• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

Does The Thought of God Not Existing Terrify You?

zago

New member
Joined
Jun 25, 2008
Messages
1,162
MBTI Type
INTP
The idea of living in a permanent state of euphoria for an eternity (Heaven) terrifies me a bit more; it just seems unnatural, like being on a permanent drug trip with no comedown. I'd rather just...rest.

It wouldn't seem unnatural at all if it were actually happening to you. The right chemical pathways can be manipulated in the brain such that bliss never gets remotely tiresome (for instance). You're projecting what you currently feel towards what you might feel in heaven. In heaven, you'd know bliss that you literally can't conceive of right now.
 

Magic Poriferan

^He pronks, too!
Joined
Nov 4, 2007
Messages
14,081
MBTI Type
Yin
Enneagram
One
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
I don't believe in a god or any gods. If anything, the existence of deities would be more frightening.

Death is a predicament. Oblivion is frightening to me, but so is eternal consciousness. I'm not sure if there is ultimately a way to win.
 

Mole

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
why the does ebola exist?

The parasite ebola shares the same DNA as all life on planet Earth.

You and I and ebola have been exquisitely shaped by natural selection over billions of years.

We are great natural works of art.
 

Lexicon

Temporal Mechanic
Staff member
Joined
Sep 28, 2008
Messages
12,342
MBTI Type
JINX
Enneagram
5w6
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
The parasite ebola shares the same DNA as all life on planet Earth.

You and I and ebola have been exquisitely shaped by natural selection over billions of years.

We are great natural works of art.

Some art is rather unpleasant, I guess.
 

Qlip

Post Human Post
Joined
Jul 30, 2010
Messages
8,464
MBTI Type
ENFP
Enneagram
4w5
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
Way back when when I was trying to figure the universe and all that heavy stuff out, I predicated my search based on the existence of a God. When I saw that not all good people are rewarded in their lifetime, I assumed it meant something about God. When I see that most likely consciousness can be replicated as a machine, this means something about God to me.

It's impossible for me to not believe in God, but it is a kind of placeholder to me, as it is to everybody who has ever invoked it.
 

Mole

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
'God' is an historical, and geographical idea.

So it is history and geography that determined our present idea of God.

The problem is that different histories and different geographies have thrown up different ideas of God. And these different ideas are not compatible.

So when we cling to our historical and geographical God, we become absurd.
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

Up the Wolves
Joined
Jul 24, 2008
Messages
19,444
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
5w6
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
The concept of god not existing doesn't terrify me. I take the absence of an afterlife as a given, and do not believe in gambling away what might be my only chance on metaphysics. The finality is terrifying, but also beautiful. Really, if you think about, if it's your only chance, doesn't that make your life more meaningful, not less?

In as much as I allow for the existence of a god, and I do to a limited extent, there still is no afterlife, though there is an order. At times, I think the order may consist of justice. I vacillate on that one.

I guess... what I'm trying to say here is that I don't need an afterlife, and I think believing in an afterlife is kind of like a crutch, but I do believe in an inherent order. It's not a popular idea for some, since saying that kind of things seems to be equated with a rejection of science, but doesn't science exist according to the same principles, after all? There are certainly rules. If you drop an apple, you know it's going to fall.
 

Alea_iacta_est

New member
Joined
Dec 3, 2013
Messages
1,834
God is but a metaphor, one that humanizes the universe and deems it a deity that watches out for us, ultimately knows what's best for us, and leads us in this strange and harsh world. Unfortunately, those who have seen past the metaphor into what the universe truly is are far worse off than those that still see the universe and god as separate entities, for we are the ones who understand that the universe is no benevolent god, but is instead a series of calculations that are desperately trying to reach a singular equilibrium, and will stop at nothing to achieve such. The universe is an algorithm, and we are the variables, constantly impacting the environment and destabilizing the universe's attempts at equilibrium, but it ultimately will win, for once we die, we become constant and fixed as a zero, nothing. The point of view may live on in different manifestations and times, but ultimately time remains linear in existence and will therefore carry us to equilibrium despite any of our attempts to add life and energy to the system. We mean nothing to this existence, in fact, we are more trouble than we are worth to the universe; the only thing we can do is live our lives to the fullest and experience the experience of life.

God does exist, but it is merely a misnomer for the most beautiful and detailed machine that stands before us, existence. Ultimately, the universe is God, existence is God, and we are God, 'till death do us part.
 

Evo

Unapologetic being
Joined
Jul 1, 2011
Messages
3,160
MBTI Type
XNTJ
Enneagram
1w9
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
No, it's the other way around for me. :laugh:
 

zago

New member
Joined
Jun 25, 2008
Messages
1,162
MBTI Type
INTP
God is but a metaphor, one that humanizes the universe and deems it a deity that watches out for us, ultimately knows what's best for us, and leads us in this strange and harsh world. Unfortunately, those who have seen past the metaphor into what the universe truly is are far worse off than those that still see the universe and god as separate entities, for we are the ones who understand that the universe is no benevolent god, but is instead a series of calculations that are desperately trying to reach a singular equilibrium, and will stop at nothing to achieve such. The universe is an algorithm, and we are the variables, constantly impacting the environment and destabilizing the universe's attempts at equilibrium, but it ultimately will win, for once we die, we become constant and fixed as a zero, nothing. The point of view may live on in different manifestations and times, but ultimately time remains linear in existence and will therefore carry us to equilibrium despite any of our attempts to add life and energy to the system. We mean nothing to this existence, in fact, we are more trouble than we are worth to the universe; the only thing we can do is live our lives to the fullest and experience the experience of life.

God does exist, but it is merely a misnomer for the most beautiful and detailed machine that stands before us, existence. Ultimately, the universe is God, existence is God, and we are God, 'till death do us part.

We are gods. Our knowledge and technology is clearly godlike to our primate relatives. We smash subatomic particles together at the speed of light. We are magic.

Thing is, if we survive, I think we have a damn good shot of beating the universe. Our technology is still quite primitive. We are a type 0 on the Kardashev scale. What will it be like when we reach type 3 and harness the power of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way? What will we have discovered, how will we have changed ourselves? The laws of nature will long since have become our bitches.
 

Alea_iacta_est

New member
Joined
Dec 3, 2013
Messages
1,834
We are gods. Our knowledge and technology is clearly godlike to our primate relatives. We smash subatomic particles together at the speed of light. We are magic.

Thing is, if we survive, I think we have a damn good shot of beating the universe. Our technology is still quite primitive. We are a type 0 on the Kardashev scale. What will it be like when we reach type 3 and harness the power of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way? What will we have discovered, how will we have changed ourselves? The laws of nature will long since have become our bitches.
Unless we can somehow create massive amounts of chaos to the universe forever, heat death will consume us all if we last that long. Plus you have to figure out a way to create stars because in a zettasecond all of the stars will have disintegrated or become black holes.

My post was more philosophical in the sense that we are god due to the fact that everything is god, I was not really considering how we might be gods technologically.
 

Mole

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
We are gods.

We are wise to rememember we are complex, multi-celled animals.

And in the history of life on Earth over the last four and a half billion years, complex, multi-celled animals have had a short evolutionary life span.

And so we will also have a short evolutionary life span.

Perhaps our only comfort is that we are the only inter-subjective species, and so we can comfort one another.
 

Mal12345

Permabanned
Joined
Apr 19, 2011
Messages
14,532
MBTI Type
IxTP
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
We are wise to rememember we are complex, multi-celled animals.

And in the history of life on Earth over the last four and a half billion years, complex, multi-celled animals have had a short evolutionary life span.

And so we will also have a short evolutionary life span.

Perhaps our only comfort is that we are the only inter-subjective species, and so we can comfort one another.

Apes and bobonos aren't inter-subjective and can't comfort each other? Apparently dolphins aren't either.
 

danseen

New member
Joined
Oct 30, 2013
Messages
781
MBTI Type
INTP
No. I actually find it liberating.

It means humans set our own agenda, and that the sky is the limit.

Also, it doesn't mean "humans will lack morals". Morals are shaped by the individual and his or her own background, temperament, personality, upbringing, etc.
 

Mole

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
I was taught to be terrified by the thought of Hell existing by the Redemptorist Fathers when I was a little boy.

As I grew up I realised I had been emotionally abused by the Redemptorist Fathers, so I rang them and asked for an apology.

They refused to apologise.
 

entpersonal

New member
Joined
Jan 19, 2014
Messages
151
I'll start with myself. Yes it does. As a human being part of the human species, I can tell what human beings may be capable of and as knowledge and intellect increases, there is this potentiality of humans ending up destroying or decimating themselves along with other lifeforms on this planet. As Michel de Montaigne once said “I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.”

Now going into crazy territory of life after death and the assumption that a soul exists, I think even such an afterlife can be quite "not as heavenly as one might have assumed when one was alive in the physical corporeal form." Who knows what the political system is on The Other Side or the Afterlife whether it be communism, socialism, libertarianism, anarchism, dictatorship, monarchy, capitalism, anarchosynicalism, anarchocapitalism, fiscal conservatism, some kind of tyrannical or non-tyrannical system, etc. It could very well be heaven or hell or consists of some degree of both the good and the bad.

I'm not really frightened of the godless prospect. If an afterlife exists, and if its benevolence is contingent on behavior in this life, I shouldn't fare too badly. If the afterlife setup is non-existent or random, then why worry? Your concern wouldn't help improve your position in either case.
 

á´…eparted

passages
Joined
Jan 25, 2014
Messages
8,265
I'm more of the camp that the idea of god (and related thing) existing is more disturbing than lack of. Part of the reason is, there is literally no way for anyone to possibly figure out what is "correct" to believe, and many of the possible outcomes of it are not good. If there is nothing, then there is nothing afterwards, and thus no consequences. Yes it sucks to think that this is it, but, well, it's better than if there was something afterwards.

I've had several bouts in my life where I've been suicidal, and as a result I am sort of numbed to the concept of death and subsequently oblivian. Where I am at now, nope I definitely don't want to die. However if something were to instantly kill me at random, I can't say I'd be all that upset by it. Of course, I'd be dead without any way to react with it. What matters to me most is I either end on a good, or 100% apathetic note.
 
Top