Thread: believe what you want?

Originally Posted by Ne-yo

I'm curious as to know why would you feel this way when Revelations speaks of 2 resurrections?

Yikes.

"The possibility of eternal destruction is particularly an issue during the conclusion of the system of things. When Jesus was asked by his disciples what would be ‘the sign of his presence and of the conclusion of the system of things,’ he included as part of his answer the parable of the sheep and the goats. (Mt 24:3; 25:31-46) Concerning “the goats” it was foretold that the heavenly King would say: “Be on your way from me, you who have been cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels,” and Jesus added, “These will depart into everlasting cutting-off.” Clearly the attitude and actions of some individuals will result in their permanent destruction....

Permanent destruction also awaits those who by choice “do not know God and those who do not obey the good news.” (2Th 1:8, 9) The composite apostate “man of lawlessness” is also termed “the son of destruction.” (2Th 2:3) A judgment of eternal destruction has been determined for Satan, his demons, the symbolic “wild beast” and “false prophet,” and even death and Hades [Hell]. (Mt 25:41; Re 20:10, 14, 15; 21:8) All of these are consigned to “the lake of fire,” that is, they are everlastingly destroyed."

It's a religious teaching that those who know God and the truth from the Bible and are of sound mind etc and yet go on to reject God, such ones will have no resurrection

PM me any further questions if you have any so we can try to stay on topic

Originally Posted by Zhaylin

Ceasing to exist has it's appeal. That's where I am, emotionally/mentally right now.
When chaos consumes your life, you don't care about a bigger picture

I know all about chaos consuming life. But i still don't wanna be dead...forever. Ceasing to exist, the mortal flame extinguished, the end of an era, the last breath, and whatever else you wanna add to forever death. Obviously if it happened we would cease to care, as we cease to exist, and it would be nothing but nothingness for the rest of time.

Originally Posted by juroara

I didn't always believe in reincarnation. It didn't make any sense to me. And the idea of having to come back to earth again and again and again and again didn't seem fun.

Believing that regardless of how your life was lived that heaven was the reward, was much sweeter and easier to digest. That was what I wanted to believe. And besides, I was raised Roman Catholic, there was no mention of reincarnation.

I read somewhere that reincarnation was in the bible ( old testament? ), but it was taken out...for obvious reasons

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

I know all about chaos consuming life. But i still don't wanna be dead...forever. Ceasing to exist, the mortal flame extinguished, the end of an era, the last breath, and whatever else you wanna add to forever death. Obviously if it happened we would cease to care, as we cease to exist, and it would be nothing but nothingness for the rest of time.

Then you, dear LucidFlanders, are MUCH stronger and determined that I am. But such is my natural tendency toward life in general... when things overwhelm me I "run away" (usually to a small room with "Don't Disturb unless some one is dying" orders. I have VERY little fight left in me.
These next two months BETTER go by quickly so I can get out of this funk

Originally Posted by rottingteeth

yes, I can see how it would be fun at first, but after awhile, I think I'd get incredibly lonely. if all people/beings are your creation, they could have no thoughts of their own. everything they did would be completely predictable. there'd be no opposition, any opposition that you created would have been created by you, so you couldn't consider it opposition, could you?

But they could have thoughts, couldn't they? When I said the cycle would repeat itself, I intended that whatever I created would grow continually until, eventually, they'd be as powerful as I was (I'd be moving up at the same time too, though). If one or a thousand worlds were modeled like the one we're on, wouldn't there be plenty of beings much like you and myself? If such an existence were possible for myself, wouldn't it at the same time be possible for everyone else? What would it be like to have others over into my universe, or to visit their universe?

I could always go to sleep for a million years and let the universe run itself. Put it into its own dark ages.

I could divide myself into two, and fight myself, from planet to planet, across the cosmos.

Maybe it would get lonely. Maybe it wouldn't. I've found comfortable and rewarding relationships with dream characters already, and they're merely figments of my imagination. I can't what it would be like until I actually try, but it's a totally new experience that I could see no end to with any situation happening twice.

Originally Posted by rottingteeth

I think I understand. could you possibly elaborate?

To be concerned with living forever or dying forever mistakes the impermanence of our present state: the transient, yet patterned existence of ourselves and everyone and everything we love. If you want to know what happens after death, cultivate a clearer vision of what's going on right now. Listen to spiritual teachings, contemplate their relevance, and meditate.

The 'you' that we're so concerned with preserving forever or snuffing out completely barely exists in the first place, just as it has always and will always 'sort of' exist. We're little more than shapes in the clouds, and it's not this transience itself that dissatisfies us, but the stories we spin around patterns glimpsed in passing, the importance we attach to brief formations, sure to pass.

Originally Posted by Taosaur

To be concerned with living forever or dying forever mistakes the impermanence of our present state: the transient, yet patterned existence of ourselves and everyone and everything we love. If you want to know what happens after death, cultivate a clearer vision of what's going on right now. Listen to spiritual teachings, contemplate their relevance, and meditate.

The 'you' that we're so concerned with preserving forever or snuffing out completely barely exists in the first place, just as it has always and will always 'sort of' exist. We're little more than shapes in the clouds, and it's not this transience itself that dissatisfies us, but the stories we spin around patterns glimpsed in passing, the importance we attach to brief formations, sure to pass.

Very nice post. I liked specially the comparison in bold.

Originally Posted by rottingteeth

yes, I can see how it would be fun at first, but after awhile, I think I'd get incredibly lonely. if all people/beings are your creation, they could have no thoughts of their own. everything they did would be completely predictable. there'd be no opposition, any opposition that you created would have been created by you, so you couldn't consider it opposition, could you? unless I could, after my fun, completely obliterate myself, or at least come back to a world that includes opposition, I'd consider that hell.

I want to cease to exist because I'm tired of everything. there is nothing new under the sun...I'd like to finish the rest of this life, but after that, I don't want to come back. I don't believe a perfect heaven is possible, and I'd rather not live another life, even if it is better. I'm just tired. maybe this is silly, and perhaps it isn't true (and I'm by no means trying to say I'm anything special) but I feel like I've been here a thousand times already. even if reincarnation isn't a reality, I still feel like that.


grasshoppa: I will have to look up this Robert Anton Wilson...oh, I like him already:

First of all, you're closer in appearance to a dysfunctional nihilist Elf Mage in WoW than my creator God and short duration personal savior Robert Anton Wilson (RIP) Famed member of the SubGenius Apocraphypton Religion of the Three Nostriled Bob of Six eyes, three feet, and one sacred pipe, filled with the smoke of Frop, that liveth forever and ever.

Secondly, dude. That's... really... depressing. I can feel my hair drooping already. I must have the sickness already. Only Bob could save me, but will he?

Anywho, least entertaining for last, my discomBoBulate belief system about life, the universe, and everything.

I believe that intergalactic space monsters are sucking all the sweet-sweet slack energy out of this planets for sustenance, an enormous, unseen malignant supercomputer is running affairs on planet earth, and that the human body is a biocomputer that has been programmed to run as a prison for the software (consciousness) instead of as mobilizer for the software to run.

There is only one pursuit in life: Slack.

How to achieve it: "Fuck Them, If They Can't Take A Joke."

Addendum: Man I'm mean. If it's any consolation, you're much prettier than I am

I take refuge wherever the arrows point.

Originally Posted by rottingteeth

how closely do your beliefs (namely spiritual or religious) coincide with what you want to believe?

Almost precisely I'd say. This is the reason why I still hold on to them! If they did not coincide with my wishes, then I'd choose something else to believe.

That doesn't mean that such wishes-believes are correct, of course. But that's precisely why it's so easy to choose them: their truth value is unknown, nobody can tell you about it, just choose the one that you like most, if you feel like you need it...

why should I listen to a christian tell me about an eternal heaven, or an atheist tell me about non-existence after death, if that is what they like to believe?

Maybe some of them are not mistaken Truth in such matters doesn't depend on how objective you are, you either happen to be right or happen to be wrong. At least we don't have any safe criterion to judge yet.

what made me start thinking about this is an essay I read written by a woman. although the essay was good, and had some interesting information, she made several references to a "great mother" and "goddess." apparently she believed that a female power was the supreme being of the universe, but of course a woman would like to think that. because of that, I was inclined not to believe it (at least that a female power is supreme).

That's an interesting example, especially because it shows that the whole thing works both ways: not only we choose to believe what we like but we choose to reject what we dislike

how many people believe what they want to believe? do you take this bias into consideration, in others and in yourself?

I think taking it into consideration is useless most of the time... If you're dealing with some underdeveloped murky field of knowledge like psychology then surely having believes would be a sign of rigid mindset that could hurt your understanding and could turn you blind and prevent you from discovering something new. But with matters of something that can't be known it makes not much sense whether you take your bias into consideration or not. There's nobody to judge. The only "judges" are the opinion of the majority, or the scientific point of view. The first is unreliable, the majority is no better than you alone, and the second is usually impossible to be used for deciding whether your believes are okay.

And besides, it's hard to see where you bias ends. All opinions can be called biased. If you didn't choose them consciously, you still have the bias of "my mother\father said so", "I was taught so at school", etc. I had a friend in past who often kept repeating opinions of her mother, she never noticed it, those opinions and conclusions seemed so obvious and truthful to her. But that's what we all are doing.

personally, I would like to believe that I will cease to exist after I die, become absolutely nothing. but I believe there is some kind of afterlife.

Why do you want to die forever, do you hate your life? Afterlife could be different, not as bad...

As for this contradiction between wanting to die and believing in afterlife, maybe in your childhood you read something that spoke about afterlife, and it got so much deep inside of you that you can't get rid of it even now. Can you remember what it was?