POLL: Who is going to a better afterlife?

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Another atheist. According to current results there is a horde of atheists at BoM.

 

Rotku, many believe there's more in person than body. You may call it "soul", "Spirit", or by any other names. And many believe that when your corporeal shell dies, the inner, incorporeal part of you shall got to afterlife, or to the religion's respectable choice.
Actually, it's very simple to explain why many think so. Althought I admit it may sound stupid to some, plenty of people think that intelligence and personality can't be just bodily qualities. To some, saying "I'm me, and I can think", is enough to prove that there is more in you.
So, the soul is your mind and personality. So, everyone has one, if any. Or so it has been suggested plenty of times.

Me, myself, I'm not sure. I guess I'll see after I die. Althought the idea of living forever feels a little horrible to me. I would hate a life with no end, no final rest. Perhaps if I can exist, but sleep forever, then I could accept it...

 

Judaism - Orthodox? Did you mean Orthodox Christians or just forget about them? I don't know about different jewish communions so can't tell...

Anyway, I'm a christian - protestant just like the majority of people in Finland.

 

This is yet another one of those questions I'd like to re-ask to the same group of people, about 20 years in the future...

 

@ Late,
No I meant Judaism, I was of two minds whether and how to split it, (main groups being Orthodox, Conservative and Progressive afaik) and (from my very limited knowledge) decided that Orthodox was the most likely to have significantly different views. As I'm not aware of any Orthodox Christians on the boards, so I'm afraid I lumped them in with Christian - Other.

Interesting results so far - the atheists are the easiest to cut out of the stats (which was to be expected.)
Nice to see that currently more than 2/3 of the religious think that religion is irrelevant to a place in the afterlife (assuming nobody is particularly messing with the poll). Maybe their's hope for us atheists afterall!

Need more data. Feed me data...


@Rally,
How do you think the results would change in 20 years?

 

@Carcaroth She possibly means with the encroachment of mortality, quite often with the incipient onset of a bad case of mortality people turn to religion.

From personal experience having had two heart attacks and being faced with the possibility of my own demise, the clock is ticking louder in my case, I am still of the same opinion as I always have been.

Beren made an interesting point about spirits (and it's uncommon knowledge in my case Beren as to where you came from). I also have had personal experience with good, bad and ambivalent spirits (and that's where they are staying, personal) and believe that some part of some people can still be found if they feel they haven't finished some business or want some kind of closure in one way or another.

[ The Native American community within Canada. I'll leave it at that. ] - Beren

[ September 07, 2006, 04:43: Message edited by: Beren ]

 

@Carcaroth: I really don't know how the results would change, I'm simply speculating that they would. I remember voicing many of the same sentiments - equally vociferously, too - when I was 17. I'm curious to see if the folks here are any better at prognostication than I was.

 

When Satan gets old he finds god. I would be disapointed in myself if I due to fear of death and oblivion would turn to the illusion of religon when my life nears its end.

 

There is no Religion. There is no religion either.

The questions we think of as religious are irrelevant, but with profound meaning.

Words are not enough. There is no contradiction.

 

Well, my mom is more than 20 years old than me and she is a stronger atheist than me.

Last year i have helped two very old men in the street who were trying to get to hospital and we walked together there. We spoke as we walked and they had very strong atheist ideas too.

But for some people you may be right. They may change, they could fear from death or they may find a proof of God (at least enough for them). If i can prove its existence to myself i can believe in God too but i would probably wouldn't believe in any religion. Even if God exists it wouldn't need to send messages to us.

 

The main problem that athiest and agnotics would have with the afterlife and paradise is that in order to get into one you must have worshipped a certain god in a certain way, often doing pretty stupid sounding things like never eating pork on tuesdays or something.

Imagine a man who is a doctor and devotes his life to curing the poor for no reward yet he's agnotic or an athiest. He doesn't do anything to hurt anybody else. Yet when he dies he would get a one way ticket to hell according to many religions because he didn't worship some god in the correct manner however he upheld every other requirement and then some in order to get into paradise.

Don't get me started on the Russian Roulette of gods saying "Worship no other god but me."

 

And there you have it.