Indeed until just now I hadn't gone through it all. Some topics I consciously avoided in th epast, this was one of them.
Fascinating topic. I'm glad I wasn't around to ruin it with my drivel - its a great brick in the monument.
Also identifies a rather morose picture of what the forum has become. Good-tempered deep conversations with different perspectives maintained over pages of posts in the days of old, now new posts are short and silly one liners with longer posts totally ignored.
We are but a shadow. [/overly dramatic]
Lmao.
I'm taking my games and miniatures with me, motha fuckas!
"Bury me with my money" 
.
I honestly feel that the existence of an eternal afterlife drains all meaning from living. What is the point of your flicker of life when all that matters happens after? (rhetorical question, I'm not asking someone for an answer). I probably feel something along the lines of Koringhus and his jump off the cliff - if there is an eternity, might as well start it now. (btw, I'm not suicidal or recommending that anyone). Not sure how to articulate it otherwise, I just feel that life is far more meaningful when its all you have.
And, in fact, many religions have enduring stances on suicide (for and against), which I've always found interesting as per comments like yours here.
Probably repeating Past Madness, even in this thread, but if eternal oblivion (because eternity is the given that my brain both assumes and has never been able to process, despite much anxiety over the course of my life), then it is incumbent on those living to make this life on earth thing as amazing and fulfilling in as many instances as we possibly can.
I mean, I'm by no means a utilitarian, but is this really the "best" we can do? (Obviously, not directed at you specifically, #2.)
I also ultimately don't see a difference between the two options either, since a person can choose to live their life any way they like, regardless of their belief structure. People who do good, and people who do bad, exist on both sides of the line.
Nitpicking but that's just not accurate. For instance, in context of your above suicide commentary, suicide is automatic Damnation as far as I recall my Roman Catholic upbringing but - as I poorly understand it - grants you a place with the Almighty (bonus virgins to endlessly defile) in certain sects of Islam, supposing you take a couple infidels with you.
Behaving outside of your ideological dictates just isn't possible for most *true believers.* (Which highlights once again why these conversations get so convoluted and unintelligible so quickly, especially in contexts not here, where most of us have been cracked open to certain degrees by Bakker's writings.)
But, you're not necessarily correct - an afterlife is wide open, which could be our experience here is important for our growth after death ( and not a reward/penalty phase of existence, but continuation in some fashion ).
Again, barring our own Inverse Fire, we just have no way knowing (and even in conversations regarding Earwa's reality, the IF's accuracy is subject to much debate). I happen to agree - as I believe Past Madness also did (though, I should really read his old posts before speaking for him) - that I find the idea of humans having it "all figured out" unlikely.
But again - as noted - this conversation always just brings me back to doing better now for ourselves and more importantly for any of those (un)lucky enough to come after us currently contemporary living beings. Hell, take the reincarnation stance and pay it forward to your future self, ffs (not you in specific, Tao, the Royal You - that is to say, all of us).
We can't prove it to each other for the same reason we cannot see our souls, but we can prove it to ourselves. I'm open to I could well be deluded, but I claim I see God. I get it, the really real world has no color or sound and our brains are deliberately generating the conscious experience of color and sound for survival advantage ... but the beauty of this experience is Godly. Trees are purty. To me anyways 
Interesting, Tao. I haven't asked - though I think it came up a couple pages ago in your original post in thread - but are you devout?
I just don't follow why some people (not anyone here) would think that life ending (meaning nothing is after), if true, means that life is meaningless or pointless. Consider, you know that a video game will end, but you still play it. The whole point is to go through (with) it.
I think it becomes problematic because many of us are raised *inside* (differing) ideologies. Thus, instead of just doing playing the game as best we can, the starting conditions for most people are to quibble and quake as we worry about the possibility of our eternal souls and acting in accordance with the rules dictated by the Magical Belief Lottery Winning Ideology (something something Bakkerism
).
As per Fanayal, the majority of the world is still at Shimeh, screaming at each other across the fields "
Who is the true voice of God?" while we fuck-kill-repeat the vicious cycle.
Perhaps, a "God-less" generation of atheists or agnostics will do much better or worse moving forward
.
Well said, thanks. Otherwise it seems to me we're just machines marveling that we know we are. If nothing more beyond what we can discover, why marvel at anything?
Because it is absurd. Because why this rather than nothing? Because what is this? Just what the fuck is going on here?
Living should engender marvel and awe.
