Why Is Immortality/Eternal Life Desirable?

[ToHoldNothing]

God is necessary if our existence is to have any ultimate meaning and if we are to have any hope of destiny beyond this life.

Why do we need ultimate meaning or destiny beyond this life? You've failed to qualify why these must be the case

Not always and not forever and if there is no afterlife, with no meaning for the departed.

Always and forever are unrealistic expectations

I do not have to separate myself from being the same as the community and web of life and causes and effects around me--I simply am separate in some sense from that.

In a loose sense that might be said to be delusory. You are only so separate asyou believe yourself to be. You no doubt share beliefs with others anyway and even personality traits.

I understand before Nirvana all is in a state of transience--but not after Nirvana.

Only on an isolated level. Not everything becomes equal after the Buddha attains nirvana, only to the Buddha themselves. It's like if you attain salvation through Jesus. Not everyone attains it,just you. It's an interesting parallel of universalism in that everyone can achieve salvation or enlightenment in Christianity and Buddhism respectively.

Being limited on our ability to percieve or understand things does not make our existence pointless. What makes our existence pointless is no ultimate meaning or destiny.

I never said our existence was pointless just because we were ignorant. But our existence is not pointless just because we don't have ultimate meaning. Me finding a meaning in my life does not mean that my meaning is pointless. You are constantly emphasizing this attachment to ultimacy which troubles me.

Then you and I are both wrong and all is meaningless and ultimately pointless.

Just because we are ignorant and not able to find ultimacy does not lead to nihilism. The nonexistence of heaven does not lead to nihilism either except as you believe it to be so.

Searching for truth and meaning does not become pointless if we partally fail to find or understand.

I never doubted that. Finding truth and meaning in any sense is a journey, yes.

I also am not bgasing my ideas on what I want, but on what seems reasonable. It seems unreasonable to me that we exist as random accidents with no meaning or purpose to our existence.

We have meaning and purpose to our existence as individuals. Just because we don't have a purpose imposed on us from outside does not mean we are pointless in any sense.

our conscious realization of our own existence is not energy or matter.

It can be said to be a result of energy and matter as they interact

If we can accomplish loving someone else, the point of eternal life might be to continue to love others and be loved by them.

More unrealistic attachments to oneself. You do not deserve to be loved forever, though you DO deserve to be loved. The shortness of life in the grand scheme of things is not a bad thing, but something to motivate us to appreciate life all the more.

I think it is unrealistic to assume life occured with nothing to cause it to occur-no intelligence or purpose behind it.

No one said that. The big bang was not something from nothing, but something big from something compressed in a very small point. There was obviously something there. I don't think scientists claim that the Big Bang was a black hole or some such thing.

No not just because it was for a longer period but if one was able to love others for a longer period of time, it would be improved.

Longer period is still finite, meaning your heaven would seem to just be a somewhat longer period of time compared to a human life. That would be understandable, like the deva realm in Buddhist cosmology.

Life is valuable. Its value is not because it is temporary but because life is valuable. Being temporary has nothing to do with its value.

Life is valuable because it is short. You can't separate our valuation of something from the amount of time it exists, in some sense. Just valuing something because it exists is less than valuing it because it may not exist tomorrow.

There can be no such thing as too much good. There can be too much of something such that what was good is no longer good. You have not shown any logical reason to assume life contininuing would not be good.

You have not shown any reason why life continuing would be good. The onus of proof is on you to defend your positive claim. My negative claim is due to you not presenting evidence for the claim you have to present evidence for, since it is asserting a positive, is it not?

If I have to present evidence for my negative claim, it would be that life continuing would ruin the quality of life, since it would go on forever and we could not appreciate it the same way we appreciate it when it is finite.

OK but the meaning can exist as long as the beings that create it exist.

I don't disagree with you here. I disagree that life has to exist forever.

Being attached to caring about others is not a bad thing.

Being attached and addicted to caring for others is a bad thing, since it indicates you don't care about your own well being. Wanting to care about others is good, being addicted to and craving to care for others is excess.

I did not say it must be the case but it would be for the best if it were.

Why? Because you have hope and faith that it is? You haven't defended this claim

There is no fighting against death. Being attached to life is a good thing.

You're confusing a will to live with an attachment to life. Life is good as it continues, but it cannot continue forever even by a scientific perspective, let alone a philosophical/metaphysical perspective.
I think it just might be the case.

That was not the issue. You exist.

I exist in a state of flux. I am not the same as I was even a minute ago, to use a pertinent example, lol.

I don't understand anatta or square circle. I understanding I am a part of a whole and do not exist without anything else existing around me and I also understand I am not the same as the existance around me and exist separately from the rest of existance around me.

Anatta is not even close to a square circle. A square circle is a contradiction of mathematics on its face because of the qualities of a square and a circle directly contradicting each other. Anatta is not claiming the self does not exist at all, it only denies an absolute existence that persists forever. There is the experiential/empirical self we all experience day to day, but that is not the same as a soul in the Christian or Hindu sense of an essence that persists into infinity.

To understand you are interrelated and yet a separate entity is something of a start to understanding anatta, but then, one can say it is easier to understand anicca and dukkha than to understand anatta.

That life matters is not and incorrect or misguided idea and it is not wrong.

Yes and my statment is still true.

Only so far as you understand self.

Yes it does and that is reasonable.

It does not necessarily follow that a creator declares that its creations are not permitted to create their own meaning. There could be a creator like in Deism that says that people determine their own meaning and destiny in life.

.No that is not true. A creation only happens if there is a Creator.

Then I qualify we are a result of generation from natural processes. Is that clearer?

chaos is not intelligent and is not God. It is a term that to me refers to non intelligence and non life.

No one claimed chaos was God. But chaos is a state of nature and nature is a part of life. For nature to generate things is not unlike creation, though creation is more supernatural than nature, which is natural by its name

I understand connected, but do you undestand being separate from the whole?

I am only so separate in my assertions, but I am not radically separated. There is a sense of autonomy, perhaps, but not separation in any real sense of that term.

It is complex which is indicated by the various form and beliefs which are different.

Then Christianity is just as complex by your description of what complexity is. Buddhism doesn't have to be understood by popular ideas about it, it can be reduced to basic ideas.

It makes no sense to claim self continues after there is no self.

This all depends on how you understand the self. The self and the soul are not the same thing. Perhaps you are really arguing for the soul and not the self.

 

[elman]

I agree this life is not absolutly good. I have some hope there is a better one.
That's where we disagree. This life is benign. It's our approach to this world that makes it good or bad. It's not objectively good or bad. I don't see a reason to wish for another life that's only slightly better, but still unsatisfactory. You see my point?

No first of all this life is not benign. Someone who is in the process of a slow and painful death is in an objecitivly bad condition and death may well be a blessing. Yes it is our approach to this life that produces good and evil. When we hurt others and are unloving and uncaring we create evil. When we are loving and caring we create good. I don't wish for a life after the grave that is only slightly better, but such a life would be better than oblivion.

We have been over this many times. The bottom line is always self is gone

.

To be fair, not strictly gone, but dissipated. Water can break down into hydrogen and oxygen, but water itself is only gone temporarily before it's reconstituted. Think of it like that. Self is not vaporized to nothingness after death, but just reduced to base elements.

That is strictly gone. When I die it will not mean I am still partly alive because my body and its chemicals are still here.

Nothing in the spiritual realm can be proven objectivly. All must be accepted on faith and hope.

Depends on what you mean by the spiritual realm. What do you mean?

The realm that is not this physical realm--the one we cannot detect.

I had a beginning. I was born. I am going to die. That will be the end of self if there is no spiritual realm, or if the spiritual realm is one where one can reach Nirvana and do away with self.

Again, I wouldn't say the self is done away with so much as it's returned to its base form of sorts.

That is a word game. Done away is correct, even if the base form of sorts remain.

Anatta isn't so much the absolute claim that we have no soul in some sense, but only moreso that nothing can be possessed. But with anicca as an ancillary truth, the self cannot be said to be permanent and stuck in one state, but always in a state of flux.

Everything in the physical world is in a state of flux. That does not mean none of it exists.

No but it does mean I exist.

Why should it matter whether you exist? Why do you deserve to exist forever?

I don't deserve to exist forever. I don't even deserve to exist now. But I do.

Assuming there is a better future does not prevent one from focusing on the present and being loving in the present.

A better future in what sense though? In another world or in the present world?

Both hopefully.

That is just not true. I can appreciate life as it is and still want it to continue and be better.

There's such a thing as wanting too much, in an unrealistic fashion. No one's saying you can't want things to be better, but in what sense is what makes an important point

OK but simply wanting life to continue and be better is not in any sense too much wanting.

 

[elman]

God is necessary if our existence is to have any ultimate meaning and if we are to have any hope of destiny beyond this life.

Why do we need ultimate meaning or destiny beyond this life? You've failed to qualify why these must be the case

Why would you prefer meaninglessness and oblivion?

Not always and not forever and if there is no afterlife, with no meaning for the departed.

Always and forever are unrealistic expectations

The assumption of uncaused and meaningless existence is not realistic.

I do not have to separate myself from being the same as the community and web of life and causes and effects around me--I simply am separate in some sense from that.

In a loose sense that might be said to be delusory.

It can be said to be delusionry but that is not reasonable.

You are only so separate as you believe yourself to be.

Believe oneself to be the same as a rock without life is insanity, not reality.

You no doubt share beliefs with others anyway and even personality traits

.That does not mean there is no separation between me and them such that I can identify which is me and which is them.

I understand before Nirvana all is in a state of transience--but not after Nirvana.

Only on an isolated level. Not everything becomes equal after the Buddha attains nirvana, only to the Buddha themselves. It's like if you attain salvation through Jesus. Not everyone attains it,just you. It's an interesting parallel of universalism in that everyone can achieve salvation or enlightenment in Christianity and Buddhism respectively.

However in Christianity we are talking about life and in Buddhism we are talking about non existence of the self--non life.

Being limited on our ability to percieve or understand things does not make our existence pointless. What makes our existence pointless is no ultimate meaning or destiny.

I never said our existence was pointless just because we were ignorant. But our existence is not pointless just because we don't have ultimate meaning. Me finding a meaning in my life does not mean that my meaning is pointless. You are constantly emphasizing this attachment to ultimacy which troubles me.

You are constantly clinging to the temporary meaning you can assign yourself, which troubles me. If we don't have ultimate meaning, our existence does become pointless eventually.

Then you and I are both wrong and all is meaningless and ultimately pointless.

Just because we are ignorant and not able to find ultimacy does not lead to nihilism. The nonexistence of heaven does not lead to nihilism either except as you believe it to be so.

Yes it does. The non existence of life--which is what heaven is, leads to nihilism--the lack of life.

I also am not basing my ideas on what I want, but on what seems reasonable. It seems unreasonable to me that we exist as random accidents with no meaning or purpose to our existence.

We have meaning and purpose to our existence as individuals. Just because we don't have a purpose imposed on us from outside does not mean we are pointless in any sense.

What meaning and purpose to our existence as individuals matters if we are random accidents of nature? How long will it matter?

our conscious realization of our own existence is not energy or matter.

It can be said to be a result of energy and matter as they interact

Which I don't bellieve is true, but in any evevt it is not energy or matter.

If we can accomplish loving someone else, the point of eternal life might be to continue to love others and be loved by them.

More unrealistic attachments to oneself. You do not deserve to be loved forever, though you DO deserve to be loved.

I agree we do not deserve to be loved forever. I do not agree we deserve to be loved. Who is to love us if there is no Creator?

The shortness of life in the grand scheme of things is not a bad thing, but something to motivate us to appreciate life all the more.

Shortness of life can be a bad thing. A child should not be facing death and if they do, it is a bad thing. We can appreciate life even if we live a long time and do not die young.

I think it is unrealistic to assume life occured with nothing to cause it to occur-no intelligence or purpose behind it.

No one said that. The big bang was not something from nothing, but something big from something compressed in a very small point. There was obviously something there. I don't think scientists claim that the Big Bang was a black hole or some such thing.

The Big Bang is silent on intelligence of no intelligence prior to the big bank.

No not just because it was for a longer period but if one was able to love others for a longer period of time, it would be improved.

Longer period is still finite, meaning your heaven would seem to just be a somewhat longer period of time compared to a human life. That would be understandable, like the deva realm in Buddhist cosmology.

Timelessness is not understandable in this world which is subject to time.

Life is valuable. Its value is not because it is temporary but because life is valuable. Being temporary has nothing to do with its value.

Life is valuable because it is short. You can't separate our valuation of something from the amount of time it exists, in some sense. Just valuing something because it exists is less than valuing it because it may not exist tomorrow.

Not reasonable. One could argue the more time, the more value better than arguing the less time the more valuable.

There can be no such thing as too much good. There can be too much of something such that what was good is no longer good. You have not shown any logical reason to assume life contininuing would not be good.

You have not shown any reason why life continuing would be good.

Yes I have. I have pointed out that life is better than no life unless there are circumstances that makes life unbearable.

The onus of proof is on you to defend your positive claim. My negative claim is due to you not presenting evidence for the claim you have to present evidence for, since it is asserting a positive, is it not?

The starting point is life is better than death, because we have not killed ourselves.

If I have to present evidence for my negative claim, it would be that life continuing would ruin the quality of life, since it would go on forever and we could not appreciate it the same way we appreciate it when it is finite.

If Life could be pure loving experience and go on forever, what happens to your ruining the quality of life? At what point does this kick in automatically, this extention of life that causes life to not be prefered over death?

OK but the meaning can exist as long as the beings that create it exist.

I don't disagree with you here. I disagree that life has to exist forever.

I does not have to exist forever but that would be good if it did.

Being attached to caring about others is not a bad thing.

Being attached and addicted to caring for others is a bad thing, since it indicates you don't care about your own well being.

So addition is bad, but I did not say addiction or not caring about one's own well being.

There is no fighting against death. Being attached to life is a good thing.

You're confusing a will to live with an attachment to life. Life is good as it continues, but it cannot continue forever even by a scientific perspective, let alone a philosophical/metaphysical perspective.

A will to llive is an attachment to life and is a good thing. You are dealing with physical life. I am referring to spiritual existence.

That was not the issue. You exist.

I exist in a state of flux. I am not the same as I was even a minute ago, to use a pertinent example, lol.

You are existing as a changing being--all things in this physcial univers are in a state of flux. That does not say they do not exist.

I don't understand anatta or square circle. I understanding I am a part of a whole and do not exist without anything else existing around me and I also understand I am not the same as the existance around me and exist separately from the rest of existance around me.

Anatta is not even close to a square circle. A square circle is a contradiction of mathematics on its face because of the qualities of a square and a circle directly contradicting each other. Anatta is not claiming the self does not exist at all, it only denies an absolute existence that persists forever. There is the experiential/empirical self we all experience day to day, but that is not the same as a soul in the Christian or Hindu sense of an essence that persists into infinity.

Denial of an absolute self existing forever is to believe that at some point self does not exist. There is no escaping that conclusion.

To understand you are interrelated and yet a separate entity is something of a start to understanding anatta, but then, one can say it is easier to understand anicca and dukkha than to understand anatta.

The point is we either continue existing as a separate entity or we do not. Anatta would say we do not.

That life matters is not an incorrect or misguided idea and it is not wrong.

Yes and my statment is still true.
Only so far as you understand self.

It does not necessarily follow that a creator declares that its creations are not permitted to create their own meaning. There could be a creator like in Deism that says that people determine their own meaning and destiny in life.

But what we create is temporary.

chaos is not intelligent and is not God. It is a term that to me refers to non intelligence and non life.

No one claimed chaos was God. But chaos is a state of nature and nature is a part of life. For nature to generate things is not unlike creation, though creation is more supernatural than nature, which is natural by its name

For things to accidently come into existence as the result of nature is not like Creation. Creation is about an intelligence behind the existence and the consequences of chaos is not about intelligence being involved.

I understand connected, but do you undestand being separate from the whole?

I am only so separate in my assertions, but I am not radically separated. There is a sense of autonomy, perhaps, but not separation in any real sense of that term.

As an individual your separation from others is real.

It is complex which is indicated by the various form and beliefs which are different.

Then Christianity is just as complex by your description of what complexity is. Buddhism doesn't have to be understood by popular ideas about it, it can be reduced to basic ideas.

So can Christianity. Christianity is life. Buddhism is escape from life.

It makes no sense to claim self continues after there is no self.

This all depends on how you understand the self. The self and the soul are not the same thing. Perhaps you are really arguing for the soul and not the self.

Self and soul are the same thing. There is no soul if there is no self.

 

[ToHoldNothing]

No first of all this life is not benign. Someone who is in the process of a slow and painful death is in an objecitivly bad condition and death may well be a blessing. Yes it is our approach to this life that produces good and evil. When we hurt others and are unloving and uncaring we create evil. When we are loving and caring we create good. I don't wish for a life after the grave that is only slightly better, but such a life would be better than oblivion.

Only if you think oblivion is somehow unrealistic. Reality is not about what you want, it's about what is there regardless of your feelings. The world as benign is the truth in that it does not make ethical judgments, we do. Our judgments about something are important, but they don't change the facts of reality either. You seem to think there are times that death is a blessing when you seemed to claim death was never a blessing. Perhaps I misunderstood.

That is strictly gone. When I die it will not mean I am still partly alive because my body and its chemicals are still here.

Depends on how you interpret the self

The realm that is not this physical realm--the one we cannot detect.

Then it might as well not exist

That is a word game. Done away is correct, even if the base form of sorts remain.

Done away in one sense, not done away with in another

Everything in the physical world is in a state of flux. That does not mean none of it exists.

No one was arguing acosmism. The world is in a state of flux and thus our ideas about reality are not always in conformity with what reality actually is.

I don't deserve to exist forever. I don't even deserve to exist now. But I do.

Everyone deserves to exist. You're giving yourself too little credit

Both hopefully.

You can't base things on hope without considering the fact

OK but simply wanting life to continue and be better is not in any sense too much wanting.

Continue for a realistic period, no, not too much. Continue forever, yes, too much.

 

[ToHoldNothing]

Why would you prefer meaninglessness and oblivion?

Just because I do not have a meaning given to me does not mean my life is meaningless. And just because I don't live forever does not mean my life is pointless or leads to absolute oblivion. You're leaping to unjustified conclusions here

The assumption of uncaused and meaningless existence is not realistic.

Existence is not uncaused. I do not deny the big bang, which would be denying a cause to existence. And you keep insisting meaning is outside us, when that is not the case. I think you're being unfair when you say meaning has to exist outside of us instead of coming from within.

It can be said to be delusionry but that is not reasonable.

Delusion is unreasonable. And there is a reasonable standard for delusion, so by all means try to explain how I'm not being reasonable.

Believe oneself to be the same as a rock without life is insanity, not reality.

I don't believe I'm the same as a rock. You misunderstand.

That does not mean there is no separation between me and them such that I can identify which is me and which is them.

Only relatively speaking. There are distinctions, but there are similarities as well.

However in Christianity we are talking about life and in Buddhism we are talking about non existence of the self--non life.

Non existence of the self is not absolute nonexistence of life. Life exists even after humans are gone. You're being too anthropocentric and selfish here. Humans are not the absolute end of anything in this world, they are a part of it as much as animals and plants are.

You are constantly clinging to the temporary meaning you can assign yourself, which troubles me. If we don't have ultimate meaning, our existence does become pointless eventually.

Only in the sense that we no longer exist. But you are attached far too much to permanence. I accept that my meaning is temporary, so I am technically not clinging to it, I merely accept it as a part of reality. You seem to want something that doesn't sync with reality, a permanent meaning to life.

Yes it does. The non existence of life--which is what heaven is, leads to nihilism--the lack of life.

Just because people cease to be after they die does not mean their life was pointless, it merely means they were part of life. You're focused too much on the big picture instead of the moments from day to day.

What meaning and purpose to our existence as individuals matters if we are random accidents of nature? How long will it matter?

We create meaning ourselves. Meaning does not have to last forever to be meaningful. This is where you're creating an unrealistic standard to apply to meaning.

Which I don't bellieve is true, but in any evevt it is not energy or matter.

The self is not the same as energy and matter, but it can be said to result from it. Like heat results from fire.

I agree we do not deserve to be loved forever. I do not agree we deserve to be loved. Who is to love us if there is no Creator?

People. We love each other, that is love in itself as a result of human relationships.

Shortness of life can be a bad thing. A child should not be facing death and if they do, it is a bad thing. We can appreciate life even if we live a long time and do not die young.

We don't appreciate life if it is not finite. Life without death is light without shadow.

The Big Bang is silent on intelligence of no intelligence prior to the big bank.

Then one cannot claim God has anything to do with it, right?

Timelessness is not understandable in this world which is subject to time.

Then it is unnecessary to even posit. It's like positing a square circle or the actual existence of numbers.

Not reasonable. One could argue the more time, the more value better than arguing the less time the more valuable.

The more you experience something, the less it becomes special. If you had gourmet food all the time,you'd get tired of it, would you not? The same can apply to life. If you live forever, you would eventually want to die just so you don't have to see everything die around you, like an immortal from Highlander.

Yes I have. I have pointed out that life is better than no life unless there are circumstances that makes life unbearable.

But life forever has not been shown to be better than life for a reasonable period of time before it ends biologically by natural causes

The starting point is life is better than death, because we have not killed ourselves.

Depends on what you mean by "killing the self". Sometimes it's more figurative.

If Life could be pure loving experience and go on forever, what happens to your ruining the quality of life? At what point does this kick in automatically, this extention of life that causes life to not be prefered over death?

You don't experience the opposite of love. Like light and shadow, love becomes pointless without experiencing hatred. It's a gradual process. I didn't say there was one moment where we starting feeling less fulfilled.

I does not have to exist forever but that would be good if it did.

Why? Because you can't bear the notion of dying? You seem to be so scared of death that you create this unrealistic idea that you HAVE to survive forever without ANY evidence to support that claim. Or even an argument about why it should be. Instead you just keep saying it must be with no justification that isn't subject to a significant criticism of wishful thinking on your part.

So addition is bad, but I did not say addiction or not caring about one's own well being.

there is a middle path to take, as is taught in buddhism. It is between attachment and craving to life and aversion and hatred of life. In between is what we desire and even need.

A will to llive is an attachment to life and is a good thing. You are dealing with physical life. I am referring to spiritual existence.

And spiritual existence is not something you've demonstrated, but merely asserted its existence without defense.

You are existing as a changing being--all things in this physcial univers are in a state of flux. That does not say they do not exist.

NO ONE is saying they do not exist. You are misunderstanding anatta and anicca. Things are impermanent, but no one EVER said they did not exist. Of course they exist, but they are not permanent. Wanting things to exist permanently is the problem here, not whether things exist or not. We're not arguing whether things exist objectively, because they reasonably do.

Denial of an absolute self existing forever is to believe that at some point self does not exist. There is no escaping that conclusion.

But it is not a conclusion that leads to nihilism. It can in fact lead to a more meaningful and fulfilled life in appreciating things as they wax and wane.

The point is we either continue existing as a separate entity or we do not. Anatta would say we do not.

Anatta moreso says that it is unrealistic to say that we are absolutely separate from things. We do not possess things, things possess us in a certain sense.

But what we create is temporary.

Things being temporary does not mean they are less important.

For things to accidently come into existence as the result of nature is not like Creation. Creation is about an intelligence behind the existence and the consequences of chaos is not about intelligence being involved.

I never claimed it was creation, I called it generation to distinguish it. I don't need an intelligence behind my physical existence to find purpose in life.

As an individual your separation from others is real.

My separation from others is a construct of my mind that thinks it's absolutely separate.

So can Christianity. Christianity is life. Buddhism is escape from life.

Christianity wants a life forever, Buddhism wants a fulfilled life and liberation from bondage to unrealistic expectations. Christianity is being saved from a terrible life on earth, Buddhism is liberation from one's own mistaken beliefs about life.

Self and soul are the same thing. There is no soul if there is no self

Soul is supposed to be the essence of the self, self is our conscious experience of life through a certain perspective

 

[Pal Handy]

Why is eternity desirable?

Jesus said it was....
Jesus said that the alternative was terrible.

Jesus will be there and Jesus is awesome....

Jesus was offered all that the earth had to offer and He wanted His Father.

How can we reference eternity as finite beings?

The Bible says that eye has not seen nor ear heard what God has prepared for us...

Looking at our universe now I cannot begin to fathom what God is capable of.

We do not know what it will be like to stand in God's presence and
to see the absolute God and creator of time, space, matter and life, face to face.

All who have been in God's presence fell before Him and were forever
change by a glimpse of a part of God.

David long to see the glory he had seen of God
in the Holy temple.

But none of that really matters that much to me of late.

What I want is the relationship in love.

I want to know my Father intimately.

I want the stone that He will give to me that will have a name that He has written on it
that He will give to me and when He calls me by that name that only
himself and I will know, I will answer.

I want to be with my father throughout eternity as He desires to unfold
His creations from age to age and from glory to glory for me to see.

How can we possibly know what awaits us...

Once again we must trust that our heavenly Father has made a place for us
and that we will finally be able to live the real life He intended for us in His eternal
presence as He permeates us with His unfathomable love.

God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit will be my heaven,
my vision, my desire....

John 17
20 “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; 21 that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. 22 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: 23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.

If you really want your mind blown, meditate on this....
God became as we are so that we can become as He is.

Can we ever really fathom the depths of what God offers us
while we remain a seed waiting to spring forth as a new creature?

 

[ToHoldNothing]

Why is eternity desirable?

Jesus said it was....
Jesus said that the alternative was terrible.

Jesus will be there and Jesus is awesome....

Jesus was offered all that the earth had to offer and He wanted His Father.

You can't make an argument by referencing someone's words and then saying those words must be true because they are an authority. It's a pretty commonly understood logical fallacy.

One cannot prove either heaven or hell exists, so it seems to me, the desirability of heaven is predicated on believing that something equally incredulous exists as the opposite. If you believe in this on faith, I can't stop you, but I can criticize these lines of argument as wishful thinking.

A lot of this hinges on quality of life and meaning one derives from life, as has been revealed in the back and forth between myself and elman. If we started discussing that first, perhaps we'd have a better foundation to apply the question of whether things like immortality or eternal life are actually desirable and meaningful.

How can we reference eternity as finite beings?

The Bible says that eye has not seen nor ear heard what God has prepared for us...

Looking at our universe now I cannot begin to fathom what God is capable of.

We do not know what it will be like to stand in God's presence and
to see the absolute God and creator of time, space, matter and life, face to face.

All who have been in God's presence fell before Him and were forever
change by a glimpse of a part of God.

Merely because something is numinous and awe inspiring does not mean it is the greatest thing for everyone. Some people have that similar experience just in the presence of nature. Does that mean they are wrong? How can you deny their experience as valid in terms of meaning?

And I thought we could never see God face to face period, not even in terms of an immortal soul, since we would still not be God's equal.

Can we ever really fathom the depths of what God offers us
while we remain a seed waiting to spring forth as a new creature?

The issue here is that God offers us something that we think we want initially and that God would know we think we want. But just because we think we want something does not mean we need it or even deserve it. Desert aside, how have you begun to even argue that you need this? Living forever is hardly in our nature, though you'd possibly allege this is because of the fall of man. But assuming that isn't the case, is there any other reason you could argue for why we must live forever or need it to be fulfilled?

 

[Pal Handy]

You can't make an argument by referencing someone's words and then saying those words must be true because they are an authority. It's a pretty commonly understood logical fallacy.

I can when they are Jesus's words...
Who else was foretold with over three hundred prophecies?

Who else has a book written by countless authors in many different
countries across thousands of years?

Who else prophesied and had their words come to pass as Jesus
did when He proclaimed the scattering of the Jews and then their regathering
together in the place and time of His prediction?


I have tons of proof....


Only Christ was foretold with perfect accuracy and detail as to His birth,
lineage, mission, teachings, miracles and his death burial and resurrection,
even His mode of death namely crucifixion which did not exist when the
prophesies were written.


The dead sea scrolls have shut the mouths of all skeptics who declared the the three hundred plus prophesies were too accurate to have been written before Christ birth so they accuse the Christian of forgery and deception.


The prophesies of Isaiah read word for word as the Bible that sits on our shelves when
compared to the dead sea scrolls that contain the book of Isaiah that predate Christ
by 400 years....


I have the types of Christ that are woven into the lives of the men in the
Bible and these type poin the Jesus Christ.


So Jesus Christ has been establish as being sent from God as His messenger
because of the overwhelming credentials that God Gave to Jesus Christ.


Even the exact year, month and day was give for Christ's death in the Old testament through God's prophets.


Also the exact year is given for the return of God's people to the Holy land.


No sir, I beg to differ with you,
The evidence is overwhelming as to the authority that Christ has been given so that if He speaks on heaven or hell, He is telling the gospel truth....

One cannot prove either heaven or hell exists, so it seems to me, the desirability of heaven is predicated on believing that something equally incredulous exists as the opposite. If you believe in this on faith, I can't stop you, but I can criticize these lines of argument as wishful thinking.

Once again I direct you to the evidence.
Jesus Christ foretold that He would die and be buried and that He would arise from the grave.

The testimony of the eyewitnesses is overwhelming.
All who saw and attested to Christ resurrection were tortured and
most hunted down and put to death and yet not a single one recanted
their eyewitness reports.

Many will die for what they believe but who would choose to die for a lie?

Read the case for Christ by Lee Strobble if you are interest in the truth.

Jesus is the most documented historical figure of his time and before.

Their is more evidence for the life, teachings, sayings, deeds and actions of Christ
than of any other person of his time or before.

There is non Christian historical writtings of Christ.

We have the early church fathers writtings who were the men who
sat at the feet of the original Apostles and they affirm the word
of those who were eyewitnesses to Jesus Christ.

There are atleast eight eyewitness reports of Christ's resurection from
the Gospel account and the epistles.

No sir you are wrong....
Their is proof for heaven and hell by the word
and testimony of Jesus Christ who came back from the grave to show
us beyond any doubt that He is who He said He is....

A lot of this hinges on quality of life and meaning one derives from life, as has been revealed in the back and forth between myself and elman. If we started discussing that first, perhaps we'd have a better foundation to apply the question of whether things like immortality or eternal life are actually desirable and meaningful.

My bets on Jesus , not what you think.
You cannot argue about something supernatural.
We are finite so we cannot fathom eternity.
For you to debate whether or not their is a "quality" of life in the eternal
is to me childish....not trying to insult but it is the word that comes to mind.

Its like a child trying to imagine or discuss the topic of traveling to the moon and back
and if it would be feasible or desirable when the most pressing thing on their mind is
their next bottle feeding.

Sorry...I do not want to insult you and I place muself in the same boat as you
even though I have expressed some of my ideas.


Merely because something is numinous and awe inspiring does not mean it is the greatest thing for everyone. Some people have that similar experience just in the presence of nature. Does that mean they are wrong? How can you deny their experience as valid in terms of meaning?

You are right....if you wish, you can try to be bored in heaven...

And I thought we could never see God face to face period, not even in terms of an immortal soul, since we would still not be God's equal.

No man can see God and live but in our supernatural bodies that
are indestructable, I believe we will see God face to face.

The issue here is that God offers us something that we think we want initially and that God would know we think we want. But just because we think we want something does not mean we need it or even deserve it. Desert aside, how have you begun to even argue that you need this? Living forever is hardly in our nature, though you'd possibly allege this is because of the fall of man. But assuming that isn't the case, is there any other reason you could argue for why we must live forever or need it to be fulfilled?

Your choice....
Perhaps you would not be comfortable in God's presence.
Each person is given a choice upon hearing the gospel...

Who do you say Christ is....
Was He a great man or good teacher.
If so why did He lie about Himself or heaven and hell?

Who do you say Christ is?
A liar?
A lunitic?
or was He who He said He is, Lord....God eternal incarnate in a man.

He cannot be good if He lied so He has to be one of the three....your choice.

If you say Christ is Lord then you cannot deny His teachings on the after life.

If you do not know who Christ is, then I would pray if I were you
and ask God to settle it once and for all...

 

[ToHoldNothing]

You're really seem to just be parrotting stuff you've read in apologetics and I'd prefer not to turn this into any apologetics debate. You can say there's historical evidence and honestly, prophecies can be interpreted in so many ways, it's never quite clear what they meant or if you interpret it exactly the way it was meant to be, I leave that to you, Jews, and Muslims on supposed fulfilled prophecies. From what little I recall, not all the prophecies reference Jesus exclusively, such as some in Isaiah which were supposedly fulfilled in his own time in reference to the king of Babylon.


And there are certainly more than three choices on Jesus. The fact that you areignorant of thisis not an insult to your intelligence or character except as you willfully dismiss people presenting the other options. Jesus might have been right about certain things, but wrong about others. He might have believed he was God, but happened to actually be wrong. Even theologians don't think the Trilemma of Jesus is fair considering how the gospels present him in a multifaceted light.

I can think Jesus was a good teacher, but also happen to disagree with him about God's existence. His morals are admirable in their own right without reference to God, as Thomas Jefferson's version of the gospels attests to. He might have even been concocted as a legend from various accounts of teachers, conglomerated into a single entity that conveniently fits all the prophecies you speak so highly of.

Problem is, if the person you speak to does not believe prophecies are real or reflective of reality, then you're spitting in the wind. There isn't any reason to think convenient predictions that were written only about 500 years or so before Jesus' birth couldn't have been studied and then understood in such a way that someone ould fit them. Prophecies in the bible are hardly so specific of the day, month and year, and I'd challenge you to present it, but I really don't think you can.

Jesus can say he came from hell, but anyone can make those claims and it doesn't make them more correct because of any sort of authority they have. The evidence must be there and I see none of it that cannot be explained in a simpler fashion, without recourse to a deity. Jesus was a radical rabbi, his miracles were embellishments, as was his resurrection. And even if he did supposed miracles and was resurrected, it speaks of nothing as to whether any deity exists, but only that something with the capacity of resurrection after three days of death exists, which isn't that far off from stuff humans have been developing these days.

You try to frighten or intimidate me into believing, but that only betrays your own fears about uncertainty. So you try to fill in all the questions with unassailable answers, and yet the answers can easily be torn away like tissue paper. Go ahead and do it, but don't expect any respect from me, because you've lost it by this pitiful display.

 

[elman]

No first of all this life is not benign. Someone who is in the process of a slow and painful death is in an objecitivly bad condition and death may well be a blessing. Yes it is our approach to this life that produces good and evil. When we hurt others and are unloving and uncaring we create evil. When we are loving and caring we create good. I don't wish for a life after the grave that is only slightly better, but such a life would be better than oblivion.

Only if you think oblivion is somehow unrealistic. Reality is not about what you want, it's about what is there regardless of your feelings. The world as benign is the truth in that it does not make ethical judgments, we do. Our judgments about something are important, but they don't change the facts of reality either. You seem to think there are times that death is a blessing when you seemed to claim death was never a blessing. Perhaps I misunderstood.

Yes in this physical changing world, if that is all there is to reality, death is sometimes a blessing when someone is suffering and that suffering can be only be releived by death. Reality is not about what we think reality is. Therefore you could be incorrect about oblivion being the destiny of everyone, and about this world that we can detect being all the reality there is.

That is strictly gone. When I die it will not mean I am still partly alive because my body and its chemicals are still here.

Depends on how you interpret the self

Not unless you change the defintion to something other than an individual.

That is a word game. Done away is correct, even if the base form of sorts remain.

Done away in one sense, not done away with in another

There is no sense in which it is not done away.

Everything in the physical world is in a state of flux. That does not mean none of it exists.

No one was arguing acosmism. The world is in a state of flux and thus our ideas about reality are not always in conformity with what reality actually is.

Our ideas about reality are never always in conformity with what reality actually is and flux is only one of the reasons for that.

I don't deserve to exist forever. I don't even deserve to exist now. But I do.

Everyone deserves to exist. You're giving yourself too little credit

Why do you deserve to exist? Deserve in the words of a western movie--unforgiven--has nothing to do with it.

Both hopefully.

You can't base things on hope without considering the fact

I have considered the fact.

OK but simply wanting life to continue and be better is not in any sense too much wanting.

Continue for a realistic period, no, not too much. Continue forever, yes, too much.

How much love is too much? The answer is there cannot be too much love. It is the same with life.
__________________

 

[elman]

Why would you prefer meaninglessness and oblivion?

Just because I do not have a meaning given to me does not mean my life is meaningless.

We have been over this many times. It means your life will have been meaningless after you and everyone who knew you is gone.

And just because I don't live forever does not mean my life is pointless or leads to absolute oblivion. You're leaping to unjustified conclusions here

You cannot logically have it both ways. You cannot escape oblivion if you do not live forever. Failing to live forever is to be at some point without life and oblivion is to be without life.

The assumption of uncaused and meaningless existence is not realistic.

Existence is not uncaused. I do not deny the big bang, which would be denying a cause to existence. And you keep insisting meaning is outside us, when that is not the case. I think you're being unfair when you say meaning has to exist outside of us instead of coming from within.

Ultimate meaning does not come from us. The meaning we create is temporary. That is not about being fair--just the way things are. When I talk about being caused I don't mean being caused by an accident of nature.

Believe oneself to be the same as a rock without life is insanity, not reality.

I don't believe I'm the same as a rock. You misunderstand.

But you believe you continue to exist in some form if the rock does.

That does not mean there is no separation between me and them such that I can identify which is me and which is them.

Only relatively speaking. There are distinctions, but there are similarities as well.

There are similarities but there are distinctions and you are in denial of the distinctions in saying there can be no separation.

However in Christianity we are talking about life and in Buddhism we are talking about non existence of the self--non life.

Non existence of the self is not absolute nonexistence of life. Life exists even after humans are gone.

But not the lilfe we are talking about--self.

You're being too anthropocentric and selfish here. Humans are not the absolute end of anything in this world, they are a part of it as much as animals and plants are.

You are avoiding the obvious bottom line of your theology through some sort of word game about animals and plants.

You are constantly clinging to the temporary meaning you can assign yourself, which troubles me. If we don't have ultimate meaning, our existence does become pointless eventually.

Only in the sense that we no longer exist.

Why say only. That is sense enough to make the point.

But you are attached far too much to permanence. I accept that my meaning is temporary, so I am technically not clinging to it, I merely accept it as a part of reality.

You assume the reality of no meaning to anything--that may or may not be reality.

You seem to want something that doesn't sync with reality, a permanent meaning to life.

Your reality but it syncs with my reality and neither of us knows which reality is the closer to reality.

Yes it does. The non existence of life--which is what heaven is, leads to nihilism--the lack of life.

Just because people cease to be after they die does not mean their life was pointless, it merely means they were part of life.

Yes they were part of life but what was the point after everyone is gone?

You're focused too much on the big picture instead of the moments from day to day.

I am as focused on the moments as you are I suspect. Believeing in the continuation of life in a spiritual realm does not detract from enjoyment of the moment.

What meaning and purpose to our existence as individuals matters if we are random accidents of nature? How long will it matter?

We create meaning ourselves. Meaning does not have to last forever to be meaningful. This is where you're creating an unrealistic standard to apply to meaning.

If it does not last forever that means there comes a point in time when all is meaningless--which is what I am saying and you are objecting to.

Which I don't bellieve is true, but in any evevt it is not energy or matter.

The self is not the same as energy and matter, but it can be said to result from it. Like heat results from fire.

Anything can be said--but life is not energy or matter.

Shortness of life can be a bad thing. A child should not be facing death and if they do, it is a bad thing. We can appreciate life even if we live a long time and do not die young.

We don't appreciate life if it is not finite. Life without death is light without shadow.

Meaningless--now. Words meaning nothing. How can you know that life cannot be appreciated without it being finite? You deny life that is not finite and would claim to have never experienced such a thing. You cannot know therefore that life cannot be appreciated if it is not finite.

The Big Bang is silent on intelligence of no intelligence prior to the big bang.

Then one cannot claim God has anything to do with it, right?

Certainly I can claim it, why would I not be able to do that?

Timelessness is not understandable in this world which is subject to time.

Then it is unnecessary to even posit. It's like positing a square circle or the actual existence of numbers.

No, thinking about timelessness is not the same as square circle which is simply jibberish. Timelessness is an idea, but like the word eternity, one that we cannot really relate to since in this world we have no point of referrence to relate to it.

Not reasonable. One could argue the more time, the more value better than arguing the less time the more valuable.

The more you experience something, the less it becomes special.

Not always.

If you had gourmet food all the time,you'd get tired of it, would you not? The same can apply to life.

No the same does not apply to life or to eating. We eat all the time, but we don't get tired of eating and we breath all the time but we don't get tired of breathing.

If you live forever, you would eventually want to die just so you don't have to see everything die around you, like an immortal from Highlander.

Not true. If I live in a spiritual state of immortality, I probably would not see everything die around me.

Yes I have. I have pointed out that life is better than no life unless there are circumstances that makes life unbearable.

But life forever has not been shown to be better than life for a reasonable period of time before it ends biologically by natural causes

You seem to think when I talk about eternal life, I am talking about eternal physical life in this world. I am not.

The starting point is life is better than death, because we have not killed ourselves.

Depends on what you mean by "killing the self". Sometimes it's more figurative.

Even figurativly or spiritually life is better than death because we do not want to kill ourselves.

If Life could be pure loving experience and go on forever, what happens to your ruining the quality of life? At what point does this kick in automatically, this extention of life that causes life to not be prefered over death?

You don't experience the opposite of love. Like light and shadow, love becomes pointless without experiencing hatred. It's a gradual process. I didn't say there was one moment where we starting feeling less fulfilled.

I don't think I have to see hatred around to enjoy the love of my family and friends. I can enjoy them without seeing the hatred.

It does not have to exist forever but that would be good if it did.

Why? Because you can't bear the notion of dying?

No because dying is not ususally preferable to life.

You seem to be so scared of death that you create this unrealistic idea that you HAVE to survive forever without ANY evidence to support that claim.

I suspect I am no more afraid of death that you are. I don't look forward to dying nor to non existence if that is our destiny. I do look forward to life if that is our destiny.

Or even an argument about why it should be. Instead you just keep saying it must be with no justification that isn't subject to a significant criticism of wishful thinking on your part.

Prefering life over death does not prove any theology that provides hope of destiny rather than meaningless oblivion is wrong.

So addiction is bad, but I did not say addiction or not caring about one's own well being.

there is a middle path to take, as is taught in buddhism. It is between attachment and craving to life and aversion and hatred of life. In between is what we desire and even need.

I think you say things like that because it sounds good and perhaps makes you feel better, but then you say things like escaping the wheel of life. That is not the middle path between life and oblivion.

A will to live is an attachment to life and is a good thing. You are dealing with physical life. I am referring to spiritual existence.

And spiritual existence is not something you've demonstrated, but merely asserted its existence without defense.

This is a saying again I have not proven the existence of God and therefore God does not exist. God's existence is not based on my being able to prove it; and the non existence of God is not proven by my being unable to prove the existence. The question really is about the reasonabless of a meaningless existence or a reason or purpose for us existing and about reality being limited to what we have been able to prove.

You are existing as a changing being--all things in this physcial univers are in a state of flux. That does not say they do not exist.

NO ONE is saying they do not exist. You are misunderstanding anatta and anicca. Things are impermanent, but no one EVER said they did not exist. Of course they exist, but they are not permanent.

No one ever said this world or the things in this world are permanent.

Wanting things to exist permanently is the problem here, not whether things exist or not. We're not arguing whether things exist objectively, because they reasonably do.

I don't want things to exist permanently, but I do not prefer oblivion as my destiny.

Denial of an absolute self existing forever is to believe that at some point self does not exist. There is no escaping that conclusion.

But it is not a conclusion that leads to nihilism. It can in fact lead to a more meaningful and fulfilled life in appreciating things as they wax and wane.

You must be working with a strange defintion of nihilism. How do you define nihilism?

The point is we either continue existing as a separate entity or we do not. Anatta would say we do not.

Anatta moreso says that it is unrealistic to say that we are absolutely separate from things. We do not possess things, things possess us in a certain sense.

Changing the issue. Self is real. Anatta would say self is not permanent.

But what we create is temporary.

Things being temporary does not mean they are less important.

Yes it does mean that. Eternal life is more important than temporary life.

For things to accidently come into existence as the result of nature is not like Creation. Creation is about an intelligence behind the existence and the consequences of chaos is not about intelligence being involved.

I never claimed it was creation, I called it generation to distinguish it. I don't need an intelligence behind my physical existence to find purpose in life.

temporary purpose.

As an individual your separation from others is real.

My separation from others is a construct of my mind that thinks it's absolutely separate.

I don't think you or I think we are absolutely separte from the world around us, but we both know we are separate in the sense that you and I are not the same thing.

So can Christianity. Christianity is life. Buddhism is escape from life.

Christianity wants a life forever, Buddhism wants a fulfilled life and liberation from bondage to unrealistic expectations.

That is you talking--not Buddhism.

Christianity is being saved from a terrible life on earth,

No you are wrong. We are supposed to enjoy this life as Christians--be content. We are being saved from death--in Christ we have victory over death--that is the message of the resrrection and of being reborn.

Buddhism is liberation from one's own mistaken beliefs about life.

I don't think that came from the Buddha.

Self and soul are the same thing. There is no soul if there is no self.

Soul is supposed to be the essence of the self, self is our conscious experience of life through a certain perspective

We do not agree on what soul is and we are not talking about the same thing when we use the word. When I talk about soul, I am referring to that part of us that is spiritual--the part that will return to God when we die--and our body will return to dust.

 

[ToHoldNothing]

Yes in this physical changing world, if that is all there is to reality, death is sometimes a blessing when someone is suffering and that suffering can be only be releived by death. Reality is not about what we think reality is. Therefore you could be incorrect about oblivion being the destiny of everyone, and about this world that we can detect being all the reality there is.

I never said oblivion was about how I felt and neither did I say that reality being all we can detect in some conceivable way being about how I felt. You're reading that into what I'm saying.

Not unless you change the defintion to something other than an individual.

Individuals are not absolutely separate beings, they are in relation with other individuals

There is no sense in which it is not done away.

You're focusing too much on the experiential part and less on the metaphysical part

Our ideas about reality are never always in conformity with what reality actually is and flux is only one of the reasons for that.

I don't think I ever denied that

Why do you deserve to exist? Deserve in the words of a western movie--unforgiven--has nothing to do with it.

If deserve has nothing to do with it, why are you asking me why I deserve to exist?

I have considered the fact.

Simply considering it from your tiny perspective is hardly a fair consideration

How much love is too much? The answer is there cannot be too much love. It is the same with life.

Too much love is the same as too much life in that it smothers us, it doesn't allow us to be free, it focuses on control instead of liberty. Too much of something is not always easy to realize until you've already done it or experienced it, so perhaps that's part of the issue here.

 

[ToHoldNothing]

We have been over this many times. It means your life will have been meaningless after you and everyone who knew you is gone.

Only if I agreed that meaning was contingent on how long it lasted. Just because meaning doesn't last forever doesn't mean it isn't significant

You cannot logically have it both ways. You cannot escape oblivion if you do not live forever. Failing to live forever is to be at some point without life and oblivion is to be without life.

Oblivion is not the same as non-life, though it might be said to be related. Oblivion is nihilism, non life is simply nature taking its course.

Ultimate meaning does not come from us. The meaning we create is temporary. That is not about being fair--just the way things are. When I talk about being caused I don't mean being caused by an accident of nature.

Just because you are a product of nature does not mean you are pointless. You keep trying to get some purpose from another pseudo-human, when you refuse to acknowledge that the most significant meaning comes from yourself. I never claimed ultimate meaning came from us, but merely the most satisfactory meaning. Unsatisfactory meanings come from outside ourselves.

But you believe you continue to exist in some form if the rock does.

It's not easy to explain, so perhaps we can leave this at a civil disagreement

There are similarities but there are distinctions and you are in denial of the distinctions in saying there can be no separation.

When did I say there can be no separation? I merely said that separation is at its core illusory, but not that it doesn't exist.

But not the lilfe we are talking about--self.

Self is not limited to the life we experience,though primarily it does manifest in that sense. Again, we're not making any progress, so I'd leave this at a civil disagreement of what you mean by self.

You are avoiding the obvious bottom line of your theology through some sort of word game about animals and plants.

I don't have theology, since I don't believe in God. The word you're looking for is metaphysics. And you seem to ignore my criticism that you're focused too much on humans. Do you think it is reasonable to focus only on humans in this world?

Why say only. That is sense enough to make the point.

Because meaning is not only a matter of ultimacy, but also the search for meaning.

You assume the reality of no meaning to anything--that may or may not be reality.

I don't assume we can never find meaning, I assume that ultimate meaning is unsatisfactory.

Your reality but it syncs with my reality and neither of us knows which reality is the closer to reality.

Yes they were part of life but what was the point after everyone is gone?

The point was that they found meaning in their own lives. That's satisfactory to me, but not to you.

I am as focused on the moments as you are I suspect. Believeing in the continuation of life in a spiritual realm does not detract from enjoyment of the moment.

Only if you think that an eternal line of moments is as meaningful as a finite line of moments, which seems contradictory. Moments are meaningful only as they eventually reach an end.

If it does not last forever that means there comes a point in time when all is meaningless--which is what I am saying and you are objecting to.

Because you are fixated on ultimate meaning and I am not

Anything can be said--but life is not energy or matter.

You mean human experiential life is not energy or matter. But in fact they are in the basic sense that they result from their interaction. Your brain chemistry, your bodily chemistry in general is energy and matter, is it not?

Meaningless--now. Words meaning nothing. How can you know that life cannot be appreciated without it being finite? You deny life that is not finite and would claim to have never experienced such a thing. You cannot know therefore that life cannot be appreciated if it is not finite.

How do you suppose that life can really be appreciated if it goes on forever? There would be no ending point to it so you'd never be afraid to lose it and thus you'd have no appreciation, since you'd have it with no worries.

You cannot claim any more than you can appreciate life if it is infinite since YOU have not experienced life infinitely. I made the negative claim, you made the positive one, the onus of proof is on you to support your claim,but you haven't, so we're left with the default negative skeptical position I present.

Certainly I can claim it, why would I not be able to do that?

No one said you couldn't.

No, thinking about timelessness is not the same as square circle which is simply jibberish. Timelessness is an idea, but like the word eternity, one that we cannot really relate to since in this world we have no point of referrence to relate to it.

No point of reference means it's even more meaningless than a square circle. If you don't even know where to start, why even think about it in some intellectual or philosophical sense? We can see what a square and a circle are, so we have a point of reference. Timelessness becomes incoherent when you think of it in relation to time, just as nonexistence and nothingness become incoherent to imagine in relation to existence.

Not always.

By all means try to show a point where experiencing too much of something will still enable you to appreciate it the same way you did when it was new. I doubt you can.

No the same does not apply to life or to eating. We eat all the time, but we don't get tired of eating and we breath all the time but we don't get tired of breathing.

It doesn't apply to our involuntary actions or our primal needs, but it does apply to our selfish wants, like love without reciprocity or life without death.

Not true. If I live in a spiritual state of immortality, I probably would not see everything die around me.

Only assuming that everyone else shared that immortality, but that clearly isn't the case. You will no doubt realize that in your annihilationist perspective that there will be people that are gone forever. What of them? Would you not care that they are gone?

You seem to think when I talk about eternal life, I am talking about eternal physical life in this world. I am not.

But you're speaking too vaguely to even talk coherently about your spiritual life, so it might as well be like you're speaking about nothing.

Even figurativly or spiritually life is better than death because we do not want to kill ourselves.

I was never saying anything about suicide, but merely an acceptance of death as part of life.

I don't think I have to see hatred around to enjoy the love of my family and friends. I can enjoy them without seeing the hatred.

Love is not as appreciated without seeing its opposite in the same way you don't really see light without seeing the shadow it casts.

No because dying is not ususally preferable to life.

Only if you think living forever is a good thing for our minds, which you've failed to defend sufficiently

I suspect I am no more afraid of death that you are. I don't look forward to dying nor to non existence if that is our destiny. I do look forward to life if that is our destiny.

You cannot seriously claim I look forward to death. I accept it, but I do not wish for it. I appreciate the life I have now, you just want life forever because you can't accept that your life is finite and thus that you cannot have the eternal life that you want.

Prefering life over death does not prove any theology that provides hope of destiny rather than meaningless oblivion is wrong.

It does if one can demonstrate that that preference is actually obsession or fixation on life in dismissal or denial of death's significance.

I think you say things like that because it sounds good and perhaps makes you feel better, but then you say things like escaping the wheel of life. That is not the middle path between life and oblivion.

I said nothing of a wheel of life. Samsara is your bondage to unrealistic beliefs about the world. Life and death are in a cycle, one is not better than the other, they complement each other.

The question really is about the reasonabless of a meaningless existence or a reason or purpose for us existing and about reality being limited to what we have been able to prove.

Existence is not meaningless just because we don't have a god to give us purpose. We can get purpose ourselves, and it isn't less important because it is temporary, which you've failed to demonstrate why.

No one ever said this world or the things in this world are permanent.

Some philosophers have, but admittedly they're in a minority

I don't want things to exist permanently, but I do not prefer oblivion as my destiny.

You don't want it; that doesn't mean it isn't true. You keep trying to mask your desires with a preference, which, honestly, is hardly any different than simply you wanting something to be true in contrast to the way things actually are. If you don't want things to exist permanently, then you shouldn't even want your own self to exist permanently in order to be consistent. Am I wrong?

You must be working with a strange defintion of nihilism. How do you define nihilism?

There are multiple kinds of nihilism, some of them less serious than others. At best, I am an existential nihilist. Life has no objective purpose that applies to all humans, we find our own purposes in life as individuals. I am not an ethical nihilist, which believes that there is no morality. I am not an epistemological, metaphysical or ontological nihilist either, far as I can tell. These believe, respectively, that we cannot have absolute knowledge, that some things don't actually exist or that there are some things that don't exist in a particular sense/ontologically.

Better yet, how do YOU define nihilism? There isn't just one overall kind of nihilism, so perhaps you've had that mistaken belief.

Changing the issue. Self is real. Anatta would say self is not permanent.

Primarily, anatta says that self is not ours. Sunyata says things don't have a permanent essence and anicca says that things are not permanent in general.

Yes it does mean that. Eternal life is more important than temporary life.
temporary purpose.

Only if you think eternity is better that finitude. But you've failed to demonstrate this apart from your personal desires to live forever in contradiction to your claim that you don't want things to exist permanently.

I don't think you or I think we are absolutely separte from the world around us, but we both know we are separate in the sense that you and I are not the same thing.

Only so much so. There are many similarities we could find.

That is you talking--not Buddhism.

What do you think you know about Buddhism? You've demonstrated time and time again that you misunderstand it greatly due to presuppositions about it being nihilistic and otherwise self denying in some monastic sense.

No you are wrong. We are supposed to enjoy this life as Christians--be content. We are being saved from death--in Christ we have victory over death--that is the message of the resrrection and of being reborn.

The problem is the Christian's fixation on life in general. Death is seen as the enemy when it isn't from another perspective that is not nihilistic.

I don't think that came from the Buddha.

I don't think you've demonstrated that you have much knowledge about the Buddha for me to trust your word on any of that.

We do not agree on what soul is and we are not talking about the same thing when we use the word. When I talk about soul, I am referring to that part of us that is spiritual--the part that will return to God when we die--and our body will return to dust.

Not every Christian agrees that our body is useless. The body could be said to be the other half of the soul and how it is completed when the soul and body are joined in a perfected form.

 

[Pal Handy]

You can't make an argument by referencing someone's words and then saying those words must be true because they are an authority. It's a pretty commonly understood logical fallacy.

I will take Jesus's words over yours.
Jesus has all the proper credentials, you do not.

One cannot prove either heaven or hell exists, so it seems to me, the desirability of heaven is predicated on believing that something equally incredulous exists as the opposite. If you believe in this on faith, I can't stop you, but I can criticize these lines of argument as wishful thinking.

The Bible is filled with prophesies and proofs.
Christ is all the proof I need.
You have your own thoughts and ideas but absolutely
nothing to back those ideas up.

A lot of this hinges on quality of life and meaning one derives from life, as has been revealed in the back and forth between myself and elman. If we started discussing that first, perhaps we'd have a better foundation to apply the question of whether things like immortality or eternal life are actually desirable and meaningful.

This life will not have any references in the next life....
The Bible says that the former things (this life) will not even be remembered.
You are trying to fathom with your finite mind, the infinite.


Merely because something is numinous and awe inspiring does not mean it is the greatest thing for everyone. Some people have that similar experience just in the presence of nature. Does that mean they are wrong? How can you deny their experience as valid in terms of meaning?

Ok...be bored in heaven if you like....

And I thought we could never see God face to face period, not even in terms of an immortal soul, since we would still not be God's equal.

Does Christ behold His father?
We will be like Christ, new creatures with immortal bodies.




The issue here is that God offers us something that we think we want initially and that God would know we think we want. But just because we think we want something does not mean we need it or even deserve it. Desert aside, how have you begun to even argue that you need this? Living forever is hardly in our nature, though you'd possibly allege this is because of the fall of man. But assuming that isn't the case, is there any other reason you could argue for why we must live forever or need it to be fulfilled?

I never made the offer, God did...
So who are you to say that you don't need what God offers?

 

[razeontherock]

Yes, "seeing G-d face to face," whatever that is supposed to mean, will be the best part of the next Life. I have expressed this sentiment already in this thread, but perhaps the different verbiage I used then made the point be lost on our OP?

 

[ToHoldNothing]

I never made the offer, God did...
So who are you to say that you don't need what God offers?

I'm a person who's gotten past getting my meaning from outside myself and look inside myself for meaning as I live my life.

Who are you to say that I need what your god offers? You seem to presume that I think exactly like you or will in time. We might be biologically human in that sense, but psychologically, we differ a great deal. I'm not saying I'm completely sane, but I've apparently shifted away from a particular insanity, imho.

 

[ToHoldNothing]

Yes, "seeing G-d face to face," whatever that is supposed to mean, will be the best part of the next Life. I have expressed this sentiment already in this thread, but perhaps the different verbiage I used then made the point be lost on our OP?

The distinction I've heard is something to the effect that we'll be in awe of God in our spiritual/physical perfected body, but we won't be vaporized like we would now.

 

[Pal Handy]

I'm a person who's gotten past getting my meaning from outside myself and look
inside myself for meaning as I live my life.

Who are you to say that I need what your god offers? You seem to presume that I think exactly like you or will in time. We might be biologically human in that sense, but psychologically, we differ a great deal. I'm not saying I'm completely sane, but I've apparently shifted away from a particular insanity, imho.

You and yourself should be very happy together....
Enjoy your life...

Why are you here telling others what you think and exposing
yourself to outside thoughts when you clearly state that you do not
want any external influence....

God says that you need what He offers...
I do not put words in God's mouth.

You on the other hand refute God's words and replace them with your thoughts...

Who are you?

Perhaps you are insane (in reference to your jab at my belief being a
form of insanity) and I and those who believe in the evidences as
given by the Bible are the rational ones.

Who by using their rational mind would ever reach logical conclusions
when they banish all evidences that conflict with their own idea?

Eliminating evidences with denial instead of investigation,
sounds like a recipe for disaster....

 

[razeontherock]

The distinction I've heard is something to the effect that we'll be in awe of God in our spiritual/physical perfected body, but we won't be vaporized like we would now.

Ok. I might take time to put a somewhat finer point on that idea, that what troubles many unbelievers (the whole issue of suffering) serves the purpose of molding us into being more capable of experiencing His Glory, and when the process is complete we will be able to do so fully. I do find in Scripture that the absolute best moments I have experienced could be roughly 10% of this at the most, that those moments were achieved by experiencing EL in the here and now as a "downpayment" if you will, and that it is the other 90% that answers your question of "why is EL desirable?"

Which is why I focused on the notion that EL can be experientially known in this life. Does this make sense to you?

 

[Pal Handy]

The distinction I've heard is something to the effect that we'll be in awe of God in our spiritual/physical perfected body, but we won't be vaporized like we would now.

The power that can create the universe must be beyond our understanding.
The Bible says that the rocks melt like wax before God.
Men in bodies made mostly of water would evoporate...