(March 1, 2012 at 12:44 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: This verse is a very strong verse. Notice how it says they will have nothing but the fire in the next world. This leaves no room for paradise after the fire. So it's not even a temporary punishment. Desire of the life of this world is a very natural feeling. Almost every human desires the life of this world. How can God promise hell for everyone for this natural feeling? Now this a very hard verse to justify. So people might say, what it really means is when your main objective is the life of this world as opposed to the next world or pleasure of God.
Hardly surprising.
Every religion in the world asks that you sacrifice the "real and now" for the "imaginary and later". They convince you to make your life on earth miserable while giving the illusion of a better life afterwards. It doesn't matter the "after"- life is supposed to be heaven or reincarnation or nirvana - what matters to them is that you suffer here and now.
The life we have now and our desire for it are what is real and known. That is what we should hold as a primary and as a standard for judging our actions. Religion, which by its definition regards earthly and known life as insignificant, is anti-life. If philosophy is supposed to tell us how to live our lives, religion tells us how to die throughout it.
