"Now all we need is for someone to go after the beforelife."

Several years back as I was going back and forth on the idea of a weblog discussing aspects of Zen Buddhism (which I set up, but didn't get more than a few posts in before life interferred), I thought about just this as sideline subject matter, since I came from a background of zen training that left me unconvinced on the issue of reincarnation, or the whole samsara thing. But one point kept me stymied: 1. I didn't give a shit if others fell for it. And that's a real wall in the way of tackling such topics.

What I have always wondered about the concept of an Afterlife is if people in the Afterlife ponder the Afterafterlife. I mean, after a few million years of sitting on a cloud looking at Jesus flex his muscles you've got to be thinking: "is this all there is? Will there never be anything more?" Sure, you can say: "But think of all the people you can talk to! Think of all the things you can see looking down from on high! The ceiling of the women's locker room is like glass to you!" However, you're there for an eternity so you will eventually talk to everyone about everything, see everything there is to see, and tire of it all. At some point the same metaphysical disquietude that prompted belief in an Afterlife in Life would return as metaspiritual stirrings.

Perhaps angels seek to join metareligions that offer airy promises of a transcendence of the eternal to comfort them in their moments of metaspiritual crisis. Perhaps, since God would just be an everyday, mundane reality to them, they look for metagods that will offer them salvation from their neverending existence. Of course, God would probably not be too happy about this, being the needy Prime Egotist that He is (what sort of being creates an entire universe just so the occupants can fawn over him?), and would ban any such metareligious practices, resulting in the Afterlife being a metagodless, officially Ametatheist, Stalinesque state -- only where Stalin has superpowers and can read your mind.

On the plus side, at least there won't be any obituary cartoons there.

dream of afterlife, for for yous it is only after life of much pains. Repent know, never is it too late!

Does anyone recall a trite but "touching" store from the ABC Family network where an Angel of Death was assigned to bring a child "home" to Heaven, but he ended up falling in love with the mother and refusing his assignment? I hope not.

Anyhow, it was a variation on the theme of Angel chooses life on earth over eternal bliss in God's company.

Now, I've always wondered, since we supposedly join god's company eternally AFTER life on earth, what is this Angel really giving up?

I guess its just stupid and irrelevant anyway so I'll just say that Lucy Muff has a great name.

doo da doo...

I’m tired of hearing Shirley MacClaine prattle about her past lives.


Does this really happen that often? Not to say any amount of prattle about reincarnation is OK, but I honestly don't think I've seen Warren Beaty's sister in a long, long time.

I could hardly imagine a more painful situation than being in heaven for eternity without the woman I love. Although perhaps worse would be sitting in heaven with the knowledge that not only won't you ever see your loved ones again, assuming they chose the wrong faith, but also that they are being tortured for eternity. All in all, heaven just ain't what it's cracked up to be.

Addressing the notion of an eternal soul is a great undertaking; kudos to AK for taking this on. Believers can avail themselves of philosophical escape valves on the existence of god. The soul, however, is a more difficult issue because there is more immediate empirical evidence to dispatch this notion. And once again, it presents believers with a most curious problem: how does one explain the breathtaking lack of explanation of what the soul actually is in the texts of the religions that rely on it? That is, how could god possibly not have explained this matter without the utmost clarity?

I always wondered how second and third spouses worked in heaven. Suppose a man marries at 20 and is in love with his wife for the whole time. She is killed in a car accident. Eventually the man remarries at age 30 and is in love with this wife. She dies of cancer. He remarries at 40, etc. When they all eventually die, who gets to be his spouse in heaven? Won't that be awkward? So is it 1st in time, 1st in right for who is his true Heaven-spouse, or is it by who was his spouse the longest on Earth? Or does God assign them since he knows who really loved him most? Oh, wait, nevermind. It is only "until DEATH do we part" so I guess no one is married in Heaven. The contract terminates upon death.

Thank you TRA, and thanx to all of those who frequent ravingatheist.com for taking the time to take a peek or comment.

I noticed one thing when surfing atheistic blogs and forums: that everyone fights against the god concept. But few, if any, fight against the afterlife concept. I wanted to address the "life after death" oxymoron itself, because it seemed to me that to disprove the continuation of your consciousness after physical death is to cut the legs out of 99.9% of all theism. Also, it seemed that tackling the afterlife itself was a more unique approach, and fortunately, TRA and others agree. I believe that there is even more evidence against the afterlife concept than there is against the god concept.

The "goose the antithesis" team blog (of which I am a member) attacks presuppositionalism mostly. It is a good blog with a collection of talented writers, most notably Francois Tremblay, who also co-hosts the radio show Hellbound Alleee.

Funny that TRA mentioned the beforelife. In a future post, I plan to tackle the before/afterlife/reincarnation concepts, in part by using a "what goes up must come down" argument.

Thanks again TRA!

Good link/update, TRA! I like your comments comparing consciousness after death to clapping after hands are gone. :D

Knowing that there is an afterlife makes this life more bearable because we know that this is not all there is. The reason we need to know this is because how we live now determines our afterlife experience. Do you watch the news or pay attention to whats going in the world? PEOPLE ARE SUFFERING!!!!! We were not made to suffer but due to unfortunate events in time thats how it worked out. So we get another chance to be happy! I can't wait to get there!

Jean-Paul Fastidious:
For a possible answer to what happens to an angel who has been watching for millions of years, check out Wim Wenders' beautiful movie "Wings of desire". However in this case we cannot talk about an after-after-life because angels in Wenders view were not previously human.

Spoiler: the angel is pondering whether or not to become human.

"how we live now determines our afterlife experience."
So how we spend all of eternity is based on the short (relative to eternity) time we are here on Earth (usually 70 or so years). Seems fair. My favorite part is that the shoplifter and the mass murderer get to share the same lake of fire (assuming no deathbed acceptance of JC). No varying levels of punishment for more or for less serious offenses. just fire for all - quite efficient!

If consciousness is purely a consequence of biological conditions (i.e. the "soul" does not exist), then that indeed shuffles away most religions, mainly those who exploit the typical human failure to accept death of self, but it does *not* do away with the idea of a potential Creator, also exploited by said dogmas.

To this purpose we must (somehow) explain the self-existence of the universe. Even Big-Bang fans have not yet found a way to absolutely dismiss the possibility of a "Big C".

anisoptera,

you just proved my premise on my blog: that the afterlife is inhumane and immoral. You should seriously read my blog before you start saying such silly things.

You believe in the afterlife because it comforts you to think that your consciousness will survive your bodily death.

Your afterlife belief is immoral and inhumane because you put the afterlife in a higher value than this life, since its the "eternal" and "ultimate" destination to you. You shortchange your happiness, and the happiness of your fellow man, in this life so that you can have mor happiness in a non-existant afterlife. You put this existence as second fiddle, as number 2, as less important. Your belief in the afterlife is immoral and inhumane.

If you were to be brave enough to believe that THIS life is the final destination, then you would take more responsibility to making this life the happiest and most enlightening you can. You should put your earthly efforts into making your EARTHLY life happy in the here and now, NOT some imagined spirit-life superstition.

Ask yourself this: What is your primary concern, happiness in this life, or happiness in the afterlife? Which priority is #1? If its not this life, then you are immoral and inhumane, and you are willing to sacrifice yourself and your fellow man for a ridiculous and evil superstition.

Now go read my blog and educate yourself.

GeneralZod -- actually the Bible does speak about varying degrees of hell. Paul writes about how it would be better for an unrepentant sinner (meaning one who will die unrepentant) to die today because every additional day he lives he is "storing up wrath against the day of wrath."

The Bible is clear that those who die without faith in Jesus will receive "justice." That is the key word. The punishments will not be uniform for all in terms of severity. They will all be "just."

I know you don't believe what the Bible has to say that was just FYI.

Paul, having never met Jesus, figured this out on his own? Maybe the jesus "ghost" that appeared to him told him so. Man, there are a lot of ghosts flying around. Paul preached the end of time was near (as did jesus). Not much time to "store up wrath". I guess we've had 2000 years to do so. That' a shitpot full of wrath. Guess i'll just have another beer.

Frank,

Justice would be to hold God accountable for his invention of sin and his intentional creation of a "failed" creature: man.

Ever hear that old saying, who will police the police?

I think that what I did milliseconds ago may, and in my mind probably does, have an effect on "me" forever. Whether you agree with this or not all depends on what you consider "me". Maybe the effect is inconsequential, or maybe not. But, really, by the time you might be able to assess the consequences of your actions, you are probably in no position to change them. For this reason, if you want to turn out a certain way, probably the best thing you can do is look into what worked for those before you. If the positives of believing in an afterlife outweigh the negatives for you, go for it. It may work for you or not. At least you made the decision on your own.

About afterlife:
Following Nietsche's lead, it seems that the concept of afterlife has been intended as the ultimate reward for obeying social conventions (against killing, adultery, etc).

In this modern age of responsibility, we don't need the reward; we simply *agree* on the principles of proper behaviour in society.

So although I agree with the *values* promoted by the jewish-christian religions, I disagree with the dogma.

I will not kill, I will not commit adultery, and so on, but not because of the pseudo-reward of afterlife. Humans must behave in a civilized way, that's all.

Frank, the guy that does the Chick Tracks says if you don't believe in Jesus you go to Hell, no matter how "good" you are, and if you believe in Jesus you go to Heaven, no matter how "bad" you are (quotation marks intended to indicate the subjective nature of good and bad). What makes you right and him wrong? How can "punishing" someone merely for what they do or do not believe ever be just? All other things being equal, absence of punishment for a non-believer and reward for a believer does not equal "justice."

If you resort to the old saw that essentially says whatever God does is "just" then we're not even speaking the same language, since if what God does is not in accordance with reasonable human expectations of what constitutes justice, then to say that God's punishment is "just" has no meaning.

"Knowing that there is an afterlife makes this life more bearable because we know that this is not all there is."

In the first place, anisoptera, you can't "know" there is an afterlife, or "know" that this is not all there is. But, of course, this fantasay does make life more bearable, and this is precisely why the ancient slave masters created it. An unhappy slave with nothing to lose is a slave poised to revolt. So, if you believe that God commands you to obey your master, that there is justice in another world or life, and that those evil people who enjoy their leisure and luxury at your expense will be "punished," you're more likely to keep pulling the plow. This is actually quite a noxious and evil philosophy, not only because it disposes you to frittering away your life for a fantasy, but because it facilitates those who are disposed to exploit their fellow beings.

"I can't wait to get there!"

Why wait then? What's keeping you here? If you don't believe in suicide, go to Iraq as a volunteer to help the Iraqi people, and if that's too altruistic, join the Marines. Since you're concerned about suffering, and so anxious to get to Heaven, you should have no qualms about putting your life at risk to help others. You can also find a dangerous way to help people right here; why don't you join the fire department?

AK said "that to disprove the continuation of your consciousness after physical death is to cut the legs out of 99.9% of all theism."
I totally agree!!
Go for it AK!!
It needs to be done!!

I promote teaching folks about HOW the whole diversity of the world's animals, including humankind, could NEVER have existed in the first place, (could never have "evolved" generation-by-generation over the three billion years or so of earth's living history), if mortality WASN'T a natural characteristic of these kind of life-forms, and they didn't die.

Happily our ancestors did die, and we had the opportunity to evolve.

With eternal life, planet earth would, at best, be a world of only bacteria!!

Not of wonderful, thrilling, animated people, where consciousness and action are awesomely thrilling phenomena!!

Who would want eternal life, if they understand that mortality is the PRICE of human existence?!

We would all passionately WANT to die! (Eventually!)

And the same thing goes for, say, the mortality of the whole planet and the solar system. If the sun wasn't gradually burning through it's hydrogen fuel (and thereby evolving into a earth-obliterating red giant) we would never exist in the first place, because the sun cannot shine without burning its fuel.

When we understand that action is change, and change shall bring an end, we can all be at peace with the universe, and all have ecstasy in reality and thrillingly delight in the necessity of death.

We shall die laughing!

Religion's cracked "imagination" of an afterlife, is so utterly fucking REDUNDANT, that there simply isn't words to describe how absolutely vain it is.

We adore mortality EXACTLY AS MUCH as we ADORE HUMAN ALIVENESS!!

That is sanity!

RA said "I’m tired of hearing Shirley MacClaine prattle about her past lives."

Frankly, I happily enjoy Shirley MacClaine's "adventures".

hermesten -- I'm not disagreeing with the concept you outlined from the chick tracts ... ultimate destination depends entirely on one thing: faith in Jesus Christ. The Bible is clear on this, "...for it is by grace your are saved, through faith, and this not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not of works so no man can boast."

If you have faith in Christ heaven is your destination. If not, hell. And, as you pointed out from the tracts, it matters not how "good" or "bad" you've been. Everyone one of us deserves death and separation from God (justice) but some of us will receive God's mercy (grace) instead. The justice experienced in hell will be according to what each person there has done but grace was always available.

Stephen, well said!

Frank, quite spamming your "gods justice" bullshit if you choose to conveniently ignore my refutations of your quackery in comment post #17.

"Justice" is applicable to the puppet master, the one who controls everything. And in a theistic world, that entity is God. I demand justice for God's actions!

Frank, dont you see? If most people go to hell, or even half of the population goes to hell, the guilt and failure that this fact puts on Gods shoulders is greater than any failure or guilt that could be attrigbuted to the humans that God created.

If you see a child misbehave repeatedly, where does the failure lie? Where does the responsibility lie? With the child, or the parents that raised the child?

If everyone in a class gets a failing grade, who looks worse, the students or the teacher?

Frank, because you attribute everything to the will of your God, by necessity it is YOUR GOD that is the failure. It is YOUR GOD that must face justice. And he IS thanx to the fact that the world is collectively losing its religion. If everyone in the world stopped believing in God, and they all went to hell, there would only be one failure in the universe: GOD.

Im so sick of this immoral and inhumane theism. Frank, your evil ideology disgusts me (please dont take that personally, I hate the sin not the sinner LOL).

AK - blogging the afterlife is a great idea. I wholeheartedly agree with the immorality (or at least amorality) of afterlife concepts. I have often thought that a minor reason behind humans' willingness to live at such a high cost to the environment in the West is the fact that this life, and this planet, don't count for much. Long gone are the days when hunters valued their kill in and of itself, when farmers praised nature for providing, when miners thought of digging in the earth as sacred - now these things are seen as transient gifts from some other world, and I think that it has altered the mindset of Westerners with regards to how much should be taken compared to how much is put back.

AK, you're being a little hard on Frank don't you think?

If I see a small child with downs syndrome I would not think to berate that child for not understanding advanced calculus. That's kind of what's going on here.

AK -- I've gone 'round and 'round with the whole concept of evil in the world being consistent with the biblical notion of God. That is the only reason I've not responded to your arguments about God being accountable to some sort of justice. But for the sake of argument ...

Are you saying that a misbehaving child is not responsible for his or her actions? Granted, they have to be taught right from wrong, but does this absolve them of their guilt when they deliberately set the cat on fire? Or draw pictures on the wall? Better yet, when they've been told time and time again about the kinds of behavior that are not acceptable are they not, then, to be held to account when they engage in that kind of behavior anyway?

With regard to God's "invention" of sin ... do you really want me to address that? Surely you've heard the arguments of free will and man being responsible for sin and, in turn, readily dismissed the arguments.

St. Teabag -- trying to be provocative are we? What, with the whole comparing me to a downs syndrome child? You want to jump into the conversation? Come on ahead. Just bring something other than baseless condescension. If you're afraid to enter into the debate just stand aside and watch .... k?

If a child misbehaves, you can bet that the child had bad parental guidance. Isnt it true that parents are accountable for their childs behavior? When a child does something bad, doesnt the good parent ask themself "as a parent, what did I do wrong?"

The childs guilt or blame only goes up to a point. On a more fundamental level, it is the parent who must be accountable for such things. This is instrinsic and instinctive across all of society. In all examples of child misbehavior, the surrounding adults wonder about the parents of the child, and how that childs behavior reflects on the parents.

If God was a good parent, he would slef-reflect on his childrens behavior. He would see it as a reflection of himself and his guidance. To condemn everyone with original sin is totally retarded. God puts the responsibility on his creations, when it is HE who sets the stage and pulls the strings.

Gods will shall always be done, right? Therefore, it was Gods will for original sin to be inside all humans. It was Gods will for Eve to eat the apple. To insist otherwise, or to put ultimate responsibility on man, is to remove power from God and to admit that his will shall not always be done.

If man is reponsible for sin, then that means that things can occur in ways that defy Gods will and defeat his plan. Therefore he wouldnt be God because he would not have ultimate power.

Finally, if sin is mans responsibility or faul, then I contend that love and understanding is also mans responsibility or fault. You cannot arbitrarily assign responsibility for emotions and concepts to different entities merely to suit your agenda.

Besides, God admits that he creates evil. Isaiah 45:7, Lamentations 3:38, Jeremiah 26:3, Jeremiah 36:3, Jeremiah 32:42, Amos 3:6, Jeremiah 11:11, Ezekiel 6:10, Micah 2:3, 2 Samuel 12:11-12, Judges 9:23, 1 Kings 14:10, 2 Kings 21:12, etc...... ad nauseum.

How can Eve disobey God unless God creates the concept of "disobeying" and instills the power of it to Eve? God could easily have created "free will" to still be free without having disobedience, or evil. God can do anything he wants. He designed this whole merry-go-round. God created Lucifer with the intent for him to rebel, otherwise Lucifer wouldnt have been able to rebel. To insist otherwise is to redefine God to the point where the definition doesnt agree with scripture or Christianity.

Frank, if ultimate responsibility for ANYTHING falls on ANY entity other than God, then God is not God. Because it would concede that events and concepts could occur independently of his plan or will.

Per the update, I also vaguely recall the discussion about whether an afterlife and God are separable, and I vaguely recall being on the side that they are and that an atheist can believe in an afterlife (whether any actually do being irrelevant).

Both #1 a Godless afterlife and #2 an afterlifeless God are possibilities that aren't any more ridiculous, illogical, or contradicted by evidence than a Godly afterlife (which probably isn't saying much), and any discussions about an afterlife (or game-theoretic, Pascalian arguments involving them) need to include those possibilities if they want to be taken seriously.

How #2 would work is obvious, if unpopular.

For #1, one naturalistic version would simply require that consciousness as we know it be, at least partially, a manifestation of something currently unknown to us -- say something going on in another dimension -- and that death merely disconnects that aspect of consciousness from a physical body, allowing it to continue on its own. There wouldn't be any more need for an all-powerful, supernatural entity controlling this process than there is a need for one to control how gravity operates.

Another possibility is that conscious activities/patterns that purely originate in a prosaic neural/physical manner can imprint themselves into another more exotic form, e.g. morphogenic fields (although this opens the possibility of not merely an afterlife, but of afterlives, as there may be multiple copies of your "soul" floating around.) Similarly, an artificial afterlife -- which is another godless afterlife possibility, much like genetic engineering is a form of godless creationism -- would work like this, only with your consciousness being copied by technicians into a computer or some such.

A theist might be tempted to debunk these ideas by questioning the mechanics of how they would work and noting the hand-waving, insubstantial nature of the answers. However, that theist should keep in mind that there are no better answers for how the mechanics of God-assisted afterlives work (that is unless top Catholic theologians, working with a particle accelerator hidden under the Vatican, have discovered the spiriton and are keeping the discovery to themselves).

anisoptera: Knowing that there is an afterlife makes this life more bearable because we know that this is not all there is..

But... is this + the afterlife all there is?

Wouldn't eternal life be an unbareable slow suffering, like a Chinese water torture with never-ending drips of boredom? Wouldn't those in the afterlife need to know there was something more, or go mad?

anisoptera: The reason we need to know this is because how we live now determines our afterlife experience.

You are just assuming that with no evidence. Maybe everyone gets the exact same afterlife regardless or maybe it's like the lottery. You don't know.

And even if there is a difference in afterlife experience based on how you live, how do you know which living actions produce which afterlife? Maybe God (assuming a God-determined afterlife) is actually more like Donald Trump and only the most ruthless, cut-throat bastards get into Heaven and the rest are fired... literally.

Or maybe it's a godless afterlife that awaits, and only those who consumed sufficient quantities of a certain selenium isotope during their life will have the morphogenic footprint of their 11d consciousness manifold retracted from their 4d material body into the branic realm undamaged by quantum shearing effects that would leave the consciousness of those with selenium isotope deficiency scarred and eternally in pain. Forget the body of Christ, they should be handing out multivitamins.

You propose a weird reality, but how do you know it's not weirder?

Ostrota says: "..that this life, and this planet, don't count for much."

Good observation. I suspect that this callousness applies to the destruction of the lives of innocent children during biblical times (Noah's Flood) , and during modern times (various acts of abuse, rape, murder, etc.). Since Xtrians regard this life as nothing more that a gateway to eternal paradise, they tend to de-value all aspects of it.

That was hard. Your question of the day.

Since you're concerned about suffering, and so anxious to get to Heaven, you should have no qualms about putting your life at risk to help others.

But, as we can see, anisoptera is not in the least concerned with the suffering of others. Nor do they appear to think there is anything they can do to alleviate their OWN suffering. Thank GAWD for the afterlife then.

Lazy, selfish, foolish, silly humans. We are capable of so much but would rather believe someone else will sort it all out regardless of what we do. And the worst of the lot are those who excuse themselves with the gibbering idiocy of "by accepting so and so as my personal saviour, I am saved." By what?!?

Lazy and selfish is one thing but just lazy... {sigh}

I would agree that the afterlife is a belief that can be held by athiests. An afterlife doesnt have to have a God around necessarily.

However, I believe that the afterlife tends to go along with God belief, and that many God beliefs incorporate an afterlife. Indeed, many God beliefs have their legs cut out from under them when the afterlife concept gets defeated.

So I guess we are all correct. TRA and Viole are correct that an afterlife can be seperate form God, and I am correct in that fighting the afterlife concept undercuts God belief in general.

Well, strictly speaking, being an atheist only requires the belief that gods or goddesses do not exist. I don't personally think it's rational in any way, but an atheist can believe in angels, elves and the tooth fairy, if they're so inclined, just as long as they don't believe in the existence of a deity.

As I said--it's possible, I just don't think it's rational.

Again I agree with you completely, Viole. :)

Thanks, but I think you're crediting me with comments I didn't make. I'm might have commented on the idea at some time or another, but I've only pointed out the Question RA was talking about, except for that last post.

Seems to me that if the new Pope, Ratzinger, truly believed in the afterlife, then when he was 14 years old, he would have taken a stand in doing the proper moral thing, which is objecting to joining the Hitler Youth and doing everything in his power to save innocents from being killed during the Holocaust. Yes, he would have likely been killed, since he was living in a totalitarian state run by the Nazis, but according to his theology, he would absolutely be going to Heaven.

For someone who believes in the afterlife according to Christian theology, Ratzinger's actions are clearly hypocritical.

anisoptera said:
Knowing that there is an afterlife

Please, oh please, tell me how you know this most fantastic bit 'knowledge' or did you actually lie. Come on, tell the truth. You only believe there is an after life; isnt that right? Belief is not the same thing as reality.

Frank said:
...actually the Bible does speak about varying degrees of hell.The bible doesn't talk; if you are hearing voices coming from the bible then you are drinking way too much...or worse. If you are seeing variations of hell it is because there were many different authors who were about as acknowledgeable of the universe as a average 5 year old child.

Alright hellions,

I just read your responses to my previous post (i was not notified by email or would have responded sooner) and my reply is:

AK- I do place value in this life but you cannot deny our life this time is affected and/or influenced by corruption, greed, dishonesty, poverty, lack of knowledge, etc. I believe that this life was meant to be the way heaven will be but something went wrong that could not be undone and so now we must suffer and then we get another chance to see what God truly intended for us. There us nothing immoral about that. I will probably have to put in my time and come back here to help someone else which I have no objection to and will be bound by the rules and laws of this species (for lack of a better word) who knows? You must live a comfortable life to be so anti another one. I wish we all were. You could be seen as selfish!

Leon- The same way you know there is no God.

The Almighty screwed up? Something went wrong with His plan? Blasphemy !!!! Sounds reincarnation to me. Maybe the Hindus are right.

anisoptera said:
Leon- The same way you know there is no God.

But I dont know. I dont believe there is a god because there is no evidence of any god. How did you come to know that there is an afterlife?

Is there anything after the after life? If there is I think I'm going to save myself for that. I just hope that's the end of all this living

Anisoptera, what assurances are there, that your so-called next life won't be affected or influenced by corruption, greed, etc ? Short of God taking away our free-will, those inhabiting heaven would still have the same old "sins". Unless, the rules of heaven are dramatically changed fron the rules of Earth, i.e. we live on a heavenly world with no limited resources, so there would be no need for the influences mentioned above, which begs the question of why didn't god just put us there in the first place, knowing evil couldn't exist in such a world? Since in such a case, the rules of earth wouldn't be a proper testing place for the rules of heaven, it doesn't make any sense to spend time on earth first. You see, the whole evil vs. free will argument, that theists use to show why evil can exist with god, can be used to show that heaven can't exist without evil, throwing away its whole premise.
So the options seem to be no afterlife, or an afterlife similiar to earth, maybe something like Riverworld or one of those MMORPGs out there, (MMORPGs, with their perpetual reincarnations, have a strong resemblance to a possible afterlife) or we inhabit the world as disembodied ghosts bored out of our minds. Unless, of course, God miraculously takes away our evil tendencies, robbing us of free will in heaven, but if he can and will do that, why didn't he do that in the first place.

Here's something to chew on:

Matter and energy are two forms of the same thing, neither of which can be destroyed. The matter that I am made of now will still be here after I am dead (in fact, most of the matter that I am made of now will be gone from my body in roughly seven years). After my death my body will decompose and my matter will change form, possibly becoming part of other living things. So in that sense, there certainly is a continuation of life after death.

But I don't want to take that statement too far. I know someone who considers herself a "modern-day mystic" and argues that the energy that makes up our matter is the soul. And the energy that makes up everything in the universe is God. And that we are therefore part of God. Well, that's a perfectly fine way of looking at it, I always say, but just because you call it God doesn't mean you can assign it characteristics traditionally associated with the concept of God. And just because you call it a soul doesn't mean it retains our personalities or memories, or even that it's a conscious entity. It may not be romantic, but everything we think of as ourselves is probably tied to the physical world. The sooner we figure that out, the sooner we'll learn not to stress out about it.

Leon- Perhaps I should have stated that I have FAITH in the afterlife. There is that better? By the way since you don't know if there is a God, why not talk to him just in case...

Rob- Think of it this way (and i learned this from listening to my pastor who is very knowledgeable about these matters) when God commands something, it becomes so, that means that he cannot or will not keep changing his mind everytime some new problem arises. So basically he has had to work around our fallacies (disobedience) in order to keep us in existence. The first batch of human beings were really bad so he started over with Noah and the animals that Noah saved as instructed, He also vowed never to do that again and the rainbow is a symbol of that covenant with us. So instead of taking the gift of life back from us he lets us have our way in earth then the ones worth saving get another chance and the rest, well...

He is not fallable, we are.

Mister Swill- I'm chewing (smile)

Gee whiz, god isn't fallable, and yet the first batch of human beings he created were so bad that he had to start over from practical scratch, and now we're so bad that he had to create an afterlife to shift out the worst ones? That sounds pretty fallable to me, Anisoptera. I mean if I made a building that wasn't earthquake safe and it crumbles in the next earthquake, are you going to blame the building or me for the disaster? You can't have it both ways. Either god is fallable or infallable. If he's infallable, then he intentionally made us all fallable, and to punish us for not being up to spec with a flood and by creating a hell for the most fallable of us to live our afterlives because he happened to create us that way, is pretty hypocritical of him. Or he's fallable, meaning that the reason we're not entirely 100% good and often disobedient rests entirely on him. Maybe you should have another talk with your pastor about the paradox of a perfect creator creating imperfect creatures.

anisoptera,

Are you admitting that something happened in this existence OTHER than in exactly the way that God intended??!?!?!

bullshit! If you believe that, then your definition of God is not the same definition of God that Christianity holds. anisoptera, either you are lying, or you are not a Christian.

Christianity states that Gods will shall always be done, so this existence is exactly what God WANTED To happen.

anisoptera, are you a Christian or not? Do you believe that Gods will can be defeated by mortal man or not?

"By the way since you don't know if there is a God, why not talk to him just in case..."

Look, everybody! It's a brand-new, never-before-tried, certainly not Pascalian, reason to go for the Big Sky Guy!

Why not send a letter to Santa---just in case?

Smarty pants

What I am saying is that we were given the benefit of the doubt and failed. If you are the first of something what can you be compared to?

We are all sinners and need to recognize that and admit it. There are other forces in this world besides good, do you not realize that? We have to make a choice. Why choose the dark side...

fyi, it's the invisible pink unicorn that we believe in, not santa claus.
why? because the IPU is not fallible.

also, reincarnation does not seem, to me, to be a very xtian dogma....
are you really a xtian, anisop?

"We have to make a choice. Why choose the dark side..."
Good question. Why did you?

Dark nature... what a load of dung. Seriously. Do you know who laid the borders in Africa and the Middle East? In the Asian Steppes? You know that none of those borders run along ethnic lines, and none of them are more than a century old.

Do you know who created the Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda? Did you know Hindu comes from the Pakistani river Indus, and that the Indians were largely religious and class mobile until the British arrived? When the British left, they gave a part of India, now Pakistan and Bangladesh(Formerly East Pakistan), to the Muslims and the rest to the Hindus, and that massive violence broke out during the exodus of Hindus from Pakistan and Muslims from India?

Can you tell me what the Saracen's were like before the Crusades? Spain before the Inquisition?

Did you know what Machiavelli told the Italian Princes he was paid to advise? Divide and conquer is a military phrase, but how many voices have spoke the words; 'Diplomacy is the continuation of war through other means.' The West was not at war with Africa, or India, or anywhere else, but we did have to compete with them economically.

Why do think black Americans were used as 'scabs', to break strikes among white workers in the late eighteen hundreds? Why were blacks suddenly segregated from whites in Northern factories and forges, and given the harder, more dangerous jobs and less pay?

It is not the common people who start wars. It is those with power, with something to lose if we unite, who teach us to hate. And you dare to claim we have an evil nature? We are turned against each other, we do not turn against ourselves.

We are told that some petty fucking idea is more important than our common humanity. That is evil, not some bigoted young man who doesn't know why he hates, only that he's been told to. That's just pathetic, like sheep praying upon each other while the wolves circle. Idiots. If they don't stop fighting, they're all gonna lose.

Anisoptera,

We did not fail. We fulfilled Gods will in every way. Gods will shall always be fulfilled, and in that, we succeeded. We followed to the exact letter the plan that God had for us. So I say that we succeeded.

If you insist that we failed, you will have to define "failure" in relation to Gods plan. I see no failure whatever in man. The only failure is in God, since he is the "man with the plan" and his plan obviously sucked.

Anispotera, the point is that failure with an omnipotent God is impossible because the only things that we can do are the things that God wanted us to do. Its all his responsibility, so any success or failure is entirely his fault.

Your standard for the definition of failure implies that Gods will can be defied, and again I say that this is not the Christian definition of God.

So again I ask you, are you a Christian or not? Can Gods will be defeated or not? Answer the questions please, rather than repeat your assertions without support or specificity.

Some of my beliefs may not fit into your neat package of what Christians are suppose to but I see no reason why I cannot proclaim that title.

As for the point made about human cruelty, I agree that humans can be evil and have been historically. The devil may not have made them do it every time but what does motivate people to do wrong is fear of being ordinary, or the unknown, and also agitation of the senses. I feel that our failure was and is obeying His Word. Now we look to each other for guidance and wisdom and most of us simply don't posess it. So now we are left with a manual called the Bible instead of having a more meaningful relationship with God and with that comes the doubt and misunderstanding. We compete with each other to see who can best be believed or sway the most people in our favor. That's what its all about, especially with war. Power is about motivating action with fear or persuasion. We live by faith whether we like it or not. We have no choice in that regard. I would rather put my faith in a Divine Being than in human beings.

Voile - the caste system in India was well entrenched before the British showed up. In fact, the British tried to abolish it and also the practice of setting widows on fire (or brides whose dowries weren't large enough). Believe it or not, many non-western cultures are quite capable of oppressing people without help from Whitey. At least in the west we developed the idea that it's wrong to do so. In many cultures equality between classes and sexes is literally unthinkable.

anisoptera - the flood and rainbow story is a fable. The young earth/flood model does not explain observed geology. Also, it greatly resembles the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh.

We are all sinners - typical brainwashing method. Tear down your sense of self worth so that a new ego can be programmed

Here is something for you to read by a former biblical literalist christian :

A god of suspect praise

Here is a 3 part article about the history of geology and how it does not fit the Biblical account.

part 1

part 2

part 3

Viole - just to be clear, yes I agree that western imperial powers did exploit and promote divisions between various ethnic groups. But they did not invent the tactic.

You get the feeling that Anisoptera is reading this, but not really absorbing what we are saying, don't you?

Anisoptera, you bring up the devil, but why is god suffering its presence, exactly? If god is so perfect and infallible, he can destroy the devil, but according to you, the devil exists. Why?

If our failure was and is obeying his Word, then why is he so unclear that most of us don't? Again, another example of his fallacies. A perfect god with no fallacies shouldn't have any problems communicating his word. Instead, we are left with the questions of why the bible conflicts with what we know about science, why it contradicts with itself, why there are literally hundreds of interpretations of it. Is it not possible for god to make a better manual? I can read the user manual for my car, and I can use it to find out what everything does in it. Why isn't the bible written more like an auto manual?

And finally, what is so wrong with putting your faith in human beings? Without them, the condo I live in wouldn't have been built, the computer I'm using to type this message wouldn't have been manufactured, the internet that this message is communicated on exists. I could get my food merely by walking to a nearest supermarket, instead of hunting for it in the wild. I rely on most of my knowledge from other people. For that matter, what is the Lord doing in trying to stop AIDS and other epidemics? Its humans that are looking for the cures and the means to suppress these diseases, not god. Theres plenty of reasons why I can put faith in humanity. That doesn't mean I have perfect faith, of course.. after all, George W Bush is now president for a second term, but humanity isn't perfect yet, just trying to be more so.