The existence of an eternal afterlife is proven definitively. It’s a place of unimaginable bliss, fulfillment, wonder etc and is governed by a generic, deistic, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and omnibenevolent God. Every person that dies goes to this afterlife regardless of their virtue or immorality while alive. There is no Hell, Purgatory or anything like it. As soon as you die you instantly enter this afterlife without issue. You’ll permanently retain your memories, personality and everything else that makes you “you” though you can alter and enhance it as you see fit. In this afterlife you can do basically anything you want. You can spend time with dead loved ones and other people, indulge in hedonism, uncover the secrets of the universe, create and explore worlds of your own creation etc.
In this scenario would death in the living world still be bad and something to avoid like it is now where as far as we know your consciousness ceases to exist when your mortal body expires?
How would living people on Earth see death and killing from this point on?
Of course not, but I suspect that most of the religious believers in a blissful afterlife are not so sure about it, as usual attitudes about earthly death prove.
I’ve known plenty of Born Again Christians who were sure that Heaven awaits them and that it will be heavenly but still were extremely displeased while slowly dying.
Can you die in this afterlife? Is there yet another afterlife beyond that one? In what sense is this life merely an afterlife? Aren’t we talking about reincarnation?
You can’t die. There’s no other world beyond it. It’s an afterlife because it’s a supernatural realm where people go after they die in the mortal world.
A painless death wouldn’t be bad. Many deaths are not painless. Furthermore, even if this were proven beyond a reasonable doubt (e.g. people from the afterlife regularly communicating verifiable information to both myself and the people around me), I would be reluctant to embrace it because I am human and humans generally fear death.
They covered this in The Good Place. Eternity is a very long time, and basically people got bored there, so they instituted a way of painlessly leaving the afterlife and just going away. So, you had as much time to do whatever you wanted, discover whatever you wanted, etc., and when you were ready, you just walked through a door and ceased to be.
Spoiled for people who still haven’t watched that fantastic series.
Forget “spending time with loved ones”, just show me where they keep the hookers and blow.
Not sure if I could overcome the natural fear of dying, but an assured blissful afterlife would make it an easier pill to swallow…particularly if they gave me a pill to swallow that knocked me out during the dying bit.
However, I would like to wait till I’m old and feeble…which will be about 6 months from now.
I have observed that the majority of the Religiously Inclined are more interested in seeing other people dammed to Hell than in being Saved themselves.
What is Heaven without Schadenfreude ?
There can still be value in living this life such that death would be “bad.”
For example, you want to raise your children. Your spouse/SO will miss you (not to mention other family and loved ones). You want to finish your book/music composition/invention.
We will all die, no need to rush it even if it is more pleasant than your current life (with the caveat of terminally ill people not wishing to suffer any longer).
They want to spend time with me, I however do not want to spend time with them. I can’t stand them, I coudn’t stand them back then on Earth, I can’t stand them now and I won’t be able to stand them for all eternity. This is not a
as long as other people are different, this place is a contradictio in adjecto: impossible and still unbearable. Thank Godott for that. The fact that my
Notice I said “You can spend time with dead loved ones.” I never said you had to. I didn’t want to make the post too long with details but in this afterlife you don’t have to see anyone you don’t want to or anyone at all. You can reside in your own personal domain where you can do whatever you want short of creating actual sentient people.
When you see a young child experience happiness, it’s so full. I also see that in pets. I remember a time when I was expansively happy; I didn’t know anything about death, sex, or the burden of work to support myself.
As an adult, I think we vaguely realize we passed through some things that we can’t un-know. But as a tradeoff, we can experience more complex pleasures. If there is something after death, maybe it’s like that.
One of my favorite movies is “Defending Your Life.” Albert Brooks dies and goes to the afterlife, where they have a sort of trial to determine if he overcame fear enough on Earth to go on to the next phase. He’s meeting with his “lawyer” over lunch. He orders something like you’d get in a restaurant here, but his lawyer is eating something strange looking. Brooks is invited to try it and he does, and it tastes awful. His lawyer laughs, says something to the effect (because he uses 48% of his brain instead of 3% like Albert), “I use my mind to control how it tastes.” Wow, what if you could eat only healthy things yet make it taste like anything you want? Where do I sign up?
So maybe it’s like that…brain power could turn a root canal into the best massage you ever had, etc. Anyway here’s a trailer.
But what if they want to see me? I am just pointing at a logical contradiction: either their wish or my wish will go unfulfilled.
Or is this “heaven” just for me and nobody else? Then it’s me who cannot see them, because they don’t exist. As long as there is more than one actor, there will be contradictions. And if there is only one actor, I see solipsism.
This is pretty much where I am. Furthermore, I don’t want to die anytime soon—and this is still true under the OP’s scenario—because I feel that I still have unfinished business here in this life. I want my life to matter, to make a difference somehow, and once I die I’ve lost my chance for that.
Yeah, this. While there may be people who want to continue in their current life (see some above), there will be a whole lot wo hate this life, or who just want the much, much better life to come a lot more.
There’s a reason most religions that believe in a beautiful afterlife also consider suicide a mortal sin. If suicide still gets you into Heaven, then a lot of people will do it.
H. Beam Piper wrote a story in which reincarnation, rather than heaven, was confirmed to be real. The society that developed didn’t have a major suicide problem (although it was common for people with painful medical conditions), because what life you’d end up with the next time around was thought to be random, so few people were willing to gamble. But they did have a pretty relaxed attitude towards killing in general. Murder becomes a bit less serious when it’s seen as akin to hitting the reset button on a video game.
I suspect the OP’s scenario would produce a similar effect. “So what if I killed him? I did him a favor, now he’s living it up in the afterlife!”
As someone who takes Christianity semi-seriously, what little can be read between the lines in the Bible about after death seems at least to me to lend credence to this idea. Jesus says that God is the God of the living, not of the dead, and Thessalonians says that the passed away “sleep” in Christ. It’s also said of God that Heaven is his throne and Earth is his footstool. Plus of course the fact that the book of Revelations says that after the end of our current universe there will be a new heaven and a new Earth. IOW, physical existence seems to count for something. What “The Kingdom of Heaven” is I don’t profess to know; but it’s supposable that it’s more of realm of Platonic archetypes, of existence in potentia.
I did explicitly say you can do “basically” anything you want. There are a small handful of limits that have to exist otherwise it would fall apart and wouldn’t be Heaven so to speak. You can’t make yourself omnipotent like God, you can’t interact with the living and you can’t interfere with other people’s afterlife if they don’t consent. For example a bigot couldn’t spend their time harassing people they dislike but they could conjure artificial people that don’t have actual minds and harass them in their own world if they wanted.
