11 Jan 20
@secondson saidIf you have proof that all 100 billion or so humans who have ever lived are still living in some shape or form, just say what it is.
There's proof, but you've already rejected it.
11 Jan 20
@secondson saidHow does being at peace with the finality of life "limit" my "appreciation" of life?
Thing is though, you think life is finite, that it ends abruptly upon the death of the body.
That, by all rights, is inferior, and severely limits the appreciation for life as an "opportunity to be grabbed and embraced" because there's a limit to it.
11 Jan 20
@secondson saidI understand that you prefer to think that you have eternal life than to think you don't but I don't see how that hope/expectation enhances your appreciation of the life you're living now; it would make more sense if you were claiming that the prospect of eternal life renders the life you are living now meaningless.
On the other hand, eternal life, and the scope of appreciation for it far outweighs the limited, finite and temporal opportunities that a single lifetime can provide.
There's no comparison.
11 Jan 20
@fmf saidExactly.
Translation: you like your idea that you will live forever more than the idea that you won't.
What I "like" or think relative to this temporal life is underpinned by what you call a fiction.
It gives me the understanding that the idea of the cessation of life at death is inferior to the idea of life everlasting.
The mindset that informs one that they die and never live again, by comparison to the mindset of eternal life, makes the former idea seem abhorrent. How one can except that kind of defeat cognitively is beyond reason, especially since it is within the capacity of the human intellect to conceive of, and experience, something greater than themselves that informs them of having eternal life.
11 Jan 20
@secondson saidThe preference you have for the notion that you have eternal life is not evidence of eternal life.
What I "like" or think relative to this temporal life is underpinned by what you call a fiction.
It gives me the understanding that the idea of the cessation of life at death is inferior to the idea of life everlasting.
11 Jan 20
@secondson saidYou find the idea of NOT having everlasting life abhorrent. OK.
The mindset that informs one that they die and never live again, by comparison to the mindset of eternal life, makes the former idea seem abhorrent.
11 Jan 20
@secondson saidIt is within the capacity of the human intellect to conceive of being able to walk around invisible, talk to dead people in a seance, or to practice clairvoyance, but this capacity is not evidence that any of those things are real.
How one can except that kind of defeat cognitively is beyond reason, especially since it is within the capacity of the human intellect to conceive of, and experience, something greater than themselves that informs them of having eternal life.
11 Jan 20
@secondson saidThe burden of proof for your extraordinary claim is surely yours. We both agree that the 100 billion are dead. But you assert they are still alive in some form. What is your proof?
If you have proof that 100 billion human lives were annihilated in death just say what it is.
11 Jan 20
@secondson saidHaving an unlimited supply of heroin is not going to make the savouring of each fix more precious. Unless you mean 'worth a lot of money' when you use the word "precious"?
Therefore more precious still an unlimited supply.
11 Jan 20
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Perhaps believing in everlasting life, and seeing the life one is living now through that prism, is a part of the idea that many people, for psychological and anthropological reasons, have a God figure shaped hole in their lives and so they gravitate towards various religious traditions to fill it.
11 Jan 20
@fmf saidBecause it's limited by the temporal.
How does being at peace with the finality of life "limit" my "appreciation" of life?
You seem to be interested in the spiritual, but it seems you limit the extent of the experience of the spiritual to the finite and material. Notwithstanding your attempts to spiritualize human experience within the realm of the temporal.
The scope of things spiritual relative to the idea of life being limited by time is shortsighted at best.