instance, Greek mythology and the Greek pantheon is an interesting case in which there are many deities, in particular because those deities, among others, are all very human in their nature. They experience love, hubris, envy, and hatred. The full spectrum of human emotion and behavior. Much of religion is human-centric, and I think what that truly reveals is the hubris of humankind. I think that's the main reason I tend to look toward philosophy and religion more for the values they espouse and the interesting contemplation they inspire, and less for worship. In relation to our universe and any possible god or gods, I believe that humans are dust in the wind.
Sorry this is going to be long, as a general rule I don't discuss religion, but I think I can avoid it becoming a hot topic in this answer:
I don't discount the fact that it could indeed be a race of creators, the issue then becomes if there are more than one, who created them. In my mind it would still turtle down to a singularity where all power and creation came from a single source of energy if you will.
I took the time to study a handful of religions when I had my moment in doubt in agnosticism. I actually took interest in eastern ones first such a Buddhism, Taoism, and Jainism while I think they are great works for humanity to better themselves they tend to be more philosophical than religious in their nature. Many American Indian religious beliefs parallel eastern thinking like this. Hinduism would be the one exception from the eastern regions. In portions of it's teachings it leans towards strong and supernatural gods but then tends to fable and saga them. Kind of the equivalent of modern day superheros. The stories read more like that to me, as stories about gods and not as god instructing people on why they where made, why we are in the position we are in, and what to expect.
This is the same reason I tended to discount, relatively dead religions such as Odinism, Greek Gods, Roman Gods as they tend to be Sagas about the gods to tell fanciful stories and moral tales that inspire people. I think they are great works, but in my mind I don't think they would be the types of work that a creator would leave as an instruction manual.
The Baháʼí Faith was interesting and I really liked it, but I found it inconsistent in trying to tie all of the world regions into a single path.
Funny enough I had an unrealized bias against the Bible due to the fact that I was raised in a Judeo-Christan country. Being immersed in the culture and seeing the hypocrisy had cemented in my mind that people did not practice what they preach. The problem was up until this point I had never really read the Bible (Old Testament) myself, and was taking other peoples words for what it said at face value. I was under the impression that the entire religion was about hating other people, the Muslims hate the Jews, the Christians hate the Muslims, the Jews hate the Muslims, the Christians hate everyone who is not like them. What I failed to realize that this is a cultural anomaly and not a religious one.
Funny enough I was at an American football game, and watched one guy hit and hospitalize another guy with a baseball bat, literally over the fact that his team lost at the other guy was wearing the wrong jersey in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was that incident that made me face my bias and realize people will hate people in the out group no matter how trivial the division is. It's human nature.
So anyways I read the old testament and was really surprised at the message, it was not a bunch of kill gay people, hate this other guy. Don't get me wrong God instructed the Jews to conquer people and other unsavory stuff, but there where justifications for doing so. What I found was a message of universal love, a promise of restoration and examples of no matter how we as humans try or barter for a different system we will fail due to human nature. Because if there is no god, a human is going to try to fill that spot and we see that all the time. Humans trying to play god.
I find it interesting that originally power of god resided in the tabernacle with the people, the argument was basically this is too hard with you right here we need a human proxy that understand us. To which the Kings where appointed culminating in David the best among his people followed by his son Solomon the wisest among his people. David fell short in Killing his friend by sending him into Battle because his ulterior motive was to bed his friends wife Bathsheba. Solomon was a fool when it came to women and was led into bad decisions.
Finally a messiah was promised that would be the sacrifice to take the blame of all sin (punishment for sin is death). What this set up was the final in a trifecta of lessons, as with a messiah every man became accountable for himself and was directly in charge of their spiritual path.
It's interesting because the original issue at hand was that their was a rebellion of thought that basically went like this: "You don't have the right to create us, give us free will and then demand that we serve and worship you" Once a question like that is asked there is really only one way to answer it, without any doubt and that is to let those with rebellious hearts, participate in their rebellion and see the results. The part that I find interesting is that it follows a very logical path of when it fails to materialize we as humans tend to make excuses and change the goal posts. Which is exactly what happened, first there was the tabernacle for direct guidance, then there was a proxy in the kings and then every wo/man was made the king of their own destiny. The reason for this is clearly articulated that it is to show after restoration that there is only one path and to answer the question for all times.
2 of the religions that rely on that text do not believe that messiahs has come, 1 does. The books they all 3 agree on, clearly point to a coming messiah so the question becomes did Christ fulfill the prophecies as laid out in the books that they all agree on. In my personal opinion he did which is interesting because the old testament really focused on the why the things the way they are. While the teachings of Jesus focused on what is to come and how we should view the world with love. I was surprised at how strong the message of love was given my experience growing up in a "Christian" culture. Reading his parables they where directed at people exactly like that, time and time highlighting how a hooker is more righteous than the people that would not help. Or how the beggar who prays next to the priest and says lord make me an upright man like the priest here and the priest prays lord tank you for exalting me and not allowing me to be lowly like that beggar.
Funny enough after reading the works I walked away going no wonder they killed him, the guy was an anarchist of the mind. I have no doubt if he where her today, he would eat dinner with gay people he would rightful tell them, it is not the way we where designed but that the world is infected and he loves them in-spite of their particular sinful nature. See I always though you, accept Christ, renounce you sin, and then you never ever sin again. So it was striking to me that his message was you are infected with sin, you are going to do bad things every day, I am going to provide cover for that, but try to love other people and use my words as a guide to try and stay on the best life path you can. If the New Testament is true, there are going to be a lot of gay people in paradise along with a lot of murderers, thieves, adulterers etc. That's the thing when people tell you what is in the bible they tell you about the sins called out. But when you actually read his words he minimizes them because he did not want his message of love to be drowned out.
In reading his words for myself, I felt like the Old and the New Testament flow well into an explanation of why we are in the situation we are in, what we should do while we are in this situation and what is to come next.
There are a lot of stories and parables but to me the flow of the reason is fairly simple and fairly clear. There are a lot of people with hateful agendas that blur the simple lessons that are to be learned.
I accept the possibility that it could be wrong and a work of fiction, created by hopeful thinking but I also think there is enough there to have faith that it could be right. Finally I came to the conclusion no matter what, Jesus was a really awesome, kind, loving and wise man, even if he was just a crazy guy, he is a pretty good person to strive to be like. So that's how I ended up where I am at on my thoughts on god.
Thanks for taking the time to write about so many of your thoughts! I used to be atheist when growing up, but over time I've become agnostic. I'm not sure that's even really the best term for how I feel and what I believe, but it's the best term that I know. In that way, I found it compelling to read the path you took to your current beliefs, because I know that when I find the inspiration to read more deeply into religion, I will also likely start by reading more about religions with origins in the East. Mainly because, as you said,
> they are great works for humanity to better themselves they tend to be more philosophical than religious in their nature.
Right now, that's what resonates with me the most, and the closest I can envision myself to becoming spiritual. At least, at this point in time. As a result, I can't say there's a lot more I knowledgeable enough to respond to with regards to Judaism, Islam, Christianity (and its various offshoots). I've read a few stories from pieces of the Bible in high school, but I can't remember which ones specifically, and we approached them from a literary perspective rather than a religious one. I actually remember being unreasonably disgruntled at having religious texts assigned for reading. I like to think I've become much more open-minded since then, and hope to continue to develop in that positive direction.
I was going to say something about understanding why people believe in god or God, and why that is, but I realized it actually sounded condescending when I don't mean to be. All I can really say is, I have a very hard time taking leaps of faith, and with respect to God, I'm not ready now and not sure I ever will be. But I really appreciate your taking the time to say so much about the path you took to get to where you are with your beliefs today. I also really love your perspective on Jesus. Thank you!
A few of the wow things that I found out after I read the bible , that where completely inconsistent with what people told me was in the book, are:
It never mentions hell, it is extremely clear that the punishment for sin is death and that the dead know nothing. It talks about a lake of eternal fire in revelations, but every single reference to eternal fire in the entirety of the books when referring to eternal fire refers to something that has been burnt up and will never return. I became interested in where the doctrine of hell came from and it was introduced in the early dark ages, by Catholicism. Early Christians did not believe in a place of eternal torment for sinners, which would be logically inconsistent with the overarching message of the entirety of the books which is restoration with no sin in creation, hell would be a part of creation thus a pocket of sin would remain. The doctrine has been thoroughly refuted as inconsistent and not supported by the texts but it is still a major doctrine point of many of the organized christian religions. This was my absolute #1 issue that caused me severe bias against Biblical religious, before I took the time to read the book. How could a loving creator be such a sociopath to torment people forever. I was really surprised to find that there was no support for this doctrine.
The second was that humans where created/evolved/whathaveyou on earth to be shepherds and care-tenders of the earth. This has always been the plan, the bible does not state that we as humans go to heaven, it says we die until judgment, if we do not accept that the only way forward is to work inside of the framework of gods plan, we receive a second death at that time, where we are erased from history, literally like we never existed. I don't think the intention here is cruel but I look at it like a system with a malfunction, you fix the malfunction or you remove and replace the part entirely. After this, heaven and earth are destroyed, the human body is restored back to what Adam and Eve where free from genetic defects and are returned to a restored earth, which was the original plan and rebellion did not change that plan. there is some debate about how long we have to accept submission to god, but my personal belief in reading Christ's actions is that forgiveness is available to the very last minute, possibly even at judgment. I think this was the point of when crucified the thief Gestas asked Jesus to remember him when he enters his kingdom and Jesus responds that he will be with him in paradise. I believe the symbolism of this is that redemption is available to the very last moment and is broadly available.
These two things really contrasted with my experience of being told you are all sinners and going to hell. Both are completely opposite of what the texts actually say.
I am not going to try to convert you, or save you, but you seem genuinely interested in positive messages about life so won't just say read the bible and all will be reviled (or some other hocus pocus), I encourage you to explore the offerings of religion that I did (especially Buddhism I think it has a lot of level up as a human value), but I would urge you to read the parables that Jesus told, these where stories he would tell to help people see right and wrong, and are more philosophical in nature than they are religious, they are really powerful and they give a really good overview of how Jesus loved and was a devout pacifist. They require little biblical context and honestly the less context you have to more clear they are as you will tend to read them and not infer other context into them.
My personal favorites are:
Parable of the Prodigal Son, which is a great story about the fact that no one is beyond redemption, but human nature is to judge and insist that others are not worthy of redemption. Basically the human nature of I am good, they are not.
Parable of the Good Samaritan, In context Samaritan where disdained and looked down on. That part is not clear without other context from other texts.
Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, this one has to be hands down my favorite. It highlights how we can be forgiven, but we will hold others to a higher standard than we ourselves believe we should be forgiven for.
Parable of the Two Debtors, another really good one that contrast the importance of love over everything else.
Again, not trying to force anything on you or turn this conversation into a get saved message, I just know how the parables helped me see things differently. I think these stories are profound and give the best insight into what a man of peace Jesus was. If anything I think people should see him from his own words and not the actions of some of the people that claim his name. He is like the Free Hugs guy X 1000.
I totally understand on leaps of faith, I am a evidence based person for the most part so I totally understand that you can't make the connection with faith. I 100% get that. I still have my issues with it and I abandon it from time to time, but then I get right back in the same circle of this damn thing is designed, who designed it. So my only resolution is to keep as much faith that is possible for me personally. Even doubting Tomas (a disciple of Jesus) had doubts in faith and Jesus talked to this extensively. He also experienced it when god had to abandon him at crucifixion to pour out the grapes of wrath on him. I think if it is true, then our creator can completely understand that us being disconnected from him makes it hard to make leaps to faith and I think this is why doubt in faith was highlighted among many of the disciples. Peter is also highlighted here as when he takes his eyes of Jesus and experience fear he falls into the water and I think these stories are there to let us know that if even the people that walked with, ate with and communed with Jesus had doubts from time to time, that it is perfectly reasonable for us to have them.
Finally, for anyone that might find the discussion of religious doctrine offensive, I apologize it was not my intent. I find the subject interesting and enjoy the what-if scenarios of it. My intent is to highlight those what-if's and not serve as a sermon or an attempt at conversion.
Also LSD or mushroom trips for terminally ill patients are very promising in accepting death. I'll retort to that if it will be possible.