What do you think happens when we die?

[Frosty6611]

Just had this discussion with my DP and mum and we all had a completely different answers.

I believe in reincarnation.

My DP is an atheist and believes nothing happens.

My mum believes in heaven/hell.

The problem of evil is a huge discussion point in Christianity. Far from being a discouragement from Christianity, it can be thought of as as confirmation that God exists.

Here is the Catholic view :
It’s all about free will. If God took away free will, we wouldn’t be able to freely choose to do good and love Him. God hates sin and suffering but permits it due to free will and our fallen nature and world. He has a wider perspective as well and can see the ‘bigger picture’ whereas we can’t do that. Furthermore, most theists do not believe that God created us merely for happiness in this life but also, and most importantly, for eternal happiness with him in the next. We believe that life is fleeting and it’s important to grow close in this life so that we can know him in our eternal life.

You go into a tv studio full of your friends and family where Michael Aspel is waiting with his red book to do a this is your life type look back on your life

Lazyhazy - maybe read up on evolution? That would explain a lot about how life evolved to fit its environment rather than the environment being designed for us.

This Douglas Adams quote explains it rather neatly and simply:

“This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.”

Or I would argue that God created us to evolve to perfectly suit our environment?

Intelligent Design theory is often thought of as a God-by-gaps approach. We’re free to speculate on evolution and the Church has never issued teachings.

Except apparently we didn’t evolve. Adam and Eve were fully formed adult humans.

Don’t try to make your daft ideas sound scientific.

It’s funny, the only Biblical literalists I ever meet are atheists.

No. That is a literalist reading of the creation story. Very few Christians believe in a literal reading of Genesis. In the context of genre, it would be like reading a metaphorical poem as historical fact.

We are allowed to read the story in a symbolic way. We do have to agree that Adam and Eve were real people but they would have evolved in a natural way.

Many people interpret the story to mean that these were the first two humans to be given a soul by God. The distinction between right and wrong. I heard a great podcast from Nicanor Austriaco ( a microbiologist and priest) who is interpreting biblical tales through biological outlook. He interprets creation through the development of language. Very interesting and worthwhile listen for anyone.

The universe operates by uniform laws of nature. Why does it?

Much of life may seem uncertain, but look at what we can count on day after day: gravity remains consistent, a hot cup of coffee left on a counter will get cold, the earth rotates in the same 24 hours, and the speed of light doesn't change -- on earth or in galaxies far from us.

How is it that we can identify laws of nature that never change? Why is the universe so orderly, so reliable?

"The greatest scientists have been struck by how strange this is. There is no logical necessity for a universe that obeys rules, let alone one that abides by the rules of mathematics. This astonishment springs from the recognition that the universe doesn't have to behave this way. It is easy to imagine a universe in which conditions change unpredictably from instant to instant, or even a universe in which things pop in and out of existence."11

Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winner for quantum electrodynamics, said, "Why nature is mathematical is a mystery...The fact that there are rules at all is a kind of miracle."^

If eminent physicists are baffled by stuff like that it seems a bit odd for us to be so blasé. I mean it can make you look kind of silly itms, almost like we know better.

It’s all about free will. If God took away free will, we wouldn’t be able to freely choose to do good and love Him.

And yet we can apparently live in Heaven in the presence of God and not do evil. If we don't have free will in Heaven, why did He need to create us with free will? If we do have free will in Heaven, why can't the same be true on Earth?

"It’s funny, the only Biblical literalists I ever meet are atheists."

Well someone upthread was saying that they know God is loving and benevolent, and that heaven awaits, because they have chosen to believe the teachings of their church.

Teachings, presumably, based on holy scripture.

So why believe some of it, and ignore some of it, and say that some of it is metaphorical?

Or does someone in the church say which bits are metaphorical and which bits are literal?

Oh yes. Context.

Also known as “Yes we know it’s all implausible bollocks with some frankly indefensible instructions in it so we’ll pretend you have to take it all in context”

🙄🙄🙄

RainySeptember - it’s known as “cherrypicking” 😁

Ignore the bad bits or claim they have to be taken in context.

Stick to the good bits.

Cherry picking works the other way too. Ignore all the good stuff and pick out the things that you perceive to be wrong.Anyone can paint a black picture of anything if they're determined to.

We have free will on Earth so we are not mindless love robots. Would someone forced to love you, really love you? How much more precious it is to choose to love?

In Heaven, there will be the Beatific Vision when we have full awareness of God's goodness. The vision of good will be so compelling that we never choose evil. We retain free will but we never choose to do evil because of our new understanding.

Ultimately, we don’t believe that God forces you to choose Him. That is always down to you and your own free choice. Hell is often thought of as an absence of God. How cruel would it be to force someone to stay with you for eternity?

"In Heaven, there will be the Beatific Vision when we have full awareness of God's goodness. The vision of good will be so compelling that we never choose evil."

How do you know? Because your church told you? Seems they get some of it wrong. Someone was just on saying parts of it are metaphorical. Maybe this bit is metaphorical too?

"Cherry picking works the other way too. Ignore all the good stuff and pick out the things that you perceive to be wrong."

There are lots of wonderful messages and teachings in religious scripture. But I don't get how any of it, a single word, can be wrong if it's the word of god.

You’re right that it can be confusing to work out why and which bits are literal and which are symbolic.

The Catholic catechism states:
“In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to man in a human way. To interpret Scripture correctly, the reader must be attentive to what the human authors truly wanted to affirm, and to what God wanted to reveal to us by their words.....Sacred Scripture must be read and interpreted in the light of the same Spirit by whom it was written."

In fact, Vatican 2 discusses this very issue and came up with three criteria for interpreting scripture.

Generally, we look for more meaning than literal words on a page.

Catholics are also not Sola Scripture. We don’t believe that God only uses biblical texts but also guides the church to infallible teachings through the Pope.

Please could I ask that you refrain by calling my religious beliefs ‘implausible bollocks’. By all means, disagree with them but there is no need to be insulting. It’s not necessary.

It’s a belief. I can’t ‘prove it’ to you in this world. Deep down, it rings true to me. I also believe Jesus when he said that the Holy Spirit would guide the Church to the end of time. Therefore, I believe that what is accepted as doctrine into the Catholic Church as truth.

For interpretation re literal and metaphorical, see my post above. I did forget to mention that it could be interpreted that God spoke to Man on terms that we (in that time period) could fully understand.

I did forget to mention that it could be interpreted that God spoke to Man on terms that we (in that time period) could fully understand.

So why isn't God speaking to Man in terms that we fully understand today? Why do we have to rely on unreliable texts from many generations ago? Why is the Bible not still being written in terms of our time period?

The Bible is already complete.

The Old Testament was focused on the first covenant with the Israelites and the readiness of the world to receive the Messiah through prophecies.

The New Testement was the fulfilment of The Old Testement.

The last book (bear in mind that the Bible isn’t a singular book but a collection from different people in different times) is Revelations. Revealations is focused on the Second Coming and the end of this world. This is clearly the ending.

Simply put, there is no more to impart. We have been told the Good News A believer in the 2nd Century doesn’t need any more info than someone living today.

We are still guided by God and the Holy Spirit will always be with us.

"It’s a belief. I can’t ‘prove it’ to you in this world. Deep down, it rings true to me."

I hope you're right. You obviously get great comfort from your faith and I guess we will all find out one day, one way or the other. Unfortunately none of it rings true to me. I will have to hope that god forgives me my scepticism if I've got it all wrong! Thank you for answering my questions though freddie. It's all fascinating to me and you can't ask such questions in rl really.

I don’t know but I know that humans aren’t as clever as we think we are. We hardly know anything in the brand scheme of things. Science is wonderful but we have such a ridgid set of rules we must follow for anything to make sense that we have now cornered ourselves into never understanding anything outside of our science theory solid rule set - so we’ve cornered ourselves as a species in terms of being able to figure things out, believe anything outside of our box. We won’t progress anymore because of this

Grand* etc

Well someone upthread was saying that they know God is loving and benevolent, and that heaven awaits, because they have chosen to believe the teachings of their church.

Teachings, presumably, based on holy scripture.

Yes that was me. The Church existed and thus had “teachings” before the scripture was even compiled so how can they be “based” on it?. It includes works in many different literary styles not all of which are supposed to be taken in a literal sense. The almost autistic literalism that some people take was an incredibly late response to Biblical exegesis historically.

"The Church existed and thus had “teachings” before the scripture was even compiled so how can they be “based” on it?."

I don't understand this. So your church leaders base their beliefs on the original early beliefs of their church rather than on their holy book, that was written later?

But how do they know what those early beliefs were, if they're ignoring the written instructions? Why bother having a holy text at all then?

"It includes works in many different literary styles not all of which are supposed to be taken in a literal sense."

But how do you know which are literal and which are metaphorical? It seems to me that where science disproves something we are told 'it was just metaphorical anyway'. Maybe as time moves on, more and more will be proved metaphorical.