Huh? I’m not just Christian but (Ordained) Rostered Laity.
Or in other words – what you talkin’ bout Willis?
to which you replied
to which I replied
OK - I treat most matters of religion in a rather light-hearted manner but its because I trust in God and I’m comfortable with the life I have lead. I may burn in Hell or I may not; or I could have been fooling myself all these years and this world is all we get. But believe me - an atheist I ain’t. No insult taken but I want you to understand/know.
This answer makes more sense to me than people who say “there is no such thing as an afterlife so I don’t take the deal.”
What I don’t understand is how a viewpoint based in healthy skepticism remains intact after meeting a magical creature. At the very least, wouldn’t you have to step back and reconsider the foundations of what you know to be true?
And if, even after meeting the creature, you still believe you’re being flimflammed in some way - why wouldn’t you agree to its terms? Magic isn’t real and it can’t take your stuff away.
That said, isn’t this just kind of a roundabout way of asking “would you give up everything to know whether or not there is/are god(s)?” Are there people who believe in an afterlife, but don’t believe in gods or some kind of transcendent beings?
I approached the question as I approach other such hypotheticals, which is that the mechanism for how it’s possible is not the question. IOW, that the question I answered isn’t “OMIGOD, THERE’S A MAGICAL BEING! WHAT NOW?”
I didn’t take it as criticism. And, to be clear, I’m not certain I am right about the OP’s intent. I just have a lot of conversations with my husband that start with things like “A time fairy comes to you and says you can travel back in time to a specific date…”
Give everything up to find out if there is a magical totally undescribed candyland(for which there is no evidence to date) that we go to after we die? That makes even less sense than giving up all your worldly goods to find out if you win the Powerball next Friday if you buy a ticket, because there is actual evidence that hundreds of people have won that.
OP here. There’s just no other way to frame it. I do it knowing full well all of the smartass pedants will come out of the woodwork and focus on the wrong part of the question. Leave out the magical being, and instead you get “who’s making me this offer and how do I know they’re on the up and up?”
No, because the only answer that would make me happy, is “yes, there’s an afterlife”. I’d hate to lose all my stuff to “nope, you’re just worm food” (which I already suspect is true).
Yup.
I voted no, obviously for other reasons, but for you the bet makes no sense. That’s perfect.
My issue was trying to avoid the problem completely by refusing to accept the hypothetical. Once you accept the premise, then vote as you please but many (not you) try to side step the simple topic.
Using your example I could say instead of afterlife maybe “How much would you pay for a 50% chance of being the single winner the powerball?” Trying to explain that magical beings don’t exist, or that lotteries are scams, or not thinking it would do it, destroys the point of the thread.
You’re making an awful lot of unwarranted assumptions about the form you take in this supposed afterlife, namely that you will have your existing everyday human-type consciousness and memories, so that, when dead, you’ll be able to say “aha, so this is what happens!”. That’s a pretty mundane and unimaginative assumption for something so allegedly fantastic as a magical afterlife. Isn’t it equally likely that you turn into a galactic energy field, or a subatomic particle, or get reincarnated as a housefly?
Right, and it’s just as obvious why we invented the idea as what obviously happens after death. What happens is the same thing that happens to all things that die: they decompose and return to the earth. Since this is not a comforting thought for many, and consciousness just seems too basic a thing to just disappear, fairy tales were invented back before people understood evidence-based critical thinking. But now we do, and as someone else already implied, most of us are a little too old to believe in fairy tales.
You don’t have to be an atheist to recognize this basic truth. If there is a God in some sense of a power that created the universe, it isn’t one that works simplistic magic on behalf of one species on one planet in a far corner of a random galaxy. That species did have lots of motivation, though – both psychological and sociopolitical – to spin moralistic fairy tales to that effect.
There is little in life we can be 100% certain of - heck, this could all be a simulation! Matrix baby! But we don’t require 100% certainty to “know” things. For example I know that I don’t have six billion dollars in my bank account. Now, am I absolutely certain that some weird billionaire hasn’t gone into my bank today and deposited a huge pile of cash in my name? Can I prove, with my current knowledge, that that hasn’t happened? No!
But seriously, I know I don’t have six billion dollars.
And equally seriously, I know that when people die, they die.
