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Originally posted by meathed
reply to post by larrydavid
I have done it before and until i learn all of lives lessons, i will have to do it again.
We all have to.
Thats called life.
Originally posted by JR MacBeth
reply to post by GypsK
Really, you'd be surprised just how many people would choose darkness over the light without a second thought.
I'm not saying they are right, just saying that some will make another choice then you and I would make.
Thanks GypsK.
I think you're right that many people romanticize the "dark-side", or perhaps further enjoy dark pursuits in life, etc.
I suppose if there is something like "free will", people who prefer such things should be at least allowed their choice.
But from a philosophical view, I think a case can be made for examining such choices, in "light" of the fact that they would not only be objectively "wrong" choices, but ones made with insufficient information.
Probably our Western "religious" baggage predisposes us to accepting this "cosmic choice" paradigm, and certainly, the idea of free will seems to suggest that such choices are in order. But what kind of "choice" is it really?
If someone asked you to "decide" about this "eternity", or that, regardless of which, there is one sticky problem. Finite people really have no concept of what "eternity" could possibly mean. It's not exactly like asking our dog to choose between a juicy steak, and a rotten apple, such a "choice" wouldn't be a choice anyway, in any real sense. But if there was such a thing as a conscious existence that never ends, we wouldn't be the ones to ask anything about it, IMO. It wouldn't exactly be a "fair" question, and obviously, if your "eternal" destiny somehow hinged on such a decision, any just "god" sitting in "judgement" couldn't exactly get away with holding you to your "decision", such as it was.
Oh, perhaps there are other "creatures" we could imagine, possibly "angels", maybe they would have some inkling of what such a thing could mean, but certainly not people.
Of course, this is all hypothetical, no one knows what happens after death, in spite of plenty of popular NDE stories about this "light".
Logically, I tend to think that "eternity" shouldn't be anything creatures with only finite experience should have to worry about, although, many people do in fact worry about it.
While I personally wouldn't worry about "eternity", I suppose it wouldn't be entirely irrational to worry about possible "justice" beyond the grave. Somehow, if history is any indication, people have this common "need" to believe that justice is somehow done "somewhere". Clearly, it isn't done in "this" life, so that would bring us to the next.
What "should" happen to finite creatures who have misbehaved, been selfish, made bad choices, caused the suffering of others? "Hell" perhaps? Well, not if it's "eternal", even if it was Hitler we were talking about, since that would be overkill. But probably a "purgatorial" idea could make sense, as long as there is some remedial value to it.
JR
But the bottom line still is that no one knows for sure what happens after physical death. All we have are personal perspectives of peoples experiences. Personally I would be very surprised to see a light after I died, my personal expectations are far beyond that.