Is the only way to know that there is an afterlife bc of Revelation and faith? If you take religion out of the equation, is it reasonable to think that when one’s body dies, some part of their conscience still “lives” on? If yes, the reason is not apparent to me, so please explain. If no, does that mean the hope of an afterlife is just wishful thinking? If it is wishful thinking (aka hope), why do people wish for an afterlife?
Is it possible to believe in an afterlife (based on faith that one’s religion’s teachings on the existence of an afterlife is right) but not desire an afterlife? (so it’s kind of the opposite of hope - like you don’t want to believe, but you do.) Is annihilationism preferable to eternal torment?
If hell is eternal separation from God, is hell not really eternal torment to an atheist? Is eternal separation from God akin to annihilationism for an atheist?
Is the only way to know that there is an afterlife bc of Revelation and faith?
I don’t think so. Humans have a predilection for belief in life after death. Every culture, civilization, race in every place and time on earth, from as far back as art and burial existed had beliefs in an afterlife.
So it isn’t just a two thousand year old phenomenon, nor just a primitive hangover from one distant tribe or culture, but it is a universal predilection in humans regardless of their appearance in any particular space or time on earth. The ability of the human mind to conceive and consider an afterlife is like Columbus’ ability to conceive and consider another continent across the ocean when he found coconuts washed up on a Portugese beach.
If you take religion out of the equation, is it reasonable to think that when one’s body dies, some part of their conscience still “lives” on?
I think so. A phenomenon of fairly recent origin is the one which tried to reduce everything to the smallest particles. So that the object then becomes like a machine made of tiny indivisible gogs. Its a fairly obsolete idea now because everyone now knows that it is not that simple.
A person is not made of indivisible cogs of quarks etc., the quarks themselves become an endless invisible folding of something which is neither energy nor material. It defies definitions and descriptions; in fact, it does not really exist - if we see the world as divided between things material and things immaterial, things real and things unreal.
Imagining a creature capable of love and having a unique personality who is made from an endless stream of quarks. The soul of the person can live in this world of quarks, using and controlling quarks to give expression to its personality in a material way. But the quarks themselves are made of non-material stuff, in fact the stuff they are made of and in which the personality of the person resides is more akin to spiritual stuff than any thing material.
Quarks don’t die. And if a spiritual type whole personality assumes a material form and existence by using a stream of quarks, themselves made of non-material or spiritual like substance, this places the personality and person above the temporary collection of quarks in order of importance. The personality resides outside the material realm, somewhere deep inside the mysterious reality of a non-material world. A non-material world which is capable of sustaining within itself a complete unit of being, like a human personality. The human personality in this case becomes almost an independent entity. Its completeness and independence as a whole almost becomes a necessity and independent itself from any material necessity of expression through a material world. In short, the human personality and its uniqueness, and its love, become an eternal or spiritual necessary reality.
