Think about it, it never ends. You would never be done. Think about it real hard, and you will not want to live for eternity, either in Heaven or Hell or whatever you believe. I'm just glad to be confident that I won't live for eternity.

Edit: Actually, I just tried thinking about it again. I couldn't get myself frightened like I did back when I beleived in God and Heaven and such. This must mean that I don't believe in living eternally, so it doesn't firghten me, and I am truly an atheist. Wow..

Just thinking out loud.

[This message has been edited by thetis (edited 11-10-2004).]

That's one of the reasons i chose atheism as well. I don't like being so presumptuous as to think that i deserve some eternal life. This one is enough for me.

It is really a scary concept though, I don't see how people take comfort in it. Something that never ends.....

After i quit believing in that concept i felt a lot better. Odd huh....not really.

quote:I don't like being so presumptuous as to think that i deserve some eternal life.

Actually christians don't belive you deserve it, but GOD gives it to you as a gift, I do belive.

atheism doesn't exclude the possibility of infinite time.

Eternal life gives opportunity to experience infinity. You don't get bored if infinity never ends.

I find the thought of non-existance strangely conforting. I don't really know why.

It isn't exactly non-existance that I think, but something totally alien to rational thought.

To paraphrase "You are Worthless", i think that after about 5 eons of sitting on a cloud and playing a harp, I'd be ready to shove that fucking harp up someone's ass.

While in the popular mind, eternal often simply means existing for an infinite, i.e., limitless, amount of time, many have used it to refer to a timeless existence altogether outside of time.

quote:Originally posted by dearestnight_falcon:

I find the thought of non-existance strangely conforting. I don't really know why.

It isn't exactly non-existance that I think, but something totally alien to rational thought.



I have the same feeling of being comforted by ceasing to exist as I now know it. Maybe it's a bit morbid, but I imagine my death, being buried directly into the ground (no casket, no embalming, etc.)...other organisms taking what they need of my body, and everything else decaying and merging with the earth.

What happens to the smallest bits of us?

Eternity == opposite to a all timely adjectives. At least it's thought so traditionally in christian theology.

Atheism isn't something you should have to choose, it should be the default. Christianity is the more esoteric & illogical of the two.

If everyone in the world was to be "reset," I doubt christianity would appear again, but atheism would most definitely be there.

So, are you're saying that the existence of theology would have to preceed our existence; therefore, everyone begins their existence as an atheist because we created theology?

quote:Originally posted by outcast:



I have the same feeling of being comforted by ceasing to exist as I now know it. Maybe it's a bit morbid, but I imagine my death, being buried directly into the ground (no casket, no embalming, etc.)...other organisms taking what they need of my body, and everything else decaying and merging with the earth.

What happens to the smallest bits of us?



The smallest bits of us have been around since time began, most of them were created by the first diing starts, chanses are they will be parts of living things again before the world ends. I too find the idea of seasing to exist conforting, give this life all you have because it's all you get.

^do you really spell that poorly?

^

When you don't have something useful to say best say nothing at all.

quote:Originally posted by thetis:

Think about it, it never ends. You would never be done. Think about it real hard, and you will not want to live for eternity, either in Heaven or Hell or whatever you believe. I'm just glad to be confident that I won't live for eternity.

Edit: Actually, I just tried thinking about it again. I couldn't get myself frightened like I did back when I beleived in God and Heaven and such. This must mean that I don't believe in living eternally, so it doesn't firghten me, and I am truly an atheist. Wow..

Just thinking out loud.

[This message has been edited by thetis (edited 11-10-2004).]

Eternity is indeed scary to think about. It used to scare me when I was a kid, I guess it still does. I don't want to sleep forever, but I don't want to live forever, either!

quote:Originally posted by Social Junker:

Eternity is indeed scary to think about. It used to scare me when I was a kid, I guess it still does. I don't want to sleep forever, but I don't want to live forever, either!



The idea of nonexistance is rather comforting...like sleep.

I do like to sleep, but I also like to be awake.

Living forever...maybe it depends on how?

The way I personally feel about it is that eternity is simply the way people explain something they can't fathom. For instance, the universe appears to have no end, but... it probably does. In all reality the universe is probably existing in some kind of giant vacuuous sphere, spinning, around along the course of Time the same way a planet spins around the Sun. And there are probably lots of other universes existing in similiar ways, moving along similiar paths, etc... etc...

So, it may look like eternity to a mortal, but looking at it from an immortal perspective, it's not too long a time at all.

Cheers,

Lost

Hmmm...

Once, while in deep meditative prayer...I saw what I believed was eternity...but then I realized it was the vast potential of my mind...the places I have not yet been...

Mind-blowing experience!!!!

[and no, it was not drug-induced, lol]

time to quantnum tunnel into another universe http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif) Or have they even proved that the multiverse exists?

i chose atheism because i was catholic until that point.

eternal life is just a concept for people who can't handle the fact that they will not physically live on. we all live eternally in a way, because everything we do affects something or someone, so our effects (ripples essentially) will always be there. our minds however will not exist forever. once you're dead, that's it.

i know the christian idea that "eternal life is a gift." what i'm saying is that it doesn't really exist, and even if it did no one would deserve it. A God would not interfere with us because an immutable (read UNCHANGING) being cannot do anything to change, thus it doesn't fit.

quote:Originally posted by Monochrome:

^

When you don't have something useful to say best say nothing at all.

if you have something useful to say, have enough respect to not make it painful for others...

i was serious, some people misspell because they're hasty, lazy, or they think it's cute... others because they're bad spellers... while the former is much more annoying, in either case, they should make an effort to not butcher the language when trying to be deep.

back on topic, if eternity doesn't exist, if life is finite, then is death finite too?

if eternity does exist, and death is infinite, why isn't life?

eternity exists but not for you. your logic is faulty.

we all die and we stay dead. the universe, however, continues to exist.

I am more afriad of not exisiting at all than a life of enternety. If you think about it, if you die and don't have an afterlife, then nothing matters anymore, you are no more, your accompishments means little, your nothing. That sucks.

quote:Originally posted by Fanglekai:

eternity exists but not for you. your logic is faulty.

we all die and we stay dead. the universe, however, continues to exist.

1. how can my logic be faulty? i was posing a couple of questions, they aren't logical statements.

2. you didn't really answer my second question. you agree that death is infinite, but i asked why is life finite? you provided no why, just an ezplanation of that which is already obvious - that life goes on for others. not my question.

quote:Originally posted by Eil:

if eternity does exist, and death is infinite, why isn't life?

Life can be finite because it can require a very specific set of conditions to exist, conditions that can be easily altered. For example, the morning I found a cockroach and applied a certain amount of normal force to it. As a result many of its more crucial atoms were misaligned. In other words it died. Perhaps those atoms could be realigned again, but it might be argued that it would be a different lifeform at that point.

It is theoretically possible for a lifeform to be so robust, resourceful, and regenerative as to allow it to survive for an indefinite period of time. It goes without saying though that there are no known cases of this happening, especially to a human. So it is safe to assume that human life is finite.

Let me pre-empt somebody using a disputed figure like Jesus as an example of eternal life, even for hypothetical uses: supposing a Jesus did get resurrected, we have no way of knowing whether this same Jesus then died again. Also, eternity has not occured yet or before, so even if Jesus was alive the case is impossible to make.

I would like to know why you thought that the existance of eternity and eternal death could imply eternal life, if that is why you asked the question.

quote:Originally posted by thetis:

Think about it, it never ends. You would never be done. Think about it real hard, and you will not want to live for eternity, either in Heaven or Hell or whatever you believe. I'm just glad to be confident that I won't live for eternity.





Think about how life was as a the youngest age you remember. How different a being are you now? How different is your body? Your appearance? Your mind?

Change is constant, all things have their ebb and flow, entropy requires constant change, the ego is illusion. Take a scalpel in your mind and search your body, where is the 'I'? How is it the drop of sperm belonging to father and the egg belonging to mother becomes my identity? (Respects to Shantideva)

Is the moment/the present the only eternity? In a million light years from now, will it still be the moment? The eternal trinity of one, the moment is passing even as it is, and becoming the next moment even as realisation of that moment dawns. Held in an eternal bond of unity the one moment is at once the father/past, the child/present and the ghost/future.

I'm glad that life is ever changing, that eternity is not a still photograph, it's a movie playing right now!

Namaste http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)