Have you ever Considerd eternity?

[wrecker77]

Bear with me. I, for some reason want to tell you the whole story that takes a while to start.



I recently saw a video called "Mass: Wii pray". I visited the site at the end hoping to find more laughes and discovered that this is acutly a cover for a Dantes Inferno site. Verry sneaky... I looked arond on the site and noticed a facebook app that allows you to send facebook groups, freinds and other assorted things to hell. Neto! I had some fun sending The jonas brothers to Greed and sending "Mcloven" to lust. I then went to gametrailers and watched the dev diarys for the circles of hell.

While watching one, I noticed a rather disturbing image.

Consider with me, the concept of eternity.


I never look at religous threds but the few I do, show me the majority of escapians are atheists. I myself am a confirmed Roman catholic, and I hope we can all be civil and not dispute what religon is right wrong, just share what your religon beleives on the afterlife.

Now this image I refered to earlyer, Is that of a person in hell. Obviously. This persons punishment was to be put on a cross, be spun upside down, and be set on fire.
This is the fate of this person day...after day...after day...after day... after day etc.

Can you consider eternity? Everey single waking moment you are burned, upside down, and locked inplace, woth noone around in site. But thats just my vision of hell.

Heaven on the other hand, is aparently wonderful, wonderous, made of naked women and chocolete yadda yadda yadda. Do you think you will ever be bored? Paradise day.... after day.... after day.... after day.

The concept has been on my mind but I havent had a spark to wright something about it since I saw such a disturbing vision of hell.

I do beleive I kind of focussed on the Catholic side of the afterlife, but I am not informed on other religons, other than the obvious like Re-incarnation.

Just A personal Question to Atheists, What Do you think of the concept of the afterlife? Just... Black for etrnity, I dont know. What do you beleive? Well nothing I geuss but... I dont know.

What do you Consider eternity to be like?

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I don't believe in an afterlife. I think that whole concept of Eternity and an afterlife is just fevered dream conjured up by people who were unable to accept their own mortality.

 

[grimsprice]

Eternity would be so unbearably boring i'd want to commit suicide after a few millennium.

 

[wrecker77]

You don't need to worry bout eternity, after death your brain does not function, and what you think of as "you" (your consciousness) will no longer exist, and never will again, so you will not be around to perceive anything.

I don't want to sound like I'm bashing your beleif but come on. Their has to be something! How can you not perceive anything? So what happens to your conciousness. I'm not smart I don't understand.

 

[Crimsane]

You die. Any and all consciousness and anything else associated with "you" being "you" ends when you die. That's it.

 

[Threesan]

I myself am a confirmed Roman catholic

Me, too! More specifically, a baptized, reconciled, communioned, confirmed Roman Catholic, atheist. Confirmation has no meaning other than whatever it means to you, personally.

Conveniently, if you multiply nonexistence by eternity you still get nonexistence. It's not like you'll be around to count the days, observe the blackness, or care about anything at all.

Loving God + Eternal Ultimate Suffering = fail, though. I've heard alternatives, like that hell is just a place outside the grace of God, not necessarily with suffering. Maybe Lucifer runs an ex-atheist country club. But I've never particularly caught on to what makes heaven such a swell place. Sexuality and chocolates are sorta sinful, and the whole of eternity praising God -- honestly, never was all that appealing to me. You could assume that there is some sort of lack of perception of time, but to me that's a destruction of the self.

 

[Kpt._Rob]

The idea that I would percieve anything after my death just doesn't even work for me. After my death, the bio-electrical patterns in my brain that make my mind will cease to exist. I won't feel an eternity of suffering or happiness, I won't be feeling anything because there will be no part of me left to percieve anything. I find that rather calming. The truth of the matter, is that feeling nothing is what most Eastern traditions search for, nirvanah is in NOT being, but because that is the natural state of all things that lack consciousness, then all people reach it on death. In this way, I find a beautiful way to look at the scientific probability that when I die there will be no part of me left.

 

[Threesan]

You don't need to worry bout eternity, after death your brain does not function, and what you think of as "you" (your consciousness) will no longer exist, and never will again, so you will not be around to perceive anything.

I don't want to sound like I'm bashing your beleif but come on. Their has to be something! How can you not perceive anything? So what happens to your conciousness. I'm not smart I don't understand.

I said this elsewhere recently, but: Before you were conceived? That's what it's like to not perceive anything, to not exist. Same with general anesthetic, dreamless sleep or other unconsciousness. The same place the self "goes to" or "comes from" in those cases, that is the nonexistence of self.

I could take it a step further and say, the person I was twenty years ago? Maybe even ten years ago? He does not exist anymore. He ceased to exist before did the life of the body. I, too, as I am now, will not exist twenty years from now, even as the body continues on. But that's a more a matter of perspective, perhaps in the sense that Darth Vader betrayed and murdered Anakin Skywalker.

 

[IxionIndustries]

My concept of the afterlife is of reincarnation. I believe that as you die, you are reborn, as an animal, or even as something not from earth. You don't have the memories of your previous life, but your "Spiritual makeup" is the same.

To me, eternity is but a cycle.

 

[JenXXXJen]

I've thought about it lots of times, but since my head didn't asplode, I probably didn't fully comprehend it.

 

[Yuno]

Yeah. I've actually thought about this tons of times before and to be totally honest that idea scares me. I'm not going to get into a religion debate, but say, for examples sake, there is a Heaven and Hell. Hell is torture for eternity- day after day, there is never an end. Heaven would be amazing, day after day, never ending. Wouldn't that amazing paradise get really old... really fast? And you could never find a way out of it... trapped in that cycle for an everlasting time.

The idea of being dead is also kind of scary to me. Say when you die there is no afterlife, no reincarnation, or anything. You're just gone. What happens when you no longer exist? Is it total nothingness for eternity? It's awfully confusing... and if there IS reincarnation, then that goes on forever, and ever... Or is it that you keep getting reincarnated until you're "perfect", then you die forever? It's unlikely, I know, but if it is... well, I'll probably be reincarnated a few thousand more times.

I should stop writing now. Also, like I said- I don't mean to offend anyone or their views, just my opinion. Not hating on any religion or any beliefs in particular.

 

[ryai458]

There really is nothing I could say dozens of other people couldn't carry on about for hours, I say your beliefs are what they are, that is private they don't need to be shared if you believe it then you don't need to tell everyone else because YOU are the only person who needs to understand.

 

[BonsaiK]

What do you Consider eternity to be like?

This thread belongs in "religion and politics".

Anyway, "eternity" of what? I would expect, for example, an eternity of chocolate to be a lot of chocolate. An eternity of darkness would be very dark. An eternity of dark chocolate would be dark too, but chocolatey. You get the idea. Your question is not specific enough to actually make any sense.

 

[Aesir23]

Personally, I'm Agnostic.

But I will go on record saying that I do not like the idea of eternity at ALL. Nor do I like the idea of reincarnation (once was enough thank you. I don't want to go through this shit again.)

If there is absolutely nothing after we die (as most atheists believe), no consciousness, etc. Then I honestly don't mind, as depressing as that may sound.

Eternity is just too incredibly long to have conscious thought. And if I must deal with eternity in whatever afterlife, then upon my death I'm going to sleep solidly for a few millenia.

 

[Kuchinawa212]

Ooooh for all eternity huh? I dunno may get boring after a while

 

[Kpt._Rob]

You don't need to worry bout eternity, after death your brain does not function, and what you think of as "you" (your consciousness) will no longer exist, and never will again, so you will not be around to perceive anything.

I don't want to sound like I'm bashing your beleif but come on. Their has to be something! How can you not perceive anything? So what happens to your conciousness. I'm not smart I don't understand.

Consider it like this, from a scientific perspective the relative terminus of the universe is the "big bang" or something like it. This event folds space time, creating vibration/energy, energy is combined into matter. Various forms of matter (created by combining energy in various ways) condense into planets, and because the universe is so big, it is inevitible that on some of these planets the forms into which this matter condenses will be self-replicators. These primitive life forms utilize certain types of matter in their immediate environment to create copies of themselves, and with accidential mutations certain self-replicators evolve which are better at copying themselves than their predecessors. This is the beginning of the evolutionary process.

Skip forward in time to now. Human beings are a product of this evolutionary process, but if you follow it backwards, the implications are simple, human beings are made of matter and energy combined in highly specific patterns. The most unique of these patterns is the brain, a bio-electrical wonder capable of self awareness, feeling, and complex thought. But when a human being dies, these patterns fall appart, condensed matter and energy are allowed to break away, and the pattern which creates being is gone. All the same matter and energy still exists, but because it isn't put together, it can't act as a functional mind. This is how consciousness can end, is because consciousness isn't some tangible thing, it's a pattern created from organized tangible things, it starts when matter and energy are ordered right, and when they cease to be ordered it ends. And it is possible that ultimately the entire universe could end, so that all matter would be broken into energy, which would be unfolded into space time, and this could dissappear into nothingness. But the beautiful thing about nothingness is that, because it is not subject to the rules of causality, it can create again.

 

[FalloutJack]

Actually, I HAVE considered eternity. If I have, literally, forever...then whatever bad that's happening to me can't last that long. If you did to me what they did to Prometheus, I'm free as soon as the mountain erodes. It's all perspective. What I have to do, in a case like this, is learn how to let my mind wander until such moments as a quick breakout.

 

[auronvi]

I don't believe in an afterlife. I think that whole concept of Eternity and an afterlife is just fevered dream conjured up by people who were unable to accept their own mortality.

Now, common sense and human logic do dictate this but we are imperfect beings in an entire Universe that we will never fully understand. We are mortal beings who have come to be from seemingly nothing. Our conscience born from our cells as they multiply over and over again. But who are YOU to say that there is nothing after death? Who am I to say there IS?

People believe in God or Karma, Spirits and Ghosts. In my everyday life I feel connected to something that is much larger than I am. I have felt forces that I cannot comprehend.

What I am getting at, is how you put what you believe is very accusing of those of us who do believe in an afterlife. I am fully aware of the possibility that this may be all there is to life and existence but I also would like to believe that there is something more. Wouldn't you? Wouldn't you rather think that this is just the beginning of a journey or that you are part of something more? I say be more open minded to different possibilities and not just corner yourself to just one. Stubbornly believing that death is the end of it and not considering the possibility of an afterlife is just as ignorant as the people who follow faiths blindly and believe with all their hearts that they will stand next to God.

 

[Nalesnik]

Well, what we interpret as pain or pleasure or boredom is really just chemicals sloshing around in our brains. And I think it's safe to say that we can't take our bodies/brains to the afterlife, so what I'm wondering is how does heaven/hell (if they do exist) dispense pleasure/pain? It is just perceived pain/pleasure? Or maybe we get a new type of body, a kind of avatar, and pleasure/pain is dealt to that? Also does that mean that there is no such thing as "boredom" in the afterlife considering we wouldn't even be "human" then? The only thing I know for certain, is that I know absolutely nothing about what happens after death. (which kinda sucks, cause I really like to know about stuff >_> ) I suppose I'll find out when it's my time to leave this existence. (unless an immortality serum is developed by then, cause I may consider taking that)

 

[Pimppeter2]

I'm a Greek Orthodox Christian, but my beliefs are more set around desim.

However, I do not believe in an afterlife.

But If I did, you could consider me one of those guys who is spun around upside down for eternity