If you believed in God but no afterlife, how would you live your life differently?

[Magna]

Philosophical and Theological thought exercise because such things are an enjoyable pastime that also exercise the mind....

Christianity is what I'm thinking mainly of here, but this question could apply to any religion that believes in an afterlife:

What if every basic and generally accepted tenet of Christianity was the same, except for a key difference. How would you live your life differently than you do now?

The key difference would be that neither Christianity (or other afterlife believing religions) nor the Bible would teach of an afterlife. God would exist the same as God is believed to be (ie omniscient and omnipotent), Jesus would have existed as believed to be but...no afterlife. Once you're dead...you're dead. That's it. No eternal soul. Just the blessing of being created as a human by God on the planet earth to experience life. Jesus would have walked the earth not to preach of an afterlife, but to preach other accepted tenets such as being kind, loving one another, etc and that's it. No Heaven. No Hell. Just this life. The Lennon song, Imagine, comes to mind.

How would you live your life differently?
What would you do that you don't do?
What wouldn't you do that you do now?

Sometimes these kinds of questions are difficult for some people because they create a significant amount of cognitive dissonance to the point that some people purposely avoid even "going there" (ie thought exercise) because such thoughts can elicit anxiety and fear.

 

[Metalhead]

I would live it exactly the same as I am living it now. Drama free and chilled out.

 

[Magna]

I would live it exactly the same as I am living it now. Drama free and chilled out.

As would I, Brother. Peace.

 

[LadyS]

Probably the same as well. Even if there's no afterlife for your individual soul, one might consider that your life's legacy and memory can still live on after you depart if you do some good in the world. Or at the very least make a positive difference in someone's life. That seems like an afterlife as well.. at least to me.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

I agree. No different.

Some part of me wants to be remembered and respected for what I have done for them. I also want to know that I was perceived as a good man that helped others. This may seem like a humble request, but it isn't a passive endeavor, this is earned, and not a given. This much I do understand.

When you have a respect for life, primarily because of the "finality" of death, it takes on another dimension. You're less likely to take life for granted. No one is "going to a better place". No one is "going to burn in Hell". The end is the end. Life has a high value. I won't kill a fly or a spider in the house, for Pete's sake, I will catch and move them elsewhere. I will selflessly give of myself and take on responsibility for the well-being of my infants in the neonatal unit, as will the vast majority of my co-workers. Life is a precious thing.

If I have sinned, then certainly that's my responsibility. I can't just go to confession and be absolved. I have to live with that. I have a strong sense of good and evil, and choose to be good. I am not sure you have to coax everyone with a stick (Hell) or a carrot (Heaven) in order to make some people just want to be good. If you have a strong sense of conscience, any guilt for doing bad things is enough punishment, in my opinion. It's a heavy weight to carry around. Any rewards for doing good things, makes you feel good, and is also reward enough.

Certainly, there are people, for a long list of reasons, who don't fall into the "self-guiding" category and need more guidance and "guard rails" to keep them on the straight and narrow. I cannot speak to that mindset, but likely, these are the people who are more the "targets" for religious guidance.

 

[TBRS1]

I'd live the same as I do now. I figure if God doesn't like it, God can just do what everybody else does who doesn't like me - talk about me behind my back to others who don't matter to me.

 

[elgat0verde]

I do believe in God and don't believe in an afterlife

I don't believe in doing good out of fear but doing good because it's the correct thing to do.

So I'd live my life as is, no changes at all

 

[Ella Spell]

I don't know that it would be much different for me personally, because I was never taught to believe in Hell or to strive for an afterlife in Heaven.

I may or may not be influenced by the words or teachings of someone who lived 2,000 years ago regarding peace, love, forgiveness, and charity, because those beliefs came to me naturally and I see no other way to live.

In some respects the religious book might cause me or others to feel ashamed of themselves if they can't follow it, since it would still seem prescriptive without Heaven or Hell. If people are born into families that take the book as gospel there could still be shaming, or a sense of obligation to interpret its lessons in specific ways (e.g., how does the book view homosexuality, or cheating on partners, etc.)

I understand that for many people and especially those with religious trauma it would probably be very liberating to know they didn't have to worry about a Judgment Day. In that respect it would likely be better overall.

Without Heaven and Hell or a moral imperative those books would be left with philosophy - presumably of aesthetics, ethics, and epistemology, but minus the metaphysics. Many people do study and practice philosophy, but for most it doesn't cross their minds.

Reducing religion to philosophy in our daily lives would have an impact on all systems, the most important being law, justice, and civil rights.

 

[Wolfnox]

What if you believed in God. But, felt unworthy of the afterlife he offered?

 

[Magna]

What if you believed in God. But, felt unworthy of the afterlife he offered?

If you believed that would you live differently than you do now? That's the main question of this thread.

 

[Ella Spell]

I believe in Heaven on my own, because of metaphysics.
It's not related to anything in the Bible.

I think I believe in God too, but as the sum total of physics and energy.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

I did not give this much thought until I had a stroke and an out of body experience, I cannot explain other than using my knowledge of physics.

 

[Xinyta]

"Believe in God. But question the teachings of man" -Specimen 9 [Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion]

I am not one to discount God existing. I have tried to keep a open mind. If anything, I find mythological deities more interesting than religion's God. Humanities teachings are muddled as it is, when it comes to religion.

But to answer the question. I would not be disappointed by it, if this were the result. God existing but no heaven. I still would go about things as I will.

However I also believe there is an afterlife. Just not in the same way religion depicts the afterlife.

 

[All-Rounder]

I don't think I could cherry-pick what I liked and throw the rest away. If I would believe in the Biblical religion, I would believe in what the Bible says. I was religious at some point, as soon as these inconsistencies occurred and I could process them, I realized if I don't believe in the Biblical stuff, there is no reason to abide by any Biblical religions. Because in the Bible there is talk about afterlife, I couldn't simply deny it.

Buddha as a thing? Still remains, as there is reincarnation and eventually afterlives.

One which there isn't written about? What reason would I have to believe in it? I'm not one to invent additional gods to please some lacks I have. Not anymore.

 

[Ella Spell]

Khalil Gibran would make a better philosopher, imo.

Nothing against Christ.

Perhaps Ghandi, too.


Here's my wedding program:

 

[Ella Spell]

Oh wow, just noticed the typo they made! lol

 

[All-Rounder]

I think that belief is not voluntary, like you can't choose to believe you will leap over some pit and not fall in it, if it's past your capabilities. You have to grasp it mentally, in order to truly deem it truth.

As such, I wouldn't be able to do the necessary task, but if I did and I did actually for a very little while believe in God unlinked to the already known ones, part of my transgression, but that didn't modify the way I lived my life. I still had to keep in mind my autism which I think has a lot of weight in me choosing how to live my life.

Now, being an atheist, renders me with the belief of no afterlife. That puts more weight on this life, but again, I don't think that much changed apart from me invensting more in people/society, and not making their only life hell, who are for me the ones which carry the wisdom towards the future. I tend to get defensive over their happiness, the way I perceive it should be.

 

[All-Rounder]

Now there are tons of things which dropping some religions changed, thinking changes significantly, like instead of seeing women as catering to men's needs and ripped from their rib, their time of the month as unclean, I have seen myself as I am and others, without the gender discriminations which I never saw necessary.

I have seen especially relationships in a more equal light, without the need for certain dynamics which are very stressful if they're a lifestyle.

I have questioned, I had the courage to think before throwing myself into faithful following, and also dysmantle a lot of fakery and corruption that happens in life.

So based on these and a lot more life and particularly views on life have drastically changed. My thinking is clearer, I'm more confident, I'm less pestered by sins, blame that religion lays on the follower for its inconsistencies and dark thinking clouds of rumination, including of an afterlife. The gamble, the race and competition, the chance and luck, the sacrifice and pain of salvation. The unfair story of good and evil, master and slaves, as it should have been abolished instead of encouraged in the New Testament.

 

[Magna]

I don't think I could cherry-pick what I liked and throw the rest away. If I would believe in the Biblical religion, I would believe in what the Bible says. I was religious at some point, as soon as these inconsistencies occurred and I could process them, I realized if I don't believe in the Biblical stuff, there is no reason to abide by any Biblical religions. Because in the Bible there is talk about afterlife, I couldn't simply deny it.

To clarify if it's necessary: The thought exercise I propose in this thread and the question stemming from it is to picture the Bible NOT professing an afterlife. Picturing the Bible still existing but imagine if there were no references to an afterlife because in this thought exercise, the Christian religion wouldn't have any afterlife as a tenet.

That's the question. Not, "the Bible talks about Heaven so I couldn't dismiss the idea of Heaven but believe the rest."

"Sin" as believed in and described by Christian faith can have temporal consequences (ie they can affect the "sinner" in this life because they're choices made) but a key aspect of "sin" is the consequence to the "sinner" in the afterlife (ie punishment, hell, potentially eternal punishment). If there was no punishment after life whatsoever because there was no afterlife whatsoever, then I would have a hard believing that a lot of people wouldn't change things about their lives.

St. Paul talks about this and says among other things that if there was no heaven then people should "eat and drink for tomorrow we'd die"; meaning it only makes sense to live it up if this is all there is (ie you live, you die, that's it). St. Paul went as far as to say that if there was no heaven, no afterlife, then Christians would have it more wrong than anyone else in believing that there was an afterlife. Did he go as far as to even say, pathetic? I don't recall.

 

[All-Rounder]

To clarify if it's necessary: The thought exercise I propose in this thread and the question stemming from it is to picture the Bible NOT professing an afterlife. Picturing the Bible still existing but imagine if there were no references to an afterlife because in this thought exercise, the Christian religion wouldn't have any afterlife as a tenet.

That's the question. Not, "the Bible talks about Heaven so I couldn't dismiss the idea of Heaven but believe the rest."

"Sin" as believed in and described by Christian faith can have temporal consequences (ie they can affect the "sinner" in this life because they're choices made) but a key aspect of "sin" is the consequence to the "sinner" in the afterlife (ie punishment, hell, potentially eternal punishment). If there was no punishment after life whatsoever because there was no afterlife whatsoever, then I would have a hard believing that a lot of people wouldn't change things about their lives.

St. Paul talks about this and says among other things that if there was no heaven then people should "eat and drink for tomorrow we'd die"; meaning it only makes sense to live it up if this is all there is (ie you live, you die, that's it). St. Paul went as far as to say that if there was no heaven, no afterlife, then Christians would have it more wrong than anyone else in believing that there was an afterlife. Did he go as far as to even say, pathetic? I don't recall.

I think that belief is not voluntary, like you can't choose to believe you will leap over some pit and not fall in it, if it's past your capabilities. You have to grasp it mentally, in order to truly deem it truth.

As such, I wouldn't be able to do the necessary task, but if I did and I did actually for a very little while believe in God unlinked to the already known ones, part of my transgression, but that didn't modify the way I lived my life. I still had to keep in mind my autism which I think has a lot of weight in me choosing how to live my life.

Now, being an atheist, renders me with the belief of no afterlife. That puts more weight on this life, but again, I don't think that much changed apart from me invensting more in people/society, and not making their only life hell, who are for me the ones which carry the wisdom towards the future. I tend to get defensive over their happiness, the way I perceive it should be.

I added to it, in an edit, as I usually do. I am actually living what you are suggesting, in some way. I also lived more towards the exact life you described, in the past.

Oh no, this is just a separate post. Posted 3 times.