PaulS

That's exactly what I think Spong is saying.

I don't really care how you justify it to yourself Thormas and it doesn't really bother me what you think about me and my way of discussing things on here. I said I wasn't playing games, you continued to say I was, I can't do much more than that. About Spong you said "It is apparent that if he wanted to say it was our atoms or sharing in the cosmos (not God), he would have had no reservations and he would have stated that clearly." Using your logic, I have asked you to provide a single reference where Spong makes it clear that he expects the human person to live eternal, as some form of their self-consciousness. You can't provide any such reference. The best you can provide is a reference to our self-consciousness returning to the one consciousness. What that actually means for the individual ego Spong does not/can not elaborate on. This is why I say you are reading Spong through your own lens. You have provided Spong's words to argue for your interpretation of them. I could use the exact same words to argue my understanding. The reason I haven't provided any specific references is that I don't have access to my copy of 'Eternal Life' at present and I don't feel inspired enough to buy an electronic version just for this discussion with you. I recall the book and it's intent clearly (and consider it in context of all Spong's books which I have read, in conjunction with his regular subscriber emails until his death) and think you are mistaken in how you interpret Spong's vision of life after death. But no games being played, just a simply logistical problem of not having access to the book.

Of course it was personal. I said I wasn't playing games and in your very next comment you again accuse me of playing games. Obviously you think I am lying. But whatever Thormas, I can accuse you of the same - failing to provide evidence when asked, but really, where is any of this getting us. Yes, you have you interpretation of Spong's words and I wish you well with such. Peace and goodwill. Paul.

Alright, I guess that ends that then. I guess you must think I am lying then when I say I am not playing games,. Whatever the case Thormas, you have your view of what Spong is saying, and I have mine. Peace and goodwill to you. Paul.

The misinterpreted statements you had already provided that I pointed to when I said that. Essentially, those where you imply that Spong is claiming our self-consciousness (as we know it) will continue to exist after our death. He never makes any such claim. Similarly, where you imply that Spong considers our 'human personhood' to continue after death to be similar to the view you are promoting. You have taken a liberty with Spong's words because of the lens with which you have applied to reading them, in my opinion. Spong simply does not describe sharing infinity (what you interpret as eternal life) to be as a human person. He talks about us sharing infinity yes, how and in what means/capacity is unknown to Spong. He acknowledges that sharing that infinity could be in a manner we simply cannot fathom. His vision, his hope, is that we may share it somehow with God as 'us' but he acknowledges it may not be like that. Indeed he postulates about the self-conscious entering the universal consciousness, but it's your lens that can only read that as meaning self-consciousness as we know it is retained within that universal consciousness. Maybe it is, but Spong simply isn't saying that is his belief. What our consciousness becomes or indeed whether it even continues as we understand it now when it joins the universal consciousness, is open to question, as Spong speculates. Either way, Spong is entirely comfortable because it is in God's hands and either way, we will share infinity as it is meant to be. What I get most out of Spong's book is his belief that life is meaningful, irrespective of whatever may come, or not, after death. He makes it very clear across all his writings, that an afterlife is of no matter to him - this life is meaningful as it is. That may be 'apparent' to you, but I would suggest that's your lens. I don't miss it and whilst you may use Spong's words, you interpret them with your own lens. No games, just asking for you to provide one hard quote where Spong says that we will participate in an eternal life as the human person we now know ourselves as. Not your interpretation, but an actual quote by Spong to clearly demonstrate that. I would argue that there is no quote like that because to me it is apparent that if Spong wanted to say that we would live eternal life as the human person with God, he would have had no reservations and he would have stated that clearly. Yes, a 'new' awareness, not the old existing one. Again, that is simply your interpretation as you view things with your lens. Again, no games. Joseph has made several points. Are you asking if I agree with everything he is saying or something more particularly? It is too broad a question to simply ask "Do you agree with Joseph?". I may not answer things to your satisfaction, how you think they should be answered, but I am not playing games. No, I do. And for me, life IS meaning. To me, there is no logic in saying it is 'so meaningful' that it transcends itself. There is nothing to transcend. Death is part of life. I know I've already said this, but I can only see your interpretation of 'death not containing life' as a cry from the ego to say it doesn't want to not exist anymore. You still will exist after death, just not along with your ego. But what 'you' are is something that our comprehensions seem to disagree on. Precisely. The snail without an ego perhaps. To me it only seems to be the ego that feels it has to be more important than the snail. The snail and you (and I) are all parts of the same life. Oneness. Such is God, such is life.

Yes, I suppose that is logical. If there was only formlessness prior to the Big Bang, then the ultimate existence to which we could return may be that formlessness. It seems to make sense to me that the ego is a product of the thinking mind. That there is 'life' beyond the thinking mind is still a work in progress for me.

I think you interpret his quotes incorrectly. I do not think you are representing his beliefs accurately. It should have been clear to you that I was referring to my similar view of Spong's concerning the infinity of the cosmos and how 'we' will always be a part of that, however that may play out. Transforming into the divine could mean many other options other than retaining one's human consciousness and I think Spong is honest about that and does not try and assert that our consciousness must live on for us to transform into the divine. Spong doesn't specifically equate God with atoms or cosmos but often points out how typically we understand God with human-like qualities because that is all we can comprehend, much like if a horse imagined God it would likely be in a horse-like fashion. It seems to me that you are doing the same thing by understanding our relationship to God to only be like that of a human life and consciousnesses. No, Spong does not say that we will share infinity as a human person. If you say he does - show me - in actual Spong words and not your interpretation if you can please. And how that infinity is shared, what it actually looks like when a human person (is there another type of human?) ceases to exist, is acknowledged by Spong to be beyond his understanding. That doesn't stop him from hoping, of course. He too has ego just like you and I. Is it possible that you can imagine there being no life after death? And if you can stretch your imagination as such, can you then imagine that there are others who do not believe in life after death? And as a final stretch, if you can imagine such a person, can you imagine that they may see life as meaningful even if they believe they won't live after death? And if you have gotten that far, then you have answered the question - life is meaningful without the promise of life after death. For such a person life has meaningfulness, even in the face of non-existence after this life. That's why I am asking you those questions - to try and help you understand another's understanding of meaningfulness. What do you think Joseph is saying and what part of it do you question whether I agree or not with? Yeah, I think this bit is at an end. You seem to not comprehend that the lack of existence for me after this life doesn't render my life meaningless to me and that in fact, I find my life meaningful, if nothing else, simply because I exist at this time. I'm not sure how I can demonstrate that which I experience and that which I see as your misunderstanding of meaningfulness because for you, the experience seems to be that unless your life can be reflected on at some point in the future, that it is otherwise meaningless. I simply don't see it that way. I am content to die and no longer exist, and in the meantime I will enjoy the meaningfulness of my life. Like you, I see life as meaningful, but I don't extend it to your necessity of it meaning we have to exist forever. Even if the cosmos never remembers me, the fact that 'I' existed, is the meaning. What did my life mean - it meant I lived.

What I am trying to help you understand about logic is that logic hinges on an initial premise, which in this case is an opinion. Subsequently, the logic that you use to derive your outcome is in my opinion, faulty, because it starts with a premise that is opinion only. That's what opinion does - influences logic and logical outcomes. Joseph captures what I was trying to point out about Spong's view. Personally, I think you misread Spong through a lens of your own, but that is just my opinion. I actually think similarly to Spong - I think there is an infinity to the cosmos and that 'we' will always be a part of that, but I don't think it will be in a manner that you understand the 'we' to be. The conglomerate of atoms called 'Paul' dies so to speak but the atoms that made Paul Paul, return to the ecosystem and continue to be part of the eternal cosmos. Even when this universe possibly ceases to exist in billions and billions of years time, the substance that was Paul will still exist in some other form. What that all means for 'us', for our consciousness, for our egos, remains to be understood, if it can be. But I am certain that even without my ego or consciousness that I understand to be Paul, my life is meaningful. It cannot be otherwise or else it wouldn't exist. Is your life still meaningful if there is no life beyond death? I know you don't believe no life after death to be true, but if it were that way? If you do happen to be mistaken with your initial premise that leads you logically to believe that life after death exists, does your life have meaning without life after death? I say mine does but you initially said life was meaningless without life after death. Which is it? I don't agree with any such 'necessity', but that is my opinion and understanding of what speaks to me. Each to their own. You see it as a problem - I don't. I don't measure meaningfulness of this life with needing to exist or be remembered after it. I'm not sure how else I can share with you how I find my life meaningful without the belief in an afterlife, even if you don't. I don't agree with your rationalization of what meaningful means I guess. I only said that we came from the same atoms that were created during the Big Bang. My point is that a spiritual discussion leaves room for something energizing the BB, so in that sense I am simply suggesting that there could be more to atoms than we realize. You scoff at the notion of atoms having awareness. I don't know if they do or don't, but do see that strange things around atoms are being discovered with modern science which we never previously understood, so I am open to thinking about it. You don't seem to be. Fair enough. Again, my point was that there are lots of different views around matters like this, none of which can be substantiated much past people's individual opinions. To ridicule another's point of view and calling it absurd because it doesn't fit your own logic, is my point you seem to be missing. You cannot substantiate to another your view of God, any more than another can to you about life having meaning without the promise of eternal life. It is opinion. So it's not a case of agreeing or disagreeing with Joseph but rather trying to point out that yours/Joseph's/my postulations about life after death may all seem ludicrous to another, just as you scoff at any consideration that atoms may have awareness. I have - but it seems to me that you cannot comprehend it because of what you are already certain about. In short, timelessness of the cosmos means nothing to me about meaningfulness of this life. To me, the continuation of the cosmos after my atoms have long been dismantled and the being 'Paul' ceases to exist, doesn't affect what I consider the meaningfulness of this life. You say how can it not? I can only tell you that it doesn't, irrespective of what you think it needs to be. Are we at an end yet?

I think your mistake may be that you think that your logic is THE logic. It's not. Your logic, like mine, comes from and helps form, opinion. This is all influenced by our life experiences, our exposures, our different educations, religious upbringing, etc. Logic is a concept, a way of approaching inquiry, but I think in this conversation you are mistaking your logic for truth (at least that’s how it seems to me in the way you have portrayed yourself in this discussion). I fully understand that your use of logic has gotten you to this position, as has mine, but at the end of the day, it is personal and not the same as another's result of their use of logic. We use logic to develop our opinions, but opinions differ, clearly. But as I pointed out, Spong doesn't 'believe' that there is life after death, he 'questions' whether there is. That is a major difference between what Spong is saying and how you are portraying him. He clearly states that there is meaning to this life even if an afterlife doesn't exist. The absence was f an afterlife does does make Spong’s life meaningless he is saying. You say there that without an afterlife, then this life is meaningless (but then argue because you think there is meaning to this life that it then means there is an afterlife. I find that argument incoherent). Well to a degree that is true - it is your opinion that other people's opinion are absurd and you don't understand them, and to me it seems that in this instance you can't contemplate the other’s POV. You keep saying that - that its meaningless. I say it's not. I wonder how long does this will go on for. Even you would acknowledge there has been a lot found out by science that certainly never seemed fathomable previously. Certainly quantum science is presenting new weird and wonderful ways of understanding things that seemed contrary to what was previous understood. But for the final time, I am not saying that atoms have awareness or self-awareness, I am postulating that maybe there is more to your's and mine understanding of atom. We know we all came from the same atoms created during the Big Bang, so really who knows what may be not yet understood. You believe in an indescribable invisible entity of love existing somewhere you can't define, or explain how it actually exists or came to be. Postulating about that can seem ludicrous to some people also. Each to their own. I would say you pick your moments. I thought you must have understood my position seeing as you were saying it was absurd and were pretty forthright in saying that my life is meaningless unless there is an afterlife. Interesting that we should get to this point and only now are you are asking what meaningfulness means. To me the meaningfulness is in the living. I have already explained that's how I see and experience it. I don't think my life is any less meaningful because I or others will forget about it one day. I realize that is not enough for you. I suspect this is what the Buddhist concept of ego is pointing to. Whatever the case, I'm not sure I can help you understand any further. Maybe you will experience it yourself, maybe you won't. Personally, I don’t think it really matters. But I do think we have pretty much done this to death. Thank God this conversation will never be eternal.

I know you 'think' you have shown that - but you haven't shown anything other than your opinion. And that is fine - it's just that it's opinion and not a demonstration of evidence of what is. You think that a human life of X amount of years as meaningful is illusion, is absurdity. I think that opinion is odd, but that is my opinion. I think the ramifications that come from your opinion are not logical, but that's me. I haven't dismissed anything, I just don't find your opinion compelling. In fact, I find it wanting, but that is my opinion. Yes, I have read it and Spong's view is definitely that he doesn't know what comes after death, if anything, and further if there is nothing, then he is happy his life has meaning without eternity. I think what you are confusing is 'hope' he may have, which he simultaneously acknowledges may not matter. Spong does not claim that life definitely breaks through mortality into eternity, not in any sense of identity like you say is the only way it can be or otherwise life is meaningless. Yes you have - your opinion. Which is completely different when it comes to considering ego. One is a demand, a decision - the other is experience. I understand for you it leads there, for others it doesn't. The issue we have mainly been discussing is that you have said one's life is meaningless unless there is an afterlife. No afterlife - no meaning, according to your previous claims. I don't agree, but there you go. To say such means nothing to the cosmos promotes a sense of expertise and knowledge that you simply do not have. So to postulate that atoms may somehow be related to or even have 'awareness' is not reaching, but something to consider/postulate on if one wants. Each to their own. You are already convinced of your opinion, so I wouldn't expect you to be open to it, but that's okay. You (like me) probably can't be anything else at this point anyway.

No, it just opinion. Yours aligns with some others that have come before you, as do mine. Still, it is all just opinion. Stating that your opinion more critically considers analyzing the implications is again, just an opinion. You are of course entitled to it. As our fellow member Rom might say, you couldn't think any other way at this point of time anyway, as for me. If one can believe that life has meaning because it is a gift from God, then in my opinion it doesn't have to be more nuanced than that unless one creates that nuance. Again, it seems to come from a place of ego not wanting to cease to exist, in my opinion. That is to say, that is how I see it, at this point in time. I like some of Spong's words on the matter - "True religion is, at its core, nothing more or less than a call to live fully, to love wastefully and to be all that we can be. That is finally where life’s meaning is found. All else is background music.". To me, Spong also seems to think his life has meaning & purpose irrespective of whether there is an afterlife or not. Of course, that is just his opinion too. But I'm happy with that, whereas others may not be for whatever reasons. Each to their own. For me personally, I don't believe in an afterlife but still believe and feel that my life has meaning. I'm content with that. You can keep insisting that my life has no meaning because I don't believe in an afterlife, but my experience tells me different. I'm not sure who you think is 'demanding' that life is meaningful - my experience simply is that it is, without the promise of an afterlife. You state that life is meaningless unless there is an afterlife - indeed your logic takes you to that position apparently. I just don't see it that way at all. Each to their own. Personally, I'm leaning toward not getting hung up on this concept of 'man' needing to continue after death. One thing we DO know, is that after death the atoms DO continue. Even the bible says man was made from dust - so perhaps it was recognizing that our atoms come from other and later return to other (I doubt that actually understood atoms at that pint, but maybe recognized the futility of thinking man was something other than a product of the universal elements. Man is created and man dissolves, but the atoms remain. Perhaps that is possibly where the 'awareness' lays - within the atoms of the universe which make up every single part of it. Who really knows. When I say 'perhaps' at the beginning of that sentence, it means I am questioning or postulating what could be. So no, no switch. I am open to thinking about it though. Maybe awareness brings the atoms together? Who can possibly know.

I don't know specifically what God you have in mind when you ask that question, but generally, I don't think pain and suffering is attributable to a decision-making God, no. For me the jury is still out but I could fathom an understanding of God who/which is 'existence' itself (perhaps like the 'awareness' that Joseph is explaining to you in another thread), so I could imagine such a God would also BE pain and suffering (as well as joy and happiness, etc) - in, of, through and all things that are. Oneness. Not so much 'responsible' for these things, but IS these things or at least is the experience of these things (as is everything). Oneness.

Whether it is a flaw or not is subject to opinion. You see flaws, I don't. Well, there's your meaning then - you don't need eternal life to have meaning in life. I know I give people gifts all the time knowing that the gift is not eternal. This further belief that death needs to be overcome still smacks of (to me) human emotion (ego) and not wanting to cease to exist. For me, the logic doesn't lead from believing this gift of life from God needs to be endless. Maybe God gave you life with an end in mind. Perhaps as Joseph speaks to, if we are simply awareness, then the self (consciousness) dying is of no consequence. It does seem to me to be a very human (ego) fear that we cease to exist upon death.

Well, if you didn't have pain you wouldn't be a human being. It's like asking "why do we breathe air?". It is part of how we have evolved as humans. Pain is a sensory experience our body utilizes to identify and address a physical problem (e.g. our leg is broken - do not walk on it. That surface is hot - do not sit on it, etc). Pain is an essential part of our human beingness, without which we simply couldn't exist. So to that end, pain itself should be considered a positive and beneficial occurrence. There is nothing for God to change concerning pain, unless one wants God to make us not human.

I think we only experience suffering because of how our minds view the world. We look at something and regard it as suffering because we feel threatened by it. Instead, if we accepted 'bad things' as just part of life, then I find it hard to imagine that we would feel any suffering at all. I think this is probably what Buddhism is trying to say. God or not, we only feel suffering if we allow ourselves to regard something as suffering. I think to be at peace with what we would otherwise consider suffering is easier said than done, but it seems to make sense to me that suffering can be overcome with a different mindset. So to that end, I wonder if God plays any part whatsoever in suffering. Perhaps not.

I've mentioned before in another thread that a God that I could make sense of would be a God of which we are in, are of and are ourselves. Maybe such a God could be what you call Awareness? To me, such a God is in and of everything and is experiencing everything. That's why I don't think there would be a good and evil per se, but rather, as everything is being experienced by God (the doing and the being done to), it just is. We are God experiencing what it's like to be human, plants and rocks and chemicals are giving God other experiences, and pre-human species provided God with different experiences. Total oneness and total awareness. When what seems to be our 'life' passes, consciousness means nothing as it is awareness (God) that continues. Maybe?

Many suspicions that predate me have died and faded away. Perhaps this suspicion (believing that only the existence of life after death can give this life meaning) will too in time as we continue to develop and evolve.

Well, we know that when we were monkeys in the tree that we weren't holding elaborate burial rituals. Conveniently for this argument of an afterlife, concern about afterlife only seemed to appear as man evolved into a more familiar species to today's homo sapiens. I think we can all agree that animals don't seem at all concerned about their life having meaning only if there is an afterlife. That many (not all) humans came to start believing in Gods and the supernatural, and all sorts of different strains of the spiritual in between such as animism, polytheism, paganism and monotheism to name just a few, seems a completely human condition and I can't help by suspect it is a product of our evolved intelligence rather than a revelation of something that has always existed but was waiting for human consciousness to develop to understand it. The sealer for me is the human attributes many apply to God or the Gods. It seems too convenient for me that we suddenly start understanding God a certain way along our path of evolution and that that way looks remarkably like us at this point.

To the contrary, I think that is just the only way you can understand it. I understand it otherwise. I don't think the atheist, and I know I'm not, is saying that life is meaningless if there is no afterlife. You keep insisting that is the case if there is no afterlife. That is your view. Again, you misrepresent my position. My position is that life has meaning without the need for any afterlife. Like Joseph says - the meaning of life is life itself. You need an afterlife for your life to have meaning. So if you really did accept my position then you would NOT be saying life has no meaning. Again, I don't think my view is either ridiculous or absurd. You may find it so perhaps because of a limited capability to understand my view, but that doesn't make it ridiculous. Ridiculous is just your opinion. Again, life is it's own meaning and I simply don't worry that if it shall be as though I never existed then my life is meaningless. I don't know how I can make it any clearer for you that I think my life has meaning, even in the face that one day it will no longer be. I simply don't see it that way. Apparently you can't see it any other way, which is fine of course, that is what you believe.

Another thing that comes to mind about this, is I wonder if the meaninglessness of life as Thormas imagines it to be if there is no afterlife, applied to the likes of other hominins millions of years ago that preceded us. It's hard to imagine those 'lesser' species in our evolution (for instance when they were swinging from trees) as thinking it would be absurd if they didn't live for ever after their short span on earth. It seems to me this train of thought has developed as we grew our brains and became a different species over hundreds of thousands of years. It does seem like a man-made development rather than any reality that has been lying in the wings waiting until we get to a certain spiritual or mental capacity to reveal itself. As my logic suggests to me anyway.

For me personally, I think the absurdity is in saying that unless one lives forever, then their life has no meaning. Like I said, try saying that to your family and I imagine your instant reaction is that you wouldn't feel your life has no meaning. Subsequently I can't consider it absurd, but understand that you do. Each to their own. I guess similarly, it doesn't matter whether you want to live forever or not. The cosmos will do what the cosmos does and if that means termination of consciousness, then that's what it means, irrespective if you should consider your life therefore meaningless.. So again to me, the only absurdity seems to be the thinking that it's absurd that our life has no meaning unless we live forever. I accept that's not how you feel about it though. You seem to love this word absurdity. The definition of absurdity is "the quality or state of being ridiculous or wildly unreasonable". I don't think what I have discussed is at all 'wildly unreasonable or even ridiculous', just because others think their lives have no meaning if they can't live forever, particularly in the face of those people not knowing what any life after death even looks like, but at best, imagining what it could be because as you say, your logic leads you there. I think we live, we die. My life has meaning whilst I am alive. That my life ends at some point and things moves on doesn't render my life meaningless. It has meaning to me and others. When those memories move on and perhaps nobody exists anymore, those things still have meaning, it's just that I or anybody else is not around to consider such meaning anymore. To me, that doesn't distract from the meaning that was. I think it is the ego that doesn't want to 'let go' and accept that it won't exist anymore. You think that's absurd - I don't. Peace.

Indeed, we do seem to make life a lot more complicated than it needs to be! I was standing on the beach just yesterday thinking this whilst I watched a dolphin continually launching itself out of the water. It was simply living in the now and enjoying life, I doubt it ever considers 'afterlife'. I wondered too if we could learn a lot from nature - we who generally animals as less intelligent than ourselves, but sometimes I do wonder who is having the last laugh.

I see no issue with ending an inquiry when it is answered. But each to their own - of course one can inquire into life after death for the rest of their lives without finding another answer or conversely settling for one that suits their beliefs. Life after death is not a requirement for ultimate oneness. We all came from the same atoms as a result of the big bang and those atoms will continue to exist long after our consciousness shuts down. That is the ultimate oneness - we all come from the same stardust. I'm not aware of him having this view, but haven't read everything Erhman or finished this book yet. See above. Ultimate oneness doesn't need consciousness - it just is. I think it is the ego in our consciousness that tells us there cannot be any oneness if one's ego/consciousness ceases to exist. You miss the point - the fact that some think there is a level of judgement, punishment or correction required means we are already judging other's actions and creating those that 'qualify' for heaven directly and those that don't. Even 'degrees' of temporary torment or punishment or cleansing or whatever you want to call it, calls for judgment to be made and it is a typical human behavior that we want to start establishing what we think those actions and behaviors need to be. It is human judgment - all completely natural and part of our being, but something very human nonetheless in my view. I don't think it's a prejudice to acknowledge that our ego drives us to certain ways of thinking. Its a pretty major Buddhist concept that our egos drive us to think like we do. I'm not sure what you personally believe in concerning eternal life but I wonder if you actually know yourself. I mean apart from saying you think there is some sort of eternal life, that seems to me to be about as far as you have gotten. So it seems to me you can't say you understand man, life, meaning, God, oneness in such a way that it answers your question about what comes after death because you simply can't answer that question. So you seem to defend believing in an afterlife without actually understanding what that afterlife even looks like. It seems cart before the horse to me. I don't understand why you or others think that if they cease to have consciousness that their life has no meaning. You lose consciousness every night - did that day mean nothing to anybody because you are presently not conscious during your sleep? Of course not. When I die and my consciousness ceases, my children will live on. People I have met will continue. Things I have done in and of the world will also continue along their way. How does that make my life meaningless? If you could be certain right now that there is no afterlife, would you straight away turn around and say to your family - "My life has been a waste of time?" But more to the point, I think it is more about being at peace with one's non-existence after death. Clearly a lot of people don't want loss of consciousness to be the end so they possibly conflate meaning for this life with continued existence. I don't. I think of all the people who have gone before me - Buddha, Jesus, Einstein, Galileo, Plato etc etc. I hardly think their life is meaningless just because they no longer have an existing consciousness. If there is no afterlife, do you think Jesus' life was meaningless to humanity, that it was a waste of time to tell people to treat others with love? Galileo was just wasting his time determining that the earth rotated around the sun? The higher learnings that Plato shared with the world are of no regard? To me, it seems the ultimate selfishness if saying one's life has no meaning if they can't exist beyond it. Such a view selfishly disregards what their life has provided to others, what influence they have had on others, how they have helped others grow and develop. How on earth could you consider that meaningless just because you personally can no longer look back on it? To me you seem to be saying "I am only going to live a 'good' life if there is something in it for me afterwards. No afterlife - well I am going to live my life differently then". If there is in fact no afterlife - do you wish you had lived your life differently? That would seem to suggest you don't think you have lived your best life. Do you consider your life to have been a waste of time? Perhaps this is where we differ - you seem to conflate opinion with honesty. That's not to call you a liar, but many honest opinions are incorrect. I am being honest when I say that I believe I will cease to exist when I die, but I do not regard my life here and now to be meaningless. Do you think I am lying or otherwise not being honest?

Well, I think that's the thing - God isn't good, love or holy. They are all just human attributes and emotions that we apply with our human mind based on our human experiences. Rather, it seems to me, God just is - good and 'bad'. Evil happens, as does good. It's just all part and parcel of existence. Our 'perception' is what makes us pick sides on these issues. Other inquiring minds have sought and found the answer - it means nothing for human beings. We live, we die. I thin Erhman simpy takes a sensible agnostic view on things such as 'temporary' Hell. I don't think there is any biblical evidence to support any such Christian notion, but Bart wouldn't rule it out the same as he probably doesn't rule out Thor or Zeus, he just 'think's they don't exist. Of course, this all depends on ones view of what God is and what personal view one has of 'growing' into God. I don't think it is necessarily 'logical' though to deduce that because Christianity understands that there is a responsibility on humanity to grow in God that therefore it stands that as we aren't perfect by Christianity's understanding that therefore there must be more after this life. I would say you are perfectly human now and when you die, your consciousness ceases. But indeed levels and classes are determined by such thinking. This thinking starts trying to determine what type of person will deserve 'temporary' hell and what type won't. This leads to judgement about actions and behaviors, in groups and out groups, those that make the grade and those that don't. We do this as a perfectly natural human behavior, but that's what we do as perfect humans. I think they are interested in clickbait, they just don't understand why they are or how it works. The temptation of believing in an eternal existence is so great that most cannot accept non-existence after death - enter religion. The ego doing what the ego does. Yes, certainly the speculation means more to some. May they find peace.

I think it's a lot simpler than that. One doesn't need to speculate on what may come after because a) hell is a man-made concept used to try an influence others to live how others think they should, and it doesn't exist, so nothing to think about there, and b) therefore a promise of a heaven applies to everybody anyway, no matter how they live their lives (unless we start going down the path of 'levels' of reward and 'classes' of those in said heaven). Personally, I think one is more than capable of living a fruitful and worthy life without any supernatural clickbait. Of course, speculation for speculation's sake can be of interest.