Can Catholics 'opt out' of an afterlife?

[Tuno]

Looking back at your first post, I realized I misunderstood what you said. My apologies.

No problem. It is generally how things work, only this time you noticed. I looked for a link to share with you regarding some cognitive research done with Teller of Penn & Teller relevant to how we perceive things, (Usually with mind numbing paucity, but well enough to not break a leg on an errand. Usually.) If I find it, I will pass it on. But many people wonder why what they are not read correctly. Usually it because the reader is superimposing thoughts not there over the text.

An acquaintance of mine, for instance, an acknowledged inventive genius, wanted to join a discussion group on a short book by Harry Benjamin titled Basic Self Knowledge. He was given a copy with the instructions “read the book.” He came back, reported, and was told, “No, read the book.” Long story short, he “read” the book 25 more times. Where he got that persistence, I don’t know, but maybe that is why he was an inventor and/or a genius.On that last reading it comprehensively and understandably dawned on him that he had completely misread the authors intent.

Another friend used to do this every year: She said “Class, today we are going to make JELLO exactly according to the instructions on the box. Can we do that?” After years of resounding “YES’s!” no individual has yet made a batch of JELLO in her class exactly according to instructions. We don’t want to see what is there; we want to be right.

 

[jmcrae]

Another friend used to do this every year: She said “Class, today we are going to make JELLO exactly according to the instructions on the box. Can we do that?” After years of resounding “YES’s!” no individual has yet made a batch of JELLO in her class exactly according to instructions. We don’t want to see what is there; we want to be right.

I can relate to that, right now.

I am making three paintings, all from the same pencil sketch. Each of the paintings is coming out completely different from the other two, in spite of the fact that all three are based on exactly the same source information.

I completed one of them yesterday, and I’m doing the other two side by side on the easel, using the same brushes and palette for both - and they are still coming out looking very different from each other - because every time I look at the pencil sketch, I see something different than what I saw less than a minute ago.

 

[Tuno]

I can relate to that, right now.

I am making three paintings, all from the same pencil sketch. Each of the paintings is coming out completely different from the other two, in spite of the fact that all three are based on exactly the same source information.

I completed one of them yesterday, and I’m doing the other two side by side on the easel, using the same brushes and palette for both - and they are still coming out looking very different from each other - because every time I look at the pencil sketch, I see something different than what I saw less than a minute ago.

Ya sure. I use the same two hands and darned if every piece of clay doesn’t look different. Go figure. The God loves uniqueness. Won’t start a book here. Paint joyously!

 

[Snerticus]

It seems people don’t seem to appreciate just how amazing what they have here on Earth really is. They want more.

You’re right, we quite often don’t appreciate what we have here. But there are those that do, and they still look forward to an aftlerlife… because God created us for more than this finite life.

I would suggest that could be ungrateful, greedy and unnecessary.

Well, you could choose to look at it that way, as if the glass were half empty. But I look at it this way:

God chose to reveal Himself and His plans for mankind to us through Scripture and Tradition. He could have kept it all to Himself and have us all think there’s nothing to look forward to after death. But He did not: He wanted to share His knowledge that in fact He created us to spend eternity with Him in paradise.

That being a given, it would seem to me selfish, ungrateful, and extremely unnecessary to say to God, “thanks for the gift, but no thanks”. Especially when He specifically chose you for eternal life for a reason.

If He knew you’d want nothingness after death (and being God, He obviously knows everything) then He would never have created you in the first place. He would have left you as nothingness. Or perhaps He would have created you as something else, but not a human. Which seems to point to the possibility that whatever you crave or desire after death now at this point in time will change once you die and all is revealed to you.

Look at it this way, whatever your desires and motivations are here on earth, they will be wiped away by the eventual knowledge of why things are and what is to come after we die. Since we cannot know the mind of God, we can only imagine in human ways what life will be like after our souls leave this earth. You are assuming that you will be unhappy after death and you won’t want what’s coming because you think you know what it will be like. But no one knows, the best we have is what God has revealed to us. And He certainly has not revealed that it will be boring or unfulfilling.

However we may presently envision life to be like after death, nothing will compare (NOTHING!) with what God has in store for us. We simply cannot fathom it, much like an amoeba cannot fathom astrophysics. The only difference is that the amoeba will never fathom astrophysics, yet our eternal souls will - once they are freed from this finite existence.