Immortality as a reward in religion

[LuckyR]

(Nested quote removed.)


No doubt. I am not trying to explain every circumstance, rather the psychological convenience of having a pacification tool of theoretical delayed reward to compensate for inequitable distribution of resources in the here and now.

I hadn't thought about restorative justice. Yes, definitely another attraction of afterlives. My focus was entirely on the fear of annihilation aspect; Freud would have had something to say about that!

My attitude about death is very much one of "No no, wait! I haven't got my act together yet!". Of course, if one does have their act together it'd be a bugger to snuff it soon afterwards. Maybe having a good run with one's head in an optimal place would leave one more content about the idea of death? A mindset that can be content with the idea of "enough", that is not insatiable, would seem to be one that can more readily accept death.

Well, remember, many if not most religions that believe in an afterlife don't just believe in eternal life, it is usually nirvana/heaven/40 virgins etc. So not just life, but a VASTLY BETTER life.

[Sy Borg]

Well, remember, many if not most religions that believe in an afterlife don't just believe in eternal life, it is usually nirvana/heaven/40 virgins etc. So not just life, but a VASTLY BETTER life.

True. Either that or hell - or a not-so-good life in purgatory, Sheol or whatever. A fair-to-middling or reasonably pleasant afterlife is never postulated. Unlike real life, myths are never dull. There may have once been dull myths but they would not have survived mythology's own version of natural selection. Only the most exciting, exotic and interesting myths would have survived to be known by moderns.

[LuckyR]

Well, remember, many if not most religions that believe in an afterlife don't just believe in eternal life, it is usually nirvana/heaven/40 virgins etc. So not just life, but a VASTLY BETTER life.

True. Either that or hell - or a not-so-good life in purgatory, Sheol or whatever. A fair-to-middling or reasonably pleasant afterlife is never postulated. Unlike real life, myths are never dull. There may have once been dull myths but they would not have survived mythology's own version of natural selection. Only the most exciting, exotic and interesting myths would have survived to be known by moderns.

You are only addressing one side of the coin, the grandeur of the afterlife. But if you are a king here on earth, a paradise of an afterlife would be... just a continuation of your regular life. No, the impact of nirvana in the afterlife has meaning mainly for the downtrodden here on earth, thus why it was invented in the first place, as a pacifier for those who might revolt against the Power Structure based on the inequities of resources right now.

[Sy Borg]

(Nested quote removed.)

True. Either that or hell - or a not-so-good life in purgatory, Sheol or whatever. A fair-to-middling or reasonably pleasant afterlife is never postulated. Unlike real life, myths are never dull. There may have once been dull myths but they would not have survived mythology's own version of natural selection. Only the most exciting, exotic and interesting myths would have survived to be known by moderns.

You are only addressing one side of the coin, the grandeur of the afterlife. But if you are a king here on earth, a paradise of an afterlife would be... just a continuation of your regular life. No, the impact of nirvana in the afterlife has meaning mainly for the downtrodden here on earth, thus why it was invented in the first place, as a pacifier for those who might revolt against the Power Structure based on the inequities of resources right now.

That's the functional aspect. Subjectively, beliefs can be a genuine salve. Snake oil mixed with belief is as good a cure for the ills of existence as any. As Dr Dan Gilbert told us, happiness that happens due to circumstance and happiness that comes from interpretation have been found via experiment to be identical in affect.

It also occurs to me that a king might hope for fewer cares and "friends" seeking to do him in for the throne. Maybe a wife with whom he had a great relationship. Maybe even the ability to play flute? Things can always be better.

[Ormond]

As Dr Dan Gilbert told us, happiness that happens due to circumstance and happiness that comes from interpretation have been found via experiment to be identical in affect.

This seems a very useful comment, nice one Greta. You may have just put your finger on the secret to happiness.

We invest so much time in to trying to manage the circumstances of our lives, a challenging task because we don't really have that much control over things, nature, people etc.

We would probably be wiser to reinvest that effort in to learning how to better manage our relationship with these circumstances. This is not always easy either, but at least now the game takes place entirely within our own heads.

As example, we have mods here who have taken on the thankless task of trying to protect our emotions from every random stranger on the Internet. It might be more logical, efficient, and instructive for them to insist that we take responsibility for our own reading experiences. Which is more sensible, trying to manage every other brain on the Internuts, or managing just one brain, the one we have the most control over?

As a geezer hippy of the boomer generation, I had a life long travel lust for the west coast of the United States, a kind of mecca for the hippy religion. When that didn't work out, I drove 4 miles up the road from our house and began exploring a very ordinary state park. I invested a lot of time in to learning how to appreciate it, and now I no longer want to go to Oregon. What a bother when only a single stop sign stands between me and what I wanted all along.

What I learned is that the experiences we want don't happen "out there" somewhere, they happen inside of our heads. If we learn to manage that, a handful of dirt can be just as interesting as the grandest vistas. These are the truly rich people, those who can find rich fulfillment in the smallest and most ordinary of things.

[Misty]

Many religions promise immortality as a reward to its worshippers. This is usually part of a post-life or next-life existence, supposedly a happier one. Whether it is in a specific case reward or consolation is not what I want to discuss. Neither is the topic of immortality as punishment.

The question I would like to pose is why do you think immortality is so tantalising and in one way or another almost omnipresent aspect of religion. For me it is as fascinating concept as well as menacing one. To exist forever, seeing either people and civilisations to wither and die or to be forced to endure them indefinitely is to me quite horrifying. Being able to explore so much of the life delights at the price of either experiencing as much pain and loss, or losing the aspect of transience giving sense to so much of our existence.

Why do you think is this state of existence offered as a reward in so many instances? What features would a human mind have to possess to even withstand it and not go insane over the time?

Immortality as a reward would be a different environment than present day earth as all who acquire it would be in a world that did not age or die. It would be utopia.

[LuckyR]

(Nested quote removed.)


You are only addressing one side of the coin, the grandeur of the afterlife. But if you are a king here on earth, a paradise of an afterlife would be... just a continuation of your regular life. No, the impact of nirvana in the afterlife has meaning mainly for the downtrodden here on earth, thus why it was invented in the first place, as a pacifier for those who might revolt against the Power Structure based on the inequities of resources right now.

That's the functional aspect. Subjectively, beliefs can be a genuine salve. Snake oil mixed with belief is as good a cure for the ills of existence as any. As Dr Dan Gilbert told us, happiness that happens due to circumstance and happiness that comes from interpretation have been found via experiment to be identical in affect.

It also occurs to me that a king might hope for fewer cares and "friends" seeking to do him in for the throne. Maybe a wife with whom he had a great relationship. Maybe even the ability to play flute? Things can always be better.

True, two birds with one stone. The rabble genuinely feel better in the here and now (though they don't get the potential benefit of the road not traveled --> revolt against the Power Structure and a redistribution of wealth at the point of a bayonet) with the promise of a future better life and the Power Structure gets to keep the goodies. Everyone is happy, but only one side gets to look behind the curtain and knows what's up.

[Sy Borg]

Orm, I take it you've seen Dan Gilbert's TED Talk about happiness? Compulsory viewing IMO. As you say, we do have control.

We invest so much time in to trying to manage the circumstances of our lives, a challenging task because we don't really have that much control over things, nature, people etc.

We would probably be wiser to reinvest that effort in to learning how to better manage our relationship with these circumstances. This is not always easy either, but at least now the game takes place entirely within our own heads.

I would call it another option.

As example, we have mods here who have taken on the thankless task of trying to protect our emotions from every random stranger on the Internet. It might be more logical, efficient, and instructive for them to insist that we take responsibility for our own reading experiences. Which is more sensible, trying to manage every other brain on the Internuts, or managing just one brain, the one we have the most control over?

It's easy now. Not that this arrangement (and especially my approach to modding) is tidy but it seems to work. I like that this forum's approach contrasts with others and vice versa - I enjoy the variety of different forums and others can find online destinations that best suit them.

As a geezer hippy of the boomer generation, I had a life long travel lust for the west coast of the United States, a kind of mecca for the hippy religion. When that didn't work out, I drove 4 miles up the road from our house and began exploring a very ordinary state park. I invested a lot of time in to learning how to appreciate it, and now I no longer want to go to Oregon. What a bother when only a single stop sign stands between me and what I wanted all along.

What I learned is that the experiences we want don't happen "out there" somewhere, they happen inside of our heads. If we learn to manage that, a handful of dirt can be just as interesting as the grandest vistas. These are the truly rich people, those who can find rich fulfillment in the smallest and most ordinary of things.

That's what I learned from my first peak experience. If you are always worried about hassles then no change of circumstance will bring peace, because all circumstances present problems. However, the amount of control we have over ourselves and our responses is another matter. Not external responses, the internal ones. In a sense heaven is tantalisingly close to us on Earth - if only we had more control over our inner selves without having to perch in some godforsaken hole in deprivation for decades. We may yet be helped by AI there.


Misty, re: utopia, nirvana or heaven. What do you imagine it to be like?

-- Updated 17 Aug 2016, 18:45 to add the following --

Subjectively, beliefs can be a genuine salve. Snake oil mixed with belief is as good a cure for the ills of existence as any.

True, two birds with one stone. The rabble genuinely feel better in the here and now (though they don't get the potential benefit of the road not traveled --> revolt against the Power Structure and a redistribution of wealth at the point of a bayonet) with the promise of a future better life and the Power Structure gets to keep the goodies. Everyone is happy, but only one side gets to look behind the curtain and knows what's up.

Yes Lucky, and history shows how revolutionaries never, ever fall into the same hubris and corruption as those they usurped ;)

Thing is, if people truly believe that death leads to nothing at all, what stops them from being extreme when they have nothing to lose? Nothing matters if everyone just disappears forever at death, right? In the very most extreme situations continued cooperation could be promoted by uncertainty about posthumous fates. Group selection may be involved here, where desperate people are more likely to survive and pass on their genes if they cooperate rather than if turn on each other (or suicide) to vent and release their existential despair.

[LuckyR]

(Nested quote removed.)

True, two birds with one stone. The rabble genuinely feel better in the here and now (though they don't get the potential benefit of the road not traveled --> revolt against the Power Structure and a redistribution of wealth at the point of a bayonet) with the promise of a future better life and the Power Structure gets to keep the goodies. Everyone is happy, but only one side gets to look behind the curtain and knows what's up.

Yes Lucky, and history shows how revolutionaries never, ever fall into the same hubris and corruption as those they usurped

Thing is, if people truly believe that death leads to nothing at all, what stops them from being extreme when they have nothing to lose? Nothing matters if everyone just disappears forever at death, right? In the very most extreme situations continued cooperation could be promoted by uncertainty about posthumous fates. Group selection may be involved here, where desperate people are more likely to survive and pass on their genes if they cooperate rather than if turn on each other (or suicide) to vent and release their existential despair.

You bring up a good point, namely: is there an ancient society that had no cultural understanding of an afterlife? And what happened to them?

[Fooloso4]

Lucky R:

… is there an ancient society that had no cultural understanding of an afterlife?

Yes, one example is those peoples who became identified with Judaism and the Israelites. There is, for example, no concept of an immortal soul or afterlife in the book of Genesis. Shoal, the place of the dead, is not heaven – “ashes to ashes, dust to dust”.

And what happened to them?

They did quite well. In later developments some sects accepted some notion of an afterlife, but others did not.

Greta:

Nothing matters if everyone just disappears forever at death, right?

This is one of the main themes of Ecclesiastes – “vanity of vanities”, “… the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even their name is forgotten” (9:5). Later sections soften this hard truth, but scholars do not agree whether these were later additions. I think they were. Trying to make sense of the whole becomes much more difficult if one attempts to integrate these sections. The author is a skeptic, but this does not mean he rejects faith. On the contrary, he puts his trust in God even though life may appears to be unjust and he cannot comprehend it – the wicked get what the righteous deserve, and the righteous get what the wicked deserve (8:14).

As far as the motivation for creating the idea of an immortal soul and afterlife, I think it likely that it arose quite early and not as the political expedient it was later became. Naturally, questions arose about what happened to the person who one day was breathing and moving around but then no longer did? Was there something in the person that was now missing? Did this thing go somewhere else? No doubt many answers arose, some more appealing than others.

[LuckyR]

Lucky R:

… is there an ancient society that had no cultural understanding of an afterlife?

Yes, one example is those peoples who became identified with Judaism and the Israelites. There is, for example, no concept of an immortal soul or afterlife in the book of Genesis. Shoal, the place of the dead, is not heaven – “ashes to ashes, dust to dust”.

And what happened to them?

They did quite well. In later developments some sects accepted some notion of an afterlife, but others did not.

Some would argue that Modern Jews, as a group, are very different from other groups. Still others would disagree and feel that they are just another group among many, nothing making them stand out in any particular way.

If one believes the latter, then perhaps the whole ancient religion afterlife thing is of minimal consequence for an ancient people's development.

[Sy Borg]

Greta:

Nothing matters if everyone just disappears forever at death, right?

... he puts his trust in God even though life may appears to be unjust and he cannot comprehend it – the wicked get what the righteous deserve, and the righteous get what the wicked deserve (8:14).

As far as the motivation for creating the idea of an immortal soul and afterlife, I think it likely that it arose quite early and not as the political expedient it was later became.

Yes, I agree that expediency appears to have been opportunistic. It would have taken quite the prehistoric evil genius to think that tale up from scratch :)

The point about afterlife and morality is often used as an argument against atheism, as though humanitarianism and environmentalism didn't exist. It's basically reductionist thinking, denying the emergence of new moralities based on observational models rather than mythological ones. "Trust in God" seems similar to the secular "acceptance of nature". Each involves the "serenity to accept the things [we] cannot change".

Morality, however, famously comes undone in extreme situations where there is often a return to survivalism, the likelihood of moral breakdown seemingly hinging on prior schisms in the society more than ideology or beliefs. Belief in an afterlife is potent on a personal level, though, seemingly acting to make tolerable that which otherwise not be for those who are suffering significantly.

[Allopoietic]

I am new to this forum, so I hope this observation is not ones that have been examined before.

It seems to me that immortality has two aspects that are rooted in the Cartesian separation of mind and body. Religions that offer immortality, only offer immortality of mind. In the afterlife people do not have an ability to influence events and actions on Earth. What's the point of observe, but do not touch?

Immortality of the human body on the Earth is know as functional immortality. The astonishing complexity of the human body always seems to give way to mechanistic principles when closely examined by scientists. If the body is a machine, then bodily functions can be extended indefinitely through repair, replacement, and maintenance of body parts. Medicine is already beginning to do that. Humans may become "functionally immortal" in bodily operations, but that is not very satisfying if mind cannot be included.

Human development is a process of growing mind as well as growing body. The body automatically limits growth to the full stature of an adult human person, but wisdom continues to accumulate in the mental realm. If knowledge takes up space, then the knowledge in a functionally immortal person must stop growing. As babies, we learn with amazing speed. I think the reason that ability to learn diminishes as we age, in part, has to do with knowledge taking up physical space in the brain. That is the problem we need to solve is we want immortality.

The immortality of religion is vague, and meant primarily to make people feel a certain way. I don't think it is a genuine possibility.

[Ormond]

"Trust in God" seems similar to the secular "acceptance of nature". Each involves the "serenity to accept the things [we] cannot change".

Acceptance is just a beginning. The truly rational will attempt to convert acceptance of those powers far larger than us in to celebration, worship, reverence, etc, an explicitly positive emotional response. Such a transformation could happen within either a religious or secular context, but the religious have been working on this longer, and seem to be better at it.

Belief in an afterlife is potent on a personal level, though, seemingly acting to make tolerable that which otherwise not be for those who are suffering significantly.

I'm currently watching an excellent video called "Science Of The Soul" on the Amazon Prime video streaming service. As the title implies, the documentary is focused on science and not religion. The film doesn't prove anything, and is entirely unlikely to persuade any committed ideologue from their fixed position. However, the more open minded may find the documentary expanding their vision of what should be considered worth further investigation.

What I came away with is the insight that topics like re-incarnation, the soul, an afterlife etc don't have to explored only within a religious context. It may be that some religious people have had deep insights in to these topics, which due to the limits of their time and place could only be expressed in crude, imprecise, story telling formats that are out of step with today's science culture. Such ancients insights, if of any value, may now be in the process of being translated in to a scientific form that is more accessible to us.

It appears you can watch the full video on YouTube for two bucks.

Basically, if readers here are not willing to pay two bucks, they probably aren't really that interested in this topic to begin with, and thus should probably give up the hobby of commenting upon it.

[Wayne92587]

Only the most exciting, exotic and interesting myths would have survived to be known by moderns.

If you believe it in immortality of the individual you are misinterpreting the Myth.

When the Immortal Spirit, the Soul of God, the seed of all living things, was breathed into Man's nostrils, it was the Species of Man, Mankind, he and she, not the Individual that is to become Immortal.

99 percent of every species that has ever exited upon the Planet Earth are now extinct, due mainly to the fighting of the battle for the survival of the most Fit, To kill or be killed.

Man having been set Free from the bonds of Earth, the Material World of Reality, Man, Mankind, he and she, as a species, Man the Ultimate Survivor, is Free to Enter the Gateway that leads to the Manifolds secrets of the Universe, to become Immortal.

Man became, is in the process of becoming the Ultimate Survivor because he was, is, able to change his spots.

As the Ultimate Survivor, the Species of Man, Mankind, he and she have the possibility of becoming Immortal.