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Many people today live to 84 years and many become a target of the devil who would put them down, then others get a pass and live a handful of years later ... Then the spirit of people who have passed on will live till the end of time till God bring in the second death ..... But the people spirit with the souls who are under covenant with the living God will live forever beyond the end of time with God
Sounds like hell to me.
Thankfully, hell doesn't exist.
That has always been my reaction to cyclic afterlife concepts like reincarnation. It sounds horrific to me, living and re-living the SOS (Same Old ... well, you know) over and over again and not being able to remember what you might have previously learned that would help you in the current cycle.
At least with the linear afterlife of the Abrahamic faiths something actually gets settled once and for all.
Thankfully there's no real evidence for either. I find the prospect of oblivion quite comforting actually. Once you get over the learned helplessness of "it has to be this particular way I've always been told is the only thinkable possibility", and, importantly, get over yourself ... living harmoniously with the fact that we are finite beings who need stories with beginnings, middles, and, yes -- ends, is quite liberating.
To be honest, I strongly suspect that even biological immortality would be its own special hell.
Eternity is vastly overrated, just like most of the cherished religious ideals. To function in an open-ended eternity we would have to be remade into something that isn't even recognizably human ... someone with no hedonic tone, no need for novelty, no needs beyond just existing really. It's probably not an accident that many concepts of post-mortem consciousness involve the loss of all individuality in some passionless oceanic Being. Whoever came up with that reasoned correctly, it would be the only way to survive eternity. But it is also no sort of eternal life from the perspective of what we actually are.
That has always been my reaction to cyclic afterlife concepts like reincarnation. It sounds horrific to me, living and re-living the SOS (Same Old ... well, you know) over and over again and not being able to remember what you might have previously learned that would help you in the current cycle. At least with the linear afterlife of the Abrahamic faiths something actually gets settled once and for all. Thankfully there's no real evidence for either. I find the prospect of oblivion quite comforting actually. Once you get over the learned helplessness of "it has to be this particular way I've always been told is the only thinkable possibility", and, importantly, get over yourself ... living harmoniously with the fact that we are finite beings who need stories with beginnings, middles, and, yes -- ends, is quite liberating. To be honest, I strongly suspect that even biological immortality would be its own special hell. Eternity is vastly overrated, just like most of the cherished religious ideals. To function in an open-ended eternity we would have to be remade into something that isn't even recognizably human ... someone with no hedonic tone, no need for novelty, no needs beyond just existing really. It's probably not an accident that many concepts of post-mortem consciousness involve the loss of all individuality in some passionless oceanic Being. Whoever came up with that reasoned correctly, it would be the only way to survive eternity. But it is also no sort of eternal life from the perspective of what we actually are.
so your cherished belief [not a fact, your belief] is that you are finite.
that is your own "cherished religious ideal"
maybe learn the difference between fact and belief?
so your cherished belief [not a fact, your belief] is that you are finite.
that is your own "cherished religious ideal"
maybe learn the difference between fact and belief?
It is not an article of faith, it is a reasonable belief based on the preponderance (and lack) of evidence. Everything we actually DO know and can determine points away from it. Many of our hopes, dreams, aspirations and longings very much want it, which is why we have a tendency to credit those hopes and longings over the available data. It is also how religion has such a hold on people. If a belief system can convince them that the alternative to a blissful eternal life is unthinkably horrible, and you can achieve that afterlife only with their knowledge of various esoterica that they alone have, then you bind people to that system via their needs and fears.
I certainly don't fault people for subscribing to an afterlife, so long as they are aware that it is a personal belief and don't try to disparage others for failing to come to the same conclusion.
I DO point out faulty reasoning processes and poor or absent evidentiary standards when I see them, but I do not judge the actual personal belief. Most people who believe in such things hold them as personal truth and don't impose them or try to justify them as objectively proven and self-evident.
Example, if you die at 90 years old, you will be immediately reborn after having lived in the womb for 9 months.
Same as if you die at 80 years old. You will be immediately reborn after having lived in the womb for 8 months.
Same as if you die at 70 years old. You will be immediately reborn after having lived in the womb for 7 months.
Some people live to be 100 and over. There are children that are born at 10 months.
People that have died in their 10's 20's,30's,40's,50's,60's are born at 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, 4 months, 5 months and 6 months.
Example. Someone in their 30's dies in a car crash. He/she is suddenly no longer in the womb. Premature birth
Someone shot and killed in their 40's is suddenly no longer in the womb. Premature birth.
You are an unborn baby right now somewhere. Whatever your age is, that is how old you are in a woman's womb as of this moment.
Is it possible that this is how the universe operates?
Interesting as so many of these attempts to figure things out can be, but first thought that comes to my mind is "here we go again..."
I suspect you are long gone as many people will start a thread like this and lose interest as fast as they started it, but what I mean about this again is our inclination to view all going on around us as if we are the center or reason for it all. How is this done when there are so many other life forms (known and unknown) who are not "born" the way we are and don't live as long as we do? What about all else going on in the universe having nothing to do with life and death or any of what you are explaining in this thread of yours?
We humans certainly have developed quite the ego in any case. At least this is one fact we can file under "certain!"
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