Humans don't long for the eternal, but the indefinite

[PyramidHead]

I'm reading a pretty interesting book called This Life, but Martin Hägglund. In it, he makes the following argument: religious people and their apologists are wrong when they say that humans all share an innate longing for the timeless, eternal, transcendent divinity that is posited by many of the world's faiths. We say we want that, but what people really value is something different.

The concept of religious eternity is a kind of death, when you read what is actually written about it. From Buddhist nirvana to the Christian heaven, the state is described as one where time no longer passes, nothing comes to fruition or develops, nothing is exchanged, no information is gradually revealed, no growth takes place, no relationships are formed, and nothing is at stake. There is no reason to care about anything in eternity, and nothing to be passionate about. So, when most religious people imagine the afterlife, for example, they replace this permanent blissful stasis with an indefinite extension of what their earthly lives were like. They imagine being reunited with loved ones who have passed, or forming new bonds with prior enemies. There is a lot of literature that gets passed around by the Witnesses of Jehova depicting a heavenly world with people wandering around in fields of trees; where are they going? What could they possibly have to do, in a state where literally nothing matters and nothing happens?

Augustine wrote a lot about this dichotomy when discussing the loss of a friend or lover, for whom the prospect of their eternal life offered him little consolation because it wasn't a replacement of the finite, fragile, meaningful lives they embodied on earth.

What the author of the book returns to over and over is that humans don't want eternal life, we want to live on. Living on is being situated in the present moment, with a past full of memories to draw upon and an uncertain future to anticipate. It hinges on the fact that things can fail and die, and that many of those things can never be replaced. This precarious balance is what we maintain and derive joy in maintaining, as well as suffering. It gives important things their value and provides meaning to life's ups and downs, which is why we mourn and try to make things better for ourselves and others.

A good example that gets mentioned early in the book is how, during the funeral ceremony for the victims of Sandy Hook, there were two contrary messages being pushed: one being that nothing bad has truly happened since all of the victims are in a place of bliss and peace, the other being that we should do everything in our power to prevent there being any more victims of such attacks in the future. If there was really no reason to grieve at the deaths of children, then we wouldn't try to minimize them. We do, and even the faithful do, because even as some believe the victims' souls are now in the eternal presence of God, they still must acknowledge that their earthly lives being ended was the irrevocable loss of something that cannot be replaced nor substituted by the heavenly version: a time-bound, dynamic, vulnerable, ongoing person that would have lived on (not forever, but indefinitely) if not for its cessation. Something is gone that was valuable, and it was valuable because it was always at risk for being taken away. No matter how glorious the perpetual, impersonal chorus of praise in heaven may be, it can never account for this loss because it's eternal and therefore dislocated from time, and time is what makes everything we cherish actually matter.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Is that a cultural thing?
Because the afterlife of Valahalla was not the boring death state nor the indefinite. There was a published Plan of The Day and eventually they took the game on the road against the giants' league.

And to the Egyptians, the whole point of Earthly life was to figure out how you wanted to spend eternity, so you made sure your favorite hunting dog or fishing spear was in your grave, along with the beer and food you preferred.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Yes, yes. Heaven, as gassed about by 'spiritual' people, lacks any sense of engagement. It actually sounds like the descriptions heroin users give about the moments they spend just after their hit.
'Millions long for eternity who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.' -Susan Ertz
In any case, if Heaven is the perfect existence, then the Heaven's Gate cult had the correct strategy.

 

[PyramidHead]

Is that a cultural thing?
Because the afterlife of Valahalla was not the boring death state nor the indefinite. There was a published Plan of The Day and eventually they took the game on the road against the giants' league.

And to the Egyptians, the whole point of Earthly life was to figure out how you wanted to spend eternity, so you made sure your favorite hunting dog or fishing spear was in your grave, along with the beer and food you preferred.

I think that's just a cultural example of a more honest religious conception of the afterlife. I know it's what I'd want. A change of scenery, less hardship for sure, but overall still some kind of activity and something to strive for. Which, when you think about it a little longer, is self-defeating even in the Egyptian sense. Why would there be any need to go hunting if you could live forever? After a few trillion years, you might start to get sick of that dog.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Heaven primarily represents a human longing for hedonism, a pain free, questionless, effortless existence where only good things happen. Also, humans are competitive and heaven is their deserved reward for working hard, enduring pain, discomfort and uncertainty. It's also like the hall of fame where only the best performers get to hang out and admire their greatness. And, of course, all true believers are truly deserving because their lives have been oh so hard. Ask any wealthy televangelist.

The simplest I've ever heard it stated is that if you're a good person you go to heaven. That was told to me by a friend who is Lutheran. Most people just want a great life that never ends, and that's heaven to them.

Heaven sounds like a thoughtless place where you're not chasing the dragon anymore. You're back on that first great high and it never ends. Heaven is pretty much simply magic come true.

 

[bilby]

Heaven is a contrast to reality.

The Christian heaven was developed in late roman and early medieval Europe, where life was unremittingly hard - it started out as the religion of slaves, and then became the religion of peasants; And to a slave or serf, the idea of being able to spend eternity doing nothing is incredibly appealing. When you have to get up every morning to another day of back-breaking labour, without which you and your family will surely starve, and within which you will likely be severely punished for the slightest hint of slacking off, doing nothing at all forever and having all of your needs met seems pretty damned appealing.

Unemployment is a modern invention, and depends upon a society that feeds idle but able people - before there was unemployment, there was just poverty and/or starvation. A person who has never been allowed to be idle for more than a few hours at a time cannot possibly grasp how awful it is to have nothing at all to do.

It is said that the miracle of socialism was to turn poverty into mere unemployment; And the miracle of neo-liberal capitalism was to allow both poverty and unemployment to exist at the same time.

 

[southernhybrid]

I think it's far less complicated that some of you make it sound. People believe in an after life because we humans have a difficult time accepting that there will be a time when we no longer exist. So, the after life belief allows us to imagine an existence outside of the only one we've ever known. It's not like those who believe in heaven can't wait to get there, it just makes them feel a little less anxious about death if they think they will go somewhere else when they die. Plus, it allows them to think they will see their loved ones again. Not only that, but since so many Americans now think of our pets as part of our families, we've invented the Rainbow Bridge, the place that takes our pets to cat and dog heaven, where we will again be united with them. Sure, it's a rather silly, primitive belief, but it apparently helps a lot of people cope with their eventual nonexistence.

Pretty simple really. Most of them just don't think about it too much. It just helps them cope with death, imo.

 

[skepticalbip]

I think it's far less complicated that some of you make it sound. People believe in an after life because we humans have a difficult time accepting that there will be a time when we no longer exist. So, the after life belief allows us to imagine an existence outside of the only one we've ever known. It's not like those who believe in heaven can't wait to get there, it just makes them feel a little less anxious about death if they think they will go somewhere else when they die. Plus, it allows them to think they will see their loved ones again. Not only that, but since so many Americans now think of our pets as part of our families, we've invented the Rainbow Bridge, the place that takes our pets to cat and dog heaven, where we will again be united with them. Sure, it's a rather silly, primitive belief, but it apparently helps a lot of people cope with their eventual nonexistence.

Pretty simple really. Most of them just don't think about it too much. It just helps them cope with death, imo.

Now that is an interesting take - religion is denial. I kinda like that.

 

[bilby]

I think it's far less complicated that some of you make it sound. People believe in an after life because we humans have a difficult time accepting that there will be a time when we no longer exist. So, the after life belief allows us to imagine an existence outside of the only one we've ever known. It's not like those who believe in heaven can't wait to get there, it just makes them feel a little less anxious about death if they think they will go somewhere else when they die. Plus, it allows them to think they will see their loved ones again. Not only that, but since so many Americans now think of our pets as part of our families, we've invented the Rainbow Bridge, the place that takes our pets to cat and dog heaven, where we will again be united with them. Sure, it's a rather silly, primitive belief, but it apparently helps a lot of people cope with their eventual nonexistence.

Pretty simple really. Most of them just don't think about it too much. It just helps them cope with death, imo.

Sure, but the afterlife serves other purposes too - for one thing, as well as a defence against death, it's also a vehicle for vengeance. Lots of people piss us off in ways we cannot retaliate against or be compensated for in life, but that's OK, we will get our revenge after death - the ultimate case of L'esprit de l'escalier.

There are a lot of people who seem to envisage heaven as like the best seat in the house, from which to watch their enemies being tortured in hell for eternity.

 

[skepticalbip]

... snip ...

There are a lot of people who seem to envisage heaven as like the best seat in the house, from which to watch their enemies being tortured in hell for eternity.

So they are anxiously anticipating the promise of Schadenfreude?

 

[Lion IRC]

I'm reading a pretty interesting book called This Life, but Martin Hägglund. In it, he makes the following argument: religious people and their apologists are wrong when they say that humans all share an innate longing for the timeless, eternal, transcendent divinity that is posited by many of the world's faiths. We say we want that, but what people really value is something different.

The concept of religious eternity is a kind of death, when you read what is actually written about it. From Buddhist nirvana to the Christian heaven, the state is described as one where time no longer passes, nothing comes to fruition or develops, nothing is exchanged, no information is gradually revealed, no growth takes place, no relationships are formed, and nothing is at stake. There is no reason to care about anything in eternity, and nothing to be passionate about. So, when most religious people imagine the afterlife, for example, they replace this permanent blissful stasis with an indefinite extension of what their earthly lives were like. They imagine being reunited with loved ones who have passed, or forming new bonds with prior enemies. There is a lot of literature that gets passed around by the Witnesses of Jehova depicting a heavenly world with people wandering around in fields of trees; where are they going? What could they possibly have to do, in a state where literally nothing matters and nothing happens?

Augustine wrote a lot about this dichotomy when discussing the loss of a friend or lover, for whom the prospect of their eternal life offered him little consolation because it wasn't a replacement of the finite, fragile, meaningful lives they embodied on earth.

What the author of the book returns to over and over is that humans don't want eternal life, we want to live on. Living on is being situated in the present moment, with a past full of memories to draw upon and an uncertain future to anticipate. It hinges on the fact that things can fail and die, and that many of those things can never be replaced. This precarious balance is what we maintain and derive joy in maintaining, as well as suffering. It gives important things their value and provides meaning to life's ups and downs, which is why we mourn and try to make things better for ourselves and others.

A good example that gets mentioned early in the book is how, during the funeral ceremony for the victims of Sandy Hook, there were two contrary messages being pushed: one being that nothing bad has truly happened since all of the victims are in a place of bliss and peace, the other being that we should do everything in our power to prevent there being any more victims of such attacks in the future. If there was really no reason to grieve at the deaths of children, then we wouldn't try to minimize them. We do, and even the faithful do, because even as some believe the victims' souls are now in the eternal presence of God, they still must acknowledge that their earthly lives being ended was the irrevocable loss of something that cannot be replaced nor substituted by the heavenly version: a time-bound, dynamic, vulnerable, ongoing person that would have lived on (not forever, but indefinitely) if not for its cessation. Something is gone that was valuable, and it was valuable because it was always at risk for being taken away. No matter how glorious the perpetual, impersonal chorus of praise in heaven may be, it can never account for this loss because it's eternal and therefore dislocated from time, and time is what makes everything we cherish actually matter.

I think we see this same "innate longing for the timeless, eternal" in the (atheist) doctrine of;

* A past-eternal, perpetual motion uni/multi/mega/omni-verse
* The supposed metaphysical impossibility of an ontological state of nothingness/non-existence

Why then would the idea of a past-eternal, perpetually existent Being pose a problem?

 

[bilby]

I'm reading a pretty interesting book called This Life, but Martin Hägglund. In it, he makes the following argument: religious people and their apologists are wrong when they say that humans all share an innate longing for the timeless, eternal, transcendent divinity that is posited by many of the world's faiths. We say we want that, but what people really value is something different.

The concept of religious eternity is a kind of death, when you read what is actually written about it. From Buddhist nirvana to the Christian heaven, the state is described as one where time no longer passes, nothing comes to fruition or develops, nothing is exchanged, no information is gradually revealed, no growth takes place, no relationships are formed, and nothing is at stake. There is no reason to care about anything in eternity, and nothing to be passionate about. So, when most religious people imagine the afterlife, for example, they replace this permanent blissful stasis with an indefinite extension of what their earthly lives were like. They imagine being reunited with loved ones who have passed, or forming new bonds with prior enemies. There is a lot of literature that gets passed around by the Witnesses of Jehova depicting a heavenly world with people wandering around in fields of trees; where are they going? What could they possibly have to do, in a state where literally nothing matters and nothing happens?

Augustine wrote a lot about this dichotomy when discussing the loss of a friend or lover, for whom the prospect of their eternal life offered him little consolation because it wasn't a replacement of the finite, fragile, meaningful lives they embodied on earth.

What the author of the book returns to over and over is that humans don't want eternal life, we want to live on. Living on is being situated in the present moment, with a past full of memories to draw upon and an uncertain future to anticipate. It hinges on the fact that things can fail and die, and that many of those things can never be replaced. This precarious balance is what we maintain and derive joy in maintaining, as well as suffering. It gives important things their value and provides meaning to life's ups and downs, which is why we mourn and try to make things better for ourselves and others.

A good example that gets mentioned early in the book is how, during the funeral ceremony for the victims of Sandy Hook, there were two contrary messages being pushed: one being that nothing bad has truly happened since all of the victims are in a place of bliss and peace, the other being that we should do everything in our power to prevent there being any more victims of such attacks in the future. If there was really no reason to grieve at the deaths of children, then we wouldn't try to minimize them. We do, and even the faithful do, because even as some believe the victims' souls are now in the eternal presence of God, they still must acknowledge that their earthly lives being ended was the irrevocable loss of something that cannot be replaced nor substituted by the heavenly version: a time-bound, dynamic, vulnerable, ongoing person that would have lived on (not forever, but indefinitely) if not for its cessation. Something is gone that was valuable, and it was valuable because it was always at risk for being taken away. No matter how glorious the perpetual, impersonal chorus of praise in heaven may be, it can never account for this loss because it's eternal and therefore dislocated from time, and time is what makes everything we cherish actually matter.

I think we see this same "innate longing for the timeless, eternal" in the (atheist) doctrine of;

* A past-eternal, perpetual motion uni/multi/mega/omni-verse
* The supposed metaphysical impossibility of an ontological state of nothingness/non-existence

Neither of these is a consequence of, nor a necessary assumption for, atheism. Atheists don't, as a class, share any doctrines.

One could consider either, neither, or both of these propositions to be likely, unlikely, certain, or impossible, and still be an atheist.

Why then would the idea of a past-eternal, perpetually existent Being pose a problem?

It doesn't pose a problem. The problem isn't with the idea; It's with the complete absence of any reason to think that the idea has any relationship with reality.

And even the idea of a past-eternal, perpetually existent being is compatible with atheism - although not with observed reality - as long as that being isn't a 'god'.

You seem to labour under the misapprehension that if someone accepts the mere possibility of some of your theistic claims, they must accept the certainty of them all. This is untrue.

Atheism is simply the understanding that gods do not exist outside fiction. This tells us nada to the power of bupkis about whether the past is eternal, or whether nothingness is a coherent concept. To answer those questions, we must (as with all questions of fact) turn to the scientific method. Hypothesise, test/observe, refine.

If instead you read a book, you are learning about the world descrbed by the author of the book, which may or may not match reality.

 

[ronburgundy]

I think the idea of an eventless eternity is a byproduct of people trying to sell the idea that since God is perfect, Heaven must be perfect. But there can be only one possible state that is the most perfect state, and things happening mean fluctuation of states. So, it is impossible to have constant perfection and things happening.

Similarly, eternal happiness is not possible. Happiness only exists as a state of relief from desire and want, thus it can only be experienced when one fluctuates in and out of a state of desire and want.

I agree with the OP that what people really want is to experience happiness, joy, and pleasure indefinitely, even if they don't always realize that means they cannot experience these things constantly, because then they would experience nothing.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I think the idea of an eventless eternity is a byproduct of people trying to sell the idea that since God is perfect, Heaven must be perfect. But there can be only one possible state that is the most perfect state, and things happening mean fluctuation of states. So, it is impossible to have constant perfection and things happening.

Similarly, eternal happiness is not possible. Happiness only exists as a state of relief from desire and want, thus it can only be experienced when one fluctuates in and out of a state of desire and want.

I agree with the OP that what people really want is to experience happiness, joy, and pleasure indefinitely, even if they don't always realize that means they cannot experience these things constantly, because then they would experience nothing.

So then to come full circle, having a god and any associated happiness is only made possible by contemplating the opposite, that one really doesn't have a god.

 

[atrib]

The idea of living for eternity is frightening to me. Because there can be no end to my existence, of being conscious, of being trapped forever with my thoughts and emotions in a small braincase. After a while you have done it all, read it all, and know everything about everything and thought about everything you could possibly think about; what do you do then? I don't think religious people who hope for an eternal afterlife have actually thought the idea through. As Hitchins used to say, there is nothing more monstrous than living your life in the perpetual North Korea that is Heaven, where every thought and action is observed and recorded by Kim Jong-God, and there is no escape even in death.

 

[atrib]

I think we see this same "innate longing for the timeless, eternal" in the (atheist) doctrine of;

* A past-eternal, perpetual motion uni/multi/mega/omni-verse
* The supposed metaphysical impossibility of an ontological state of nothingness/non-existence

Atheism has nothing to do with these ideas. Atheism is a denial of religious claims regarding the existence of supernatural entities, that is all.

Why then would the idea of a past-eternal, perpetually existent Being pose a problem?

The idea of living in a celestial North Korea under the watchful eye of "Our Dear Leader" for all eternity is a monstrous thought. The dear leader was not elected to his position, nor can he be removed from his throne. And unlike the real North Korea, one cannot escape by dying. What could be more horrific?

 

[ideologyhunter]

Christians who've talked up Heaven in my presence have the cloudiest non-specificity about it. Their voices change -- they talk about it like the key aspect is the cessation of travail and worry. Like eating the biggest damn jelly donut ever made while listening to Anne Murray's Greatest Hits.
Let's all be tapioca.

 

[skepticalbip]

Christians who've talked up Heaven in my presence have the cloudiest non-specificity about it. Their voices change -- they talk about it like the key aspect is the cessation of travail and worry. Like eating the biggest damn jelly donut ever made while listening to Anne Murray's Greatest Hits.
Let's all be tapioca.

That is pretty much my experience. When asked for rational descriptions from theists, I generally get bupkis. The best I can make of their ramblings is an analogy of an eternal opium trip where god freely supplies the opium.

 

[Treedbear]

Christians who've talked up Heaven in my presence have the cloudiest non-specificity about it. Their voices change -- they talk about it like the key aspect is the cessation of travail and worry. Like eating the biggest damn jelly donut ever made while listening to Anne Murray's Greatest Hits.
Let's all be tapioca.

That is pretty much my experience. When asked for rational descriptions from theists, I generally get bupkis. The best I can make of their ramblings is an analogy of an eternal opium trip where god freely supplies the opium.

A state of perpetual bliss while praising God. And getting to live in mansion. There needs to be a mansion. And bliss. The kind that can only come from living in a mansion.

 

[bilby]

Christians who've talked up Heaven in my presence have the cloudiest non-specificity about it. Their voices change -- they talk about it like the key aspect is the cessation of travail and worry. Like eating the biggest damn jelly donut ever made while listening to Anne Murray's Greatest Hits.
Let's all be tapioca.

That is pretty much my experience. When asked for rational descriptions from theists, I generally get bupkis. The best I can make of their ramblings is an analogy of an eternal opium trip where god freely supplies the opium.

A state of perpetual bliss while praising God. And getting to live in mansion. There needs to be a mansion. And bliss. The kind that can only come from living in a mansion.

There's usually gold too. I don't know why. It's completely useless in heaven - so much so that it's used as a paving material as often as not. I can't imagine that streets paved with gold would be very practical - they would be slippery, and their malleability would lead to ruts and corrugations if used by vehicles. Indeed, they would need resurfacing pretty frequently even with just foot traffic.