Shouldn't most religious people in theory be excited to die because then they get to experience the afterlife?

_number8_@lemmy.world to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 311 points –

esp if you're one of the devout ones who think they've been really good

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Being excited to die means you lived a good life

The problem is, most of the current generation is well aware they haven’t lived good lives. Not to mention, the conundrum of living longer implies a chance for an accumulation of more misdeeds. Personally, the most likely scenario is almost everyone becomes aware there is likely nothing afterwards at some point. Religion is more there like the bumpers for kids cosmic bowling, ensuring zero gutter balls. Keeping you playing, until the day you’re old enough to remove them and pay taxes, revealing life is a subscription, and childhood was a free trial all along.

Not everyone can live a "good" life by your definition of good, but they can live a good life by their definition of good.

Current generations realize that what older people are trying to sell them is a scam, and they're working on building a new better reality based on their fresh perspective on what reality is.

You can look at religion through many lenses, but at the end of the day religion is just an unprovable fiction we choose to believe because it's how we want the world to work. My belief that if you want to live a good life you should do unto others as you would have them do unto you is religious. Game theory and my life experiences support my belief, but it is ultimately an unprovable belief because of Hume's Guillotine and the fact that my definition of "good life" is subjective.

It's 100% possible that I'm just tricking myself into thinking helping other people is good and makes me happy, but I will still choose to believe.