Why Is Immortality/Eternal Life Desirable?

[razeontherock]

I didn't say it was. Revelation has something to the effect of us being judged twice, from what I recall

Mistaken

Fortune and biology are neither from God nor separate from God, they are what they are.

They are from G-d.

It's contingent on people being compelled to surrender a great deal of individuality and critical thought in "coming to Him".

Absolutely NOT the way it works! Your false model leaves NO allowance for loving G-d with all your MIND. We've covered that one a lot already

You don't know God, you experience God. Knowledge is independent of your personal convictions, and clearly God is not knowable in that sense if you are basically only able to experience God by an outside influence.

Eternal Life is knowing G-d. Your premise here is false on it's face.

I said nothing about scientific empirical tests, but basic philosophical tests of its consistency. Problem is, it isn't even consistent in that sense, because we have a concept of spirit that amounts to little more than hypothetical matter beyond quantum particles

No, YOU have a concept there that makes no sense. Those of us that know Spirit realize it is not matter.

 

[razeontherock]

Not to mention your idea of death presumes there's an afterlife where our consciousness survives

Strawman.

 

[razeontherock]

I'd like to know what type of reactions you think dead people have

 

[ToHoldNothing]

So you give up, and understanding is a hopeless goal?

I'd rather give up on something that has no interest to me in practical terms and work towards something with actual benefits.

That is mistaken. The fruits, are the fruit of the Spirit; i.e., sign of ETERNAL LIFE. You keep trying to mix and match your own thoughts w/ G-d's Word, and that just doesn't work

Your notion that it means eternal life as opposed to justification/righteousness before God seems questionable, unless you can present an argument through analyzing the text.

 

[ToHoldNothing]

Mistaken

Then point out where anything relevant to this topic is spoken in revelation or point out where I was misinterpreting

They are from G-d.

That is your belief, not the facts in and of themselves

Absolutely NOT the way it works! Your false model leaves NO allowance for loving G-d with all your MIND. We've covered that one a lot already

You don't love with all your mind, you love with part of your mind. Unless you start extending love to intellectual speculation, in which case you're expanding love a bit too much

Eternal Life is knowing G-d. Your premise here is false on it's face.

At least you finally came out and defined the term in question. But I fail to see how this is eternal life, since you can't verify or even falsify the notion that someone is eternally living unless they buy into what is basically either pseudo science about the weight of the soul or just flat out nonscientific and non philosophical arguments that rely on probability.

No, YOU have a concept there that makes no sense. Those of us that know Spirit realize it is not matter

I didn't say it was my concept of spirit. To me spirit is basically our experience of the world, if anything. It may be reducible in some sense to brain patterns, but not necessarily in full. But you have presented nothing in defending your claim of spirit except that you believe it exists. Anything like that is tautological arguments; it is so because you believe it and have experienced it; big whoop, except not everyone sees from your point of view.

 

[ToHoldNothing]

Strawman.

If we're using basic logic, your only other option seems to be that the Christian afterlife does not believe our consciousness survives our death, which seems flatly absurd, considering the general idea in the NT about heaven being something implied after death. You keep saying we don't die and yet even Jesus died in some sense. You seem to have skewed notions of what life and death are or flat out forget any distinction between them, which hardly works in a practical context.

Does your afterlife include your consciousness surviving or not? Simple question. Unless you don't believe in an 'after' life, in which case you're practically just making yourself out to be more heretical in appearance than people supposedly already allege you to be. Not that you'd care, but it really disrupts a discussion when you're not consistent and keep bringing up new tangents instead of focusing on the basic questions an OP asks.

 

[ToHoldNothing]

I'd like to know what type of reactions you think dead people have

Depends on what you do to the body. I don't believe our consciousness survives our death, so that kind of reaction is necessarily absent from my answers.

Not to mention death is not necessarily the end of all existence to me, merely the particular existence of one entity in question. They will still be remembered, and 'their' body (not really their body, technically) will become wormfood and then become one with the original carbon it originated from in an indirect sense, as all things do.

 

[razeontherock]

I'd rather give up on something that has no interest to me in practical terms and work towards something with actual benefits.

Eliminating falsehood may be the most beneficial thing.

Your notion that it means eternal life as opposed to justification/righteousness before God seems questionable, unless you can present an argument through analyzing the text.

That's so simple, yet you make it so complex by throwing yet more false notions into the mix. The fruit of the Spirit can IN NO WAY be construed as justification or righteousness. Clearly you are talking through your hat, as the idea makes no sense. We are Justified, then He dwells within us, and then makes us righteous. It just doesn't work backwards, the way you proposed.

Let's stick with something simple:

1 John 5:13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God."

Jesus also said the "work of G-d" is to believe in the One He sent. And Faith is one of the fruits of the Spirit; or more correctly, could be said to grow out of Love, which is THE (singular) fruit of the Spirit. And is then evidence of Eternal Life

 

[razeontherock]

Then point out where anything relevant to this topic is spoken in revelation or point out where I was misinterpreting

There are indeed 2 different Judgments in Rev, but what you have missed is these are for different people. And you did so by failing to observe something else on the subject that "is written:"

Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment"

Not die once and get Judged twice.

You don't love with all your mind, you love with part of your mind.

You're arguing with G-d, and trying to convince Him He is wrong about the first and greatest commandment. Do you think you will win?

At least you finally came out and defined the term in question.

No I didn't. You don't know what "knowing G-d" means.

But I fail to see how this is eternal life, since you can't verify or even falsify the notion that someone is eternally living unless they buy into what is basically either pseudo science

Since there's nothing scientific about it, there can be no pseudo science involved. Your whole list of ideas are red herrings. I do appreciate your honesty that you fail to see how this is Eternal Life. That's a good start! next step: failing to see it does not change what is.

about the weight of the soul

Why in the world would you inject that into the conversation?

or just flat out nonscientific and non philosophical arguments that rely on probability.

Faith has nothing to do with probability. How could you possibly conflate the 2? And the Living G-d isn't a philosophy, either.

To me spirit is basically our experience of the world, if anything.

Well I have my experience of the world, and I have something else entirely.

But you have presented nothing in defending your claim of spirit except that you believe it exists.

No, I haven't "claimed of Spirit," nor am I about to "defend" such in a thread with the title this one has. And if you're looking at the evidence trail, you are intentionally diverting your eyes from everything on it.

 

[razeontherock]

If we're using basic logic, your only other option seems to be that the Christian afterlife

Christianity has no "afterlife." This would be a good point in the conversation to acknowledge that fact, wouldn't you think?

heaven being something implied

It is a very dangerous thing to go drawing conclusions based on what you think may be "implied" by the Word of G-d. This could explain how you come up with so many false ideas of what it says?

You keep saying we don't die and yet even Jesus died in some sense.

When did I say we don't die? Here you show you have no concept of what C does say on the matter. And yet Jesus lives You keep overlooking all the important stuff

You seem to

Things are not what they appear.

it really disrupts a discussion when you're not consistent and keep bringing up new tangents instead of focusing on the basic questions an OP asks.

Dude, I'm consistent if anything at all. I'm the one trying to get you to focus on one thing, instead of running after everything under the sun. I've been doing that for months now. Stick to the idea of Eternal Life rather than heaven. Try to get some grasp on what EL might be. Have we made any progress? Try to paraphrase, let's see how we're doing.

 

[razeontherock]

Depends on what you do to the body. I don't believe our consciousness survives our death, so that kind of reaction is necessarily absent from my answers.

You just got done saying Buddhism hold there to be 5 things that survive death, and one of them is reaction. This surprises me, so i want to know what sort of reactions dead people have.

Don't expect me to get all 5 right, but the other 4 include perception and sensation. It doesn't surprise me to see those on the list.

 

[ToHoldNothing]

Eliminating falsehood may be the most beneficial thing.

Pragmatic theory of truth is focused more on practical, particular and relative contextual truths than truths that absolutely work all the time. Inflexible truth is barely qualified as a noble lie.

That's so simple, yet you make it so complex by throwing yet more false notions into the mix. The fruit of the Spirit can IN NO WAY be construed as justification or righteousness. Clearly you are talking through your hat, as the idea makes no sense. We are Justified, then He dwells within us, and then makes us righteous. It just doesn't work backwards, the way you proposed.

I don't think I proposed that without some hesitation. Righteousness makes sense as a resultant effect as opposed to an imbued quality in the process of salvation.

Let's stick with something simple:

1 John 5:13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God."

Jesus also said the "work of G-d" is to believe in the One He sent. And Faith is one of the fruits of the Spirit; or more correctly, could be said to grow out of Love, which is THE (singular) fruit of the Spirit. And is then evidence of Eternal Life

If love is evidence of eternal life, you have to qualify what you mean by love, except that you seem to think that love only means faith in god, which is absurd. Love exists outside the little bubble of Christian charity/caritas that is where one of you primary theological virtues arises from. Love is more than charity or agape, it's eros, philia and storge as well, to use the other forms C.S. Lewis posits in The Four Loves.

For you to say eternal life is anything but the infinite or near indefinite persistence of basic consciousness/existence/experience and bodily form in some sense is to only confuse the matter into pure abstractions.

 

[ToHoldNothing]

There are indeed 2 different Judgments in Rev, but what you have missed is these are for different people. And you did so by failing to observe something else on the subject that "is written:"

Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment"

Not die once and get Judged twice.

In short, you seem to be proposing annihilationism for those that don't get imbued eternal life in whatever sense you believe it is. Eternal life just seems to be extended life more than actual eternal life in any sense where you die and go to heaven. You seem to be outright denying the fact of life that is death. Or are those people still alive but sleeping?

You're arguing with G-d, and trying to convince Him He is wrong about the first and greatest commandment. Do you think you will win?

I'm arguing with you, don't shift the target to your god. Take responsibility and argue your point or don't bother.

No I didn't. You don't know what "knowing G-d" means.

Nor do you, except in what you believe knowing to consist of.

Since there's nothing scientific about it, there can be no pseudo science involved. Your whole list of ideas are red herrings. I do appreciate your honesty that you fail to see how this is Eternal Life. That's a good start! next step: failing to see it does not change what is.

you're arguing purely objective ideas that you believe in on faith, which are not only subjectively variable as to whether they have any compulsion to each individual, but saying that somehow this must be believed in to have a meaningful life, which is bunk.

Why in the world would you inject that into the conversation?

it's relevant, except that you seem to admit you aren't trying to prove anything, but just tell me what you believe the state of things is.

Faith has nothing to do with probability. How could you possibly conflate the 2? And the Living G-d isn't a philosophy, either.

Faith depends on you commonly arguing that it is more likely that God is real than that god is not real, among other things, like Jesus being God. They are related, you simply want to believe faith is self evident, when it isn't.

If the fear of the Lord is teh beginning of wisdom and part of philosophy is seeking wisdom, then God is a path of philosophy, if anythin. I never said God itself was a philosophy, though it's not impractical to say it's part of a larger philosophy of theism.

Well I have my experience of the world, and I have something else entirely.

That other thing seems to be little more than speculation and imagination of a warped psyche that wants things to be more comfortable or predictable than they actually are. Everything that happens is part of your myopic little worldview, so you're calm even when someone points out clear flaws that you refuse to even consider their existence.

No, I haven't "claimed of Spirit," nor am I about to "defend" such in a thread with the title this one has. And if you're looking at the evidence trail, you are intentionally diverting your eyes from everything on it.

this assumes spirit is transcendent, when more logically, it is immanent; manifest in experience, not in contemplation of things outside ourselves.

 

[ToHoldNothing]

Christianity has no "afterlife." This would be a good point in the conversation to acknowledge that fact, wouldn't you think?

You're in the minority of christians that seem to have even a minutiae of nuance in speaking about such a thing. So you don't have any death at all, you just keep living forever? WHat about the soul sleep thing I mentioned?

It is a very dangerous thing to go drawing conclusions based on what you think may be "implied" by the Word of G-d. This could explain how you come up with so many false ideas of what it says?

Maybe because you consistently say that it's basically a text that can only be read by the initiated gnostics that you keep saying that I can NEVER understand your oh-so holy book unless I surrender any skeptical perspective to just rote obedience. Which is more dangerous than any amount of skepticism in general.

When did I say we don't die? Here you show you have no concept of what C does say on the matter. And yet Jesus lives You keep overlooking all the important stuff

First you say Xianity has no afterlife, which requires that someone dies and goes to another realm of sorts, most commonly, and now you say Christianity says you die, so which is it? You're not being consistent, contrary to what you insist below. If you die and then are reborn in a resurrected body of sorts, that's still an afterlife, even if you don't go to another realm. If you die and come back, that's basically the afterlife, particularly when you posit some spiritual element to the whole thing that smacks of exaggerated ectoplasm and spirit bodies in general.

Things are not what they appear.

Then by all means resume skepticism, unless you want to appear even more inconsistent than you already do.

Dude, I'm consistent if anything at all. I'm the one trying to get you to focus on one thing, instead of running after everything under the sun. I've been doing that for months now. Stick to the idea of Eternal Life rather than heaven. Try to get some grasp on what EL might be. Have we made any progress? Try to paraphrase, let's see how we're doing

You're not necessarily consistent in focusing on the question that's primary: what is eternal life in some discursive explanation? You're going around in circles trying to set me up into your gnostic Christian framework where I won't understand unless I buy into what amounts to either wishful thinking or confirmation bias, among a few other psychoses.

It's no wonder I don't understand if the whole idea of understanding in your little schema involves only thinking in one way with what appears to be very little flexibility in terms of the individual or situations (hence your decrying of situational ethics and ignoring my allegation that situational ethics can be argued to be rooted in Christian thought to an extent with the example of the originator of the term)


as far as you've 'explained' (if you can call it that)eternal life is not actually dying in any sense/or maybe it is, but it isn't an afterlife, even though it has every basic characterisstic of an afterlife unless you specify otherwise. It seems to hinge on knowing god and being saved, but beyond that, you don't seem to know much of anything about it that you'll tell me, for fear that I'll advance too quickly up your pseudo-Scientology ladder of secret knowledge.

 

[ToHoldNothing]

You just got done saying Buddhism hold there to be 5 things that survive death, and one of them is reaction. This surprises me, so i want to know what sort of reactions dead people have.

Don't expect me to get all 5 right, but the other 4 include perception and sensation. It doesn't surprise me to see those on the list.

These are substances, not anything amounting to someone actually being aware and subsisting beyond their death as a disembodied soul or personality or consciousness. You're confusing the skandhas with the atman in Hinduism, from what I understand of it.

In Buddhism, the skandhas are in no way identical with you; they are general vehicles, empty of persistent substance, only embodying what comes into existence by generation of matter and 'spirit' together in some sense.

You're confusing reaction in the sense of our experiences of reaction with reaction in the sense of the fourth skandha, translated as mental formations/volitions/impulses, though a lot of this gets into psychological distinctions, similar to our cognitive and affective functions to bring up what I remember about self theory in psychology from my general reading on it

A dead person will not be able to experience anything after they die, so the question is void, since it would be like asking what my cat thinks after he's dead. Except in Buddhist metaphysics, your self doesn't ever truly exist except as 'you' experience it and believe and cling to it as permanent. After your death, you will not have reactions, as your experience will have dissipated away long ago.

The example used is a flame being transmitted to multiple candles. similarly, you, like a flame, will flicker and change, but you will eventually cease to be yourself when you have been transferred to a new candle, so to speak.

Rebirth/reincarnation in Buddhism is not the same person being reborn, as in Hinduism, from what i understand. But this is not to say it is completely separate, since whatever you are reincarnated as is composed of similar things as you were, like matter and consciousness on some level, which might vary in being an animal or being a deva, for example.

But you still seem to be attached to the idea of a permanent self and refuse to recognize that you are far more temporary than the things you are composed of, which survive your death.

 

[elman]

These are substances, not anything amounting to someone actually being aware and subsisting beyond their death as a disembodied soul or personality or consciousness. You're confusing the skandhas with the atman in Hinduism, from what I understand of it.

In Buddhism, the skandhas are in no way identical with you; they are general vehicles, empty of persistent substance, only embodying what comes into existence by generation of matter and 'spirit' together in some sense.

You're confusing reaction in the sense of our experiences of reaction with reaction in the sense of the fourth skandha, translated as mental formations/volitions/impulses, though a lot of this gets into psychological distinctions, similar to our cognitive and affective functions to bring up what I remember about self theory in psychology from my general reading on it

A dead person will not be able to experience anything after they die, so the question is void, since it would be like asking what my cat thinks after he's dead. Except in Buddhist metaphysics, your self doesn't ever truly exist except as 'you' experience it and believe and cling to it as permanent. After your death, you will not have reactions, as your experience will have dissipated away long ago.

The example used is a flame being transmitted to multiple candles. similarly, you, like a flame, will flicker and change, but you will eventually cease to be yourself when you have been transferred to a new candle, so to speak.

Rebirth/reincarnation in Buddhism is not the same person being reborn, as in Hinduism, from what i understand. But this is not to say it is completely separate, since whatever you are reincarnated as is composed of similar things as you were, like matter and consciousness on some level, which might vary in being an animal or being a deva, for example.

But you still seem to be attached to the idea of a permanent self and refuse to recognize that you are far more temporary than the things you are composed of, which survive your death.

I studied Buddhism some and was surprised to find that many, if not most, believe reincarnation is not a blessing but a curse. Apparently the point of reaching Nirvana is to escape reincarnation.

 

[elman]

Death may be understood as similar or identical to life, but only if you get out of the binary dualist thought process that everything needs an exact opposite instead of simply a contrast.
.

No death is not understandable as similar or identical to life. These are meaningless words. It is like saying a square circle. One can pretend to be saying something, but in reality nothing is being said at all.

 

[elman]

=ToHoldNothing;57217828]I've said nonexistence is preferable to an afterlife where my consciousness does survive. Not overall. I accept things as they are, and I do not know what the afterlife holds for anyone, including myself. Nonexistence is not the same thing as death, as I've said before. No more than existence is the same as life.

Death mean no life which means no existence. Define death as you use the word.

I've never said they are identical. Death is life in some sense, but it is also not life, quite obviously. A caterpillar is not a butterfly, yet it is. Death is transitionary, transformative, but it is not identical to the state of life we understand at the moment, similar to how we don't see how a butterfly could come from a caterpillar. Death, in a related way, comes from life and is related to it in that death brings forth more life. Apoptosis, programmed cell death, comes to mind

We are not butterflys nor are we the worms that can become butterflys. I can see nothing here that has any meaning at all attached to it. You contradict yourself. You say death is life in some sense, but it is not clear what the sense is. You say death is transitionary but there is no afterlife so there is nothing to be transformed into.

Death can be beneficial in that it is a learning experience for the living. I learn from deaths of others, I don't say that people learn from their own deaths, assuming their consciousness does not survive their death, which I do.

Meaningless. Death is not beneficial to the one dying so what is the point? There is no point.

Nothing that you possess survives your body, neither your body nor your mind, but simply a body and a mind in the nominal sense. To believe otherwise is to cling to permanence where there is none as far as we can tell. Clinging to what is "mine" is what I find problematic in the afterlife, including what you think is "your" consciousness, when in reality, it does not appear to be that way.

All of this is support my comment above that there is nothing to be transformed into. Death is loss of life --non existence. That is the meaning of the word.

The idea of something surviving the deaths of any being is what I believe is considered the skandha, or aggregates, in Buddhism. They are 5 in number: matter, sensation, perception, reaction and consciousness (translations vary)

You just said nothing survives, now something does but we are not clear what it is that survives.

 

[razeontherock]

Inflexible truth is barely qualified as a noble lie.

Well it's pretty easy to see that the Truths in the Bible are as inflexible as they come, so why do you seek understanding from Christians?

Righteousness makes sense as

Again, guiding your thinking based on what makes sense to you will never lead to understanding what G-d says in the Bible. What's needed to make that step is humility. People generally don't like that

If love is evidence of eternal life, you have to qualify what you mean by love, except that you seem to think that love only means faith in god, which is absurd.

Ixnay on the rabbit trails.

God is Love.

For you to say eternal life is anything but the infinite or near indefinite persistence of basic consciousness/existence/experience and bodily form in some sense is to only confuse the matter into pure abstractions.

Well, since being born again I haven't found my bodily form nor my consciousness to cease, so again your premise is way off base.

 

[razeontherock]

In short, you seem to be proposing annihilationism for those that don't get imbued eternal life

No, you have me confused with Elman. He says that, I don't. I'd be curious to see anything I said that gave you that impression.

Eternal life just seems to be extended life more than actual eternal life in any sense where you die and go to heaven.

that's an interesting turn of phrase, now let me ask you:

if life is "extended," w/o end, is it not Eternal? So I fail to see any distinction for you to object to. And if you can show me where the Bible says we "die and go to heaven," I'll go along with what appears to be a basic premise of your thread. I can save you some time though: the Bible doesn't say that. So I'm still pointing out to you that - it's a false idea, and therefore at least most things that get attached to it are also false.

You seem to be outright denying the fact of life that is death. Or are those people still alive but sleeping?

A bright spot! This may well represent the clearest understanding we've had in some time. Although it's still wrong, because death is very real to me. I've faced it myself more times than I could possibly count, and I'm talking literally and physically.

C does not DENY that death exists, but it does deny it any victory. "The last enemy to be defeated is death." Christ overcame the world, and then vanquished death. I won't try to instruct you what C promises us, but the fact is it doesn't spell out all the details you're asking. Sure I'd prefer it did, but the limitation seems to be what we as mortals are capable of relating to. I've also found G-d has a sense of dramatic timing, so maybe I shouldn't discount that? I think it's possible that for as much as some C's look forward to "the sweet by and by," that G-d the Father is much more excited to see His kids, not unlike small children on Christmas morning.

Speculation is ok once in a while, but crossing over into closure, i.e. just making stuff up to satisfy our own quest for understanding is where we get into trouble. As I use the word, I find "religion" to be a breeding ground for that mistake.

I'm arguing with you, don't shift the target to your god. Take responsibility and argue your point or don't bother.

1. You told me the first commandment is wrong.
2. Your frustration may be I'm not about to argue with you about that, nor anything else.

YouTube - Monty Python - Argument Clinic

saying that somehow this must be believed in to have a meaningful life, which is bunk.

I was just talking about the evils of closure Now show me where I said any such thing, or have the integrity to retract your statement. Thanks

Faith depends on you commonly arguing that it is more likely that God is real than that god is not real

you simply want to believe faith is self evident, when it isn't.

These are really weird ideas you accuse me of, and you have no basis to do so.

1. Faith doesn't "depend on arguing." Sheesh!
2. Faith is the gift of G-d. I don't see how that is synonymous with being "self evident," but perhaps you'd care to explain?

If the fear of the Lord is teh beginning of wisdom and part of philosophy is seeking wisdom, then God is a path of philosophy, if anythin. I never said God itself was a philosophy, though it's not impractical to say it's part of a larger philosophy of theism.

Yes it is There is nothing larger than G-d, so by definition He can't be part of something greater. If you reduce this stuff to theism and philosophy, you don't have Eternal Life in the here and now. Pick your poison.

That other thing seems to be little more than speculation and imagination of a warped psyche

Here you are calling the Holy Ghost a mad man, or at the very least one who experiences Him as mentally sick. These are clear violations.

Do refrain.

that wants things to be more comfortable or predictable than they actually are. Everything that happens is part of your myopic little worldview, so you're calm even when someone points out clear flaws that you refuse to even consider their existence.

1. You have failed to point out a single flaw.

2. You haven't the foggiest clue as to my worldview, nor the actual tenets of Christianity. You consistently prove these things by paraphrasing incorrectly.

3. You only pretend to have any insight into how I process info, such as
"refuse to even consider their existence."

There's that closure stuff, biting you on the tukus. None of this has anything to do w/ your OP, which is a good question. Unless you can show how attacking me is related?

What I have "attacked" is the false notion of Eternal Life being reduced to the Monty Pythonesque cardboard cutout of fat babies in diapers lying around on a cloud playing harps. I can't tell if your understanding of C has gotten past that point yet; you give no indication.

Once you can get a glimpse of what Eternal Life is within C's teachings, it won't be so hard to understand why it's desirable.

this assumes spirit is transcendent, when more logically, it is immanent; manifest in experience, not in contemplation of things outside ourselves.

With all your philosophical musings, you still fail to account for "the Kingdom is within."