@fredsbend If there is nothing after death, then nothing we do in this life really matters in the end. I have heard people (most often atheists, especially humanitarians) give various reasons why what they do in this life really does matter, but their explanations haven't really ever satisfied me. I mean, you lose your memories upon death and to take it to the extreme, the universe will eventually reach a state of complete uniformity. At which point, nothing we have ever done will matter.
@LeeWoofenden You know I'm not talking about wealth. I'm talking about things like clean water, decent food, medical services, space, safety for your children, education. These are correlated heavily with happiness and in our society you need at least some money to get them. Saying people who cannot afford these things are happy in their squalor is utter rubbish.
@LeeWoofenden And you just proved the point I made above. It's not important to you because you believe it'll be better in the afterlife. This is one of those negatives about religion that I was talking about in the Polemics room.
Why the afterlife is different: it's eternal (presumably God wouldn't leave us all to suffer a heat death) and we'll be in close relationship with God (so we have an effect on Him, who is outside of time and space). Come to think of it, that latter bit also matters in this life.
Becoming closer to God means becoming more like Jesus. There was never a man who bettered the life of his fellow humans as much as he did. ... I just convinced myself that the afterlife is a secondary reason at best for doing good in this life.
@Mr.Bultitude Not always. Mostly. We have to find a way to be sure that we do not make short term gains at the expense of long term gains. We also cannot accept infringement of "minority rights."
@fredsbend The reason I asked is because when you remove eternity from the equation, the question is, are you focused on the good of now or the good of the future? (Both, obviously, but to what extent?) Since we can only make educated guesses about how our present actions will affect the future, I don't see how we can but despair when considering the complexities of what may happen.
@El'endiaStarman It looks like I may have flagged one of my own comments, then deleted it, and it was marked "helpful" because it's deleted. (But my intent was to flag the thread, not my comment specifically.) Can you confirm?
@fredsbend Hold on! Did you just climb into my head? I didn't say anything about it not being important to me. We were talking about fairness. I said their is no fairness in this temporary life, but there is fairness in eternal life. And I went on to say that that shouldn't make us complacent about this life.
In fact, what we do in this life determines what our eternal life will be like. And if we don't care about the situation of our fellow human beings, and do nothing about it, that will have a much bigger effect on our eternal life than whether or not we had money, and whether or not we had clean drinking water.
@fredsbend Who's explaining anything away? I'm talking about realities. And to me, our spiritual life is more real than what you're calling "real life."
@Mr.Bultitude As for the comment thread itself, it looks like both you and curiousdannii took care of your own comments. I don't feel a strong need or desire to delete the older ones. I kinda like them. I admit I ama bit biased...
@fredsbend The next life is a continuation of this life. Whatever character we build here on earth by what we do and don't do, we carry with us into the next life, and it determines what that life will be like for us.
Everything is vanity n without god there is nothing without him there is no life without him there is no binging nor end all material things turn to dust all possessions are meaningless
@Mr.Bultitude Wait, you're saying that without "blessed assurance" you find yourself in despair?
I'm using the term coyly.
It sounds like you are saying that if feel unsure about the future then you are in despair about it, so your solution is to neglect that fact and focus on your eternal security. Is that right?
@LeeWoofenden Too bad most Christians don't act like what they do has a bearing on their eternal security, aside from proselytizing. It seems most Christians think the only thing with eternal worth that's worth doing is propagating the faith. "Believe first. Then you'll find your crappy life ain't so bad cuz you gots Jesus."
@LeeWoofenden The impasse of which I speak.
@El'endiaStarman Well, it's kind of dumb that there's no rep minimum to approve edits. I keep seeing people in the review history that I pretty much never see on the site, and they have like a hundred rep or less.
@Mr.Bultitude Utilitarianism is a tricky ethics framework. It loses its humanity if you don't account for the need to protect the minority (e.g. the smaller number of people that will suffer because of the pleasure that you bring to the majority). Also there is the subjective nature in weighing out "what is" against "what might be". Should you give one unit of pleasure now or wait until next year to give five?
As an actuary, you understand how easily this can apply to finance, but with ethics, it's much more difficult.
> I don't see how we can but despair when considering the complexities of what may happen.
This still baffles me. I don't understand how consideration of the future leads you to despair.
@fredsbend What I'm saying is, how do you decide what action is "best"? Do you focus on doing the most good now? If so, how do you know that what's good for most people today doesn't have ill long-term effects? But if you're focused on being chessmaster to squeeze the most good out of the future by making choices in the present that most would find questionable, where do you stop? Every action has unforeseen consequences.
@fredsbend So no, that's not at all what I was saying.
Think of foreign aid as an example. Both Africa and the Middle East have certain money pits. We donate money to one country and, oops, it ends up in the wrong hands. (Examples abound.) How do we decide what countries get how much foreign aid? How do we decide when to support a coup? How do we decide where to send our limited supply of doctors, so that they're making an impact while not needlessly endangering themselves?
Those are just a few examples. Such questions are real whether you're an atheist or a Christian. But my point was that without an eternal perspective, why would we not despair over the myriad of possibilities that our good intentions (in our workplace, or in our charity giving, or in raising our own children, or in our voting) are paving the way to hell?
But the eternal perspective says that, though we have basic responsibilities to each other, and though we ought to do our due diligence to know whether our habits are having a positive or negative impact on those around us, ultimately no long-term results are up to us. "In the long run, we're all dead," Keynes said. But in the longer run, we're all raised. "All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well."
@Mr.Bultitude We Christians have that issue even with an eternal perspective, because how can we know whether we inadvertently sent someone to Hell, maybe 10 years in the future? If that was our sole responsibility (don't drive people to Hell), we would fail utterly miserably. And often. Thank God that...er...it's God's job...
@fredsbend "Should you give one unit of pleasure now or wait until next year to give five?" really gets at the heart of what my point was. So does Ecclesiastes 2: "I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. ... This also is vanity and a great evil."
@El'endiaStarman Yup. Someone once said to me, "Thank God you're not God." I thank God for that as well. Because I'm inept at influencing events for the better even at my godliest.
@fredsbend Well . . . I'm not "most Christians." And by now I think you have a pretty good idea of what I think about the beliefs of "most Christians."
@fredsbend If this life is all there is, then let's just admit that in general, life sucks.
@LeeWoofenden (Oooh, nice permalink number: 23013213. ANYWAY-) if you use that to argue that there must be an afterlife or that's why you believe that there is one, that's the appeal to emotion fallacy. It's entirely possible that this life sucks and it's all there is.
@Mr.Bultitude The long-term results for us are up to us. God's not going to give us eternal joy if we don't do our job here on earth. Not that God wouldn't want to. But if we are lethargic about, or totally lacking in helping others here on earth, that becomes our eternal character. And God can't give us joy if we're not interested in passing it on to others. Basic spiritual law.
@El'endiaStarman It's not an argument that there's an afterlife. It's just an observation about if there isn't an afterlife.
@El'endiaStarman The fundamental numbers of existence! I believe there was a counting system in at least one hunter-gatherer culture that went, "1, 2, 3, many."
@LeeWoofenden Yes, there is indeed a currently-around (or very recent) tribe somewhere in Africa where they literally did not have names for numbers greater than three. I can't remember if they were able to comprehend 4 or not.
@El'endiaStarman I would have pinged Caleb (because he's got the voodoo on this), but he's not been in here for a while.
With Nathaniel's proposal I was wondering if the room he set up can have automatic posting of answers fitting his criteria (new answer on questions older than 30 days)?
@Mr.Bultitude What's your point, exactly? No one has a crystal ball, but we do the best we can to make sure we don't inadvertently turn the world upside down. I guess you are objecting to utilitarianism as an ethics framework, regardless of being religious. Is that right? Do you hold to one framework more than another?
@El'endiaStarman Yeah, it seems questions/tags based.
Seems bleak, but once you accept it, it ain't so bad. You start to live differently. There is nothing bigger and better. There is no next life. Do what you can with this one. Spread love while you can. Build a legacy that makes life better for those that follow you. These things become more important once you accept that life is tough and it won't get better overnight.
@El'endiaStarman I don't think Lee meant it to be an argument. I think he's wondering how you'd cope with that reality, without that hope of eternal life in Paradise.
It's hard to explain, but for me, letting go of some fantasy that I'll one day be happier in a paradise somewhere for all eternity has ironically made me happier. Life is more precious. I have more reason to rejoice in each day than ever before.
I still play that fantasy in my head, where the theme is that I live forever in perfect health. It's fun sometimes, but honestly I wonder that as my health wanes if I can develop new coping strategies.
@El'endiaStarman I haven't had a chance to read more than the first one. Remind me tomorrow. I'll probably have time. And I don't mean right now tomorrow. I mean in like 10 hours.
@El'endiaStarman @LeeWoofenden I'd have to see a link to believe that.
@Mr.Bultitude It's not a matter of hope anymore. It's a matter of coping with reality.
The fact is that we can't fix everything. We will have to make decisions that cause suffering.
If you look at the world, see all the suffering it has, and then have hope that a magic bullet will fix it one day, you're probably not going to do much about what you can fix, waiting, hoping, for the grander tool to come do the work.
I saw an awesome MASH episode once:
> In "Souvenirs" Hawkeye and B.J. discover one of their pilots, Stratton is making South Korean children go through dangerous territory to collect war junk that he can sell to his fellow soldiers, with little to no regard of their safety. Two awesome things happen, one a drunken Hot Lips catches wind of it and decks Stratton. She gets reprimanded for it, but it was awesome none the less. And two, BJ and Hawkeye imply that as both of them are Stratton's official Doctor, they could BS and say he is too sick to fly his helicopter. Stratton backs off and we have this little gem.
@Mr.Bultitude I don't really see a problem here. I'll do what I can while I'm here. If I pass the torch off to someone like me, they'll do the same and then I'd say humanity has a reasonable chance to minimize suffering and keep us all alive for another generation.
One day, if there is no god, then yes, it will all end. But neither hope nor willpower will change that. Accept your immanent demise with grace and dignity. It's easier that way.
@fredsbend What if "the best we can" is really bad? What if "we" are working against each other? For instance, you and I are more likely to vote Republican or Libertarian, while El'endia is more likely to vote Green or Democrat, yet the three of us have (I think) very similar moral compasses. What if climate change extinguishes humanity in 150 years?
I don't know that I'm "objecting" to utilitarianism, so much as I'm saying that any ethics framework is futile if God is out of the picture.
@fredsbend Ha, okay. Tell that to all the great Christian social reformers.
Back to the futility point, if one day we'll all be dead and there is no resurrection, why bother fixing anything? Why not just focus on your own personal happiness?
And it seems to be "One, two, many" rather than "One, two, three, many," though the first article linked above mentioned sometimes making it to three or four.
That YouTube video is from the first link. But instead of showing that the Walpiri of Australia have only one and two, it shows that they have (or rather, had) only "one" and "many."
@fredsbend This confirms a theory of mine: that for many people, atheism is a stage of spiritual growth. If becoming an atheist/agnostic has moved you toward actively doing practical things to make life better for others, then it is actually moving you toward heaven more effectively than your former "Christian" life. Because heaven is all about making things better for the people around us. And here on earth is where we get practice for heaven.
Oh, and since we're linking to blog posts, here's my latest, which some of you Star Trek fans might get a smile from: Spirit: The Final Frontier. It's actually a re-edit of a sermon I preached almost sixteen years ago.
@fredsbend Really, I was just making a statement. Not wondering anything. I don't have such a big problem with people not believing in God and an afterlife. I understand that many people live very good and fulfilling lives without a belief in God. And my view of "salvation" has more to do with how you live than what religious doctrines you believe in.
Early Judaism had little or no belief in an afterlife. They believed that God rewarded the righteous in this life, and punished the wicked in this life. Children and legacy were also important to them. And if my experience growing up in a majority Jewish town from the time I was 10 is any indication, many Jews today still believe and live the same way today.
One of my Jewish friends in high school said quite explicitly that this was his belief. And he was a religious Jew, not a secular Jew.
So there are religious people--people who believe in God--who agree with you (@fredsbend) on this point.
@fredsbend Oh, and incidentally, Swedenborgians don't believe that Jesus is going to come some day and fix everything after a big war. In fact, we believe that the Second Coming has already happened--and almost everyone missed it. That's because we believe it was a spiritual event, not a physical one.
So we don't think there is going to be any deus ex machina coming along to fix up our world for us, now that we've made such a mess of it. We think that it's our responsibility to fix our world. God's role is to move our hearts with compassion, and give us enlightenment, so that we'll actually do that work. So for us, there is no excuse for hanging down our hands and waiting for God to fix the problems of the world.
Though we do have a well-developed theology, and doctrines out the wazoo, our doctrines focus on living a good life. And that means loving and serving our fellow human beings, as Jesus commanded. If we don't do that, we're not headed to heaven, no matter how correct our beliefs are.
Throughout the narrative parts of the Old Testament, there is very little mention of any afterlife. That idea arises mostly later on, in the books of the Prophets.
During the bulk of Old Testament times, salvation had little or nothing to do with:
Heaven or the afterlife, since there was littl...
@svidgen In other words, words can mean different things in different contexts, and the Christian definition of love is a valid definition, especially in an explicitly Christian context, so when a Christian says they love me, I shouldn't argue? Not entirely wrong. I suppose that means that when a Christian says they love me when they clearly don't, I should stop interpreting that as lying and start interpreting it as meaningless.
@fredsbend Why do these things always use equals signs, when they're clearly some sort of function? Two does notequal six. Under this function, two maps to six. f(2) = 6. And f(n) = n(n+1). (This did not require any degree of genius to work out.)
@TRiG Yes. Reminds me of the old saw, "If I call my dog's tail a leg, how many legs does he have?" Answer: "Four. Even if you call a dog's tail a leg, it's still not a leg."
@fredsbend @LeeWoofenden posted what I was talking about. Specifically the Walpiri counting. I think I saw it in The Story of 1.
@TRiG Yeah, I thought of that, how the equality sign is misused. I just go with it because I get what they mean, and besides, the people that come up with these are probably not mathematicians and wouldn't know or understand that distinction/what a mapping is.
Also, it's clear to mathematicians that they weren't made by mathematicians because mathematicians know you the next number in a sequence can be anything.
Everything is vanity n without god there is nothing without him there is no life without him there is no binging nor end all material things turn to dust all possessions are meaningless
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