Afterlife: Pinker's skeptical thought (Endings)

by dhw, Wednesday, May 27, 2020, 11:19 (1639 days ago) @ David Turell

1st QUOTE: bbb“My belief in the afterlife is based entirely on a logical argument: If there is a just God, it is axiomatic there is an afterlife. There is little justice and fairness in this life, so if there is a just God, there has to be an afterlife. There is only one honest atheist response to this: "There is no God, so there is no afterlife. But if there is a God, you are right that there must be an afterlife."bbb

2nd QUOTE: "'I believe atheism is the least plausible of all the theologies. It is clearly so contrary to what is possible. The idea that all this universe always existed, created itself? I mean, talk about the violation of human rationality."

3RD QUOTE: "And as regards the "malignant" charge, while there are, obviously, good individuals who are atheist, atheism is morally worthless. It makes no moral demands, whereas Judaism and Christianity posit a God who demands people obey, for example, the Ten Commandments.

DAVID: The bold which expresses Prager's point of view is fascinating. It would raise the issue of whether the struggle, which makes life challenging and certainly interesting, was purposely created that way. Without the struggle life would be monotonous and boring, not worth living in my view. Heaven as a reword for struggling is at a child's level of thought.

A fascinating subject, but I find most of these arguments disturbingly silly.
1)The bold. He might just as well say: if there is a God, and if God wants us to have an afterlife, we shall have an afterlife. As regards justice, I hope he realizes that some folk believe in a heaven and a hell. One can also imagine a God who is only interested in what we all get up to in our earthly lives. Why is he bound to give us an afterlife?

2)Why is the idea that the universe “always existed, created itself” more irrational than the idea that a conscious mind capable of creating a universe “always existed” but was never created?

3)Atheism is nothing but a disbelief in God. It does not set out to be a moral code! If human society is to function smoothly, there have to be codes that work for the general benefit, and it is patently absurd to assume that in pre-Jewish and pre-Christian times, humans had no idea how to live together, or what was good and what was bad for the group. And let’s face it, all these religions with their moral codes have been responsible for a whole history of atrocities. Has anybody ever committed atrocities on such a scale in defence of atheism? His condescending reference to good atheist individuals is obnoxious.

I agree with David’s comment: regardless of whether you are a theist, an atheist or an agnostic, life would be dull without all its contrasts, good and bad.