Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and the Yahoo Answers website is now in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.
Trending News
The eternal recurrence?
Religion is mostly motivated by our fear of death as two Abrahamic religions offer an eternal after-life. I wonder why notorious atheists like Richard Dawkins don't mention the eternal recurrence as suggested by Nietzsche, to offer an alternative to our fear of "eternal death." Perhaps an eternal recurrence adapted to modern concepts of relativity and quantum but still, an alternative for atheists.
That is, perhaps, more difficult to understand than the religious notion of a heaven where we sit, with folded wings, on a cloud, eating good food and having fun. But an eternal heaven poses the paradox that once you have done everything that you can do, read every book that can be written, and an infinite number of times, it must be quite boring. The only thing we can't do in heaven is to kill ourselves because we are already dead. Sounds more like hell to me! ;-)
I'd appreciate your serious opinion, thanks.
@Mike: did you see my smiley at the end of that paragraph?
@Peace: religion is also about money and power but there must be another reason 1/3 of the earth's population is Christian and 1/4 is Muslim.
@all: could you please check Eternal Recurrence before answering? Thank you.
@Bob: Yes, I use a childish style to describe heaven as an irony, indicated by my smiley at the end of the paragraph. But when Islam offers 72 virgins in heaven for martyrs, you understand why I feel like being ironical, don't you?
4 Answers
- ?Lv 77 years agoFavorite Answer
Your assumption that religion is based on fear of death is quite a statement. It doesn't take much thought to figure out that if life ends with absolute death that there would be no memory of having been alive because you are dead - so there is nothing to fear in that belief.
Religion is based on the need of the few to enslave the many. it is about money and power. God is incidental. It's more effective and less costly than an army.
- ?Lv 67 years ago
Michel, you made an assertion that you cant possibly back up. I know that I am a Catholic Christian and I also know that if I live forever in an existence like this one we are bound to get bored out of our mind, and teh thought of living forever with a selfish being turns my stomach, but the God of the bible is nothing like that.
He love itself, justice itself, truth itself, kindness itself and empathy itself. Its the quality of this eternal life that turns my soul on. To live eternally with my creator the perfect God of the bible is what excites me more then anything else could ever excite me and fill me with joy .
You also have an extremely finite, childish view of heaven.
Let me explain why we cant ever get bored in heaven.
\God is eternal and and will never be completely known. We will have an eternity to get to know the eternal God. How do you get bored if you are learning or doing something new every day? The answer is you cant. You have to stop looking at things from a finite persepctive and start to look at heaven from a spiritually eternal perspective.
- MikeLv 67 years ago
You want serious opinion after those ridiculous remarks? Why do you think you will become an angel? No religion, that I know of, believes that humans become angels when they die. Secondly, if heaven is a state where there are no negative emotions, then how could you get bored (which is a negative emotion)? Aquinas described heaven as a state of eternal bliss. Do you think you would be reading a book while in a state of bliss? Your main problem with the concept of heaven is that you really dont have one.
- Gee WamanLv 67 years ago
Religions were founded for a peaceful and better life for the followers. Fear of Death was added later to get more and blind following
