Conquest of the CurrentLife
I was wandering what is the importance of the Afterlife and how most people (and possibly most religions) keep thinking about it and I have to say it got some good buzz along the years. This post is not about whether or not this afterlife exists, its more about focusing on what we can control as human beings and the relevancy of such Afterlife. This article is yet another opinion.
Conquest of the Afterlife
The afterlife is often associated with the good or bad morality, with a reward or a punishment. Be it a promise of genuine joy or terror, heaven and hell or a reincarnation in a better or worse vessel. While that in itself may not be right or wrong since it is a question of faith rather science.
The current life or what we will refer to it as just “Life” becomes a pawn in a more general and abstract plan or even a repeating loop (reincarnation), Life becomes one of the stages needed to proceed to another stage better or worse, so life itself becomes a testing ground, where actions, thoughts and behavior is monitored by some higher force and then judgment is entirely left to such a higher force as to whether to ascend or descend the level of joy and peace.
The Void
Now since the afterlife is a question of faith, what does the current vision of the world tells us of our death. The theory of evolution, from which species evolve from species and that beings have to die after a certain time in a normal biological scientific way. Species must breed in order to continue, while certain new forms emerge from a small error in the breeding process and are either sustained or eliminated through natural selection, and that such a mistake could inevitably lead to new species being born with a new feature than the old one. From this we can only see that the purpose of the species is to randomly breed until a new more capable or different species is born. As cold as it may seem this theory has been applied to almost all species on earth… but one and that by itself makes me wonder, but then again intelligence is only given to that one species (perhaps a coincidence?)… mankind. Therefore there exist a possibility that after we die we just vanish, that we do not get access to such an afterlife, bitter perhaps, but oh well it happens to the other millions of species.
A small pause
So if there is no afterlife, what should we do?
And if there was an afterlife, why is it that important?
Dear reader, I do suggest you take a 5 minutes pause of your busy schedule and just think of these two questions, if you do feel that the second question is a bit vague, or out of context, then meditate over the following quote and tie it to the question:
If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
Albert Einstein
Conquest of the CurrentLife
In my opinion, the presence or absence of an afterlife is quite irrelevant. What concerns me the most, is having heaven or hell on earth in this life. It may appear to be impossible to some but I do find it possible. If people were to behave well for the pat on the head and the promise of a reward or the fear of punishment, it would be quite sad and prone to misinterpretation and catastrophes in the future as such as has happened in the past, where the promise of heaven was bought with money, the future, where the promise of the afterlife lets people blow themselves and others, the classification of the people between good and evil, pure and impure, worthy or not worthy is far too risky and we really do not need that. We are all equal if I were to treat my fellow human as I would like to be treated myself, allowing the exact freedom to others that I would like to be allowed to myself, herein lies the compromise of the limit of such a freedom, its a good efficient self-governing law. If you do believe that is impossible I do not, it is just such teachings of equality and respect in the current world have not reached the minimum level of respect and perspective needed for this to work, just do not abandon hope, apply it yourself and it will spread to the people around you. And we will help in creating heaven on earth, and that would be far more interesting than heaven in the afterlife I would say.
This is what we can do right now, so let us all together participate in such a creation based on mutual respect and do it because we do believe in it not because we actually want to be compensated, and from that act of respect, heaven is born, right here, right now.
Filed under Opinion, Society | Tags: Afterlife, Death, Reincarnation, religion | Comments (8)8 Responses to “Conquest of the CurrentLife”
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This is a very interesting topic. It’s true that many humans act according to their fears or desires, and you chose a perfect quote for that. Thanks once again for elaborating a wish I had in my head, but was unable to express : simply respecting each others to make this world a better place.
I wouldn’t want to question the after life. I am a believer. Even if I was not to be rewarded for behaving ethically or by good standards, I would do it anyway.
Yes, like you, I have big reservations towards those who give the cold sholder to serving well human nature….
Thank you for comment and for sharing your thoughts, however I have a little comment on
“I wouldn’t want to question the after life. I am a believer.”
I do not think both are linked, being believer, in my opinion, does not mean to follow by blind faith, and questioning itself is important even if faith, questioning sometimes only helps you reaffirm what you actually believe in. Disregarding and ignoring certain things as to blindly follow and not question can lead to dramatic events.
An example to this: Galileo Affair
Questioning does not mean renouncing. Nothing is constant. Perhaps the only constant in faith in my opinion, is whether or not one believes in God or not, the other are open to interpretations and a lot of issues arose that were unacceptable in the past by the church are now acceptable because they were more of like socially unacceptable and there are quite advanced in both science and theology to change some interpretations.
I only spoke of the catholic church because I have enough information regarding that matter as for the other religions if anyone wishes to comment feel free
This is a subject I still haven’t made up my mind on..
I do not believe that the existence of the afterlife is even questionable. Also science and religion are not exclusive, also I do not see how your argument in the paragraph “The Void” follows properly to that conclusion.
I believe that people are good when they can open their hearts and accept christ, thus the people believe in an afterlife are good because they’ve accepted christ first. The immoral people who want to enter heaven and do not accept christ will not enter.
Those who interpret the holy scriptures for their own gain are not religious, and for the matter what god has said is absolute, and never changing, the people whom reinterpret the words of god are the ones who are deviating, but the scriptures themselves are absolute. I find it offensive that you would even consider those cults who blow themselves up as actual believers following the holy scriptures.
Also I do not believe we should all be treated equally, why should an immoral atheist be treated at the same level as a pious preist ? by those standard why not let all the criminals out from jails and treat them equally ? people are born equal but they are accountable for what they do in life and the way they should be treated will change over time as well.
This is a very juicy subject for debate, and leaving religion aside, I would like to rationalize the importance of the afterlife since u wrote this post.
The thing is, people fear what they don’t know. And man knows that he is eventually going to die. His days on earth are numbered, but what happens next is a mystery… this idea is so unbearable to him. Therefore: *the afterlife*.
It gives hope to us, and an easy comfort for the scary unknown.
But, I still want to say something that might get on some people’s nerves:
The mind is not something separate from the body: It’s only chemical alterations in our brains that create our thoughts.
For example, some people get Alzheimer’s disease at the end of their lives. The irreversible damage to their brains can be detected by brain scans. These people lose their ability to think, yet they are still alive. So, would you tell me, how is it, that one second after these people die, does their thinking return (in a “soul”)?
You asked two questions, and they are important, but the problem is that they have not been able to answer these questions for thousands of years (the Egyptians for example, believed so strongly in the afterlife that they kept food and water for the soul of their dead person.)
And yes, people need a moral code to live by, it’s sad, but true
@Jesse
Thank you for your insightful comment and furthermore developing my article. Regarding the first thing you wrote there is this theory that should give you more insight on it, and I will be using it for my next post.
Your analysis on the soul is interesting but I believe it is not in the topic of this post as to whether or not the Afterlife is important, but it is nonetheless interesting as to what we will be taking with us to the afterlife, the soul.
The two question were questions that were directed to each and everyone, so that each may know his standing on the issue or perhaps question one’s standings. It’s not whether or not they were able to answer those, it is what you and each one who read that article think about. The questions are about what should we do and why is it important, not if it exists or not.
Though I thank you and appreciate deeply your historical example about the Egyptians. ^^
just a small comment. its totally untrue that we are the only “intelligent” beings in existence!