BELIEF is not complicated. (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, May 29, 2008, 19:17 (6022 days ago) @ Cary Cook

Cary's emotional, motivational commitment to belief in a just afterlife comes from his will, and is based mainly on fear of suicide. "Life sucks", and if his hope for a just afterlife is not fulfilled, he will have wasted his life, nihilism is true, and nothing matters. - I share George's concern at your depressed view of life and the universe, but am struggling to find a clear line of thought. To be honest, I've never known of anyone before who has embraced Christianity because he thought God had made a complete mess of the world. You seem to be forcing yourself to believe in a just afterlife against the evidence and because it is your only hope of making up for a lousy life.
 
 I find myself largely in agreement with George's response to you, and so I will try to cover ground that he does not cover. Firstly, from my neutral standpoint (there may or may not be an afterlife, it may or may not be just), there are three possibilities: - 1) No afterlife, and we attain perfect peace after "life's fitful fever". OK, so be it.
2) A happy afterlife. Great.
3) A miserable, unjust afterlife. No, thank you. I'd prefer 1). - In terms of this life, we all have our own criteria for what constitutes pleasure and for what constitutes pain. Provided the pleasure, whatever it may be, is not harmful to yourself or to others, I see no earthly reason why you should not indulge. If you think there is a heavenly reason, then sort out your priorities: if you think God would disapprove, then maybe it's not "kosher" and you won't enjoy it anyway, so it won't be a pleasure. I can't see that it makes any difference whether we're in for 1), 2) or 3). - "Nothing matters" (if there is no afterlife) seems pretty blinkered to me. Every moment matters, whether there is or isn't an afterlife. Which do you prefer: a) to eat a good meal, or b) to have your leg broken in ten different places? This has nothing whatsoever to do with religion. If you are happier at this moment doing a) than doing b), how can you say nothing matters? If it matters to you, it matters. And the same applies to every human being you know of, regardless of beliefs. The fact that it won't matter in 100 years' time is irrelevant. I'd go further, though. If there's no afterlife, then the present matters even more. - Life is made up of present moments which become our personal reality. When I lie dying, I hope to look back on a life in which I have enjoyed the activities I like, have made people happier for knowing me, have fulfilled whatever talents I had, have left the world a better place for my having been here ... and all the other goodie-goodie platitudes you can think of. That doesn't make me impervious to the suffering I see around me. I don't know if it's God's fault, man's fault, or the fault of an impersonal universe, but whichever it is makes no difference to my way of life or to my certainty that I am happier doing things that make me happy than I would be doing things that make me unhappy. And so are other people. If those things square with my conscience, I see no reason why God ... if he's there ... should object, and I see no reason to behave differently according to whether there is or isn't an afterlife. - I am now more bewildered than ever by your claim that belief is not complicated. Yours is the most complicated belief I have ever come across.