Death Rules, So Is There an Afterlife?

Avatar Ed Sen • 7 hours ago The one issue common to all life forms is death. The question, therefore, is whether or not there exists an afterlife. Can there be an afterlife without God? If not, then that is just more random nonsense. And, if you accept that your existence is nothing but worm food, what a pity. Religion is man's search for God and meaning. I am anti- religion. I am not anti- God.

greenpeaceRdale1844coop Ed Sent • 2 hours ago While religion´s disadvantages have prevailed in my own current lack of involvement, that doesn´t negate its advantages that have played such an important role in my life, and in establishing Western innovations leading to globalization´s positives and the UN human rights and sustainability communities. All of which reflects Jesus´ legacy of loving integrity for Moses and God in University-based society. Your reasoning about "death" and its meaning to life asserting that death is the "one issue (in) common" is fallacious, as any non-biologist could already begin to hypothesize. Your logical attempt to justify the "afterlife" as the "one question" is also undermined by that fallacy. All life depends on the material foundations of existence. That is one key common issue that underlies the OP itself. Where do the material foundations of existence come from? That question, however, begs modern Western Civilization, and its Judeo-Christian prophetic traditional component, along with the clarity of the revived and sustained ancient Greek eclectic elements. Given God´s origin and character in Jesus´ heritage in Moses et al, and his legacy of spiritual-religious tradition, and its philosophical religious clarification as a higher order cause of the Universe, then the question might be, what reasoning relates to an "afterlife"? Human concerns have revolved around it, in relation to humanity´s unique consciousness, a prerequisite to valuing individual identity and conceiving of an afterlife and its potential existence in the first place. Clearly non-Christian tribalists have conceived of realms like the Happy Hunting Grounds, and the question would be if ghost stories, near death experiences (as it were), and reincarnation experiences, along with shamanic visions have provided foundations for accounts. Christianity has its variations of these, including Greek additions, not least of all. While logically not first in significance, their importance is not at all trivial. It is Jesus´ legacy of loving integrity, however, that provides the sense of God´s love in modernity, with all its needs for pluralism. And I don´t deny the contributions of "religion", but I recognize the superior significance of society and more comprehensive contexts that avoid limiting dogmas, facilitate greater spiritual modernization and clarity of understanding, and generate the ability to overcome such limitations as profiteering suicidal genocide by corporate execs and their defenders. • Ed Sen greenpeaceRdale1844coop • an hour ago Name one lifeform tha t does not die and we will see if my reasoning is fallacious. Reasoning life, that is, men have devised various religions in an attempt to answer the question, "why are we here?" And, "how do we attain immortality?" Christianity is unique because it combines the necessity of redemption and God. Hence, revealing God's love and our love for him. • Reply • Share › − Avatar greenpeaceRdale1844coop Ed Sen • 2 minutes ago Again, you set yourself up to be wrong. Death is fascinating in its implications for life. And that means life itself doesn´t end. Apparently, I deduce that you were raised in a theological home. You still grab for theological trains of thought. And its dead ends, buh duh buhm. No pun intended. Death is a condition that structures the need for living organism´s to reproduce. Life is about REPRODUCTION, first and foremost, and SURVIVAL UNTIL REPRODUCTION, which is characterized by the prevention and avoidance of death. Did you get that, or should I put it, the PREVENTION and AVOIDANCE of death. It is thus that Natural Selection operates, that has resulted and continues to pressure DESCENT with MODIFICATION in ECOLOGICAL WEBS and NICHES. Those are formal academic style concepts based on my own education. Humankind hasn´t been inclined to formalize questions, so much as provide adequate answers as part of human culture´s origins in human pragmatic concerns. Japanese swordmaking, as Carl Sagan once presented, had elaborate knowledge stored in ritualized methods. Ritual is far less flexible and can´t be generalized normally as effectively. Human groups did have shamans who developed insights in beautiful and wonderful forms of diversity. Achieving "immortality" is not one of the driving motivations of many more humble and wise traditions. It is an indulgent wish that reflects juvenile and bio-psychological indulgence. In the case of Christianity, Jesus didn´t start out by killing himself to brag about immortality. He taught about many insightful lessons about the reality of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth "not here or there," but within and among you, that involves "taking the plank ot of your own eye" before judging others or bungling with others unsatisfactorily. "Clean the cup on the inside where there is wickedness" gave the clearest psychospiritual insight into the meaning of such famous parables as the "house built on rock, not sand, will stand" and "a woman kneads yeast throughout the dough for all the bread to rise." Jesus´ legacy of loving integrity in University-based society has led philosophy, science, and medicine, and more into therapeutic psychology. While church dogma and doctrine was squeezed by power in the Roman Empire, then shaken into the unprecedented reality of a Roman church with pope and lesser tribal King of Italy in charge, the afterlife as a pleasure in relation to the "nasty, brutish, and short" conditions still prevailing for many is recognizable. Luther had to challenge the newly finagled form of "indulgence" for the poor to fund grand Vatican construction, but even as an educated monk, channeled his pain into Divine grace alone as justification. He lost sight of how rich his education was linked to the love of God in his personal effort. It was that reality that emerged in the English Reformation with George Fox and Margaret Fell´s Quaker-Friends. It was that reality that rode along with the silent worshiping, simple living Quakers building a rock of a reputation that a college grad Anglican gravitated to in igniting abolition in the UK. Other Quakers rolled in waves in the US North, no less, resonating with others. Jesus provided redemption in the form of potentialization and the clarity of God´s love. Jesus´ experience of suffering validated his personal efforts as the Resurrection validated Jesus´ full range of personal efforts and teachings about spiritual practice and the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. As he taught in his actions, he led the disciples to gather bread, to heal, to do good on the Sabbath, among other actions. More recently, Gandhi served as one of the most striking prophets for Jesus´ legacy of loving integrity. Unitarian Universalism provides tools in that vein. Not passive disenfranchisement in traditional dogma, but the democratization of University-based education, political, and economic power in ending absolute monarchy and establishing Civil Rights. My dad left the Catholic church. He embraced modern education in amazing breadth. I grew up fine with no religion in most ways in secularizing society. Profiteering predation through Reaganism didn´t start until I reached high school. And I was looking for truth. Apparently, my love of science without compromise has served me well. As I mentioned, and as you ignored in my comments, life´s physicality and abundance is what biologists study, because all life needs to REPRODUCE if it is to continue existing in its forms. That is empirical reality that cuts the Gordian knot typical of theoretical control oriented formulations like your death-afterlife obsession. And non-sequitor fallacy. No form of life independent of human psychocultural spiritual-religious tradition is concerned with an afterlife. That is an additional refutation of your point. The afterlife is a human perception, and it is the human ability to relate to the Transcendental Creator Entity Himself/Herself/Itself that has made the difference from tribal, non-Christian perceptions of ghosts, reincarnation, and NDEs (as it were). That depends on Jesus´ two Commandments for loving integrity for Moses and God that has established an unprecedented legacy in University-based society for pluralistic worship, human rights, and sustainability.