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Originally Posted by oojay
Most religions and belief systems share the idea of an afterlife. It is not a new concept that I just made up on the spot, it has existed for as long as humans have been conscious enough to form thoughts. I believe that these thoughts are somewhat intrinsic to human beings by nature. My beliefs were not conceived on a whim. I have gone through many religious and spiritual belief conversions in my 25 years. As I study more religions and schools of thoughts, I try to refine my beliefs based upon the more information that I have. Most religious or spiritual beliefs are based upon some sort of.. (I don't want to use the word faith here).. but a mental and spiritual connection that one feels. I just refuse to believe that with the vast majority of religions and spiritual belief systems that have existed throughout history, that they ALL could be wrong about an afterlife.
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So the religions that have a spiritual afterlife is the ones who are onto something then? What about religions like buddhism or hinduism who believe in reincarnation? Because that's quite different from spending the rest of eternity in some heaven. So, it's not like all religions agree on what happens after we die.
I think religions are littered with faulty thinking, whether wishful or driven by fear, culture or a genuine desire to be able to explain the world we live in without having had the means to actually figure stuff out like we can now.
That "feeling" you mention is just a feeling. As I wrote, Hitler probably also had that feeling when he had his spiritual epiphany. It doesn't mean you're onto something. It's just part of that human weakness. Some things appeal strongly to us while others don't. Isn't it obvious that people would like to be able to say what happens after we die? And isn't it also obvious that they would like there to be an existence after death? It makes for a more appealing story than the alternative and that's a large part of why it's so popular in religion.
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Originally Posted by Oojay
I try to refrain from calling another's beliefs "wrong." Maybe misled or ignorant. I think that most religious stories and canons have been GREATLY misconstrued, misunderstood, taken out of context or exaggerated. Basing one's beliefs solely upon writings that no one can prove who wrote, when they were written, and the circumstances surrounding them just seems ignorant to me.
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Yet you don't seem very critical towards your own fantasies.
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Originally Posted by Oojay
Human error will always be a factor when humans are involved, there's really no way around it unfortunately.
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There are ways around it. Yesterday, I read about how people, when asked to give a random number between 1 and 10, don't really give random numbers. There are some numbers we "believe" to be more random than others. For example we prefer to answer high, uneven numbers rather than even numbers. And we like prime numbers too. Most prefer to answer 7 to this question rather than 2.
Now, how do you get around this human weakness? Simple : Instead of choosing a number, you could use a 10-sided die.
Scientific methodology is designed to get around human weaknesses. That's why we f.ex use statistical evidence to support a hypothesis and not just anecdotal evidence or a "feeling" that this must be true.