*Sorry Islamo-Judeo-Christians, the Mongol Hordes were right. *
With no idea of the scoring system, I don’t change a bit.
But, if I had proof of say a christian scoring system…I’ll be at the church bright and early, guitar in hand.
Turn to page 0:28 in your hymnals
If I knew for CERTAIN that there was an afterlife and that ‘good’ people are rewarded and ‘bad’ people are punished, I would be kinder and more charitable. As MoonMoon said, I would expect a ‘good’ person to act with love and kindness.
I don’t live that way today because I need to think of myself and my family. If I spent more time away from my family to help others, that would be less happiness for the people I care about the most in the world. If I gave more of my money away, that would increase the risk that I wouldn’t be able to afford the things that my family and I need and desire. If I knew that there would be 10,000 years of reward/torment associated with my choices, I would be willing to take more risks in my ~100 years on this planet because it would set the stage for the next 10,000.
It would be SUPER annoying to discover that 100 years of the pursuit of self-interest and meanness resulted in 10,000 years of pleasure, though.
If they’re grading on a curve, I think I’ll be alright.
Steve Martin did a short bit about how embarrassing it would be for an atheist to die, only to find himself standing before God at the throne of judgement.
(Newly dead atheist speaking, VERY nervously…)
“Oh, so it’s real…in college they said this was all bullshit… How many times did I take the Lord’s name in vain?? I don’t know, I didn’t keep count. Oh. You did?..
A MILLION AND SIX TIMES? JESUS CHRIST!”
Also: Post #4 speaks for me too.
I already live my life as if there’s certainty of an afterlife, so no, I probably wouldn’t change.
What the heck could I do? I try to be an OK person, and maybe this would inspire me to try harder, and maybe I could rediscover my dormant Lutheranism, but what guarantees do I have? Maybe the only people to get the nice afterlife are Mormons or Muslims or Satanists. Maybe you have to wear a green shirt every Tuesday, or caw every time you see a crow. How could I possibly know?
Given this list, there’s a strong possibility that an Evil Deity has set things up.
So I will carry on trying to be a decent person and not think about the afterlife.
At least I will have a clear conscience to comfort me if the worst happens.
This is pretty much the deal already with Islam-Judaism-Christianity.
For the OP: I would hunt down the best mediums and pay them to do seances (independent of each other). I would hire people to pay the Ouija board with a list of questions I give them. Then I would collect the data and study it to determine:
- What are the selection criteria for the pleasurable and painful versions of the afterlife
- How many people went where; the percentages
- Try to determine what kind of dumb god ordained this, and how to please/piss him/her off while still alive
- Publish the findings, in the spirit of fighting ignorance
And hopefully I will also get filthy rich and famous.
I am surprised we haven’t seen ‘scientific’ research along these lines from the proponents of the above religions, complete with colorful graphs and equations. Would have immense value while pitching Jesus before the skeptical pagan masses.
This. It’s unlikely that good deeds will be rewarded; either the entity in question wants to encourage evil or has set things up so that everyone goes to hell. And i refuse to run around raping and murdering just to make an evil god happy.
If this is anything like the Monty Hall problem, it’s better odds if you change your choice of actions whatever they were.
But what if we eliminate all those things, and we create a perfect world for nothing?
I’d place my bet on my afterlife being like my life, as if I got another 10,000 years of whatever my earthly life was. So I’d try to live like I want the afterlife to be.
It’s not, so…?
Well, the bloodthirsty angry gods will no doubt turn that “bugger em” around for the next 10,000 years. Enjoy the fruits of your impudence.
Joke’s on you, if you’re wrong.
None of us have a chance if the Gods are that petty.
It occurs to me that the worldwide suicide rate would go up. 100-ish years of life in this world that we know about, good and bad. Then 100 times that in an afterlife, which has got to be better (if you make it to the right place). Who wouldn’t want to get to that right away? Okay, lots of folks, and it’s rolling the dice anyway that you don’t go down instead of up, but I think there’d be a significant slice of folks who’d want to cut to the chase, as they aren’t finding this life to be all that snazzy, as compared to a dream of what the afterlife may actually be.
No it doesn’t. You specified “acting from love”. I have a mother whose heart is stored in her wallet, next to the second thing she loves best; the first thing she loves best is herself. I have coworkers/clients whose love of power and secrecy is a continuous obstacle to the work and stress levels of their coworkers. Many people’s xenophobia is linked to a concept of the world where loving your people inevitably requires hating those who are not; they’re usually the same people who think* that the world is a zero-sum game in all things and who can therefore not conceive of any kind of win-win situation. My Granfather From Hell’s love of fucking was directly linked to his sexual assaults or rapes of multiple people: his love of self-gratification trumped his respect for anybody.
“Acting from love” isn’t particularly good when the love itself or the loved thing are bad.
- For a very loose usage of “think”.
I don’t think there’s really any wiggle-room with this hypothetical.
I generally like to think of myself as a good person – I give to charity, I help others when I can, I try to fight bigotry, injustice and so on.
But if I knew for sure there are two afterlives, one good one bad, I’d probably give up all my possessions and spend the rest of my mortal life building schools or looking after people with ebola say. It would be too much of a coincidence for reality to line up so well with the mythology of religions like Christianity, so I’d be willing to bet “be good” would be the way into the good afterlife, and suicide wouldn’t cut it.
And it’s not the sort of thing I would want to risk with “Meh, I think I’m good enough now”.
disclaimer: I’m an atheist, so just speaking hypothetically