Is Eternal Life Even Desireable?

[Pyrrho]

As for not existing, that is what you did in the year 1800.  So that is what the year 2200 will be like for you.

There is however an asymmetry here, because it's not the nonexistence itself we are talking about, but our attitude toward nonexistence past and future while we exist now. I'm not too  bothered by my nonexistence in 1800, but for some reason I find the idea of not being there to see Kirk and Spock fire their phasers at the Horta - an act they later regretted when they discovered the Horta was a silicon mother who was attacking people only because they were smashing her eggs - a bit disappointing.

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You should take another look at the Epicurus quote in my previous post:

"Accustom yourself to believing that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply the capacity for sensation, and death is the privation of all sentience; therefore a correct understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life a limitless time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terrors for him who has thoroughly understood that there are no terrors for him in ceasing to live. Foolish, therefore, is the man who says that he fears death, not because it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in the prospect. Whatever causes no annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in the expectation. Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not. It is nothing, then, either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is not and the dead exist no longer."

http://atheistforums.org/thread-32907-po...#pid926735

You can be upset now, but you are being upset about something that you will not care about at the time at all. As Epicurus states, "Whatever causes no annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in the expectation."

You could, of course, while you are alive, be upset that you were not alive in 1800.  That, too, would be equally groundless.  But there is nothing in your past lack of existence to stop you now from being upset about having not existed before.  So there is no asymmetry in the situation, as, while one is alive, one can be upset about things before one existed just the same as one can be upset about things after one no longer exists.  If your feelings are asymmetrical, that is something in you, not the situation.

[Simon Moon]

There is however an asymmetry here, because it's not the nonexistence itself we are talking about, but our attitude toward nonexistence past and future while we exist now. I'm not too  bothered by my nonexistence in 1800, but for some reason I find the idea of not being there to see Kirk and Spock fire their phasers at the Horta - an act they later regretted when they discovered the Horta was a silicon mother who was attacking people only because they were smashing her eggs - a bit disappointing.

Yes, it would be nice if our wishful thinking sometimes coincided with reality.

I too, wish to go on living for a long time after I know I will no longer exist.

But, I hold the position that I would much rather have as many true beliefs (or at least likely to be true) as possible, and the least amount of false beliefs. The best method I know of to achieve this is to base my beliefs on demonstrable evidence and valid/sound logic, not what I wish was true.

While I remain a theist with a deep attachment to the meanings discovered by Christianity and respect for truths of other religions as well, I'm through with religion itself because it refuses to ask the hard questions and admit we simply don't know the answers. Ditto for many strains of atheism I think overextend (philishophical) materialism to be an end all. Just because we need invoke no deity to explain physical cosmology within a materialist framework doesn't mean there are no good reasons for believing in the divine, provided we don't put it in a box.

What 'meanings discovered by Christianity' are you referring to? As far as I can tell from my multiple reading of the Bible, I see some good things and some bad things. None of them hold any insight beyond what was already understood by other cultures and people of the time. 

Very few atheists I know of are philosophical materialists. Most are methodological materialists.

What are these good reasons to believe in the divine you refer to?

[Ravenshire]

No, eternity is not desirable. No matter the initial conditions, the end result will be the same: Utter lack of interest in continuing, with no way out.

I've summed it up here and never heard a compelling argument to the contrary.

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Depends entirely on how you will use that eternal existence.

Bullshit. Eternity is much longer than people consider.

[Angrboda]

I imagine eternity happens one day at a time, just like my present life. When I was 20, I couldn't imagine being 50. But I don't have to imagine it, it came anyway.

[c172]

You're 50?!

[Cyberman]

Ever heard of anti-depressants? They morph your depression into a stable and manageable state.. Try them.

What, you mean those things that I've been taking for the major part of the last five years to stop me slitting my wrists with a shard of glass I keep for that purpose? The things that landed me in hospital, undergoing surgery for a physiological side effect reaction, where I almost died on the recovery ward? No, never heard of them. But you may rest assured that I shall be sure to take the advice of a totally random stranger on the internet who has never taken the time to become familiar with the most intimate aspects of my life.

Now that's out of the way, perhaps you could clarify precisely what you perceived as my mental/emotional state had the fuck to do with what I wrote?

[Hatshepsut]

There is however an asymmetry here, because it's not the nonexistence itself we are talking about, but our attitude toward nonexistence past and future while we exist now. I'm not too  bothered by my nonexistence in 1800, but for some reason I find the idea of not being there to see Kirk and Spock fire their phasers at the Horta...a bit disappointing.

• Foolish, therefore, is the man who says that he fears death, not because it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in the prospect. Whatever causes no annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in the expectation.... (Epicurus)
  

If your feelings are asymmetrical, that is something in you, not the situation.

Agreed my sentimentality toward Kirk and Spock, and lack of ardor toward 1800, are in me and not in the situation. Careless of me to drop personal comments while not explaining the asymmetry itself: It is between existence and nonexistence themselves. Epicurus is fine to say that something won't pain us once we've lost the ability to feel pain, but he rather severely demotes the ability of prospects to cause annoyance. The fact that nonexistence is painless sheds little light on the matter, as from our own perspective we've always existed; we've known no other state.

In the broader scheme, I'll grant that death is not an evil. If all those souls from 1800 had their turn and are gone now, what's so unfair that I have to go as well? Death is likely the price for being a multicellular organism given the way biology works. But granting that death isn't evil hardly declares its prospects a nothing. 

[Neo-Scholastic]

The problem with earthly immortality is that the assholes never die.

[KUSA]

The problem with earthly immortality is that the assholes never die.

You could bury them in concrete.

[Tonus]

I'm not afraid of being dead, since I won't be conscious to understand it. I'd like to live a long and enjoyable life, but have no concerns about what happens after that.

I have no idea how to feel about eternity, because I haven't even lived 50 years, much less 50,000. Or 50 million. Would I run out of stuff to do? No idea. I've still got a shitload of things I'd like to see and do after only 46 years. I don't expect to run out of stuff to do before my time runs out. So I haven't the faintest idea what eternity would be like.