(April 9, 2015 at 10:03 pm)datc Wrote: It's not mythology but an argument.
1. If you don't desire to live forever now, then you have no reason to prepare yourself for eternal life.
2. Even if upon entering heaven or paradise and seeing for yourself what it's like, you change your mind, an unprepared person cannot remain there, as he has not proofed himself again suicide even after "8 trillion" years of existing there.
3. What your fate may be is anyone's guess; for example, you may be reincarnated again and again until you are so eager to live that even eternal life will be worth living while being yourself.
4. A considered and fully informed decision to die forever will likely be honored.
5. Then: If you definitely want to live forever, you can; and if you definitely want to die, you also can. These are mutually exclusive: an eternal life is forever; dying at any point means that life is not forever and so not eternal.
6. The former entails preparing yourself for it. For example, one thing you need to do is to cement your own personality, so that you are not ashamed of anything in yourself and can enjoy your life without guilt.
7. If there is no eternal life, yet you believe there is, then at the worst you'll become a morally good person.
8. If there is eternal life, yet you believe there is not, then you doom yourself (perhaps) to an endless and pointless cycle of disconnected "reincarnations."
9. Place your bet.
I suggest living well and morally, because it will make THIS life better. In the unlikely event you are right that there is an afterlife, I would think that living well now is the best preparation for it. Living as if a supernatuarlly being will save you from death is not necessarily living morally.
If there is a god, I want to believe that there is a god. If there is not a god, I want to believe that there is no god.