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Because I love life and there’s nothing after this?
by soligern 3y ago
Because I love life and there’s nothing after this?
- theodorejb 3y agoJesus claimed to offer everlasting life to those who believe in him (see Gospel of John). Worth looking into?
- ithkuil 3y agoSo did Muhammad (see Quran). Worth looking into?
- defrost 3y agoSo do Yolngu and Wiradjuri Dreamtime stories that date back 70,000+ years. Worth looking into?
- ithkuil 3y agoYeah pretty much any pagan religion has some sort of post mortuary soothing story. Worth looking into?
- defrost 3y agoSeems redundant given 'pagan' means either * not Christian other religions in the Roman Empire, or (more generally) * not Christian religions. Easier to say most, if not all, religions have an afterlife story.
- ithkuil 3y agoYeah I love picking nits too. I just meant to reaffirm that it's not an Abrahamic religion innovation.
- defrost 3y agoI have trouble working out who the pagans are: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-20/the-christian-converts-who-are-setting-fire-to-sacred-aboriginal/11527402 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-20/the-christian-convert...
- ithkuil 3y agoPagan: "a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main or recognized religions." whatever that means
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoTo the Romans, weren't Christians the Pagans. They were some fringe group from the frontier with some wacky ideas.
- defrost 3y agoIf that's a question then no, the Romans did not use the word pagan to refer to Christians. The early usage (according to the OED) was [ad. L. pāgān-us, orig. ‘villager, rustic; civilian, non-militant’, opposed to mīlēs ‘soldier, one of the army’, in Christian L. (Tertullian, Augustine) ‘heathen’ as opposed to Christian or Jewish. The Christians called themselves mīlitēs ‘enrolled soldiers’ of Christ, members of his militant church, and applied to non-Christians the term applied by soldiers to all who were ‘not enrolled in the army’. Cf. Tertullian De Corona Militis xi, ‘Apud hunc [Christum] tam miles est paganus fidelis quam paganus est miles infidelis’. See also Gibbon xxi. Cf. payen. The explanation of L. pāgānus in the sense ‘non-Christian, heathen’, as arising out of that of ‘villager, rustic’, (supposedly indicating the fact that the ancient idolatry lingered on in the rural villages and hamlets after Christianity had been generally accepted in the towns and cities of the Roman Empire: see Trench Study of Words 102, and cf. Orosius i Præf. ‘Ex locorum agrestium compitis et pagis pagani vocantur’) has been shown to be chronologically and historically untenable, for this use of the word goes back to Tertullian c 202, when paganism was still the public and dominant religion, and even appears, according to Lanciani, in an epitaph of the 2nd cent.] 1. One of a nation or community which does not hold the true religion, or does not worship the true God; a heathen. (†In earlier use practically = non-Christian, and so including Muslims and, sometimes, Jews.) 2. fig. or allusively. A person of heathenish character or habits, or one who holds a position analogous to that of a heathen in relation to Christian society. etc.
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoGuess I wasn't implying that Romans literally used the word "Pagan" as we use it today, but they had their own religion before Christianity, and also had a word for other religions. So just like Christians call others pagans, The Romans had a word to call out others. (thus my main point, everyone thinks they are the 'one', and have a word to disparage others). So maybe they didn't use Pagan, but Figuratively, they thought of Christians as the weird/low class/savage, "A person of heathenish character or habits, or one who holds a position analogous to that of a heathen". If you are disputing this because by definition "Pagan" means non-Christian, thus by definition Christians can't be "Pagan". Fine, how about "Superstitio"? Suetonius and Tacitus used the terms "superstitio" "On the other hand, Romans believed Christians, who were thought to take part in strange rituals and nocturnal rites, cultivated a dangerous and superstitious" sect.[60]: 125
- soligern 3y agoHow interesting. Is there any religion without any opinion on the afterlife or is that the unifying thing for all religions.
- protomolecule 3y agoHow was it dated?
- defrost 3y agoStable persistent settlement has been dated by genetic clocks, various types of radiological markers on rock art and layered artifacts and middens with ranges at differing locations from comfortably 30k years out to 70k years at a stretch - it's a very big country. eg: at least 50k established by genetics for most of the land area: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature21416 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature21416
- protomolecule 3y agoBut how were the stories dated? 70k is so long before the invention of writing systems.
- theodorejb 3y agoThe Quran says that Allah sent Jesus with the Gospel (Sura 5:46). If this is true, then what Jesus said is true.
- lucozade 3y agoAll of the people that Jesus was referring to did, in fact, die. So that's not going to help the person you're responding to.
- theodorejb 3y agoEyewitnesses wrote that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, and later rose from the dead himself. If this really happened it makes sense why none of the apostles were afraid to die for what they were certain was true.
- lucozade 3y agoSo? The followers still all died. Whether or not they may have been happy about dying doesn't change that. And I'm not sure what Lazarus has to do with this unless your suggesting that his raising means that he couldn't die i.e. he's still alive. That would be a very unusual interpretation.
- theodorejb 3y agoIt shows that this death is like a temporary sleep which God will wake us from. None who believe in Jesus will perish (experience the permanent second death after the judgment). John 5:28-29
- pfdietz 3y agoFlying Spaghetti Monster promises eternal meatballs. Worth looking into? Maybe I should hold out for "and everyone gets a pony."
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- proc0 3y agoYou don't know that.
- aydyn 3y agoYou do know it. All empirical evidence from thousands of years of scrutiny points to you ending when your body dies. You dont treat any other piece of knowledge with the same demand as you do the (lack of) afterlife.
- Bombinator 3y agodude... whether it's jesus or eternal nothingness, it takes faith to believe in both. There's no evidence for any of this so the only correct answer is we don't know. > All empirical evidence from thousands of years of scrutiny Yes, I'm very curious to see empirical evidence of what happens post-death and someone who lived to tell us.
- FrustratedMonky 3y agoSince religions come and go, there are hundreds, it can be empirically reasoned that it isn't Jesus, because Jesus is just the latest made up thing. IF there was one true god/religion, then why haven't we stuck with the same one for 200k years, right from the beginning. Why aren't we born knowing it? Why don't we know it from birth? Instead we believe whatever we were raised with. And that is a pretty flimsy basis to base some actual physical reality that exists after death. On other hand, guess since we don't know what is after death, we can't also say with complete 100% certainty that it is nothing. But for there to be something, then that would mean there is something in this physical reality that gets transported, and we should be able to detect it. And since there has been nothing detected after a lot of tries (experiments), at this time there is nothing.
- proc0 3y agoIt's not empirically testable. Nobody has truly died and come back and no one can. Even if all religions are false it does not follow that there is absolutely nothing after clinical death. This is just a limitation of science, because we need a conscious mind to test and/or interpret the results.
- somenameforme 3y agoWhat do you think would happen if perpetual longevity were achieved? I mean realistically, not ideally? I think it's almost certain we'd see those at the top become [even more] vainly obsessed with their own mortality to the point of doing absolutely every single thing they could, with no norms of behavior, to ensure no other human could ever, under any circumstance - no matter how remote, pose a possible threat to them. You'd most likely have been born into society as something between a serf and a slave, with your life strictly by controlled to ensure you never might imperil the perpetuation of those who would almost certainly come to see themselves as Gods. And no, you wouldn't be immortal. That'd be too risky for the Gods. It'd be the absolute worst of humanity, frozen in time, due to the lack of death. And oh boy, imagine the punishments they could contrive for anybody who might indeed imperil (or even deny) their utter supremacy. How about a million years of torture, if for no other reason than to use you (and the millions of others granted similar accommodation) as warnings to the rest of society? I can say, with at least as much confidence as you express about there being nothing after this life, that this life will end. But the thing I can add to this, is that that's also a very good thing for all of humanity to come.
- fractallyte 3y agoThis is precisely Emperor Cleon's storyline in the TV series Foundation...
- animal531 3y agoWould it be good for the species even if life was fair for everyone? One can easily imagine that it would create stagnation where very little would change over very long periods of time.
- soligern 3y agoSince we’re doing hypotheticals how about this. We colonize mars and have large habitation modules flotations in space. Humanity has a large new space to expand into and doesn’t have to curtail growth rates.
- inkcapmushroom 3y ago