A magical being appears before you and offers you the absolute, 100% honest truth about what happens after death, in exchange for every single thing you own?
You will have THE answer but must proceed forward with nothing; all of your possessions, your house, your car, your bank accounts, any other assets you have, even the clothes off your back, POOF they’re gone.
Do you take the deal?
Nah. He could be lying!
And I’ll figure it out sooner or later anyway.
I cannot comprehend the “I don’t know what happens after death but I’ll find out eventually” mindset. This is like someone about to skydive out of an airplane, saying, “I can’t remember if my parachute was properly packed, or if I even brought one or not, but guess I’m about to find out!”
However, you have the rest of your life to make sure it’s packed properly or repack it if needed.
No. Why on Earth would you?
Okay, you know for sure what happens…now what? You’re still alive and you’re life is going to be miserable for a good while (at least) because you’ve got nothing and need to start over.
Whatever happens, happens. Something, nothing…it doesn’t matter, because it’s not like you can do anything about it.
What is the alternative? Barring a magical being appearing in front of you, of course.
I’ve been living in a state of “I don’t know but I’ll find out eventually” for my entire life. I haven’t found it particularly burdensome.
I’m not giving up all my worldly possessions for something I’m already 99.99% sure of.
Well, I wouldn’t because I would be pretty pissed if I gave up all my shit and the mysterious answer was “Nothing. Your body will just rot”. But thinking “meh, I’ll find out eventually” is kind of loco. A whole bunch of religions align what you do in life with your after life prospects. Magical being’s answer could be “meditate for 20 minutes a day and you’ll be in Nirvana or reincarnated, everyone else gets eternal blackness”. What good is that answer going to do you if you’re already dead?
So I answered “no” but not for the reason given after the comma in the poll option.
100% for me.
I won’t find out eventually. I’ll be dead. That works for me.
Death is the one thing you can’t control. I can make the choice to not skydive out a plane without a parachute.
I had an atheist friend in college, and it used to drive him crazy when we argued about the afterlife and the existence of God. Because I pointed out that if he was right, neither of us would ever know it. Whereas if I was right, we both would. His statement was unprovable; mine wasn’t.
Regards,
Shodan
Assuming that it’s not a trick question, as it almost sounds like the being is going to give me first hand knowledge, I would still say no.
Either it is as I suspect, and it is simply an end of existence, in which case, I have given up substantial chance for happiness or at least comfort in the only existence that matters. Or it’s not the end, and I’ll be very surprised, but wouldn’t be any better off having had known, and having had spent the remainder of my existence in misery.
The only answer that he could give that would be useful is that the after life is awesome, and I should go ahead and go right now, which I might as well, as I’ve already shed my earthly possessions. (Or, that there is a line in front of the Pearly Gates, and Peter isn’t a very efficient doorman. Every day on earth puts another 150,000 people in line in front of me. If he can interview and greet 100 an hour [which sounds about right, given the length of most Pearly Gates jokes], and works 8 hours a day, that means that every day I stay mortal, is over half a year I have to wait in line.)
As my knowing won’t have any effect on where I’m going, it doesn’t do me any good.
What if both of you were wrong? He didn’t believe in a god, and you believed in the wrong god?
I expect nothing after death. I believe that this us the one life we get, for a double handful of years if we’re lucky.
I cannot think of a greater sin than to deliberately make someone else’s brief life more uncomfortable than it needs to be. I try to treat everyone with respect and kindness because of this belief.
If “form of worship” is really 90% of our final grade then I admit we are all royally fucked. But as everyone else says, I’ll be finding out soon enough.
As I said, that’s not a valid assumption. If the magical creature says “the buddhists are right” or “the mormons are right” then knowing gives you time to either aim for a great reincarnation or your own planet.
The magical being is only telling you what happens after death, not what path to take to get to where you want to be, nor what religion, or denomination, or sub denomination, or individual belief is the key.
Actually it would be like being on an airplane and not knowing whether you’ll crash (and die) or land safely. That is, one of those outcomes is inevitable - it WILL happen (yeah, yeah, you could crash and only be badly injured - I get that there may be other alternatives in between). But as with life, once you’re on that plane, you’re somewhat committed to whatever the outcome is.
Which leads to what might be a better poll question. This magical stranger doesn’t tell you anything about what happens when you die, or how you will die. BUT he can tell you exactly WHEN you will die. The catch being that if he tells you, it will be 5 years earlier than had he not told you. Would you want to know ?
No, but if he gives me that offer, at least I know that I live another 5 years.
I’d have been a lot more interested in knowing for sure back about 40 years ago when I was mostly broke.