RedfeatheR
Look, I'm not insultinging you answer, but its the same one I hear just about every atheist give. "You die. Deal with it. I'm looking forward to it." While I don't know how else I would answer this question if I kind want a new answer. I just can't wrap my feeble mind around looking forward to not knowing anything and ceasing to be. How canyou lok forward to something that you won't enjoy or even know happened because your memory is no more and you're just gone. That's not peace from all the bullshit is it?
Well then my default answer for people who don't like to think of themselves as the walking bag of sentient meat that they and everyone else are is that you make your own afterlife through your beliefs.
Want (and feel you deserve) the harp and wings-you get it. 72 virgins-they're yours. Battling other fallen heroes followed by feasting and quaffing-more power to ya...
Since you seem to be looking for honest opinions here, (and I sincerly hope that this is NOT because of some catastrophic event that has happened to you recently) I'll put away the smarm for a moment.
I personally have an extremely difficult time believing in a higher power. I'm not willing to 100% discount the possibility that there's something vast and incomprehensible out there responsible for the creation of life as we know it, but if there is, its so far beyond our understanding as to make it utterly abstract to the human mind, and therefore we are so far beneath its notice as to make worship absolutely useless. Sort of like an amoeba worshipping nuclear fission.
Humans are unique amongst terrestrial lifeforms in that we understand our own mortality and for the most part it scares the living shit out of us. Yes, this sucks, but is part of what makes us human in the first place.
Religion's primary purpose is to make death less frightening and to make folks try to do something with their limited time on our watery ball of rock. Unfortunately, religion is man made and the entirety of its other purposes are to control thought and action and to perpetuate its own existence. That is why I'm so very hostile to organized religion and their mythos. Somewhere along the line people decided to forget that their fellow humans came up with all this nonsense and not God or whatever you want to name it.
That being said there are, even I'm willing to admit, very positive side effects of religion. Charity is a great example and one I am personally familiar with. If it hadn't been for our local episcopal church when I was growing up, there would've been times when I would've gone hungry. My Mom struggled to make ends meet and they seldom did, but she kept a roof over our heads often at the expense of food for the table. I can recall all too many times going to St. James for a food basket and being thankful as hell that complete strangers would care enough about others to donate food to those who had none. Charity.
I return the favor now as often as I can.
But I digress, and wax loquacious...
So suppose this ultimate life giving force exists. It so far surpasses our understanding of life that do you think it makes any difference (to It anyway) what we call It our how we offer devotion?
I don't. To me if you're going to be a believer, its up to you what you believe in. Is it the Goddess? Is it Odin? Is it Allah? Is it the rock statues on Easter Island?
Who cares. You're right. You're wrong. But make it for all the right reasons.
What happens when we die? Blackness? Clouds and halos? Virgins to bang in a never ending oasis? Again, you're right. You're wrong. Who cares. How you view the here and now is SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT that an afterlife, if there is one, will sort itself out when the time comes.
Make the presentlife your priority, life is short.
Also, cocks and dykery.
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Kill Whitey.
