I don't understand why you think that is a problem.
Because this belief entails an unjustified and delusional attachment to the self. I thought I made that clear.
If we are created, it is reasonable there was a reason to create us. It also follows that we would have some ability to effect our ultimate destiny.
That presumes there is an ultimate destiny for us all. Even if we were all created, it does not follow that the creator precluded us being self determining beings that are not bound by some cosmic rule of ultimate destiny
Being uncomfortable is not pleasant. More understanding of what?
What do you think? If I am uncomfortable, I can determine why with some success and then fix that problem. If I am comfortable all the time, I have no opportunity to improve myself or others. It's why pain and suffering are not evil in and of themselves, but only as we are averse or attached to them.
I don't believe the afterlife is automatic. I believe we have the potential for an afterlife if we become loving beings, not if we do not.
So if you meet this standard, you become immortal, but if not, you are annihilated? I believe you said you were an annihilationist, correct?
Is anything meaningful to you if you cannot experience it?
If I have no experience of it, it has no personal meaningfulness to me. It might have meaningfulness to someone else, but I cannot say anything about that subject without experience of it myself. Some people might love ballet, but I cannot say it is meaningful to me, for example. Similarly, but distinctive, I cannot say I find any meaningfulness in God belief or God concepts,but other people do. It is incredulous to me, though, why people find such comfort and security beneficial, but that's another story entirely. You're missing the point of your survival through others. If I remember you, you survive in some way, do you not?
But what survives that can matter to you in your deceased state of oblivion?
You are being too self centered in this line of questioning. It isn't about what matters to you when you are dead unless you presume that the self has to survive beyond death. If it does not, then of course you don't have concerns as a non self.
If they are in oblivion, whqt will it matter to them?
Are you referring to those who still survive or those who are dead? The former would be meaningful in that they remember the person when they were alive and the latter would be meaningless, since they logically would not have any experience since they are no longer surviving as a self.
Only if you are so self centered you think other people remembering you has no relevance to you. Which I find pitiable.
The memory of others has no meaning to the annihilated self.
It's not about what you find meaningful when you're dead, but what those who survive you find meaningful. Meaning exists only as you exist.
No understanding of that on my part. Self does not include others.
There is no self that is not personal.
You seem to have no way to understand a conceptual self. What would you consider the memories of someone who remembers you as an individual if not a similar kind of self to what you personally experienced? Of course, it's not your experience, but you nonetheless survive in the memories of others as a self that people remember, as a person, if you will.
If God created time and space then God existed before time and space existed.
But then one asks whether God could be said to exist at all, since existence is predicated on time and space existing.
I agree we do not know, but your assumption of the correctness of Buddhism is an assumption the destiny of obilivion or non existence of self, apparently.
non existence of self is a reality that persists even as you and I engage in discussion. Our selves are not permanent, which is part of what the teaching of non self is about. We change from moment to moment and therefore are not permanent and persisting selves. And when we die, there is no evidence that would suggest our selves will survive in an experiential form after our death, but will instead simply dissipate into constituents. This is not nihilism, it is realism.
Only your assumption. If there is an eternal being that can confer eternal life, then meaning may exist that is not temporary.
Temporary meaning is more meaningful than permanent meaning. Permanence is stagnation.
There is no self that is not the individual self.
See above on your persistent misunderstanding of what I mean by a self or person remembered by others.
A theory or idea is not basic truth unless it turns out to be reality.
How would you propose to demonstrate your God exists in reality?
Your powers of observation are limited. It is an assumption.
I don't deny that. You seem to like stating the obvious as if I don't know these things.
You do not believe in a destiny of life. That only leaves death. The meaning of death is lack of life or no life.
You are too fixated on permanent meanings and destiny in an overall sense. We may all have our individual destinies, but this does not mean that everyone has an overarching destiny that is shared. I believe in a destiny of life in that life is a holistic phenomenon. I do not believe life is a reductionistic phenomenon as you seem to indicate. Life is a shared experience, so even if one person or millions die, life goes on as a whole of parts.
Dissolution of self is closer to oblivion than I wish to be.
But what if it turns out that is the case; that your self ceases to be? You could not rail against it, for you would have already dissipated into the aggregates of sorts. Your resistance seems to reflect a strong attachment to the self's permanence, which is not something I can really convince you of,but you have to consider yourself without this hostility.
Only for a temporary period and it will not matter to me in any event, if I am no longer existing.
Again you focus far too much on your own myopic understanding and not on the bigger picture. You miss the proverbial forest for the single tree that is your experience of the world.
