Every human intuitively knows there is an afterlife.
9 comments
Every human intuitively believes inanimate obects have a Kami.
I wouldn’t put too much faith in what the human brain picked up as a survival mechanism over the last 80,000 years.
<@KeithInc. > #188977
I put the evidence for an afterlife on the same level as that for the selfhood of inanimate objects. It sounds like an attractive idea, but on further reflection, it would be a horror story (see: ghosts).
@Creativerealms #188987
@Sasha #188983
No, it’s just that many humans and cultures and nearly all religions have the concept of an afterlife because we, as living creatures, are inherently afraid of death. Death is such a powerful, primal fear for us that we, essentially, invented the concept of afterlives as a coping mechanism to, essentially, trick ourselves into thinking we are immortal. Not our physical form, but our “soul” as it were. It’s kinda like our habit of subconsciously anthropomorphizing everything around us, from animals to inanimate objects.
At least, that’s what I think.
Regardless, I may be an atheist, but the idea of afterlives does sound appealing. Not necessarily the “living forever” part, but rather the idea that there is some form of justice in the universe, you know? People who have caused more good than bad go directly to their own heaven for as long as they wish, and people who did the opposite get to a personalized hell until they finally come to terms with their sins and have fully repented, after which they also can go to heaven. But I digress.
I grew up being essentially sheltered from knowing about religion and wasn’t aware of a concept of an afterlife until reading about Elysium and Tartarus in Greek Mythology, and found the idea rather odd. Why would anyone think that there’s any sort of personal existence after you just… stop? It got even more confusing with Egyptian myth because it’s “either you stop existing because a crocodile ate your soul, or you reincarnate in another world with exactly the same kind of life you have now, because something to do with feathers”.
On one hand, it doesn’t feel like anyone would come up with that sort of idea in a vacuum; on the other, humans don’t live in a vacuum, but in a culture, and pretty much every culture comes up with something, even if it’s just “our ancestors hang around as invisible spirits until they get bored and decide to reincarnate”. So my guess would be that it’s not so much instinctive or intuitive as it is a side affect of social organization. (Not necessarily religion specifically, since belief in an afterlife appears to predate religion.)
“Every human intuitively knows there is an afterlife.”
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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