(September 28, 2011 at 4:26 pm)Zaki Aminu Wrote: If there is an Afterlife, it would be the greatest foolishness and tragedy to miss out on it, would it not? So, it follows from that that no effort should be spared in determining whether or not it does indeed exist. I have not come across a single person who regards the Afterlife as non-existent who has made anything like a serious effort to find out for themselves whether or not it actually exists. Just claiming that others haven't proved its existence to you hardly helps matters, does it?
How does one go about determining that an afterlife exists?
OK, for arguments sake, lets say that there is an afterlife.
Now what? How does one know what would cause them to miss out on it? How do we know that missing out on it would be a bad thing?
Of all the gods described in various Bronze Age texts, only 2 seem to reward believers. So, right from the start we have many more gods that don't seem to mind if you believe they exist or not.
And that only takes into consideration the gods described in the various texts. What's to say that the god that exists is one that isn't in any of the texts?
There are literally an infinite number of gods that could be described that have all sorts of different rules for getting into their afterlives.
My favorite god is the one that rewards those of us that have determined, using the brain he gave us, that there was insufficient evidence to justify belief he exists. The afterlife is filled with non-believers.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
