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Originally Posted by DayInTheLife  It is easy for a living person to imagine all sorts of conceptions of the afterlife in their head, and very difficult to admit that we human beings just do not know what happens after we die. This uncertainty creates great anxiety in people, and all too often we succumb to the temptation to fabricate an answer that makes us comfortable. |
Agreed. The human capacity for self-deception appears nearly unlimited. We often believe what we want to believe, and pay attention to what is comfortable or comforting, beyond all evidence of senses or all absence of evidence.
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Originally Posted by DayInTheLife Religions have always provided a ready-made theory about what happens after death, but they insist that it is a fact and not conjecture. It takes great courage to become comfortable not knowing. |
I don't know if it requires that much courage. That makes it seem unattainable or unthinkable to the average person. I think that we simply have to let go of the near-archetypal belief that it's intolerable not to know. It's quite tolerable; in fact, in many ways it's a tremendous relief. There is great cognitive dissonance in taking up a position about something you have insufficient data to really claim knowledge of, and then spend the rest of your life deflecting evidence (or lack of evidence) that doesn't seem to support your position. It is a tremendous burden to be a know-it-all, or even to claim to know what isn't within your scope to know. When you let go of that, a tremendous burden and a responsibility you are not designed to bear rolls off of you. Some things need to be left to whatever powers that be. We don't seem to have the equipment to properly apprehend or understand The Meaning Of Life (tm).
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Originally Posted by DayInTheLife I also don't think there is any reason to believe that it is possible for people to suffer after they die. If you agree, that may ease your mind. |
I'm curious why you think that. I'm open to the idea but see no particular reason why any afterlife should necessarily be fundamentally different from or better than this or any other life. Or if you want to frame it in a cynical way, if this life is a crock, why should the next life suddenly be different? We seek for this life to be just or fair or to at least make sense, and to the extent we can't, we defuse that tension by deferring it to the next life. Seems kind of ... convenient to me.
--Bob