Forever

Being brought up in an atheist environment and incredibly believing in the Scriptures since I was a small child, my mind recently has wrestled with the question “what if I don’t want to live forever” is there acceptance for this according to God’s law ? Is not one life time enough for a person to bear? To live forever seems more a punishment than a reward.

The thought of one member of a family believing and the remainder do not equates to separation forever if you believe what the Scriptures teach. Where is the happiness in this?

Better to believe all ceases ‘forever’ upon death, all are fairly dealt the same cards, comforting to know we are all headed for the same fate. The dead know nothing, forever.

Death has a very hard time being accepted within society but the real problem is the irrational fear that it creates
Because nobody who is dead has ever worried for a single second about it why do the living worry about it so much

surreptitious75 wrote:

Where are you on this surreptitious75?

All souls may be eternal without choice.

Being afraid of something you cannot experience is completely irrational so letting go of that fear is the thing to do
I stopped being afraid of death last year and now have no fear of it so I am totally accepting of it as a consequence

Wendy wrote:

Do you embrace the theory of ‘life everlasting’?

In the book, “The Wisdom of Carl Jung,” which is a collection of quotes by Jung compiled and edited by Edward Hoffman, PhD (Citadel Press 2003), there is only one reference to reincarnation attributed to Jung:

“Nobody knows whether there is reincarnation, and equally one does not know that there is none. Buddha himself was convinced of reincarnation, but he himself on being asked twice by his disciples about it, left it quite open whether there is continuity of personality or not. Certainly we do not know where we come from, nor where we are going, or why we are here at the present time. I think it is right to believe that having done the best we could do here, we are also best prepared for things to come.”

S75 wrote:

Perhaps when actually faced with death and you do not die, takes the mystery away and with it the fear.

Yes very possible but you do not have to face it to overcome your fear of it you can rationalise it as I did

…perhaps you believe in life after death, if so, in your case, death is not a permanent state, a finality?

I do not do belief of any kind and definitely do not believe in life after death
And so when I die I expect to stay dead forever because that is just how it is

Yes, “things to come” as in more things or things in a loop. Unfortunately, the evidence found in astral projections such as NDEs points to the conscious soul continuing its functioning without its corporeal body, perhaps transitioning back into a different corporeal form again at some point or reliving the same life multiple times (both are possibilities which would explain uncanny feelings of familiarity during ones lifetime…deja vus). I too feel that immortality is too much “living” to bear especially if the other planes of existence offer less possibilities towards differing experiences than the Earth plane.

Have you ever entertained that perhaps death is simply a finality.

I wonder. Without the promise of life everlasting how many people would embrace Christianity, how many Muslims would believe without the promise of this present life being only a preparation for the next realm of existence, both Hinduism and Buddhism strongly believe in the rebirth and reincarnation of souls, none teach that death is final.

What happens after death is an ever deepening descent into illusion and obscuration, people grasping with their last intellectual breath, not an end but a continuation.

A Shieldmaiden

How did you manage to come to believe in the scriptures being that you grew up in an atheistic environment?

According to YOUR interpretation of the scriptures, does your God give you the freedom/free will to think for yourself and to desire what you want? If so, I do not see you having a problem there as long as you are grateful for the life you have. Even there, a God of compassion and mercy would have understanding of the human psyche.

According to the scriptures, the Old Testament God also had mercy and compassion. Therefore, wouldn’t your God understand your desire to not want to live forever?
At any rate, this is something which is out of our hand - either way.
There is either life after death or there is not. If there is not, what is there to worry about. After that final breath, there will be no experience whatsoever. There is no way to prove so - either way. All that can be said about it is based on belief, not reality.

True, it would be up to the individual’s life experience to see and to feel that. I can perfectly understand an individual’s desire in either direction.
We cannot live within another’s skin so we cannot know why. But we have the freedom to choose what we would want.

Arcturus Descending wrote:

I have no answer for that, only to recognise that it was something within me beyond my own conscious decision or understanding. I have had exposure through friends to Buddhism, the Koran, Hinduism none of which have had any impact or conviction for me.

There are arguments for and against what you have said regarding freedom to choose. In my case, I can only act with freedom to choose if I was the original source for my actions and being in the beginning so young I think this was way too sophisticated for a small child to totally comprehend. One could say if determinism is true, then everything I did as a small child was ultimately caused by circumstances out of my control and if this was so then I was not the instigator of my actions, therefore I did not or do not have free will in this instance.

The problem of free will and sin gives rise to the question why does God not will that all come to believe, when His having such a will is sufficient for everyone’s salvation?

Because they fear regretting not living the life that they felt they should have lived in one way or another. Maybe they wanted to see more or do more, maybe they wanted different relationships, maybe they felt like they were a bad person and wanted to be good, maybe they felt like they were too good and wanted to feel what it was like to be bad a little. At the end of the day, everything dies and nothing changes that. I don’t think that life is so special that it magically carries on ones all the neurons stop firing. But you’re right. Having a desire that goes against the inevitable can only cause dissonance. Might as well accept death, taxes, and the rest of the things that no one can avoid and make the most of it while you can get away with it.

That is the best theological argument against Heaven Ive ever seen.
A very honourable question.

As a resolution, you may be interested in the Odinic concept “Orlog”.
We hold that we are connected at least 8 generations back to our ancestors spirits, and that these spirits fight in us for predominance.

There is no “everlasting peace” but there is an extended struggle.

This is a sweeping statement. Too seeping.

Long ago i read about children that remembered their passed lives and then the study went on to check that the passed lives were actual.
They would, for example, remember names of their passed parents, brothers and sisters.

I tend to lean to agreement.
Also it is more logical to me if valuing-integrity, which is (come on now!) the soul (love-integrity) which upholds the “narrative” (morals, purpose, life-“path”, meaning) which in my ontology is the precursor to matter, which is energy, is also maintained as in conservation of integrity.

Both integrity and energy are being conserved, but on different shelves.

integrity is conserved by the energy expended on it (“men must fight!” - me to a lesbian) and energy is conserved around the axis of integrity.

I think “heaven” and “hell” are for people who are new to the sentiment of self-reverence, and need to be made aware of the existence of standards, which is then simplified in “evil” and “good”. A distinction which activates moral awareness in merely degenerated apes (normal humans) so as to set them possibly on the path of a better set of distinct qualities, further along the road to “superman”, i.e. animal: man. The man who has become fully entrusted to his own mind, so as to become an animal species and roam on earth and be happy.