Just think of your afterlife as being exactly like your life before you were conceived.
I've heard this lots before and the thought doesn't make it better. I didn't have sentience at that point and didn't know what I was gaining.
I know exactly what I'm inevitably losing, I just don't know when and how I will. Waiting to blink out of existence is a burden the truly faithful don't have. I'm envious, even if I know it's ridiculous.
EDIT: Obligatory George Costanza:
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Last edited by Yamer; 03-16-2021 at 05:43 PM.
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The only thing worse than the thought of living forever is the thought of living forever solely to praise another being. Ohhhh, God, you're so great, let me bask in your glow with 85 billion of my closest friends every single day forever. Yeah, nothingness sounds pretty fataing sweet compared to that.
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I've heard this lots before and the thought doesn't make it better. I didn't have sentience at that point and didn't know what I was gaining.
I know exactly what I'm inevitably losing, I just don't know when and how I will. Waiting to blink out of existence is a burden the truly faithful don't have. I'm envious, even if I know it's ridiculous.
EDIT: Obligatory George Costanza:
I want that on my Tombstone.
"You owe me for the Soup."
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Good to see that some of them are telling the Pope to get bent.
As much flack as the Catholic Church gets, it's the only major denomination that has these debates. The Orthodox Church condemns homosexuality in even stronger terms and if anyone even brings up the issue, they are excommunicated. In fact, when Pope Francis softened his stance on same-sex issues, the Orthodox Church went full on recruitment mode to convert Catholics to Orthodoxy in places like Russia, Greece, and the Middle East. Many Protestant sects are also more conservative on the issue than the Catholic Church.
A lot of these stances are political more than anything. Catholics in liberal countries demand changes, but the religion is growing faster in 3rd world countries that tend to be more conservative. So do you cater to Europe which has a decreasing Catholic element, or to Latin America where the religion is thriving and machismo is king?
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Last edited by FlamesAddiction; 03-16-2021 at 06:41 PM.
Sliver i agree with many of your points but sometimes when you do these grand stands you end up in shark jumping territory when you’re on a roll.
Pretty sure catholic schools are not teaching kids to hate gay people but sure, whatever you say haha. You take a well reasoned and good post and then discolour it with that kind of gigantic leap.
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As much flack as the Catholic Church gets, it's the only major denomination that has these debates. The Orthodox Church condemns homosexuality in even stronger terms and if anyone even brings up the issue, they are excommunicated. In fact, when Pope Francis softened his stance on same-sex issues, the Orthodox Church went full on recruitment mode to convert Catholics to Orthodoxy in places like Russia, Greece, and the Middle East. Many Protestant sects are also more conservative on the issue than the Catholic Church.
A lot of these stances are political more than anything. Catholics in liberal countries demand changes, but the religion is growing faster in 3rd world countries that tend to be more conservative. So do you cater to Europe which has a decreasing Catholic element, or to Latin America where the religion is thriving and machismo is king?
I guess that should maybe be a concern if you are running a business, not dealing with human decency.
I definitely disagree with that. I think this is a major problem with respect to talking about religion - the people who don't believe in it don't believe that the people who do believe in it actually believe in it. As a non-believer, it's pretty hard to put yourself in the shoes of a believer, unless you were one previously and have been disabused of those notions.
No loving God is offering up any virgins, I mean who the hell wants that drama for eternity? a loving God would know you need three or four been around the block lasses who can cook clean and suck the chrome off a bumper hook possibly at the same time.
Plus, have you been with a virgin, generally there is a fair amount of awkwardness and discomfort in the process. Typically after a little experience you can have a lot more fun
Spoiler!
then you can get married and fondly remember that fun.
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Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt towards the promised land where they congregated at the foot of Mount Sinai, where Moses had ascended to receive the law from God.
After 40 days at the top of Mount Sinai, Moses wandered halfway down where his brother Aaron was waiting. “Moses, what took you so long, the people have sinned and are praying to false idols, among other blasphemy...”
Moses asked Aaron, “would you like the good news first or the bad news?”
Aaron replied “ok let’s have the good news”, to which Moses said, “well, I got Him down to ten....”
“And the bad news?...”
“Adultery is still in.”
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Just imagine the meltdowns we are going to have when the aliens arrive and tell us the truth about religion and God.
And what is that truth? That God doesn't exist? Prove it. You can't. Just like they can't prove God does exist. I don't see any meltdowns, I see many embracing their faith that much more and seeing this as a sign of God's greatness and mystery.
This is not a question of intelligence or reason, this is a question of faith and belief. You can't reason someone away from their faith in something. Faith only changes over time and after exposure to new and different perspectives on issues, allowing the individual to find the inconsistencies in narratives themselves. If you try to reason with someone in regards to their faith, it just forces that person to dig in that much harder in defense of their faith. Faith is only abandoned from internal pressures created to the individual's beliefs, morals, and values by the individual themselves. External stimuli like aliens landing may drive some to question certain beliefs, but it may also drive them deeper towards their faith as their faith allows them to manage and have answers for the unknown.
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You know they are already laughing at us.
You mean like we laugh at our pets? An advanced life form is very much unlikely to laugh at us out of anything but wonder or amusement, just as we do when we observe other life forms in our biome. And the reason we laugh at these "lower" life forms as we observe them? Because we anthropomorphize their behaviors so they are relatable to our reality. We project our behaviors on them, see similarities, then laugh because they are incongruent with our norms of behavior. So it is highly unlikely that an alien life form observing us is laughing at us for our belief structures or religious standards. It is very likely the only time they laugh at us, if they laugh at all, is when they see us perform something similar to their cultural paradigm, but at a ridiculously incongruent way.
Quote:
Religious types are gonna lose it.
I doubt it. They will double down and claim the contact to be a miracle and a display of God's wonder or power. Again, the faith is unlikely to be immediately shaken, it will actually force the most faithful to retreat to where their strength is, and that is faith itself.
I guess that should maybe be a concern if you are running a business, not dealing with human decency.
I can't say I disagree. There is an undeniable hypocrisy with the Church being both a religion and a business.
I think Francis has the right ideas from the religious perspective, but the bureaucracy prevents real change. There is a strong influence from outside of Rome.
While Francis's more liberal initiatives were good at satisfying dissident Catholics in the West, they alienated conservative Catholics. In the U.S., Catholics used to overwhelmingly vote for Democrats because of their belief in social contracts and responsibility. Now it is roughly 50-50 as some people feel the Church slipped too far left, they look to secular institutions.
It's feedback loop. The Church influences secular society, but secular society influences the Church. I just hope the more liberal component keeps chipping away, but it's a really slow battle. It turns out that if the Church doesn't promote what people want, they will convert to find other methods to get what they want. The religion is far less influential than it was in the past IMO. They are now adapting to local customs and are finding they can't pull the strings like they used to.
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"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse. An optimist knows they can."
Good hopefully soon they will be complete non-existent.
I think it will eventually, at least in its current form. It's just a matter of what replaces it.
There has actually been dialogue about Anglican-Catholic unification. The two Churches have a joint committee to see how they can make that happen. This is the direction European and North American Catholics would go. When it comes to fundamental beliefs, the two are actually pretty compatible. The Anglicans are just more liberal on the peripheral issues which is the direction most Western Catholics want to go anyway.
But there has also been dialogue recently about re-unifying Catholics and Orthodoxy. The head Patriarch in Constantinople (yes, they still call it that), has said publicly that he thinks it is inevitable that the two join. This would appeal to the conservative members more so in conservative places like Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East where Christianity is quickly dying out in favour of Islam. I could totally see the Catholic Church breaking up.
It could hold out in Latin America and maybe Philippines, although Islam is catching on in those regions too.
The demise, or radical change in the structure of of the Catholic Church wouldn't just be a religious change, but it would have huge geopolitical implications too. Whether that is better or worse in the long run, it's impossible to say. It just depends on what fills the vacuum I guess. We're talking about a process not likely to happen soon, but it could be something our children and grandchildren see.
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"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse. An optimist knows they can."
Anyone who thinks religion will die out any time soon is delusional. The great majority of people in the world are religious, and they have larger families than the irreligious. China, regarded as the largest irreligious country in the world, has an estimated 60 million Christians (and growing fast) and 20 million Muslims. That’s as many people as there are in Germany, Europe’s largest country. Some estimates predict that within the next 20 years, China will have more Christians than the U.S.
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