Does the existence of a creator imply the existence of an afterlife?

Regardless of whether or not we think there is or isn't a creator-god, would the existence of such a god imply that our lives don't end with the cessation of our vital functions?

YYY/NNN.

 

I think it depends upon what version of God you're talking about. There's many different versions of the afterlife, as i'm very sure you're aware of, each version has it's own version of a creator God too. So i'd say that in most cases yes, the existence of a creator God (whichever it may be) would also imply that there's some sort of shiney place to go to afterwards. You should look into lots of different religions that have a creator God, and see if that religion also subscribes to some sort of afterlife, if you haven't done already. The results might be pretty interesting

I'd like to ask you something, when you say "would the existence of such a god imply that our lives don't end with the cessation of our vital functions?"
what exactly do you mean when you say 'our lives' ?? Is life something that you own? does it have a quality? is it something that you can point to and say ' here, this is my life, it's mine!' Are you not life? you seem to be making yourself into an object of your awareness. Ever noticed that? Just something interesting that I noticed- when it comes to language we seem to be tripping all over ourselves

 

The existance of a creator wouldn't necessarily imply an afterlife because it would depend on if that creator intended for us to have one.

 

What I do wonder is whether any creator-god doesn't have a corresponding afterlife. I'd assumed that creator and afterlife were just commonly coincident elements, but maybe there is a reason for them to be connected.

A person does own life. They are given life, and then it is taken from them. A person is still a person whether they have life or not. We think we define a person as alive, but we do not cease to regard someone as a person once they are dead. We honour the body after death, treating it sometimes with more care than we do when it is alive!

There are certain qualities of any thing which, when removed from the thing, make it a different thing. But sometimes they are not the qualities we immediately think of. A person without a head is still a person, even though we immediately think of people as having heads.

That's my belief, anyway. Thanks for engaging with this, but no, it wasn't a mistake on my part to refer to "our lives". I believe we do own the life in the bodies we inhabit. If not us, then who?

 

When does a person not have life?

Is a person synoymous with their physical body?

If I were to ask you who you were, what would you say? Would you say, "I am my body."?

 

Probably not. I wouldn't say "I am a life" either though. We tell people to "get a life", not to "be a life", right?

I don't know, I think the post raised that question, or whether these words are imprecise. If anything, I think they say more about our experience of life. We use these words because we recognise that life is impermanent, that it's something that we have but which we can lose.

 

how did you come to the conclusion that life is impermanent, and that we can lose it?

I'm well aware of the "obvious" answer that biology would provide us, but is our existence entirely encompassed by a physical body?

If not, then what are you?

 

Yeah it'd be interesting to see if there were any religions that don't subscribe to an afterlife yet do a creator God. I guess though that if there wasn't a concept of an afterlife to go with the creator god then there wouldn't be any pay off in believing in the creator God, there'd not be all that much point at all to it really, no reward at the end for guessing/believing right.


It's interesting that you identify a person as their body, whether it be whole or not, and whether it be alive or not, yet you still refer to us as 'we' , as being distinct from the body and life. Are you perhaps refering to 'we' as the body and the life as a whole - that is, still identifying with an object within awareness, or are you perhaps unaware that you have realized your nature as being not of the body yet also not separate from it?

I believe life is who you and I are, after all, we are both alive, are we not?


Lovely stuff, neodude

 

See, it doesn't seem like a logical necessity to me. The universe is there, you can touch it, you are in it. It seems to demand some kind of explanation.

The afterlife doesn't seem anything like the same thing. It should be part of a different conversation, as it relates to different concerns, to speculation about the invisible, rather than seeking an explanation for that which is very much tangible.

I believe that similarities between cultures and religions stem from the most basic aspects of the human organism, that we tell similar stories because we are similar people physically and need to explain similar things about ourselves, to reconcile them. Symbols and archetypes emerge for common concerns. I can see the reason to imagine an afterlife, and I can see a reason to imagine a creator, but I don't see the connection between them.

I don't identify a person as just their body. All I am saying is that the absence of life from a body does not, in the way I think and the way most people seem to behave, render it as less than a person. We see a dead body and we do not regard it as inhuman, or even as having once been human; we know that it is human. So by that logic, I don't see that life is a quintessential part of being human.

Not sure I follow what's being said here. I don't believe in an afterlife myself, so whether or not I am solely the body, I am quite attached to it. If it turns out that my body is unnecessary, and that when it dies my consciousness will go on without it, hey, you know what? I'm not going to feel particularly gullible for not seeing it coming. A body seems as necessary to consciousness as it is to keeping your blood from sloshing onto the pavement. Even if it's not the extent of what you are, it's a pretty big part of it.

I don't know; are we?

 

Necessarily? No. It would depend on if God created an afterlife.

 

I have no real reason to think that it isn't.

I outlined this in my last post to kaminoishiki, but basically, I think that we as consciousnesses inhabit our bodies. I don't pretend to know what consciousness is, nor do I imagine anyone else here can claim any great firsthand insight (beyond the obvious) into its origin. If I were to guess I'd say it was a persistent fluke of mutation, a billion-billion-billion-to-one chance that has turned out to be very helpful to its own (self-)preservation and perpetuation. But that's purely speculation.

But, as I said above, I have no real reason to believe that, even if a consciousness may be of different stuff from the bag of meat and bones that it inhabits, there is no real reason to think that it can survive outside it.

 

Well quite. I can understand someone needing to conceive a god, or some intelligence, that created the universe, to explain why the hell it's there. But the afterlife isn't visible to us. Why would we need to explain it?

 

A good living is made by many doing just that.The ego wants to continue.

 

Many souls will be recycled. Few will make it to the next level.

 

Maybe.

 

So we created an afterlife to give ourselves something to talk about? I don't know that most of us are that interesting!

 

Think about those few minutes of brain activity after you die.

Think about the frequencies the brain emits during waking life and dreaming. 1hz-20hz

when you die, that 1hz frequency drops so low

lower

and lower

until your brain is oscillating FAR SLOWER than one cycle per second

Here. Time is completely dilated.

You can experience an entire lifetime if you remain aware.

This is your after life. This is where you choose what to do with your soul.

Life is preparation for this divine moment. Be prepared.

 

You make it sound like a nightmare.

 

It's not a nightmare it's the most beautiful thing we monkeys can experience, in my opinion. I've died twice.

 

Which was your favourite?